Today at Logos

When Walt picked me up at 6 p.m. at Logos tonight, after his weekly beer at deVere's Irish Pub around the corner, he pointed out that I had been working at Logos for a long time.  "There have been 4 different bartenders at deVere's since you started working there!"

I myself had noticed that the notebook in which I make notes for thee entries was nearly full and went to the beginning to see if there was other stuff in the book.  But no.  Going back to January 2013, the first time I used it for Today at Logos, up until today.  Another 2 or 3 Thursdays and I'll have to get a new notebook!

When I arrived at Logos, I told Sandy all I wanted to do was sleep,  was so exhausted.  She said she had a slow morning and maybe I'd have a slow afternoon.  Fortunately that was not the case or, indeed, I might have dozed off.  But I had a steady flow of customers all afternoon.

My first customer was right out of the pages of The Big Bang Theory, a big blustery guy with a comic book t-shirt who was thrilled to have found a copy of "The X Files" in the bargain book section.  He went on about "crap TV" and talked about his favorite shows, like X Files, Star Wars and other TV shows and movies that they just don't make any more, characters, comic books, etc.  When he finally paid for his book and left, a woman who had been watching our exchange smiled at me and said "you must have an interesting job."

After a red-headed woman bought 2 contemporary fiction books, our old neighbor came in with a huge stack of books to donate.  He told me this was the last of his 3500 book collection he's been steadily clearing out, realizing that he's not a kid any more and that he needed to do cleaning up.  He told me this was the stack of books he had read and re-read and finally decided he probably would not read again.  I think the stack included every book written by Robert B Parker, a mystery writer with whom I was not familiar.  I started reading the first in the series and like it.

When Loren left, there were 5 customers in the store who had come in while we were visiting for about 20 minutes, getting caught up on our children's lives.  Three of them left shortly after Loren without buying anything.

A woman in white skinny jeans, a black shirt, her hair in a bun with a chopstick through it, glasses and flip flops started looking at the old books. I had this flash that never in my life had I been that thin and there is no way I would ever have worn white anything.  She ended up leaving without buying anything.

Another women I was sure was French came in.  She was stylishly thin, had a gamin hair cut, black tights with a black and white checked tunic over it.  She wore wedge sandals with decorative black straps and had big wire-rimmed glasses she wore low on her nose.  I could just see her fitting in right at home on the streets of Paris.  She was every stereotypical French woman you've seen in magazines or movies. She looked at sheet music for a long time, and ultimately bought "Words of Love" a book of Pearl Buck quotes set in a coffee-table kind of motif.  I was disappointed when she talked to me with no trace of any kind of accent.

A balding older man wearing a South Park t-shirt, a khaki colored baseball cap and cargo pants with pockets came in.  I was reminded of an interview I recently saw with fashion consultant Tim Gunn, who said if he could get rid of any fashion piece it would be cargo pants and how nobody looks good in them.  This guy certainly didn't. But he did look cool on this hot afternoon.  He bought a copy of "Canterbury Tales" and told me to keep the 70 cents in change because Logos was a good cause.

A nice, clean cut affectionate couple, both in shorts, came in, but left after browsing the history section for a while.

A young guy looking for a job came in.  I gave him the spiel about volunteers and gave him the contact information for Susan and Peter, but warned him they were on vacation right now.

An older guy with a black hat that wasn't a cowboy hat, not an Australian akubra, but something like both of them.  He bought a book called "The Emperor's New Mind," a popular science book about computers, the mind, and the laws of physics.  He said he had been looking for it for a long time.

A very nice women in a tapestry print cotton dress looked at the bargain books for a long time and finally bought 6 of them and a bag (our bags are 25 cents).  She admired the artwork on the walls and wanted to know the price for some of the pieces.  Unfortunately I didn't have that information, nor did I have the name of the artist.

My old friend the antiquarian, who has not been in for months, popped in briefly, looked at the old books for less than 2 minutes, waved a cheery wave and left again. I guess there was no new old stuff that interested him.

A guy brought a stack of all the popular political books -- both of Obama's, Hillary's, Doris Kearns Goodman's "Team of Rivals," and a couple of others.  He put them in a tall stack on the desk and said he wasn't sure he wanted all of them.  He eventually bought 3 and said he might wait to read Goodman's book for awhile because the last book he read was also quite thick and it took "forevs" to read.  We now speak in text abbreviations!

My friend came in around 5.  Apparently his new time.  He used to come in around 4 but the last few times I've seen him it has been loser to or around 5.  He bought a book on China.

A woman who is planning a trip to Egypt to spend time with her daughter, who is teaching there, bought two books on Egypt.  We talked about the unrest there and she said whether she goes or not "depends on what the State Department says."

Another guy in cargo pants, with a light blue plaid shirt came in, emphasizing Tim Gunn's observations about the style.

A guy bought a book with the title of "Theory of Syntactic Recognition for Natural Language," which I had to check on Amazon to find out it was about artificial intelligence.

A guy spent some time in the section with books on plant pathology but told me he really was looking for gardening books, so I directed him to that bookshelf and he browsed for quite a while but ultimately did not buy anything.

An athletic young woman with a messy pony tail strode in directly to the Lit section.  She wore a short back skirt and carried a paisley blouse, a heavy looking backpack.  She wore sensible shoes with black socks.  She was there a short time and bought a copy of "White Fang."

Shortly before 6 the runners from a local running club came jogging by the front of the store, and shortly after Harrison, the office manager who takes over for me when Susan and Peter are out of town arrived.

Walt and I came home and since I was still exhausted, I fell asleep watching Jeopardy, so it was nearly 8 before I started dinner.  I made a dish I found in a cookbook at the store.  It was OK, but I won't make it again. I managed to stay awake for The Daily Show but staggered off to sleep right after and actually slept 8 hours.  Hopefully today will be better, since I am better rested.