I'm a Bookaholic

Well, it's too late to ask you to marry me (I see there's a long line). So I'll just say I feel your pain. Creased binding on a borrowed book = I have to pray for strength not to hit the person.

Once I salvaged a bookcase someone was throwing away from the curb. It looked solid, so I took it home and put all my double-shelved books on it, and then I left the house for half a second, and then I came back and the back had collapsed and the shelves had fallen off their pegs and books were everywhere, including my can't-ever-afford-to-buy-another-one Riverside Chaucer, which was laying splayed open like a back-broken grandmother in a Lifecall commercial. It pained me.

And many relationships have stalled because the person wasn't ready to keep up with my out-of-control reading. *Sigh* Not to mention the fact that I talk like a dictionary, automatically rendering the most casual thoughts in essayese, which is a liability when you work in an elementary school.

By the way this is based solely on your photo from that other thread.

Thank you for making me not feel alone anymore.

You know, I've heard University of Utah has an OK Creative Writing program ... and like I say, my job's ending!

It would make a fun premise for a sort of fable-like magic realist novel, anyway. The woman who moves to a remote location (Utah) to set up a personal utopia in which she marries every serious reader she meets, so she keeps having to add new wings to her mansion to acommodate the books and husbands (wives too, why not?) she keeps piling up ... could serve as a metaphor for the way a person falls in love with book after book, emotionally "getting married" to it, and then it's over and you move on to something else, but it's really not over because it's in your memory and shows up, sort of, in other books you read.

I feel your pain, though. Really.

How 'bout both?

*How 'bout both?

Well, love, I didn't want to appear greedy ;)

Woman inherits fortune in late 1800's from repeater rifle invention, is haunted by the legacy of the guns as victims return from dead and she has to buils a wooden mansion to accommodate them all. As the guns keep claiming more victims because the guns' hammers never stop, she has to build more wings and rooms to house their spirits, hence the carpenters' hammers must never stop.

Creepy, eery and very very brilliant.

That's a horror story, yours is a love story. Write it!
Carpe Novel!

I'm up for it.

*ahem* Not that I would know from experience, mind you...

Utah. Pppfft. Everyone just move to Vermont.

I like the ambiguity of this sentence.

(Er, are you suggesting that I should be in bed?)

Please share you idiotic obsession. Doctor Mikey G can prescribe online guidance.

When I was about twelve or so, my brother's school had a sponsored read. Pupils from the school and their friends and family came to the school and read books all day long one Saturday. As you finished a book, you wrote its name on the blackboard. At the end of the day we counted up all the pages read and people paid us for them. There was no talking allowed, except in one classroom which was designated the Read Aloud room. Two of my brother's teachers walked up and down all day reading Finnegan's Wake to each other. I feel this was a formative experience in my life and aim to recreate it some time.

Wow, the power of ILB. I was about to post this when I was stopped by a message telling me that someone else was posting at the same time and their message might change my mind about posting. Which it did, because I was about to ask you where you'd been, Ms. Laura. Sorry you're obsessing and not sleeping. Anything we can do?

And thank you for your concern *smile*. Accentmonkey, I've been having computer issues and using that as an excuse to spend all of my free time reading and not posting here - and I'm still having computer issues as I type (wireless network being moody), so I keep losing posts, and that's frustrating - but someone sent me an email and told me (er, requested, that is) to get back on the board and so here I am. But I don't know who they are and didn't recognize their email address and so I'm kind of feeling befuddled. But here I am, for the moment *grin*

And if you're in Florida, drive out to Spook Hill, park your car at the bottom of the valley, take the handbrake off and let the magnetic vortex take you uphill.

I do not charge for my advice.

Aw crap, I forgot I'm in work. I probably shouldn't even be in my pyjamas.

I am drinking though.

No, I'm not doing that either. Sigh. I'm such a liar.

Cloudy in London. I blame Ken.

~ Sorry to hear about Pepper :( He's in rat heaven eating any and all kinds of cheeses he desires.

~ Arrange by genre, then author.

~ 7543365

~ Geek boys tend to be flighty like that. I know.

~ Delicates, then whites, then towels, then colors.

~ Eggs, cheese, canned tomatoes and dish detergent.

~ Check under your bed. Either that or Sarah still has it.

~ Write hate mail to wireless network. Use phrases like "pathetic losers!" and "you won’t get away with this!"

~ No.

~ Thoroughly, every three days.

~ Check her poop for bones.

~ The pile of mail at the corner of the kitchen table. The tags are in the other pile of mail by the phone.

- Thanks for note about Pepper - I'm sure she's galivanting around in rat heaven, chewing on electrical cords.
- Genre, then author? Far too advanced for me - I'm working on "read" and "unread" bookcases at the moment - though there is a bit of genre and author grouping, but that may be inadvertant.
- Passcode didn't work and the machine ate my ATM card with great glee. And then asked if there was anything else it could help me with.
- Yeah about Geek boys - true about geek girls, too, but I still fall for them *sigh* *sniff*
- Where do the bed linens fit into this schedule?
- Actually, eggs, cheese, and canned tomatoes did all end-up on the list - have you been snooping around my kitchen?
- Still haven't found my copy of Quicksilver, so snagged roommate's copy instead.
- I sent hate and threat mail to the network - they were returned "Addressee Unknown".
- Damn.
- Hmmmm - that's why they're looking droopy. Is the same true for peace lilys?
- I'll pass and have faith in Mother Nature that she'll survive - right now she's gnawing on a chunk of concrete that used to be utilized to hold the fence upright.
- Ha! Nope. But I found a couple of checks I forgot to deposit, so that's even better.

(And yes, I finally did get some sleep - lots of it, in fact. And now I feel much nicer.)

* You find yourself spending more money on books than any other item at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (if you spend more than every other item COMBINED it may be getting a little excessive)

* Your primary mode of decor at home is booshelves

* Your primary mode of decor in your office is bookshelves

* There isn't a room in your house (INCLUDING CLOSETS!) without books

* You find yourself browsing Amazon.com whenever there is a dull moment

* The staff at the local bookstore greets you as if you were Norm walking into "Cheers"

If you fit these categories, THEN you're a bookaholic; otherwise it's just a psychosomatic case.

I call this "The Amazon Game." I go to the recommended list page for me and see how many of the damn things I would actually read... I'm disappointed it limits the books recs to 100 now. It use to be a higher number, and I could refresh and keep going for at least two hours.

~The staff at the local bookstore greets you as if you were Norm walking into "Cheers"~

Isn't that nice when they do that? I also have to add library to that sentence :)

Book shelves, check. The amount of money I spend on books, check. (I’d rather buy books than brand-new, trendy clothes.)

Yeah, no, I still diagnose myself as a rabid bookaholic.

Yesabibliophile - I haven't read the essay you mentioned but I'll do an Internet search for it. I'm not sure about your addendum, though; can a true bookaholic only borrow books? Personally, while I think libraries are wonderful institutions, I get too possessive about a good book to frequent them (not to mention the fact that some chucklehead always checks out the book that I'm interested in before I can get to it, no doubt just so he can prop up the small leg of his couch).