A disorder of bibliothecal proportions

I have discovered that I have a vice, an addiction or a disorder. I do not remember ever having read about it in a psychological or religious text. I have not found it in medical references, nor have I found a twelve-step treatment for it, if I ever would want treatment for it. Nevertheless, I do most positively suffer from library gluttony.

I work at one library, visit another, and always have more books checked out than I could ever read. I walk the stacks seeing all of the great tomes, and I have to take some of them home with me. In the back of my mind, I know that I am checking out more than I can possible read,  but I cannot resist. I walk up to the circulation desk with an armful of books that will one day throw my back out. In this way, a good part of my life is taken up with binging on checkouts, leading to occasional purging trips to the library with armloads of books. Call me an addict, dysfunctional, or obsessed. Perhaps I am a little of all of these things.

At the moment, sitting on my desk is a stack of musty old books from the mid-nineteenth century. I may take some of them home some time. I will probably never read more than a few pages of them. Still, it feels good having them on my desk. They call to me. I am trying to resist, honestly I am.