What's the point of doing anything if ten minutes later someone else will come along and rearrange all you've done to their liking?

Sorry. Venting.

At least one good thing happened today. A little boy, about nine years old asked me for recommendations in the teen department for a fantasy book. I love it when boys (small ones) ask me about books to read, or are really excited about a title. It gives me hope for the future. He had wanted something about dragons, and I showed him Eragon because that's the obvious book right now. Then I stopped him and told him that he might like to try something in our adult section because he might like Anne McCaffery. He showed me the book that he chose, The Tower at Stony Wood by Patricia McKillip. There's a dragon on the cover. If I were to have a dragon it would look like that.

I think that Sam might be cracking...

Sometimes the store feels like a death trap, a black hole of comfort where intelligently underemployed people go to weather out their days. I like selling books, but it's not the only thing in the world I can do, although I wonder what else there is out there.

what to do when the phone rings

Sam thinks his new apartment is haunted. His cat stares at nothing, which is what cats do. They stare and judge and bite people's hands for no good reason. But while Sam's phone went missing earlier that day someone called him from a number he didn't recognize. We thought it might end up being a death ghost or a sign of a grisly murder.

"Call and put it on speaker phone," I said.

"Why? That way you'll die too?"

But maybe there's only enough energy for one person and it would just result in some minor bad luck. Or else... I've seen Final Destination, there are ways death lurks around each corner for us.

It was a weight loss clinic in Florida. Which was not the dread we were hoping for.

Yesterday, I found half a can of tuna fish on the windowsill. Not sure which is a more disturbing thought, that someone was eating tuna fish in my bookstore or that they just left the remains lying there.

Sam is still trying to find a canary. No one knows why. The others, all of them including the three women who float about the floor without attempting to do too much work but know everything, are perplexed. Sam is a cat person. He likes to watch movies. Maybe he wants to feed his cat a canary, although that's too violent for Sam. Still, I can picture how it would happen: by accident. He would try to convince himself that a bird and a cat could be friends. And then, an hour later, a happy cat and a few feathers. Of course that would only happen if Sam weren't Sam and life were more like the movies.

The old hag, Betsy, was pestering everyone again. The other booksellers are getting annoyed at her, especially the three. She means well. Its just hard to remember that sometimes.

Of course, I saw Phil at the bar. He arrived much later than I did, when all I wanted to do was go home. Somewhere in the evening he lost interest, became intrigued by a Sicilian filmmaker (that would be more interesting than a bookseller...). And he didn't protest when I left, or even seem to care that much. Just some half hearted promise to maybe see me tomorrow.

Am I magic that fizzles after two seconds or what?