Just when I think there’s a support group out there for everything, I pioneer a new addiction they haven’t thought of yet. Personal weakness: used bookstores. I’ve always bought books faster than I can possibly read them, but if there’s a sale at Borders or Barnes and Nobel, I forget myself. Used bookstores take it to a new level. By definition, there’s a book sale every day: Michael Chabon? First edition?! Three bucks!! I can’t be held responsible for my actions.
Most recent example: I walk out of a used bookstore in old town Fredricksburg with two trade paperbacks: About a Boy by Nick Hornby, and Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding. (The first was made into a Hugh Grant movie. The second was made into a Hugh Grant movie.) Months later, I finally get around to plowing through Boy, before recently setting into Bridget. After a few chapters, I’m starting to suspect that Bridget is really just a Nick Hornby character in drag: Neurotic thirty-something British singleton struggles to attract members of the opposite sex while spouting bizarre life philosophies that feel somehow familiar. Here’s how I figure it. They both live in London. Why not hook up and get hitched? If they breed, they could produce a British Woody Allen.
That aside, Bridget’s compulsive calorie-counting and scale-watching has got me thinking. I don’t have a scale and I don’t count calories—that would require adding, which is a form of math, which I’m strictly against unless under duress. That being said, it does remind me of my semi-yearly cycle of life:
May: Size seven. Yessssss.
June: Extra slice of cake? Thanks, mom!
July: Hmm. Just how many calories are in that enchilada?
August: Fifty calories per cookie?!
September: Size ten. Granola bar. 110 calories. Breakfast of champions.
My mother’s cooking is in cahoots with used bookstores to erode all my self-control. Them, along the Mars Bar corporation.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
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8 comments:
Isn't Bridget fabulous? The sequel is even better - read the book, don't bother with the movie which really wasn't that good. Having done that, find some more of Fielding, because she's fantastic and very funny.
Hmmm. I'm sure there are some used bookstores around here somewhere...
Far more dangerous, I've found, is the Goodwill. Books are rockbottom dirt cheap, something like $.50 for paperbacks. Often, there's nothing of interest at all there, but they have a wall of books, so your odds are generally quite good. So, you know, stay away from the Goodwill.
Ick! Stop telling me these things! I have precious little spending money left as it is. Between you and gas prices, you're eating me alive. Although, the regular unleaded gas from across the street was just under two dollars today. Can't remember the last time I saw that.
Stop whining, we're paying 2.40 to 3.00 up here.
Hey, don't blame me. I didn't vote Bush in to office.
I would volunteer to help you with this problem, except I don't see it as a problem.
Bush, compulsive book purchasing, dieting, or the sex lives of fictional characters?
Compulsive book purchasing :P
1) Bush is a problem that I can really do nothing about, so it's not him
2) Dieting, if you took it seriously, then we do have a problem.
3) Sex lives of fictional characters, if I'd seen it as a problem, we'd never have had all those Mal/Inara moments.
No blame at all, just offering a contrast for you.
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