an evening (72713)

and as James and I enter the Barnes and Noble I immediately feel queasy because the lighting is a bit too harsh and there are quite a few people examining bargain priced learn French fast books and guides to the mind and stuff they will flip through but never actually read and I know this because I have done so many times before but mostly as a child, I remember once convincing my father to buy me a eight book collection containing two crossword books, cooking essentials, a small collection of short stories that I couldn’t comprehend in the seventh grade, the devil’s dictionary (the only one of the six which I still own), Hoyle on Backgammon and Poker and there must have been one other I can’t remember and I wanted these for the devil’s dictionary mostly but also because they were all hardcover and bright colors and slim, about four inches from spine to page end but now I am in the store we are in the store and I am looking at thousand piece puzzles because I am wanting something to do while I listen to music that won’t take up too much of my attention and because I saw the film Spider a few times not too long ago and read the book it was based upon which I didn’t like quite as much because the main character, Spider, talked or wrote like an English gentlemen when in reality he is a schizophrenic who mumbles to himself constantly in the movie he barely speaks audible English and the director addressed this in the commentary track saying the writer who also wrote the screenplay adaptation which I always look for in a movie, speaking of which I am reading American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis and apparently he made a script for the movie that was turned down which I am now interested in getting my hands on but anyway Cronenberg said about Spider who writes in his diary in scribbles that nobody could possibly comprehend (which I blatantly stole in my most recent mixed media pieces) but he said, in Spider’s mind, he is saying these things and thinks these things when he is trying to speak so that makes sense but he made things out of bits of string, webs and such and I am thinking of adopting these magpie sensibilities again as I did when I was a teenager perhaps when I move out but he had a puzzle for a very forced metaphor in the movie, regardless I can’t find one for the price I am wanting and think of going to a used second hand thrift store and buying one there though all the puzzles there are probably in the situation they are in because they are missing pieces which would be a even more forced metaphor for my own life or maybe not because James is waiting diligently by my side waiting for me to find something and I tell him forget it after thoroughly examining all sides of the puzzle rack, moving swiftly to the magazine rack looking for the latest Hi-Fructose which I think is probably not out yet since I would have seen or heard of it since that’s the only thing I really follow and repost on Facebook anymore but to my stupid surprise it is there, and I do recognize the cover and it’s been out for a month or so for sure so I feel pretty dumb and I flip through it thinking it looks pretty mediocre but there is an one page article at the back on the new Tom Waits photography book so I hang onto it and look for various other things which I’m sure I won’t find such as a hardcover copy of Lunar Park or The Whalestoe Letters which I indeed don’t find and I think to look for a new copy of The Haunting of Hill House because the copy I read was nearly destroyed when I got it and was further done in while I read it, for I am pretty violent with books unfortunately, and I do find a copy and while I do like the cover of it which is usually a movie poster but this time is, well, not, just some pleasant artwork, but I decide against it because it’s one of those new age Penguin books with the orange spine like they all have these days and besides fuck Barnes and Noble and I question aloud “Fuck this place, why are we here?” to which James responds “because nothing else is open at nine,” which is true so I nod and shoot down to the graphic novels section looking for a manga called Umazaki or something, some horror manga about spirals that Dillon told me about and I’ve been sort of looking for but I can never remember the exact name though a while ago in Ann Arbor I found the second issue for fifteen dollars which I declined because well I spend too much money anyway to start at the second of who knows how long issue of a manga so I put it back and never saw it again and it isn’t here either so I move to various indie comics and immediately see Scott Pilgrim and retch and James smiles good naturedly and I see a Daniel Clowes Reader, a really nice looking but compact book with a soft hardcover which contains Ghost World and tons of extras and I damn myself for buying the special edition of Ghost World for twenty dollars online because this has all that and more for thirty five dollars and I briefly consider buying it but decide against it cursing myself again for my previous purchase but I concede that I do like my other copy because it’s quite a bit bigger and you can see the pictures better and I glide into the media section of the store where the clerk says hi and we smile and say hi back and make a bee line to the criterion section but halt mid trip to look at half off “art house” movies which aren’t really too arty but I guess some people think they are and I am tempted by a Tilda Swinton movie I haven’t seen but decide against it since it’s fifteen dollars (was thirty) and I have plenty of movies at home I haven’t seen which makes me internally question why I’m here anyway but I remember I wanted to tempt myself with the Eclipse series that criterion has which has one by a Japanese director I can’t recall the name of but he made Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence which I watched (the criterion edition of) with Jackie a few days ago and now I’m thinking I should apologize to her for being so short earlier when she said she was busy and then when I suggested getting together Sunday she said she was