296 Pounds

I need to lose 296 pounds...

...of books.

For those of you who have seen my cute little condo, you were probably amazed at the lack of excess crap, that it was a curated and simple place.

No more. This weekend, Pedro and his girlfriend delivered 296 pounds of books from my former home to the condo. Pedro got out my bathroom scale and weighed them. He initially thought it was 200 pounds of books, but girlfriend didn't believe it was that much. I suppose I could weigh the boxes once they are empty, and subtract that. 

What am I going to do with all of these books? I don't have enough shelves in my apartment. 

In a way, it is a little Christmas, getting all of these books that at one point I had been excited about them because I bought them in the first place. Many I have read. Many I have not. I would go to bookstores and buy three or four books, and read two. I found some gems, like my first edition copy of Katharine Graham's autobiography, that I will want on my shelves forever. There are other books I've loved, but would never read again. There are many books I've loved that I have given away to friends. I loved those books so much and I had to share them. A friend gave me Ali Wong's book. The minute I finished it, I gave it to Claire-Adele.

I still love books, but I need to break my book buying habit. I have a friend in my condo building who loves to read, and she swears by the Libby app where you can download library books on your Kindle for free. I have Pedro's old Kindle, which is fine, but I still love paper. When I read on a Kindle, I realize I am not a linear reader, I flip back and forth between chapters, which is hard to do on a Kindle.

Anyway, I have a new project. More to come...

A River Runs Through It

The Boy has become a Montanan.

He has lived here for eleven months and is now a resident. 

"I don't plan on living in Seattle ever again permanently," he said. I think the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (aka CHAZ) might have been hard for him to explain to his non-Seattle friends at school. To the rest of the world, they saw CHAZ and thought "WTF?" To Seattlites, we knew this was the uber-left co-opting the Black Live Matter movement to justify taxing Amazon, not to change policing practices towards people of color.

The Boy is becoming an outdoorsman. He imagines his first car will be a pickup truck. He likes Dodge Chargers. He thinks there is nothing inherently wrong with Republicans and one day he might own a gun to hunt.

The Boy has become a Montanan.

Since the Boy can't mountain bike or hike or ski with his newly repaired knee, he has found a new sport. The Boy collects sports the way I collect books: just because I found a new book doesn't mean I don't love the ones I've already read. This sport is one that will likely never leave him: fly fishing. 

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," opens Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, a book read and re-read by the Boy. We watched the movie tonight at the Boy's request. The story takes place in Missoula, about 150 miles from the Boy's school. In Montana terms, 150 miles is considered the next town over. The scenery is breathtaking.

Norman's brother, Paul, is played by a young Brad Pitt. Paul is charming and smart and handsome and an artist when it comes to fly fishing. He also has a gambling problem and some other addictions that in the end ruin his life and break the hearts of his parents and sibling.

"Why do the people who need help the most refuse it?" Norman's girlfriend, J.C., asks. Her own brother is a very hot mess, but lacks the kindness and grace of Paul.

I was talking to a fellow boarding school mom the other day and she was moaning about the cost. Another parent a few months ago also kvetched about the cost. While I have no solid proof, my guess is that these families have some means. If they can afford this, why are they complaining? Don't they know they are lucky to be able to save their sons, cost be damned?

Why do I think this? I am the queen of investing and saving money. Shouldn't I be evaluating the cost-benefit analysis of this spending? Why am I so okay with shelling out an obscene amount of cash when people who I am guessing have way more money than me are complaining?

My brother was Paul Maclean, minus the fly fishing.

I couldn't save my brother, but perhaps I can save my son. If I lose him to Montana, I am okay with that, as long as he finds himself.

Some Men Like Crazy

On our vacation, I read Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl.  A friend of writer friend of mine recommended I read it.  I am writing about my brother's battle with schizophrenia, and my friend thought this book would be a good reference as Ruth writes about her mother's erratic and unpredictable behavior.  Later, Ruth's mother was diagnosed with mental illness and was medicated.

