things I love

When I get email from friends, and my name is the only ethnic incongruity. Such as, all Mahmoud's friends' names are "Alsoud" and "Batayny" and "Salem" and "Zayati" etc. - all very clearly Middle Eastern.

And then there's me.

Or when I get email from Gail and all the recipients's last names are "Chu" and "Yuen" and "Lau" and so forth. And then there's me. Gotta love it.

I have three bookshelves full of books. Goal: read and get rid of them all.

But how can I? Well, there are intermediate steps - such as taking all my No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books to Shirley this morning, who loves Rooibos tea, and saying vaguely, "I might want them back someday ..."

Others are much easier to get rid of - just need to be read and passed along.

But what about Swedish poetry? German children's stories? Russian songs? Meaningful gifts given to me by people - such as The Cloister Walk by fundamentalist roommate Trish, or The Wind in the Willows at my birth from mother's college roommate?

These things have I loved and still do.

Well, maybe that's the rule. If I've looked at them in the past five years, they're keepers. Anything else is gone.

Then there are the books that mean something to me that are out of print - such as one that has a chapter about my friend Andy. Or another about teaching in an Eskimo village. If I get rid of them, I may never be able to replace them.

And what about all my school books? To replace them will cost a small fortune - at $40/book average, and about 70 books ... well, that's almost $3,000 worth of books. Yikes.

But that's just money. The markings in them are valuable too, especially if I continue studies in education. Hm.

Things are never so easy. I just want to clear out and move on. But things linger.