Today, I feel like confessing. We all have our fair share of bad habits.
I have lots. Some are quite disgusting, others just bizarre.
I abuse books.
I do. I often put them face-down, flat, open on the table with the pages splayed out so the spine creases . Whilst reading, I fold the covers back over on themselves so the binding breaks and leaves come loose. I don’t use bookmarks: they’re crap and fall out of place in my bag, or they get knocked out by one of the people that I live with that like to keep “piling” my things so that it looks neater. (I live with more than one person that does this.) Instead, I use tiny Post-It Notes that leave the tops sticky. Or, sometimes — if I’m really rebellious — I’ll fold down the corners.
I write on them, too. The books, I mean. And not in pencil either. I have an anthology of the works of John Donne that is covered (including the insides of the covers and the small-print pages) in arrows and parenthesis and tiny, little, wonky words (because I’m like a 6 years old when I don’t have the luxury of lines to write on) written in demented shades of blueberry-smelling Gel pen and grubby smudgy Biro about Plato and platonic love, love on a higher plane, love transcending all physical forms of expression. The same can be said too about my battered copy of Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire; huge long passages underlined with notes about genre, Romantic literature and archaic language all mashed illegibly into the tiny, unforgiving margins.
I carry books around in my bag with me. Always. I eat whilst I read. Always. And when possible I read whilst I eat.
Many “book lovers” I know are very anal about their collection. Refusing to lend out hardbacks, peeping secretly into paperback so as not to pull the pages apart too much and mark the spine. They’re not “book lovers”, they’re repressed librarians in disguise.
To love a book is to carry it around with you everywhere for the best part of 5 years, soaking up every word until the stories felt like part of your own history, your own story. If you wrote an autobiography, that book would become part of your own as you recounted your profound relationship with it. I had a book like that. I carried it and read it until I could recite the funny bits verbatim, until the gold writing wore itself to blankness on the front cover, until the binding broke and the black and white picture pages came adrift and jutted out of line; their edges getting dog-eared. Eventually, it fell apart so badly that I lost bits of it forever.
In other, unrelated bad habits, it’s also true that I “friend” people on Facebook that used to bully me at school: solely for the purpose of looking at their profile pictures and relishing in how much weight they’ve gained since I saw them last. The fatter, the better. My size 6 jeans just seem to fit me that much nicer on the days I see their fat, chavvy faces… I can’t think why.
Also, when I’m in the house on my own, I deliberately play my iTunes really loud so that I can’t hear myself. This is because I just cannot resist singing along, despite the fact that I can’t hold a note, let alone tune. I’ll sing along to anything — even if it’s not in English. No language barrier is going to stand in the way of my daily wailing, oh-no. I just muddle along phonetically mimicking the sounds; I have no idea what I’m saying, or if I’m saying it right, but I have fun all the same.
Last, but by no means least: I still count down the days to my presents birthday. (9, in case you were wondering.) I even email my family members with wishlists with the intention of being “helpful” and “time-saving”… Aren’t I just so thoughtful?
Are any of you brave enough to confess?
A full-time wheelchair user since 1998, Claire lives in an adapted bungalow in England with her Partner of 11 years and their two dogs: 
Am a corner turner
And the spines usually get bend halfway through each book — if not before. However, I have a friend who lends me a lot of pristine books with flat pages and smooth outsides, which makes reading them a much less relaxing affair and also means I can’t prop them open in the bedside drawer enabling me to read and dry my hair at the same time 
I’m one of those particularly particular people who likes their books just so. Some of it’s upbringing, the rest is just the worry that the more creased and battered they are the shorter they’ll last. But then books disintegrate soon enough of their own accord anyway…
I’ll sing every now and then, though even if the house is empty I’ll just worry someone’ll come in. It doesn’t matter about whether you can sing or not, enjoy it to the max!!
PS: I went and got that scarf… Haven’t worn it yet (rather frayed) but it’s lovely.
Love is love — warts and all. So when I beat up my books, bending the spines and turning corners, I know they’ll always come back to me and I to them. I see it as a sign of true commitment rather than half-arsed flirting.
I do cheat on the end, though. I wish I didn’t but there are times when I’m so involved in a story that I feel that I WILL DIE THAT SECOND if I don’t know how the story pans out. I’m so ashamed.
Other bad habits? I suck my thumb, which is completely not cool, though perhaps not bad. I hate filing and put it off for months, usually only succumbing when the pile behind the sofa knocks me out when I reach around to draw the curtains. I’m also kind of lazy: M does most things around the house. I suppose that evidences how I’m able to spend so much time online when I have a job/son/book/design site etc. I repeat: I am so ashamed.
And I’m horrified at the size 6 jeans. Clearly we can never meet — you’d get lodged forevermore somewhere in my back fat.
V xx
Oh, btw — I have a fantastic double-sided magnetic bookmark that I picked up in the Van Gogh Museum when I was in Amsterdam last year. NOTHING kicks that baby out — you should pick one up and try!
Imo:
That’s the spirit!
(I also have a friend like that — I’m scared to borrow her books 
)
Charlie: Yay, you got the scarf! — You were lucky, they change their stock every 10 mins — a week after I bought it, I couldn’t find it anywhere locally.
Vixx: You CHEAT and look at the end!?
Oh dear, oh dear… 
But as an ex-blankie-coveter, I too still can’t quite ditch the thumb. 
I sympathise.
And we have to meet, you just have to remember: all the best things come in little packages!
I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t EMOTIONAL cheating. Plus I was thinking of you the whole time, I swear …
The best things do indeed come in little packages — which is why I’m so ENORMOUS! Mwmwhaha.
V xx
My biggest issue with my books is that, after reading them over and over, they start to look tatty. I LOVE to re-read books, and don’t get people that buy one, then give it away as they’ve now read it. That said, I ABHOR corner-turners, and folding the book over on itself… GAH!
Poor poor books…
As for bad habits… Aside from being a sarcastic b’stard even when I shouldn’t — I think my worst is shredding the sides of my fingers. I don’t know if it’s habit, nerves, stress or simple “because I can” but most days I have at least two parts of my fingers that are sore and usually have had bloodletting!
I’m sure I have others, but seeing as I think I am so perfect, I can’t think of any
–Dan
Crikey it’s confession time on here
OK used to suck thumb along with sheety, aka tatty piece of brushed cotton sheet — but grew out of it by the time I was about 13 (I think) sheety lasted a few more years.
Can go for weeks without biting nails but then get one hangy bit and then by some miracle all ten nails are bitten down so they match.
And Vixx I’m with you on the housework/tidying up front. Dust and mess can always wait another day. I usually get a “what’s all this mess/clear it up now/these football cards will go in the bin unless.…/ etc. etc. rant about once every two weeks which means the downstairs part of the house at least gets tarted back up again and about 600 football cards are back up in the loft conversion ready to start making their way downstairs again