New Hat for Duluth!

Impromptu overnight trip to Duluth with M, who has a rental minivan for her apartment move  tomorrow.
It’s like going to the ocean—Lake Superior blows the brain-cobwebs away.
And I’m turning off my phone!

Penny Cooper is giving frilly socks a trial run—she is not sure if they will prove practical. But she admires Golda’s new hat unreservedly.
It will keep the wind out of her ears, Penny Cooper says.

Sci-Fi Book Haul

I bike home every workday past DreamHaven, an independent bookseller specializing "in new and used science fiction, fantasy, horror, film and media books, comics, and graphic novels".
Protestors/looters broke into and damaged the store in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, but it's cleaned up and running again now.

People also burned down Uncle Hugo's––the country's oldest sci-fi bookstore. 
This just kills me. I went there when I first moved to town at nineteen, looking for Star Trek books. It was an overstuffed heaven of books, so many they were piled on the floor. It was only a few blocks from the thrift store. 

Anyway, DreamHaven had set up tables outside yesterday, for an Indie Bookstore Day BAG SALE: fill a grocery bag of books for $15.

I stopped as they were just about to close. They said to take my time, and I quickly I stuffed a bag with 42 sci-fi pulp paperbacks (= 28¢ each).
They're mostly from the 1950s and '60s, the era with the best cover art, imho.

I'll keep just a couple with the best covers covers. 
The rest I'll give to the thrift store. We never get much sci-fi, and people do ask for it. 
(I posit that people who buy sci-fi are akin to collectors--they KEEP their stuff!)

I'm not sure these vintage pulps are what people want. I'll set up a display and see if they sell.
Here are most of them.

How bout this collage!?!

Rockets and space- and moon-scapes are my favorite though.

Best foot forward

I'm very contented by yesterday's Indie Bookstore Day sale. Seventy-one books sold--about a quarter more than usual. So that's gratifying. Even nicer, I had good chats with several people shopping in BOOK's--including a regular who's always been rather sour.

Sour Shopper started off her relationship with me two years ago by accusing me, since I had shelved a mystery book in the fiction section, of knowing "nothing about mysteries".

I had to laugh, it was so ludicrous. I admitted that, indeed, I don't read mysteries and might occasionally mistake them for fiction. 

(It matters because our mystery books cost 49¢ each, while regular fiction is 99¢, but still...)

 "If you see one out of place," I said, "I'd appreciate if you put it in the right section."

Since then, she does occasionally point out a misshelved book, but in a friendly way.
Yesterday I was talking about how I get the joy of running something like an indie bookstore, but without the hassle of being a proprietor.

"Yes," she said. "I used to work 90 hours a week when I owned a bookstore in London in the eighties."

WHAT?
Her store stocked only specialty technical books, but still.
Talk about burying your lede! 

It's astonishing how humans are not always our own best advocates.

Rescue Bunny

Not book-related, but also satisfying: 
yesterday I secured a stuffed bunny for Kirsten, who's been looking in thrift stores for a SNARP (Stuffed Needy Animal Rescue Project).
Lots of thrift stores throw out damaged plushies. Goodwill throws out ALL stuffed animals, for sanitary reasons.

This damaged sweetie would never have made it. Isn't it a plucky bunny?
It leans into life.

Bunny's head is stuffed with excelsior (shaved wood)--a stiff material that keeps its shape, but it's so hard, it's difficult to replace.
Maybe Bunny doesn't need restuffing, just a gentle brushing, a few stitches, and a patch or two.

I'd have kept bunny myself but would rather re-home him as I have too many waiting for repairs.

Work Around

Volunteer Man (VM, below) sorts, prices, and displays the thrift store's donated art.  When Ass't Man rearranged the back room, he removed most of the places VM displays art. 

The two men do not get along--both being rather persnickity perfectionists.

When Ass't Man simply didn't replace the art rails and nails after a month, VM went and bought wood (floor moldings?)––with his own money––cut them to fit, and mounted them as guard rails along the top of my new bookshelves.

I texted VM  that his end run around Ass't Man inspired me.

He wrote back, "LOL sometimes u just have to do it"

I'm proud of how the shelves look for today's Indie Bookstore Day sale.

I even made a fresh sign to post on social media. (Replaced the ones I posted last night.)

A couple side-by-side BOOK's...

Teddy's Dream.

Great re-do of a great cover:

This week's display is Latin American Lit & Culture

Two ads for Independent Bookstore Day

I made two social-media ads for the store's book sale tomorrow--Independent Bookstore Day.

I took this just now---having a glass of rosé after work at an outdoor café. I'd brought the old book from work to photograph, and the flower petals had fallen from the café's big flower pots.

A very Instagram-y shot.

After I took the photo, I thought maybe coffee would've been better than wine for the store. (Lotta folks in recovery.)
I posted the wine shot on my personal FB and made another ad for the store's, with a photo of a dumpster I'd taken days ago. 

