Woke up from a recurring dream cycle at 4:30 this morning and my brain immediately snapped to attention, went into high gear, and refused to let me slip back into sleep. Sigh. But it’s just given me a few good decluttering ideas — what I optimistically call the guest room (well, there’s a bed in there someplace); the piles of photographs, books, and artwork in the living room; and the room I refer to as “The Room” (pronounced Thee Room”).

But first, an epiphany. If I refer to my bedroom as “my library”, I’ve immediately, for all practical purposes, decluttered it. There’s almost no floor space; it’s all taken up by piles of books, boxes of papers, stacks of magazines, letter files, the 60-odd plus 3-ring binders of The Archives, and tote bags and boxes of photographs, and the Bob Nilson drawings I’m cataloging…all more or less organized. It’s also got two walls of bookcases and several smaller bookcases. It’s majorly cluttered as a bedroom… But it’s more or less normal for a library.

So, as of right now, 5:34 a.m. on Saturday, April 13, 2024, I’m officially sleeping in my library.