verbminx

Last night I tackled the Purse Box... I had packed my purses nicely in a plastic storage bin when we moved, but the movers chose to dump them out willy-nilly into a box where they'd already put paper garbage from my old car. (*sigh* - yes, it had been in a garbage bag. Worst. Movers. Ever!)

Almost all of the purses had old receipts in them; most had completely lost their ink. The purses that could and should be washed were washed after a few hours of soaking. A few others are on the pile to go to Goodwill... not that they aren't nice, just outdated. Most of what I cared about was already in my closet, but I did find a Pucca messenger bag that I'd forgotten I owned. I also found a lip gloss that I bought years ago and never really used (it's still good!) and a bunch of things from my trip to NYC (which was 4+ years ago). I mean what is a girl to do without the biz cards of Ricky's and Fluevog? and used Metrocards?

I also found exciting things like very old candy and lotion, which hit the garbage immediately.

Oh, and two inexplicable J Crew giftcards, for $10.01 each, apparently still valid. ?!?
(I did call the hotline to get the balance, but I have no idea how I came by them... maybe they were promotional in some way.)

At some point here... today, tomorrow... I'm meant to bathe the dog. Not my favorite chore... exhausting, messy... but I suppose I should get it out of the way while the weather is still decent. It was 70 degrees F yesterday! It looked all grey outside, but it was actually beautiful. It is colder today but not particularly so.

Sometime this week I am going to a free preview of Aeon Flux... which is good, cos I don't think I would pay to see it. I am a huge fan of the animated series. Little about the movie looks right.

Oh, also last night: library with a sleepy Tom. I got the new Jonathan Adler book. I kind of hate it. It's a more whimsical take on everything that I hated about Marian McEvoy's Glue Gun Decor. I am not a big fan of 70s-inspired decor.

I have opened up a bunch of boxes of old books. (Have I mentioned before that I have over 30 12"x12"x18" boxes of books? Well, I do.) I am repacking ones that I didn't pack so that the books will be less prone to damage, as well as deciding which books I don't want.

I have a lot of books which I read and loved 8-10 or more years ago, but will realistically probably never read again. I also have old collections - like, I used to buy and keep every Sherlock Holmes pastiche that I could get my hands on. I have a Phantom of the Opera collection that is a sight to see (and is, for the most part, not involved in this decision - I'm keeping them). I have things like Victoria Holt books that I loved to death when I was about 13; I've kept my favorites. I already gave most of my Anne Perry books to kevininatutu.

But the point is, I have a wide swath of mostly middlebrow genre fiction - mystery/historical/romantic, usually a combination of the three - and I'm trying to decide whether to keep it. Wotcher think?

ETA - note, the "some" option does not refer to keeping 10% of the total number of books I own, it refers to keeping 10% of the ones I'm considering not owning anymore. also note that I cannot afford to mail them anywhere as a donation to any worthy cause, and that they really aren't appropriate for that kind of thing anyway... they're mostly decrepit paperbacks and 20-year-old library discards and so on. They are mostly just appropriate to show up on the shelves at Goodwill or Salvation Army or Volunteers of America to be bought for $0.25 each.

[Poll #578197]

It's Cognitive Dissonance Day!
Seriously... do I go to the Harry Potter party, and surround myself with a teeming mass of Columbus's smaller residents so that I can pick up my book at midnight, or do I go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Or do I try to somehow fit in both? I've been waiting for both of these patiently since I heard they were coming out, but I only realized a few weeks ago that they were coming out on the same day. Guh!

(Yeah, I'll be 30 next year. Why do you ask?)

Nothing much going on here the last few days. I cook, I clean. I've packed up a bunch of books - this is difficult when you're trying to keep them separated out by subject. All my writing reference has to stay in one place too, and it is categorically broad, though largely historical or linguistic. (With the occasional book on alchemy or robotics, and a few feminist books on "loose women.") It's about 3 small boxes (12x12x18"-ish) when it's packed, if I'm very selective about what I call reference. I also packed up much of the fiction I bought in the last 2 years, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Everything is Illuminated, The Devil in the White City (not fiction), and a partridge in a pear tree. All the books on becoming more organized (I'm not, though I have succeeded at organizing the books about organization) are going in a box with all the books on home decorating... that way they will all be in one place in the new place, when I want them.

Excitement. But what else am I going to say? Tom and I tried to go read and work at a particular coffeehouse the other day, but the parking lot was full, so we ended up reading and working at a chain coffeehouse up the road from our intended target. *sigh* I keep forgetting to return things to the library that need to go there - by which I mean, I take a bunch of things back on or before the day they're due, but I forget one or two things that were due that day - as a result, I will be spending some time ironing that out this afternoon. It's really not that interesting. (I still believe that *I* am interesting, to be around, more or less, but my goodness do my activities NOT live up to it.)