Books Can Make You Fucking Crazy

So this morning I'm standing on the corner with Dawn & Diane, my realtors.

Yup. Realtors. As in Real Estate. I'm buying real estate.

We're moving into a New House. I'm looking at investment properties.

Cause you know how good I am at taking care of this house.

And since I'm so good at it, why not take care of more?

Never fear. We're keeping the pink and purple house. We'll rent it out.

I promised Mia we wouldn't sell it.

Anyhoo...

Dawn & Diane are the kind of ladies who LOVE Black Friday.

They start at 4:30 in the morning.

They told me so themselves.

As you can imagine, I HATE Black Friday and almost every thing else that has to do with buying more shit.

Unless I'm buying real estate

So they asked if I had started my Christmas shopping.

Seriously? I'm buying real estate. I have no time for Christmas.

I already warned the kids it's gonna be a lean Christmas.

What does that mean mom? I thought lean was like bacon or something.

Christmas shopping? I can't even do grocery shopping.

Being the lazy undisciplined procrastinator I am, I haven't started packing yet.

I told myself there was no point until we were actually in contract, but in all honesty, that was just an excuse to sit in the sun, or go to yoga, or whatever.

I told Dawn & Diane I don't start Christmas shopping until after December 15th.

They looked at me like I had two heads.

So. I can't think about Christmas cause I have to think about packing.

I've made several attempts to organize climb over the stuff in the attic.

All the crap we don't need and never use had been packed up in labeled boxes from the last time we moved.

Or so I thought.

Lo and behold, Mia has discovered the attic and all the boxes of cool shit she's never seen before.

Now the attic is a big jumbled pile of unused and useless crap that I have to either repack or throw out. where's that roll of hefties?

There are like 112 boxes of books up there. Most of them are mine.

Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Rice yikes.

Books about farming. Books about gardening. Books about medicine. Books about meditation.

Books about India. Books about Mexico. Books about food. Books about sustainability.

Michael Pollan. Bill McKibben. Vandana Shiva. Arundhati Roy my secret girlfriend.

All the books that put me over the edge.

The More You Read the More You Know.

I can't get rid of them. They're Good Books. But they are Flowers in my Attic.

They are banned from my living space. Hidden away.

I can't look at them cause they'll just look back at me and hurl accusations.

Seriously Michelle? Giving the babysitter money for FAST FOOD three times a week?

What about all that plastic? What about all that industrial meatwheatndairy? What about fossil fuels?

And now a swimming pool? We know you were drinking bottled water today. What about the dry aquifers?

What about India? What about California? What about FOOTPRINTS goddammit?

Damn books. I wish they'd shut the fuck up.

The only books allowed in my living space are cook books and art books.

And we have a lot of those too.

*****

So. We looked at a building today. 5 small residential units and a ground floor retail space.

Right on my beloved Main St.

Brick. 1889. In really good condition.

As Patrick, my soon to be Partner in Real Estate Crime, said this is a no brainer.

Before entering the last apartment, the listing agent kind of apologized.

There is one tenant who has been here a long time. An older man. He's kind of a hoarder.

There are piles of book everywhere.

understatement

Very neatly stacked piles of paperbacks lined the small hallway and the walls.

Then rows of stacks in between.

Very uniform. Very deliberate.

Very. Neatly. Stacked.

aack

On one cluster of piles, there were 6 wrapped rolls of paper towels, balanced on end, carefully arranged in a hexagon with 2 more rolls in the middle. A bowl was balanced on top of the 2 rolls. It looked shrine-like. Something else was going on with the paper towels but I don't remember what because that's when my nose started to sting and my eyes started to leak goddammit.

he's crazy poor thing

There was a small bedroom with a single bed. No photos. No tv. No nothing.

A couch. A bed. And stacks of books.

my heart hurt

Something about it reminded me of my dad.

My dad was not a hoarder or obsessive compulsive. Nor was he alone.

But he did have dementia which was eventually diagnosed as Alzheimer's.

We watched him slip away.

It was like watching someone fall down a bottomless well or looking at someone backwards through a telescope.

I'm disappearing. Pretty soon there won't be anything of me left.

Sometimes it felt like I was drowning, being with my dad in the last years of his life. Not for me, but for him.

I couldn't still can't imagine what that must feel like.

Knowing that your SELF is disappearing.

I had hoped it would progress to the point where he would feel no pain and no sadness and no loss and no regret.

No such luck.

So I got that drowning feeling being in this old man's apartment home.

What must that feel like?

I told myself it's ok this is how he alleviates his pain manages his anxiety combats his loneliness

ouch

On our way out we saw him. Old guy. Maybe cataracts. Big coat. Hat. Dementia.

Holding in his hand a few more books to stack.

He was very sweet and friendly. The 5 of us filed past him.

Oh wow that's more people than have come to visit in years!

aack

So. I guess I'll just have to buy the building.