Yesterday I worked an eight-hour day at the bookstore. I haven't worked an eight-hour day in at least a year -- it's always been, like, either 2 or 12 hours. I had to leave the building to make calls, which was also weird. The strangest thing was, at one point, I saw that I probably wasn't needed for a while, I thought, naturally, why not just leave? Which reminded me of how hard it was, a long time ago, to even conceive of doing that. My first job was hourly, and it was important to be there, lumbering around the stockroom or whatever, looking busy. You get in the habit of killing time. So when you're actually able to get out of the office, when you're being "measured by results" or whatever, you haven't got the will to take advantage of that and say, I'm done, I'm leaving. Obviously, you can't just walk out of a retail establishment, so I didn't. That was weird too. I took a break in the back room and I felt like I was taking off a Mickey Mouse head.



Some great customers came in late in the afternoon, a small family from Princeton. Out-of-towners find this bookstore and go hog-wild. They wanted suggestions and gave me some books they liked. At first they were doing a bunch of mystery writers I didn't know. Then the guy said, "And I liked 'Geek Love.'" Oh yeah! And then he liked "Confederacy of Dunces," and Redmond O'Hanlon. I hope I set him up with some books he'll like as much, though I can't remember now what they were besides Carl Hiassen. Everything was under $6 anyway. The gal wanted books by Latin American writers (Jorge Amado) and Indian writers. Neat people. The tough thing was finding books they'd like that we have on the shelves. Like, I really wanted to suggest:



"Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," Mario Vargas Llosa

"The Contortionist's Handbook," Craig Clevenger

"I Capture the Castle," Dodie Smith

"Rogue Male," Geoffrey Household

"His Master's Voice," Stanislaw Lem



My usual suspects, but it seemed like they would work. I should read more new books, honestly. For all I'm around them lately, anyway. Maybe when I start my real new job I will read even less!