Different Mixers Redux
Our new roomate N. lived just previous to living with us in a house called S----- (named for the street it was on), also called the Fraggle Yurt of Love. I met N. at a function run by a campus org we both belong to, KGB (which does not stand for Keeping Geeks Busy), which is its own crazy set of stories. KGB, generally, is an organization composed of the geekiest of geeky kids, on a geeky geeky campus. We follow Roberts Rules of Order (The same ones congress does), but all of our committees are jokes, like the Trebuchet Target Committee, or the Committee to Destroy Ohio (they collaborate sometimes), or the (Name of Still Living KGBer) Memorial Robot Committee.
N. is the most recent in a long line of KGBers (mostly officers of the org, actually) to live in S-----. In fact, I asked around, and the last time someone signed a new lease, as opposed to an addended lease or a sublet, in S----- is, and I am not exaggerating, EIGHT YEARS AGO. Put another way, there has never been a time that S----- was unoccupied, or where people had to, say, FULLY move out, in EIGHT YEARS.
About four years ago, there was a cadre of rather messy people living there, and since then all new roommates have been self-selecting- OK with living somewhere messy. That is to say, since that initial messy time, the house and it's occupants have just gotten messier (compared to the past).
Finally, just this summer, N. and the other most-recent-yurt-live-ers (mostly the others- N. is actually really clean, but susceptible to house-inertia, so I guess she's culpable as well) had the place so ill-kept that they simply could not find other humans willing to live there, and so, finally, after eight years, there were no new KGB tenants. The lease ran out, and the house had to be emptied.
Anyway, that's all lead-up to this story:
My friend Matt used to live in S-----, three or four years back, and not overlapping with N.'s stay. When he moved in, he brought with him three boxes of Kitchen supplies (Plates, utensils, cookware, etc). His new roommates and him looked through his stuff and the stuff already in the kitchen, and sort of traded upwards- using his stuff to replace less good stuff, but not unboxing his stuff if there was already, say, a really good Soup Pot, much better than his newly-brought Soup Pot.
What went down into the basement was two of his three boxes, as well as three boxes of kitchen supplies that were rarely-used, or that his new additions had replaced, which belonged to maybe seven people (three current roommates and four previous ones who had left some of their stuff behind.
Matt moved out of S----- a year or two later. When he did, though, he packed his kitchen stuff pretty hurriedly. When he got to California and unpacked, he found that he had packed so hurriedly that he hadn't even packed HIS OWN kitchen supplies. Out of the seven pots/pans and seven matching lids he had, no lid actually correctly matched a pot, and there were TEN different manufacturers represented.
Then the really strange up memory hit. He remembered how this had happened- When he was in the basement packing up his supplies, he had looked through not two white boxes (IE, the two he had actually put down there), but through two blue ones. But the five boxes he and his roommates-from-a-year-ago had put down there were white or brown- the blue boxes must have already been down there. Thinking about it further, he realized that the table he had been using to hold these boxes up and sort through them was ACTUALLY NO TABLE AT ALL BUT SIX OR SEVEN OTHER DIFFERENT BOXES ALL LABELED "S----- KITCHEN" PUT DOWN THERE IN THE PAST NEAR-DECADE BY THE COUPLE DOZEN ROOMMATES BEFORE HIMSELF.
(the epilogue: the landlord ended up actually hiring someone to clean out the basement, as none of the current roommates actually could figure out what was down there or who owned it. That person worked for three days and took out four dozen trash bags and as many or more boxes.
One of the other most-recent-yurters put it this way in her LiveJournal the night that they finally all moved out:
that house had entirely too many hit points.
but it's over. we gutted s-----.
my key locked that door for the final time. i don't feel like i had much to do with the house's living history, but i sure as hell witnessed and played a part in the long, anguished demise.
N. moved in with Beta and me, and is visibly relieved to be living in a clean house.)
N. is the most recent in a long line of KGBers (mostly officers of the org, actually) to live in S-----. In fact, I asked around, and the last time someone signed a new lease, as opposed to an addended lease or a sublet, in S----- is, and I am not exaggerating, EIGHT YEARS AGO. Put another way, there has never been a time that S----- was unoccupied, or where people had to, say, FULLY move out, in EIGHT YEARS.
