known. some. call. is. air. am?

Last week there was a promo for free shipping at Half.com. Suddenly, all those $0.97 books I wanted to read seemed like a good (and financially wise) idea. I found a few books I was mildly interested in but fell seriously short of the $10 minimum I needed to complete my order.

And then I remembered the haunting description of a book I had read about earlier this year. I found at copy at my local Barnes & Noble but the $19.99 price stag struck me as being too steep for a weekend hobby (I LOVE me some books, but my parents were always very vocal in their protests against my desire to purchase new books... protests that inhabit my mind even today). Besides, I was too busy not reading for classes to consider getting a 700 page book for distraction. I really don't need to seek out reasons for distraction, I come about that easily enough on my own.

The book is called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I found it on a list of the scariest books of all time, as ranked by the Huffington Post. I literally cannot find a review that says this book isn't scary, or that it is over-hyped. It is legitly the scariest shit I've ever read. Mind fuck extraordinaire.

And for no good reason, too.

Nothing extraordinary has happened in the book (I'm on page 80 after approx. 10 hours of reading [ps - WHOA there's a lot to digest]) and yet I am literally rooted to my chair, afraid to move lest I turn my head and have to face the source of my fear.

This is not a book review. I won't even try because there's no way I could do it justice. I have pages upon pages upon pages of notes, dozens of tabs open on my browser (thesaurus, dictionary, Wiki, Google Translate, Exploration Z, various links I found on search engines...) and it occurs to me: one could go mad in an empty room.

I don't expect you to understand (unless you've read the book), but my purpose in mentioning any of this is as follows: books make me fat. As a kid, I didn't live in the safest city so my parents insisted that we I stay inside. Not only that, but we didn't have cable TV and those were the days before the Internet. I developed a serious passion for three things: Barbies, LEGOs, and books. All three kept me entertained for hours on end, they were activities I could do on my own (because my sister never wanted anything to do with me) within the confines of our house. I associate time off from school (holidays, summers) with reading because that's what I did when there was no school and my parents weren't home to watch us during the week while they worked. It's summer, I am not in school, and I will forever be a latchkey kid. Always.

Most other people my age associate the summer months with vacations and swimming and outdoor activities. Nope, not me. The phrase "swimsuit season" doesn't apply to me because I never had the chance to care about my figure nor how it might appear tied to the strings of a bikini. It's summer and all I want to do is read. Half.com has enabled me in the worst way possible; since I got House of Leaves, I haven't been to the gym or gone for a run. And I'm afraid it will stay that way until I finish the book.