A CERTAIN ENTHUSIASTIC DEMENTIA

One of my friends has analysed my love life (det vil sige [i.e.], a "complete lack" thereof) and concluded that what is missing is a woman who is nuts.  Though it was obvious that he meant "stark raving bonkers", the diplomatic expression he utilized was "a certain enthusiastic dementia".

He based his conclusion on my reading habits.

Which do not include anything about sports, romance, flashy jewelry, bridal gowns, handbags, or Las Vegas.  Nor vampyres.

A person's bookshelves speak volumes about their character.
Just looking across the room, what I see includes the following:

Two Sons of Heaven (about a period when the empire was divided).
Sanskrit Poetry, translated by D.H.H. Ingalls.
Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia.
Rubber (a novel set in the East Indies, by M. H. Szekely-Lulofs).
Waltzing With a Dictator (about Ferdinand Marcos)
Vietnamese-English Dictionary.
Faded Portraits, by Breton De Nijs.
Maroon Arts.
The Assassination of Lumumba.
Parables in Midrash.
The Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table.
The Black Jacobins.
The Road to Khartoum.
Picture This, by Joseph Heller.
Stemmen In Steen - de ontcijfering der oude schriften.
Twerski on Chumash.
Born to Kvetch.
Seung Gu Hon-yu Tzi-din.
Mensen Die Ik Gekend Heb, by Fabricius the elder.
And so on, und so weitereres....

There is no unifying theme.
A multitude of subjects, fact and fiction, history and biography, poetry and prose.

I cannot agree with his assessment. A woman who keenly appreciates a variety of reading material is not strange.  Unusual, yes, even a rarity.  Someone much to be treasured.
Among the shallow and superficial majority in today's San Francisco likely a lusus naturae.
Albeit in a very good way. 
I aver that rather than illustrating tastes in reading like a blast of buckshot, as he asserts, and probable baffling and boring conversational interludes, the diverse sampling instead indicates one thing with certainty.

Only one thing.  Nothing else. One key fact.

I do not have enough bookshelves.

This is conclusively PROVEN by the fact that the Shekwan stoneware figurine of a fat bald degenerate is NOT in a place of honour, but instead is partially obscured by the Collected Shortstories of O'Henry and The Religion of Java, at mid-level, and facing a five volume set of Rashi.
Which is next to the Astadhyayi of Panini, and several novels set in the Middle-Ages.
Obese, shiny-pated. With an off-white crackle-glaze garment.
Dumpy pervert wearing a bathrobe.

Not enough bookshelves.

There's also a dried lemon carved into a howling face staring at me from that general area.  One of my many attempts at miniature Halloween decor. 
Please imagine The Scream by Edvard Munch, as a shrunken head.
In the medium of dessicated citrus.
It still smells good.

My library is crowded, but fragrant.

The fat bald degenerate from Shekwan thinks so too.


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