there is no more room on the top shelf of my favorite bookcase. it’s the bookcase nearest the couch, the one that when i look up from otto i gaze at.

i love that bookcase and all the books on the top shelf. they are the top tier, the number one crushes.

but now i have a dilemma. the politics of book arranging is in full bloom here in jodiland. see, there isn’t much logical order the way my books are stored. they aren’t alphabetical by title or order. they are arranged politically. i wish there was more method to my madness, but there isn’t. it all makes sense to me. and i can tell you without looking where a specific book is located.

my dilemma arises from the fact that i have finished the new elizabeth mccracken book and it’s not time for it to take a place on honor on the top shelf with her other two books. the problem is the top shelf is jam-packed and i am not sure which book to delegate to a lower shelf.

well, it’s not really hard. the obvious candidate is white teeth by zadie smith. but then it will be so odd not having her up there with the mcsweeney’s and nick hornby and david foster wallace.

so that leaves douglas coupland and jeanette winterson, which cannot be done. they cannot be relegated to a lower shelf. one, because i love them and two, because i only need space enough for one book. i am hardly going to bust up the nine wintersons and the 7 couplands.

so if i do move zadie smith to a different shelf, which one? i’ve got the irving and vonnegut shelf (which is going to be the death of me due to the need to somehow fit the fourth hand on that already jammed shelf).

smith can’t go on the political book shelf she just doesn’t fit in with aristotle and mill. she can’t go on the journalism shelf next to bradlee or cronkite.

i think i am going to have to relegate her to a misc shelf filled with random stuff like roddy doyle and lorna landvik. i just hate breaking up a set. even if it’s a set i created in my mind.

you’ll be happy to know that there is no such political nonsense going on with my cd collection. that arrangement makes complete and total sense. alphabetical by artist and then in order of release date.

see, i am not totally neurotic and crazy.