I'm not too eager to invite more people into the store. 
Mostly I want people to DONATE books--especially since we haven't been accepting donations of anything for months. 
The invitation to donate books is in the FB posts.

Three Objects, x 2

 I've been doing some time in housewares. It's so fun to spot an occasional cool object among the sticky plastic junk.

I love the vintage vase, but it isn't super special. We get a lot of mid-century pottery. It's  stamped U.S.A.--looks like Haeger or Red Wing. Priced at 13.

The enameled teardrop is Reed & Barton silver-plate, designed by metal smith John Prip,  late '40s--early '50s. (Priced at 18)

I was specially pleased to have spotted the tea kettle.  It was dirty, and I thought about putting it in metal recycling. But design stands out. 
I looked it up.
It's made in England by Simplex, "famous for fine tea kettles since 1903".
New, they go for $350 from Williams Sonoma.
I priced it at 39.

Here are three things being bought by a customer who always ferrets out the coolest stuff.
The blue vase is a Haeger. I think it was 5.
An enamel pot made in Poland, and a classic Thermos bottle.

P.S. I woke up at 1040ish p.m. to my phone claxon announcing a curfew.  They mayor called out the State National Guard to quell riots when a shooter's suicide as the police approached him was mistaken for another police killing.

If only the police were trustworthy and such a thing were unthinkable rather than a darn good assumption.

Seems quiet today...

how to shelve BOOK's

I've been hoping and waiting for someone to donate real bookshelves with adjustable-height shelves, to replace the store's never-meant-for-books shelving. Finally someone did: the sister of a book lover who recently died donated his shelves. Originally from bookseller B Dalton, the shelves are purpose-built.

It's been a huge chore (in hot and humid weather, and insufficient a/c) to set up the new shelves and reshelve the books---but well worth it.

Here's a volunteer with the new shelves for the children's books.
Can you see the shelves sprighten up the used books?

We only replaced these two sections--the tall shelves in the main book bays remain. They aren't beautiful, but they do hold a lot.

A couple more of my Social Distancing set ups.

The small but real pleasures of being Custodian of BOOK's.

And... here's a bit of ephemera I found in an old book.
"how to open a BOOK", with the immortal lines,

"I almost fainted. He had broken the back of the volume...."

The Small Beyond

I just deleted my dating-site accounts, after four weeks. 
What a relief! 

I'm still chatting on email with a couple people I met--the dollhouse–maker and Very Nice Sue. Will they become pals?
Too soon to say.

I don't regret the time spent. Mostly what it did was allow me to do a Life Review, which was not what I expected.
Locating where I am, what I want, what I love, how I see the world.

In the end, being on the sites felt like going down the wrong road. I had to turn around to get back on the road I was on. Then I realized I'd been on the right road all along. 

What do I love?

I love blogging. 
I love the kinds of friendship that arise from it--not always, but they're mostly easy, no-pressure connections. We're like bees, moving pollen around while we do what we want to be doing anyway.
We're here because we like to write (record in words): join in, if you like, or not. Stay or go, freely.

I love my work in the world.
Some people on the dating sites were adamantly political. I admire that (mostly). But I am not. 

I'm okay where I am. For instance, I have a little corner where I can do what I can do: my book displays. When the store reopened, for two weeks I displayed books by and about BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).

Last week, I changed it to the100th Anniversary of Suffrage for Women. On  Aug 18, 1919, the 19th Amendment was ratified:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied... on account of sex.”

I love my friends and the people in my life.
I may not exactly love all of them, but if anything, I'd like to give the people in my life more time, not add more of them. Even some of my family, and  my coworkers... Well, I'd like to be more attentive, to Be Here, Now with people.

I love the girlettes.  
I am some version of my happiest, best self, playing with the girlettes. I get more joy from toy photography (taking and sharing) than almost anything. I want to do that more.

. . . Also, several stuffed bears and one otter are waiting in the wings for restoration.

❧     ❧    ❧

Here's Eeble, waiting for Marz to arrive on her bike and take her back home last night. Eeble had been staying here, but she said there were already so many others... (Too true.) 
She wanted to go home.

(That's where I live, the house to the left of the tree.)
 She was going to wait there for Marz, but she got distracted by the sound of acorns falling on the sidewalk...

She brought hats back to the yard for Valentine & SweePo, who'd been making clothes out of oak leaves.

It would be lovely if Love fell out of the sky like an acorn, but I don't want to pursue it like a job, after all. I have enough.

When Marz arrived, and Eeble was in her pocket, she told me an I-Ching hexagram had reminded her of the girlettes and me.
Its name was something like, The Small Beyond.

Fine and Lovely

"They are always fine and lovely."

