The Time Machine

It seems like an easy choice, but is it? If you had the option, would you want to know what happens in the future? I’m not talking about the Miss Cleo 900-number kind of future. I mean you could actually see the future—in vivid detail—before it happens in “real” time.

The book I’m reading now deals with such a situation. The husband has a genetic deformity that causes him to time travel when he’s stressed. He has no control over it and doesn’t know whether he’ll end up in the future or in the past. The only constant is that he ends up naked—its own peculiar problem. I don’t know how it’ll work its way out in the novel’s conclusion, but except for the obvious fun—knowing the winning lottery numbers and which stocks to invest in ahead of time—it’s a mixed bag for Henry.

I guess an even tougher question would be whether you’d want to know the future given that you could do nothing to alter it?

Humbug

I know it shouldn’t matter if I post anything on any given day or not, but I’m trying to make writing a daily habit, even if the writing is just a blog entry. But I’m finding it hard and it frightens me what that says about the scope of my life. I read a lot—other people’s great adventures, or at least imagined ones—and I watch a lot of movies on DVD (same story, different medium). But I don’t live anymore and it’s starting to wear on my last nerve.

I spend six days a week in my bookshop, which barely has enough customers to pay the rent. Forget about me actually paying myself anything. So I'm living on savings, which has got to stop soon. And on Sundays, I’m usually so tired I lie around all day, napping in between reading and watching movies. I might get out for an hour or two to try to take a few pictures, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. It’s no wonder I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write anything interesting. I’m one of the walking dead. Cheerful, huh?

And They Say English Class Doesn't Matter

At a Santa Fe gas station: WE WILL SELL GASOLINE TO ANYONE IN A GLASS CONTAINER.

In a men’s clothing store: 15 MEN’S WOOL SUITS—$100—THEY WON’T LAST AN HOUR!

In a Chinese restaurant: IF YOU ARE SATISFACTORY PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS. IF YOU ARE NOT SATISFACTORY PLEASE TELL THE WAITER.

In the vestry of a New England church: WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE PLEASE SEE THAT THE PERPETUAL LIGHT IS EXTINGUISHED.

In a Rome laundromat: LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING GOOD TIME.

Sign in London pizza parlour: OPEN 24 HOURS—EXCEPT 2 A.M. – 8 A.M.

In a Japanese hotel: YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

Found above a Majorcan shop entrance: ENGLISH WELL TALKING.—HERE SPEECHING AMERICAN.

Too Much Grey

This is going to be one of those Mondays when it’s hard to be positive. Besides the weather sucking (Jeanne’s slowly making her way here):

• I haven’t heard a word on the job in Washington. It may not be bad news since it’s possible they haven’t made interview decisions yet, but it certainly ain’t good news.


• I haven’t heard anything from my agent on my book deal.


• I’ve only sold one book in the four hours I’ve been here today and I’m starting to climb the walls.

Bleh…

Book of the Week

In the book world, it must be the week for getting lost in the wilderness and having to do unspeakable things with knives. As I mentioned before, one of the hot books is Aron Ralston's Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The book I read this week, though, was Journal of the Dead: A Story of Friendship and Murder in the New Mexico Desert. After several days lost in the desert without water, Dave Coughlin begs his friend, Raffi Kodikian, to put him out of his misery. Raffi does, stabbing Dave in the heart. Just seven hours later, the park rangers find them.

Much of the book outlines the fascinating history of the area and recounts the sentencing trial. (Raffi pled guilty to 2nd-degree murder since New Mexico does not allow “mercy killing” as a murder defense.) Throughout much of the book I sided with the park ranger who didn’t believe Raffi’s story. It just seemed too implausible that with everything around the canyon that they couldn’t find help. But as the account of the trial progressed, more and more details fell into place and I felt my opinion changing. Not that camping is in my immediate future, but I’m not going anywhere without a GPS and without everyone knowing where I’m going.

Next Up: the October selection for the shop’s book group: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.

