I hate going into work early because I hate going to bed early. When I was younger, I would have liked very much to never get up in the day. I even entertained ideas of finding a graveyard shift job at one point.   Alas, I come from a family of morning people  who have never appreciated my nocturnal habits. One more thing that sets me apart from them. I prefer the night, when there is hardly anyone about and I can have the whole world to myself. During the day, everyone is running about and zipping around in cars. The daylight world is much too active for me… all go, go, go.

Last night I went to bed at 8pm because I had to be at work by 6am, but at 1:30am a tremendous pain decided to nest in my head. I put some peppermint oil on my temples and took some rapid release tylenol. If I had not had to get up at 5 , I definitely would have taken something stronger. The headache followed me to work, and even now I can feel it crawling around behind my eyes. At one point, I blew my nose and there was blood, so probably a sinus infection of some kind. I should probably see about picking up some yogurt tomorrow. Acidophilus is good for all kinds of infections.

Nasty things… headaches. I don’t see that they serve any function other than to annoy and debilitate. I’ve had them all my life, from one thing or another. It’s probably one of the reasons I’m a nightowl…. there’s less light to bother my eyes at night. I have excellent night vision, but light is tricky. I’d rather navigate a mostly dark room than face a sunny day. I’ve always enjoyed stormy, cloudy days to sunny ones, but that’s not really a surprise. I was born on a storm god’s holy day.

At least I don’t get so many headaches as I did when I was a kid. It used to be I ‘d have a headache nearly every day of the week. Now it’s more like once or twice. Perhaps people who suffer from chronic pain will understand…. that when you have pain all the time, it starts to seem like a living thing inside you. Some kind of parasitic entity that responds to movement, thoughts, emotion…. Or maybe I just spent too many days alone as a sickly kid that no one much bothered with. Funny story… it used to be that I spent so little time outside my room that when and if I did something “wrong,” my mother would ground me by taking away all but my school books. She kind of stopped that once she realized I didn’t mind reading her old encyclopedias or the dictionary.

I can usually tell if a headache is here to stay no matter what I do or if it’ll go it’s own way after a bit of caffeine and a couple painkillers. I reserve the peppermint for the really bad ones, and I’ve used it three times today. It doesn’t get rid of the headache, per se, but it does reduce the pain and stop it from getting worse. And the smell helps the nausea when it’s a migraine. I wish I had known about peppermint oil when I was a kid!

But oddly enough, I am extremely sensitive to smells. Peppermint is a strong smell that makes me feel better, but other strong smells can actually give me a headache or at least make me nauseous. Coffee, patchouli, car exhaust, there are lots of people who like those smells. Some people even claim not to smell car exhaust at all. It makes me want to throw up. It’s all metallic cotton with centipede legs burrowing up into the sinuses like its found a new home. Car exhaust is one of the worst smells.

Another odd thing… my hearing is very acute as well. I can hear a lot of things other people miss. I don’t like bass sounds, but I love treble. If I have a headache, I can listen to music provided the bass is not too strong. If it’s something I can sing along to, even better. If I have the strength to sing, just the act of singing can make me feel better. If I am hungry or nauseous, or if I have headache, if I can sing, I can sustain myself until the time comes that I am able to lie down. Isn’t that weird? People don’t understand how I can sing when I’m in pain. Some have even thought I was faking because of it.

I also get very weird when I’m in pain… oddly creative. I write some of my best stories when I’m in pain or sleep deprived. I’m obnoxious and weirdly silly, and it confuses the daylights out of people. Which, speaking of “daylights,” is pretty ironic… a nightowl confusing the daylights out of people. heh Oh, did I forget to mention my penchant for bad puns and worse puns when I’m in one of my “moods?”

Sigh….

     I had the most awful customers last night. Our coupons clearly state that you can use one per customer per valid period. They wanted to use four, so the husband, wife, and their little kids (maybe 9 and 7) were all making separate purchases but using the same rewards card and the same credit card. It was really quite disgusting. When I told them they could only use one, they said I was discriminating against the children. Actually I feel bad for the kids since not only did their parents make a scene, but that’s a heck of a way to use your kids to save a buck. That’s the kind of attitude that continues to beleaguer our welfare system.

