Step 1: Admitting you have a problem

Work was busy yesterday. I was shuttling from site to site and even may have in my shift dress been slightly running when I thought no one was looking. Twice I visited the bathrooms only to find I was in a queue and ditched it, feeling I had no time. I was quite thirsty but also didn't seem able to stop and have a drink although I did take a swipe off the water fountain a couple of times but my technique is poor and I think the equivalent water I actually drank was half a sip. Yesterday I was literally run off my feet.

When I came home and tried to tell my partner all my woes, I dumped my bag on the floor by my  shoes and dug out my phone which was dead. In order to get to my phone I had to take something out of my overfilled bag. Describing my crazy day as I did, I paused and said, "sorry, I also managed to buy a book" and took out the offending article sheepishly.

In-between not being able to pee or drink, in-between jogging between offices and dashing about not stopping to answer colleagues' questions, I had gone past an Oxfam Books shop. I was in a hurry so I obviously popped in to browse the books. I didn't bother looking at the fiction (to save time) and just looked at the history section and languages and self-help type books. After 4 mins I saw a book I have been wanting a copy of for about 6 years but had yet to see it in a charity shop. It was £2.99 and I bought it immediately. I left the shop and ran down the road.

In this post, I'm not admitting to myself that I have a problem, just maybe suggesting that this is not quite fully normal behaviour. Between essential bodily functions and buying a book, I gave the book the priority.

In the last 4 days I have bought 9 books. Not including the books that have arrived in the post nor the ones I have ordered online and have yet to arrive (online shopping is not at real/bad as real life buying in shops??). Okay an 10th book arrived in the post as well and I'll wait for the others to arrive before I count them as "mine". I am hoping to be able to use this blog to log what I am buying and maybe gauge if this a problem or not. I mean, it's not a problem, it's a complete joy, but isn't that what an addict would say?

In the last 4 days the books that have arrived in the post and that I have also bought are:

1. Ignorance - Milan Kundera - £0.89 Oxfam
2. Tin Tin in America - Herge - £0.89 Oxfam
3. The Broons and Oor Wullie - The Fabulous Fifties - £1.99 Traid
4. Out of Africa - Karen Blixen - £1.75 Shelter
5. The Dissident - Nell Freudenberger - £2.25 Shelter
6. The Story of Tibet - Conversations with the Dalai Lama - Thomas Laird - £2.25 Shelter
7. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson - £2.99 Traid
8. How the World Came to Oxford - Amnesty International - £2.00
9. Mathematical Carnival - Martin Gardner - £2.25 British Heart Foundation
10. They F*** You Up - How to Survive Family Life - Oliver James - £2.99 Oxfam

I've fancied reading this since I saw it in Fopp in the mid noughts. The cover obviously caught my eye but I am genuinely interested in finding out how my parents f***ed me up and how to attempt not to f*** up any future kids I have.