Must I read?

I read for a living. As an editor, it is my primary duty to read. Not just read read (as in skim, riffle, glance), but to really read - to really understand, appreciate, respond, digest, ruminate on the numerous scientific articles that, for better or worse, I feel I am almost married to.

But as soon as my 7 hours is done, I put aside the stacks of articles I worked on... and start to read again. This time, for myself. When I am not reading I feel antsy, like something is amiss, that the universe is not aligned properly, that something has horribly, terribly gone wrong. For that matter I never go anywhere without a book or three (hence my penchant for large bags), lest I be caught - heaven forbid - without any reading paraphernalia. I reckon I spend a good 12 hours a day reading, and am perhaps the only one happy when the Metro is running late. I even spend an inordinate amount of time reading labels on cans at the grocery store, stretching what should have been a 30 minute trip to an hour-long excursion. It's a compulsion.

In his first letter to the young poet Franz Xaver Kappus, Rene Rilke bids him to "scale the depths of [his] being" to answer the question every creative being must ask: "Must I write [or paint, or scuplt, or cook, or draw, or create, for that matter]?" Kappus, he says, must go within himself, "search for the cause, to find the impetus that bids [him] write." The test, according to Rilke, is to determine whether "it [stretches] out its roots in the deepest place of [his] heart" and whether or not he can "avow that [he] would die if [he] were forbidden to write."

I don't write poetry, and I'm not inclined to. But I feel like I am answering Rilke's words when I question myself over my book-and-reading obsession (and the attendant expenses that it necessitates). I do feel, in a way, that reading is a highly creative process, for in reading we are asked to create meaning from the words, bounded in turn by the terms, conditions, and definitions set by the very words themselves. Each creation is personal, unique, and will never be the same for different readers. I create my own meaning from reading, even if it is only a meaning.

So, will I die if I don't read? Yes, without a shade of doubt. And not just in any metaphorical or metaphysical or meta-whatever sense of dying. I mean it in a real, absolute, physical extinction.
Hence, I must read.

New books for April!

I should set up a monthly direct deposit to Borders' account.

It used to be that bookshelves

Had shelves. As in, on the top shelf, second middle shelf, etc. Totoro arrived, however, and now instead of shelves, they have "basement," "lobby," "second floor." Mike, one day, just blurted it, lamenting how fast Totoro was growing, how he has effectively moved up from the "lobby" (formerly the second from the lowest shelf" to the "second floor."

Totoro has now managed to reach the third floor, thanks in part to a curiously placed ledge (his old scratching post) sticking out from the bottom of my bed. He has been trying to go up to the fourth floor, but no luck yet. THe most he has been able to do is clear the shelf of all the gewgaws I have placed there: Mardi Gras beads (straight from New Orleans!), sunblock, and new books that have yet to find their place.

---o0o0o0o0o---

I finally finished organizing my two bookcases. The bigger one, in the living area, and that has since become Totoro's town house, contains all my philosophy, school, and some random fiction books. The basement (as with any house I've been in), contains random crap that for some reason or another I can't seem to part with. The lobby has my Norton anthologies from grad school, the second floor houses my philosophy books. The third floor holds my philosophy books (in Latin, gifts from a former professor), art books (mostly on Seurat and Escher) and leftover books from school. The fourth floor contains a small sampling of my fiction books. The attic has CDs and some LPs. 

The smaller one in bedroom holds all my food and cooking books and YA novels. The basement, covered with a fleece blanket, is Totoro's napping area. 

"Stop reading and feed me!"