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22 Responses to “The Stupid 365 Project, Day 16: Junkie” -
Kari Wainwright Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 10:15 am
I always wondered why nature didn’t come up a soundtrack. Beaches do have the sound of waves and gulls, but the right music could really add to that. Of course, not everyone on the beach would be likely to agree, as I’m sure many of us have already found out when being forced to hear someone else’s “alleged” musical choice.
But other than needing constant music or needing to be surrounded by reading material, I couldn’t identify at all with today’s blog.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
One of God’s uncharacteristic slips, Kari, although, like you, I prefer to be in charge. Right now it’s “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire or a completely random playlist from my music library — scroll down the page without reading and take whatever title you land on. Random #1, which I’m listening to when I’m not listening to “The Suburbs,” has 470 songs on it.
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Lil Gluckstern Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I now am less embarrassed by my TBR bookcase. It has gotten so bad my local bookseller tells me to go home before I add one more to the pile. I love your writings.
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Suzanna Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Tim, if God put you in charge of the soundtrack of life I think I would be very happy with that arrangement.
Your book addiction provides me with a healthy mental list of books I should read.
My luck was with me today when I found a gently used copy of the 1st Movement of A dance to the music of time at our local book shop. The only one in the series that they had on the shelf. Yay!
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Peg Brantley Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
I quit smoking. Don’t ask me to quit drinking . . . red wine, at least. In fact, I had a nice Chilean the other day in celebration of the rescue of the miners.
In the old days, when my addiction to books was a little more under control, if I got down to two or three unread, it became hard to breathe. When I walked into the local bookstore, they immediately dug out their largest shopping bag in preparation for my purchases. Today, my TBR pile is also in a bookcase (although not as large as yours), with the more exciting ones on my nightstand. Don’t kid yourself, a Kindle (or other e-reader) will not eliminate the piles of books. Which is a good thing, in my estimation.
I got lucky with the drug thing. Even though I experimented, I never really got hooked on anything.
Now, it’s a battle against weight. And, btw, congratulations on your weight loss.
Off to enjoy a glass of wine and cheer the Broncos on . . . I hope to a victory.
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Beth Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
I am ruled by “what if”. It started in February, 1978 when the northeast was hit by a blizzard that carried all the moisture of a hurricane that occurred at astronomical high tide.
My husband didn’t get home for five days. It was me and my 8 month-old daughter and two dogs. My husband accused me of over buying when I heard about the storm but what if people couldn’t get home and cars were abandoned on the highway and for a week after the storm only emergency vehicles were allowed on the roads? All of the above happened and from that point on, what is the basis of all my planning.
What if I didn’t have enough to read? Besides the books we own I have 67 checked out from the library. I have master lists of books in three places. I never leave the house without two books in my bag and three in the car.
Is it about addictive personalities or is it about control? I have a family history of people ruled by addiction so I made a decision when I was young that I wasn’t going to take a chance. Maybe the need to be prepared to the nth degree grows out of not being in control when young.
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Gary Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
I can’t relate. I’m not addictive at all.
Just to check, I photographed my own bookcase and loaded the photo onto my laptop and enlarged it so that I could read all the titles. But some of them were a little hard to read because they were dark print on black spines, so I opened the photo in PhotoShop and adjusted color and contrast until I could read them. Then I checked on the internet to see if there was a better way of doing that, and there were several interesting ways and I spent a few hours researching and testing those. And then it seemed too simple to just type a list of book titles, so I looked at ways of using OCR for titles at different angles and different levels of contrast and the results were OK but I’m sure there have to be better ways of doing that and if I just did a little more research…
Sorry, what were we talking about? No, I’m not addictive at all.
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EverettK Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Tim says, “After a lifetime of addiction to various substances and behavior patterns…I’m free as a bird. If you don’t count the suitcase full of books.”
Well… that and your new addiction to blogging.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 17th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Gary, knowing you as I do, I know you’re the farthest thing from addictive. Compulsive, perhaps, even at times one who will pick a nit beyond its picking season, but addictive, never. Photographing one’s bookcase and then putting the photo through various refinements in order to read titles that one could read simply by walking over to the case — perfectly normal behavior.
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Gary Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:30 am
I’m not too addicted to recognize mockery when I read it.
Well, listen, buddy – if you think I’VE got problems, how about this poor pathetic creature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAC3ocagVWs
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fairyhedgehog Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 4:04 am
I am surrounded by books too but hardly any of them unread! I’m always desperate for new things to read.
For going on planes, you could do with a Sony reader or similar. Then you can carry as many books as you do music tracks!