About four years ago, there was a cadre of rather messy people living there, and since then all new roommates have been self-selecting- OK with living somewhere messy. That is to say, since that initial messy time, the house and it's occupants have just gotten messier (compared to the past).
Finally, just this summer, N. and the other most-recent-yurt-live-ers (mostly the others- N. is actually really clean, but susceptible to house-inertia, so I guess she's culpable as well) had the place so ill-kept that they simply could not find other humans willing to live there, and so, finally, after eight years, there were no new KGB tenants. The lease ran out, and the house had to be emptied.
Anyway, that's all lead-up to this story:
My friend Matt used to live in S-----, three or four years back, and not overlapping with N.'s stay. When he moved in, he brought with him three boxes of Kitchen supplies (Plates, utensils, cookware, etc). His new roommates and him looked through his stuff and the stuff already in the kitchen, and sort of traded upwards- using his stuff to replace less good stuff, but not unboxing his stuff if there was already, say, a really good Soup Pot, much better than his newly-brought Soup Pot.
What went down into the basement was two of his three boxes, as well as three boxes of kitchen supplies that were rarely-used, or that his new additions had replaced, which belonged to maybe seven people (three current roommates and four previous ones who had left some of their stuff behind.
Matt moved out of S----- a year or two later. When he did, though, he packed his kitchen stuff pretty hurriedly. When he got to California and unpacked, he found that he had packed so hurriedly that he hadn't even packed HIS OWN kitchen supplies. Out of the seven pots/pans and seven matching lids he had, no lid actually correctly matched a pot, and there were TEN different manufacturers represented.
Then the really strange up memory hit. He remembered how this had happened- When he was in the basement packing up his supplies, he had looked through not two white boxes (IE, the two he had actually put down there), but through two blue ones. But the five boxes he and his roommates-from-a-year-ago had put down there were white or brown- the blue boxes must have already been down there. Thinking about it further, he realized that the table he had been using to hold these boxes up and sort through them was ACTUALLY NO TABLE AT ALL BUT SIX OR SEVEN OTHER DIFFERENT BOXES ALL LABELED "S----- KITCHEN" PUT DOWN THERE IN THE PAST NEAR-DECADE BY THE COUPLE DOZEN ROOMMATES BEFORE HIMSELF.
(the epilogue: the landlord ended up actually hiring someone to clean out the basement, as none of the current roommates actually could figure out what was down there or who owned it. That person worked for three days and took out four dozen trash bags and as many or more boxes.
One of the other most-recent-yurters put it this way in her LiveJournal the night that they finally all moved out:
that house had entirely too many hit points.
but it's over. we gutted s-----.
my key locked that door for the final time. i don't feel like i had much to do with the house's living history, but i sure as hell witnessed and played a part in the long, anguished demise.
N. moved in with Beta and me, and is visibly relieved to be living in a clean house.)
Cleaning Other People's Houses
It's a good feeling to clean a friend's house. To see order emerge from seeming chaos. It's good for the friend for you to be there, both for moral support, and to shed some fresh perspective on the situation.
It's good to be able to look at a disaster area and say "Oh, we can fix this. Go get that empty bookshelf."
It's good to have the right tools from having cleaned your own house.
Me: "Why are all these shirts everywhere?"
Him: "I... I don't really have that many hangers."
Me: "Oh, well, I just cleaned out S------- (the name of another house). We now have a couple hundred plastic ones at my house. You can have, say, 50?"
Him: "Oh, I guess that would work."
Me: "Also, I'm bringing 409, Goo Gone, Windex, and Pledge. And my vacuum."
Him: "Ok.... *looks around* Oh my God, yes."
It's good to rediscover a floor.
It's good to be able to look at a disaster area and say "Oh, we can fix this. Go get that empty bookshelf."
It's good to have the right tools from having cleaned your own house.
Me: "Why are all these shirts everywhere?"
Him: "I... I don't really have that many hangers."
