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The Last Bookstore on Earth

This was an apocalyptic fail for me. I didn't realize it was YA going into it. I don't have anything against YA literature in general, but YA apocalypse is apparently a no for me. 

Weaknesses: 

1. The first half of the book is kind of a pretty sweet story. Who wants sweet when you're looking for an apocalypse? Not me.

2. The occasional attempts at humor are more distracting than humorous.

3. Too much of the cataclysmic event and of the characters' stories are either illogical or never explained. Even young readers deserve better.

Strengths:

1. Riding out the apocalypse in a bookstore? Sign me up. I'm in.

2. There is a cool concept the author introduces that deals with the main character gathering survivors' stories (yes please), but it's never developed (wamp wamp wamp). 

3. The cover is gorgeous. 

I never had to fight to keep from ditching it (but would have had I been reading print instead of listening), but it was a meh at best for me. 

The Last Bookstore on Earth

by Lily Braun Arnold 

Naked Is Great! (Delights Series)

C came to live with me in July of 2022. She was five years old, my first little girl, and my first glimpse into the world of Barbie. 

I had gathered a few in anticipation of her arrival. I wanted everything to be welcoming for her and her sister. She was delighted. The smile on her face said that I had done well.

She hugged each doll close.

And then proceeded to rip its clothes off.

She did the same to every Barbie in sight, and I’ve basically been living in a Barbie nudist colony ever since.

What followed each stripping was a marathon of changing Barbie’s outfits. And by changing, I mean putting them on, taking them off, getting frustrated when she couldn’t get them back on (fashion models must live in a constant state of frustration), and eventually giving up and making a pile of clothes. Barbie would briefly rock a tiny sparkly dress, followed by a denim skirt, then a gown, followed by something that could only be described as the same denim skirt, but now with wings.

She was treating these dolls like they were her own personal wardrobe testers. Let’s see how this looks. Oh wait, no, it’s not right. Let’s try this one. No. Still not it. Try this cape!

Why does Barbie need a cape, you ask? I have no idea. But she does.

The fashion frenzy was relentless. It was as if Barbie had a personal stylist who never stopped changing her outfits—except her stylist was five years old, and the only qualifications she had were a knack for making questionable fashion choices.

On any given day, Barbie might end up wearing a winter jacket with a ballerina’s tutu over a scuba suit, only to be topped off with a cape and high heels. Or boots. Or one heel and one boot because who knows where the matching shoes are. Either a dog ate them or I threw them away. 

It didn’t take me long to figure out that our home is where Barbie shoes go to die. 

But let’s also be clear about this: C tired quickly of the headache that an immense wardrobe brought with it. She grew to love naked Barbies more and more, and took great pleasure in posing them around the house. 

If I asked why Barbie was naked yet again, she would throw her hands up and yell something like, “Because naked is great!” and laugh and laugh. 

Soon, it wasn’t just Barbie. It was Barbie, Ken, the entire cast of Frozen, and sometimes a random superhero or two. All enjoying a little naked R & R in my living room.

I am writing this three years after first meeting C. There are Barbie clothes everywhere, except on Barbie. Most of her shoes have been devoured by the dogs, and Barbie is living her best life. Tits out and fabulous.

What's your name? (Delights Series)

My sister asks everyone’s name - the waiter, the uber driver, the person in line beside her waiting to order coffee. It’s never forced. It’s never nosy. It’s just what she does. Because she cares about people. And it shows. 

And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I delight in eavesdropping on these conversations. I’m quite shameless. I’ll sit a little closer in a restaurant pretending to read the menu or tap my phone as if busy in an Uber just to hear her ask the driver’s name and how his day is going. I’ve recently seen her discuss motherhood with a stranger in an airport terminal, talk a TSA agent into cracking a smile, and learn more about the woman sitting next to her on a plane than I’ve learned about some of my coworkers in years. 

You may know someone like her - if you’re lucky. People open up to her in ways that surprise even themselves. It is remarkable to watch. On a recent sister’s trip (a delight that I will no doubt write more about later), an Uber driver who labored to speak broken English told her of the daughter he is putting through school. He showed her pictures and the two of them talked and talked like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. I can’t tell you his name, but I bet she could. 

