inthelouvre.org

First post.

I easily and stupidly lost nearly my entire domain when I switched servers. I lost many personal journal entries, some fiction, all the entries describing the process I went through to create certain art pieces, and what little I had uploaded to my personal library. Instead of pulling my hair or scratching the skin away from my cheeks, I’ve decided to sigh and forgive myself. Yes, some of it was my passion, some of it was my proudest work; however, I know I’ll make better. It’s with that hope that I bring you the new inthelouvre.

Note: Most pages are linkable but not all of them have any content in them at all, yet.

Inside the Mind of a Bookseller

Today I spent the entire day comping (putting in order alphabetically and by subject) the Reference section at the bookstore. I’d started this project last Monday, moving shelves so that they matched across the entire row and then comping the Wedding section. Yesterday I finished from Etiquette through Sign Language, and today I got through Foreign Languages and Dictionaries.

We have a “Libros en Espaniol” section. It was awful. It was like doing an entire section’s worth of shipment and having to put it all in the correct place without any books on the shelf to guide me. To be honest, I liked it, and I felt accomplished afterward; however, the Spanish-speaking population of our customers avoided the section (politely) while I was working on it, but as soon as I finished, they attacked it like ravenous crows waiting for slim pickin’s. I understand. That section is never in order, and finally they could browse their language in peace without having to figure out why Phil McGraw is shelved next to Isabel Allende, and why either of these books are included in the Children’s subcategory. I could see the excitment across one woman’s face (a regular) as she dove for The Alchemist, previously lost behind the one Spanish-language art book about Africa. It’s those smiles of appreciation that keep me going.

By the end of the day (which was only an hour ago), I wager, that section is out of order; perhaps (and hopefully) not as bad as it was, but I wonder sometimes if we comp in vain. Liana, our kids specialist, puts a lot of work into the kid’s section - keeping it in order, bringing in new ideas about where sections should go (based on shelfspace and customer convenience), etc - but every time we work together, there’s always that “why do I do this?” conversation.

Why do we do this? I’ll tell you. It makes it easier for us to find books. The average customer walks in and sees a shelf full of books. They don’t see a shelf that’s alphabetically in order, they don’t see the prettiness of a recently comped section with straightened books and even numbers of face-outs. They just see a whole bunch of books. Browsers find the books they want based on covers (and in this way, face-outs are necessary) and those looking for specific books usually end up leaving unhappy or asking for help. Why? Because despite the fact that, yes, VC Andrews is shelved right next to Mary Kay Andrews, as it should be, this customer only sees VC Andrews books because Oh My God there are a lot of them. Despite the brightness of Mary Kay Andrews’ covers and the way they stand out in a sea of VC Andrews (most of our VC Andrews books are mass markets, whereas Mary Kay Andrews are hardcovers and trade paperbacks), this customer is not going to see Savannah Blues because she is lazy and doesn’t want to try that hard.

And yet, they tell us we’re comping sections because it makes it easier for customers to find books. I still get the question, “Are these in order by author or title?” I can’t wait for the day when someone comes in and asks if the books are ordered by size.

This Won’t Make Sense

We were sitting at the Chinese food restaurant table talking about our coworkers, just then summing up Ronique. Sometimes it seems like she is the only female who really does what she wants to do, who really doesn’t care too much about what other people might say about her. She does her own thing. I say “I don’t know if it’s entirely the astrology thing or if it’s a personality trait but,” she can connect with almost anyone, even people who don’t connect with anyone on any level except video games (I think the prime example here was Ricky). We moved on to some of the new people and he said that Pam reminds him of - what’s her name? You know, the really thin one - that’s part of the reason she reminds her of her; they were both really thin. But he can’t think of her name. She worked in the cafe, do you remember? “Angelina?” I ask, with unhidden disgust on my face. “I never really disliked her,” I say, “but all the same, she was one of those stick-thin girls who always came up to you at customer service and said, ‘I am SO fat in these pants.’” To which I always responded: If you’re fat, I must be gigantic. Thanks. (The token response: You’re different. Right. Just because I’m 50 pounds heavier than you and you want mass amounts of attention.) But I disagree with him. Pam isn’t so much like Angelina. You always flirted with Angelina; there were days, even when we were dating, that you’d have touched her more than you even looked at me. Sometimes I wondered what you really wanted. “I didn’t flirt with her!” he insists. I say, “yes you did,” and he replies, “no I didn’t.” We stop and sit in aggravated silence until our fortune cookies arrive. He hands me mine and I read “You have a lively family.” Why do I always get these non-fortunes, I wonder? Then, with a clear harumph and a sigh, he tosses his fortune on my plate, and all that nonsense about that past coworker who has been out of our lives for 4-5 months now was over.

The majority of my life is totally unpoetic and sometimes it really depresses me. I wish I could always write well or at least well enough not to crumple the paper and let it find itself in oblivion. I wish I could describe that feeling I had last night at the Dale Blvd./Neabsco Mills stoplight, being able to see clearly for the first time ever straight across town at the shopping center near Minniville Rd. It was sad, but tinged with a sense of appreciation for development, how if we don’t grow we will never progress; but sad nonetheless for taking the scene for granted on all previous occassions. It seems that trees are becoming increasingly nonexistant and I wonder sometimes whether or not my children will want to learn different tree-types if I stay in the suburbs. I wonder if they’ll know a “real” Christmas tree or if they’ll see an oak that has been growing for 100 years. Will we have to visit national parks just for them to smell nature?