––Instagram comment about the girlettes, from yuuminnmama, a Madeline fan in Japan

Isn't that a great observation? The girlettes were very pleased about it.


A currently-not-fine-and-lovely toy has made its way to SNARP (Stuffed Needy Animal Rescue Project). I pulled it from the garbage yesterday at work, filthy and covered with pet hair. 
Its own fur is similar to Red Bear's.

Here's the Before shot:

 I'd said my Patronus is an otter. This toy says it's an otter too.
What a coincidence!

How to Show How Who You Are? (And who are you, anyway?)

The online dating thing may be as much about getting to know myself––as if I weren't myself––as anything.
I've been having fun chatting with a few people. No lightning-bolt connections, but I do feel the world open up a bit, which is great in this closed-in time!
Anyway, it's only been three weeks.

Julia met her "flame", as she calls him, online, after several years off and on sites. 

"Look at it like taking a walk on the Greenway," she said. "You never know if you'll meet someone who wants to talk about dead bees" [something that happened to us on such a walk together].

She also said my online profile didn't adequately represent me: "Bookish" sounds too inside. I should add the photo she took of me a couple falls ago, with the girlettes crossing the road (like Abbey Road, but not).

I do feel very much my real (maybe best?) self when I'm with the girlettes, so I took her advice and made this my feature photo (for now):

And I tweaked my "About Me"--put friendship first:

Reader, writer, custodian of books.
Cheerful but serious. 
Mends things, sometimes. 
Plays outside. 
Looking for new friends. A romantic partner (maybe not sexual) would be great too.

❧     ❧     ❧

I don't have many photos of myself with the girlettes, since I'm the photographer.
I like this one from Duluth--Marz took it.

I've started to think about what I might do to mark the change of decades next year: I turn sixty in March.
The last two decades, I walked the Camino de Santiago. That's not doable in the pandemic.

After last time, I'd sworn NOT to walk it again. (Long, boring, painful.)
But there's this cognitive bias, you know, that blots out the nasty parts of trips (the airports! the bed downwind of a pig farm! days of nothing but canned tuna and instant coffee!), condenses the rest, and presents it as a pretty postcard.

Even knowing that, I might walk it, if I could, so it's good that I can't.
But what, then?
Thinking about who I am---more a toy person than a contemplative hiker--I thought, maybe I could do a trip that incorporates toys.
Some sort of toy adventure...
On my bike?

A customer at work told me there are lightweight campers you can pull on your bike.
I looked them up, and found all these sleek designs---not cheap, but affordable compared to a Winnebago camper.

But this homemade one is the one I like best. Made by artist Kevin Cyr as a sculpture, but it is functional (sort of):

Off to work now!

My Senator

I've always liked Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Now, I like her more. From the DNC:

Afternoon at the Creek

Spritely Spirits

Online Dating Turn-Offs: Guys who post fuzzy profile pictures sideways, showing themselves shirtless, either holding a dead fish or taking a selfie in a bathroom. Though maybe in those cases, fuzzy is a plus.

Also, sending one word messages: "hi"
Worse: "any luck here?"
Worst: "I voted for Trump."

I've messaged with a few women in the friend category, which is fun.

One posts plant-based recipes on her blog Sweet Life Unsweetened. (The recipes have no refined sugar.) This recipe looks so good to me: Caribbean sweet potato and plantain coconut stew

One lives in Chicago and builds and decorates doll houses.

She asked me how I got started on toy photography.
I didn't even know "toy photography" was a thing, so it didn't happen that way round.
Rather, it was like the man who realized he'd been speaking in prose all his life.

I started taking pictures of Red Bear a few years ago. I was surprised how much feeling there was in them, so I started to set up little scenes.

It really took off when Red Hair Girl came along three years ago, because she herself was super into it--a bit of a ham, a natural performer.

 "Of course the dolls are all me," I wrote to the dollhouse maker, "but it doesn't always feel like that."

She's not sure she agrees that the girlettes are "all me". She wrote:

"Maybe you really have called down some little spritely spirits because those doll photos really do make one feel better somehow."

Little sprightly spirits! I love that.

I want to write more about me and the girlettes and toy photography, but for now, I'm just going to post these clips from an article about the importance of play for children's mental health.

Don't adults need some kind of play too?

The bit about people who feel helpless not feeling empowered to take action on their own behalf or for their communities reminds me of the Don't Bother Trying attitudes I see at the thrift store.
The external locus of control may be God or the government, but at any rate, it's not oneself.
There's actually something restful about that, though, compared to the frenetic American push to Be More, Do More.

I'd like a mix. Play with it!

"The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents", Peter Gray, American Journal of Play, Spring 2011
PDF: www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/1195/ajp-decline-play-published.pdf

Dark Hair

I mentioned in passing to a coworker that my hair used to be very dark.
He was surprised.