going to Bethany’s graduation party which I am also attending and really annoys me since graduation parties are never all day and you typically just stick around for a bit then leave which I tell her, this all in phone text by the way, and I consider inviting her to Antonietta’s pool/housewarming party Saturday which is tomorrow but at the time was too frustrated to ask and be denied again and I’m thinking of dropping one of my mixed media pieces off at her place with an apology letter tonight but I probably won’t have time and it might rain and I see that The Devil’s Backbone and Lord of the Flies criterion editions were finally released and grimace because I really shouldn’t and decide not to buy them and look through the Eclipse series and though they do have the Post-War Akira Kurosawa and Robert Downy Sr. editions I’m not interested because I really don’t have the cash for either even half price so I leave and look at CDs for a moment because I have Juicebox by The Strokes stuck in my head but don’t know which album that song is on and after scanning all the ones there and in the bargain bin still don’t know because it isn’t therefrom what I saw so I leave, disheartened, look at the outrageous prices on the Before Watchmen series, thirty bucks a book and they’re pretty slim and even for hardcovers that’s a bit much I think and I don’t even know how much I would like them so I pass after flipping through the Ozymandias issue which is bundled with the pre black freighter issue which I thought was the worst part in Watchmen so why the hell did they make MORE of it? but am not too impressed but am also not looking too closely so I put it back and look at the Clowes book again and see Crumb and chortle to myself but also see Terry Pratchett’s first two novels bundled together in graphic novel form and really want it because I know he is a funny writer but just can not get into his first book so I hang onto that behind the Hi-Fructose I am still holding which I flip through and consider putting back and so I head back over to the magazine rack still flipping though and I think, yeah, fuck this place, and put it back and think yeah fuck this place and I’m heading back to put the Terry Pratchett graphic novel back on the rack when I see a very attractive girl with a physique I recognize and I look three times somewhat quickly but she doesn’t recognize and is with some guy who looks like maybe her dad but he’s talking to her like a boyfriend so he might be but he definitely looked older with his facial hair and glasses and bookish but not weak clothing choice but I can’t notice much and I just know it’s, oh her name started with an L, we ran in cross country together and I’m struggling to remember her name but it might not be her and they’re looking at the classics reissue section and he’s being funny and she’s laughing but I’m already five or six aisles away putting the book back though I do want it but fuck this place and I go back to the counter and look at the puzzles trying to glimpse her oh what was her name and James says “Hey yeah wasn’t that girl in our cross country team?” to which I say “Yeah, you remember?” yeah is his response and dammit what is her name I wonder as I’m walking out and I notice she grew quite a bit, lots taller and fuller built now and I hadn’t seen her since middle school and I remember her because we were both pretty bad at cross country usually at the back of the path and I’m walking to the car, holding the door for a couple before leaving, thinking that was definitely her dad he was way too old to be her boyfriend maybe she just has a good father which makes me think of my dad who didn’t walk around with me making jokes about books and I one-eighty in the parking lot half way to my car thinking I should at least say hi because she would probably recognize me so I re-enter, holding the door open for another older couple, hoping, Lindsay! her name is Lindsay I’m pretty sure and I hope she sees me doing this because it makes me look pretty chivalrous which I always have been in a shallow door holding sense even in middle school and I think that was a long time ago, middle school, how much and very little has changed because I still talk to myself though I am a bit more jaded and self destructive and moody since then but at least I am not as desperate and James is mulling this over, not agreeing and not disagreeing but I don’t see her and think she might have gone into the media section and so I go there not too quickly but she is there and the clerk eyes me suspiciously I can tell but don’t care and they’re looking at new age CDs, who does that? and I pretend to look at criterions again, thinking this will make me look pretty intelligent since they’re all lost classics but maybe she won’t know that and will only see like Salo or something on accident and think I’m a perv but it wouldn’t be far from the truth though I don’t own Salo or Sweet Movie because well they’re pretty filthy in a bad way but Naked Lunch is still my favourite movie next to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which both have criterion releases but I overhear him talking and he’s talking about his dad or something and about Lindsay coming over and his dad or whatever saying isn’t that his, I can’t care to remember his name, lady friend and I, defeated, scurry off into the hall and off to the exit where I don’t hold the door open for anyone but I didn’t look and see if anyone needed it held open so it doesn’t matter because she probably doesn’t even remember me because she didn’t glance at me once and I’m probably just a forgotten thought and I try and think of all the people I’ve forgotten,legitimately forgotten because she probably hasn’t thought of me in, what, I was in eighth grade and she was in what sixth or seventh or something, that was like five or more years ago, how many people have I not thought of for five years and I can’t remember so I’m starting my car and driving away listening to shots and ladders, grateful that it’s the last track on the album because I want to listen to my new Patti Smith collection and who cares anyway so then I