Trying toTalk It Out

Well, it’s just one of those things, I guess. At least I’m hoping it is. Maybe I can just wait it out. Maybe I can reason my way out of it. However it goes down, it’s making me antsy.

It kind of started with a rather peculiar set of circumstances. Peculiar for me, that is. I haven’t got a new book since the end of July. It’s not that there aren’t any books I could buy if I wanted to: my Amazon Wish List is full, and some of the items are quite reasonably priced. I just feel no overwhelming urge for any of them, except maybe for the new Tim Powers, and that’s not out until December. Is it eyestrain? Not having a comfortable position to read in with my writhen body? Just nothing good new coming out?

Part of the trouble is I have plenty of unread books to read. I’m just finding it hard to get started in on any of them. And for me, that’s worrying. I know intellectually that they are fine reads; I seem to have no appetite to read, and that concerns me. Loss of appetite is a worrying symptom under any condition; the elderly often lose appetite before going into a final decline. I feel if I lose my hunger for books, I may go on living, but part of me will be dead, diminished. I’ve defined myself for years, decades even, by what I’ve read and what books I own. They are touchstones; they help me remember what I know. A Brer who ceases to read, a library that ceases to grow, is like a shark that stops swimming.

I think this has led me another strange feeling, something I never would have thought likely. It’s that my shelves are too full, that perhaps the difficulty of getting to them is leading to my hesitancy to start anything. I have always liked to have my books on shelves (or at least in drawers) so that they would be somewhat available. But now I’m thinking about … well, not selling any books, but maybe putting some up in bins, thinning the herd as it were, to get easier access to what remains.

This would be an enormous undertaking, and very finicky if done correctly. Every bin would have to be catalogued and labeled so I could find what had been put away more easily. Books would probably have to be grouped according to size, not subject matter, and that would discomfort my fussy nature, like an itch at the back of the brain. And where would I put the bins? My little house is already almost stacked to the gills.

Anyway, it seems to be growing into one of those restless Fall projects. Maybe that’s all it is. Maybe I’ll somehow find one new book and all these concerns will blow away. Right now, I have to focus on a quest to get a blood pressure monitor at Walmart. We’ll see how that goes. Maybe I’ll see an action figure there (now there’s a diminished appetite!) or a DVD and that will sweep these thoughts away. Maybe. Maybe I just need some Pumpkin Delights. 'Tis the season.