january's not all that

I have decided that January is a stupid month for me to start anything new or make any resolutions beyond ones like "hey, I should have more fun!" With that in mind, I have been trying to do things I've been meaning to do when I think of them, rather than filing them away to do in The Future, or Starting On New Year's. One of these projects is The Perilous Pile of Books. I have had books and art supplies double stacked in front of one set of book cases for I don't know how long. As is the way of these things, clothes and shoes get mixed in. It was getting dangerous and I could never find anything except for the frayed ends of my temper. Once Nano was done, I decided that this was something that should be addressed sooner, rather than later. Today was day two. It's been going surprisingly well. Piles of books I bought from the Title Wave have finally been culled and sorted. Just because it was a only quarter and I found it diverting 13 years ago does not mean I have to keep it. It's not only been easier than I thought it would be, it has actually been fun. I am feeling an unfamiliar sense of liberation by getting rid of stuff! I will never be a minimalist, I will never only have decorator-approved books that are all the same size in graduated colors - but I'll be damned if I have to keep a bunch of lightweight mysteries that I never enjoyed that much to start with - or ponderous biographies of authors I've never read. By tomorrow I should have room for everything again AND a little room to grow on. Right On! And I'll take the books back to the Title Wave or Goodwill and some other reader/sucker can enjoy them.

In the spirit of things that are good and right with the world - you should (if you are so inclined) click on over to Said The Gramophone. Sean has posted his 22 favorite songs of 2005, and provided mp3's for all of them. I am listening to this playlist right now, and it is great! I have to say, some of his write ups make me as happy as the songs do - go now and celebrate 2005 Gramophone-style.

Also fun is manybooks.net, which has "free ebooks for your PDA or iPod." I haven't actually downloaded any from here but I like that they are available. Here's one for you, Martina. I know there are many other sites that do this, but I hadn't heard of this one before today and it looks pretty nice.