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Lil, when your dealer — I mean, bookseller — shakes his/her head whenever you come into view, it’s a message from the world. Is there a Readers Anonymous meeting near you? Thanks for the kind words, and — as they say in 12-step progrsms, “Keep Coming Back.”
Peg, putting the TBR “pile” onto shelves is very satisfying. Gives you a sense of having gotten things under control when, of course, all you’ve really done is gotten them onto shelves. You’re lucky about having dodged the addictions; I have a naturally addictive personality and have given myself over to practically everything you can think of that didn’t have a delivery system involving a needle. (Cigarettes were the hardest by an order of magnitude.)
Beth — “what if” is, I think, one of the hooks addiction uses to clamp itself on, especially when the host is an essentially rational person. Addictions work in part by ratcheting up anxiety levels and then presenting themselves as the cure. And, of course, it works for a few hours. The most pathetic addicts are the one who think they’re controlling it (“I’m a functional drunk”) which, of course, they’re not, which is why giving up all illusion of control is essential to a cure.
By the way, I’d like to say right here that I am TOTALLY PISSED OFF to see that a facsimile version of a heavily edited manuscript of the AA Big Book — with emendations that reveal some schisms among the fathers of the 12-step movement — is being offered for sale by Hazelden, a “nonprofit” organization that uses the 12 steps – designed to be free to all — in a program that costs $23,000 per month. At the risk of offending the more delicate among you, fuck Hazelden and the horse they rode in on.
Sorry.
Gary, puhleeeeze. Me, mocking you? Farthest thing from my mind. And that’s a very funny video.
FHH — Isn’t it interesting that when we’re “surrounded by books but hardly any of them unread,” it almost never occurs to us to reread one? If we haven’t read it in years, we’re essentially bringing a new us to the book. I know about the e-reader — I’m even selling books for them now. It’ll happen. Honest.
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Beth Says:
October 18th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Not being in control just leads to chaos because if something as simple as paying a bill is left out the snowball starts rolling fast.
My mother, who was far more of a problem than my father, pretty much ceded control of the “details” when I was 10. Fifty years of having to always be prepared for what might happen is a hard thing to unlearn.
12 step programs are the only thing with any proven long term success. But,as they say, you have to want to want to.
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Brent Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Ha – Tim – your TBR shelf is nothing! Mine is bigger than yours! Much much bigger than yours my friend.
How much bigger is mine than yours you may well ask? Well, I guess if I were to read 100 books per year and didn’t aquire more (fat chance of that) – I would probably finish them all sometime around the year 2022. Then I would only have the books I’d accumulated in the previous 12 years (at the rate of say, a couple of hundred at least per year). At this rate I will need several reincarnations to finish but what the hell – it’s a beautiful obsession (as some tunesmith once remarked).
Cheers y’all.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Brent — I’m not ABSOLUTELY certain that this is something to be proud of. Not that it keeps me from buying every book in sight. How old will you be in 2022? Have you given thought to whom you might want to leave the unread ones to? That way, when you’re reincarnated you could just knock on my door, present some kind of hard cold proof that you’re Brent’s new go-around, and I’d cheerfully return them to you. The ones I’d read, anyway.
If I was in a good mood.
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Brent Says:
October 20th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Tim – You are ABSOLUTELY correct that this is not necessarily something to be proud of – actually I’m not and sometimes it makes me somewhat anxious about the whole situation. Not as disturbing however as the fact that my retention or memory/remembering what I’ve read is not very good. Which reminds me that I didn’t add in to the equation(of number of unread books)the ones I would really like to re-read (keeping track of the ones I want to re-read is accomplished by my own personal rating system that I apply to books as I read them – the highest rated books are ones that are eligible for my re-reading program). One thing I have started doing is cutting authors out of my herd of writers that I buy books by -the ones that upon finishing one of their books you think – “that was pretty good/allright/not bad”. There are simply too many authors that upon finishing one of THEIR books you think – “Wow/Incredible/Fantastic/Bloody Amazing”.
I like the sneaky way you are trying to accumulate more books Tim – not quite sneaky enough though my friend – I’ve already thught this out and I intend to put tracking devices in my books before I kick de’ bucket – then when I come back I will go to Radio Shack or some such place and purchase a “Tracker” or whatever the hell they are called and find every last one of said books and pry them loose from whatever hands they happen to be in. Ha – that should do it.
Enought of this frivolity – I have to go build another bookcase.
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 21st, 2010 at 8:42 am
Brent, you have to look on the bright side. When your memory gets worse, you can get rid of all but about three books and read them over and over since you won’t remember them anyway. But before you reach that state, you might want to leave written instructions about to whom you want the books to be sent. Vis a vis the rating system and the tracking devices, does the word “compulsive” pop into your mind, or is it just me?
