Responsibilities with a Bookstore and Reviews

Ever since working at my undergrad university's library, I've had a goal of someday working at a bookstore as well. And here I am. And it's great. Exhausting, but great. I'm on my feet all day (which kinda sucks), but I get to work with books and talk to people about books and movies. My coworkers are all nerds/geeks/dorks, as are most of the customers. I've managed to make extra sales just by telling people that something exists, or how awesome something is.

Tonight ends my second week of work. I had a five-day stretch, a four-day weekend, and then a seven-day stretch. Wednesday and Thursday are my weekend days this week. Six days was tiresome, but seven days made me begin to think that this is just how life is: you wake up, you go to work for eight hours, you get home, relax for a few more hours, and go to bed. And repeat. Every day. Without end. Tomorrow, I'll feel odd waking up and not getting ready for work. I'll feel like I should be doing something, though I certainly have other responsibilities.

It's like when cats fall from buildings. I forget the exact numbers, but... within about three stories the cats react to falling, flip around, and land easily. Between five and ten, or so, they are falling long enough to freak out and realize that something is wrong. This is when they get hurt because they tense and break something upon impact. But between ten and above, they relax again because they are falling long enough to think that falling is just how life is, that it was always like that.

My seven-day stretch was my ten-story fall. And now I can relax.

Kinda.

I sent out a second revision of a review that came through Submittable for Weave. That was cool. If the guy gets back to me within a day or so, I can schedule a post for the weekend and get three reviews up this month. I already have another review waiting to be edited, which I'll also do within the next couple days. It will be the first to go up for October. This one came through a volunteer on Facebook for a fellow alumna's recent publication. It'll be a test run to see if the writer, a Chatham MFA candidate, will be good enough to hold a stable position as a creative nonfiction reviewer (our first). Past that, I have two more coming in between now and the first week of October (fiction and poetry), which will fill out the rest of October nicely.

I also have my own review to finish for Coal Hill Review. For whatever reason, this month has not been kind to me regarding reading pace. Perhaps I burned myself out. Perhaps work has taken a harsher toll than expected. It's taken me a month to read one 300-some-page book. The review is due on the last day of September. Thankfully, I'm taking notes, but I still feel incredibly behind because I'm barely halfway through the book. And then there's another review due on Oct. 15 for a print publication in Canada. The book was good (-ish), but place (Canada) has a definite character in the story, and I'm concerned that the review won't be accepted well if I'm critical. I'm trying to find a balance, but there isn't much to say about the book. We'll see how that goes. Thankfully, Weave told me to hold off on my own reviews until I get writers on a decent schedule, so I don't have to write three reviews next month (or read two review books in that time).

Working at Half Price Books is very, very dangerous for an avid reader. I keep finding things that I've been searching for and putting them on hold in my cube (cubby) until I can afford to buy them. I haven't gotten my first paycheck yet and already I've spent over $30. Some of it's been Christmas presents, and other items still on hold fall into that category, but at least half has been my own books. I have so many on my bookshelf that have yet to be read... I really don't need more books... yet there they are. So I as much as I want to have some leisure reading time, these reviews have been weighing over me. I don't anticipate this feeling going away any time soon.