Self-Help

I buy so many books. I have always loved to read, ever since I was young, but even more than that I love the physicality of books. I love holding them and putting them on shelves. I love flipping through them, looking at dedication pages, pictures of the author and even smelling the paper. I don't really like going to the library and checking books out, because I will need to part with them at a certain point. So instead I buy books, I buy them at bookstores and online, I get them as gifts and sometimes when I'm really lucky I find some cool old ones at tag sales. I spend many days placing them in a nice and aesthetically pleasing order on my shelves and holding them in different ways. This way I can keep them around all the time and look at them and read them if I want with no due date in the horizon. Because of my love of books, I have a stack of receipts from bookstores from this past year. Most of these books are for me, not my students, but Yolanda, my tax lady, says it's ok to deduct.

I start adding up how much I've spent on books this year, and feel no guilt. After all, books are a good way to spend what little money I have; better than spending it on clothes, makeup, or manicures I think. Hmm-I start to look at some of the receipts and I start to read some of the titles of the books I've bought. Many of them are self-help books. But I have to confess: I have never completely finished a self-help book.

I usually read the first chapter, or at best read half the book.