Lack of shelvage

I love books! Spent the day trying to clear the piles of books that have accumulated around the house. Why do I never have enough book shelves? I just bought two from Ikea, but it's still not enough, and K wasn't crazy about even those. I've been sorting them out too, trying to classify them into groups that mean something to me, so that I might be able to find them in the future. So far, in vague volume order, I've got:

• S.F. (by far the largest group)
• Non-S.F. fiction
• Space history
• Non-space history
• Popular Science
• Software textbooks
• Humour (Mostly Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert and Peanuts)
  
• Non-computer textbooks
• Travel (I'm not sure about this one - but where else to put Bill Bryson?)
• Philosophy & religion
• Other (all kinds of rubbish in here)

Sometimes it's hard to find where a book should go. Perhaps the bin beckons for Erich von Daniken? K reckons I have too many books. Maybe I should instigate a policy of chucking out a book before I buy a new one. Mentioned this to WTH before xmas - he thought I was crazy. I need a huge 'wall shelf' like he has, but good solid walls are few and far between in our house.

Why Now

When I was a child I kept a diary. As I recall, it was a pretty poor diary, more a list of what I ate and watched on TV then any profound insight into what I felt about my life. I wish I had written more about how I felt, so that I could go back and get inside the head of my younger self.

Memory is fickle, I don't trust it. As I get older it seems to be the act of remembering that I remember, rather than actual events themselves. A sort of second-hand memory.

I've been meaning to start keeping a diary again for at least the last ten years, but never quite managed to get around to it. I always think that what I am thinking about right now is dull, and not worth recording. Well, maybe that's the case, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. I turned 40 this year, I'm starting to feel old, the kids are growing up fast, and my life appears to be changing whether I want it too or not. If I can keep it up and write about what I'm feeling, it will give my future self the opportunity to look into the past that I wish I had today.