Me: "Oh, well, I just cleaned out S------- (the name of another house). We now have a couple hundred plastic ones at my house. You can have, say, 50?"
Him: "Oh, I guess that would work."
Me: "Also, I'm bringing 409, Goo Gone, Windex, and Pledge. And my vacuum."
Him: "Ok.... *looks around* Oh my God, yes."
It's good to rediscover a floor.
How to get rid of (more) books (and other things)
The short answer- be persistent.
When we move in a week or two, Beta and I are taking a single car-load with us, and so to prepare we have been cutting down on even more of our possessions.
Clothing was the easiest- for a few months now I've been using to hanger trick and so it was immediately clear what I hadn't been wearing. I also finally gave up on some of my old t-shirts, many of which have stretched or warped and just fit strangely.
DVDs were a little harder- I had to call not just used video stores but used music stores as well. For some reason, Los Angeles seems to have a dearth of used-whatever stores- we had to drive twenty miles to the DVD-buying place I finally found, and got $40 cash for our troubles, which was cool.
Comics were also easy- we went to Pulp Fiction and traded 15 or 16 used comics (half trade paperbacks, half manga) for 3 new trade paperbacks, which was sweet, though a little counter-productive (but totally worth it! DMZ: Blood in the Game FTW!)
Books, though. Oh my.
It really started with a lot of thinking and reading and writing. Only after talking over the issue in my head for a couple of hours could I really bring myself to make book-decisions and begin to cull things off my shelves.
I found two thoughts to guide me:
- "If there was a fire and this was all destroyed, would I replace this specific book?"
- "Five years down the road, is this book something Awesome Happy Future Me would own?"
I found, for maybe the first time in my life, that for a majority of my books, the answers were both NO.
I think that for a long time books were my security- I knew that if I forgot something, I could always go back to the source and look it up. They let me hang pieces of my brain on the outside.
But I'm not at that place any more. As I mentioned in my previous post, when I was culling books there were whole shelves devoted to subjects that just don't hold my interest any more- I've moved on. Most of what remains are: fiction series that I have read and re-read and plan to read and re-read again- old friends that always show me something new; books on urbanism (but not the ones I found un-instructive or boring or not worth reading twice); a few comics (also old friends); and just five Dungeons and Dragons books (I sold thirty such ones last year). It's about a quarter of the high-water-mark, and less than half of what Rigel and I brought to the condo.
We took them one place, which took two of our three boxes. They had a pretty sketchy store credit policy- you could only used credit for up to half of your transaction. As they were offering us $52 in store credit, I'd have to... buy $104 worth of used books? That seemed pretty much counter to my intention to get rid of books. I haggled with the owner, and got him to just trade for two barely-opened Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks, $40 to him but $70 retail! It was good.
The last box we took to another store the next day, and they bought five books for $6 cash, which was cool, but sort of a waste of time, as they took an hour to get around to us. Frustrated, we took the leavings (which were, weirdly, the nicest, least crappy-paperback-y of all the ones we were selling- urbanism textbooks, a few literary journals, some $14 paper-but-bigger-and-nicer-back sci fi, etc) to OPEN , just down the street from us, where they took everything and gave us store credit, which we plan on selling to someone on Craigslist for cash. OPEN was so plesant and such a well-lit, beautiful store, that I was almost happy just to give them the last few books- I knew it was a good home, or at least a pretty train station from which they would travel to good homes.
Weirdness pervaded the two days it took. What was most difficult was how long selling everything took- the whole process stretched out and gave me long periods of time to torture myself about how callous I was to push away so many words, and at such crappy prices.
It was also heart-breaking to enter so many used book stores- most of them seemed over-full and under-staffed. Apparently the recession is hitting the whole industry really hard- half of the places I called to ask were dead numbers of out-of-business stores, and another third weren't currently buying anything. All the open places were depressingly selective- they only seemed to want quick-selling paperbacks, while nicer-but-slower-selling tomes were shunned as short-term losses, even if they might be long-term gains.
But it's done, and despite the messiness of the operation, another weight has been lifted from my heart.
When we move in a week or two, Beta and I are taking a single car-load with us, and so to prepare we have been cutting down on even more of our possessions.