Everyone leaves a conversation with her lighter. Seen. Remembered.

And maybe that’s the whole secret. Maybe that's how she does it. She sees people, and she likes them. She genuinely likes them. And when someone likes you like that, it feels like sunshine. It makes you comfortable. 

So here’s to Judy - the woman everyone loves, not because she asks for attention, but because she gives it. So freely. And here’s to the quiet delight of witnessing her magic. One conversation at a time.

More From Ruth (Dear Stranger Letters Series)

Since my last email from the heart of Las Vegas, we have gone forward two time zones and crossed through three states, getting ready to cross into The Land of Lincoln, aka Illinois.

Some views we saw along the way while traveling through Utah. The last one is in Colorado.

(What shape do you see in the sky in this last shot? One way, I see a goldfish; going the other, I see a shark. Its jaws open, ready for attack.)

Mind you, we have covered a lot of territory since this last shot was taken, yet I have not taken one shot since getting into the Denver area. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to at some point in my story. For now, I’m continuing on where I left off…where my mom shows up after several years of being absent from my life.

You might wonder what was going through my mind upon seeing my mother. Honestly, I do not remember. I have this sense that I withdrew back into a place before she showed up. Upon hearing they were there to pick me up and take me away, to a place I had never heard of, I’m pretty certain total confusion and shock took over. Mind you, in getting out of there, I was being taken from a situation that I would keep secret for years to come, but still…it was everything and everyone I knew.

As hard as I try to remember certain details from this time of my life, I can’t. I do know I wasn’t happy. I became rebellious to some degree, and went from being a straight A student, to one who just got by. 

There are three things during those next few years that I can truly say, saved me. One was music. I poured myself into playing that clarinet and being as good as I possibly could.  Second, were the animals that I raised for show through the FFA program at school, and last, but certainly not least, was meeting a boy who would later become my husband. Plus, his mom also helped to fill a gap I was missing in my own life.

The one thing that almost became my undoing? My own mother. I don’t want to portray her as this horrible human being, because she wasn’t. I do wonder if there might have been some mental issues there we never knew about? Having lost a child at birth, and my brother and oldest sister later in her life, I have no doubt, affected her. To cover for some of that pain, she tried to mask it with material objects and to portray herself to the outside world as someone more than she really was. Of all her bad habits…why is it those two that that I chose to focus in on with my own life???

I was told by a professional counselor several years ago, that childhood abandonment can manifest itself in many different ways. For far too many years, those behaviors took over my way of thinking, my way of life and worst of all, my very well being.

I will save you all from going down the rabbit hole I did for the years in between. Believe me, one trip was more than enough to last me a lifetime. Instead, I’ll give you a short synopsis:

* Material objects mattered even if you really couldn’t afford them - gone was my grandparents frugal 

lifestyle of only getting what you needed to survive and be comfortable.

* Portray perfection on the outside, even with the simplest of things - despite the fact, everything might have been crumbling on the inside and was anything but perfect.

* Smother and keep close - this was a huge one as it applies to relationships, be it with friends or family. I did this a lot. I had to have my thumbs on everything and everyone, coming in the form of control. Control that is directly pointed to fear of abandonment. I was afraid that if I lost control, I would lose these relationships. It happened anyway and one in particular, is one that I can point to where my course in life started to shift.

* Alcohol - mind you, I have always steered away from this because my father was an alcoholic. I was never one to partake in it during my youth, nor did I ever do drugs. However, there was a period of time, maybe a year, that I was partaking WAY too often and WAY too much. That wasn’t a good time for me. At all. The good thing is that I was able to cut it out just as easily as I had allowed it to slip into my life.

* Stress - when they say that stress can kill you, take it serious. Already under stress because of work, I added to it with all the nonsense of my own doing.

** Nonsense of my own doing, this is huge - and there was a lot of this, along with the excuses I made. As an adult, I should have been able to recognize and make corrections or adjustments. Right? But this way of living had taken over my life, my way of thinking till I finally got to a place of darkness and almost to a point of no return.

