It’s now the time of year in which storms are on a nodding acquaintance. They come in uninvited, stay for a bit, then depart as quickly as they came. I was working in the book cave at the Meeting House – the one window, to the rear of the open room, is now nearly covered with a snowdrift. I could not tell what it was like outside.

At 2:00 p.m., or thereabouts (I didn’t have a watch), I finished up, climbed the stairs, then opened the door. Much to my surprise it was snowing heavily. It was wet, heavy snow. If it had been a bit colder and windier, I would have kissed my very sorry ass goodbye. Instead, I went back to work.

I am finding that working exclusively upstairs or downstairs is the most efficient use of my time. Today, of course, I worked downstairs. I mainly categorized the nonfiction books – it’s a tedious task, made more onerous by the fact that some nonfiction fits into multiple categories. If I had a box for all the subcategories and sub- subcategories, I would need to have a warehouse to store the boxes in. For example, there are crafts and there are holiday crafts. I finally combined the two boxes and wrote crafts/holiday crafts.

And what am I to do with a combination fiction book, one that’s Romance/Alaskana/Christmas? I ended up stashing it in one of the three Christmas cupboards.

There were some books that defied categorization – I don’t even remember what these titles might be. I ended up putting them on bookshelf in what is still being called the Democrats room. Their stuff is piled up, under, and alongside a table. I sent an email to the group that meets for a monthly dinner, suggesting that perhaps they might want to go through the archival material, but they have not yet gotten back to me. I doubt that they will. Out of sight, out of mind.

I was still sick – but I could not leave books all over because by tomorrow afternoon there are going to be more coming in.

Almost all the little kids books are gone.

It’s really too early to determine what is to become of the Palmer Public Library or the library books. Because these kinds of decisions involve many political figures, some with competing views about things, one being the importance of a library in Palmer; it is going to be quite a while before any decisions are made about what to do with the library and what to do about the books.

I talked with a few people about what happened, and the consensus was that the loss of library use, and time is one thing, that it was a town gathering place is another. Betty, who cuts my hair, said that it was too bad that Bright Lights doesn’t have a reading room.

I have since been thinking about possible reading room options – all I have been able to come up with is Klondike Mike’s Bar.

We’ll see. I need to give the matter more thought.

Next: 49. 2/18/23: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius