Improvements in the Bookshelf and Wallet Departments

30 January 2010
A few days ago, I solved the problem of our eye-sore bookshelf.
You see, we bought the bookshelves you see pictured here nearly two years ago. I boldly declared that I would ensure all our books would fit onto this shelf and, that should we acquire new books, I would get rid of old ones to make room for the new ones.

So this assertion fell flat on its face. We simply own too many books, and the number constantly rises. Soon, the shelf you see here featured books laying on their side stacked on top of the original books. Very ugly.
But then I had the lamest epiphany in the history of epiphanies: I can stack the wicker baskets on the top shelf, thereby freeing up room for books up there. Then I can reorganize my books the proper way.
What you see here is the end result. I took our set of stone bookends, placed them on the top, and removed thirteen “general knowledge” books from the shelves (think Guinness books and almanacs). My wife insisted they be placed in size order for aesthetic reasons, so I complied even though I saw no rationale. Then, with about 12 inches of freed-up space, I set to work organizing my books once again, as they had been two years ago. My wife go in on the action, and together we pulled about a dozen more books off the shelf to be taken to Half Price Books, where the cheap-skates there will probably give me 75 cents for the books.
Today, I finished the project, including realigning our secondary shelf off to the right (that one houses fiction and cookbooks, so I generally shy away from that one).
In case you’re wondering, I keep the books in order of subject, like the Dewey Decimal System, only better. My books are in order of importance. By “importance,” I mean: if aliens came down to our planet and wanted to know what we knew, they could start at the top of my shelf and work their way down. Or, put better: if I forgot everything about the world in a horrible (but strangely appealing) freak accident, I hope my wife would have the good sense to say: “Well, all you have to do is read these books, beginning at the top left and working your way down to the bottom right.”
The ranking (from most- to least-important) is as follows:
General knowledge
General science
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Cosmology/Cosmogony
Astronomy
Geography
Biology
Zoology
Baby/Child Care
Language/Etymology
History
Biography
Art: Painting/Sculpting/Drawing
Art: Photography
Art: Film
Television
Music
Computers
Humor
Religion
Fiction
…Okay, okay, I know you can make solid arguments here, such as that music is more important than TV, but besides ranking by importance, I also try to flow from one topic to the next. For example, drawing kind of flows naturally into photography, which flows naturally into film, which flows into TV, relegating music to a lower position than it should have. Also, I agree that a book on taking care of a human baby should trump a book about black bears, but in that case I work up the “ladder” – books about plants come before those about fish, which come before those about mammals, which comes before humans.
Don’t like it? Don’t worry. I don’t let people borrow my books anyway.

31 January 2010
So here I am at the end of the first month of the year. This is, for me, nearly a repeat of the final day of last month: my wife and son went to bed unusually early, and I am staying up late taking care of selfish pursuits.
Today started off rather slow. Owen and I watched some videos on YouTube. Then we had breakfast. I finished reading a book I just obtained a few weeks ago (try finding the gap in the books above to determine the subject of the book I was reading). Around 11:00, Jennifer said it would be a good day to get some work done around the apartment. So, since I guess we’re gonna live here for a while more, we rearranged some things in Owen’s room; we moved his chalkboard and his kitchen, and made room for a shelf that had spent the last year in our room. We organized some stuff in our room, too, and got to vacuum some areas that hadn’t seen a vacuum in a while.
We left the house around 4:00 and drove to Mississippi Market. There, we bought a few things to use with dinner this coming week, and I finally purchased this cool handmade wallet I had been coveting for about a month now. We next went to Cub, which is always such an unremarkable adventure I’m not sure why I’m wasting such a long sentence discussing it. Then we went to a Minnesota Atheist meetup. Today’s meetup featured an all-you-can-eat spaghetti buffet, which we attended partly because we had nothing else to do and partly because our friends Chad and Mindy would be there. I’m glad we went – our friends showed up, we met some other cool people, reconnected with some people we’d met at the Children’s Museum a few weeks back, ate a lot of food, and let Owen tire himself out running around with a bunch of other little heathens.
There you have it. One month down, eleven to go.