Apraxis incarnate. ([info]rakafkaven) wrote,
@ 2004-04-29 17:57:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Current mood:lighter
Current music:Bob Seger - Turn the Page

I hate the end of relationships. Even when you've seen it coming for a long time, even when you are the one who finally closes that last door yourself, there's always an element of the bitterest surprise. There's always that moment when you take a single symbolic step away, and feel the wrenching emptiness as you know you can't step back. Even if you know it's what has to happen, you wonder if there was any other way. You may never feel you made a mistake, but you feel a ghost of future regret right then. And it hurts. And knowing doesn't make it any easier.

And I'm at that point again, now. I have to end it. A hundred times and a hundred more, and then again, and again; all in the next few days.

Books are printed heartbreak, bound to happen.

"It's not that these other books are better than you. But I've read you, and... and I just don't see myself reading you again in the next five years. I'm sorry."

"It's not you, it's me. Yeah, we had some great, crazy times back in high school. But I'm a different reader, now."

"Look, your cover was always beautiful. I know I'll never forget your cover. But I shouldn't've picked you up just for that. There was just nothing there inside. I need more."

"No, it's not about the papercuts. It was never about the papercuts."

"Hey, I know this is ugly right now. But maybe, once we've both moved on a bit, I'll check you out in the library. If that's okay."

"You know what? I never wanted to read you. I picked you up just so my friends would see me with you and be impressed. You happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I tried. God knows, I tried. Over and over. I stopped reading all other books for you. I set aside an entire vacation, just to see if we could make it work. But... you just meandered. And kept going on, and on. And I thought, 'Fine. I can do this.' But then you always started with those goddamned endnotes, not even footnotes so we could stay together, but those endnotes you know I always hated and... and it's just not going to happen."

"I know you're fragile. I'm trying to be gentle. Don't you fall apart on me now. Don't. That won't help anything."

"I'm done with you. You were a good read. I had my fun. But frankly, the only reason I'd keep you in my sight now is in case my friends wanted to flip through you sometime. I can't say I'd recommend you, but I wouldn't stop 'em."

"You can stay. You can. But I don't think I can ever read you again. I'd just be using you for reference. And that's not fair to either of us."

"I only got you 'cause I wanted to read your sequel."

(37 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]jawsoflife
2004-04-29 11:57 pm UTC (link)
Brilliant! I think a number of moves in the last few years helped me get over book-hoarding. For the most part, I don't re-read them, so I prefer to give them to friends. I also kind of think people who maintain big bookshelves are kind of showing off - displaying the notches in their literary bedposts, as it were.

I mean really, who reads Foucault once they're out of college?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 12:03 am UTC (link)
If full shelves are a form of "compensating", then my genitals must be so tiny as to require extra-dimensional analysis to detect.

I have rather more books than any three people should ever own. A bit under two full walls, floor to almost-ceiling. And I've been averaging about 1.5 moves/year over the last decade.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]divisionofunity
2004-04-30 03:22 am UTC (link)
I have rather more books than any three people should ever own. A bit under two full walls, floor to almost-ceiling. And I've been averaging about 1.5 moves/year over the last decade.

The book thing is so hard. My last move I made a concerted effort to question every book when I packed it, and when I unpacked it. Each one got two chances to stay, and I kept far more than I probably should have.

My boyfriend's parents don't read books. His dad is quite proud of the fact that he has read exactly 3 books in his life. They have no books in the house. I have a hard time processing that. When his parents come over, they are always shocked at how many books I have - every shelf is stuffed to overflowing. They also don't understand why anyone would want to keep a book that they already read. Sometimes I don't understand how their son turned out the way he did. He is by no means a voracious reader, but he is so different than them in so many ways I just don't get it.

In any case, I digress. In short, I feel your pain.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]snmnstrz21
2004-04-30 03:56 am UTC (link)
Once, in college, a friend came over to my apartment. He stared at my 6 foot, 6 shelf, bookshelf that was completely full and asked, "Did you really read all those books?" He was stunned when I said yes. People like that baffle me.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
"I only got you
[info]erisreg
2004-04-30 12:01 am UTC (link)
good post!,..:)

(Reply to this)


[info]pixiecup
2004-04-30 12:01 am UTC (link)
You are good. :)

(Reply to this)


[info]minnesattva
2004-04-30 12:14 am UTC (link)
Can I post this in [info]readers_list?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 09:38 am UTC (link)
By all means.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]kennfusion
2004-04-30 01:07 am UTC (link)
"I tried. God knows, I tried. Over and over. I stopped reading all other books for you. I set aside an entire vacation, just to see if we could make it work. But... you just meandered. And kept going on, and on. And I thought, 'Fine. I can do this.' But then you always started with those goddamned endnotes, not even footnotes so we could stay together, but those endnotes you know I always hated and... and it's just not going to happen."


Infinite Jest?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 09:32 am UTC (link)
Got it in one! I was actually going to ask people if they could identify some of the books by the break-up lines. Not all the lines had a particular book in mind, but that was definitely one.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]kaela
2004-05-03 03:12 pm UTC (link)
That's totally what I thought of when I read this, too. I got about 30 pages in and then used it to prop up a window fan. The Onion had an article called, "Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20" that pretty much hit the nail on the head.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]puffpastry
2004-04-30 01:30 am UTC (link)
Ohhhhh....

If it's not too personal -- and of COURSE you don't have to answer if you don't want -- which book did you, you know, most recently break it off with?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 09:29 am UTC (link)
Literally hundreds, tonight. I wish I could remember the last one I pulled from the shelves, but I was just numb by then.

