1
Anyone who knows me may know that I wrote a book called The Soft Lunacy primarily concerned with the act of book collecting. Even if you haven’t dragged your eyes across those pages, you may know that I suffer from an affliction called bibliophilia. This has caused the eighty posing as sixty boxes of books mentioned in the previous edition of this essay. Having now moved to the new place in the south side of Chicago, I can report that my addiction to books (buying and collecting more than actually reading them) has injured both me and taxed the muscles of the movers unlucky enough to land the gig.
I spent a month packing everything my wife and I have gathered over a decade at our past residence, much of it schlepped through a few other apartments before we settled in our Rogers Park dwelling. Suffice it to state that this was a big fucking job. My back hurt more than once, aggravation of an old injury. I stretched, I popped Advil, I went back to work. The week before the move, after we closed on the new home, I drove back-n-forth north-n-south hauling everything I could to make the eventual big move easier. And yet, the movers filled the truck without space for bicycles and lamps and the wonderful paintings my wife has acquired over the years. Return trips to the old abode were many, but it’s all finally here.
The last drive back, I noticed that my leg was tingling. Then numb. And yet, an ache in there somehow. Numb and pained at once. Since then, the feeling has progressed to constant discomfort and low-grade agony. I got on some muscle relaxers and started physical therapy. I’m a ways away from being the guy at the gym lifting and sweating and extending his life.
I wrote something in The Soft Lunacy (I can’t recall the exact wording, and I won’t look it up) about someday dying under a pile of books, an avalanche of tomes precariously triple stacked on creaking shelves. In that sense, this recent book related injury is confirmation that my demise will be of my own making. Suicide by book collecting.
2
Unpacking is slow. I’ve filled two standard and one extra tall bookcase, which feels like a lot. A dop in the proverbial bucket. Today, I lined the shelves of the basement bar with books. Normally, this space would hold glassware and various items associated with finer public houses. But in my basement, there are books. There will be books in every room. One day, that is. One day when I have no more boxes cluttering up the space between where I am and where I wish to be: in my organized, quiet home library. See me there—a scotch at my side reading Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and nowhere near finishing it. When I get there—when all is unpacked and properly placed and the packing supplies are tossed and the boxes donated and the dog is finally acquainted with the new smells—I might actually be content. What a thought.
3
The upside of all of this? I have not bought a book in over a month. Those little free libraries? I pass them by without a glance.
4
One of the movers made a joke: “Next time… electronic books.”
You’d have to hear him say this in his Russian accent to get the full effect.
I laughed and apologized.
I can’t do eBooks. Or audio books. I can only fuck with the text, the tome, the book, the onanistic object of adoration and obsession. The tangible, tactile thing that will surely ruin my body as I age along with the ever-expanding library. I’m doomed. Doomed.
