Barometer, 15 May 2011.
Up again and take another, as they say. Time to stop wallowing and to start getting back to the discipline of posting regularly.
TODAY'S ICON: A photograph of one of the lions at The New York Public Library. My inner pendulum is swinging between being happy to have my own bookstore and chafing at being curtailed in my Wilburying. I will not be able to go to BookExpo America next week, and will probably not have occasion to visit my city until autumn.
BRAINSCAPE: Being soothed by the combination of available music in my officespace and getting paperwork under manageable control. There's less of a sense of my psyche trying to eat me and more outright pleasure in what I do, despite above-cited disappointment.
BODYSCAPE: Actually okay today. I was disturbed yesterday by how hungry I was despite regular ingestion of "good" calories. While I am walking more frequently and have actually managed a session on my bike this week, I am not really ready to say that an increased physical activity level justifies an increase in eating. I *am* noticing a decrease in back fat, more toning in my arms, and a flattening of my belly.
THE DAILY HEADACHE: It's there. Between the pollen, the low pressure atmospheric systems that will be here all week, and some personal stuph that is constant background radiation, the headache *will* be daily for the foreseeable future. Trying to treat it with water, juice, "clear" veggies like cucumbers and celery, and cautiously-applied antihistamines.
SARTORIAL MATTERS: Taking one of the last few opportunities of the season to sport one of my faves... a men's sweater in heather brown tweed, highlighted with spots of crimson oand forest green. Worn over dark blue demin capris, deep brown wool tights, and black shortie suede boots.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ADVENTURES: With a mixture of schadenfreude and sadness, I recently picked over the corpse of our local Borders. [Longtime readers of the norda blog will recall, but newcomers may not know, that my bookselling career started at Readers Market, the Mid-Atlantic US discount-outlet arm for Waldenbooks, back in 1987, under the guidance of Pete Reynolds, now of Indiebound.org.] I now have stockpiles of Kiernan, Scalzi, McGuire, and Frost, and others to sell, and have bagged lusted-after titles such as ROSEMARY AND RUE, THE RED TREE, and RETURN OF THE DAPPER MEN for myself.
THINGS THAT HAVE MADE ME HAPPY RECENTLY: Far from gnashing my teeth at the necessity of keeping up with the Jones, it is more accurate to say that I am giddy with delight that my two-doors-down neighbors have installed "library lions" on their walkway. In addition, the lilac tree near one of our local pizzerias is in utterly riotous bllom and brightens my morning and evening walk tremendously.
THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE RIGHT RECENTLY [ALBEIT ACCIDENTALLY}: I found, through an odd convolution of events, that I actually have a fully functioning website with SEO capabilities for my brick-and-mortar bookstore at http://www.anniesbookstopworcester.com. While I am fully capable of handcoding the HTML for a website from scratch, I am *thrilled* that right now I do not need to take the time to do so.
THINGS THAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE DONE RECENTLY THAT ARE DELIGHTFUL AND NOTEWORTHY:
* snacky saved me something on the order of US$1200.00 in hardware and software connectivity issues by simply being dashed-all clever, and cheer-full to boot...
* triciasullivan helped me to help norilana by providing my bookstore a copy of THE CAPTAIN'S WITCH, which planted a seed amongst my customers for more Norilana Books titles...
* vyrdolak1998 reminds me that every day where rain falls can still be bright and warm..... she gave me a beeee-yooo-ti-fully green Burberry London Fog raincoat that is just my size.... not an easy feat when one is petite.
* black13 sent my boy and me, some time ago, a paperback copy of I, CLAUDIUS which we are now just reading aloud to one another.
* dichroic kindly included me in a faerytale for her and my newest faery godchild.
* chronographia turned me on several months ago to Pale Young Gentlemen.
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EDITED TO ADD: Yes, some of these shout-outs and observations are quite overdue.