boxed in

So I'm in the midst of packing my life into cardboard boxes, trying to figure out if parts are unimportant enough to get rid of. So far the bathroom is, more or less, weeded and boxed. The kitchen is probably between 1/4 and 1/3 done. My fridge magnet collection is bagged. I even took the time to pull down the latest spider web behind the stove that I usually just leave because that fricking spider (it's about the size of a generous coffee mug) spins another one as soon as I leave the room. In my bedroom, most of my clothes are sorted, some discarded, and the rest are in holding containers; my dresser is empty except for my remaining t-shirt collection, which looks sad and lacking. My cameras, almost all of them, are packed. This sounds like progress, doesn't it?

It isn't.

The living room is the bane of my existence. Music-related mediums are dealt with and I don't feel any great concern about that, except maybe needing another hard container for the excess CDs that don't fit in the ones I have (you know, I talked about this already). The real problem, the problem every time I move, the problem that I think my family really means to address when they tell me to get rid of stuff, is the rows of books and stacks of magazines that I refuse to deal with.

I like books. I like owning books. I like referring back to books I own. Sometimes I just like to look at the spines of the acquisitions in my mini library. The thought of getting rid of any of them, even the ones that aren't my favourites, makes me sick in the same way people get sick when thinking of putting their pet down. "Well, that's just crazy," I hear you say. "They aren't alive! They're just books!" If only that were true.

Maybe it's the whole "it's not what you are like; it's what you like" thing. (I feel like I revisit this a lot.) I don't want to misrepresent myself by ridding my collection of "The Big Book of Sumo" or "John Hall and His Patients: The Medical Practice of Shakespeare's Son-in-Law" because I was obsessed with sumo for years AND have an ongoing interest in medical procedures pre-Florence Nightingale. I might not read them very often, but I still want them. You see my problem.

It's the same with magazines. I barely buy magazines, so the two I get regularly are ones I really want and always contain DIY projects I have made and would like to make again, or things I may try when rainy days and Mondays get me down. Or when I want to pack in packing.

I'm starting to get that crippling feeling of not wanting to do anything but sit on the futon and sleep. Even the Deluxe Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure shrine atop the bookshelf isn't helping me along. Nancy Pearl (Seattle Public Library librarian, FYI, and a frumpy dresser to perpetuate the horrible, inaccurate librarian stereotype) seems to be whispering, "You look tired. Just have a frozen yogurt bar and relax. The packing elves will do it." And I'm so close to believing her despite her shapeless, ankle-length skirt telling me she doesn't know what she's talking about.

I'm aiming to put the entire top shelf into boxes right now; it's my foreign language/cookbook shelf. Wish me luck.

As an aside: you know who has a charmed life? Andy Greenwald, author of "Miss Misery." Seriously. Go read his latest blog: http://www.myspace.com/andygreenwald. It will make you MENTAL with envy.

Currently listening :
15 Angry Men
By Hideki Kaji
Release date: 20 July, 1999