GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1074: A SPECIAL REPORT

 I can't believe it. I achieved something I didn't think I'd live to see. Remember, I thought I'd be dead by now. This means I have a chance. I actually have a chance!

When I finished reading The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, I finished the second (of three) notebook of my reading list. The third is only half full, and since I haven't been able to afford many new books lately, I'm not adding much to it.

I might actually finish my reading list before I die. Holy shit, that's huge!

When I was a kid I put together a list of all the books I owned. That was the first page and a half of the list. I was able to add to my personal collection thanks to several factors. The Hillside Public Library usually had a good rack of used paperbacks you could get for fifty cents each. Then there was the Book Exchange in Berkley, my favorite used bookstore of all time. You could get used hardcovers there for a couple of bucks each, and paperbacks were usually a quarter. And then there was the single biggest contributor to my collection: the annual Elmhurst Public Library sales. They'd give you a paper grocery bag, and you could fill it to the brim with as many books as you possibly could, and you'd pay five bucks for the bag. Every year I'd go home with five or six bags.

When I got my first job (at the Elmhurst Public Library, by the way), I only had two expenses: my student loans and books, except now I could afford to get books at actual stores like Borders. And when I got my first big boy office job? Think of all the books I got in those days before I had real life expenses like rent and groceries, etc. By then I realized I'd never live to finish my list, and I didn't even have two full notebooks yet.

But now I have a new problem. I'm having sight issues. I'm not going blind, per se, but I have huge floaters in both eyes, and they're so big it's next to impossible to blink them out of the way. I'm starting to have difficulty in reading because of them. The only cure for floaters is to have a procedure done where, when they're finished, you have to lie face down in bed for two weeks with your eyes covered up. I can't afford to do that, money- and time-wise. If I do that, I will lose my home.

So now it's just not a matter of living long enough to finish that last notebook. I also have to read it all before I go blind. This victory, though, has given me hope. I might actually succeed at doing this. And I've thought about what I would do if I ever finished the list. For the first time since I was a kid, I'd just go to the library and pick a book off the shelf. Or a bookstore, if we still have those in the future. It was always a pipe dream, but now that I have a chance?

Wish me luck.

In case you were wondering, the first book on my list was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The copy I had back then was an old hardcover from the 1930's that I picked up from my stepfather (and it had Twain's real name on it for some reason), but now I have a replica of the first edition, and if you didn't know it, nearly all of Twain's books originally came with woodcut illustrations. For some reason, scholarly versions of the text leave those pictures out. They're pretty amazing. You should read the books as the author intended, with those pictures.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1006: AN INSUFFERABLE DELAY

 Of all the things I've suffered over the course of this year, the insult to injury was my reading list. I know this will interest only a few of you (possibly none), but I keep to a strict reading list. Unfortunately I am perpetually 10 years behind on everything. I make exceptions every once in a while, but they don't entirely jump the line. I read it at the same time as the one I'm supposed to be reading.

Many years back I inherited a shit-ton of F/SF books. It took a long time for me to catalog them all in my records. They're at the back of the second notebook and the front of the third notebook (yes, I have a reading list longer than a mere single notebook).

When my brother and I got the notice to vacate our childhood home, I was just approaching that part of my reading list. AND THOSE FUCKING BOOKS HAVE BEEN PACKED SINCE 2022. I kept as many books aside as I could for my reading list (I couldn't find three, so I'll have to circle back), but I knew even back then that there was no way we'd still be there by the time I reached the inheritance. Sure enough, I was right.

July 30 is when I get to move into my apartment. All my books will finally be removed from Public Storage and will be at my fingertips once more. I am going to unpack all those glorious books, and I'm going to find those three and read those. And then . . . the inheritance.

I'll finally be back on track with my reading list. Considering the chaos of my life, that's no small thing.

And then, a week later, the cage comes off my foot. At long last.

Just pretend I'm Scrooge McDuck jumping into my vault of gold. Except instead of gold, it's books. Am I wearing pants? I don't know. Maybe? It's your fantasy.

Very well. Our. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Goodnight, Fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #438: MY READING LIST

 So I'm perpetually ten years behind on my reading list, and I'm slipping even further back. Books that had just been released when I added them were published in 2009 now. It's irritating, but there's nothing I can do about, and like the fucking idiot that I am, I keep buying more and more books. I know for a fact that I'm not going to live long enough to get to them all, and it's probably just going to be a hassle for my relatives when I die.

But I can't help myself.

Not too long ago I found myself looking at that reading list. When I finish a book, I put a dot next to it. I have three notebooks filled with a book on each line. The first notebook is done. I'm halfway through the second. And then I thought that once upon a time this list was only one notebook long. In fact, once upon a time that list was one page long.

And that led me to another strange thought. Once upon a time I didn't have a reading list. I just let chaos guide me. I'd go to the library and pick whatever I wanted to read next. Thinking about the lack of a plan back then shocks me. It's very unlike me. But at the same time, I kinda miss the freedom of something like that. Back when I first started putting this reading list together I fantasized about finishing it and then going back to what I did before: going to the library and letting chaos guide my hand.

That's never going to happen again. Probably. The odds are staggeringly against me on this one. Then again, I figured I'd be dead by now. Death has come for me a few times now, and he always goes away without me. Sometimes he takes pieces of me, like my gall bladder and my toe, but he hasn't gotten the whole package yet. His John Bruni collection is incomplete. It's gotten to the point where sometimes I have this irrational thought that I might not actually die. That I might live until the heat death of the sun. I know that's stupid, but when you've beaten death like I have, it makes you kinda cocky, and we all know what Han Solo said about that.

But what if I do finish the list? What if I got my book habit under control and stopped buying books whenever I felt like it? Just stick to the new releases of a handful of authors. What then?

Just kidding. That's never going to happen. The only reason I didn't buy a book yesterday was because I'm broke. And I spent some time with a friend getting drunk and seeing Ghostbusters: Afterlife. By the time I got home, I was pretty out of it, hence the lack of a GF column last night. I just wanted to watch TV and pass out, which is exactly what I did.

And I'm going to bed now. Goodnight, fuckers.