I know, I know, big deal. You were expecting heroin or alcohol or at least white processed sugar.
Well I have avoided those traps.
But I am addicted to stories.
My biggest dread is dieing before I finish all of the three different books I may be reading right now, and I see the ending of that cliff hanging season ending episode of Star Trek Enterprise.
I have missed meals, classes, work, family events because I couldn't put down the book. I have to time my leaving of the house at the half-hour, because I can't leave in the middle of an episode.
If its a movie, two hours.
It would be one thing if this addiction was limited to the good stuff--Classics. If it was just a Shakespeare shot I needed now and then, or a hit of Katherine Hepburn.
Its not.
Its any story, no matter how cheesey and cheap and stupid.
I have eaten cold food because I had to watch the end of a Three Stooges movie.
I have wasted untold hours of my life waiting for plot movements on Dragon Ball Z.
I finally had to burn my Wheel of Wasted Time books because Jordan refused to tell any of the addictive stories he started.
I get violently angry if I am interrupted during a good commercial.
I have purchased PlayBoy Magazine for the award winning short stories inside.
At first I put this down to just my personal weakness, but recently I noticed that the stories I witness affect me like mood altering medication.
I am a happier person after reading a fun book. I get nervous and fidgety after reading a disturbing book. I get down right maudalin after reading a depressing book
When my college grades would get me depressed, the Xanth series left me manic.
After reading Rand, I was filled with energy and enthusiasm.
After reading Poe, I had to sleep for three days.
A dose of Twain is dangerous. Depending on the story, it could send me anywhere.
I have tried to quit. It seems so easy, just turn off the TV, avoid the movie theater and don't open the books.
But I can't stop the stories in my mind. I sit down to do a crossword puzzle, and suddenly its a futuristic battle between the evil empire of blank spaces and the rebels of letters sweeping across their landscape, driving back the evil. I rake the leaves and its a Civil War battle scene, the leaves representing crafty General Jackson, and the overpowering rake is General Sherman, marching toward Atlanta, leaving nothing in his wake. While driving, traffic is intergalactic commerce, traveling the limited byways of gravitationally derived hyperspace, while the bridges are massive war ships positioned to destroy us.
If I turn on the Radio to get out of that story, I listen to stories put to music, and I expand on them. "The little ditty about Jack and Diane" is now an soap opera spaning 5 generations in my mind. I rewrote Trisha Yearwoods "She's In Love With The Boy" to "He's in Love With The Boy" (The tag line, "He's gonna marry that boy some day.).
It is an addiction I cannot escape. My only source of solace, other than a good book, is to see if anyone else out there suffers like I do. Are there other addicts out there?
How do you get this monkey off your back, and back to the library before you have to pay the fine?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Heh. I started writing my own stories. Or, rather, illustrating them. And I got rid of my television.
Posts: 54 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Hunnh. You think you have problems? Try being addicted to stories AND music, often at the same time. I can barely leave the house because I get into some book whether it's Anita Blake or Frank McCourt. All the while I have to have Hindi music, Russian folk songs or SOMETHING on. I get stuck watching crappy lame shows hoping they will have something interesting, some redeeming plot, something that isn't a stereotype! PLUS I consider it good training for when I start writing more stories for what things I shouldn't do. And when I am not reading a book, I HAVE TO MAKE UP STORIES! I can't walk down the street without telling myself my epic werewolf story or some other tale. Same thing with music. If I am not listening to music I'll make up songs like Intellectual Babe and "Your Ass is So Niiiiice" and sing them out loud! Sometimes where people can hear them! I can't go to bed without listening to music and reading for a few minutes and I have to tell myself stories to fall asleep. I need help! Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Television is junk. Though it does have the benefit of being over quicker. It is generally the Keystone Light of the Stories liquor cabinet.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm with you too, Dan. Lately I haven't had enough time to read much (I've been reading Mark Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War for over a month now) and it's actually starting to drive me a little crazy. I'll be at work or, worse, with friends and I'll start thinking, "I need to be reading. I still haven't finished this book and I've got what -- like twenty I just picked up from that used book sale the other week?"
Movies have been filling the void recently though. I've always watched a lot of movies and now that I've got Netflix and I work at a video rental store, I'm catching up on all the ones I haven't seen yet. Even with my somewhat elitist taste there's so many to be seen.
Still, books are my first love...
One thing though:
quote:After reading Rand, I was filled with energy and enthusiasm.
Ayn Rand? I don't know what to say -- she's the only author I've ever put on my own personal blacklist. I won't read anything more from her than the half of Atlas Shrugged that I managed to get through.
But you're a good guy and funny, so I guess I still like you.
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