I’m always so grateful that I don’t like cheesecake because I don’t have to worry about the calories. By the same token, I am grateful that I stopped reading Joyce Carol Oates years ago so I don't feel guilty about not keeping up. She is far too prolific; she’s impossible to keep up with. I decided, after reading 50 pages of Jonathan Friesen’s first book, Connections, that I didn’t want to read any more of him, so I haven’t. And after all this time and my steadfast devotion, I have outgrown Margaret Atwood and anyway, she doesn’t need me. Oh, and remember The Luminaries, the GG Award Winner a few years ago? There was some argument whether Eleanor Caton (I’ll check her name in a minute…it’s Catton, and the book was published in 2013)…whether she qualified as a Canadian. Qualfiied or not, she wrote too big a book for me to commit myself to: eight hundred and some pages. Life is too short and I have work of my own to attend to.

It’s very freeing to make these decisions or to have them made for me. I read a review recently that began, “DAMN. Another writer I have to care about,” and I know how the reviewer felt. The writer’s name is Lawrence Osborne (I never head of him either) and the book, fortunately, is fairly small - 257 pages - “The Ballad of a Small Player,” published in 2014. I suppose I have to check out the reviewer, too; his name is Tom Shone and he’s also a novelist.

This is what has happened since I decided to catch up on my clippings. The follow-up is going to kill me - financially, at least. I have a whole long list of books I have to order and read.

Why not the library, you ask? For too much of my life, at different times, I lived geographically distant from a library and I got used to owning books. Then, too, as a writer, I feel that fellow writers deserve their royalties, as I do mine. Too often, at readings, I have had an enthusiastic fan say to me, “I love your book and I lend it to all my friends.” The best I can manage as response to that is a bleak smile. So I buy books. Besides, I mark them up. This is not called defacement, it’s marginalia.

But there is so much to own and read, SO MUCH, out there, and I am on a pretty fixed income now. I am going to have to seek out the TPL (Toronto Public Library). There's one within walking distance from where I live now. The walk will do my Fitbit good.

Years ago now I looked at all the cookbooks I owned and continued to buy and realised that if I started cooking from them from that moment on until I died I would never cover all the recipes. So I stopped buying cookbooks and reduced the number I had. Of course, now I own a thousand dollar (plus) cookbook on the net and I check it when I have food I want to use up or am curious about (epi-curious?). I still cook and explore and try new recipes or combinations every week, but I do not buy cookbooks. I still cope with leftovers, and I’m still making up things to do with them. (My first cookbook was about leftovers: Encore: The Leftovers Cookbook, McClelland & Stewart, 1975, I think.)

I’m careful, too, about paper clips. I need paper clips, like them better than staples, use a lot, but I own too many. But I’m still using a lot of paper because i like hard copy. Also when I’m working on a new project, I like to see what I’ve written - to mark it up and make notes. I print subsequent drafts on different coloured paper so I’ll know which generation I’m working on.

I’ve made a list of projects and ideas i’d like to write/explore and I’m going to offer it /them in a reading or workshop for others to carry on with because I have more ideas than I have time left to fulfil them. But I’m still drowning in a sea of paper. l’ve been going through clippings and reviews and essays and stuff with the intent to clear space and tidy up my life and mind. This is not easy. I like cluttering up my mind. I used to say "My mind to me a playground is.” At least now that I have a blog I can diffuse the clutter.

Be my guest.