Books, and Clothes, and Toothpaste (oh my!)

I have a car filled with books again-though I haven't brought them in and started the sorting process. You know it is going to be a good book sale when you see the used bookstore owner leaving, arms filled with books. My tastes run pretty similar to his, but I still managed to find a ton of stuff. Classics-oh my goodness, did I clear out the classics. Really fantastic stuff too, in decent translations.

What I suspect happened, was the radio station put out a call for donations, and people dumped books they saved from university. The number of scholarly books, strange anthologies, and university press editions couldn't really be anything else. You know how that goes-you hang onto the books for twenty or thirty years figuring you paid so much money for them by gum, you'll look at them again some day! You will. You're sure you will. Probably. Then you don't, so you donate them to the community radio book drive. Then some homeschooling families come by, and snag them all for a song. Really, I'm still stunned at how much Elizabethan stuff I found. Maybe you don't get excited at the thought of teaching Spenser...(yeah, I don't either, but for the sake of the school year I'm going to take a stab at some interest, forced as it is)...but when you can fill a bag for ten dollars with things you never even knew he wrote...well, that my friends is a good book sale.

I bought a pair of clogs with four inch heels today. They were 85% off-I had to. Other than jeans, I can't imagine what I will wear them with, but they were strangely easy to walk in, and geez, they make me 4'6". As I can't really control myself in the face of the clearance sale at Sears, I also came home with some clothes. I was able to find a hooded, zip-front sweatshirt in the children's department for three dollars. Unlike every other hooded, zip-front sweatshirt I've ever owned, this one isn't too long in the sleeves. Thank you, god for letting me figure out I can shop in the children's department. The black tights are half the price of women's and they don't sag around the ankles. Hey, don't laugh-living life at just under 5'2" isn't easy. I also bought a bright yellow, eyelet halter-dress. There's still plenty of warm weather left, and I can stretch that into Fall. That was eleven dollars.

Finally, in what was the best deal of the day-I bought toothpaste at Shop-Ko. I'm not sure if it was mismarked, but it was exactly half what I pay for it in Omaha. Maybe people in Lincoln don't brush their teeth or something. Oh, I know-you're thinking my life must be pretty damn dull if I'm excited about books, clogs and toothpaste...and you're probably right, but now I know where to go for excitement. The people watching at the mall was exceptional-well, to me anyway. I rarely wander into the mall when I go to Sears, but today we did and whoah...there's some strange shit going down at the Gateway mall in Lincoln, Nebraska. The whole place has a John Waters vibe (well, John Waters meets the Jerry Springer show), from the mouthy kids talking back to the mothers as they buy school clothes, to the kinda-past-their-prime slags making goo-goo eyes at anything that walks. Sort of like a carnival...there's even a merry-go-round. Mr. ETB says it wouldn't be shocking if I went to a mall more than once or twice a decade. I dunno, I think I'd still be shocked by animal print and leather dresses for little girls, but maybe you get used to it after a while. As I bought clogs with four inch heels today, I probably shouldn't be passing judgment on anyone's fashion sense.

Finally, you couldn't script this:

A group of Sudanese teens standing in front of a store with a huge sign in the window reading, "Refugee Jeans."

Is this what being on drugs is like? I swear, the whole day in Lincoln felt otherworldly, like any moment the walls were going to start melting, and Leprechauns would start screaming about some bastard that has their pot of gold, that they need because Mrs. Leprechaun has an appointment at the salon for vajazzing-and that doesn't come cheap. I'll bet you can get baubles affixed to your waxed privates in Lincoln, Nebraska, leprechauns or not.

Dudes, I got so many excellent books!