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Brent Says:
October 21st, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Tim, actually the word that pops into my mind regarding the post reincarnation tracking device is “prudent” and this applies to my book rating system as well since once I’m back and have tracked down my books and liberated them from whatever hands they were in and they are once again ensconced in their old familiar bookcases, I will simply have to consult my “Ratings Of Books Read” list and read only the best ones.
PS I expect to have a fully functioning memory on the next go round (at least for a little while).
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 21st, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Well, Brent, a man who’s plotting before he dies how to get his books back from the person who LEGALLY INHERITED THEM seems to me not so much prudent as barking mad. Anyway, my house is screened by a masking device specifically set to screen out vengeful reincarnates, or I would have been gone a long time ago. Heh. Heh. Also, if your memory when you come back is as good as all that, what do you want with a bunch of old dusty books you’ve already read — Hey, WAIT!!! I’ve GOT IT. You send me a list of everything you haven’t read that you know you’ll love, plus your credit card number, and I’ll build that library right now, and when you come back, it’ll be right here, waiting for you. Behind that masking device, of course, but a guy like you . . . should be no problem. Pardon me while I laugh openly behind my hand.
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Brent Says:
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Tim, I now have to wonder just exactly why it is that you have deemed it necessary to resort to such a diabolically ingeniuous bit of cutting edge technology as the Residential Masking Screen – it would seem to me that there must be SOMETHING very nefarious lurking in your basement or closet, on your bookshelves, or under your bed. Let me see now – a fellow who is a writer, has a somewhat compulsive relationship to books and is concerned enough about it enough to decide to write about it while squirreled away in his (b)log cabin? What could it possibly be? I’m thinking that by the time I come back and I make that trip to Radio Shack to get my Tracker, they will have some brand new device that will make child’s play of thwarting the Residential Masking Screen and I should be able to slip into your abode whilst you are busy working on the Stupid 365 Day Project (Year 20 or 30 something)and uncover what lies beneath if you know what I mean.
Regarding your compulsive music habits – again, mine is bigger – much much bigger my friend. They have not yet built a device with enough capacity to hold my collection of tunes. I too used to travel around with crates of cassette tapes, boom boxes, batteries (C+D Cells yet!). Now that the cassette has gone the way of the Dodo bird what do we do with all those things? I guess they can mostly join the scrap heap along with the reel to reel compilation tapes from our wedding party that I recently threw out. (WOOPS – I could be dating myself there).
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Timothy Hallinan Says:
October 22nd, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Oh, right oh, right — when you’re just the teensiest bit frustrated, move right to McCarthyite name-calling and personal insult. “I have in my hand a list of communists working at the White House,” and it was his grocery list. Well, we’ve seen your type before, and there’s no way we’re letting you claw your way back into the limelight. And the “reel to reel compilation tapes” PROVES that you were around to fall under McCarthy’s spell. A piece of purely disinterested advice: if you really expect to be reincarnated, you have to shed this negative karma, and the best way to do that is to give — freely and joyfully — to someone, me, for example, all the possessions that are weighing you down, beginning with those books. Otherwise, you’ll be reincarnated as a truffle. And we know what happens to truffles: pigs root them out and then they’re flown by jet plane to fancy restaurants where they’re eaten by poseurs. If I could snap my fingers in type, I would. Who even needs that Residential Masking Screen? I’ll just frequent pretentious French restaurants and eat truffles, buy truffles for my friends, until, eventually, you have to be reincarnated again, and truffles ALWAYS come back as pigs.
And pigs can’t read.
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Brent Says:
October 24th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Tim – OK, OK, I know when I’ve been bested – and you are right about the negative Karma thing – I’ve decided I must give – freely and joyfully at that. I have some books I would like to send you (the only catch is I am sending them without postage – you will simply have to pay the First Class Express rate when it arrives). Let’s see now – I’ve got one here by Dean Koontz, another by James Patterson, a Peter Straub, a couple by Harlen Coben, and a few dozen others that I somehow have on my shelf – I believe they were mostly passed on to me by others who were done with them. I’m afraid I’m not yet ready to part with my Michael Gruber, James Carlos Blake, Andre Dubus III, Rick DeMarinis, Ken Bruen, Ron Rash, Tim Gautreaux, or Joseph Boyden books (amongst a goodly number of other authors). So, look for delivery slip in your mailbox, then rent yourself a pick-up truck (the box will be rather large) and go to your bank and take out most of your money so you will be sure to have enough to pay the Postage Due charges. I’m quite confident that this action will put me on an even keel Karmawise. Let me know how you like the books!
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