Let the diet start tomorrow 'cause tonight I'll drown my sorrow

It's kind of belated, but so is everything I do these days. I just don't have the time I need for everything I mean to do. But I have started making attacks on the collections of stuff that I have, in order to squeeze it down to an amount that won't overwhelm my ability to move stuff out to Lansing, and also won't overwhelm bunny_hugger's house as it becomes our house.

Part of this has been figuring out what books I don't need. This I've been doing in pieces. The books I have in the house --- my room, actually --- I've been taking off the shelves as I decide that I'm not likely to refer back to them and I'm not likely to reread them. I've been trying to make an effort to take one or two books off the shelf every time I pass, and I do pass a lot.

Over the weekend I also took time to go into my storage locker and figure what I can get rid of. I've been trying to do this by snap decisions, on the grounds that if I look at something I'll realize, oh, yes, I got this amusing little poster of every United States astronaut to then-date at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Space Week, when I chatted with Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison H Schmitt and he autographed a Peanuts book for me (ask about that sometime) and spaceroo was there and had fun too and how could I part with this ... well, you see where that goes.

By the way, if anyone wants miscellaneous paperback science fiction books --- in miscellaneous order, apart from the 1980s/early 90s Star Trek novels bought new and in mint condition --- let me know and I'll ship you a box full. No promises about the contents; they show signs of having been alphabetized once upon a time, but not strongly.

(This is not a solicitation for advice on how to throw things out.)

Trivia: On returning to Moscow after his orbit, Yuri Gagarin arrived at Vnukuvo Airport, there to meet Krushchev, members of the Council of Ministers, and other noteworthy persons, at the other end of a thick orange carpet. Source: This New Ocean: The Story Of The First Space Age, William E Burrows. (It sounds like the carpeting in an early 70s passenger lounge on a 747 to me. Were the Soviets really short on red carpets at the time?)

Currently Reading: Discipline and Punish: The Birth Of The Prison, Michael Foucault.