One of the interesting subplots is relationship between Ruth's parents.  Ruth's father is a neuro-typical, sane man, yet he loves this woman who served spoiled food on a regular basis and ships her daughter off to French language school in Montreal without discussion.  She schedules big events with no skills on how to organize them, causing havoc for everyone around.  Why does this sane man love this nut job?  And this man seems to be psychologically normal to Ruth.

Some men like crazy.

I have many dear friends with diagnosed mental illness who are in stable and meaningful relationships.  People with mental illness deserve to be happy, too.  I am not disparaging people with mental illness.  These friends own and manage their illness, not take everyone in their path into their cyclone of unpredictability.

Back to the point.  Some men like women who are unstable, needy, clingy, mean and selfish.  Why?  Are these women so interesting or humorous that they sweep men off their feet?  What about us regular girls?  What are we to do?  I am slightly neurotic.  I own that.  But I don't think men have fallen for me because I obsess over small details, worry about things or vent after a stressful meeting.  

There must be something that men get out of these unstable women.  Do they like helping them stay on an even keel?  Do these women make them feel needed and important?  Do they like helping someone stabilize?  Or, do these men have a blind spot for crazy?  Do they just not see it?  Or, do these women treat men differently than they treat others, say their parents or children?

I think Ruth wonders the same thing in her book.  

Gutenberg vs. Bezos, Part II

Like Dorothy wearing her ruby slippers in Oz, I've had the power with me all along.  I ran into a friend who showed me how to use an e-reader app (Nook, Kindle, iBooks, etc.) on my iPad without the glowing white screen that I fear will cause my eyes to fail someday in my old age.

"You switch it so the background is black and the words are white," she said.  "It is great.  My Nook crashed so now I just use the Nook app on my iPad."  Brilliant.  I tried it with Pride and Prejudice, and it works.

So I don't need a Kindle since I already own an iPad.  The earth will thank me for not adding yet another digital device to my family's swelling arsenal.  Will I use this new found power for good, not evil?

Before I discuss that, I asked my friend how I could separate my Kindle books from my son's.  John registered the Boy's Kindle under my Amazon account. 

"So you don't want him perusing your copy of Fifty Shades of Orange?"

Exactly.  No.  Wait.  I was thinking more about Gone Girl, a psychological thriller.  (Am I the only middle age woman on the planet who hasn't read anything in Fifty Shades?)  She said to get him his own Amazon account so I can keep my reading private.

"You know it takes place in Seattle," she said.  Interesting.  I'd love for Mr. Orange to run into Bernadette.  That would be awesome.

Which begs another question: Is Fifty Shades success due to the e-reader?  Was this a book that people can discreetly download and read while reading the bus or in their living room and no one can see what it is?  I think so.  Like the internet exploded the porn industry, ditto to Fifty Shades and the Kindle.

Back to using my iPad e-reader for good and not evil.  I'll have to think of it in the same terms of my use of iTunes.  With iTunes, I am buying and enjoying music that I otherwise wouldn't have.  Even if it ends up being small change, it is money that the artist might not otherwise have gotten.  So I rationalize:  these are books that I otherwise might not get from the library or a bookstore.  I will still love the library and my neighborhood bookstores, and my bookshelves will thank me.

I just downloaded Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn from iBooks for $8.99.  It looks like Steven Jobs won this round.

Gutenberg vs. Bezos

My birthday is tomorrow, which makes today the last day I am closer to 40 than I am to 50.  This morning, my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  I had thought of getting a Liberty puzzle,* which I so love, or a Kindle.**  The new batch of Liberty puzzles have not yet arrived at Card Kingdom,*** so I will have wait for that.

I am vexed about making this leap into the next technology for books.  The Boy got a Kindle for his birthday, and Daughter has a Nook from Barnes & Noble.  I have several friends who were early adopters of the Kindle, and they love it.  I am worried that I will contribute to the demise of the printed word, and subsequently, the demise of libraries and bookstores.

