shelf life

For months now, I've had an empty bookcase in my living room. It taunted me, making the potential for tidiness and order so clearly visible, only a meter from the main wobbling tower of books I had waiting to be shelved. All my other bookshelves were accumulating "to be shelved" heaps in front of what fits properly on each shelf, but I didn't worry. I had a whole empty bookcase! Just as soon as I got my act together, I could put everything away. (I even gave the top shelf to the little horde of ceramic turtles, slowly stampeding through my living room and trying to take over any available horizontal space.) Yesterday, I finally started shelving, and recognized my lovely empty bookcase is nowhere near big enough.

I think I need to start double-shelving again. Once upon a time, I had most of my books in storage, and the ones in my room had rows of paperbacks in front of every row of books. The back row was mostly hidden, but I was consistent enough about alphabetizing (and I knew what I had) so I could still find what I wanted. Now that I have higher shelves, I'd like to prop the back row of books up a bit to make them easier to see. I just want a riser, 3-5" high, that will go across the back of a shelf and support a mix of hardcovers and paperbacks. Any suggestions for finding or making such risers? I'm trying not to spend much money (see previous post) but my hand-crafting ability is somewhat limited. Papersky, are the things on your shelves made specially to fit, or did you use boxes or somesuch?

stark realization

I'm not usually too efficient with running errands. However, it may have been a mistake to take my down jacket to the cleaners yesterday. It's supposed to snow tomorrow, and also Thursday. I was caught up in the enthusiasm of tidying, putting books away, cleaning up after winter, enjoying the sunshine. I took 20 books to the used book exchange and managed to come back with only 3. (Clearly, I'm not paying enough attention, because I now have 2 copies of _A Game of Thrones_, in different bindings, 1 copy of _A Clash of Kings_, and no _Storm of Swords_. Pfui.) This afternoon, I was trying to reread the beginning of _A Game of Thrones_ while walking slowly along the bikeway, picking my way carefully through the snow and ice remaining on the unplowed bit. The sidewalks visible from my apartment are pretty well cleared, so I had ventured out in sneakers, but the bikeway is another story.

A jogger going the other way smiled at me. I smiled back, feeling neighborly. She asked, "Wasn't it warm, just a few hours ago?" I had the rare opportunity to hold up _A Game of Thrones_ and say, in context, yet to a stranger, "Winter is coming, again."

I'm not making up the bit about the music. My boss lent me Richard Thompson's _1000 Years of Popular Music_, and I'm just now finding time to listen to it. His cheerful arrangement of "Sumer is Icumen In" was playing when I started writing this post. I'm taking so long to finish posting (what with interruptions for laundry and such) that we've gotten all the way up to "Tempted." I remember when that was new, in 1980 or so, and I loved it. I don't know if my boss thinks of that as the boring music his parents used to listen to, when he was too little to be paying attention, or if it blurs into the same historical background as "Sumer is Icumen In."