Category Archive

The other day I mentioned that I bought They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life by Oliver James with the intention of learning more about my family-induced problems (and how to deal with them).  I still haven’t read it.  I bought it knowing that I am currently spending more than I earn and  knowing that I have at least four six other unread books piled up next to my bed:

• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Princess Diaries #9 by Meg Cabot
• Green is the New Blackby Tamsin Blanchard
• On Chesil Beachby Ian McEwan
• Dreams From My Father by Barrack Obama
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I know like 75% of that list is all v. Oprah’s Book Club, but I swear I don’t watch Oprah [on a regular basis].  There are many more in my bookshelf, hidden away pretending that they have been read, and I swear they are much less Oprahish. 

While tag-surfing the other day I found this post about the soothing effects of buying books and I just couldn’t agree more. 

I think my ‘de-stressing obsession’ is slightly better than my shopping-addiction.  I feel good buying make up and shoes and clothes as well as books, but then later I get all guilty about the first three, cause they are such selfish, wasteful, consumerist habits, whereas books are fonts of knowledge and inspiration and having more of them can surely only be a good thing, right?

This weekend M’s dad brought 2 big boxes of books that were in storage from when they moved two years ago back to their place, and I have unadulterated access to a bunch of fabulous books that I am yet to read, so I will have to remind myself of that every time I walk past a bookstore.

But as I mentioned in a comment on For the Benefit, I have this massive urge to just quit my job and go work in a bookstore, cause I hate my job and I like books, so that makes a whole lot more sense in the Let’s Be Happy Plan.  But since I don’t have the gall to quit my job (because I know I will regret it once I’m less gloomy and awaken to the fact that I am So Lucky To Have Such A Good First Job In my Journey in the Rat Race) maybe I should try to get a Saturday job at a bookstore or something, so that I can try to enjoy the pleasure of being around lots of books on a weekly basis.

Father also has a [massive] book-addiction.  So this could be genetic.  But I like to think mine is not as crazy because I like to keep mine all neat and ordered instead of horrendously higgeldy-piggeldy strewn amongst the rest of his pack-rat crap.  Or wait… maybe it’s worse.

Anyway, there is post has no point. So I better end it now.

[Edit: went home and discovered there were more books in my To Read stack than I had realised.]

So I saw an interesting book in the waiting room before my first psychologist appointment today: They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life by Oliver James. A quick scan of the blurb showed it’s about learning how to deal with your past in order to fix your present. Sounds perfect. Here’s an exerpt from Amazon.com.

This poem is quoted after the dedication (”To my mum and dad, the principle cause of this book“):

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

– Philip Larkin

That pretty much sums up most of what Dr H and I spoke about.  She was very impressed at how clearly I expressed everything that’s been going on from day x in response to her question “So why have you come to see me?”

I told her it’s because I’ve been in and out of various counseling sessions for a good part of my youth, so I have it rehearsed.