Just Another Literary Lizard

The past few months have been overwhelmingly busy. Here is the summary in a nutshell.

• I spent a good part of 2008 looking for a new job, which I found in October.
• The job I accepted is in Boston, so I decided to move 1200 miles from home to take it.
• I quit the job I had for 8 year, working with people I liked, at the end of November.
• I spent December packing up my house, sorting through 10+ years of papers
• I stayed with my parents through much of December, wanting to spend as much time with family as possible.
• Crazy busy with saying good-bye to family, friends, and co-workers.
• Found an apartment.
• Moved with the help of my parents.
• Started the new job.

Now, that is done. I can move forward with new posts. I felt like I needed to cover all that ground before I could start on some fresh posts.

1. I now understand the ritual of spring cleaning. It allows you to purge your unwanted stuff annually.
2. I need to dust my books more.
3. There is never enough room to put the full boxes as you pack up.
4. Packing should only be done while you are feeling healthy; it takes forever and feels overwhelming while you are sick.
5. You will never really have enough paper to stuff around fragile items.
6. Purge as you pack. Purge, purge, purge.
7. Packing tape dispensers can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
8. Dreaming of packing is not the same as actually packing, but it makes you feel just as tired.
9. Next time I want movers!!!!
10. Seriously, movers.

My book are more or less organized. I have cases for British, American and International authors. Shelves within those cases for poetry and fiction. The shelves themselves are organized by author then title. No dewey decimal or LOC, but organized nonetheless.

This move is destroying much of that categorization. Packing books, for me, is as much about efficiency as grouping. I realize that with a new place to live, I’ll have a chance to reorganize my library, if I decide I want to do so. Keeping them in the same basic groupings would provide a certain continuity in a shifting world. On the other hand, by reorganizing, it would present the books in a new way, perhaps changing my view of them.

Should I put all the poetry together and all the fiction? Sort the international literature by country? What about my reference books? Fortunately I won’t make any decisions until I start the actual unpacking process.