cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm on the radio, innit. I have been working 70 to 80 hours each week for almost two months. Everything has to be done ASAP. I have this building. Three stories, 650 or so square feet per level. I put books on miles of shelves in a winding labyrinth. People walk through the front door and they see or do not see books and they buy them or do not buy them. Only in the last week did I realize how badly two doors were fucking us over. One at the top of the stairs to the top level and another at the entrance to the bottom stairs. Both were always to be open. The one at the bottom of the stairs obscured A through B of paperback fiction. The one upstairs covered NYC and DC history. I removed both yesterday. Today we sold a few books out of NYC history for the first time in six months. We sold a book out of B paperback fiction. It was priced at $2.50 rather than the $6.50 that it should have been. Because it had been sitting there on the shelf since 1998 when it came in. Nobody could see it until now. Two days ago I went over to the local NPR studio to do an interview for This Am3rican L1fe. L1lly Sull1van asked me to tell the black widow story yet again. It will either run this week or in a few months, depending on which of two themes that they run with for the show. I have more perspective on that whole event now than I did when I last did an interview about it on All Th1ngs Considered about ten years ago. TLDR: I kept a bl@ck widow in a jar on my desk for several weeks, and curiosity led me to learn everything easily possible about the taxonomy, history and venom of the species, as well as the making of the antivenom and of the prognosis for anyone bitten. Then I was bitten in a place with no cell reception, spent 30 minutes fishing while I figured out what I ought to do about the situation, then wound up in the ER and volunteered to test an experimental new antivenom as probably the first human test subject. Lilly wanted to ask me questions around two different possible themes for the episode. One is the idea of accepting a radical new reality when everything looks normal. The other is the idea of "embracing the suck." I failed to rapidly accept the new reality when I was bitten. That was why I spent half an hour throwing a cast net and catching fish while venom was coursing through my veins. I learned my lesson from that. A few years later, when I was investigating neo-nazis and covering riots and rallies, I accepted new realities almost immediately. I think that the lesson of the spider informed that. I knew to take the posture of a rank of riot police as the cue to tell me daughter to run like hell and then prepare to be teargassed. For "embracing the suck," I told them about deciding to volunteer to test the antivenom. Knowing that this meant not getting any real pain meds for hours so that my symptoms would be measurable and the effect of the antivenom (or placebo) clear. Knowing that that there was a 50% chance that I would get a placebo and there would be no relief to the experience of having my chest crushed and my stomach pounded and every muscle in my body cinched tight. The reality is that it wasn't that big a deal. Compared with a hundred other things in the story of my life, that barely registers. A lot of things hurt. A lot of things are interesting. This was one more. I was wiling to suffer so that many other people could later benefit. That's just a normal week in my life. The only thing different was that anyone else has noticed. So I did the big interview for TAL. And Lilly wants to talk more about another, more difficult story that I pitched to her about a problematic civil rights leader from the M0ntgomery Bus B0ycott. And she suggested that I take another story to someone she knows at @udiolab. I do not ever get anything tangible out of these pop culture hits. Nobody lines up to suck your dick or write you a check because you are on Th1s American Life or All Th1ngs Considered or mentioned on Late Night. Tonight I ripped out the carpet of the last room of the bookstore that had the abomination that is fitted carpet. The backing had once been rubber, but had hardened and then been pulverized into dust. And about 12 gallons of fine, green dust it was on the floor under the carpet that Ida and Luke, her fiancee, helped me to tear out. Luke impressed me more tonight than he had hitherto. He knows tools and how to choose the right ones for a job. Right now I am working on building a new piece of furniture to display our photography books. I am torn between building straight shelves versus shelves that are angled back a few degrees so that the spines of books on the bottom shelves can be seen while standing. The Good Lindsay has become someone whom I must care for and feed. She has a history of suicide attempts and is now a social worker and AA leader. She was never really an alcoholic. She had to stop drinking alcohol because of a medication and joined AA because of that and just ran with it and now AA meetings are her social life. She has no care for her personal appearance. She dresses like a bag lady. Her hair is thin and falling out due to her thyroid thing. She wears no makeup. She belongs to various writers groups and spins and spins away at personal essays with no real effort at publication even though I have offered to help her to pitch for publication. She is a very sweet, kind, wonderful person. On autopilot. A few nights ago we were at her house and I suggested that we watch, "Grey Gardens." I asked her, "do you think that they are really conscious, in the same way that you and I are?" She wasn't sure. I agree. I'm not sure about her. She treads the same steps of trauma around her childhood. Probably something in early adolescence. She's in some sort of loop. My own obsessive devotion towards doing everything possible to save this bookstore just seems to attract her even more. She loves having the boyfriend who builds the shelves, puts US Presidents in order of administration, takes her along to catch catfish and crabs, runs the bookstore with authority and compassion. I feel like I am doing all of this for someone that I am looking after, rather than for someone I love or see as an equal. 3:43 a.m. - 2024-01-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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