Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Whip Cracking Wednesday

I have had to come to grips with a serious and potentially life impairing situation.
I have too many books.
I love books. I just love, love, love, love books but my lack of organization and the sheer numbers of them in my life are having serious consequences for me as a blogger and as a mother.

Me: You entlings get your rooms cleared. The vacuum needs access to the carpet in order to work. I cannot even see the floor in your rooms. How are you going to vacuum your rooms when they look like this?

entlings: [smirk] What ever you say Mom. Where do want this pile of Mike Lupica books?

Me: Oh, stack them with the other piles next to the overflowing bookcases, on the floor, in my bed...um....room...

oh....

entlings: [high five each other]


So I did the brave thing, the mature thing.
I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and threw myself at the feet of entling no. 2 and begged her to help me. I offered her great and multiple rewards if she would organize my book stacks, my piles, shelves and me.

She is a whirlwind of efficiency and organization. She can analyze a problem and break it down into manageable and do-able parts. I have often referred to her as my major domo.

First she set me to work on the picture books which I divided into fiction and nonfiction for review purposes.

She separated the signed copies of books and put them in a protected book case. Then she assisted me with the organization of the novels.


entling no. 2: What about this book, have you read it?

Me: No.

entling no. 2: Are you going to read it?

Me: Yes.

entling no. 2: What about this book, have you read it?

Me: Yes, I've read that one but I have not written a review yet.

entling no. 2: Are you going to write a review?

Me: Oh yes, it was a great read.

entling no. 2: Then we will have a stack of "review immediately" books.

Me: That's a great idea. I'm going to go check my email now.

[CRACKKKKKK!!!!]

Me: YIKES!

entling no. 2: I said...immediately. The books cannot move on to a good home until you write about them and you are going to write about them ... now!

Me: [gulp] Can I eat lunch?

entling no. 2: Only, after you've written one review.
Oh, by the way, when we are done here, Mom, we are going ... to the gym!


Me: [gulp]

So neighbors, BookMoot hereby institutes Whip Cracking Wednesdays where I will be reviewing some great books which have languished for much too long on my bookstacks of reproach.

By the way, entling no. 2 needs a job...if you would like to hire her, please drop me an email.

4 comments:

Taire said...

It is true, those books of reproach, I have many. Friends have stopped lending me books or ceased being friends... Best of luck with your endevors, I cannot employ entling 2, but perhaps you can give her a pile of her own.

Anonymous said...

Genius. "Do it now" might be new mantra. In fact, I feel the need for a nap, so perhaps I will do it now.

Saints and Spinners said...

I need entling no.2! My challenge, however, is not so much with organizing books as having no room for all my books. I've got 4-5 boxes of my books in the basement and many more in my aunt's care back East. I recently went over to the house of some dear TINK [Two Income No Kids] friends of mine-- they'd completely remodeled their house, and they had a library with the rolling ladder.

I had to laugh at the "I'm going to go check my email now..." exchange.

Camille said...

Alkelda the Gleeful --the lack of space is my problem also. She was also making me weed which is always painful.

My DREAM has always been to have a library with a ladder and the bookshelves to the ceiing. The house next door to us was for sale a few months ago and Treebeard joked, or maybe he was not joking, that we should have purchased the house and turned the whole thing inot a library. Not that we could have actually managed that but it was a nice idea. I was so inspired by Esme Raji Codell's separate book apt. in Chicago.