Random Thoughts for the Day

I’m stuck at the store for extra hours today because coffee chick has live music tonight and it is usually decent business for me. For the next two hours, though, I’ve got virtually nothing to do so I’m gonna sit my butt right here and blog away.

Newcastle United has won every game since firing Sir Bobby. That’s also when I stopped wearing my team jersey on game days. Coincidence?

Now that we’re facing our fourth hurricane in a little over a month I have to wonder if the gods (in whom I don’t believe) are sending these storms our way as retribution for putting up two such dimwits for president.

Why does the child of two writers resist reading so much? (I know; it’s the age, but still…)

Why will retired folks drive 100 miles (at nearly two bucks a gallon) to save a buck at Sam’s Club?

Why do men marry, hoping their wives will never change (but they do)? And why do women marry, hoping their husbands will change (but they never do)? (I stole this one from some comedian I saw a couple of years ago.)

Evidence that the Economy Might Still Suck

Today in The Pilot, the three-issue-a-week newspaper for Moore County, North Carolina, we might be seeing signs that the economy isn’t quite picking up like the folks inside the Beltway want us to believe—especially for our senior citizens.

In one case, sheriff’s deputies arrested a 79-year-old man for possession of crack, marijuana, and illegal firearms. In another case, sheriff’s deputies arrested a 61-year-old man for possession of crack, marijuana, 37 prescription medications, firearms, and drug paraphernalia. And in a third case, sheriff’s deputies arrested a 52-year-old man for growing his own personal cash crop.

“Martha, them social security checks ain’t paying the bills, baby. Time to start selling the crack!”

Make It Mean Something

I don’t claim to understand the financial structure of Major League Soccer, and in fact, I’m a relatively new fan to soccer overall, but there are some problems with the MLS that, until fixed, will keep it locked in as a second-rate league.

Let’s just take the conference system as an example. The ten teams are divided into two conferences. In the Eastern Conference, only one of the five teams has a winning record (Columbus), yet all but one of the teams will make it into the playoffs. That’s a farce that makes it clear to all the players and fans that the regular season games don’t mean very much. As long as you’re not dead last, you make the playoffs. If the season were to end today, the team from the Western Conference that wouldn’t qualify (San Jose) has a record that would actually be third if it were in the other conference. It ain’t right!

I’m not a fan of the playoffs anyway. They’re too much of an effort to make soccer seem like the other American sports. But if we’re determined to hold them anyway, at least we should do something to make the regular season games mean more. Next year, the league expands to twelve teams. Why not throw them all into one table and only take the top six teams into the playoffs? At least then you won’t have a team qualifying like Chicago this year. Winning seven out of twenty-six games qualifies for the playoffs?

Ode to Anonymity

I’m going to have to start being more careful what I read and listen to in the car. I often listen to audio books in the car—usually titles I wouldn’t read otherwise. It passes the time and lets me know a little about authors and books I’m not familiar with. The one I’m listening to at the moment—and I’m not sharing the title because it’s unmitigated chick-lit and could be used against me in any trial of my manhood—centers around a woman whose mother simply disappeared many years ago and started an entirely new life.

I’m sure we’re supposed to condemn her for this. After all, she abandoned her husband and young daughter. But at the same time I’m thinking to myself, I could so see the attraction of disappearing out of one life altogether to get a fresh start. In a way that clean slate, that new beginning, that erasing of history is the American dream. I know I could never do it to my family, but I have to believe at some level, people who make such a choice aren’t doing it “to” their families as much as they are doing it in spite of loving them. That’s got to be a powerful urge.

The Right Stuff?

There’s a lot of buzz right now about Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the story of Aron Ralston’s mishap in a Utah canyon that left him with one arm pinned between the canyon wall and a boulder. After several days, his only chance to escape was to break his own arm (both bones) and then cut it off.

Journal of the Dead is somewhat along those lines, too. Two friends get lost in a canyon, or at least that’s the survivor’s official story. He claims that when it looked hopeless for their survival (a difficult story to accept given that climbing any of the surrounding ridges would have taken them to civilization), his friend begged him to put him out of his misery. And so the survivor killed his friend by stabbing him in the heart with a pocket knife.