Clothing was the easiest- for a few months now I've been using to hanger trick and so it was immediately clear what I hadn't been wearing. I also finally gave up on some of my old t-shirts, many of which have stretched or warped and just fit strangely.
DVDs were a little harder- I had to call not just used video stores but used music stores as well. For some reason, Los Angeles seems to have a dearth of used-whatever stores- we had to drive twenty miles to the DVD-buying place I finally found, and got $40 cash for our troubles, which was cool.
Comics were also easy- we went to Pulp Fiction and traded 15 or 16 used comics (half trade paperbacks, half manga) for 3 new trade paperbacks, which was sweet, though a little counter-productive (but totally worth it! DMZ: Blood in the Game FTW!)
Books, though. Oh my.
It really started with a lot of thinking and reading and writing. Only after talking over the issue in my head for a couple of hours could I really bring myself to make book-decisions and begin to cull things off my shelves.
I found two thoughts to guide me:
- "If there was a fire and this was all destroyed, would I replace this specific book?"
- "Five years down the road, is this book something Awesome Happy Future Me would own?"
I found, for maybe the first time in my life, that for a majority of my books, the answers were both NO.
I think that for a long time books were my security- I knew that if I forgot something, I could always go back to the source and look it up. They let me hang pieces of my brain on the outside.
But I'm not at that place any more. As I mentioned in my previous post, when I was culling books there were whole shelves devoted to subjects that just don't hold my interest any more- I've moved on. Most of what remains are: fiction series that I have read and re-read and plan to read and re-read again- old friends that always show me something new; books on urbanism (but not the ones I found un-instructive or boring or not worth reading twice); a few comics (also old friends); and just five Dungeons and Dragons books (I sold thirty such ones last year). It's about a quarter of the high-water-mark, and less than half of what Rigel and I brought to the condo.
We took them one place, which took two of our three boxes. They had a pretty sketchy store credit policy- you could only used credit for up to half of your transaction. As they were offering us $52 in store credit, I'd have to... buy $104 worth of used books? That seemed pretty much counter to my intention to get rid of books. I haggled with the owner, and got him to just trade for two barely-opened Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks, $40 to him but $70 retail! It was good.
The last box we took to another store the next day, and they bought five books for $6 cash, which was cool, but sort of a waste of time, as they took an hour to get around to us. Frustrated, we took the leavings (which were, weirdly, the nicest, least crappy-paperback-y of all the ones we were selling- urbanism textbooks, a few literary journals, some $14 paper-but-bigger-and-nicer-back sci fi, etc) to OPEN , just down the street from us, where they took everything and gave us store credit, which we plan on selling to someone on Craigslist for cash. OPEN was so plesant and such a well-lit, beautiful store, that I was almost happy just to give them the last few books- I knew it was a good home, or at least a pretty train station from which they would travel to good homes.
Weirdness pervaded the two days it took. What was most difficult was how long selling everything took- the whole process stretched out and gave me long periods of time to torture myself about how callous I was to push away so many words, and at such crappy prices.
It was also heart-breaking to enter so many used book stores- most of them seemed over-full and under-staffed. Apparently the recession is hitting the whole industry really hard- half of the places I called to ask were dead numbers of out-of-business stores, and another third weren't currently buying anything. All the open places were depressingly selective- they only seemed to want quick-selling paperbacks, while nicer-but-slower-selling tomes were shunned as short-term losses, even if they might be long-term gains.
But it's done, and despite the messiness of the operation, another weight has been lifted from my heart.
"Stuff"
The few weeks mentioned in the last post became a few months. Beta and I moved in to the condo at the beginning of May. We are moving out at the end of June, headed back to Pittsburgh.
The Condo, though, is clean and painted and carpeted and beautiful. We made it ready to be used again, just not, apparently, by us.
I have learned many things in the past few months, and would like to relate a few of them:
1. You cannot change your stuff until it really is your stuff.
The biggest issue we had moving things around in the condo wasn’t actually deciding what to do with it. We had a good sense of what to keep, discard, donate, etc. The hardest part was having to convince other members of the extended family that that was the right move, that no, they didn’t need an extra coffee table, nor did anyone else in the family, and that a lot of this stuff could just be let go in some appropriate manner.
