Red Coat; B&N+King
Red Coat
Day One: She's wearing a red coat with a big (Red Riding) hood, and Ugg boots. She smiles at me as I get on the bus. Oh well. Nothing special there, right? Some people are friendly like that.We transfer to the same bus and she gets off before I do.
Day Two: She's on the bus again--same time, so she must be a regular. This is a new schedule for me. She smiles again. After we transfer, I think she takes a peek or two at me during the journey.
Day Three (today): She smiles once again. We get off to make the transfer and there is a bus already pulled away from the stop and waiting at the light. We are on the wrong side of the street to catch it. "I always miss it by one minute," she remarks to me. Good for you. You made the overture, because I generally don't. We talk as we wait for the next bus, then sit together in the three-person bench by the bus's rear exit--a seat between us. We talk some more. She has nice hair.
B&N
Unexpectedly I found myself having to kill some time at Clackamas Town Center (a typical suburban mall). One of the only places open so early was Barnes and Noble. Since most of my book store browsing takes place at Powell's, I have gradually become used to their unusual policy of mixing used and new copies of books on the same shelves. So it is a bit of a shock to browse a store with only new books. This means you aren't going to find anything that it is out of print. It also means no use probing around for a used copy to save you some money. I browsed for a while, but lost interest, since I can always order anything new and pay full price.
(I don't usually watch the Today show--or any of those morning shows--but for some reason I caught one earlier this week that Stephen King happened to be on. He has a new book out, I learned. On the show he appears healthy and cheerful. That's good to see. Whatever your opinion of King as a writer (and mine has changed over the years), it's nice to see that he isn't doubled over with pain from van-induced injuries.)
Since I wasn't getting much of a thrill just browsing, I decided to look for that King book and just sit down in one of the over-stuffed chairs and read it for fifteen minutes. It's great that they let you do that--just like at the library, only without lots of homeless people sitting around you. There are big windows that face south into the parking lot. At the far end of that parking lot is one of those Macaroni Grill chain restaurants. I could see Macy's jutting out to the side as well. The big windows reminded me of being at an airport. They create the expectation that there should be something picturesque to look at, but in fact, all you see is a lot of asphalt and shining constructs of metal (planes, cars) moving about unromantically.
I'd love to polish my anti-consumerist credentials and write of my disgust at being in a chain bookstore attached to a shopping mall, looking out at a parking lot, but the fact is I was quite relaxed and happy sitting there with Borodin and then Khachaturian pouring out of the store's sound system. It's been especially cold and windy here lately, and I had just walked over to the mall from a nearby Goodwill store where I had been scouting for books to resell. I had one of those moments where--putting aside all extra concerns over economic structures, technocracy, etc--I marveled at how clever humans are at adapting to deal with their environment: the big panes of glass that made up the windows and the climate controlled interior of the store. How could humans or proto-humans for tens of thousands of years even imagine such a thing being possible one day? But it's no big deal to us. And this store was nothing special. Hundreds more like it everywhere you look. The sunlight put a harsh glare on the left-hand pages of King's book. I held a single leaf up to let the light catch it from behind so as to look at the grain and texture of the paper. I was glad, not for the first time, that real paper books still exist--again, environmental impact be damned as far as I was concerned. Twenty years ago science fiction writers and OMNI magazine were predicting the demise of the book thanks to computers.
(Earlier when I had been browsing books, I picked up a few paperbacks and sniffed them. I was hoping for one of those Proustian moments where the memory is jogged by the senses, but you know I don't think paperback books quite smell like they used to, and that made me sad. I suspect it's some new balance of recycled material in the paper or a new formula of ink. Maybe I just didn't try the right books. I remember Ballantine science fiction paperbacks in particular having this special intoxicating scent back in the 1980s--but only when they are fairly new. You can get a faint whiff, a shadow if you will, of that original smell from on old book so long as it's been kept away from smokers.)
Later that day I put a hold on the new King book through the library. This would be the first new King book I will read since Bag of Bones, which I didn't finish. He's not getting any of my money, but he'll get my attention for a few hours.