I find it difficult to properly express myself when I am unhappy. I wonder if it will be better when we move apartments, or will I just be more stressed over my job?

I feel uneasy with my books in boxes. Is it a mental discomfort or am I really that concerned? Sometimes I think I might be fake. I don’t have enough time left in this life to read all those books and yet I buy more.. Will my kids appreciate them as much as I do, or will they be sold away immediately after I am disabled or dead? Thinking these things makes me no less sad, but I feel like my dedication to collecting books - my life would be a total waste if they were tossed aside like unimportant objects. I’m torn between “but you didn’t even read most of these” and the thought of important books and the importance of reading. Do I deprive someone else of this edition by having it gather dust on my shelf?

I’m so into Michelangelo’s life right now that I actually started spelling his name correctly.

His fortune read: “You and your wife will be happy in your life together.” It was the perfect touch.

The Train

Today was a beautiful day - in fact, the most beautiful day in the past few months. Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow, and I love winter, and I love when the season changes from autumn to winter. But today was a mesh of spring and winter and I absolutely loved it. It was only slightly chilly - not cold enough for a jacket, but cold enough to cross my arms in the tshirt, extremely windy (and I mean that in the full sense of the word “extreme”), but sunny and bright. It was also empty. I had the day off, so while everyone else was at school or work, I went to Featherstone Park.

Featherstone Park is a beloved place. I have a lot of good memories there. Granted, a lot of them are blurred from the passing of time, but I went there several times when I was a child and during Girl Scouts. I’ve also spent a lot of time there in the past few years. Despite how run-down it seems (trash and unkempt tree branches that, by the way, try to attack you from above while you’re walking along the path), it’s probably my most favored memory-spot. (I also love Old Town Alexandria which holds beautiful feelings from the past, and other more obvious places like Ohio and my childhood neighborhoods.)

Today, for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I entirely wasted my day off. There were minutes, here and there, where I wondered what I was doing, but that wasn’t until later when I was sitting in bed eating chocolate and looking at websites I don’t even remember looking at. After I dropped my husband off at work and ate some Dr. Suess cake, I made a U-turn close to the apartment to drive 20 minutes out of my way to a park. I was listening to an Elvis CD that only skips on one song, but it’s a song I’m not particularly fond of so it’s never much bothered me. I noted the emptiness when I got there, the only visible souls belonging to a caretaker and an old man walking his dog. I revelled in the opportunity for privacy as I made my journey through the parking lot to an empty space - so many to choose from!

And I recalled just now that it was the clouds that brought me there - big, in a huge clump across the sky; I was thinking, “Today would be a good day for pictures.”

As I was walking along the path I wondered if I shouldn’t have brought my jacket, but I was feeling rather accomplished nonetheless. This was only the second or third time since July that I had been to this park, whereas last year I went there at least once a month if not more. I couldn’t stop thinking of how much I was enjoying the fresh air, how wasted my day would have been at home, how open the earth was to me and my thoughts and my silly ideas about the future ahead of me. There were moments when I felt like I wasn’t thinking anything at all, and those moments were the most amazing moments of today. I was simply coexisting with the wind and the trees, sitting on a bench or leaning against a railing, waiting for nothing in particular to happen, having no desires or urges, no stresses or fears - just being. The water sparkled, and so did I.

When I got to the end of the path I decided to rewalk my steps until I was spit out once again to the designated parking lot. I remembered the train which I loved so much when I was little (I’ve always found trains comforting - I think because my grandparents live close to a track, and I found the noise at night endearing) and decided to find myself walking towards it.

And on my way over there, I was confronted with this mysterious sound. It was like a metallic echo shuddering across the tracks, passing the noise from side to side from one end down to the other. The whole place was a little odd in those moments. The wind blew so strongly that it pushed me to the railing as I made my way up the path to the bridge. The bridge itself stayed still at all times except when a trian ran beneath it. Then it shook like a small earthquake, but I didn’t fear. I was sitting against the barrier and felt the movement in my heart. After the train passed, the echo followed. It’s as if it came in warning and trailed in love. The wind died down, also, until the echo returned. It was music. For a brief moment I wondered if there was a chorus under the bridge singing a frightened and strong tale of desire and loss, love and pain, happiness and regret. I can still think of the eerie echo now and as I descended the path away from the bridge I wondered what caused that noise. Was it just the wind?

After the park, which I ceremoniously left without conscious, I visited the Potomac Library for the first time ever. Part of me wants to believe that this was the library we visited when I was smaller, but I know we went to Chinn Regional Park Library because it’s closer to all the houses in which I’ve lived in this area. With no intention or purpose, I walked straight to the fiction section and browsed, eventually picking up John Updike’s Gertrude and Claudius, a sort of prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and read all the way through Part I. I don’t know what caused me to leave after that chapter, but I left with schemes in my head to visit that library several times a week and read books that I’d have never otherwise found for two hours.

I then came home and wasted the rest of the day’s fine weather typing meaningless drabble and wondering every moment if I didn’t waste that experience above the train tracks.

·