"I wasn't always gray, sonny," I said.

He explained he'd assumed my hair had been his color--an average brown.

As it happened, a pal had recently messaged me a photo from 1995 (I think) of me--with dark hair--and my friend Barrett, who died in 2011.

I showed my coworker on my phone, and he was amazed.

Aging. It's like looking round a corner with a periscope and then you step around the corner, and--whoops--didn't see that.

This was a little thing, but still, a reminder that I'm in transition between ages. 

Btw, I love my gray hair. I think it's pretty, and I feel more comfortable and safer in the world as an older woman. 

Jesus says...

A volunteer at work gave this icon of Jesus a mask--made from a coffee filter.

"WEAR 

A MASK"

"LOVE THY NEIGHBOR"

Big Boss said she couldn't put it up in the store because he'd get complaints. There are some Christian customers who complain about things such as underwear on display.
A couple times I've had customers tell me I wasn't displaying Bibles reverentially enough. 

So Big Boss is no doubt right that he'd get complaints.
But I say, Don't obey imaginary orders.
Put it up, and if there are complaints, THEN take it down.

The volunteer meant it sincerely: if we love one another, we act to protect others from illness. 
She took the icon and gave it to her Catholic neighbor who is a librarian at a Catholic university in town. The neighbor is going to hang it in her office.

"Bookish. Queerish. Sexual-ish."

The over-fifty dating site is so stiff at the knees, it needs a walker.
I decided to try an all-ages site this morning.
I don't know if I'm any more likely to meet someone there, but I sure had way more fun creating a profile. 

This site offers 33 flavors of gender identity, and you can choose "open to all". On the creaky site, you could only be a man or a woman, looking for either a man or a woman (not both or neither). 

I'm "identity-ish". Bookish. Queerish. Sexual-ish. (I didn't make that up.)

My intro:

 ❧   ❧   ❧
. . . And you can choose all sorts of questions to answer. 
I'd rather talk about movies that sexual/gender identities. 

A New Leaf is one of the best romantic comedies.

Again, the site is more with the times:
Harry Potter is hardly new, of course, but I like that the site asks your Patronus rather than your spirit animal, which is now considered a cultural appropriation.

I was complaining to a young man about how the guys who've messaged me on Site Oldster don't seem to have read my profile.

The young man explained, "Right. We don't read profiles. We just look at the pictures."

So I tried to choose more informative photos. I labelled this one, "My alter-ego".
(It's Red Bear! She doesn't get much screen time since the arrival of the girlettes, but she'd make herself known to anyone who would share my bed.)

Oh--in the Movies section, I added "Does Christmas smell like oranges to you?" from Nashville. That movie has it all on America.

I wish I hadn't paid for 6 nonrefundable months on the Oldster site. But since I did, I'll leave my profile up. Who knows?

Design. It slices! It dices!

The longer I work at the store, the more I'm in love with good design. Besides visual design, the design of a workplace includes its considered response to other people--the flow of bodies and communication as well as of goods. 

Have I mentioned that my workplace's lack of thoughtful design drives me crazy? 

I have?

Well, here's another example.
Yesterday we got a private message on FB from an older shopper about how unsafe our Covid response is. 
The message had several good ideas for fixes--some of them easy.

My workmates--including the bosses--responded as if the message was an annoyance from a kook, instead of taking it as a call to action.

Ass't Man is the only one at work who thinks about design. He also thinks in grand terms. 
Too grand, sometimes--he can be perfectionistic.

I pointed out that we were lucky the customer wrote a private message and didn't blast us in a Google Review.
"We should cover our ass," I said.

"Yeah, but," he said––[I pointed out once that he often says this, and he got mad at me]––"until we hire a designer to make signs, that's not going to happen. You know they won't spend money on it."

For fuck's sake. 

The upside of the lack of management oversight is, if you want to do something, you can just do it (pretty much).

I went into the office and printed some already-in-existence "Keep 6 FT Apart" signs--something the customer had specifically pointed out the lack of. 
I put them up where you enter (below, left & right) and around the store.

I got tape and marked more Xs and added " < 6 FT  > " for clarity.
Look! People will stand on Xs! It's so sweet. It's like kindergarten, in the best sense. 

I replied to the FB message with photos and thanks.
The writer replied, "I am smiling under my mask."

Cost to the store? $25 of my time. 

Value in damage control: priceless 

❧     ❧     ❧

Good design doesn't have to be tidy, but I do love this VEG-O-MATIC box, from 1961:

BELOW:  Entropy reveals natural design--and human design flaws.  "GIFTS" wall and rubble: aftermath of the arson and destruction post-police murder of George Floyd.
I bike past it on my way home from the store.

BOOK(s) NOW   . . . Oh, yeah! 

Aaaand... BELOW: today's disqualifying statement on the profile of someone who messaged me on the Dating Site: