My book weekend

So our book festival is almost over....a small session tomorrow.....and one major author on Wednesday and we can put a year's worth of work to bed.

I have mixed feelings this year.....everyone says the book industry is in upheaval due to electronic devices but I also think readership is in upheaval too.

I know this is cliche but they are so many things to do and so many ways to amuse ourselves....I'm not sure people are glued to books anymore. I used to think that declining interest in books was a cliche but now I'm beginning to think there's some truth to the matter.

You see books take time....and in a life filled with work and email and so many tugs on us.....it seems more and more of a luxury to read for a long time. Reading is now in short bursts...an article on the net....an excerpt....but who has the hours it takes to commit to read a story?

I'm sounding cliche.....and don't get me wrong....we had good attendance.....we go to schools...we expose folks any every turn we can think of.....to what's happening in the book world....but for the first time.....I wondered....really wondered....if we were making inroads into our community.

Perhaps it's just post project blues......I don't know.

Sex in the Bookstore.....the End of My Day.

The After-Church crowd has arrived. It will be non-stop busyness until I leave in a couple of hours.

I race up to the cashier stand to leave a book for a customer and find Claire managing a cash register. Customers usually come in waves to purchase books....and this must be a dip. I pick up a Cosmo and wave it at her. "Have your read this......10 new all time incredible sex secrets....right here Claire....waiting for you on your lunch break." I wink at her and smile. She laughs and shakes her head at me. "How about 10 tricks for hot hot sex??" courtesy of Men's Health. (Men's magazines are more inclined to use the word HOT...whereas women's magazine are more prone to SECRETS.) She shakes her head again and waves me off....I return to info chuckling.

Popular magazines always have a feature article or two on sex each month. The real kicker is....they find at least 10-20 sex secrets a month. That's a lot of sex secrets. You have to wonder if there's some conspiracy to hide sex information....since there are so many secrets....and who....who is storing all these secrets? Is there some underground vault in Nevada where sex secrets are hidden and doled out per month? Is there some secret society, much like something from out of the Da Vinci Code, which hides and protects sex secrets and carefully releases a few every month? By my rough calculations.....20 sex secrets a month x12 months....means magazines "discover" at least 240 sex secrets per year....and since I feel as a bookseller and a woman it's my duty to stay a breast of this information.......it means I've been exposed to over 1200 sex secrets since I've worked at the book store! Factor in all the Kama Sutras, sex tips, sex books, sex manuals I've shelved....I should be a sex expert!!

In fact, sometimes I think I am. Many times when I work, my book selling partner may be a guy....so women...who are looking for sex anthologies, sex information, or relationship books often seek me out. I have recommendations in sex anthologies ....and I've read the Mars/Venus thing... Why Men love Bitches....and He's Not Into You books too.....and I can do a fair job of recommending books based on your level of experience and where you want to advance to in your sex life. I think part of my comfort with sex comes from my nursing background...especially since I worked in cardiac nursing... before a patient could be discharged we had to address sex issues, activities levels, and exertion levels....we also had to remind certain heart patients to limit their sexual experiences to their wives post-heart attack.

I also think I'm just one of those people....who is comfortable with sex. In college, I choose to teach basic contraception as my senior nursing project. Planned Parenthood loaned me their little black suitcase....which contained condoms, IUD's, birth control pills, etc. I taught impromptu classes in our dorm...opening my little suitcase of contraceptive wonders....and explaining how to use them......I felt like I was providing a service to my fellow dormies......and it wasn't uncommon for someone to come to my room privately to ask me a question.

Unfortunately, my sex education days were limited. A Resident Advisor of the dorm...called the nursing department chair....to inform her I was teaching contraception....(a no-no for a Catholic university)....and I was asked to return the "suitcase." I did....but I asked Planned Parenthood for a few supplies and till I graduated.....I kept a little stash of items....in case someone needed them.

As I said, women usually come up to me in the bookstore.....but on a rare occasion a man might ask for help....usually it's because his wife/lover/girlfriend has sent him to the store for a specific title which he's suppose to retrieve and bring home. A few months ago.....a very handsome man came up to me and asked me for a copy of "The Secret Garden." The Secret Garden is an old classic children's book....I checked the computer to see how many copies we had....and then led him to the children's department. When I handed him the book, he looked horrified.

