June 16, 2024:
She's a reader. Our apartment is filled with books.
She has three bookcases in dark wood, ten shelves altogether. They hold her college textbooks; some volumes of Jung; all of the Signet Shakespeare paperbacks; James Bond and Sherlock Holmes; Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Tolkien. She reads ubiquitously. It's only later that I learn why.
In La Mesa I have two small shelves finished in natural shellac. We finished them ourselves. I have Hardy Boys; the Companion Library; some picture books of airplanes. It's only later, in Clairemont, that I encounter history and military theory, and then we add floor-to-ceiling metal shelves from Sears.
This is the core contribution she makes to my development. I read because she does and because we have books in the apartment.