Feels-Like-Winter-Thursday Rambly Bits

[gnomi]

-- Winter-qua-winter is still a good month off, but today definitely feels like winter. Daytime highs in the mid-30s F, a good stiff wind making it feel like it's 8 degrees outside. Time to dig out the leggings, I do believe.

-- Introducing people who know each other: magid, re-meet autotruezone.

-- mabfan has Town Meeting this week, so I'm fending for myself most evenings. I've gotten random stuff done and writing (just a tad; I desperately need to do more) done, but mostly I have been knitting. And last night I spent a lovely chunk of time with lucretia_borgia.

-- I've been doing a Fawn Hall on a whole slew of old paperwork that we'd just never gotten around to getting rid of. Tell me, do I really need seven years ago's tracking forms of freelance projects that are now long over? I say no, so into the shredder they go.

-- For those of you in the general Brookline-Brighton-Allston area who may not have heard, the Barnes and Noble in Coolidge Corner is leaving. I see this as a complication, not only because we'll be down one bookstore but also because the B&N and Brookline Booksmith have developed something of a symbiotic relationship, with the Booksmith carrying more of the small press and indy press stuff and the B&N carrying the more mainstream stuff that Booksmith doesn't have shelf space for.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

...and I know Autotruezone how?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'm told that you were in attendance at his wedding.

Your name came up last Shabbat at kiddush at Kadimah, and he said he knew you. He hadn't, however, put your LJ handle together with your real-life existence.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've been lucky enough to attend a lot of weddings...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I didn't think that would be enough of a hint. Hmm. Let me think.

His profile is very bare, but the hint is in God-given and Traumatic.

Or I can just e-mail you offline and tell you his name.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Married in Worcester in a snow storm, perhaps?

[(Anonymous)]

Mrs. Autotruzone here...yes, you've guessed it - my hint was going to be that you will forever be known as "that girl in the floral dress" to me :-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

And no, you didn't pay me to follow the photographer and make silly faces during the table shots :-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeedy, as Mrs. Autotruezone says (since she was anonymous, her comment was screened and may not have been e-mailed to you).

[points.livejournal.com]

Hm. Not sure how I feel about the B&N leaving. I remember being very upset when they first moved in (long ago), as they put two other local bookstores that I loved out of business.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I remember there was a lot of neighborhood concern when they moved in. I don't remember which bookstores they put out of business, but I remember it happening.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

i worked at royal discount bookstore in 93. we closed within months of them moving in. though apparently part of that was that the landlord simultaneously decided to raise our rent by a substantial amount. anyway, i don't remember any other nearby bookstores. booksmith didn't go out of business, obviously, though i know that was a worry.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I remember the Royal Discount! And I remember their going out of business. I'd forgotten that one of the catalysts was the B&N.

[points.livejournal.com]

I miss Royal Discount. Over the years of high school, that one store ate the bulk of all my income. :)

There was also the used sci-fi and fantasy store that used to be upstairs in the Arcade, and another used book store that used to reside betwixt Coolidge Corner and the Annex down Comm Ave... both of which I can not recall the names of.

[aunt-becca.livejournal.com]

when I was doing my Fawn Hall impression this summer ad shredding everything in sight, I found old bank statements in the trunk of my car for a bank which no longer exists! Why did I feel compelled to hold on to them?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

One of the things I found was checks from an account I had at a bank that no longer exists.

I shredded them anyway.

[fauxklore]

When I cleaned out the downstairs closet a few years after my father died, I found checks dating back roughly 30 years, including one to the doctor from when I was born.

I had quite an argument with my mother when I insisted there was no reason to keep them. Nowadays, when I visit, I just surreptitiously shred things early in the morning before she wakes up.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I've been having an internal debate about some of the items, but mostly I'm going with the "do I *really* need this?" rubric.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

The genealogist in me says, "You shredded WHAT?" The pack rat chimes in with, "You shredded?" The lazy procrastinator (also known as the frightened perfectionist) just tucks tighter and whimpers.

:)

Disclosure: I think I have a box mostly filled with junk mail that I have now moved twice without unpacking. The first move was 15 years ago. Please help. :)

[fauxklore]

Of what possible genealogical value are Con Ed bills from the 1950's? I didn't shred personal essays my father had written in college (or his transcript) or the synagogue newsletter he edited for a while or stuff like that. And I haven't let Mom throw out old photographs.

I admit that it's easier for me to go through stuff at my mother's house than at my own. I still haven't finished sorting out the "box of shame," where I stash the junk mail I don't immediately toss or shred (e.g. mail order catalogues, newsletters, etc.)

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

*smiles* - just last night Sc turned to me and said 'we need to get you a scanner', to which I said 'why'. "Identity theft - but mostly because it's fun to destroy things" :D

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

There's some visceral thrill about sending things through the shredder. :-)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Wow. I hadn't heard about the B&N - thanks for the update.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

P.S. Do I know ATZ?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I believe you do, from Kadimah.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

The initials aren't clicking for me...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

ATZ aren't his real-world initials.

I'm being circumspect because he maintains his privacy here on LJ and I don't wish to violate that.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Not a problem, I was just trying to figure out whether he's someone I'd like to link to. Context would be welcome, if not possible I'll just assume I don't know him for now.