Also my leather jacket.

I hung my great big wood mirror on the empty wall of my bedroom. It’s centered, and level, but it’s lower than I’d like—but it’s so heavy that there’s no way I could get it any higher.

I hung the two little column-capital-shaped shelves on either side, and put the Death statue on one of them. I can’t imagine what I could put on the other, really. They have yet to come out with a Sandman statue I really like.

I unpacked three boxes of books and distributed them between my room, Lin’s room, Max’s room, and the basement.

I unpacked the last two duffel bags of clothes, and still did not find the black tuxedo jacket I plan to wear to Angela’s wedding on Sunday. Drat.

I pried the piece of wood with the house numbers off the front of the house. I ripped off the old house numbers and painted the piece of wood with three coats of flat black exterior paint, which matches the shutters well enough. I put new brushed nickel (matches the door hardware) house numbers on it. I remounted it to the front of the house with epoxy putty. I feel like I already told you this, but I didn’t, at least not online, that I can see anywhere.

I forgot to pay Angie on Monday and she cleaned the house anyway.

I ordered new checks. From Wal-Mart, online, which it turns out is dirt cheap.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wallace14-2008sep14,0,7461856.story

Why is it that when someone whose work, or whose life, I admired decides to stop the work by taking the life, I feel angry? It isn’t the first time, but it’s the first time in a long time, that I’ve been as angry as I am now. I’m sitting here in tears at not having any more David Foster Wallace in the world.

I went and saw The Dark Knight on the IMAX screen at the Air and Space Museum tonight, mostly because the 9:45 show at the regular theater seemed too late (the IMAX show was at 9:15), and I was amazed at the way—makeup or no makeup—Heath Ledger disappeared into that role. And I wondered, not for the first time since he died, whether he died on purpose. I like to think he didn’t, that it was an accident, but of course we’ll never know, and that’s good. Because at least we can choose to believe that he didn’t throw it away.

David Foster Wallace fucking threw it away. That’s just how I see it. And it makes me angry.

This is a link to my current book list (which, I just realized, it being past July 17, is now outdated and should say “year twelve”).

This is a link to my first book list, which I started on July 17, 1996. You will notice that the first book on that list—meaning the last book I read in the Year One—was Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

I gave Infinite Jest a five, on a scale of one to five. It was the third book I gave a five on first reading; all the other fives in the Year One, except Another Roadside Attraction and A Prayer for Owen Meany, were books I’d read before and loved.

I always planned to read Infinite Jest again. I saved my notes from it (you need notes). I always knew where the book was, and for years it was on one of those shelves that hold things that could fit properly just fine on “normal” shelves, but things that seem different somehow, like they don’t belong with the “normal” books and should be held separately, perhaps for fear the other books taint them with a lack of greatness and blinding beauty. Books like Little, Big, The Neverending Story, The Golden Compass, The Virgin Suicides, and Winter’s Tale. Books like Jitterbug Perfume, Skinny Legs and All, and Still Life with Woodpecker, because David Foster Wallace was almost as good as Tom Robbins, and could have—would have—been better.

I won’t pretend I loved everything he did. If I tried, you’d bust me, because I gave you links to the book list, and I hated The Broom of the System and said so.

But after years on the “special” shelf, I needed a book to hold up a new monitor that was on top of a table that was about an inch and a half taller than the desk below, and it was a glass table, and it wobbled, and it had to be a book that was more than just the right size. It had to be a book that was beautiful inside and out, and that I wouldn’t mind starting at all day.

So for a good three years—right up until I moved to the new house this summer, in fact—Infinite Jest held up my monitor. You could say it supported my view of the world, if you wanted. I looked at it every day, touched it most days, and remembered it every time. I would smile to myself whenever I saw a reference somewhere to John Wayne, or to competitive tennis, or to footnotes, or even to affairs between students and teachers. I thought about it whenever I read a Harry Potter book or saw a Harry Potter movie, because I kept notes on those books, too, the same kind of notes I kept for Infinite Jest, to keep straight in my head who was in what house, in what year, on what team.

The book was part of my life. I’ve never given it as a gift. I’ve only very rarely—maybe once or twice—even recommended it. But I looked at it every day. And I always meant to reread it. What stopped me? Besides the fact that the table would have wobbled?