I love bookstores and libraries.  I like looking at the tables with new releases with beautiful covers and the branch favorites bookshelf at the library.  I like the handwritten reviews on notecards written by the staff at the shops.  In the case of the U Bookstore kids section, reviews are written by kids, including one by my daughter.

The Boy has a Paperwhite, which is easy on the eyes.   I have the Kindle app on my iPad, but I don't find it comfortable to read for a long period of time on the glowing screen.  As I am getting older, I am starting to take things like eye strain more seriously.

(Sidebar:  Can someone in the tech world please make a computer/word processor with this technology like Paperwhite so I can type without have to look at a glowing screen all day?  I can get another device to watch Netflix or check FB.  Or would I be the only person to buy this?)

Back to the question:  Should I get a Kindle?  Someone did a study somewhere that showed that people who read on e-reading devices read more than people who don't.  I can see why.  I have a list of several books I have been wanting to read, and I could download them in a matter of minutes with an e-reader.  Instead, I order them from the Seattle Public Library.  Some other study showed that SPL is one of the most used libraries in the country.  The downside of these bragging rights is that I was 900 or something to get David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell.  My friend in Park Ridge, Illinois walked into her library and picked it up off the shelf weeks after it came out.  I thought we could discuss the book, but by time I got it six months later, she forgot what it was about.  A group of friends recommended Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I am number 92.  I was going to reserve Where'd You Go, Bernadette from the library.  I decided to buy it when I was 1,007th in line.  My patience has its limits.

I could buy books like Gone Girl, I suppose.  I have bought lots of books, and favorite bookstore are the Ravenna Third Place and University Bookstore.  I have three problems with buying books.

1. They cost a decent amount of money, given how much I read.  The library is a very reasonable option, even if I have to wait.
2. I am running out of room in my house to store books I've bought.  
3. I have so many books and I don't know what I own.  When I lived in Chicago, I bought a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I bought a copy when I lived in St. Louis.  I didn't figure this out until I moved to Seattle and found two copies while I was unpacking.  I recently gave one copy away, and now can't find the second one.  Argh.  (First World Problem, I know.)

Here is a picture of the four stacks of books next to my bed.  They are next to my bed because I like to read before I go sleep and when I wake up.

I also love the little post-it-note page flags and bookmarks.

I started with one stack, then somehow ended up with four when I ran out of space on my bookshelves.  I feel like an archeologist digging through these stacks.  That anthology on Alzheimer's buried beneath four books, so that must have been purchased in March 2014.

While a Kindle would mean I would be able to escape my bed if there were a fire in my house, I worry I might go crazy with clicks and drop $30 a week on books.  I told John this, and he asked if I drink in bars every week.

No.

"Some people drop $30 a week in bars.  Buying books online probably costs the same and has to be healthier."

True.

I say this as I listen to "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order which I purchased on iTunes.  I know iTunes and downloading MP3s hurt record shops.  But I rarely shopped in music stores before they became extinct.  My iTunes purchases are gravy for the music industry as this is music that otherwise would not have purchased.  While I feel sad music stores are extinct, I do not feel as I contributed to their demise.

So I am torn.  To summarize: I am too cheap to buy lots of books, yet waiting six months or more to read the latest Malcolm Gladwell gets old.  If I do decide to splurge and buy books, I have no place to put them.  If I get an e-reader, I feel like I might make bookstores and libraries obsolete, which would be bad.

My budget could handle buying ebooks, considering I don't drinks Appletini's or some other fancy cocktails at bars.  Yet, I feel like if I were get an e-reader I am changing the world.  Should I enter the new world?  Did people vex when Gutenberg made his Bible?  Did they shun it, and only read Bibles written by scribes?  I kind of doubt it.  My kids have e-readers now, and this is their world.  Should it be mine?

_______________
* I am not shilling for Liberty puzzles.  I just like them a lot.
** Not shilling for Kindle, either.
*** Ditto.  Birthdays bring out the consumer in me.  Oy.