life is .... good.
Tonight is a good night. Why? Because tonight you get to spend several hours just wandering around the bookstore. Ah, yes, the bookstore .... the closest you can come to having a religous experience inside four walls (mmmm .... aside from the pit). Armed with a fabulous Darth Vadar Gift Card (thank you to the most wonderful person in the world!) and nothing to do for hours, you are set.
The tools you will need for this excursion are few:
a watch - the purpose of this is to ignore it. take it off, stuff it in a pocket, walk away. there is no such thing as time.
a cell phone - this serves two purposes: the ever-important book-check - have you bought this yet mom? and secondly, and more importantly - the gloat ... i found it first! i get to read it first! you have to wait!! lesser known purposes for the cell phone include the death threat: you have two days to read that. two days! there will be much pain involved!!
So armed and ready, you are set to begin your adventure. Open the doors.
The first place you must go upon entering a bookstore: the featured fiction table. New paperbacks, deals, books on sale ..... wonderful, perfect gems lying spread on the table before you, a starving man at a buffet. Walk slowly, savor the moment ... nod with familliar affection at the ones you have read, roll your eyes at the bubble gum romance novels passing for chick lit, and pile into your arms all that you can't leave behind.
Walk on. Your next stop: the staff pics. yes, you have read most of them, and yes, most are books now being made into movies, the good ones you've already read, the bad ones you really don't care. but occasionally, there will be that simple, perfect book you overlooked just one too many times before that turns out to be amazing.
Turn now, head towards the middle of the store. Your destination: the science fiction rack. This stop will be brief, because it frustrates you to no end the absolute crap you can find here: the star wars series, the resident evil books, the truly bad and CRAP series that pass as fantasy, where all the characters are based on D&D and LOTR, and nothing is either novel or innovative. Stare longingly at that new Neil Gaiman ... it will be in paperback soon.
And now you're off. There it is, off in the distance, rack after rack towering before you: fiction and literature. Close your eyes, breath deep, and the smell of all those perfect books just WAITING for you to turn their pages, unearth their secrets, will bring you back to life. Start slow, linger over every shelf, fingertips grazing the spines softly, gently, each one teasing you, something you can't have. Grab a book, curl indian-style on the ground right there in the aisle - sample every one.
Your world is perfect. But all good things must come to an end. The store is closing, you have to leave. And so, reluctantly, heartbreakingly, you weed through the pile at your feet, choosing only those you know you can't live without. And then at the cash register you pull out your credit card and cringe - how the hell did you manage to spend THAT much on BOOKS??
And so you're home, and now you're faced with the dilemma of the ages ..... Neverwhere, or the new Alice Hoffman? Decisions, decisions ....
The tools you will need for this excursion are few:
a watch - the purpose of this is to ignore it. take it off, stuff it in a pocket, walk away. there is no such thing as time.
a cell phone - this serves two purposes: the ever-important book-check - have you bought this yet mom? and secondly, and more importantly - the gloat ... i found it first! i get to read it first! you have to wait!! lesser known purposes for the cell phone include the death threat: you have two days to read that. two days! there will be much pain involved!!
So armed and ready, you are set to begin your adventure. Open the doors.
The first place you must go upon entering a bookstore: the featured fiction table. New paperbacks, deals, books on sale ..... wonderful, perfect gems lying spread on the table before you, a starving man at a buffet. Walk slowly, savor the moment ... nod with familliar affection at the ones you have read, roll your eyes at the bubble gum romance novels passing for chick lit, and pile into your arms all that you can't leave behind.
Walk on. Your next stop: the staff pics. yes, you have read most of them, and yes, most are books now being made into movies, the good ones you've already read, the bad ones you really don't care. but occasionally, there will be that simple, perfect book you overlooked just one too many times before that turns out to be amazing.
Turn now, head towards the middle of the store. Your destination: the science fiction rack. This stop will be brief, because it frustrates you to no end the absolute crap you can find here: the star wars series, the resident evil books, the truly bad and CRAP series that pass as fantasy, where all the characters are based on D&D and LOTR, and nothing is either novel or innovative. Stare longingly at that new Neil Gaiman ... it will be in paperback soon.
And now you're off. There it is, off in the distance, rack after rack towering before you: fiction and literature. Close your eyes, breath deep, and the smell of all those perfect books just WAITING for you to turn their pages, unearth their secrets, will bring you back to life. Start slow, linger over every shelf, fingertips grazing the spines softly, gently, each one teasing you, something you can't have. Grab a book, curl indian-style on the ground right there in the aisle - sample every one.
Your world is perfect. But all good things must come to an end. The store is closing, you have to leave. And so, reluctantly, heartbreakingly, you weed through the pile at your feet, choosing only those you know you can't live without. And then at the cash register you pull out your credit card and cringe - how the hell did you manage to spend THAT much on BOOKS??
And so you're home, and now you're faced with the dilemma of the ages ..... Neverwhere, or the new Alice Hoffman? Decisions, decisions ....