See now, I technically don’t mind people trying to save money.  I am a very frugal person myself. But there is a right and wrong way to do it, and technically that family was stealing. So it’s a few bucks; it’s also against policy, and I am sick of people breaking rules and no one being able to say anything because it’s not good customer service to tell a customer that they’re an a$$. What I really wanted to say to those people is that they were setting such a wonderful example for their kids (insert sarcasm). But what I did was say, “Fine, but you can’t use your rewards card since that tracks your coupon use.” This was one of those rare coupons that didn’t require the Rewards card to validate it.” So they didn’t get credit for the sale(s), and it won’t contribute to their “Borders Bucks.”

So who’s the winner? I don’t know. I’m just tired of people breaking rules. Bending is okay with me. For instance, if you shopped in the store the previous week, chances are the register spat out a coupon for the next week. If you belong to the Rewards program, you’ll likely receive a similar coupon via email. See you can use both in the store because they have different coupon numbers. We’re okay with that. Those really are two different coupons. But this printing multiple copies of the same coupon is just wrong. We’ve told people again and again that we won’t do it, but they don’t care. It’s their god-given right to gouge the store.

It’s just not right. How about a little respect for the sales person here? We treat you nicely, common courtesy demands you respond accordingly. There’s no common courtesy any more, and no common sense. Most of my coworkers will work with people to save money. We’ll tell you about sales that include the book you’re interested in or the same book in the bargain area, we’ll tell you about upcoming sales, we’ll try to accommodate reasonable coupon use. But it’s people like that family that ruin it for everyone. They’re the kind of people who cause the end of discount programs and cause lesser businesses to close up shop. They’re selfish. I hate selfishness as much as I hate ignorance, so when people combine the two and then add mulish determination, they make me sick, especially when they drag their innocent kids into it.

Bet they voted for GW too….

I just wish I could tell the bad customers that they’re bad. If I ever get to open my own bookstore, I am not going to let people walk all over me like I am commanded to do now. If a bad customer comes into the store, that’s the last time they’ll do it, because I’ll tell them point blank that I am not going to tolerate abuse of myself or my employees. They can apologize, or they can leave and not return. Behavior like this continues and increases because we are not allowed to sanction it when it happens. At least the customer after them was understanding and disapproving of the parents as well. That’s always nice. I just wish customers that agreed with the salesperson about bad behavior would stand up to the bully customers causing the problem. I can’t say anything in my subservient position, but another person on the same societal rung is more likely to get through to them. At the very least, the bully will be embarrassed enough to reign themselves in in the future. You just don’t treat people like this. This is why I think everyone fresh out of school should be required to do at least six months community service in a service industry…. just so they know what it’s like. People are so inconsiderate these days.

I work in a bookstore because I love books. I’m sure I could make more money elsewhere, but it wouldn’t be doing something I like. So I take less pay in order to work in a field I enjoy. That doesn’t mean I should have to stand there and be abused by ignorant, selfish warts on the face of society. It’s time they were removed by a cauterizing dose of peer pressure.

….. and have been all my life. Even before I took an active role in researching my abilities, I knew I was different, that I was an outsider. It’s not just a matter of having certain gifts. Even if I had never researched magic, I would still have these gifts and have to deal with them. My parents encouraged it, even if they didn’t know it. Even when I was very young, if the horses got out in the middle of the night when I was visiting my father, he would make me round them up. In a way, my father was probably one of the most influential people in my life, even though I rarely saw him after my parents’ divorce. 

I’m an empath, a very strong one, as is my mother. I can “talk” to animals, and plants, and get a sense of people within seconds of meeting them. With some people, I can really get inside their heads and predict what they might do and even mirror their thoughts by saying exactly what they were thinking. It doesn’t happen very often though. Mostly it only happens with people I feel completely comfortable with, and I am rarely completely comfortable with anyone. It’s distracting and intrusive to always be aware of my surroundings. I am as aware of my emotional environment as other people are aware of the weather . It can be downright painful in certain situations (Harry Potter night!). But you know, for all that, I wouldn’t give it up. It’s my early warning system, my radar ; it helps me protect myself from those who would take advantage of me or hurt me for the sake of hurting. There are people in the world who are not people… they are malicious and cold-hearted and hurt everyone that they can because they can, because it gives them pleasure. I don’t consider them people and calling them animal would be an insult to the animal kingdoms. Psychologists call them sociopaths and psychopaths, and there are a lot more of them than people think. Just because some of them never kill anyone, doesn’t mean they don’t make it their business to hurt people and twist them all up in the head with their cruelty.

