One Thousand Words

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There’s lots of ways to divide people into groups. There’s people who love the country and those who love the city; there’s people who love poetry and those who don’t; there’s people who love George R R Martin and those who don’t; there’s people who understand binary and those who don’t; there’s people who think Carrot Top is funny and everyone else; and there’s people who buy and own books– lots of books!– and those who don’t.

My friends are pretty evenly split between book owners and book renters (library users). Both groups love books and love reading, but one group invests money, time, and physical space on acquiring and housing books and one group invests their money, time, and physical space on other things. One group has stacked bookshelves, stacks of books, piles of books, mounds of books, and one group doesn’t. One group has to schlepp tens of (heavy) boxes of (heavy) books up and down stairs when they move, and one group doesn’t.

I’m in the first group, and I’m kind of getting tired of it.

When Nesko and I had a kid, and that kid started becoming mobile, we had to move all of our books to much higher shelves. We got rid of all our tall free-standing bookcases so Niko wouldn’t pull them down on himself. Then, about a year ago, it looked very seriously like we would be moving very soon, and to much smaller quarters. I proceeded by acquiring large numbers of boxes and putting things into those boxes, preparing to move. I packed up 14 large boxes of books (as well as three really big boxes of board games and 3 huge boxes of kitchen stuff). Then all those things stayed boxed up for months and months and we didn’t miss most of it. I did miss some things. I wanted to play a few of the board games we had packed away, I missed my extra mixing bowls and glass pyrex measuring cups, for instance. As part of spring cleaning we opened up our boxed up kitchen things and got rid of most of them. We unpacked our games and weeded through them, stripping some down for parts (tokens, money, dice, etc) and setting a few aside to give away. Those we’re keeping are on shelves in two categories: 1) Keep 2) play and see if we enjoy them, if not get rid of them.

Meanwhile our books are still packed up and I haven’t NEEDED to get into any of those books and we’ve permanently acquired very few new books. I’ve checked out and read almost 70 new-to-me books from the library this year, and after reading them I’ve returned them. There’s a very small handful of those books that I would have liked to keep forever. And more and more I like an apartment that isn’t cluttered with STUFF, especially as we have an apartment that’s crammed full of toys and kid books and games.

When I packed up the books, I noted what books where in what boxes. I have an entire inventory. (I did the same for the games and kitchen stuff.) I’d been meaning to type that list up and I finished doing so the other day. Every book that was packed away for storage is now entered in a spreadsheet. It was emotional. I thought of all those books and how much I love books, and how hard it was to find some of those books, and how other books were gifts from people who know me really well and love me. I have a bunch of books on Celtic history that Nesko brought back from a layover in England, from when his trip to Montenegro was cut short because of the bombing. I have a bunch of books I spent a long period of time tracking down and spent serious money on purchasing and shipping. I have books I’ve read and re-read time and time again, and I have books I’ve read once or twice only. And I started thinking of winnowing down our book holdings.

And I had a mini panic attack.

Seriously, I felt anxiety! There were surges of emotions! I felt like I was betraying my books! Isn’t that weird? I have synesthesia and apparently part of that is sometimes people who are synesthetes anthropomorphize inanimate objects and ascribe emotions to that. Books are inanimate! They don’t care what happens to them! But I felt like I was abandoning them, like they wouldn’t be loved if I got rid of them.

I also panicked because OMG what if I NEEEEEEEEED THESE BOOKS down the line? OMG what if all libraries and the internet cease to exist and I no longer have access to this information? Panic panic panic panic. But that’s silly, too.

I went through and I highlighted about half the books, marking them to be gotten rid of. I calmed down a bit. I might go through and mark more to get rid of. Of the books I’m keeping, a bunch are books I think Niko will like to read when he’s in middle school which isn’t that far off any more. I don’t want to get rid of books just to re-purchase them or whatever.

I remember, as a kid, always having something to read at home. My dad’s a book collector, not in a serious OMG HUNTING DOWN FIRST EDITIONS kind of way (although I think he would be if he had more disposable income) but in a bibliophile way. I grew up with shelves and stacks and mounds of books: books in the living room and in the bedroom and in the kitchen and on the couch and in the bathroom and on top of the tv. There were so many books there was always something new. History books, poetry, literature, fiction, memoir, science. That feels so normal to me. It’s honestly weird to have, right now, a single shelf only for our owned books. I feel almost naked!

And, weirdly, I feel defensive. Like I can’t prove I read books. No, really, I read a lot! I’ve read hundreds of books! Don’t judge me by the scanty offerings on my shelf! I’ve read everything Roger Zelazny has published, you just can’t tell because his books aren’t on display! I’m a Tolkein fan, an Ellen Kushner fan, A Cherie Priest fan, a Lois McMaster Bujold fan! I have a first edition hard cover of Scott Lynch’s “Lies Of Locke Lamora”! I LIKED HIM BEFORE HE WAS COOL OK. I have most of the run of “Blade Of The Immortal,” I have the Johannes Cabal books published in the USA! I’m cool! I’m a legit nerd/geek! REALLY I AM. I’M SO COOL YOU GUYS. LOOK AT THIS SNAPSHOT OF HOW COOL I AM, HOW WORTHY, HOW GREAT AND QUIRKY MY TASTE IS. JUDGE ME. JUDGE MEEEEEEEEE.

