Shattered

I have never really been one to make New Years Resolutions, yet for some reason, 2005 is the year I set a few resolutions and wanted to do my best to keep them. This last week, I totally and completely SHATTERED my Alpha New Years resolution, which was- "I will not buy any more books until I have finished the ones I haven't read yet." Let me illustrate how easy it was for me to fall off the wagon, by stating how long I was on it(6 months) and expressing how amazing it is that I was able to keep it up for that long. I go into bookstores with empty hands and I leave with an empty wallet. I am totally addicted to buying books. It's obscene. Most of the time I'm not buying books for myself, either. Presents, favors, urges, and a desire for everyone to enjoy the books that I have enjoyed, are usually the reasons I buy books for people. What I used to do was buy books based on recommendations knowing that I wasn't going to get to them right away, but would be reading them soon. And yes, this pile grew larger and larger and larger with neglect, but I was still buying books knowing that I would be reading them someday. While I still believe that I will read all the books I have purchased one of these days, at the end of last year I decided enough was enough. My bank account had suffered sufficiently and I wasn't getting to these books fast enough. No more book-buying until I did some book-reading. The days got shorter and my life got busier. To this end I still hadn't gotten to any of the books in the large, literate, landfill on my desk. And then one day last week, I opened the LA Times and saw a review for a book titled "Chuck Dugan is AWOL." It was written by Eric Anderson(the brother of Wes Anderson) and was a narrative fictional tale, but with tons of pictures and diagrams, the author having been a cartographer as a previous career. The review was glowing with praise and I thought, "Well, I'll get this book because it got a great review and I think buying one book is hardly going to hurt me." It's hard to think of a time when I have been more wrong that this. So I go to the bookstore later that afternoon and search for "Chuck Dugan is AWOL." Along the way, before I even find the book I'm looking for, I stop at the true crime section to see if they have "In Cold Blood" which is the last book I read. It was loaned to me and I like having copies of books that I read in case I need to reference them later. Sadly, they don't have "In Cold Blood," and I walk away from the section with "To Catch a Jewel Thief" and "The Scam Handbook." I head downstairs to the fiction section where I've determined Chuck Dugan is, but on my way, I pass the trashy paperback kiosk and like any good reading junky I love trashy paperback thrillers. So I pick up a copy of "Prey" by Michael Crichton. At this point, with 20/20 hindsight, having picked up three other books other than the one I was looking for, I should have realized just how far immersed into my addiction I was. I finally reached the new fiction release shelf and grabbed the book I was looking for and ran up the escalator to check out. I think it cost something like $50. That's a lot of good smack that I didn't buy. That's a nice steak dinner for my girlfriend. That's a videogame. It's new pants and new socks; four DVDs; my cell phone and utility bills; Forty cups of coffee; or Fifty soccer-themed plates from the 99cent store. But I blew it all on fucking BOOKS. Epilogue: Since that day in the bookstore, it has been an uphill battle that I have been tragically losing. These are the books that I have bought since then: Cadillac Desert Trawler Everything Bad is Good for You The Best American Non-Required Reading 2004 Anthology of Pirate Short Stories The Da Vinci Code Raid on the Sun A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book ..1 Pulp Ask the Dust