I’m not far enough into the account yet to know what I believe about the truth of his explanation, but assuming his story is true, I wonder if in either set of circumstances I would have what it takes to follow that course of action. Could you shatter your own bones and then cut your limb off? Could you look your best friend in the eye and then drive a pocketknife into his heart?

I Could Take a Few More Days Like This

On a scale of 1 to 10, yesterday comes in at about 8. After a week of rough weather—thank you Ivan—it couldn’t have been more beautiful here Sunday. That allowed me to get on my bike with the youth and herself for a few trips around Reservoir Park. I packed up the new camera and had quite the time experimenting. Afterwards we went through the horticulture gardens at the local college. Haven’t been there in a few years so it was nice to see the new additions and buildings.

The afternoon got better when Newcastle finally managed an away win—the first in 11 months. In two weeks, they’ve climbed from 16th in the EPL table to 8th and they’ve won their first leg match in the UEFA Cup. Maybe there’s still hope of a top-four league finish and the Champions League next year.

And then last night I rounded off the day with two completely different movies: Calendar Girls and The Passion of the Christ. The first was fun, much better than I expected, to be honest. And as an atheist, my interest in the second is purely cinematic. I’m glad I saw it, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. It’s not meant to be “enjoyed,” of course, but it’s a movie that physically hurts to watch. It’s the film equivalent of a white-knuckle flight and after two hours I realized my jaw had been clenched the entire time. Now that I’ve seen it, I don’t know what all the brouhaha was about. I didn’t see it as anti-Semitic or anti-Christian or anti-any group at all. It’s just a painful, powerful narrative, regardless of what you believe about its status as truth or myth.

Book of the Week

I have to hand it to Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto). He’s taken some out-there topics, argued wittily and cleverly for their relevance, and used the lowest of low-brow cultural examples to make his points in a very enjoyable and quirky collection of essays. I don’t know hipster culture—music, movies, snarky columnists—but it was fun watching Klosterman wend his way through them all to take on such ideas as born-again religious maniacs, America’s culture of celebrity, and soccer. But he’s way wrong about soccer. Don’t tell me it’s impossible to fuck up at a game that includes the concept of an own goal. Next up: Jason Kersten’s Journal of the Dead: A Story of Friendship and Murder in the New Mexico Desert.

Note to Soccer Parents

Sit down and shut the hell up already! The youth had his second game this morning—cool, windy, and rainy, but it’s soccer—play on. Unfortunately we have one parent on our side who thinks his precious son needs his own personal coach, non-stop for the entire 50 minutes. (The kids play 25-minute halves.) “Austin, do this. Austin, do that. Over here. Over there. Way to go, Austin.” The problem—beside having to hear his obnoxious voice at full volume the whole game—is that 90% of the time he’s telling Austin to do exactly the opposite of what the coach is trying to get him to do.

The kids have a coach. If the parents can’t sit down, shut up and just enjoy the game, they ought to stay in the bloody car and spare their kids the embarrassment and the rest of us the annoyance.

By the way, the team played well despite the wannabe coaching, beating the MetroStars 3-1. But most of the people there will only remember the asshole yelling for 50 minutes. Damn shame, too.

Technology, How Thou Torturest Me

I’m addicted to blogging, but I'm cool with that. I got into Blogger in 2002, but after several months got side-tracked and left off for a while. Then I backed into it again through a family blog and a semi-regular blog I kept for clients when I used to manage money.

Now I’m blogging just for its own sake and loving it. But I’m beginning to wonder if all the attendant technology is good for me. I’m wasting way too much time checking site stats and the comments manager and then bemoaning why I’m not getting more traffic or comments. So then I read more blogs to find out what’s popular and what I’m “doing wrong”—as if there’s really a prescription to blogospheric success. Maybe I’m better off turning the site stats and the comments off and just writing, but I can’t do it. I have to face it; I’m a numbers whore.

