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 Some of them are textbooks that are decades out of date.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!

Comments

[oursin]

Awwwwwww, *blush*

There are various plans afoot which may mean that I get to Canada later this year/sometime next (as well as my usual trip to Wiscon), though the plans so far are rather distant from where you are. However, should you know anyone in your institution or others who might be interested in sponsoring visit from biographer of woman who was born and brought up in Halifax in the 1880s (since I doubt my publishers are going to run to promotion tours)....

[trouble]

I might at that. We have a graduate student conference every year. Last year we flew in someone from Vancouver. Despite being all the way in the UK, you're closer. Hmmm.......

[umadoshi]

(Psst! ysabet isn't me. ^_-)

Sounds like excellent progress all 'round!

[trouble]

Ack, usually I remember that! :)

I have a list of books that I'm getting rid of and I will happily give you and scruloose first dibs, but my reviews are basically "This book is bad and you should feel bad for looking at it." Not really appealing.

[umadoshi]

Can't hurt to take a look!

[trouble]

Non-Fiction:

Lynne Truss. "Eats Shoots & Leaves". It's a grammar book. I'm told it's got errors. I found it really approachable and it explained semi-colons to me. I'm only disposing of it because I haven't opened it since Edinburgh.


Chick Lit:

Karen Quinn. "Wife in the Fast Lane". Standard chick-lit fare with bonus random racisim and omg! sexual women are bad.

Nisha Minhas. "Chapatti or Chips?". OH MY GOD GET THIS BOOK OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE I READ IT AGAIN. It is the most sexist piece of shit chick-lit I have ever read, and I have read a *lot* of chick-lit. Seriously. (Yes, this will tempt you.) The only things that stand out about this book to me are that the main character is Indian living in London, and it talks about issues around arranged marriages. It just does it *poorly*. ARG I HATE THIS BOOK. I read it because I hate it, and then I get angry and stompy for weeks afterwards, TAKE IT AWAY.


Historic Fiction:

Bernard Cornwell. "Azincourt". Don described it as everything you'd expect from a Cornwell novel but not as interesting.

Alexandre Dumas. "The Man in the Iron Mask". We're going to replace this with an eBook at some point.

Jack Whyte. "The Singing Sword". Pre-Athurian. Uther's parents getting married, Don thinks. Or maybe Merlin's. Part of a series.

Jack Whyte. "The Eagels' Brood". Growing up years of Merlin and Uther. Next in the series of the one above.


Fantasy:

Jim Butcher. "Furies of Calderon". I'm told this is a popular series but it bored me. Standard fantasy fare. Obligatory rape scene.

Jennifer Robertson. "Sword Sworn: The Final Novel of Tiger & Del". Fairly standard fantasy fare, although Del is an awesome female character. You can read this without having read the rest of the series, as I haven't, only a scattering of the short stories that Robertson had in MZB's S&S anthologies back in the day. I remember enjoying it, but not enough to re-read.

Tolkien, J.R.R. "The Silmarillion". I don't like Tolkien. Someone in this household got as far as page 32.

Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis. "1634: The Galileo Affair". Modern-day characters sent back to historical period to wreck havok. These books are popular. I'm not sure why.

Philip Jose Farmer. "To Your Scattered Bodies Go". Don describes this as "weird fantasy". It looks like it came out during that time when it made perfect sense to write books about your mind-connection with your dragon, or about the colour of her panties. If you don't get either of these references, I envy you. That was a weird time in fantasy.

Guy Gavriel Kay. "Ysabel." I'm *so* over GGK. I got about 50 pages into this and by then was really really bored.


"Literature" for lack of a better term:

Amy Tan. "The Hundred Secret Senses". I never got into this. I like Tan's other stuff.


Something I Think is "New Age":

David C. Korten. "The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community." I don't even know where this came from, and have never read it. From the back: "Empire is not the natural order of things - we can turn away from it. Korten draws an evidence from sources as varied as evolutionary theroy, developmental psychology, and religious teachings to make the case that 'earth community' - a life centered egalitarian sustainable way of ordering human society based on democractic principals of partnership - is indeed possible." No idea what that means.

[umadoshi]

I'd be interested in the Tiger and Del novel. ^^ I read several of them ages ago, and I don't think I ever read the last one (or two?).

[trouble]

Awesome! I shall pull it out of the bag. :)

[yhibiki]

Ooh, thanks for linking the Desert Romance article, that was fairly interesting. Towards the end they start talking about the misconceptions people have about Arab women, and it actually reminds me of something that happened in my high school french class.

One of the exams had a passage from a Moroccan novel, featuring a woman interacting with her two sons (one of whom was a bit of a momma's boy). Unfortunately, thanks to a) the passage being in a foreign language, and b) all of the stereotypes we applied to the text, everybody in the class assumed this woman was being subjugated and that her son was very obviously treating his mother like dirt. The teacher (German woman married to an Arab man), was kind of very disappointed with us, and wondered why we all assumed that this woman wasn't happy to be with her family. :X

[trouble]

I think this sort of fiction has really impacted how people view the Arab world. :(

[bcholmes]

This is superficial, I know, but I just want to say "Icon loooooove".

[trouble]

You can nab it if you want! The credit is listed on my icons page!

[rainbow]

Woohoo, go you on the things!! and on everything else, too :) <3

[trouble]

:) We are really well organized on this getting rid of things thing. It's kind scary.

[laughingrat]

equal access to full citizenship

That is a gorgeous phrase. Very succinct but packed with import.

That is probably the most fun author website ever, and oddly, it kind of makes me want to try that book.

[trouble]

Me too, on both parts.

[(Anonymous)]

税金、やっぱりお支払いしないとだめみたい。
ほんとこまった。。。。。
たすけてるるりん。

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I am very, very impressed with your organizational and stuff-eliminating skills!

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Don and I actually have a meeting on Sunday and *set goals for the week*, can you believe it?

[firynze.livejournal.com]

DUDE. That's...incredible and awesome. Also insane. Good way of doing it!

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

It actually works out really well so we're both totally on the same page. We sort out what we've both done the week before, make a list of tasks we individually have to complete, and set goals for the up coming week. We talk about whatever appointments are coming up, and then we menu plan.

All over tea and cookies, of course.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I love this plan.

[king-of-light.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about clutter generating a kind of low-level "bothering" buzz. I get really antsy after a few days of laundry not being folded, and the closet mess...always makes me want to toss things.
The nice thing is that Mandy (our roommate) is a de-cluttering queen! She's coached us thru tossing alot of stuff, donating a ton of others things and generally saying NO! to more stuff.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

Everything I hear about her makes me think she is very awesome. :)