For some strange reason, I could not sleep for shit last night. I woke up around 5 and just couldn't go back to sleep, so I just decided to just stay up until I felt tired again. I checked several times that my alarm on my phone would go off at 8:30, so I could get ready for a 9:15 doctors appointment. I started to feel tired around 7:30, and before I closed my eyes to check that my alarm was set correctly.
The next thing I know, I roll over and check my phone and it says 9:30. I was so damn pissed. I don't know if the alarm didn't go off or if I just slept right through it. So I rushed around, throwing clothes on and running out the door. DAMN I WAS PISSED! I'm already a crabby patty in the morning, but then the fact that I woke up late for an important appointment just made it even worse. I called one of my friends and was ranting to him about it on the drive over the appointment, lol.
Luckily, I was still able to have my appointment and I got out around 11:30. I decided to head over to the local dollar store in the area, and wandered around in there for a while. I love dollar stores; I don't feel as poor when I shop those stores; I can afford to splurge in a handful of pointless random treats for myself and I don't feel too bad about it.
I managed to get out of there after an hour, and then I wandered in to the used bookstore up the block. It had been in town for many years, and had been expanded. However, it had come into new ownership in the past month. The previous owner kept the prices too expensive, about 75% of the publisher's price, and he couldn't sell much. It was exciting walking in there and seeing the new inventory stacked everywhere.
The awe I feel upon walking into a library and a bookstore is always overwhelming. There was a point in my life when my brain would just whizz off in a catatonic frenzy as my eyes scanned the vast landscape of pages and covers. I would want to read everything and anything. I wanted to buy every book I stopped to skim. I always felt like even the most unfamiliar topics sounded so interesting to investigate; maybe someday it would prove useful to know about the origins and techniques of weaving, or the private thoughts found in the diary of Anais Nin. It felt almost hopeless. I would never read everything I wanted. However, I now console myself with the realization that those books and the information are not going anywhere. I would rather borrow books that are interesting at the moment, and own books that I feel I will continue to love and return to over and over. It is this sense of selectiveness that allows me to browse through the plethora of books, skimming some and putting most back, without feeling deprived. This magical place of printed thoughts and history will always be here for all of us. No one person owns it; the joy of books belongs to us all.
Anyway back to the bookstore, the magnitude of books was staggering. Ancient books with tattered jackets falling to pieces, yellowed romance paperbacks, old textbooks, old battered magazines, beautifully bound classic literature with guilded edges, and colorfully illustrated children's books. Books about Japanese costumes, a graphic art book about pandering and pimping, books about Zen meditiation and the life and times of Rasputin. Ahh, the romance of books. So many of them, much too many to ever read in any lifetime, and too many thoughts from so many authors, captured in print forever.
The store was still being organized; seeing these stacks of haphazard sortings and groupings, I felt an organizational twinge. I wanted to sort them, to get them up on the shelves where they belonged, so that they could sit and wait patiently for someone to pick them out and skim them. It was here, walking through the forest of stacks and bookcases, that a long forgotten memory suddenly came back to me. I remembered that back in elementary school, I would spend many recesses in the library, helping the librarian sort the returned books and file them back correctly. I was a hardcore nerdchild like that; I found it so entertaining, and oddly, soothing to gather up the disorder and magically put it all back together. I remember when I got older, I donated a large portion of my educational magazines that I didn't want anymore and I donated them to the school library; I would feel humbly proud when I saw other kids reading them, thinking "Those are my magazines that people are enjoying."
Upon returning from my reverie, I walked up to the counter with my book of choice, and inquired about the opportunity to volunteer. The guy at the counter told me the store was still brand new, and was relying on volunteers; "Well, I'm not working now; I'd really love to help out" I said. I told the guy I would be willing to come in Monday in the morning. He told me that there was no minimum amount of time I needed to work. I could come in and work for as long or short I time I desired. If I stayed for more than a couple of hours, he said he could provide a meal and a free book or dvd. That sounded so awesomely ideal to me. Walking out of there, I could picture it: Monday morning, sorting and organizing, throwing out empty boxes, suggesting better organizational schematics, maybe pizza for lunch, a free book at the end of the day, and the satisfaction of getting out of the house and doing something worthwhile, even if for free.
Nice.
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