Cell-Phone Snobbery

I am perfectly aware that I am not among the techno-widget elite. I don’t have a PDA or a digital video camera (although I do have a new awesome digital camera). Hell, I don’t even have an iPod yet (hint, hint). As far as cell phones go, I have a simple el-cheapo Panasonic that has suited my very basic needs for the last few years.

But now it’s dead. Technically, the phone is fine. The battery, however, is showing clear signs of rigor mortis. No matter what I try in terms of completely discharging it, the sucker won’t hold a charge. It’s good for about a 30-second call before it shuts off. And since the phone was virtually free, replacing the battery seems silly because it would cost about the same as a new phone. So I went to the cell phone store associated with my current provider to look at a new one, and maybe even snag one with a camera so I can take pictures from my car of other drivers who are talking on their cool phones or putting on their mascara when they should be turning!

When I asked whether my plan would support a camera phone, the queen dispenser of all things cellular sat on her throne and sneered at me: “You’re on the feeble peon, completely unimportant person plan. You’d have to upgrade to use a camera phone.” “How much more would that cost me? … You’re shitting me? Four times what I’m paying now? Oh, you’ll throw in an extra 300 minutes a month?” Given that I don’t use the minutes I’m paying for now, this option lost some of its luster.

The kicker came when she said their coverage area is changing soon and the network I have now won’t even cover me in Virginia and Washington, D.C., where I may well be working next year. Fortunately, my current plan expires soon, so screw it, I’m going pre-paid. With my new camera, what do I need a camera phone for anyway?

I Know That Look

The Scene: the kitchen, 8:30 a.m. yesterday. Himself was on his way out the door. Herself was at the sink, soon to be on her way out the door to day 1 of a new part-time job.

Himself: You know you’re worth it. Why don’t you demand a raise today?
Herself: delivers withering look.**

**From the Dictionary of Withering Looks: “When are you going to grow up?”

All's Well That Ends Well?

September seems as if it's going to be a month of big changes. As I've written here before, about a week ago I made public my intention to sell my bookshop. I've had a couple of people express some interest, though nothing definite. But just two days after I made my announcement, coffee chick announced that they're moving and that she'll be selling the coffee shop. I have no idea how that will affect anyone interested in buying the bookshop.

I'm still on hold, waiting to hear from my agent on my book contract. I'm hoping that will be in place by the end of the month. And depending upon the contract I'll either be able to live on the advance for the next two years while I write the manuscript or will have to make another plan.

And in case “another plan” is the ultimate option, I spent three hours last night creating a résumé. Having been free-lance or self-employed all these years, I've never before had to do that. How do you condense your adult life experience to a page and have it mean anything? I hate “fluff speak.” But it's done now and I've e-mailed it to the person who asked me to submit one. (It's for a speechwriting job that I may not even be considered for, but what the hell?)

I suppose it's too much to ask that someone would pay me six figures to sit home and blog all day? Yeah ... just thought I'd ask.

I Need Drugs

Why do I let asshats bother me so much? Just a few minutes ago I did a Post Office run. I'm sitting at a red light, just listening to some music and not thinking about anything in particular. When the light turns red I hit the gas but have to stop because the guy opposite me, who's turning left, decides that he's more important than the traffic laws and bolts across my path rather than wait the 15 seconds until I've cleared the intersection.

Now it only cost me a few seconds, so that's not it. But for the next ten minutes my heart's beating faster and my blood pressure soars while I entertain fantasies of vehicle-mounted bazookas and fiery retribution. So it must be that self-important bastards manage to push all my buttons. I have to work on that. And here I was trying to be all positive today.

It Was the Best of Times

It’s hard to imagine a much better way to spend a Sunday. Usually Sundays are totally lost days, spent sleeping, napping, then sleeping again. And by the time Monday rolls around, I don’t feel like I’ve really had a “day off.”

Today, though, just seemed so different. I woke up early—which in its own right is news—and watched a soccer game I recorded yesterday. Then after breakfast I spent a couple of hours driving and walking around, looking for photo opportunities. (I don’t think anything turned out particularly well, but I’ll post one or two over the coming week.) But even though I didn’t come up with a wow shot, it was fun just trying to see details in a different way. It really slows me down from my usual in-a-blur frame of mind.

