Mad as a Hatter

The Annotated Alice. That's what I've been reading in this big house that isn't mine.

I'm in a weird situation. I had to come out and see all of the off-campus apartments before I could choose one, but that means that during registration/orientation I don't have a place to live. Lucky for me, the realtor offered her own home. So here I am, at the top of the landing on the third floor.
There is air conditioning.
It's close to school.
I have to be back by 10:30 every night. (That's when she goes to bed)

It doesn't matter. I move in Friday, furniture or not.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about Alice and Wonderland. Despite the monstrosity that Tim Burton released to the public in March, my love for the book hasn't waned, my obsession with its history has not faded and my desire to travel to Trinity Square, Oxford, Croft-On-Tees and other such places is strong. Love. Obsession. Desire. Sounds like a perfume commercial or something.

I started collecting Alice just over a year ago and am proud to say I have at least six copies in three languages, and one copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which is my favorite in the collection so far. The man I bought it from when I was in Paris collected Alice and said that you'll always find new versions of the book, they're practically infinite.

I want this poster.

This is the French first edition I held while my dad rushed me, insisting they were "all the same book."

                                                                       And this is what heaven looks like:

            I've found that almost anything can remind me of Alice in Wonderland.

Like a wall of keys in Turkey.

                                                                                       Or a door in Greece.

 

An optical illusion at the Ripey's Believe It or Not Museum in New York.

A dress that I own.

            


     Shoes that I used to own.

Fashion photography.

                                                                                 

or a hallway at Versailles.

It makes me look at the world differently. It's funny how only when the world is turned upside down and becomes complete nonsense can truths about it reveal themselves. 

And now I know that hatters really did go mad in the mid-1800s. From mercury poisoning. There was mercury in the curing felt they used and they would develop "hatter's shakes," or in extreme cases, hallucinations. Did the mad hatter in the books have mercury poisoning? They don't think so.

Don't you feel smarter now?

A page from my favorite copy of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, featuring
 the Pre-Raphaelite-inspired Alice (a brunette, I might add) originally drawn
 by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll).