Housekeeping

My room is now spectacularly tidy, thanks to lots of coffee and the company of my friend Kate. I organised all my books and quite a lot of my papers from teaching War Studies papers. I have some pretty goddam weird book categories ("torture"; "dead languages") and some continued categorical problems, like whether to separate military and nonmilitary history and also Middle Eastern and Western history. Because I take everything Much Too Seriously I have been distressed that, for example, Fanon is in the "Middle East/North Africa" section, as though French colonialism in Algeria has nothing to do with France. I am also tempted to make a "manuals" section because I am having trouble finding where to put my manuals for things and I like the idea of having the IRA's Green Book next to an al-Qaeda training manual and instructions for how to use my video camera and my oven.