strange days

The street feels funny today. Something is up. The kids are fine, well Sammi has broken another molar through and that's been giving her a lot of pain. Baby Motrin to the rescue. That's what Q. always calls it, even if it isn't Motrin. I am making a real dent in what we owe. Yeah, I almost feel guilt, but - no, you know, I don't get it. But honestly, it's Joseph Conrad's fault. No, buddy, not you Little Conrad. We've talked about this. Why am I talking to you anyway, son? Go play. Why did I just type that?

Something is seriously up with this whole thing, REDACTED and maybe I should tell Q but about this - this time she might wear the badge and sometimes I live her wearing a badge - and nothing else. But, Fuck, i was just thinking what if I am missing something, they are paying me $1500.00 a drop now.

Nora Ephron note

A few days ago, Nora Ephron died and while I was saddened by her passing, I didn't know she was ill, I quickly went to Amazon and checked to see how fast her books were going. It's a truism that when an author, particularly a well known author dies, everyone who meant to read their books suddenly decide, out of guilt or determination, to buy those titles they had wanted to read.

I, on the other hand, am almost an obit reader, a tomb robber, an ambulance chaser. I post books by dead authors as soon as I see that they have died. Terrible, I know, but the early bird sells the book. In the case of Nora Ephron, I had found a HB first with a DJ of Heartburn, her first novel and first big hit. I put it on Amazon where it floundered since there were many other copies, but I only had it up for $6.00; no big deal.

Then she dies, and out of curiosity I check her Amazon number. Her sales number drops, which is good (the lower the sales number, the greater the number of books sold) and compared to the paperback version, the HB is selling slower and for less money. People want to the paperback first, it seems. Then I notice that the NEW copies of Heartburn are selling for $25.00, then the lowest ones are going for $50.00, then for $71.95. The USED ones are more numerous therefore more to choose from. But even the stock of used HBs are dropping. My book might be sold. And then it was!

I had found and sold a number of different Nora Ephron books in the past. I didn't put this latest one up because I knew she was dying, in fact I am very sorry to know that she died. She wrote well and had an impact with the films she made and the books she wrote, her life was a testament to surviving difficulties with grace and love. At the same time, now I can put a little more on my next student loan payment. Cha-ching.

touching and sad, the notes left behind

in my on-going searches I find notes, love letters, cards left behind as bookmarks. Or simply forgotten in books that the owner no longer valued Or the owner died, or divorced, moved away to another city; whatever. It's sad to see professions of love discarded in this way. Books offered with high regard to people who will abandon them in the future. Inscriptions, some by the authors of the books themselves, of heartfelt devotion now tossed aside; purged, removed.

this is a part of booking that affects me the most. I sometimes end my day just looking at my sleeping wife, wondering if there will come a time all my notes in all the books I have given her will be likewise recycled without even a glance over her shoulder.

(untitled entry)

I have been over to Mary's house. It was a weird experience to say the least. She has NO books in her house! A dictionary, okay - it's really good old English dictionary on Indian paper. That and a bible. She says that she purged all the books out of her house after her husband died. She said that she handles so many books at the library that she doesn't need to see them around her house. I don't know if she's grieving or crazy. I couldn't live in a house this book-depleted. I need them around. I need to hear them breathe.

soft porn is corrupting my shelves

I have to find another place; the storage unit in Maryland, yeah that will work. Can't afford to have the kids stumble on these. I thought I had a buyer but haven't heard from him in a few weeks now. The kids are extremely curious, I can't bring anything into the house without them (and then my wife) going through the books. Discretion is the better part of keeping my skin.

I suppose it's okay. I am on the "up-and-up". I was at the library tonight and talked to this woman I know there. Circulation manager, in fact, but also a young widow. Her husband had been killed in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. I have sympathy for her but I was and am opposed to wars started by the Bush/Cheney Police state. They didn't just invade two countries halfway around the world, they went on the offensive against our own Constitutional rights. Christ! The Patriot act? The "reduce our freedoms in our own defense" act - I talk sometimes with Mary, Mary Adams Stark is her name; this librarian lady. Her husband was a career solider. The Adams in her name is from Henry Adams, she says, she's related to John Adams (ever so distantly)

I discovered a copy of this photo that someone was using as a bookmark; there was a website written on the back in pencil. I haven't gone to the site, what if it's porn? It's so weird what I find inside of books. Photos like this are the tip of the iceberg, that's for sure. Sometimes I think it all means something and other times, I believe in complete fucking randomness of the universe. It does remind me of a book that came out recently - Forgotten Bookmarks - which I found to be extremely curious. Some relationships between bookmarks and the books they are in actually make sense. Uncanny, actually. Bizarre. Shit, I don't remember where I found this photo. Sometimes, when I am at the library especially, I just flip through books to get any bookmarks or papers out of them. I put up the donated books "clean" in a way. Nothing from previous owner except if they sign the book is left IN the book. Each book starts a new journey from the sales shelves out.

delicate balance (someone else's)

I can identify, really. I was volunteering at the library tonight and I was going through boxes of donated books, several boxes from the same owner/former owner of them. It could have been his entire library. I don't know.

What I do know is that he must have been walking a delicate balance between his obsessions and his faith. I found as many risque books as Christian books. Maybe they were on separate shelves. I found a HB copy of Justine by de Sade, a Grove Press oversized book of - well, soft porn entitled Eros in La Belle Epoque, a paperback copy of Adventures of Fanny Hill published in Paris, and a "privately published" book called Grushenka:Three Times a Woman. Holloway House Publishing, Los Angeles. Does anything say sleazy better than that?

There were also boxes filled with mysteries and books about boats and Boston Harbor and shipwrecks. Odd combination of things. I wonder how this dude's mind worked.