But I digress. You might say I’m a broad spectrum empath. I sense from all manner of creature, plant and animal. In fact, I use plants as a resource and buffer against the thoughts and emotions of the world. When I go to sleep, I get all kinds of “whispering” in my head that drives me fairly batty. When I was much younger I was insomniac, it was so bad. Now it’s much better, though my room resembles a jungle. If I had more windows, I’d have more plants. When we lived in the city, it was really bad. Now we live in a rural area, and the surrounding countryside is even better, with all its trees and animals. I don’t think I could ever go back to live in a major city. Places like New York city really scare me. I’ve only been there a few times (and never overnight), but I think if I actually lived there, I’d lose what little sanity I have. (People tell me I’m nuts all the time. I don’t mind. Comparatively speaking, I’m far from normal, moreso because I accept my oddities of perception, rather than hiding or dismissing them as so many others do.)

Along with basic empathy, which is probably my most powerful talent, and my limited telepathy with friends and family, I am also a limited telesthetic. I actually consider this a type of empathy which extends to things, rather than biological creatures. It means, when I touch something I know things about it. It’s not entirely reliable. I think it’s a gift that’s partially blocked, maybe because of something that happened in my childhood… because my dad was one those malicious non-people I mentioned. So on the one hand, living in a house with him for the first few years of my life propbably encouraged my empathy to the point I could modify my behavior to make me invisible to him as a potential target, it also probably crippled my telesthesia because I would have no need and less inclination to know what he had done and to whom. My empathy and my telesthesia pretty much inhibit any desire I might have to touch people. Touching bypasses any shields I might put around myself to keep the world at bay. To say it’s uncomfortable is putting it mildly. It’s like accidently scalding your hand in boiling water, but feeling as if you’ve doused your entire body.

To a lesser degree, I am precognitive and clairvoyant.  I dream vividly. Sometimes of things that will happen, though they’re usually open to interpretation. I’ve no control over them, and lately I’ve hardly dreamed at all, except in snippets. I’m also a palmist and I read tarot. I say I’m clairvoyant, but what I mean by that is, I’m aware of ghosts. There’s a word for it, psychorrhagy, but it’s out of common usage. Most people just say you’re clairvoyant when you’re aware of ghosts, even though I don’t technically see anything. Every house we’ve ever lived in, right down to the trailer my mother brought me home to, was haunted. My current house has three spirits , two ghosts and something in the attic I think may be an elemental of some kind. I don’t go up there much. It doesn’t welcome the company and tends to come down if it gets disturbed. That’s not fun. It can be a very rude (and smelly) poltergiest.

It was in researching my natural abilities that I began reading the ancient mythologies and by the time I was eleven, I had decided I would be Pagan, even if there were no more left. This would have been in 1985, which was not the height of Pagan awareness, you must admit. Now just about everyone is aware of the Pagan movement, even if they’re not aware of all the different kinds of Pagans. Wicca is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Paganism. Wicca was the first Pagan religion I encountered in the early 90s, but after my initial exceitement wore off, I moved on. I’m not Wiccan. It’s too restrictive a religion for me. What I am, is a Pantheist. This fits in very well with my empathic abilities. Pantheists believe that all things have spirit and with my empathy, I know all things feel, even if they are not always self-aware.

It was in becoming Pagan and researching the old ways of mankind that I discovered magic. There were many contributions to my understanding of magic, from my own innate abilities and my researches in folklore and mythology, to past lives, which also made an appearance around age 11. In particular, I had always had a fascination with Egypt, particularly hieroglyphics.  I spent  hours in libraries, copying down any hieroglyphics I could find, and this was long before I began to recall two past lives there, one in which I was a studying to be a scribe. Being a scribe in ancient Egypt was tantamount to being a magician, though I was very young when I died.

