Update(s)

[trouble]

I keep posting things with the intention of posting them locked and then forgetting. This is not clever.

Getting Rid of All The Things Update


This week was very successful in Getting Rid Of All The Clothes. Our closet is neat and organized, and there is less stuff in it. We've put all the costuming in our costume box, and it fits on the top shelf. We've got all our really nice things that we're unlikely to wear in the next six months or so carefully stored in a suitcase and the suitcase is stored in the closet. We've got all our bedding sorted, and all the stained bedding is going to the Kitty Hospital (thank you for that suggestion, basking_lizard!) while the unstained bedding is either in use or on shelves, or in the laundry basket. I sorted through all my nice clothes that don't fit and divided them into "wearable and thus going to the Shelter" and "stained and thus going into the scrap bag". I have a box full of rags and other related things, some of which I am probably just going to toss.

Don has all of the above sorted for him as well, plus we each have a small pile of clothes that we will try on when it's not so damned hot. If they fit, awesome. If they don't, they're going out the door.

I was always sort of aware that the closet-clutter bothered me, but not really how much. I feel so much calmer. Plus, in the process of sorting through everything one of the pairs of pants I bought when I first got back to Halifax two years ago was found, and they fit, are unstained, and have no holes, which makes them the only pair of pants I own right now that satisfy all three of those requirements. WIN!



This week's target is going through the books. The booksale to support Feed Nova Scotia is still a go, and since I am somehow involved in this now (?), if you live in Halifax and want to donate your books to be sold for some small amount of money, which would then go to Feed Nova Scotia, then please let me know. (I think all remaining books will be recycled, since I confirmed the recycling people will take books. If that's something you find distasteful, let me know so I can hold on to them if they don't sell.)

I'm going through a lot of my books right now and sorting them into four "stacks".

Stack 1 is "Previous Library Books That Were Rejected From The Library And Are Not Sell-able and I Don't Really Want". Some of them are textbooks that are decades out of date. Some of them are just odd books I picked up for the title. I may see if anyone wants them for making Book Art out of, actually, but I cannot imagine that "hardcover book that no one is reading anymore" is a hard type of book to get ahold of. Anyway, Stack 1 is probably going to go straight into recycling if I can't think of something else to do with them quickly.

Stack 2 is "Stuff that I am going to want easy access to in the next six months". This are all history books, some of them even books I have managed to read. Right now they are all over the damned house, and hopefully soon they will be on one bookshelf right next to my desk, so I can actually reference them occasionally.

Stack 3 is "Books that should go to the Sale". I will probably list any of these books someplace before they go, so if someone wants them they can have them for free. YAY BOOKS. (This is how umadoshi will get my copy of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.)

Stack 4 is "Books that can go on the Other Bookshelf". This category makes perfect sense to me.

The goal is to have this sorted NO LATER THAN September 5, because the book sale is September 9th. I'm going to see if I can convince them to have another one in January, though.


And that is where things are now. I'm very content.

Here are some links to things:
meloukhia sent me this: Titanium, from A Very Official Blog By An Expert: Infoes You Can Trust. I expect reference papers to come in any day now with links to this blog.

oursin's linkspams always have interesting stuff. Here is the latest (or at least it was the latest when I opened it, who knows by now). Oursin is awesome and lovely, and my one goal in this lifetime is to host a Histor-tea at WisCon so I can have tea with her and some other people.

Check out Susanna Fraser's website, which, as the ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books pointed out, is the best author website ever.

Speaking of which, The Politics of Desert Romances is up at Teach Me Tonight, which is an academic blog that writes about romance novels. This particular entry is about the tropes and the like in Desert Sheik Romance Novels. I found it a bit more readable than some of their other academic stuff. (This is likely because I am not an English Graduate Student, and I don't have time to read romance novels anymore, woe.)

I recently started reading the Paladin Advocacy Blog, which I only learned of when they started following my history-based twitter account [@historyagenda - it is very dull and full of occasional love poems to Archivists]. (No, I don't know why that one and not my one where I actually talk about disability advocacy. But I'm not objecting.) Their agenda is:

Lack of effective public policy and political will has allowed Canadian institutions at all levels to deny Canadians with disabilities equal access to full citizenship as guaranteed in our Charter. Despite what our politicians tell us and the rest of the world, systemic discrimination is an everyday reality in Canada for most of us living with a disability.

The way to right this wrong is through real advocacy, political will and law.

The Paladin Advocacy League ( PAL ) is a recently formed, not-for-profit society which advocates for public policy changes which will provide Canadians with disabilities equal access to the equality provisions of our Charter. Actions speak louder than words.

They're updating a bit sporadically right now, so I don't know how long-term they will be.

Honestly, I can't wait for classes to start up again, if for no other reason than the library will be open till midnight again. I need my evening study space, damn it!