Thought I'd Never Need It
Apr. 24th, 2006 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrilyI have moved nine times in the last eight years, and five in the 18 years before that. As such, I'm exceptionally good at packing, last on the list of people one thinks of inviting to a clothing-swap, and possessed of an anti-book-ownership policy that is currently biting me in the ass.
I'm pro-books in general, of course. In fact, I'm professionally pro-books: book ownership is what puts groceries on my table and almost pays my rent. But I'm tired of lugging them around, especially since it turns out that I'm really not going to read anything that Robert Jordan writes more than once. So now I buy only what I'm sure I will read three or more times, or what I will need to mark up horribly for an essay or novel-research. I bend the rules for second-hand fiction with interesting marginalia, and I'm occasionally suckered into buying cookbooks of which I will only use four or five recipes. And there are other things I buy because I want to support the creators ... which is why I have a copy of the painfully wooden Serenity novelization. (Anyone want it? Free!)
But I don't have the Harry Potter books, and I didn't buy BtVS: The Chosen Collection, because I never thought I'd need more than one pass through any of them. Also because I'm po'.
But now I'm writing fanfic, and I'm working on two pieces which I can't bring any further until I figure out a whole slew of annoyingly picky things: did Dawn ever talk about dreams in seasons Five and Six? Does Willow ever, in any of the BtVS or Angel seasons, do dream magic? When did Willow and Tara move into the Summers' house? Do they even say? Is Remus taller than Sirius? What month did Harry fight the climactic, Sirius-killing battle in OoTP? (I suspect June, since JKR always structures her books the same way.) Does JKR ever talk about the weather during the summer between OoTP and HBP?
So my bookshelves are going to get a little fuller. And since I'm firmly in fanfic up to my neck, there's no help but to sigh and pretend that I'm never going to move again, and so it doesn't matter that doing so would require another box.
I'm pro-books in general, of course. In fact, I'm professionally pro-books: book ownership is what puts groceries on my table and almost pays my rent. But I'm tired of lugging them around, especially since it turns out that I'm really not going to read anything that Robert Jordan writes more than once. So now I buy only what I'm sure I will read three or more times, or what I will need to mark up horribly for an essay or novel-research. I bend the rules for second-hand fiction with interesting marginalia, and I'm occasionally suckered into buying cookbooks of which I will only use four or five recipes. And there are other things I buy because I want to support the creators ... which is why I have a copy of the painfully wooden Serenity novelization. (Anyone want it? Free!)
But I don't have the Harry Potter books, and I didn't buy BtVS: The Chosen Collection, because I never thought I'd need more than one pass through any of them. Also because I'm po'.
But now I'm writing fanfic, and I'm working on two pieces which I can't bring any further until I figure out a whole slew of annoyingly picky things: did Dawn ever talk about dreams in seasons Five and Six? Does Willow ever, in any of the BtVS or Angel seasons, do dream magic? When did Willow and Tara move into the Summers' house? Do they even say? Is Remus taller than Sirius? What month did Harry fight the climactic, Sirius-killing battle in OoTP? (I suspect June, since JKR always structures her books the same way.) Does JKR ever talk about the weather during the summer between OoTP and HBP?
So my bookshelves are going to get a little fuller. And since I'm firmly in fanfic up to my neck, there's no help but to sigh and pretend that I'm never going to move again, and so it doesn't matter that doing so would require another box.