"Isn't this the book you want?"

"I don't think so."

I look at him. He looks at me. Then it hits me.

"OHHHHHHHHHHHHH.........you mean MY Secret Garden."

"Do I?"

"Yes you do....."

I lead him to the sexuality section...take The Secret Garden out of his hands and replace it with a copy of My Secret Garden....the classic erotic fantasy book written in the 1970's. Apparently, a ground breaker in female sexual fantasy at the time...it's now considered tame by Internet standards.

"I think this is it." He grins.

"Have fun."

I watch him walk off and sigh.....hey...this is a great job.......sending off a tall, dark handsome man with a sex book and a smile........

Someone is going to be very very happy tonight.

~~~

My Life as a Bookseller....part 4

"You're an idiot, is there anyone else around who might be competent?"

I'm holding the phone to my ear. I can feel my heart hammering. It's amazing how in a few seconds, the shot-in-the-dark insult, can affect your heart so quickly.

I have three choices at this point: fight (nasty comment back), flight(hang up) or savoir-faire.

"I'm the only person at Information right now so it appears you'll have to take my word on this."


The phone clicks.

He was looking for Quick Claim Deed Forms. We don't carry them. Had he been a decent guy, I would have given him an online suggestion. But he wasn't a nice guy; so he'd have to figure this out for himself.

Although I've been in retail for 5 years now, I'm impressed how an insult affects me. I feel like I'm punctured......and now all the negatives of my past week....swarm around this wound....like hornets round a can of soda in summer. Mis-communication with someone, self-doubt, a small hurt....they all play ring-a-round-the-Rosy over the wound.

The next two customers receive extraordinary service. I practically carry them to the check-out counter..... but the insult still sticks....as if it has it's own length-of-stay criteria....no matter what I try to do to forget it.

"Do you ever feel bad for a long time after a customer insults you?" Claire nods. She's an extraordinarily calm and self-assured young woman and I'm a surprised insults stick to her too. She identifies with the punctured-feeling. Kathy does too. I actually feel a little better knowing other people feel the whiplash from insults. I wonder if customers who lash out ever release how this stuff sticks....and perhaps it sticks more because we are strangers.....if I was arguing with a family member or friend...we would kiss and make-up and he/she would say......"Of course you're not an idiot".....but there's no reaffirmation with a stranger, no one who comes and places a band-aid over the wound.

It's break time and time for spiritual medicine. I head towards Self-Improvement and grab one of my favorite books..."How to be Happy, dammit." It's a little Buddhist-positive thinking-affirmation-new age-philosophy-type book. I'm so fond of this book...it makes me chuckle...just to hold it.

It's a book with a history....and you gotta love a book with a personal history.... A couple years ago when I was in Minnesota, I had this really bad day. I remember it so well.....an uber pile-up of misery...as if the universe was playing mad scientist and said...."Let's experiment....how much can she take?"

I had a friend, who was having emotional problems, she started screaming at me in the middle of a restaurant when I suggested she needed professional help. I left. On my way back to the hotel, I escaped a major car crash on the icy freeway by literally a few inches. Safe in my room, I opened my laptop and found an extremely painful email. I staggered to the chair and fell into it.

"Ouch." I had sat on a plastic bag with this book and a trinket I bought for my daughter. I opened the book and read for hours....just kept turning the pages over and over again.....almost afraid to look up and away from the book.......until I could fall asleep. Sometimes the key to surviving emotional trauma....is the blessing of sleep.

" Lesson #24....When you become calm and serene on the inside, the world becomes more calm and serene on the outside. Your enemies=your teachers. Your failure=your wisdom. Your undesired endings=your desirable beginnings....." and so on and so on.

As break time ends..... I see a red Cosmo book on sex positions laying on the table across from me. I open and study and laugh and think.....there are way toooo many positions in this book where you have to be up-side down.

Back at information, the Sunday Transvestite passes the counter. A 6'4" man/woman with a long frosted wig, arched eyebrows so high and perfect it looks like she used a jar lid to trace the shape, black skirt, black suit jacket, fluffy white blouse.....good heels......and god love her/him.....46 DDDDDD implants/or bra? Oh honey, I think....you could be such a good looking man/woman if you kept it down to a D or DD........because really DDDDDD is just way too much....even for a bookstore.