These days, you can walk into any bookstore and find their occult section. And thanks to groundbreakers who refused to stay in the “broomcloset,” Witch is no longer a dirty word. But I took my understanding of magic from mythology, foklore, and fairytales. It was only later that I picked up the finer points of magic from the books made available to me in our politically correct times. The only ciriticism I would give is that some published BOSs encourage people to do only as they say. People are not encouraged to adapt the methods or think for themselves, and that’s bad, IMO. 

As witch burning is no longer acceptable, and book burning is mostly out of practice, it’s become a lot easier for people like myself to find information on magic. Which is a good thing, because though fantasy novelists support the idea that someone with magical ability who remains untrained is a danger to themselves and others, it really is true. In addition to my other abilities, there’s a talent for which I have no name. I sometimes call it my karmic targeting system. Basically it works like this, don’t tick me off. Seriously. It’s nothing I have control over, but if I become stressed enough, everyone in my general vicinity is in danger of their karma catching up with them, especially whoever ticked me off in the first place. Weird things happen to people who are cruel to me. For instance, several of the people who tormented me in school have come to bad ends. One might argue that their actions and habitual cruelty contributed to their downfall, but statistically just about everyone who has ever treated me badly has come into a bit of bad luck directly after tangling with me, including my dad. He’s dead by the way….cancer, though he probably didn’t even know he had it. He technically drank himself to death in a bar and no one knew he had cancer until the autopsy.

But I’ve found that by learning magic, I can control my ability somewhat by channeling what happens. I try to make whatever happens to the people who’ve wronged me turn out to be a positive experience, or at least not be detrimental. Like my former fellow supervisor who got another job elsewhere. Everyone’s a winner! Woooo!

Sigils are a very easy kind of charm, but they require adaptation and creativity. Like all spells, it is a way to focus your will to the task at hand. A sigil can be any symbol which allows you to put yourself in the proper state of mind to achive your goal. Typically, a sigil is created from the first letters of the words that express your goal, dropping any repetative letters. In the case of my former fellow supervisor, the letters were MOGA. Then you attempt to remove all the extra lines until you have a symbol which expresses your will. In attempting to create the symbol, you are repeatedly concentrating on your goal. This energy that you raise is like a spirit (more commonly referred to as a thought-form) which attempts to bring your will to pass. The sigil is like a home for this spirit and reminds you of your will. Everytime you think of it, you continue to contribute to the outcome you have willed. For an extra symbollic measure, I stabbed myself with a pin to remind myself what a pain she was and smeared the sigil with my blood. The blood was a symbol of my pain and would further serve to remind me why I wanted her gone. It’s not something at all necessary to the creation of a sigil, as I obviously did not do it the second time around for my other coworker, but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. The magician who cannot adapt and who does not learn to follow their instincts will never amount to much.

I don’t feel comfortable ending this post without saying that as easy as it is for me to do magic, it can also be dangerous. I don’t do it often because it can be habit forming. If I wanted to, I could do magic all the time. But I think that it would be a very lazy lifestyle. Instead of seeking and striving to reach my goals, I could cast spells to bring what I desired to me, whether it is success, money, love, or something else. That’s lazy, and ultimately unfulfilling. I cast spells to help myself or others, but I try not to do things magically which I could do physically. There is also the old adage, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. It’s true. I succeeded in getting rid of one problem coworker, and nothing untoward happened. Now I’m working on getting rid of another, at the bequest of several of my coworkers now that they know what I can do. That’s all well and good, but what if whoever replaces him is even worse? So I’m opening up the floodgates of chance every time I tamper with probability. What replaces the current problem may not be better. It will only be different.

When I first started working at Borders, there was a certain unpleasant person who made life miserable for everyone. She was thoroughly disagreeable, and even on a good day, no one wanted anything to do with her. What made it worse was that she was a supervisor. She was not shy about dressing people down when they did something she didn’t like. And there wasn’t much she did like. I really didn’t have to deal with her much until I became a supervisor. Prior to my promotion to supervisor status, I worked nights and she worked mornings, so there was no confrontation.