We’ve reached our destination for the day, and for now, this seems like a good place to stop. I did take a picture from today to share. Between the Missouri and Illinois state lines, a river I have crossed so many times in the last (almost) 12 years, that I’ve lost count. 

The Mighty Mississippi River

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Taking Flight (Delights Series)

There’s something deeply humbling about watching a child experience magic for the first time.

If I had to guess, I would say Emmy was 8 years old the day I met her. I’m using the word met loosely here. I was sitting in a window seat on a flight to New York City (another delight). Emmy was in the middle seat aglow with anticipation, and her father (an assumption on my part) was seated in the aisle seat next to her. Other than confirming when I asked if this was her first time to fly, we barely spoke.

When her tiny hands gripped the armrests during takeoff, it wasn’t out of fear. Every fiber of her being was excited about the potential of what was happening. “We’re flying,” she whispered shortly after as though it was a secret she had been patiently waiting to share with no one and with everyone. 

I spent much of the flight pressed into the back of my seat to give her a better view out the window. “We’re above the clouds.” Again, she spoke in a whisper, not to me. Not really to anyone. Just in awe of what was happening. 

The man seated next to her kept urging her to not bother me. He had no idea how much I was enjoying seeing her delight. Everything about that flight fascinated her.

I watched a child discover something that day. I wish I could have been privy to the narration going on in her head. She wasn’t just seeing the world from a new height. Emmy was seeing it from a new heart. 

We all need moments like that from time to time, moments that make us aware of the miracles around us. Thank you, Emmy, for reminding me of what it means to fly.

A Delightful Dilemma

One of the most delightful dilemmas in life is an ever-growing, ever-intimidating, never to be defeated to-be-read (tbr) pile. For a book lover, having too many choices is never a burden. It is a delightful blessing!

I've never considered myself prone to ADD or ADD tendencies. I don't see the characteristics (or what I know of them at least) in myself, EXCEPT when it comes to reading. I have trouble concentrating and often read without reading. Think of that phenomenon where you drive home and then don't remember doing it. I do that when I'm reading. I usually realize it when it's time to turn the page and I have no idea what I've read. This is one reason I still love physical books. That act of physically turning a page is important to me. To offset this tendency, I bounce. I bounce from book to book. 

Over the years, I have developed a system that helps me stay focused while bouncing. The concept is simple: I read six books in six genres, bouncing from one to the other as I see fit. The rate of bounce varies from book to book, but rarely do I finish a book without bouncing. I see you Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. 

1. Memoir - The window into the human experience. My favorite genre. I am a memoir junkie, and the crazier the better. I read them in clusters. I may read nothing but musicians and then switch to movie stars. True crime memoirs often invade the rotation, and I am currently reading only memoirs of personal experiments (see post about reality TV memoirs). I do not enjoy biographies or other books written ABOUT someone. I want a book written BY that someone. And I do enjoy a good memoir audiobook read by the author. Yes, please. Tell me your story.

2. Fiction - I love a good serial killer,  a smartass detective, a soiree with the supernatural, or a little dystopian chaos. 

3. Informational - This category is the perfect combination of entertainment and education. It feeds my intellectual curiosity and keeps me well rounded (ish) in the process. 2025 topics thus far: abortion research, the lives of transgender teenagers, the power of introverts, the consequences of a racist social media account, the miracle of waking up earlier in the morning (turns out I'm not miraculous), mindful parenting, kindness, creativity, anxiety, and hot dogs. Now that is a list!

4. Spiritual or Physical Wellness - These books provide me with tools for better living. Tools that I typically ignore, but love to read about. I like to know the best practices for living a balanced life even if I choose not to follow them. 

5. Professional - For years, I read a ton of books about teaching and pedagogy. I'm over that now. I've moved on to books about writing. My current read (Shut Up and Write) has a whole chapter about things writers do to avoid writing. One of those is reading about writing. Guilty! 

6. And finally...I include an anthology in the mix. Be it poems or stories or letters, sometimes it is nice to pick up a book and read just a short, stand alone piece and feel like you accomplished something. Something complete. Some days that's all I can hope for. 

When I finish a book, I simply start another in that same genre. I am enjoying a love affair with reading and this system seems to be keeping the romance alive.