2. It is much easier to make decisions about stuff when you can see all of your stuff at once.
I never knew how many of my books I didn’t really want to own anymore until I sorted them into four giant book cases and said “Hmm. This is too many books.” Now that they are on the big shelves, I’ve organized them by subject, and as such the keep/donate decisions can be made in big batches- there are subjects I don’t really care for anymore, books I don’t really need around. Also, being able to see, say, all of the books on writing, all together, makes it much easier for me to pick the best one (to keep) and purge the rest.
3. You cannot sort other people’s things for them- they have to want it.
While cleaning the condo, I also helped Beta’s father clean out his garage, or start to. But there is only so much one can do to help sort other people’s stuff. The most I could do was set up the right bins (SHRED, THROW OUT, DONATE, KEEP) for things to be sorted into, write new labels on boxes and folders for keepable stuff, and then sit with him and keep him working through various piles. Yes, there was some verbal encouragement along the lines of “ten years from now are you really going to want that around?” and “if it means so much to you, why was it buried in the garage?” but I really did very little beyond provide the time and the means for organization- it was Beta’s dad who actually made all the decisions.
4. Storage Units are a trap.
If there is any single thing that makes “stuff” grow that thing is the modern storage unit. It’s an entropy-creator for a couple of reasons: it lets you own more things that you actually have room for in your life proper; it lets you hide how much stuff you own from your psyche; it has sufficient distance as to become a sort of unknown, and untreatable, undoable black hole of “things that I regret not honoring through use.”
5. History is right about “stuff.”
There have been few times in history where overabundance has been such a problem. Such abundance used to be a dream, but with modern production, machine labor, etc, it is now a reality, and a bit of a nightmare. Some of the most prominent thinkers in history were also the most Spartan, starting with the Spartans themselves. It is only the last few generations of Americans who have had this issue with the owning of too many things in a broad, general way. Yes, there have always been eccentrics with vast collections of objects, but now it is the rule, not the exception.
And unlike historical “stuff”- hand crafted, expensive, well-loved stuff, our “stuff” is processed, identical, non-unique. And yet we treasure it as if it was. Why? If it is all replaceable (although whether that idea is one worth building a society on is a whole other article,) why not replace it? Why hold on?
I think, when it comes down to it, the happiest people I know are the ones who do not own a lot, but what they do own is a) beautiful, b) unique, and c) honored through use. Some of the unhappiest people I know own a lot of stuff, most of it non-unique, and none of it used as often as it deserves to be.
We are gearing up now to move back to Pittsburgh, with under a car-load worth of things (no furniture, etc), so expect more soon on the cleaning end of things.
The Condo, though, is clean and painted and carpeted and beautiful. We made it ready to be used again, just not, apparently, by us.
I have learned many things in the past few months, and would like to relate a few of them:
1. You cannot change your stuff until it really is your stuff.
The biggest issue we had moving things around in the condo wasn’t actually deciding what to do with it. We had a good sense of what to keep, discard, donate, etc. The hardest part was having to convince other members of the extended family that that was the right move, that no, they didn’t need an extra coffee table, nor did anyone else in the family, and that a lot of this stuff could just be let go in some appropriate manner.
2. It is much easier to make decisions about stuff when you can see all of your stuff at once.
I never knew how many of my books I didn’t really want to own anymore until I sorted them into four giant book cases and said “Hmm. This is too many books.” Now that they are on the big shelves, I’ve organized them by subject, and as such the keep/donate decisions can be made in big batches- there are subjects I don’t really care for anymore, books I don’t really need around. Also, being able to see, say, all of the books on writing, all together, makes it much easier for me to pick the best one (to keep) and purge the rest.