Unfortunately, once I became a supervisor, I had to work with her at least two times a week. And I cringed everytime she opened her mouth. She didn’t have much criticism for me, but she loved to gossip and grouse about everyone else. What made it worse was, she seemed to consider me an ally or friend of some kind and really I just wished she’d shut up. She thought I thought she was funny because everytime she said something cutting, I’d laugh, nervously.

One day, she just pushed me too far. I don’t even remember what exactly she did, but one too many people came and cried on my shoulder about her and I just snapped.

While no one was in the office, I made a sigil which basically said “Go Away _Name_” and to really show I meant business, I jabbed a pin in my finger and smeared the little charm with my own blood to symbolize what a pain she was. Then I taped it to the bottom of her trashcan. Where before, she would almost “hang out” at her desk, the charm ensured that she spent a lot less time making people unhappy if they became “trapped” in the office/breakroom with her.

So…. one, then two weeks went by, and she actually seemed more relaxed and calm. She confided in me one morning that she’d had two different job offers in two different states, half way across the country. Nice. It wasn’t exactly what I’d put in the charm, but as for “going away,” I wasn’t displeased. I knew she was unhappy in her job anyway, so I wished her luck on that account.

So the third week rolled around. I came in to work one day, and she had just up and quit! Seems she got a job offer she couldn’t refuse. She didn’t give notice… very unprofessional of a person who was constantly harping on the subject of professionalism. She just came in after a sick day and said, bye! Picked up her check and left.

So my charm worked better than I expected. I removed it a few days later. No sense leaving it where someone might find it and get the wrong idea.

I did confide in a few trusted coworkers though. (One of my fellow coworkers said he wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or scared.) Now they’re bugging me to get rid of other problem coworkers, two of them specifically. One of them is a thoroughly arrogant and officious little twerp who seems to think he’s hot $h17. No one likes him and he treats everyone like they’re beneath him, depsite the fact that he’s pretty much one of the most ignorant people I’ve ever had to work with. He disappears from where he’s stationed, and no one sees him for half an hour or more. The other night one of my corworkers called him to help put away books, and he claimed to be back in the kid’s section, helping a customer, despite the fact that the coworker who called for him could see him in the periodicals, reading a magazine, and told him so over the headset. He’s like the epitome of JERK. No one likes him, period, even though he claims to “have pull” in the store. As if! hah

The other coworker is one of my supervisors. She’s also quite arrogant, but not quite so ignorant as coworker 1. She acts like she’s threatened by the fact that I do my job well and don’t need her to hold my hand. We have no evidence of it, but everyone in the store thinks she’s having an affair with another coworker, just from their body language alone.  We’ve also heard she’s looking for an apartment (though she’s married), and one of my coworkers saw her toady bring her deodorant in from his car and give it to her all shady-like. This would actually be grounds for dismissal for both of them (he’s no cake wake either, but bearable), if we could prove they were seeing each other. Which we can’t. And there’s other problems with her about which I won’t go into detail.

So a couple days ago (before the Harry Potter event), I made another sigil to deal with the Jerk and hid it above the staffroom door which he must pass every time he comes in to work. It’s message is basically, go where you need to be (away from us!). I didn’t put any blood on it however. I wasn’t that irritated with him when I made it. It was more at the bequest of several other coworkers. We’ll see how long he lasts.

My micro-Manager however, I cannot send away. I am reasonably sure that the Jerk is looking for another job, and so my charm may help to get him out the door. My Manager however, she is not actively looking for a job and so ousting her would be more selfish than helpful… if that makes sense to anyone reading this. I’m not a law of three kind of person, but I’m not selfish either. Besides, a charm to make someone go when they already want to is far different from a charm to make someone go when they don’t want to. For one thing, if you’re working with the will of the person, instead of against it, it’s more likely to work.

So I’m kind of at a loss on how to deal with my manager. She’s a real piece of work and a lot of people would breathe a sigh of relief if she were gone, but I’m not sure what angle to take. I’ve already given the general manager what evidence I have of her illicit actions, and she in turn, spoke to several of the other staff members about what they had observed, but nothing has happened since.  I’m not sure what, if any, spell I might use to facilitate her absence.

So, without spilling the beans, I’ve got a few words to say about Harry Potter’s final book. I’ve just finished it, and there’s some things that need to be said.

