"ignore the story. see the soul. remember to love. you will never regret it" --- Seane Corn

"ignore the story. see the soul. remember to love. you will never regret it" --- Seane Corn
it's a jungle out there

Saturday, November 13, 2010

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.

16 comments:

  1. Whoa. Poor little dude. That could be me, or my sister, with the books that is, and possibly the dementia. Whoa.

    I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping. Really. Will be all the way done by Thanksgiving. Is just how I roll.

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  2. And now I love you even more than I did before.
    A. I loathe Christmas and all its shopping frenzied needfulness. Ugh. I procrastinate.
    B. My books mock me too. The ones I've read, the ones waiting, needing me to pick them next.
    C. The old man and his books. Well of course you have to buy that building, don't you?
    D. Losing someone I loved to Picks Disease in bits & pieces marked me for ever. You captured it. It was the first thing I ever blogged about, and I'm still trying to come to terms with what I witnessed.
    E. You're keeping the pink and purple house. Of course you are.
    F. etcetera, etcetera...
    Best of luck with the new addition and the holiday feeding frenzy. Hugs.

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  3. I'm already a stacker, sorter, hoarder...

    BUY IT! You know, if you want.

    (I'm sorry about your Dad. Dementia of any kind is not a laughing matter. We're dealing with Joe's Grandmother slipping away now. Saddest thing ever.)

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  4. What a weird and wonderful post this is. I'm lost within it.

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  5. People who shop on Black Friday are sadomasochists! Praise the Lord (and Al Gore) for the internet.

    We have tons of books too. And I'm pretty sure you will go to hell if you throw them away. But what are you supposed to do with them??

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  6. I have 15 file boxes of books in my Dad's attic. I'm hoping he doesn't remember they're there until after I leave for Colorado. I finished Christmas shopping in September. Something is wrong with me.

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  7. It is difficult for me not to hoard books. Hopefully iPad will break that habit for me...

    Can't really think about Christmas until this graduate program thing is put to bed. (OMG 12 days.)

    You need to buy the place, of course, and your description of the dude losing himself... ack.

    We have such a strong dementia gene in our family.

    ackfuckingack, Michelle.

    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  8. how do you DO that? So much wrapped up in one post and all connected, all so beautifully, wonderfully written. How do you make me smile and laugh and make my heart hurt all in one sitting? Wow.
    Books, yes. I counted 25 boxes when I moved.
    I get you, on the Christmas shopping too.
    I love the "lean year" comment. My mom used to say that too, and one year when it was actually true we were all like huh? this is IT?
    Sorry about your Dad. The way you wrote that last part left me achy.

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  9. Don't worry about the plastic. Plastic shopping bags are better for your health than the re-usable ones. I JUST SAW on Fox News (so you know it's true ah-ha) that the re-usable shopping bags start leaking dangerously high levels of lead after several uses.

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  10. Dear sweet friend......come to yoga this week. The times you think you have the least space is the time you need it the most. I promise it will free a lot of other space up.......xoxox

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  11. Thank you for the quote in your banner. I love you A LOT.

    I wish I could rent the pink and purple house. I am in love with it.

    Good luck with the move. I hate moving. I may stay where I'm at UNTIL DEATH.

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  12. What the fabulous Ms. Bastard said about moving goes double for me! So why to I like to look at houses so much?

    My stepdad's mom has been lost for years now, barely existing. Spoon fed by a nurse and recognizing almost no one. It hurts to see her and to be honest, I tend to avoid it. It scares me.

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  13. Ah, Michelle. So much to talk about. Rodney's dad: Alzheimer's. I can hardly talk about it but I CAN tell everyone that I. Would. NOT. Wish. It. On. My. Worst. Enemy.
    Seriously. It's a whole story I have only been able to blog-tackle in bits because it is WAY too painful.

    Books? Sheesh - you KNOW I worked in a bookstore and had (have) a complete addiction to books...reading them is not enough. I like owning them. But there's this: I am a true autodidact. Thank you, Books.

    Aw, damn, I am all over the place with this one. All that matter is how filled with admiration I am, and how I love you. No kidding.

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  14. "matters". Dammit. "All that matters...."

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  15. I think you have the wrong books. My books talk to me nicely. You should get some of them.

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  16. Pretty sure anytime someone says "kinda a hoarder" you should run and get your shovels.

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so... wadaya think?

Your fairy is called Columbine Icedancer
She is a bone chilling bringer of justice for the vulnerable.
She lives in mushroom fields and quiet meadows.
She is only seen when the bees swarm and the crickets chirrup.
She wears lilac and purple like columbine flowers. She has icy blue butterfly wings.