End of the Upper Story

This area is wonderfully rich in used book stores. I know of places that are even more blessed in that way, but I've never lived in one. Despite being a bit of a nuisance to get to without a car, one of my favorite places for used book shopping has been Upper Story Books in Lexington Center. (I always thought "Second Story Books" would have been a better name.) It had a comfortable browsing space, a good selection of fiction across many genres, and a fair amount of non-academic science writing, and history-of-science. Upper Story Books will be closing this summer. The owner won't be renewing the lease. I don't know if it's a matter of wanting to leave the bookstore business altogether, or if the rent just became overwhelming.

They're having a clearance sale, with all the books half price. Local readers may want to check it out. In a few weeks, they're going to start selling the shelves, too. (This strikes me as terribly sad.) They're right on Mass Ave, near that bakery that gives away free slices of bread.

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I've lived in this apartment for well over a year. That means it's probably time for me to unpack the stuff that's supposed to hang on the walls, and actually hang it on the walls. (The books were all unpacked less than 3 weeks after I moved, which may be more remarkable considering that most of my shelves were not acquired until 2 weeks after the move.) Once I felt sufficiently at home here, after about 3 weeks of assorted settling-in activities, I didn't want to bother with any more unpacking or decorating chores.

Looking through the picture stash, I realize that I don't really want to fill my living room with nicely framed diplomas and work-related awards. I have too many of them. I know it's not really possible to have too many work-related awards. Though I always had seriously mixed feelings about so much of the space shuttle's carrying capacity being devoted to that kind of tat, it was still awfully nice to get a gee-whiz-this-was-in-orbit! thanks tokens. It feels like it would be inappropriate to throw then away, or pack them in boxes and forget all about them. The person to whom I was married when I worked on the NASA project said, "This is so cool! We should frame all this so it looks great, and hang it on the wall!" And so we did. But as I move further from the project, my enthusiasm fades. When I was living with people who framed their diplomas (each in the appropriate school colors) and put them on the walls of the shared office, there was a place for me to hang all this NASA stuff that felt right...not pretentious or boastful or work-obsessed.

Now? I don't have an office, or need one. My laptop is on a little desk in a corner of my living room. A big picture on the wall 18" in front of my nose risks overwhelming everything I do here. (That's one reason the calender went on the wall to the side. I don't need time pressure in my face, thank you very much.) If I want to put all the work awards together, they would have to go on the main wall of the living room, across from the big couch, or over the kitchen table. I'm not crazy about the idea of giving them that kind of emphasis.

I like the image of a baby otter in its parent's (*) arms. I'm not sure how many such images are really appropriate in a contentedly childless household like this. (Er, the child is welcome to visit, with or without her parents. I mean that I am a contented non-parent who is slightly wary of overloading my space with parenting symbolism.) But there's a tendency for people to see one cool image I have, and say of something similar, "That looks like something Adrian would like," so there's a gradual accretion.

(*) I know that most people see the standard picture as mother and baby otters. I have 3 stuffed toy otters. Two of them came as a set (from the Monterey Aquarium), and the big one has velcro on its paws, so it attaches securely to the velcro patches on the little one. The other big otter is a slightly different color and shape, and has no velcro, but is clearly a member of the family. When the small child I used to live with was almost 3, she asked me if the big otter with the velcro was a mama otter or a daddy otter. I said I didn't know. I explained that both mamas and daddys (and sometimes other adults) take care of babies, and sometimes it was hard to tell if someone was male or female without being told. And I didn't speak the otter language. She calls the toys "baby otter," "big otter," and "the other big otter."

vacuuming sucks

I loathe vacuuming. When my body is as cooperative as its ever going to get, and I'm happy to do almost any other household chore, I still want to avoid vacuuming carpet. (Using pumps to create a vacuum in elaborate glass or steel manifolds is different. Oddly enough, I'm even ok with using something that looks suspiciously like an Oreck Vacuum Cleaner to move powder around in the lab.) When I lived with others, I was happy to cook and wash dishes and deal with laundry, and I'd sweep (*)and clean bathrooms and tidy up when nobody else could get to it...but vacuuming was a chore that somebody else would have to do, if it was going to get done at all.

I like apartments with hardwood floors and no carpet. I like rugs that are small enough to put in a washing machine. Unfortunately, my living room works better with a 4'x6' section of carpet under the coffee (**) table and the edges of the couches. Because the idiots responsible for this apartment building made the floors of soft wood and finished them badly, putting major furniture directly on the living room floor leaves nasty dents I would prefer to avoid. Anyhow, when I moved here, I acquired what was advertised as a high-powered dust-buster, a small vacuum cleaner suitable for cleaning small areas if one is willing to get down on the floor to do it. Considering that I only have a small area that needs vacuuming, and am on the floor almost as often as I'm standing or on chairs, this did not seem unreasonable. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well. Brushing the carpet with a stiff brush gets the hair off and loosens the dust, but there isn't really any way to get the dust *off* the carpet. (Except for a few inches near the edge. Brushing pushes that dust off the carpet to where I can sweep it properly.) The dust-buster produces a moderate breeze that shifts a very small amount of the dust and lint. It's really ridiculous.

I considered getting a big, high-power, vacuum cleaner, that would provide enough suction to actually remove dust from this small section of carpet. This would be a substantial investment, and I'd have to find a place to put the damn thing. This is not what I want to be doing with my time and money and energy. I realized that I've been using the dust-buster once every 3 or 4 months. (I sweep 2 or 3 times a week.) It just occurred to me that I might come out ahead if I forgot about the vacuuming, and just bought a new carpet remnant that often. I don't get emotionally attached to them -- they're plain blue, reasonably easy to find, and cost $10-20. The main difficulty would probably be carrying them home.

(*) My mother gave me an electric broom when I moved into my first uncarpeted apartment. I asked if it could fly, and when she said it couldn't, I asked what the point was. Apparently, it makes sweeping more like vacuuming, by producing a gentle breeze. Very, very, gentle. Even if one likes vacuuming, this would not let one actually pick up a noticable amount of dust without a dustpan, and it's very hard to use with a dustpan because it's so heavy and unbalanced.

(**) I don't think this table has ever seen coffee. Does that make it a tea table? A game-and-book table?