First of all, this is not a children’s book. Which is fine, I’m not a child, but there are children, some of them quite young, who are going to read this book, and they shouldn’t, not yet.  I mean, I learned to read on the Hobbit, and I’m quite warped. Some of the images in the Deathly Hallows are just not suitable for children of a young age. Some of the things in the Deathly Hallows aren’t even suitable for young, “young adults.” This is definitely a book belonging at the higher end of the young adult scale, if not in the adult books entirely. As little as I like to quantify the correct age-range of a book, feeling that children should never be limited by a book’s level, if the Deathly Hallows were a movie (and it will be eventually), I’d give it an R rating. There’s no nudity or sex, and only one bad word toward the end, but with the amount of death and torture depicted in the book, it might as well be a fantasy version of Hostel. Again, I like horror… I collect horror, but that only makes me better able to judge (I think) what is and is not suitable for children.

 My second criticism is that there were parts of the book that seemed rushed or glossed over. Some of them are explained later, but parts just seemed awkward. I can’t be more specific than that without giving away spoilers, and as a booklover, I’d never do that to others. When you’ve read it, you can agree with me or not. I don’t mind either way.

My third criticism, and it’s a bit petty, is a very serious typo near the end of the book. I won’t get into the story, but it’s just an unforgivable typo that should have been discovered and corrected. It’s not a mispelling or bad grammar. It’s a completely incorrect word (brother instead of sister). Things like that just irk me. It’s a pet peeve , especially when the word is correct in every way except for the fact that it is entirely the wrong word.

Oh and fourth, and this is neglible…. Snape really deserved better.

I was correct in almost all my theories for the direction the story would take. Kudos for me.

OK, so it wasn’t that bad, but boring, yes, tedious, yes, nerve racking, oh definitely. I used to be agoraphobic when I was younger, so when I say that there were approximately 2000 people in the store last night (this morning?), you know it was not a happy fact for me, especially since I had to be back at work by noon. It’s not that I don’t like people. I just don’t like to share space with more strangers than I can easily count or avoid. For the most part though, people were nice and patient.

For the most part….

Then there was the guy who came in early on and wasn’t buying anything Potter-related. When he got up to the register, he decided he did not want a particular book he had chosen. Instead of giving it to me and saying he didn’t want it, he shadily tucked it in the magazine rack that sits in front of the registers. Since we all know what assuming does, I asked him if he didn’t want the book. Of course, his answer was no. So I asked him if he could give me the book, to which he replied, “No manners on Harry Potter night, huh?”

Ummm…. . But his was just the typical rudeness one might encounter on any given day. I pretty much ignored his ignorance, thanked him, and told him to have a nice night. I’ve encountered his sort before. If not for people like him, keeping the store clean would be a lot easier. It’s people like him who not only leave cups and whatnot on the bookshelves when they’re done with them, they go the extra mile to hide their leavings behind books so it takes a couple days for the smell to alert us to their little gift. Night, night Mr. Inconsiderate.

Customer #2 appeared around 10pm or so. Her beef was the line she’d had to wait in that morning in order to get a ticket to get in line to buy Harry Potter that night. We opened at 9AM (as we do every day) and allowed people to show up earlier in the day to collect a numbered wristband so that it would be easier to assemble them at midnight to collect their reserved book(s). Her complaint was that the line that morning had not moved fast enough, that she had been late for work because of it and that other customers had as well. What if she lost her job because she had to be at our store to get a good number. How rude of us to inconvenience her by offering her a convenience!

Far be it for me to assume that people will choose their jobs over picking up a stupid numbered wristband. I just smiled (well not really, but I’m good at looking grave and concerned), nodded, and agreed it was a crying shame what she’d been through. Honestly, if people are stupid enough to make themselves late for work to pick up a wristband to collect a book that they could just as easily collect the next day for the same price (without having to wait in a line until nearly 3AM), then I kind of think they deserve to lose their jobs. I really had no sympathy for this woman, but I couldn’t very well tell her she was an idiot. Smile and nod…. smile and nod… and hope the Ignorant-gene doesn’t breed true….

