And, for the record, I have a lot of books, many of which I'd almost forgotten I owned. Naturally, upon reencountering a volume of this variety, I tended to decide I couldn't possibly leave such-and-such at home, never mind that it'd been collecting dust under my bed since sophomore year. Which is why my collection of college-bound books is still a trifle...intimidating.

Organization really was part of the plan. Initially, anyway. I swore not to bring anything I would probably be able to find in the campus library, that I would stick to packing books made valuable by other merits. Rarity, in some cases (where else am I going to find a dictionary of Gaelic swear words?), or translation (I'm convinced my Baudelaire is the most decently done job on the planet), etc.

So much for that, at any rate. Not only did I not take into account the aforementioned euphoria of rediscovery, but also the fact that a lot of my a favorite writers are extraordinarily verbose. This, then, is why I have an enormous Rubbermaid underbed box and two backpacks filled with nothing but books. There's Les Mis, naturally, because I refuse to abandon my gloriously dogeared brick. And there's Monte Cristo, because it took me eons to finally find the really and truly unabridged edition. Oh, and Louise, since it took forever to find that one too. And The Unauthorized Version; that has to come. And my big mythology books, except Campbell and Bullfinch; those'd better be available on campus... and the Toulouse book from Mao (or mao, if you will; she's gone the way of e.e. cummings), and Neil Gaiman, por supuesto; he's a great guy to have around, which is more than I can say for most of the gender, and Torey Hayden, and the book on the evolution of prisons, and Voltaire, and that Victorian true crime novel about the nurse who starved her patients, and, and, and.

Right. And so on from there. The parental units are going to raise some eyebrows, methinks, no matter how winningly I inform them I'm leaving my three beloved Ecos at the house.

But till then... Foucault’s Pendulum happened to be one of the dust-collecting items I found under my dresser. Might as well head off and read it before inspection time rolls around.

Adieu.