We will be moving again at some point.

I’m tired of hauling books around.

I’m tired of not having enough space, not having enough shelves, not having enough flat surfaces.

I’m becoming one of THOSE people, a book renter instead of a book owner.

From now on, I’m only going to keep books that are really and honestly meaningful, books that I love, books that resonate, books that I return to again and again.

Eventually, I think, I’m going to get a Reader or Tablet and start buying electronic versions of books I enjoy. But that’s out of my price range at the moment, and I do resent the DRM included on most traditionally published books.

If you live in Chicago, let me know if you’d be interested in a big book swap party at my place. We can all bring the books we don’t want/need any more and trade for other books, and anything left over I’ll donate to our community center to sell at a book fair fundraiser (or use in their classroom).

Having made the decision to get rid of books, to literally cut my book collection in half, I’m already feeling lighter. It was a struggle to get to this place, but it feels good. I still experience moments of BUT WAIT–! freakout but they’re coming less and less. Letting go is hard, but it’s something I can do.

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Nesko watched “Captain America” the other day while I read a book, looking up only to comment on how crappy tiny-Steve-Rogers looked when standing/sitting next to a non-digitally altered person (because I am a jerk like that, but seriously, when they were in the taxi? He looked like a freakish child with a faintly blurred outline. WHAT. HOW. WHY. Fucking Darby O’Gill And The Little People did this better!) Anyway, at the end there’s an ad for the Avengers movie that’s coming out and Thor and Tony Stark were chillin’ and I’m all… you know, they probably have a special Avengers staff person whose entire job is to follow those two around and clean up their drunken messes. Stark’s a fun times alcoholic who could TOTALLY stop ANY TIME HE WANTED TO whoop just gonna go pee in this plant HA HA HA HA HA! FUN! BOOZE IS SO GREAT! And Thor is… a viking God. While we haven’t SEEN him wrestle pigs (yet) you know he’s gonna go there. Shining beacons of humanity, both of them! Actually, my very first thought was “Wow, what a sausage fest!”

Anyway, I’m putting the rest of this behind a cut because I’m going to talk about bugs and anxiety dreams now and I know that’s going to bother some of you.

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Well, I’ve spent half an hour dicking about with this blog entry, and apparently wordpress’s “insert image” functionality is fucked, so I can’t “easily” (y’know, one image uploaded and labeled at a time, slowly) add images to this post… like the photos I took of our snowbound neighborhood. And I don’t have time to FTP them to my web host or host them on photobucket because I have a toddler doing his best impression of a zombie, scratching and clawing at the office door while wailing for brains cookies.

So please just take my word for it, until I can properly post some pictures, that we have a lot of snow. Including some 4-5 foot drifts in the back of the building, which I didn’t take photos of anyway. We also had thunder and lightning last night. Yeah. Last night. When it was snowing so heavily that it was impossible to see outside, and there were 70 mile an hour winds. Folks down the street from us lost power, but we are OK.

Here’s hoping everyone’s riding out the weather safely.

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My mother in law came over yesterday to pick Niko up to watch him for a few hours so I could get my stuff together and go tutor. I also took the time to pick up the living room a bit and tidy the kitchen a bit. And, you know, all the fun stuff it’s hard to do while wrangling a toddler, like “eat food.” Anyway! I walked into the kitchen and I heard a radio. “Oh,” I thought, “I must have left the radio on.”

I had not left the radio on.

Also, the sound wasn’t coming from the radio.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

It actually sounded like it was coming from our utility room/enclosed back porch, which has no radio; or possibly from out of some kitchen cabinets where, I assure you, we do not keep a radio.

I figured it was the people upstairs, but when they listen to the radio it’s usually music and not soft talking and when they do listen to talk radio it’s in Spanish and this radio was not playing Spanish. Or English.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

Also: they were not home and it had been quiet and they hadn’t come home in the mean time. Like, they hadn’t left a radio on and gone out. Rather, they’d gone out for the day and it was quiet upstairs and now? NOISES.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

Ghosts obviously, right? Ghosts playing a spectral radio, listening to haunted talk radio! Right? Right?

No.

It was my father in law who was moving stuff around in the basement and listening to the radio. There is no ceiling down there, just pipes and then rafters and the subflooring for our apartment so sound travels pretty well.

Der.