Then this afternoon, we watched The Ladykillers. Not great, but the Coen brothers are always good for a laugh. Now this evening I’m watching a French League match while writing this and browsing blogs, and I’ll spend this evening starting a new book. Throw in the beautiful weather and today gets a thumbs up.

Opening Day

The youth's first soccer game was this afternoon. The mighty Earthquake began the season with a 1-0 victory over the Crew. Yay team.

Here are links to a few of the other opening day festivities.
Pregame Pose
A Sellout Crowd
I'm Open!
Anyone Have a Dictionary?
Good Game, Good Game

Uninspired

This is the result when uninspired people get their hands on new toys. Stop me before I take more mundane shots.

Ring, Dammit: Or Why the Phone Is Killing Me

You know how when you’re waiting for news that will either be really great or will send you into a pit of despair, each time the phone rings you die a little bit? That’s what it has been like for me lately, waiting to hear from my agent about my current project proposal.

Sure enough, he called this morning, and when I heard his voice I didn’t know how to feel and I realized I was holding my breath. But the agony continues. He was just calling to get me to re-send him some data about my previous sales that he had misplaced. It’s more or less no news. He says eight or nine publishers are considering the project right now and he was positive about their reaction to his pitch. But until an offer comes forth, I can’t get my hopes up. Back to dying a little bit every time the phone rings.

No Problem, Lady

Word is starting to filter around the community that I'm looking to sell or close my bookshop. It's amazing to me that people who have never shopped here, or who have done so very infrequently, are coming in to tell me that they don't want the store to leave.

It's a simple equation, people. If you don't buy books here, the store disappears. Not one of my vendors has yet accepted your good wishes in lieu of payment for my bills. I feel for my regular customers. They've been wonderfully supportive, but they aren't able to prop up the store by themselves. This community has more than 3,000 households. That's plenty large enough to sustain a small bookshop like mine, but the vast majority of those families just don't shop here, for whatever reason.

One woman this morning, when I told her I need to get out of here so that I can make a living writing, said to me, "Can't you just write while you're here during the day?" It never registered with her that her wandering into my shop and asking me questions like that is precisely why I can't write at the store. She wasn't buying anything, just yakking and pumping me for information. One more interruption that would make it impossible to write in this setting. It amazes me how simple most people must think writing is. Sure, it's easy to write in between phone calls, conversations in the coffee shop, and the occasional customer in here. No problem.

It just chaps my ass that people who have never supported my store are coming out of the woodwork to say they're sorry to see me leave. Where were you for the last 15 months?

Herself and the kid ganging up to destroy yours truly in a high-stakes game of Quiddler. Loser (that would be me) had to serve up the ice cream.

Going on five six hours without a single with one customer. Can you say “lesson in futility”?

Why does it not surprise me that all four of the “customers” who are currently stiffing me on special order titles ordered religious books?

This paragraph is a prime example of why I want to be Bill Bryson. (from Notes From a Small Island)

As I was standing there taking in the view and reflecting on the curious practice of primogeniture, some well-groomed young woman on a bay horse bounded past very near to where I was standing. I've no idea who she was, but she looked rich and privileged. I gave her a little smile, such as one habitually gives strangers in an open place, and she stared flatly back at me as if I was not important enough to smile at. So I shot her. Then I returned to the car and drove on.

Yesterday evening my son asked me to go on a bike ride with him. As this is the first time he's ever asked, of course I went, even though I've only ridden my bike twice in the last year. After all, he's 11, so I only have another six months before he stops talking to me altogether. (Incidentally, he's the tall skinny one in the black shorts.)

He never showed much interest in riding a bike until early this summer and after all the usual attendant agony, he learned to ride well enough. I was hesitant about going anywhere yesterday, though, because his riding up to this point has been confined to our short street. But we went all the way to the marina (just a couple of miles, actually) and then back home through some open countryside. I kept looking back to make sure I hadn't lost him, and each time he was right there, grinning at me as if to say, "When are we going to start riding for real?" It soon became apparent that the little shit could have dusted me at will. When did I become a fossil to be humored?

