Book Breakdown

The list in the previous post caused no end of drama around here, you may be surprised to learn. In writing it over the course of a few days, I tried to find a number of the physical books that the stories were in, either to double-check the title or just for the joy of rereading them. And I couldn't find several, which made me slightly crazy. This has happened to me before, and I think been posted about. In fact, it happens to me fairly often and the reason is *my books were in no order!* None. When I acquired a new book, I stuck it where it fit, and if I took something down, I rarely even put it back in the same spot. Thus, when I wanted something I could rarely find it immediately, or sometimes at all. It's a terrible plan. What have I been thinking?

When I was a child, I organized my books by height, tall picture books to tiny mass market paperbacks. Around age 10, I realized this was stupid, and somehow threw the baby out with the bathwater, deciding all systems of book organization are stupid!! I've worked in both bookstores and libraries, I *know* this isn't true in institutions, but somehow for a personal collection, it seemed pretentious to have a system.

Until this weekend, when I realized I was being an idiot, and took every book off the shelves, covered myself in dust and then lemon polish, separated out the reference books and periodicals and books I actually hate, and alphabetized the rest. It took a long time, and I inhaled a lot of polish, and listened to a recording of Beckett while I did it, so it made me a bit insane (especially since I never did find one of the books I was looking for!! I think I know who has it,though) Possibly such a state of mind is over fertile for revelation, but I did have several in the process, which I will now share with you in my lemon-hangover state:

1) I am still fresh enough from school that you could look at my shelves and get a false impression of my tastes. Not that I don't like Turgenev, but he's a bit over represented, considering.
2) Neither Alice Munro nor Diane Schlomperlin are on the list in the previous post, which is clearly a horrendous oversight.
3) I own a huge amount of Beckett, and that recording is fricking creepy, and that guy was a genius, but I'm really glad I don't know him.
4) Also creepy: I came across the work of a poet I once knew, never particularly famous, and not now either, at least according to Google. Anyway, this was an acquaintance who I discovered was involved with another acquaintance whose personality didn't much match, and that relationship mystified me for a long time. Since I barely knew either of them, I couldn't ask about how they operated (and the question I really wanted to ask, "How do you stand each other?" I probably couldn't have asked of anyone). So I wrote a little story about them to explain it to myself. It was a pretty good story, actually, and over the years I've built on it, written perhaps half a dozen stories about those characters and gradually forgotten they were based on anyone at all. Going back to those poems now, I realize that there was once a real person here, but the person I've imagined could never have written those poems, and is now wholly my own creation, even though when I picture the physical body of the character, it's that real poet in my mind's eye. Creepy or what?

You know what I'm going to do now? *Go outside*. I really think that will help!

I've been double-crossed now / for the very last time
RR