bookstore

So, according to all of the articles I've read, starting a used book business is easy. I do  not believe them, but I would still like to try. If I start at a few local flea/community markets, I will not have many huge expenses: flat rate for space, business license, and, of course, inventory. Then I would have to try to actually make a profit. I need to find out what is legal to sell. This is, in a way, counter to my dream of someday owning a library, but it would be enjoyable, I hope. I would, of course, prefer an actual bookshop with four walls and a door and everything, but I would also fear it. Maybe I could make a traveling bookstore! A nicely painted trailer with shelves of books....bungee corded in? Or would I have to re-shelve every time that I set up shop? Maybe I could make some of those shelves that I wanted with doors that slide off. I would also have to be able to set it up outside. A trailer just would not be large enough. I will look into the laws regarding traveling book stores. 

Rules for bookstore inventory: 

 1. NO ROMANCES: maybe Jane Austen, but none of those newer, trashy things

 2. Fantasy is my favorite, so that is what I will concentrate on

 3. Do it yourself is probably also popular at festivals/fairs, but I will check

That's not many rules, and mostly common sense, but it's all I've got for now.

I cut my finger pretty deeply trying to yank the plastic loop open on a new spongie/scrubby thing. It is actually pretty interesting, just painful. It sliced through the top layer of skin to the pink beneath. If I peel it back (which I will not be doing), there will be the same fingerprint beneath in painful, sensitive growing skin. Is it not amazing how skin works? And how intricate the creases are? I remember standing in the parking lot when I was eight years old and being suddenly struck by the realization of how incredible my hands were: muscles and tendons and bones and blood vessels and skin and fingernails and nerves and I don't even have to control them all because my brain does it for me. I just decide to pick up a pen and my hands move accordingly without me needing to know which muscles to  contract. It is so ingrained in us by that time. I wonder if babies have to figure out specific muscles or is it closer to how we are as adults: doing this moves this arm however I want it to go. Babies have so much to learn. How do we all do it? They have to learn really difficult concepts like object permanence and self and others and the idea that other people are actually people like us, not just things. And mirrors. That has to be hard to grasp. And the world is big. You can wave your arms around and not hit anything. And it keeps changing. There is this rocking motion and sounds and then the world looks totally different again. 

I'm listening to Facade from Jekyll and Hyde. 

There's a face that we wear
In the cold light of day -
It's society's mask,
It's society's way,
And the truth is
That it's all a facade!  

There's a face that we hide
Till the nighttime appears,
And what's hiding inside,
Behind all of our fears,
Is our true self,
Locked inside the facade!

Every day
People, in their own sweet way,
Like to add a coat of paint,
And be what they ain't!

That's how our little -
Game is played,
Livin' like a masquerade
Actin' a bizarre charade -
While playing the saint!

But there's one thing I know,
And I know it for sure:
This disease that we've got
Has got no ready cure!
And I'm certain
Life is terribly hard -
When your life's a facade!

Look around you!
I have found
You cannot tell, by lookin' at the surface, 
What is lurkin' there beneath it!
See that face!
Now, I'm prepared to bet you,
What you see's not what you get -
'Cause man's a master of deceit !

So, what is the sinister secret?
The lie he will tell you is true? -
It's that each man you meet
In the street
Isn't one man but two!

Nearly everyone you see -
Like him an' her,
An' you, an' me -
Pretends to be
A pillar of society -
A model for propriety -
Sobriety 
An' piety -
Who shudders at the thought
Of notoriety!

The ladies an' gents 'ere before you -
Which none of 'em ever admits -
May 'ave saintly looks -
But they're sinners an' crooks!

Hypocrites!
Hypocrites!

There are preachers who kill!
There are killers who preach!
There are teachers who lie!
There are liars who teach!
Take yer pick, dear -
"Cause it's all a facade!

If we're not one, but two,
Are we evil or good?
Do we walk the fine line -
That we'd cross if we could?
Are we waiting -
To break through the facade?

One or two
Might look kinda well-to-do -
Hah! They're bad as me an' you,
Right down they're boots!

I'm inclined to think -
Half mankind
Thinks the other half is blind!
Wouldn't be surprise to find -
They're all in cahoots!

At the end of the day,
They don't mean what they say,
They don't say what they mean,
They don't ever come clean -
And the answer -
Is it's all a facade!
Is it's all a facade!
Man is not one, but two,
He is evil and good,
An' he walks the fine line
We'd all cross if we could!

It's a nightmare
We can never discard
So we stay on our guard
Though we love the facade
What's behind the facade?
Look behind the facade!

--------------------------------------

I agree that man has both good and evil in him, but I think it is interesting that they mostly focus on good being external and evil being internal. Some days that feels accurate, but don't our actions have as much as "weight" as our thoughts? On the other hand, I suppose the point is that the motivation for the external actions are entirely selfish. But isn't it better to act and pretend that we are compassionate and generous. isn't that a good first step toward actually becoming compassionate and generous? Maybe the motivation begins as changing the way people perceive you, but it can become internal if you try. But in order to try, you have to want to, so maybe that argument is invalid. But if you truly don't care, then why would you care what people think of you? Wouldn't you not understand why people care? If man's good was fully external, then... it wouldn't be external? it wouldn't exist at all because no one would care about acting "good." Well, this was a confusing and silly argument. People have both good and bad inside them. There is a constant war in each of us, and sometimes we, or at least I, do not even want the "good" side to win. I am far too selfish for that. And now I have spent far too long on this.

Today is dry and brown like crunchy grass.