I BOUGHT BOOKS!!!!

No, I didn’t fail my new house resolution.  I got gift cards for my birthday, gift cards for books!  BOOKS!  And because I’m a member of Barnes & Noble (shut it, I still go to used bookstores and Borders is staffed by morons), I get free express shipping!

I got:

After Dark, Haruki Murakami
Valencia, Michelle Tea
Banvard’s Folly, Paul Collins
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Financial Lives of the Poets, Jess Walters

The grand total including tax was just 70 cents more than the value of the gift cards, so all things considered, I think I came out well enough that it’s not considered cheating.  And that’s not an excuse, by the way, because I’ve been strict with this rule.

Oh.  Wait.

Shit.

I guess I haven’t been as strict as I thought.  I didn’t even realize it at the time.  I didn’t realize it until just now, actually.  Yesterday, Graham and I stopped at Record Exchange.  I picked up a Nina Simone record*, a Patsy Cline record, X’s Aint Love Grand, and Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant.  I was looking at turntables (way overpriced) when I passed a bookshelf I’ve never seen.  On a lower shelf was a neon book cover with two feathers on it.

Vurt.  1st American edition.  Hardback.  For $5.00.

Before I started dating Graham, I’d never heard of Vurt.  But once I started hanging out at the Parker house, I heard references to it at least twice a week.  It didn’t sound like something I’d be into, but I can’t stand being out of the loop so I borrowed Graham’s copy.

In the beginning, it seemed like some club kid had re-written A Scanner Darkly while watching 2am episodes of Farscape.  Being the person who was highly annoyed by everyone who adopted Trainspotting as a religion back in high school (it was good but not epic, people), I was not impressed.

Then I got used to concepts like robo-dogs and shadowcops and got really into the story.  I even had a nightmare involving a Metavurt, which was insane because I never dream in science fiction.  So when I saw Vurt at Record Exchange, I probably forgot all about the new book rule (the fact that it was used and priced at $5.00 did not even enter my consciousness, I swear to god) and only thought about the AWESOME.

Graham’s trying to trade me for his paperback.  He’s got a boner for first editions and would love my copy, but a bargain is a bargain, yo.  Still haven’t decided on that.

* Which I didn’t get because the people who run Record Exchange are pretentious nerdy assholes (in stonewashed jeans, no less) who arbitrarily price things that already have price tags on them.  Don’t tell me that record is $10 when it’s marked $5.  That being “an older price sticker, ma’am” isn’t my problem, and what, you once sold it for cheaper but now it’s more expensive?  Even though you have two of the same record?  Fuckerheads.