More boxes of notes, pictures, ideas, writing, ephemera, souvenirs. Juvenalia. I read, and unlike other batches I'm not so surprised at occasional insight or brilliance, it's all garbage. Rip-it-up, rip-it-up.
I am surprised by the newspaper clippings. Interesting, yellowed, fading, from before the internet, when the entire media wasn't controlled by 1 or 2 giant outlets, and I'm pleased by the remembrance of newspapers worth reading. These I can pass on.
Time now to start in on the books...
The last 3 days, they've been a tear, I've been going through everything, sorting, piling, counting, inventorying, taking - to the e-cycle (e waste, old computers, cell-phones), to the thrift shop, to the garbage, to buyers from Kijiji...
Now to the books. The first pass, 80% gone - there's something sacred about books - this, this, it's a castration of sorts, but not, they are eaten, somewhere inside me now, and even if I can't remember they're there. I make a list, take pictures of the teetering stacks that are going, there will be a few trips I'm sure. The first pass, 80% of the books go, I could let them all go, 1 pass, just let them go, but - I need a map of where I've been. And maybe I'll need to stop here again.
I take them to "Fair's Fair" - the only used bookstore in town, a couple dozen boxes, the only used bookstore in a city of a million people. What does that say? My God...
And they don't do cash for books on weekdays, only weekends, and so they'll all hang in the car until Friday. Meanwhile I review the authors, make lists to ensure I don't pass this way again, I've read them all, I don't need credit on books, I've in my possession a hundred, easily, yet to read, and Calgary, well, it's not such a literate town, I've searched here time and again, they've nothing I need, nothing I haven't read...
3 days of busy, today - less productive, my regimes, early in the morning - meditation, etc: I've lapsed, but I'm far enough along that I repent it. The car is filled with books, I can't get to the locker, not properly, not fill the car, but - now - it's just the living room, half of which is a mess, and I've only a month to go - if I can make it - before my life is under control. 2 months and I'll be a Zen God. So hold my breath, rip-it-up, empty the trash, everything will be fine.