Movie Marathon

The line up so far:

Kill Bill, Vol. 1
Kill Bill, Vol. 2
The Last Samurai
Love Actually

Next up: Big Fish

Not a bad way to spend the weekend.

If I Were King

It’s September. The leaves will soon be turning colors, the air will take on a new crispness, it’ll soon be time to plant tulip bulbs, and of course, college football season has begun. I’ll still watch soccer before football, but I haven’t completely lost interest in the NCAA. I have, however, lost faith in the dipshits who manage the college football structure. No matter how many polls you take or how much tweaking the BCS ranking system undergoes, the system remains as lame as [insert politician here]’s last attempt at humor.

The only way to determine a real champion is on the field. But unlike most fans, I’m not going to call for a March Madness-like tournament. Football teams just can’t play enough games in one season to have a regular season and then a lengthy tournament. Instead I’m going to propose something radical, definitive, fair, and beautiful in its simplicity, and therefore a plan that the NCAA would never consider.

Do away with the bowl games altogether. Who cares about the result of the FlyByNight.com IPO Dutch Auction Bowl anyway? And do away with the current conference schedules. Tradition my ass. The Big Ten has eleven teams now. The ACC, SEC, Big 12 and most of the minor conferences look different today from the way they did just a handful of years ago. And my own beloved Southwest Conference doesn’t even exist anymore. Face it; tradition in major college sports lasts only as long as the current rights and broadcasting contract. Scrap all of it. And while we’re at it, repeal overtime. With the two-point conversion option, force the coach to make a real decision. Do you have the cojones to go for the win and risk the loss? No? Then settle for the tie, little man.

Instead of all that traditional crap, here’s what we need. Choose whatever ranking system you think is the fairest. They all suck, just pick one because we’ll only use it this once and then it’s gone forever. Rank the teams from 1 to however the hell many there are. Then start splitting the teams into divisions by these rankings. In other words, the top 15 ranked teams are Division 1, the next 15 are Division 2, and so on. Each team will play the other 14 teams in their division, seven games at home, seven away. That way we won’t have Oklahoma playing the first half of its schedule against the stepsisters of the poor. The entire season will be played against similarly ranked opponents, guaranteeing exciting games every Saturday.

Just as soccer leagues do, award the game winner three points in the standings, the loser nothing. When teams tie, they each get a point. At the end of the 14 weeks, the team at the top of the division standings is a real champion, decided on the field over the course of the entire season. And the big kicker?

At the end of the season, the bottom two teams in each division get relegated to the next lower division, replaced by the two best teams in that division. There’s a reward for a great season—promotion into a higher division, and a penalty for a bad season—relegation to a lower league. Within a few seasons, the possible inequities from the initial rankings will be worked out by the play of the teams themselves.

I know it’ll never happen, but it would be sweet.

Three Days of the Couch Slug

Three fabulous days at home. Rather than sit in an empty store today, coffee chick and I decided to close today and Monday and get a mini vacation. I think they were planning to go south for the weekend. I’m guessing that if they do they’ll be trampled by Floridians heading the other way.

I, however, will be staying put. The best thing about the next three days is that I have nothing planned. I’m not going anywhere further than the refrigerator. In fact, if I could convince herself to move the fridge into the TV room, that’s what we’d be doing, but alas, I lost that “discussion.”

I have my mug of tea, three or four assorted remote controls, my laptop, a stack of books and DVDs. My only complaint—and trust me, it’s minor—is that this weekend the European leagues are on hiatus for international play. I could have gone for a three-day soccer-induced coma. But I’ll settle for the three-day slug-ass coma anyway. At least the World Cup qualifier for the US is on TV this afternoon. Surely we can slip by El Salvador? 2-0 ... woohoo!

World Music

This is what I listen to in the store all day. This photo is more or less a chance to experiment with cropping and linking and hosting options. Don't mind the little man behind the curtain!