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When Nesko and I had a baby, it solved a very grave problem that we didn’t know existed. Apparently, the one thing the world needed to be a perfect place was for Nesko’s father to have a grandson. And now we have solved this issue, and Nesko’s father is free to dote upon Nikola and adjust the world to Nikola’s preferences.

Part of “making the world an ideal place for Nikola” was an offer to provide us with central air if Nesko would get some quotes for material and labor. See, we live in Chicago. It gets hot and humid in Chicago. So Nesko and I have been talking about the pros and cons of air conditioning.

Pros:

Air Conditioning! My God! You need a list of pros for this?

Cons:

We had central air once before, and have a bad habit of turning it on at the very first almost-warm day and leaving it on until it snows. OH AIR CONDITIONING I LOVE YOU SO.
This leads to a huge energy bill which we can’t really afford.
AC is really bad for the environment.
AC is sometimes helpful because it aids in filtering out tree pollen, which causes allergies, but then the filters and shit clog and my dust allergies are all “FUCK YOU” and my head is all “I WANT TO DIIIIIEEEEEEEE.”
Sooner or later it breaks down and we have no idea how to cope. It’s hot! With no AC! What do we dooooooo?
Did I mention the enormous energy bill? Because seriously.
We’d already been talking about getting rid of the heater and removing the weird, intrusive duct work in the apartment and using the radiators for heat. Installing AC would force our hand, and we’d have no pantry (it currently contains the heater) and intrusive ductwork FOREVER.

We’ve decided to forgo the central air. Apparently the universe heard us and cackled with glee, rubbing its hands together. The abominable heat we’ve had recently? Our fault. Sorry, Midwest.

If you are not from the midwest, let me describe the recent heat to you:

It’s so hot mercury thermometers have exploded, sending sprays of mercury out the shattered glass top of the thermometer tube thing. What’s that you say? Those kind of thermometers don’t really exist? Ok, uh, it’s so hot that electric thermometer displays have ceased working, instead showing comical illustrations of exploded old-fashioned thermometers.

It’s so hot that several people have spontaneously combusted while walking down the street.

It’s so hot that people can’t walk barefoot on pavement without getting literally burned feet.

It’s so hot that part of Lake Shore Drive buckled. Twice.

It’s so hot that we bought ice cube trays after a good five years or so of not having them (we’d been using those plastic things that have fluid in them, and you freeze them and drop them in your glass, and your beverage gets cold but doesn’t get diluted, only they don’t really work that well).

It’s so hot that we’ve been dithering about the central air question after we’d thought we’d made up our minds.

Also, we installed window units in Niko’s bedroom and our bedroom. But we only turn them on when someone’s asleep in the room, or when it’s just too hot to be alive and then I take Niko into his room and I sit on the floor and read a book while he throws blocks into his dirty clothing hamper.

We’re going to install some ceiling fans and see if that helps cool us down. (probably it will.)

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We hosted Christmas Dinner this year, the first time we’ve REALLY hosted a holiday meal. We’ve participated in pot luck in the past (including one year I made a turkey and it was the best tasting turkey IN THE ENTIRE WORLD and I’d never made a turkey before), and one year we half-assed it to the point of not bothering to check to see how long a spiral sliced ham needed to cook and wound up pan frying slices of ham for everyone’s dinner.

This year we made lasagna, cauliflower gratin, mashed potatoes, peas, 2 kinds of rolls, and a spiral sliced ham (well, the ham only needed to be heated up; it was already cooked). All of this, except for the ham, was made from scratch.

There was also cheese and crackers, pumpkin-cranberry muffins, and 4 types of cookies, as well as sugared almonds and spiced mixed nuts. The muffins, cookies, and nuts were also made from scratch.

This was a lot of cooking. I have a 9 month old who needs to be within touching distance of me at all times. I did a lot of prep cooking while he napped or was in bed.

Whew!

Nesko has never personally had to work to host a holiday meal. In the past, we either went to my parents’ or else his family hosted, which is to say that he sat around and drank and talked while Teh Wimmens busted their asses cleaning and cooking. Which meant that Nesko kept fluttering around the kitchen on Christmas early afternoon waving his hands and exclaiming that Christmas “was ruined.”

It was hilarious. And of course nothing was ruined.

The ham and lasagna went in then came out and were covered in foil to stay warm, and the cauliflower and potatoes went in. The peas were microwaved. The rolls were cooked the day before (but I should have heated them up in the oven but I was afraid they’d dry out or something).

Oh! There was also devilled eggs and fudge that didn’t set right (and I need to make a cake so I can melt that fudge down and turn it into frosting).

Next Christmas we are going to make appetizers, cookies, and pie. And if people want actual food we can have sandwiches or something. But people were very interested in the appetizers and were kind of full when the main meal came out. Sure, we could just skip appetizers, but they are MUCH easier to throw together than a meal is.

When we finally have a million billion dollars, we’re going to remodel our kitchen and put in two ovens to make life easier.