But the real gem was the final problem customer.  At around 11:45, she came up to the register to complain because they had shut down the “sorting-hat” event to begin lining people up to get their books. I was a bit sympathetic since it’s not fun to stand in line for a long time and then not get what you waited for, but she was completely out of control. She claimed her kids were very upset, but they looked pretty calm to me… probably used to having a primadonna-mommy. Maybe they should share with her their illicit stash of valium.

I explained that we really didn’t have enough employees in the store to run all the events and get people out of the store with their books in a reasonable amount of time. Not what she wanted to hear, but eventually she went away…. only to return about five minutes later to whine that she had not known she needed to get a wristband to get in line for her book (even though she would have had to pass the table distributing the wristbands to get into the store). For the next five minutes, she griped at me about how badly we were running the event and that she should be able to get her book ASAP, without wristband. Basically she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise, enjoying the sound of her own voice much more than my reasonable response . After saying ma’am about a dozen times, trying to get her to let me speak, I said ma’am very loudly and she said, “Don’t you raise your voice to me!”

Hah! Well it was the only way to get her to notice I was still there, but another half-dozen ma’am’s later, I finally inserted, “You won’t listen to what I’m saying.” To which she replied, “Well, you’re not saying anything.” To which I replied, “Because you won’t stop talking!” Gleeee! I had finally lost my temper. Why is it that keeping your temper is never as satisfying as losing it? It just feels so good to say what’s really on the tip of your tongue. Oh yeah… I have little tact when it comes to letting people know they’ve ticked me off, but I do have a certain flair for irony. Least she shut up long enough for me to tell her that I had no power to give in to her demands as I was only a supervisor, and she would need to speak to a manager. Then I directed her to one of my managers, knowing full well that he would not give in to her either! hahahahaha She left. Too bad, so sad. She had expended all of my sympathy with her unreasonable tirade. Of the three, I’d had the most sympathy for her in the beginning, and she totally took it too far.

Where’s Cthulhu when you really need him?  

Beyond that, the night went fairly quick. I am overjoyed that there will be no more Potter books. Honestly I can’t stand these events. A country fair is about as crowded as I care for, and even that I can do without. I don’t even like to go to amusement parks, and I’ve never been to a concert. When I go to movie theaters, I sit at the very back of the theater to avoid the crowds and if I don’t get up in time to bolt as the credits begin their run, I wait until I don’t have to mingle with my fellow movie goers. If anyone ever yelled FIRE! I’d have to patiently wait while everyone went crazy trying to get out, then pick my way over their frenzied, unconscious bodies.

This all goes back to junior highschool when I was “lynched” by some of my fellow students. Yeah, so it didn’t end in a hanging, but they still followed me for about three blocks, spitting on me and throwing garbage at me while calling me names. Which harkened back to and dredged up memories of a past life where something similar happened to me and where I was ultimately burned alive. So I think it’s understandable that I should be just a little leery of crowds and hope to avoid them when I can.

I just don’t understand what makes a couple thousand people want to congregate in an enclosed space with complete strangers… to be jostled and rubbed against… to suffer the smells of their unwashed neighbors… the noise alone is enough to make me want to run out of the store and find a tree to cower beside. (Trees are a very calming influence for me, plants in general help me immensely, but I would be lost without trees. If you really want to understand what I’m talking about, look up a book called, The Secret Life of Plants.) Such noise does not belong in a bookstore. Bookstores are quiet places far removed from booming music, the gabble of mobs, and the smell of the unwashed. I may not have to fight the urge to curl up in a fetal ball in some dark corner so much any more, but any time I’m surrounded by the crush and bustle of overly excited strangers, there’s a little part of me that just sits in my brain and shreiks non-stop till it’s over.

So if humanity is technically a herd animal, I am doubly a freak for loathing the herding instinct and the herd itself. I don’t want to mingle with the masses. I am so much more content to savor the words of humanity and discard the gross physical interactions of my peers. I don’t want to socialize with people so much as I want to play with words and savor them and share them with people who love words as well. I love books for this reason… books and music are really the best humanity has to offer. Why then do people choose to congregate at inconsequential and superficial “events” like Harry Potter night? I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m a people watcher. I understand the individual. I didn’t learn psychology in college so much as I memorized terms for things I already knew. Sociology was a whole different ball game however. I’ll never understand group dynamics and what motivates people to be a  mob. I’d rather socialize with a small forrest than the same number of my own kind.