Dropping the S-Bomb

Book Group went very well last night—13 people attended (one of the biggest turnouts yet) and everyone seemed to have enjoyed the book this month (Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City). Several people mentioned that they had to keep reminding themselves that it wasn’t fiction—a sure sign of well-written history. But I’m sure dragging ass this morning. I didn’t get home until after 10:00 and I’m just too frikkin old for that.

I also dropped the bomb on the group that I have decided to sell the store, or if I can’t find a buyer by the end of the year, to close altogether. They were horrified, but I just laid out the facts. Even though the store’s debt-free and not losing money, I don’t have enough business to pay myself a salary; I have a book to write (which will put food on my table); and I can’t write well if I’m spending six days a week in the store.

The good news is that I may already have lined up a buyer. She may not be willing to buy me out completely up front, but gradually over the course of a year, or even just come into the business as a permanent partner. Even that would work out well for me because I don’t really want the store to close, but I need my life back. Having a partner—or a gradual buyer—would give me back enough time away from here to write and it would get me some me time. I think the six days a week is what’s wearing me down even more than the anemic sales. We’ll see.

All the Shiny Buttons

I'm still just playing with buttons to see what does what. These are some flowers in front of the bookshop.

I realized as I was taking it that it's boring. Now the challenge is to find subjects that aren't boring. All dressed up with this technology and nowhere to go!

They Must All Die

Occasionally I have days where it becomes obvious to me that “they must all die.” Today is turning into one of those days.

Item: Don’t come into my bookshop just to “chat” because your life is pathetic and you have nowhere else to go. Even in a bookshop with no customers (like mine), there is way too much paperwork to do. If you see me at the computer, I’m not downloading porn; I’m working (or at least blogging)! I’ll give you three minutes; you don’t get an hour of my undivided attention. If you’re not here to look for books, say hello and then go away or you must die.

Item: No, I didn’t watch the convention last night. (Nor did I watch the Democratic convention.) Why? Because they’re multi-million-dollar circle-jerks that accomplish nothing and where nothing of substance is discussed or decided. Don’t waste my time cheerleading for your candidate, whoever you’re voting for. And whatever you do, don’t walk in here presuming you know what my politics are and assuming I automatically agree with you. Do that and you must die.

Item: Don’t come in here expecting a donation for your local charity/club/member-guest golf tournament when you’ve never stepped foot in my store before. I’m not making any money as it is and I can’t afford to give to every cause, and I certainly won’t support people who aren’t even customers. Ask me again and you must die.

Item: Don’t ask me to special order a book no one has ever heard of before and then tell me you bought it online already when I call you to let you know it’s arrived. Do that again and you must die.

Item: Don’t come in here and tell me where else you’re buying your books. Buy them from Wal-Mart if you want to, but if you don’t have enough sense to keep that news to yourself while in my store, you must die.

Sure, We've Got a Room Available

Three or four times a week, I get a call at my bookshop from someone who’s trying to reach the Hilton Hotel in Wilmington (several hours away—the other end of the same area code). It took me a while to figure out why I was getting so many calls from people asking for room numbers or for reservations. At first I assumed my store was assigned the phone number that was once used by a now-defunct hotel, but slowly I realized that it was just a case of people dialing the number incorrectly. My number and the Hilton’s are identical except for the first two digits in the exchanges, which are simply transposed.

It doesn’t seem to throw off the misdialers, though, that I answer my phone, “Bookshop by the Lakes.” They’re not really listening to the greeting. And when I try to explain to them where they went astray, most simply apologize and go away. A few call right back, repeating the mistake out of stupidity or stubbornness. And the rare case will be rude and hang up on me as I try to explain their mistake.

But one lady was downright indignant. She was sure that I was the one who was mistaken. She knew she had dialed the number correctly and what was I trying to pull? “Umm … mam? I’m pretty sure I’d recognize it if I was running a hotel. We’d have … like … beds?” From now on I’m just taking the reservations—and requiring them to mail me a cash deposit!