Baby, how I ponder your shadow

[sovay]

I really aten't dead. I've been consumed by shelving. There isn't quite enough of it; I'm having to play Tetris with my library and it is exactly the sort of three-dimensional puzzle for which I feel I was expressly not built. The whole process of unpacking took several days to begin with. I am trying to strike a balance between spending enough hours on the books to feel effective and reinjuring my back all over again. It's been worse the last few days. In addition I am having significant difficulty sleeping—my bedtime got pushed forward past five in the morning a few nights ago and it seems to have stuck, despite being so tired last night that I was hallucinating lines of type across derspatchel's face. (No, I have no idea what they said.) And there have been doctor's appointments and I have to get my work finished. The combination means a lot of radio silence and not as much writing as I really want, especially considering the amount of time I spent on Monday reading about Oppenheimer and the Trinity gadget. On Tuesday night, Rob and I saw Tim's Vermeer (2013) at the Kendall Square Cinema. Last night the Somerville was showing John Ford's Stagecoach (1939), which I had never seen on the big screen. These were both good choices, but man, I could get used to not having to step over stacks of books on my office floor.

Comments

[rinue]

My sympathies on the shelves. I don't think there is any good solution beyond "get more shelves," and there usually isn't space for that. I'm annoyed when I have to do things like shelve books out-of-subject because they're (for instance) much taller than the other books on that subject, and that is usually the least of my worries. All of the "tricks" seem to involve either getting rid of books (no) or hiding books behind other books (also no).

[sovay]

I'm annoyed when I have to do things like shelve books out-of-subject because they're (for instance) much taller than the other books on that subject, and that is usually the least of my worries.

Yes! I've already had to break my classics section up into original language and not; I'm looking at one or more shelves of dissociated fiction floating around the house rather than all fitting in my office, as I hoped they would. It's not an impossible situation, but it is frustrating. I had just wanted everything, finally, in more or less one place.

All of the "tricks" seem to involve either getting rid of books (no) or hiding books behind other books (also no).

Yeah. I have fought to hang on to these books. They are not going anywhere.