The Migrating Pile

Okay, so I've been really good and haven't added any new books to the pile by the bed. This does not mean I haven't gotten any new books. There was the spree at the used book store last weekend and I've had four new books arrive in the mail this week. But they haven't gone on the pile next to the bed. No, they have become a new pile that is sitting precariously on the edge of my desk. When I put the first book there I promised myself that it was just temporary. But then some other books landed on top of it, temporarily. These books must get moved; I am beginning to feel crowded when I sit at my desk. But where to put them? I have a shelf in the room where my desk is that is empty. I have been keeping it empty because I have to stand on a stool to reach it and because I had imagined that I would put some kind of really fantastic collection of books on it some day. I have no idea what collection that would be (perhaps the complete OED? But I can't bring myself to spend several hundred dollars on a dictionary.) But since I made my resolution to shrink the size of my out of control bedside to read pile, I have been looking thoughtfully at this empty shelf. How simple it would be to move most of the pile to the shelf. But then I get a guilt pang because the shelf is in reserve. The more I have been thinking about it, however, the more I think it is silly. The shelf has been empty for going on two years and no special collection has arrived to fill it. Am I to keep it empty for another year? Two years? Longer? So what would it hurt to move the temporary pile from the corner of me desk to the shelf? And after that, if those books seem happy there, what harm would it do to move the bedside pile there too? If the special collection ever appears then I will have a dilemma, but until then, why worry? My Bookman is laughing at me. He says the desk pile is a mutating book pile virus. He will break out into hysterical laughter when he finds out that I plan on moving all of my to read piles to my empty shelf. He teased me back in January when I made my resolution that I was only going to end up moving it to the shelf. I indignantly declared that I would do no such thing. Well, here I am, just over two months later, about to eat crow. When the currently empty shelf gets full, because you know it will, I will be in bind. But at the moment I have 5 1/2 feet of empty book real estate. I figure I have at least until the end of the summer before the shelf gets full. Then I think I will have to start hiding the overflow book pile in the closet.