Obsessive.

It’s not just me, right? Tell me you do it to. Tell me that I am not weird.

Tell me you obsess over things, things that you probably saw once, in passing and thought “That’s cool.” and then walked away from. You didn’t buy it, you didn’t need it, you didn’t care about it…until the middle of the night. When you suddenly decided that you couldn’t live without it.

It’s not just me, is it?

It’s not as bad as it sounds really. I am obsessive mostly about books. I read about a book, a review, or a preview and I think, “That’s cool.” But I know that I currently own more books than I could realistically read in one lifetime…well, if you read as slow as I suddenly do, and that I do not need that one more book. It will sit there for weeks, possibly years, until I even remember that I had to have it and I still won’t read it. Or, worse yet, I will buy it and begin it immediately, pushing aside all other books in its favor. All those other books that are taking up so much space and that I really had to have at some earlier date, but I haven’t read yet.

I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble for Christmas. (I read somewhere about someone whose mother insists on referring to the store as “Barnes and Nobles”, not the plural, just the…wrong name, and now, every time I think of Barnes and Noble, it comes out “Barnes and Nobles” and I am driving myself crazy.) It wasn’t a huge gift card, but it was enough of a chunk to buy a few books. I could feel it burning a hole in my pocket, nay, in my SOUL. I had to spend it as soon as possible. It was all I could do not to spend it while on the east coast thereby forcing myself to truck another several pounds of stuff across the U.S. (And let me just mention here that I visited Borders no less than three times while in New Jersey, ostensibly to buy presents for other people…and perhaps just a thing or two for myself.) I don’t sleep well and falling asleep is the hardest part of that for me. Sometimes I actually count sheep, sometimes I meditate, but when I have a book store gift card, I mentally run down all the books I could buy with it. I make lists, I debate the merits of cook, I fret over what I could buy vs .what I will buy. It’s sick. But it’s entertaining.

I spent the gift card. I bought two books with it, a book on crochet, something that I don’t know how to do and will probably never learn, even though I have a book on it, and a mystery novel. And despite everything else I have half-read or sitting on the top of the reading pile, I immediately dove into “The Falls” by Ian Rankin.

It’s a very good book.