Don’t forget “lo”, people always forget it. 😅

“Lo que será, será.”

I don’t have cheese.

Funny, but not like haha funny.

I really miss our used book store. It was tiny but packed, and it had that smell.

Back when Amazon first came out they were only doing books. They often had books other bookstores didn’t have or carry and they were packaged with care. Nowadays any book you get from Amazon is usually printed crappily, with pages stuck together, cut off, or not even cut. Then they throw it in a box without packing where it bounces around and gets bent up. Regular bookstores now have good online platforms and if they don’t have a book in store they can almost always order it. I know I’ll get a quality print that isn’t bent to crap. The only downside is occasionally they’ll stick stickers somewhere that you’re pretty sure the gods themselves super glued onto it.

Barnes and Noble is on a hard upswing recently, and are expanding., mainly by allowing local stores to stock what sells in their areas.

Still, buy from bookshop.org if you can. Its a coalition of thousands of small bookshops where the vast majority of profits from purchases flow right back to them instead of megacorps.

I used to spend several thousand every year buying books. Usually from small independent bookstore. I was also always in the library checking out books but the local libraries collection was very small and limited.

Next I got one of the early generation kindles keyboard when I was traveling all the time before I had a smart phone. I of course found all the free books and downloaded several thousand of those. Amazon made almost nothing off of me for that one. I still hit the library regularly for books I could not get for free or stuff for my kids.

Then my local library started offering digital books via Libby and Hoopla. I have pretty much completely stopped using kindle completely in favor of those two apps. I vote every chance I get for the library to get more funding as its back to being my go-to place. I physically have only gone to the library once in the past 5 years however.

Honestly, I would rather see a massive extension of library services than more private bookstores.

Meanwhile in my town the local bookstore died because a real estate developer bought the building and jacked up the rent 400% in order to force him out, then cancelled leases on the smaller businesses and made plans to destroy the building as part of a big vapid project. Local residents couldn’t stop it happening but blocked demolition and it’s been sitting empty and neglected so long the developer died. At this point it probably can’t be restored either. A fucking shame.

That was my favourite thing to do, go to Borders on Cheshire Oaks, grab a book go to the cafe and read, then it went under. I really miss those days. I love my local library but it just doesn’t have up to date books. Occasionally when I go on holiday I’ll visit a local bookshop in the village.

Honestly? You’d be surprised at how helpful it can be. I’ve sent routes with a slight buzz that I never could have done completely sober. It helps take the edge off the fear, and it helps you stay loose and keeps you from sapping all your strength from tensing too much. Every advantage helps when you’re pressing your limits.

Climbing while excessively drunk is of course a terrible idea.

Cool (winter is the best season), both literally and figuratively. Are you high up? Much further north than most of us? Much further south than most of us? Speaking from the past?

Sure, sure… but it all seems to be an interconnected web.

I could read in release order, but that can get rather disconnected… There doesn’t seem to be a good starting point.

So, that is what has stopped me.

Like knowing you need to clean up a disaster, but you just look at it and have no idea where to even begin approaching it. Throw in some executive dysfunction issues, and it seems the only time I can “find” to read for pleasure is when I have something else more important to do that I’m unable to start on.

And sometimes like this!

They were kinda dark for kid’s books, weren’t they?

The children yearn for stories of body horror