3. You cannot sort other people’s things for them- they have to want it.
While cleaning the condo, I also helped Beta’s father clean out his garage, or start to. But there is only so much one can do to help sort other people’s stuff. The most I could do was set up the right bins (SHRED, THROW OUT, DONATE, KEEP) for things to be sorted into, write new labels on boxes and folders for keepable stuff, and then sit with him and keep him working through various piles. Yes, there was some verbal encouragement along the lines of “ten years from now are you really going to want that around?” and “if it means so much to you, why was it buried in the garage?” but I really did very little beyond provide the time and the means for organization- it was Beta’s dad who actually made all the decisions.
4. Storage Units are a trap.
If there is any single thing that makes “stuff” grow that thing is the modern storage unit. It’s an entropy-creator for a couple of reasons: it lets you own more things that you actually have room for in your life proper; it lets you hide how much stuff you own from your psyche; it has sufficient distance as to become a sort of unknown, and untreatable, undoable black hole of “things that I regret not honoring through use.”
5. History is right about “stuff.”
There have been few times in history where overabundance has been such a problem. Such abundance used to be a dream, but with modern production, machine labor, etc, it is now a reality, and a bit of a nightmare. Some of the most prominent thinkers in history were also the most Spartan, starting with the Spartans themselves. It is only the last few generations of Americans who have had this issue with the owning of too many things in a broad, general way. Yes, there have always been eccentrics with vast collections of objects, but now it is the rule, not the exception.
And unlike historical “stuff”- hand crafted, expensive, well-loved stuff, our “stuff” is processed, identical, non-unique. And yet we treasure it as if it was. Why? If it is all replaceable (although whether that idea is one worth building a society on is a whole other article,) why not replace it? Why hold on?
I think, when it comes down to it, the happiest people I know are the ones who do not own a lot, but what they do own is a) beautiful, b) unique, and c) honored through use. Some of the unhappiest people I know own a lot of stuff, most of it non-unique, and none of it used as often as it deserves to be.
We are gearing up now to move back to Pittsburgh, with under a car-load worth of things (no furniture, etc), so expect more soon on the cleaning end of things.
A Long Month
The move was successful. The last couple of days before it were pretty stressful, although I didn't quite realize that until our flight out to LA. I spent the next couple of days sleeping twelve or thirteen hours a day.
Beta's family in LA is pretty extensive, and also Mexican, so the holidays were one family gathering after another- I'm sure we managed to have every combination and permutation possible of branches from the family tree. Her family likes me pretty well- I think I'm the latest in a long line of helpful gringos. Or something like that.
The last week we finally started work on the condo. I might have spoken of it before. Maybe not. It... it is a mess. It was a mess. Beta's dad and his uncle put two solid weeks of ten hour days in clearing it out of trash and creepy moldy things, although there was still mold on nearly every surface. The past few days we've boxed nearly every remaining thing, Goodwill'd a lot of it, thrown out the really moldy stuff. We've cleaned nearly all of the furniture left, and for the past couple of days we've been painting.
Things left to do-
resurface the tile in the hallway, alcove, and kitchen
replace the refrigerator and dish washer
paint the bedroom, the bathroom, and the front alcove
replace the carpet in the living room and bedroom
fix a few different things (a kitchen drawer or two need to be restapled, the cabinets might need new handles)
All that time furniture and boxes need to be shuffled around, which is frustrating and time consuming.
It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
Beta's family in LA is pretty extensive, and also Mexican, so the holidays were one family gathering after another- I'm sure we managed to have every combination and permutation possible of branches from the family tree. Her family likes me pretty well- I think I'm the latest in a long line of helpful gringos. Or something like that.
The last week we finally started work on the condo. I might have spoken of it before. Maybe not. It... it is a mess. It was a mess. Beta's dad and his uncle put two solid weeks of ten hour days in clearing it out of trash and creepy moldy things, although there was still mold on nearly every surface. The past few days we've boxed nearly every remaining thing, Goodwill'd a lot of it, thrown out the really moldy stuff. We've cleaned nearly all of the furniture left, and for the past couple of days we've been painting.
Things left to do-
resurface the tile in the hallway, alcove, and kitchen
replace the refrigerator and dish washer
paint the bedroom, the bathroom, and the front alcove
replace the carpet in the living room and bedroom
fix a few different things (a kitchen drawer or two need to be restapled, the cabinets might need new handles)
All that time furniture and boxes need to be shuffled around, which is frustrating and time consuming.
