Oct. 23rd, 2018 07:26 pm
Week 3: Tsundoku
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murielleLJ IDOL PRESENTS: LITERARY PRIZE FIGHT
Week 3: Tsundoku
“Two weeks? I can’t do it in two weeks. I simply can’t.”
“Till the end of the month, then.”
Okay, not the swiftest bird in the flock, but not the slowest either. The end of the month was two weeks away.
“Can I have until the end of the year?” I countered.
He wasn’t happy, but he agreed.
Let me explain.
Last fall, there was a bedbug scare in my building. Management put notices under all our doors informing us that one of the apartments had bedbugs and giving a detailed description of their plans to deal with the problem. It involved tenants cleaning out all drawers, cupboards, bookcases, etc., and then having each “naked” suite sprayed for the pests three times over the course of the next few months. I won’t go into all the details because it will give you a headache. More importantly, it will give me a headache and I’ve already had one today. Also, I want to let you know before going any further that I did not have bedbugs. (Whew!) There were none found in my suite, and there was no sign of there ever having been any. (Again, whew!)
A few things you should know about me before I proceed.
1. I have lived in this apartment for over eight years, this building for thirty-seven years, and this complex for forty years. I have stuff.
2. I am a bibliophile. This is something I’m fairly sure we all share.
3. My dream has always been to have my very own library. I have books.
4. I’m disabled, and while this was going on I was also injured. I’m slow, physically and sometimes mentally.
5. My apartment has a yard and that yard has a patio.
After lengthy discussion with a trusted friend, it was decided I would move everything but the bare essentials out to the patio until the bedbug debacle (as I came to call it) was concluded. Because I’m very sensitive to chemicals I had to vacate my apartment for forty-eight hours each time the pesticide was being administered. I moved in with family for those forty-eight hour periods.
And so, I filled box after box with my belongings, mostly books. Some of those boxes of books had moved downstairs with me and never been unpacked. All were moved outdoors, stacked and covered with tarps until I had a tarp-covered structure in my yard I came to think of as tarp-city. Tarp-city took up about a third of my yard. It takes up a little less space because I retrieved my clothes the majority of which were also moved outside. Now tarp-city takes up about a fifth of the yard.
And that’s the problem. The manager’s boss was doing a routine inspection of the property, saw tarp-city and wasn’t impressed, hence the discussion with the manager. I now have until the end of the year to reduce the mess to a much smaller mess.
I do have a plan. It involves plastic totes and massive donations to thrift stores and deposits to the dumpster. It is to be ruthless. It’s going to hurt, especially the books, that’s going to hurt bad, but it has to be.
I used to cull my books yearly before I got sick. In fact, I used to cull everything before I got sick. I’d seen what could happen to a home when thing were allowed to accumulate and I was determined that it wasn’t going to happen to me. But I got sick, and culling was not a priority. Things accumulated—big time--especially, my books.
Honestly, I can’t tell you when my love of books began or decided that the ultimate goal was my own library, but I have, over the years amassed hundreds of books. I’m also a collector. If I read a book I like I have to have all the books by that author and I have to read them in the order they were written. If I stumble across a subject that interests me I begin assembling books about it until I have a comprehensive study on the hobby, historical incident, zoological topic (whatever!) within arm’s reach. The truth I am reluctant to admit is that very often my interest exhausts before I’ve read the books I’ve acquired on the matter and so I have a myriad of books I haven’t even opened, and am unlikely to maybe ever.
All this compounded when one of my friends, a picker, began providing me with more and more and more books. His plan was that I would become so overwhelmed that I’d give my books to him to sell. It didn’t work out that way. The books he brought were just added to the books I had and my library grew to gargantuan proportions, gathering dust and being neglected.
There was a time when I treasured my books. I still do, but not quite the same way. My books used to be placed in bookshelves by subject, author, chronological order of release, and alphabetized. My most loved books were right next to my bed and I read and reread them many, many times. They were worn out with love. I underlined passages, I wrote in the margins and on the blank pages at the end of the book. I doted on them. They were beloved friends, are still beloved friends.
And so, I have until the end of December to go through all of those books that have been exiled to the patio, sort them for saving or sharing, and get control of the horde I allowed them to become over three decades. It will be challenging for me, physically and emotionally, but there’s part of me that’s actually looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to having a more manageable library of treasures, a more manageable home, and life, and having room for new books, because I will always love books, and collecting books.
