If You Try Sometimes

Not in my teens.
 Not in my 20s.
Not in my 30s.
Not in my 40s.
Not in my 50s.

I'm starting to feel a little like I've got a scarlet B on my chest.

For the (several decaded) life of me, I can't seem to land a job at a bookstore when there's an opening. This stings a bit, because bookstores are my natural habitat. Why don't they want me?

Let me go over the past two forays into getting in touch with my inner bookseller. When I was 42, shortly before I went to Korea, I tried to get on at the local bookstore. It went something like this:

Me: O! I love to read! Booksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooksbooks....

Bookstore Manager: (a bit frostily) Customer service

Me: Booksbooksbooksbooks...Huh? Oh yes, of course...customers are important to me. I want to recommend books I've read and build rapport and...

BM: This is not a sit-down job

Me: Uh, I would read...in my off time....of course...

BM: Do you have bookstore experience?

Me: Well, no, but it's my dream to work in a bookstore.

BM: Go away

In my most recent attempt (July, August) to get on at the local bookstore, there was a third page on the standard application. Favorite authors, an easy matching books and authors. Why do you want to work here?  I was veryvery careful this time to thread in my love for customers and my willingness to bend like Gumby to the randomness that is retail.

But, sigh... I may have let my bookworm freak flag fly too much. I named 3 or 4 authors when one would have done (Who can choose just one???? That's just not right...but did I have to say Zola????!!) I also wrote down this blog's address so that BM (different BM; she's really nice, even if we sort of disagree about the hiring thing) could further explore my reading life at her leisure. I think I restrained myself from mentioning that I wrote a book, but when I look back...well, I was in a fever. I could have said anything.

So much for enthusiasm with a slight nod to careful calibration.

No joy; not even a phone call requesting an interview.

I held out hope for over a month, I carried around my book-shaped earrings for good luck, then I gave up. Actually, that was a lie. I'll never give up hope. Last week, an unfamiliar number popped up on my phone and I had this little frisson of joy that rubbed against my heart like sandpaper and I thought: Maybe it's BM. Please, please. But no. A robot informed me that I could win a vacation to Florida. I guess there are bookstores there.

Maybe it's time to get real: No bookstore job for Bybee. This could be a good thing. I remember something George Orwell wrote about being an avid booklover and going to work as a bookseller. At the end of the day, he was all blarrgh and sick of the sight of books. I wouldn't ever like to feel that way, but I wouldn't mind the chance to find out.

So for now, I'm not in the room where it happens, but the completist in me has her head up and is already scenting the air of the future: I still have my 60s to go! Will victory finally be mine, or will the book finally slam shut on my bookstore dreams forever?

Books Slipping Away

I woke up Monday morning feeling not only totally resistant to work, but to life in general.  This is unusual because this semester, I only work one hour on Mondays and that hour is the Children's Literature class.  Also, I was going to have a pleasant chat with one of the Korean professors about the paper she is writing about Irish poet Eavan Boland.  Bitching about Monday was de rigueur.  I was too susceptible to society's grainy old habits, I decided.

During the Boland part of the conversation, I noticed that my brain seemed to be lagging behind, wandered off somewhere, perhaps picking blueberries, but I attributed it to Monday-ness and stumbled through what I was trying to say.  Then, the professor put her paper aside and asked me about my reading interests.  She asked if I ever read short stories.

"Oh, sure.  I love short stories."

"Who?"

"Well," I said, feeling myself beginning to flail for information again, "I was completely entranced with Raymond Carver for about five years."

"What about now?"

"I like a Canadian writer."  Pause.  "I can't think of her last name.  Her first name is Alice."*

"Have you ever read anything by Willa Cather?"

"Yes, I discovered her last year!  Uh, I read...I read..."

"A Lost Lady?"  She suggested.

"No...but I read something by her.  O Pioneers?"  But I knew that wasn't right.**

"Have you read Toni Morrison?"

"Yes, I read Beloved and The Bluest Eye and Sula...and..."  I couldn't get a grip on that fourth title.***

She brought out a collection of short stories by women and turned to the table of contents.  Something by Louisa May Alcott.  The Yellow Wallpaper.  Paul's Case.  Something by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.  Susan Glaspell.  I was trying to look on, but she was turning the pages too quickly.  The writing was blurry.

"I think Glaspell is a genius," she said.

"Yeah, she is!"  I absolutely could not remember which Susan Glaspell I had read.****

"Perhaps we could read some stories together and discuss them," The professor said.  Exactly what I had been waiting over 7 years for a Korean professor to say to me.  It should have been a brilliant moment, but I had a terrible headache.

"I like Shirley Jackson,"  I said.  "She's really good..."

"Oh no," she said.  "It's twelve o'clock.  Time for your class."

 I went to class.  Talking about why picture books are so important to a child's development was on the syllabus for that day.  I assume that's what we discussed.

 I went back home.  I had to lie down, and fast.  Shivering, I dug out an extra blanket and fell into bed fully clothed except for my shoes.  I immediately got up again to use the bathroom and saw the thermometer in the cabinet.  Hmmm...  My temp usually runs right around 97.  Maybe I'm up to "normal", I thought.

101.2.

Oh, fever!   I was relieved.  When I couldn't converse intelligently about literature with the professor, I had considered all sorts of possibilities:  Alzheimer's.  A brain-eating virus.  The onset of a stroke.  Insanity.  Sudden and accelerated ageing of the brain.

Long story short, I went to bed and slept nonstop except for short intervals for the next 28 hours.  At the end of that time, the fever had broken and I had all my literary stuff back again and I felt good.

My mom knows with certainty when she's feverish because her big toe hurts as if someone's trying to pull it off with a wrench and she also dreams that wild horses are trying to stomp her to death in an outdoor privy.  I've always admired the drama and robustness of her warning.  It sounds like something that would herald oncoming illness for Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Nature hardly ever gives me a heads-up, or if it does, I'm too dense or it's too subtle.  Things like illness and pregnancy (that's another story) tend to whack me on the back of my unsuspecting head.  I'm going to remember this, though.  The next time authors and titles slip away from me like they've been oiled, I'll know why, and I won't need a thermometer.

*Alice Munro
**My Antonia
***Song of Solomon
****Supressed Desires, Trifles