11/13: Sorted through some old photos and trashed a number of them.

11/14: Tossed two glass tea light holders that had been pressed into occasional service as shot glasses.

11/15: Gave The Omnivore's Dilemma to Gareth.

11/16: Junked three dusty flower-shaped float-in-water candles. Somehow, in the years since these were given to us, we haven't had a decorating need for burning, floating wax flowers.

11/17: Trashed some owner's manuals, including one for a DVD player and one for a wireless network card.

11/18: Trashed an old iPod battery.

11/19: Added In the Heart of the Sea to the bookshelf of La Madeleine in Reston.

Last Saturday I got rid of a book: Unamuno: A Philosophy of Tragedy by José Ferrater Mora (translated by Philip Silver). I found the title page in my pants pocket, where I had stashed it, knowing I would forget about the divestment.

I have never read a word by Miguel de Unamuno, yet I admire him, largely on the strength of Martin Gardner's reverence. Wikipedia tells an interesting story about a confrontation near the end of his life.

11/6: Trashed some magazines.
Smithsonian, September 1998, with a short version of Simon Winchester's great story about the OED as told in The Professor and the Madman.
(Link requires an e-mail address, but it isn't verified.)

Smithsonian, February 1999, with a cover story on John Singer Sargent and a luscious three-page centerfold of Madame X.

Smithsonian, July 1999. Don't quite know why I saved it.

The Washington Post Magazine, September 2003, in which Gene Weingarten explains the problem with the French.

11/7: More basement cleanup. Old letters, a performance review and some pay stubs, my selective service card from 1990, wire, light fixture installation instructions, and several plastic bags and a box containing these articles.

11/8: Sold a 1969 Kennedy half dollar on eBay.

11/9: Returned 24 hinges that won't fit our cabinets. Trashed a nasty straw hot pad that had disappeared into the spider-eggy void below some kitchen drawers.

11/10: Found a big brown panel with some thumb holes which was probably part of some cabinet once. It didn't look familiar, so I trashed it.

11/11: Tossed some baby clothes into the donation dumpster.

11/12: An empty tin of Djarum smokes was gathering dust in the basement. Actually it contained a single, unintentionally funny, panel cut from one of the serious soap opera newspaper comic strips. I meant to get rid of it and left it on the dashboard, but don't know where it ended up.

10/30: The November 2001 issue of Atlantic, saved on the strength of two excellent articles now available online: The Crash of EgyptAir 990 and The Curse of the Sevso Silver. That and a recent, forgettable, issue of Paste Magazine trashed.

10/31: Pitched a mismatched Schlage doorknob picked up at ReStore for fifty cents.

11/1: I can't remember what I did Saturday. I must have gotten rid of some candy.

11/2: Some square mirrors, about a foot on a side, that I found somewhere.

11/3: A length of leftover PVC pipe from a sink installation.

11/4: A spray can of "belt conditioner" that I bought hoping to quiet a squeaky alternator belt. The internet will tell you that the solution is to get proper tension in the belt and this stuff just gunks up the pulleys.

11/5: Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook, left on top of the card reader of the parking garage. The next motorist picked it up and put it back, but after a few hours it had disappeared.