I am fussy about many things, all of them trivial. To be fussy about non-trivial things, important things, is of course never called fussiness but rather something with less of a ring of pettiness about it, to be fussy about important things is to be detail-oriented, or meticulous. I am most fussy about my books. I don't even have that many valuable or collectible books, the fussiness is applied equally to the cheap secondhand copies I own. If a book becomes mine, in whatever condition, then that is its pristine state as far as my ownership of it goes, and from that original state, however imperfect, any damage or soiling or other physical corruptions make me so furious as to verge on infantile hysteria, even if I bought the book used and it wasn't in hot shape to begin with. This fussiness is indefensible and lame, but it's the way I am, and believe me I wish I wasn't because then I wouldn't be so beside myself with rage right now to find that the front cover of my newly-acquired trade paperback copy of James Purdy's On Glory's Course, a clean tight reading copy of this wonderful out of print novel, has acquired a rude vertical crease from being bent back by someone's utter clumsiness, some unidentified person, a rude crease which greeted me when I just now sat down with the book to continue reading, and this state of affairs, however laughably trivial in the grand scheme of all possible human suffering, has me so agitated that the distraction keeps me from reading at all. This is not a good way to be and I promise to take steps to improve my faulty personality as soon as I can stop imagining the world exploding over and over and over and all the screaming people. I can't help it, I'm meticulous.

In order to allow myself to move on, I've ordered a fine first edition hardcover copy of the Purdy, signed by the author. That should do the trick nicely.