It's going to be a long couple of weeks.
A Good Day
When I got home for Thanksgiving my parents too seemed to have caught the cleaning bug. The house was a lot emptier, a lot more serene, than it had been. My early christmas gift to them, they informed me, was to be the elimination of at least one, hopefully three or four or all, of my boxes of stuff in the garage.
My mind flashed back to packing those very boxes, five years ago. Books, I remembered, lots of books.
A digression: My parents are, shall we say, not poor. They might be rich- they probably are rich- but they don't act rich, and I never grew up thinking we were rich. But they are comfortable, and they do have discretionary income, although I rarely see them spend it.
I have, however, seen them spend it on books. Many times in my childhood would we venture to the bookstore and leave with armfuls.
I was a voracious reader in high school and middle school. In college most of that appetite was channeled towards assigned reading. Looking up now, I have four half-read books on my shelf, and two more in my bag. The habit has definitely stuck.
I think my parents logic went something like this: reading is a very good habit, and something we want to encourage Connor to do. He should probably be reading good books. If he picks his own books, he will pick crap for a while, but eventually he will start picking good books. But giving him good books is not as good as him picking them out himself. To increase the aggregate total of good books read over time, we should let him a) pick his own books, and b) let him pick a lot of books.
Given this, the logical thing to do was to take me and my sister to a bookstore pretty often and let us go nuts. They could, so they did.
And now we find me pulling huge boxes of generally bad but occasionally good science fiction and fantasy out of my garage.
It took less than thirty minutes to sort through three boxes of them. Everything went except for a) five books that were not actually mine and b) a signed copy of the un-utterably terrible Dune: House Harkonnen, kept because of the inscription:
"To Connor, who knows so much about the Dune Universe"
to which I always want to append: "From Brian Herbert, who knows so little about the Dune Universe"
The other two hundred books we took, along with two Ikea bags of books my parents also intended to not own, to a used book store, and sold them.
The store (BookBuyers, which is an awesome place that everyone in the bay area should visit) remaindered a half-box, and took the rest for two thirds store credit, one third cash. We are going to sell the store credit on Craigslist, or maybe the KGB board (all those googlers must love books!)
It was a good day.
My mind flashed back to packing those very boxes, five years ago. Books, I remembered, lots of books.
A digression: My parents are, shall we say, not poor. They might be rich- they probably are rich- but they don't act rich, and I never grew up thinking we were rich. But they are comfortable, and they do have discretionary income, although I rarely see them spend it.
I have, however, seen them spend it on books. Many times in my childhood would we venture to the bookstore and leave with armfuls.
I was a voracious reader in high school and middle school. In college most of that appetite was channeled towards assigned reading. Looking up now, I have four half-read books on my shelf, and two more in my bag. The habit has definitely stuck.
I think my parents logic went something like this: reading is a very good habit, and something we want to encourage Connor to do. He should probably be reading good books. If he picks his own books, he will pick crap for a while, but eventually he will start picking good books. But giving him good books is not as good as him picking them out himself. To increase the aggregate total of good books read over time, we should let him a) pick his own books, and b) let him pick a lot of books.
Given this, the logical thing to do was to take me and my sister to a bookstore pretty often and let us go nuts. They could, so they did.
And now we find me pulling huge boxes of generally bad but occasionally good science fiction and fantasy out of my garage.
It took less than thirty minutes to sort through three boxes of them. Everything went except for a) five books that were not actually mine and b) a signed copy of the un-utterably terrible Dune: House Harkonnen, kept because of the inscription:
"To Connor, who knows so much about the Dune Universe"
to which I always want to append: "From Brian Herbert, who knows so little about the Dune Universe"
The other two hundred books we took, along with two Ikea bags of books my parents also intended to not own, to a used book store, and sold them.
The store (BookBuyers, which is an awesome place that everyone in the bay area should visit) remaindered a half-box, and took the rest for two thirds store credit, one third cash. We are going to sell the store credit on Craigslist, or maybe the KGB board (all those googlers must love books!)
It was a good day.
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