Addictions of the Weakest Kind

I got a new bookshelf! It's so beautiful. Beautiful in the sense that I am methodically going through each and every book that I own so that I can alphabetize my books by both author and title. It's a tedious process that will occur over the next several days. I'll just be laying in bed when from across the room I'll see on my old shelf my copy of The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne and OBVIOUSLY if I don't move it next to my copy of The Scarlet Letter immediately,also by Hawthorne, Nate will start rolling around in his grave with all his disappointment in my lack of book organizational skills.



The things we bookworms do for the sake of the dead and our own sanity.

Can I just say that the bookshelf was necessary because I've gotten out of control? Spilling onto the floor, out of control? So out of control that I picked up a used copy of "German Romantic Stories" and thought to myself, "Hoorah for love stories!" all while forgetting that SMALL SMALL detail "Boo for not knowing German." It's on my shelf next to "Hiking through Europe" (also on my to-do list after learning German) and Gone With The Wind (have you SEEN Gone With The Wind in book form? It's like a eight and a half pound weight but square. With no handles and lot's of Southern aggression).

Finally my mother comes into my room one night, late before bed and stops to stare at the shelf. I look up just in time for her face to reflexively change from slight grimace to awkward smile and she says:

"We should probably talk about that shelf."
"What about the shelf?" I grumbled. I don't appreciate being interrupted during The Little Chocolatiers on TLC.
"The shelf...it doesn't look good, Ash" and she said it in such a way that I felt like she was talking about my cat. Like, the same tone of voice you might use if you were telling your young child that Fluffy is on his way out. You crashed your best friend's car. Brad Pitt has passed on.


It was hesitant and nervous and rightfully so. I take my books very seriously. I can't stand discovering that a book is missing. I don't like when people don't return items they never bothered to read in the first place and if you fold down the corner pages well then may heaven have MERCY ON YOUR SOUL.
So I answered, "It's FINE mom" because, like a good little addict, I was in denial.

"Honey...the shelves are all...buckling" and as she ran her hands over the edges of it, it suddenly stood out to me. My bookshelf...made of WOOD or at least something like it, had rows upon rows of shelves that were so concave in the middle they were smiling at me. My bookshelf. The bravest little soldier of them all, marching on under the weight of my obsession with a smile upon its face.

I got a new bookshelf last weekend and I have to admit, everything looks much better round these parts. My shelf has corrected it's weight straining smile. My Jodi Picoult books are standing straight and tall next to one another, instead of being jammed into any available space I might be able to find.

And me? I now feel free to buy as many books as I wish in German. HOORAH!