Hi. My name is Anastasia K., and I am an iBooks addict.
You know, it really started innocently enough. When I first bought my iPad this year, I didn’t pay any mind to the iBooks app. as I absolutely, positively LOVE the feeling of a good book in my hands. I love its smell, the feel of its sturdy spine against my fingers, and the tattered, scribbled pages I leave behind once I am finished with it.
So how dare this app. stare back at me, so entitled with its pages spread, assuming I’d use it? It didn’t even deserve the once-over that I had initially given it, but I gave it one last disdainful look (followed by a nose fart), and put the little, wasted space of square nothingness far away in a box, ON THE OTHER PAGE, so I wouldn’t have to look at it. *nose up in the air*
Then one day, I had some time to kill before going back to work, and I was not in the mood to check Facebook or Twitter. I know. I didn’t even feel like checking my email. I had my iPad with me that day so I decided to look through my many apps., and saw the iBooks app. tucked away in the corner. Fine, I relented. I had already had my fill of depressing world news that morning, so I figured I’d read a little something on the side to stave off boredom.
I started looking up some of my favorite political theory books, and before I knew it, I had a smathering of iBooks all over my virtual shelf. There I sat, with the works of Hobbes, Kant, Nietzsche, Marx, Aristotle, Hesse, Locke, Machiavelli, Paine, Thoreau, and Plato in the palm of my hands. As silly as this may sound, it felt great to have their collective brilliance laid out in one place, as if they were on display at a masterpiece buffet. However, my voracious, literary appetite couldn’t be sated. I knew I had to have more.
Thereafter, I continued to download all other free iBooks I deemed worthy. And then one fateful day, I made my first, actual purchase.
A “girly” book.
I wanted to read something fun on my plane ride to London so I downloaded Something Blue at the behest of a friend who swore on her stubby “big” toe that it was worthy of purchase.
The $9.99 I paid was actually a pretty good investment as I enjoyed the book. I don’t know why I had been so against girly books; who was I to think those books were beneath me? I am such a pretentious asshole sometimes. (I still refuse to read Twilight. Judge me all you want.)
After reading Something Blue, I went ahead and bought its sister book, Something Borrowed. (Whatever, so I read the books in backwards order. I enjoyed them anyway.)
From that point on, I made weekly visits to the “Top Charts” to see if there were other books I could purchase or download; soon, I found myself downloading close to ten books a week. I was downloading and purchasing more books than my little eyes could read. Oh brother.
Now, I have amassed a collection of nearly 100 books, and I have only read … eh, maybe 10? But. I. Cannot. Stop. Downloading. More.
I need to stop. This is what’s tough about being an adult; you put your bank information into the App Store, and Apple ends up OWNING you. At least if you’re a kid, you have a gift card with a limit or something. Since I know the funds are readily available to be spent at the tap of my greedy, little fingers, I don’t hesitate to tap again and again. And again.
I need an intervention, folks. I need a friend to slap me across the face, and tell me to go tupperware shopping instead. (I need tupperware.)
Good news is I haven’t purchased a book in over a week now. Okay, actually, I lied - I bought one yesterday but it was really cheap. That doesn’t count, does it? Ugh, see? I’ve reduced myself to lying to cover up my addiction. I’ve gone off the deep end, folks.
I am going to go on a 30-day iBooks cleanse. Hopefully, by then, I’ll have either 1) read all of the books I have purchased thus far so I am justified in purchasing more; or 2) gotten over my addiction, and can now have a healthy, normal relationship with the App Store once again.
I have great willpower, this I know. I will not fail.
(Darn it, while I was finishing up this entry, I downloaded another book. It’s like my fingers have a mind of their own. Ugh.)
Okay, after I click “Create Post” — I will stick to my resolve. Ready…