Wow…. so it’s been almost a year and a half since I last posted. Obviously I survived my birthday, and the next. This past birthday wasn’t too bad. I got an IPod, which is all that I asked for. I adore my IPod. I was just thinking about IPOD cases and had a great idea….  an IPod case in the form of a big stuffed animal. You would slide the IPod into the belly of the beast (as it were) and then you could cuddle your IPod. Eh… is there such a thing as loving your IPod too much? If only I was better at sewing. I’m not a bad seamstress, but certainly not up to par for making a stuffed animal IPod holder. I hope no one steals my idea…. because then I might have to buy their creation.

Let’s see…. since the last time I posted I got a promotion at work (Borders). That was way back in October 2006. That’s kept me quite busy which is one of the reasons I haven’t been around. I’m now the merch supervisor, a fancy title meaning: “the one who makes the store all perty.” I’m making more money now than I ever have before, which is really not saying a lot since I still can’t afford to live on my own even as frugal as I am, but maybe in a few years after a few raises…

I have managed to put away a little money every paycheck (as well as pay a little extra on remaining bills), so hopefully when I am ready, no new emergency bills will have reared their ugly heads. Doesn’t it always seem like you finally manage to get ahead and put away a little money for a rainy day and then that rainy day turns out to be a flood? Well, I hope I don’t get any floods any time soon.

If it wasn’t for my micromanaging manager, my job would be a cake walk. For the most part, I just have to put up the various displays as corporate dictates, but my immediate manager (one-of-three) constantly seems to be doing my job. She’s constantly either doing my job for me or going back over what I’ve done and changing it. It’s infuriating. While my predecessor may have been alright with that kind of “leadership,” I like to think that I can do my job well and I don’t need a babysitter. To be completely honest, I really don’t know what her job is. All she ever does is my work. I’ve complained to my general manager about it, but I just really can’t put into words how much my evil overlord irks me.

Ah so anyway… Harry Potter gets released tomorrow night. As much as I love the series and really just books in general , I am just not looking forward to the feeding frenzy. Last year I volunteered to cashier (since I’m speedy) and this year I have as well. I may not be as badly agoraphobic as I used to be (like shaking in a corner physically ill, turn out the lights and leave me alone), but that doesn’t mean I want to be surrounded by the crush of a couple thousand people as they surge to and fro like a hungry sea. Honestly people, calm down. It’s a book and not a particularly well written one. Entertaining, sure, but nothing special. It’s what I like to call a popcorn novel…. something to consume with little content to weigh you down. They’re good, but nothing to go gonzo over. It certainly doesn’t compare to the Hobbit or Sherlock Holmes. If we’re talking about children’s books, Artemis Fowl has more merit or Barker’s Abarat. Harry Potter is of course way better than Paolini’s books (I can’t understand the hype with those stinkers), but it’s time to get over it people.

In short, there’s no reason you should be keeping me up till 4 in the morning because you need a book the second it’s released.

I’m so very happy that there are still people in the world who read, and who get excited about the release of a book, but go to bed and get it in the morning!

Another book people should get over is The Secret.  This book is to literature what Spam is to emails. The secret is…. it’s no secret, and if you thought it was, then you’re obviously not bright enough to be trusted with it. It’s getting to the point that I loathe Oprah. First she unloaded Dr Phil on us, and now The Secret. Argggg! Stop it. I should write a self-help/metaphysics book called You Don’t Need This Book, But Buy It Anyway. If I could get Oprah to plug it, I’d be an overnight millionaire. Dr Phil’s a big bully and his books make me cringe almost as much as Schlessinger, Coulter, or Savage. Granted some people need to be ordered around because they can’t be trusted to make adult decisions, but I really didn’t think there were enough to make Dr Phil such a big man. But I should have known better with as popular as talkshows are. Blech

So I guess I’ll try to update on Sunday if I survive the final chapter in the life of the Harry Potter. 

To all those planning on going to one of the international Potter Parties…. just try to treat your booksellers kindly. You have NO IDEA what we’re going through over this or what we’ve already been through. It’s almost worse than the holiday season.