Speaking of Nomenclature...

I'm renaming my bookstore tonight.

The whole bookstore-working saga will be told here, from my lowly days as a B------* drone to my totally yucky experiences at the V------- to my odd little folly, A------- Books & Images. In installments. I promise. Just not tonight.

What remains of my bookselling career is suspended "on vacation" in an online sales site and stacked in a corner of the basement, in neatly numbered file boxes, the kind with lids. All I have to do is click... a... button... and I'm a bookseller again. The stacks in the basement will shrink, and I might even make some money - with which I'll buy, of course, more books.

Before I can click that button, though, I need to come up with a new name. I feel revulsion at the idea of doing business under the old one. It's not some kind of liability thing. It just feels wrong, like I was trying to be someone who wasn't me. Somewhat true, I suppose. He who had the money called the shots. You know, to that person, the money was nothing - both in quantity and significance. I put my time and energy into it, and my artistic energy... in short, everything that's mine to give. Equal partners, my ass.

Oh. I feel better now.

But I'm still changing the name before I click the button.

"It's a moral imperative." -- Real Genius




*Please forgive the seeming pretentiousness of this antiquated mechanism. I'm enamored of the style.