What stopped me was that I knew it couldn’t live up to my memory of it. I knew it couldn’t be that good, because I’d read other stuff of his in the meantime and it wasn’t as good. It’s the same reason I don’t buy They Might Be Giants albums since Flood, the same reason I don’t read Daniel Handler’s novels not written as Lemony Snicket, the same reason it’s hard to accept anything any artist creates after their masterpiece. Because it might be the new masterpiece, and you don’t want to lose the old one.

The book I’m reading now is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, and I’m barely half an inch into it, and it’s a five, because it’s changing the way I think about the world, the way I think about life and death.

It sucks that I started it, because I’m going to have to put it aside now and reread Infinite Jest, and think about life and death.

I bought two Rexbo ladder bookcases and a Leksvik shoe cabinet at Ikea. One of the Rexbos was missing two small but vital pieces, my first-ever Ikea missing-parts mishap, but the other is installed and serving nicely in its intended function as Way Other Than Boxes For Jasper To Get To That High Lack Shelf. I had to teach him to use it, but he’s got it now. And he never touches the bottom two shelves, so I’m using them for books. Specifically, books of comic strips.

I found the Series of Unfortunate Events books and unpacked them into their display.

Lin wanted to put one of the folding bookcases in Max’s room, so I moved the bookcase that was in there to her room (and rearranged the furniture a bit in the process) and put the folding bookcase in Max’s. While they were here we also installed the blinds in his window and put up a curtain rod and his shades-of-blue zoo-animal curtain. Looks great.

Josie got a new bed, so her old bed is in Max’s room, and he and I assembled it, including the bedrail that we found in the attic (he insisted), and he slept in it for three nights during their most recent visit. Big boy bed!

After they left I also did some more stuff in there that will have to be a surprise.

The new shoe cabinet is lovely, and will serve to keep the couch lined up properly. What I really need, in the department of keeping the couch lined up properly, is a rug. But whatever.

I put the old crappy also-Ikea-but-much-less-furniturey shoe rack in the coat closet as additional shelving, and that works great.

I mowed the lawn, front and back, and edged the front, and mostly tilled the flowerbed, and sprayed weed killer on some weeds, especially around the downspout and stoop, where they were worst.

Tonight I primed the yellow ceiling, at least what I could reach of it in failing light without falling down the stairs (most of it), and part of one yellow wall, to use up the rest of the primer I had in the pan. Primer was the fullest paint can I had, so it made sense to go over the yellow with that instead of trying to cover it with what little ceiling paint and eggshell white I have left. I can’t afford a trip to the Depot right now, so I wanted to use what was in the closet. There’s more primer, I just can’t hold up that damn pole anymore tonight.

When I do get more ceiling paint, though, it’ll be the work of a few minutes to even out the ceiling outside my office door and at the edge of the kitchen. So that’s good.

Earlier today I got rid of some boxes and a big water bottle I found in the shed. Lisa needs the boxes to pack up donations, and I thought it would be cool to use the water bottle for the fundraising (for the three-day walk) that will happen at the crab feast.

I just realized it’s really been a while since we last spoke, so I guess I should point out some less recent improvements.

I bought the Samsung 50“ plasma TV, for redacted plus one-fifty, with free delivery, so that’s fine. I’m pretty sure redacted was a floor model or clearance price on that one unit anyway, and mine is definitely brand new. I’d like to say the box it came in was bigger than my first apartment, but my first apartment was a two-bedroom with a larger kitchen than I have now, so unfortunately I can’t. It was a big box, though.

I installed more switchplates and outlet covers here and there. I bought too many, and I always planned to return some, but time grows short. I have the receipt here, and it’s from July 10, giving me until October 10 to get on that. Doorstops, too; I bought handfuls of those and it turned out I barely need any. All the doors have them, they just weren’t set properly. What I do need is more of those plastic shields that go over the giant holes in the walls from the doorknobs.

And new doorknobs. I hate the brass ones.

And I’d really love an outlet and a spigot on the deck.

But if I let this devolve into what I don’t have yet and haven’t done yet, I’ll just cry. So back to accomplishments.

I started four more little wee plants, and they’re thriving, almost big enough to transplant into the nice acacia boxes I have for them out on the deck.

I made two Bastant scratching-post baskets like on the Ikea Hacker blog. They look great, and Jasper seems to like them a lot.