No blogging for me yesterday. It was the dreaded Ohio sales tax day, which used to be a piece of cake, or at least a piece of Form UST-1. But then came 2009 -- brave new worlds – when the state tax gurus declared mandatory electronic filing. Once you find it online, filling out the $%%#$ form isn’t all that hard, but I had somehow forgotten my user ID and couldn’t retrieve it. Your password they will send you, but lose that User ID and your account’s locked up tighter than a cat’s mouth in the presence of a pill. Long story short – what should have taken twenty minutes took the whole morning.
On the bright side though, yesterday also marked my first BONANZLE sale – four books to the same buyer, a fellow shop owner. I left a post on the forum announcing the great news – people do that there when they get their first sale– and immediately congratulatory messages poured in like jelly beans into a candy dish. Brightly colored fonts, animated dancing girls -- all I was lacking was a bottle of Martini & Rossi. Those ebay pangs I was feeling the other day? Forget about ‘em!
Then this morning I had to run uptown to the nicest jewelry store on the square (Medina’s town square is so quaintly cute that a model of its gazebo is going to grace a float in the next Rose Bowl parade) to drop off a couple books purchased by its lovely owner. The sun shone fetchingly and I was still feeling chipper from the bonanzle score, so I decided to walk the mile and a half since it wasn’t too hot. It's been years since I’ve walked anywhere in the middle of a work day, but there I was strolling around like I hadn’t a blessed thing to do. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that after I dropped off the books I decided I deserved a little bibliotherapy of my own and popped into the library too.
Medina has a big fancy new library which I wrote about last year, or whenever it was they opened, but useage is so insanely high that many times, especially during the summer, the new book section looks like the last day of the church rummage sale. Sure enough, the pickings were slimmer than a cross section of a blade of grass, but I came away with two titles: The Secret Life Of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn (which I actually thought was a new nonfiction about Dickinson I’ve been wanting to read, but is not); and The Red Thread by Ann Hood which is a novel about, in part, international adoption. Since both of our daughters and both little grandsons are all Korean adoptees, mention the A word on a dustjacket and I’m all yours. It remains to be seen how good either of these are, but I have promised myself that I am going to work until four today and then repair to the porch with Hood’s book and read for an hour before I make dinner.
Wow -- imagine it! A Bonanzle sale, a walk in the sun, a visit to the library, and an hour of uninterrupted bibliotherapy. Sales tax? What sales tax?
9 comments:
I'm chuckling that you thought you were getting a non-fiction book, but happy that you have your hands on The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. It is very true to Emily's voice & inner life. I loved it enough to start a facebook page - and as of today we have more than 1000 other like-minded fans (the author has also joined). Give the novel a try and give the site a try:
http://bit.ly/SecretEmilyDickinson
Thanks Lenore! Now I think it trumps Hood's book for first read. The jacket art made me laugh when I thought it was a serious treatise on Dickinson. I appreciate the heads-up, will read fast and go see what all the fun is about. Glad you found me! Do visit again.
Glad I found you too - we LOVE independent bookstores on our site, and we'll do anything to support them. Don't wait until you finish the book to look on the site - the novel is only our inspiration, our mission statement: This site is dedicated to Emily Dickinson, who seems more at home in the twenty-first century than she did in her own time.
Today we asked and Jerome wrote us two lovely paragraphs honoring Melville's birthday next week.
Last week our members baked Emily's "Black Cake" for senior centers. It's a unique community - it's Emily's facebook page.
It's fabulous. Lenore! I was just over there and can't wait to read it ALL. I know now that I'm going to love the book. Can I link you to my blog? Not sure how, bu will figure it out!
I see you're as savvy as I am about this new techno stuff. I'm pretty sure linking will be fine but let me ask our other admin, a lovely blogger named Mark Traphagen, who we met when he wrote a review of the book that I liked as much as the one Joyce Carol Oates wrote for the NYRB - and now he's a friend and co-admin. Here is his blog - I think you'll like it: http://foolishsage.com/
(although today's topic is his chemo - sigh) We may have to stop meeting like this, I'm at lenore.riegel@gmail.com
I'll check it out. It's not important for you guys link to me -- I want to link to YOU so that readers can find you. Or at least put you on here as a favorite. My daughters will know how to do this! I'll definitely check out the blog -- it's hard to find a good one! Thanks!
I posted a picture of Lavinia and her cat today - thinking of your blog.
Dear Tess: we'd love you to highlight our link on your blog. We'll try to feature you as well. We are also looking for guest bloggers on literary or Emily-related subjects. You would be a welcome guest! If you have something dear to your heart, keep us in mind.
I just wrote to you at the email address you provided yesterday. Check that and get back to me. Thanks -- looking forward to it, Lenore.
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