(Bookseller names/fiction...Booksellers/real)

My Life as A Bookseller......Part 3

Returning to the Information Desk, I hear a familiar British voice. "I'm thinking I might get this today." British Cooking Man, one of my favorite regular Sunday customers and a balm to my irritated nerves from the Too-Hot-Tea-Lady, has a huge cookbook parted open and is studying a recipe near the desk.

"Did you bring me something to eat?" He laughs and ignores my hope that someday he'll bring something tasty for me to sample. He comes in almost every Sunday and must own at least 100 cookbooks.... if not more. I help him find and order books each week. I've known him for over two years now. He's given up trying to have a meaningful conversation with me about cooking or recipes. He knows I don't cook and although I try hard to focus on his discussion of chefs or ingredients...my eyes glaze over and I want to shout...."Please...you cook....I'll set the table and bring the wine." Which I believe is my automatic response to any who man tries to talk recipes with me.

Early in my adult life, I accepted my cooking disability and made an important decision. I would never fall in love with a man who didn't or wouldn't cook for me. In fact, I developed a philosophy about men who cooked....believing they were analytical but sensuous, logical but also generous. When I was dating my husband, he mentioned he could bake cookies....and zoomed to the top of my interesting man list. I also have a theory about left-handed men who cook...but ...that's another story.

British Cooking Man is hot on the trail of a Mexican cookbook today so we head down the aisle towards the appropriate shelf. Midway there, we have to step over a woman who is sprawled out onto the floor with a notebook and a cookbook. It's not unusual to find women on the floor of the cooking aisle....apparently recipes....interesting recipes.....make them weak in the knees and they collapse right there on the spot to read them....or they come prepared with a notebook to copy recipes. I've watched women create an entire dinner party menu from appetizers to deserts while sprawled in our aisles. I wonder why they don't get up and simply carry the books to a table. Perhaps they would feel guilty copying the recipes since everyone would see what they were doing.... I guess it's better to block an aisle and pretend you accidentally fell to the floor in a most unusual spasm taking a notebook, pencil, and cookbook with you to the ground.

British Cooking Man walks off with his new prize. I find another book out of place propped up against a shelf. It's called, "The Game." It's an instructional pick-up manual for men. I pop it open and cringe. Sometimes I'm not thrilled to learn about how men think. This is ..unique....the book suggests a man carry a bit of lint around with him. You see... if you're near a beautiful woman out in public you can toss a lint on her when she's not looking and then gallantly say to her, " You have some lint on your sweater." The woman will assume you are kind and gallant man because you saved her from social embarrassment. She will now smile and talk to you.....a man she would have never paid any attention to before .......but now that you are her lint-knight in shining armor.....she will gaze at you appreciatively.

I pop the manual back in the shelf and make a note to be suspicious of any man who has lint discussions with me. I head back to the desk and see the Cross-Dresser is cruising into the Sci-Fi section. Cross -Dresser is a man who comes in mostly dressed as a woman. Today he is wearing a purple minister's shirt and collar (his male half) tucked into a tight fitting black skirt with black hose and black high heel shoes. His short gray hair is in a pony-tail with numerous bobby-pins holding his hair in place. He doesn't wear make-up and he usually is ....half and half ....in gender apparel. He has a killer taste in high heels....I'm envious of the gorgeous classy shoes he wears (obviously expensive) and his ability to walk in those spike heels in a non-challent manner ( I can wobble if I'm out of practice). He also has drop-dead shapely shaved legs. He's been coming into the store in his half and half attire since I started here...five years ago.

I remember the first time I met Cross-Dresser. I was heading out of the store; he was heading into the store. I had a white oxford shirt on, black skirt, fishnet stockings (there's a long story behind the stockings) and black heels. He was wearing.... almost.... the exact same outfit. A white men's shirt, black skirt, fishnets, and heels. We stared at each other. I remember I told him I liked his shoes. He told me he liked my fishnets. I walked out of the store thinking...wow....isn't this a great place to work?