AN: Concrit welcome!
Week 3: Tsundoku
“Two weeks? I can’t do it in two weeks. I simply can’t.”
“Till the end of the month, then.”
Okay, not the swiftest bird in the flock, but not the slowest either. The end of the month was two weeks away.
“Can I have until the end of the year?” I countered.
He wasn’t happy, but he agreed.
Let me explain.
Last fall, there was a bedbug scare in my building. Management put notices under all our doors informing us that one of the apartments had bedbugs and giving a detailed description of their plans to deal with the problem. It involved tenants cleaning out all drawers, cupboards, bookcases, etc., and then having each “naked” suite sprayed for the pests three times over the course of the next few months. I won’t go into all the details because it will give you a headache. More importantly, it will give me a headache and I’ve already had one today. Also, I want to let you know before going any further that I did not have bedbugs. (Whew!) There were none found in my suite, and there was no sign of there ever having been any. (Again, whew!)
A few things you should know about me before I proceed.
1. I have lived in this apartment for over eight years, this building for thirty-seven years, and this complex for forty years. I have stuff.
2. I am a bibliophile. This is something I’m fairly sure we all share.
3. My dream has always been to have my very own library. I have books.
4. I’m disabled, and while this was going on I was also injured. I’m slow, physically and sometimes mentally.
5. My apartment has a yard and that yard has a patio.
After lengthy discussion with a trusted friend, it was decided I would move everything but the bare essentials out to the patio until the bedbug debacle (as I came to call it) was concluded. Because I’m very sensitive to chemicals I had to vacate my apartment for forty-eight hours each time the pesticide was being administered. I moved in with family for those forty-eight hour periods.
And so, I filled box after box with my belongings, mostly books. Some of those boxes of books had moved downstairs with me and never been unpacked. All were moved outdoors, stacked and covered with tarps until I had a tarp-covered structure in my yard I came to think of as tarp-city. Tarp-city took up about a third of my yard. It takes up a little less space because I retrieved my clothes the majority of which were also moved outside. Now tarp-city takes up about a fifth of the yard.
And that’s the problem. The manager’s boss was doing a routine inspection of the property, saw tarp-city and wasn’t impressed, hence the discussion with the manager. I now have until the end of the year to reduce the mess to a much smaller mess.
I do have a plan. It involves plastic totes and massive donations to thrift stores and deposits to the dumpster. It is to be ruthless. It’s going to hurt, especially the books, that’s going to hurt bad, but it has to be.
I used to cull my books yearly before I got sick. In fact, I used to cull everything before I got sick. I’d seen what could happen to a home when thing were allowed to accumulate and I was determined that it wasn’t going to happen to me. But I got sick, and culling was not a priority. Things accumulated—big time--especially, my books.
Honestly, I can’t tell you when my love of books began or decided that the ultimate goal was my own library, but I have, over the years amassed hundreds of books. I’m also a collector. If I read a book I like I have to have all the books by that author and I have to read them in the order they were written. If I stumble across a subject that interests me I begin assembling books about it until I have a comprehensive study on the hobby, historical incident, zoological topic (whatever!) within arm’s reach. The truth I am reluctant to admit is that very often my interest exhausts before I’ve read the books I’ve acquired on the matter and so I have a myriad of books I haven’t even opened, and am unlikely to maybe ever.
All this compounded when one of my friends, a picker, began providing me with more and more and more books. His plan was that I would become so overwhelmed that I’d give my books to him to sell. It didn’t work out that way. The books he brought were just added to the books I had and my library grew to gargantuan proportions, gathering dust and being neglected.
There was a time when I treasured my books. I still do, but not quite the same way. My books used to be placed in bookshelves by subject, author, chronological order of release, and alphabetized. My most loved books were right next to my bed and I read and reread them many, many times. They were worn out with love. I underlined passages, I wrote in the margins and on the blank pages at the end of the book. I doted on them. They were beloved friends, are still beloved friends.
And so, I have until the end of December to go through all of those books that have been exiled to the patio, sort them for saving or sharing, and get control of the horde I allowed them to become over three decades. It will be challenging for me, physically and emotionally, but there’s part of me that’s actually looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to having a more manageable library of treasures, a more manageable home, and life, and having room for new books, because I will always love books, and collecting books.
AN: Concrit welcome!
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I'm so sorry you had to go through this with your mother--twice! That is a huge, huge deal!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting.