A compulsive reader

I am compulsive with regard to reading. Now, this seems to imply that I read compulsively; i.e., that I cannot stop myself from reading in the same way that I cannot stop myself from checking my holds at the library twenty times a day to see if they have come in yet (two of them came in today!!), or checking out where my packages have gotten to so far when I order things from the internet. And that's true. But it's also true that I am a person in whom sometimes my reader-self and my compulsive-person-self come together in a glorious alliance to bring out the Crazy that lurks within my soul

Case in point: A few days ago I bought Special Topics in Calamity Physics from Bongs & Noodles, because it looked good and I read a bit of it at the store and it made me smile, and I hear good things, and I love, love, love, love buying new books I have never read. It is very exciting. However, I rarely do it because I can't rely on the books being any good. And I don't want to waste my precious money (in this case, my exceedingly precious Bongs & Noodles gift cards) on books that aren't going to be any good, because there are far too many extremely good books out there that I want to own.

Yet I bought Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The plan was to read it very carefully, so as not to bend the spine, which I am quite good at, and then if it turned out rubbish, I would return it in perfect condition and get something else instead. I don't anticipate it turning out rubbish.

I also did really underestimate my compulsive nature. I read about twenty pages of the book and was swamped with panic that I was going to bend the spine, and it's stressful reading something you absolutely can't do anything bad to OR ELSE – no wonder people never want to borrow books from me! (but that doesn't mean you can do anything bad to my books that you borrow; I still want them back perfect OR ELSE) – so I reserved a copy at the library.

Which I went and picked up today, along with (!!!!) Dark Shadows, 40 episodes from around the time of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy's assassinations.

And when I got through checkout, I glanced at my stack of books and didn't see the cheerful yellow-and-red paperback spine of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and I threw a small fit because it was gone and that meant I'd left it somewhere lying around the library and I wasn't going to be able to find it even though I really really really wanted to read it, and you'd have thought from my fussing noises that I didn't have a brand new pristine copy at home waiting to be read. I could picture the library copy too – a big paperback just like mine, but with the cover curling up and a small rip in the bottom corner of the front cover, and the sides of the back cover starting to peel and the spine all cracked – and that's how I described it to Anna, who is a good person to have around when you lose something because she always gets a description and asks where you last saw it and then goes and tracks it down.

Actually it turns out that the library copy was hardback and I had it all along and I just hadn't noticed it because the spine is much more dark and sober-looking than the front cover.

However, the image in my head of the paperback library copy is very clear, and it haunted me when I thought I'd put it down somewhere unfindable because I knew that once having seen that image in my mind I would never be able to read my new copy at home, because I would be too chagrined at the notion of doing that to the book and then not being able to return it to the bookshop even if I DESPERATELY wanted to once I finished the book and it turned out to be rubbish or not rubbish but just not good enough to ever want to read again.

Er.

I'm not crazy.

Only a small part of my brain was thinking this. The part that peddles a special brand of Crazy in which I occasionally indulge. Most of my brain was thinking, Well, shit, that was dumb. Now I'm either going to have to risk damaging my own copy or wait a few more days to read this book. There was just a small, small section – the Salesman of Crazy section – that viewed this as a major catastrophe.

(A word which incidentally I never write, read, or think without remembering The Trumpet of the Swan.)

I think the sane part of my brain knew perfectly well that I had the book all along, and was just doing this to me as a cautionary measure, to remind me to listen to it and not to the Crazy Salesman. And thanks, sane bits of brain, I guess. I felt really stupid when I noticed I had it all along, though, and you could have told me straight away instead of letting me run around crazy like antelope in rainy season, but, y'know, whatever. I guess I'm glad you're looking out for me.

P.S. I am super duper excited about Dark Shadows. I mean, you just have no idea. Seriously, what is better than a soap opera from the sixties that was getting bad ratings and decided to put paid to that problem by introducing a vampire, who was so popular that the soap opera became a total cult classic and has now been released in its entirety on DVD? A show to which my godmother and Johnny Depp were both devoted, the latter to such an extent that he yearned and yearned and yearned to be Barnabas the Vampire which now that he is rich and famous he can and will arrange to be?

Nothing in the world since the beginning of time has ever been or will ever be better than that. INCLUDING THE CREATION OF MAN. (Sorry, God. You can't fight the truth.)

Oo. Except for cilantro. But NOTHING ELSE.