2 Month Mark

It doesn't seem i've been at the National Bookstore chain that long. But alas. So it goes.

Lately I've found myself muttering as I organize my perfect kingdom. Which by the way i've totally gotten compliments about- like: I've never seen it so organized. It's so beautiful. You're wonderful... so it's not that I don't feel validated. I mean even though the NB/C is only raising our wages bcs then they can say they pay "more" than minimum wage. Though they spin it in the grandest most benevolent of ways... like for instance I will find out on friday what sort of raise i got. Like I get the "max now" of $8.00 and starting was $7.50. So technically they can sort of underhandly undercut my base rate by saying, well you make that now, so we don't have to give you anymore... or maybe they might give me a quarter. I stir at the injustice of the employees all across the country getting undercut like this and internally a little synapse is well all snappy and twitchy about it.

Anyway back to the muttering: I finally dialed into my internal monologue and it seems that I am obsessively making a check list about "what to tell the newbie"... such as where i hide the extra books, how to organize things, what gets messy first, how to maintain order bcs that's what people respect, and why do people bring/leave the sex books in my section and that one klepto must have stolen all the southpark seasons by now, and am i being watched? assume yes, which book should i read next.... I find it incomprably hard to change the channel: tell them, do that, change that, it's time. And in this litany of mental word-waste I halt occassionally with the realization that the end is not in sight, that I do not have a replacement and that 2wks worth of pay is only $450. And how am i going to nicaragua or oxford on that? And when am I going to make time to paint and write... and and... so then when this whole week I'm sick and can't convince myself to just go home and i have too much cough syrup before i go to bed and it's late and my heart is beatinng too fast i think this is the real expression of how i feel- like it's boiled to the surface. For one moment I can see a true reflection beyond the calm exterior I've somehow developed... this unflapable, unshakable, calm mendacity- utterly mistaken about how patient she seems or calm she's been about waiting. It's hard to shake until I find something else to fill my mind with. Today I read JunieB.Jones, which left me with a craving for cookies, hoagies and a fond reminesce about my own lunch lady in 1st grade, read MagicTreeHouse#19, found myself completely envious that they got to go to India on an adventure, then spiraled into the psychological ramifications of going on continual journeys for a mystery woman and facing near death circumstances at 10, constantly... and then i finished the Handmaid's Tale- which for as much as people think it's great I think it totally sucks to read a book about a stupid woman who frets her way thru slavery and half heartedly contemplates suicide but not revolution.

Having survived the week, I know 2 days will not nearly be enough. I think Monday I'll start Sisterhood#2 and possibly another JunieB.Jones or maybe read about RocketShips... but anyway at the end of the day at 1:56pm an author came in to sign her books. The book is called Erec Rex: The Dragon's Eye. But we only had one copy and it seemed sad to have only one. She's from Cincinnati, and though we disparaged her a bit before we met her I understood why she came to leave her mark here in the section bcs she happened by, and I thought: here is a book she wrote, out in the world, and I'm going to respect that... and she brought a book for the kids section lead to read (which is me) and she signed it "Enjoy this Book from Me! Never Stop Dreaming! I never did~" and so whether good or bad I'm going to carry it with me.