I lie. I was actually getting a bit exuberant about halfway through. It's as though a great weight has been taken from my... shelves.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]pentothepage
2004-04-30 01:37 am UTC (link)
Sell on Amazon!
After only a week of having a bunch of things on there, I made 3 sales and 40 some-odd dollars!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 09:37 am UTC (link)
Hmmmm... I had been planning to donate them to a bookstore I love, and set some others free. But you awaken the acquisitive side of my nature.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]dylanmumbles
2004-04-30 02:23 am UTC (link)
Why would you ever part with a book in the first place? They're timeless if not read every year.

Unless this is an elaborate "Bree and I are done" analogy, which suck.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]techieguru
2004-04-30 02:35 am UTC (link)
We don't have room in the apartment, and instead of storing them, he's chucking 'em.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dylanmumbles
2004-04-30 02:47 am UTC (link)
How many can he keep? I don't have a ton of books around myself, but the ones I do, I cherish.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]techieguru
2004-04-30 02:54 am UTC (link)
It's not like the Big Scary Wife is making poor helpless Jesse get rid of his beloved books - this is all his own doing. I don't know what he's getting rid of...I just know that we have finite space and he's got two large full walls of book on wooden planks.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]divisionofunity
2004-04-30 03:15 am UTC (link)
It's not like the Big Scary Wife is making poor helpless Jesse get rid of his beloved books

Sure you're not. We know the truth.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]techieguru
2004-04-30 03:18 am UTC (link)
"Get rid of the books! And the cats! And we're getting a dishwasher whether you like it or not!!"

Little does he know that meteorite has special mind-control powers that I have harnessed, and by getting meteorite rings, I can make him do anything I want - forever. Muah ha.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]geekninja
2004-04-30 03:19 am UTC (link)
Don't chuck!! Let Font Boy provide some of them a good home...

...if there are any he already doesn't have.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]techieguru
2004-04-30 03:30 am UTC (link)
Well, "chuck" is a substitute word for...for...for whatever he's going to do with them. And I don't know what he's going to do with them. All I know is that none are packed, and none are in our apartment yet.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]snmnstrz21
2004-04-30 03:59 am UTC (link)
he's chucking 'em.

I will cry if he throws out even a single book. I have never thrown out a book in my life. Even if I hated it, it still got donated somewhere or pawned off onto a friend.

When I was searching through my parents' house for a particular book, my mother informed me, "Oh, I threw that one out. It scared me." I could have strangled her.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: room in the apartment
[info]wolfieboy
2004-04-30 10:45 pm UTC (link)
There's always a storage unit...

When [info]cindygerb and I moved from DC to Seattle, we shipped 1.75 tons of books across country by train. They stayed in storage for four years until we got a house.

BTW, nice tummy.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: room in the apartment
[info]techieguru
2004-05-01 07:34 am UTC (link)
Sure, except that storage units cost money.

I am more than willing to accomodate his book/clothing excess, but he is bound and determined to pare them both down.

BTW, nice tummy.

Thanks! I was being a Sneetch.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]mebeth
2004-04-30 05:29 pm UTC (link)
LOL!!!! "It's not the papercuts. It was never about the papercuts."

(Reply to this)


[info]queenofstripes
2004-04-30 06:40 pm UTC (link)
I need to show this post to my boyfriend. He's like a bibliomaniac Hugh Hefner -- he's always got a book on each arm, and he's only happy if the house is full of them. :D We're moving in a couple of months, and it's going to be fun trying to persuade him to giving up the swinger's life and settle down with 50-100 special someones...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-04-30 07:53 pm UTC (link)
Good luck. I was even more callously brutal than I'd expected to be, and I still only pared it down to 50% or so. That's still hundreds of books.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: swinger's life
[info]wolfieboy
2004-04-30 10:51 pm UTC (link)
Poor 'rat.

He could come over and look at ours. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]rikoshi
2004-04-30 06:43 pm UTC (link)
"You can stay. You can. But I don't think I can ever read you again. I'd just be using you for reference. And that's not fair to either of us."

YES.

(Reply to this)


[info]seismic
2004-04-30 08:29 pm UTC (link)
Got here through [info]readers_list though really it could've just as easily been friends of friends.

Beautiful entry. Made me chuckle a little. =)

Every time I move I get rid of a lot of stuff. considering I've moved more than 20 times in the last 13 years, I've cut a helluva lot of dead weight. I'm not a pack rat or a consumer whore--just ruthless and value simplicity. The simultaneous pain and euphoria of unloading stuff is a concept that I'm well familiar with.

But I could never bring myself to touch the books until I made my most recent long-distance move: From FL to DE, on a shoestring. In addition to all of my furniture, I got rid of half my books since the movers charged by weight. They filled up my entire trunk, back seat and the front passenger seat of my car. They all went to the Friends of the Library book sale. I spent the rest of the afternoon restraining the urge to flee back and say it was all a mistake.

The only one I've missed didn't even go to the sale. I loaned it to my Dad and he never returned it.

(Reply to this)

relationships
[info]wolfieboy
2004-04-30 10:49 pm UTC (link)
I hope you don't mind if I link to this in my journal. I'm delighted.

I really am a biblophilic slut. I went cold turkey on buying books so that we could afford to move across the country. Three days later, there was a front page article on USA Today: "Book Buying down in the US."

(Reply to this)


[info]alnowatzki
2004-05-01 10:27 pm UTC (link)
I'll take some. You know what I like, or what I might like.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-05-01 11:16 pm UTC (link)
Er, no, not really. You're welcome to them. You can come over some time this week, look through 'em. Or you can give me an idea of a genre you'd be interested in.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]toastedtuna
2004-05-02 08:34 am UTC (link)
Excellent entry!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]rakafkaven
2004-05-02 11:28 pm UTC (link)
Thank you!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(37 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…