lend me your eyes; i can change what you see
I had some really fascinating storypeople in the store today: a middle-aged woman with a shock of purple hair; a comfortable Indian couple who found the American tradition of pinching people not wearing green on St Patrick's Day wondrously hilarious; a shy, pretty young woman looking for something new to read. She told me she'd loved Twilight (I inwardly facepalmed), so I rattled off some recommendations, and she ended up leaving with a Sookie Stackhouse book (I haven't read them yet, though it seems I ought to) and recommendations for Sunshine and War for the Oaks written on a slip of paper. (In retrospect, I am kicking myself for not recommending The Historian, as she also mentioned she'd enjoyed Dan Brown. Historical suspense and vampires! ...I don't know, it made me really happy.)
Of course to balance out all of the nice things, I had another eager eleven-year-old girl snatching up Twilight... It doesn't bother me so much when teens and adults read it; okay, it's rubbish (but I wouldn't be more than mildly irritated with it, if I remembered it at all, if it hadn't got so hideously popular!), but... I don't know, when I was eleven I was reading things like The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Little Women and L.M. Montgomery and historical adventure novels and things, not unrealistic romance drivel with a dishcloth of a "heroine" whose entire existence revolves around one gorram boy. If I were a parent, I wouldn't exactly be thrilled to find my daughter -- especially my very young daughter -- reading about a girl who completely stops caring about her family in favour of a boy she barely knows, because she happened to fall madly and irresponsibly in love with him. (Also I kind of don't want my theoretical eleven-year-old to be reading about pillow-biting and Death Babies that have to be gnawed out of the womb and mothers with poor child-naming skills and Biologically Enforced Werewolf Love. I mean, really. Note: everything I know about Twilight sequels I learnt from cleolinda.)
Business was slow, though -- it was Tuesday and evening and March: not an equation for masses of customers. I get to work Friday and Saturday next, though, hurrah! I like being busy, especially busy interacting with customers, which is my favourite part of the job. Shelving endless books gets a bit monotonous after two or three hours. But -- the bicycle ride to and from work was glorious. The sun finally came out late this afternoon, an hour or so before I left, and I was so happy. Oh, sunlight, and little warm joyful breezes, I have missed you!
* * *
I spent yesterday cleaning out my closets. (Yes, closets. I have four. My bedroom is sort of odd; we think it was originally a dressing room, albeit a really massive one.) This was not exactly intentional, but the clutter of them has been extremely depressing and claustrophobia-inducing all winter, and I keep thinking, when I have time, I'll clean them. Which, since I have a fair amount of time, is really just a way of subtle procrastination. To be sure, this cleaning involved empyting out two of the closets -- the ones with clothes (though one only has a few coats and my long sweaters and dressing gowns in -- I am not so decadent as to warrant two full clothing closets!) onto the bed and the floor, and then sorting through these ridiculously tangled piles and throwing things away and tucking other things into a box to be got rid of and putting a few things in the laundry hamper and then folding and hanging the rest neatly. And now my closet is so cheerful and I can find things and everything is on hangers instead of tangled in a terrible heap on the floor so that the door wouldn't close properly. The bedroom feels a bit as though it can breathe properly again. (Also the window is open.)
The other closet is my favourite, because it is filled with books. It's built right over the staircase, so it's got some odd and fascinating slanty bits, and it's full of shelves, and large enough to sit in even with the door closed, and since I haven't space for a bookshelf at the moment, the closet because a book sanctuary and reading nook. Only I've been dumping things in it the last several months, so it really wasn't. Now it's all neat and there are more books inside of it, and the ones that were are organised, and it's full of candles, and I have paper flowers and a quill pen and a fountain pen all stuck together in a makeshift vase which is actually an inkwell shaped like George Washington's head... (I don't even know, you guys.) And nestled against it are jars of Manic Panic, in Hot Hot Pink and Vampire Red. This incongruity amuses me vastly.
So today, to commemorate St Patrick's Day, I shut myself in the closet, lit a lot of candles, and read W.B. Yeats for a while, while Lisa Hannigan soothed from the stereo. The flickering candlelight on bookpaper! And now the closet smells, not only of paper and ink and wood and old paint, but of wax and candlesmoke, and I love it terribly.
Of course to balance out all of the nice things, I had another eager eleven-year-old girl snatching up Twilight... It doesn't bother me so much when teens and adults read it; okay, it's rubbish (but I wouldn't be more than mildly irritated with it, if I remembered it at all, if it hadn't got so hideously popular!), but... I don't know, when I was eleven I was reading things like The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Little Women and L.M. Montgomery and historical adventure novels and things, not unrealistic romance drivel with a dishcloth of a "heroine" whose entire existence revolves around one gorram boy. If I were a parent, I wouldn't exactly be thrilled to find my daughter -- especially my very young daughter -- reading about a girl who completely stops caring about her family in favour of a boy she barely knows, because she happened to fall madly and irresponsibly in love with him. (Also I kind of don't want my theoretical eleven-year-old to be reading about pillow-biting and Death Babies that have to be gnawed out of the womb and mothers with poor child-naming skills and Biologically Enforced Werewolf Love. I mean, really. Note: everything I know about Twilight sequels I learnt from cleolinda.)
Business was slow, though -- it was Tuesday and evening and March: not an equation for masses of customers. I get to work Friday and Saturday next, though, hurrah! I like being busy, especially busy interacting with customers, which is my favourite part of the job. Shelving endless books gets a bit monotonous after two or three hours. But -- the bicycle ride to and from work was glorious. The sun finally came out late this afternoon, an hour or so before I left, and I was so happy. Oh, sunlight, and little warm joyful breezes, I have missed you!
* * *
I spent yesterday cleaning out my closets. (Yes, closets. I have four. My bedroom is sort of odd; we think it was originally a dressing room, albeit a really massive one.) This was not exactly intentional, but the clutter of them has been extremely depressing and claustrophobia-inducing all winter, and I keep thinking, when I have time, I'll clean them. Which, since I have a fair amount of time, is really just a way of subtle procrastination. To be sure, this cleaning involved empyting out two of the closets -- the ones with clothes (though one only has a few coats and my long sweaters and dressing gowns in -- I am not so decadent as to warrant two full clothing closets!) onto the bed and the floor, and then sorting through these ridiculously tangled piles and throwing things away and tucking other things into a box to be got rid of and putting a few things in the laundry hamper and then folding and hanging the rest neatly. And now my closet is so cheerful and I can find things and everything is on hangers instead of tangled in a terrible heap on the floor so that the door wouldn't close properly. The bedroom feels a bit as though it can breathe properly again. (Also the window is open.)
The other closet is my favourite, because it is filled with books. It's built right over the staircase, so it's got some odd and fascinating slanty bits, and it's full of shelves, and large enough to sit in even with the door closed, and since I haven't space for a bookshelf at the moment, the closet because a book sanctuary and reading nook. Only I've been dumping things in it the last several months, so it really wasn't. Now it's all neat and there are more books inside of it, and the ones that were are organised, and it's full of candles, and I have paper flowers and a quill pen and a fountain pen all stuck together in a makeshift vase which is actually an inkwell shaped like George Washington's head... (I don't even know, you guys.) And nestled against it are jars of Manic Panic, in Hot Hot Pink and Vampire Red. This incongruity amuses me vastly.
So today, to commemorate St Patrick's Day, I shut myself in the closet, lit a lot of candles, and read W.B. Yeats for a while, while Lisa Hannigan soothed from the stereo. The flickering candlelight on bookpaper! And now the closet smells, not only of paper and ink and wood and old paint, but of wax and candlesmoke, and I love it terribly.