Next stop, Chuck E. Cheese.

I can now add dressing up and acting as Spot the Dog at B&N storytime to my resume. Man that suit was difficult to move in.

SO AWESOME.

I got an interview at Pearson Education!!!! And it's for a real job! In its English department!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH SOOO AWESOME

My ultimate challenge.

The other day I was thinking about the sheer amount of the books I own. I knew it was just absolutely ridiculous, and so I made a huge and life-altering decision. I am going to stop buying books until one of two things happens: 1) I finish 50 of the ones I own, or 2) a year goes by. Whichever comes along first.

I have also created rules that I am going to follow:

1. Gifts of books will be accepted.

2. I cannot use gift cards to buy books.

3. I can borrow books from people or the library, but those will not count in my list of 50.

4. I can abandon a book if it's too awful to finish and I've read at least 50 pages, but it will not count in my final 50.

So there you have it. I am challenging myself to stop being stupid and crazy, and to save some money in the process. And yes, maybe I did have a "last hurrah" and buy four books on the day before I decided to start the challenge (I took advantage of the buy 2 get the 3rd free sale on B&N classics--The Three Muskateers, The Call of the Wild & White Fang, and Bulfinch's Mythology--plus I also bought Macbeth), but at least I've started and have already chastised myself about thinking about getting any books. I've already started to think about everyone shopping at the store as lucky for being able to buy what they're shopping for.

And in case you're all wondering, I've told enough people at B&N of my challenge, and at least one has promised to make sure I don't give in to temptation. He actually saw me with two books in my hand the other day as I was leaving the store and said with a suspicious look in his eye, "Now, you didn't buy those, did you?" No worries, man. One was already mine... and I borrowed the other.

Books, again. Also, Ziggy Marley is the devil.

Okay, I have so many books that I own and haven't read that I'm starting to feel pressured. How weird is that? I took out a book from the library yesterday (I finished it already anyway) and felt weird, since I have so many. And then I borrowed the second Percy Jackson book from my friend Erika and THAT made me feel weird because I was starting to read this other book that I won from GoodReads! I shouldn't be feeling panicky because I'm not reading haha. I'm just ridiculous.

On a side note, I plan on taking advantage of the buy 2, get the 3rd free promo at B&N for the B&N classics. I want White Fang/Call of the Wild, The Woman in White, and The Count of Monte Cristo. Hell, I might even buy six books and get two free. Plus I want that tote bag (in green!).

I'm sure you're all also wondering about my Ziggy Marley reference in the title to this post. To make a long story short, I HATE HIM AND HE SHOULD NEVER ENTER ANOTHER RECORDING STUDIO EVER. I have been listening to his infuriating children's album at B&N for FAR too long (at least 2.5 months!). It will drive any normal person to insanity. Go ahead, check it out somewhere. I dare you.

There is nothing fresh about Fresh Pond.

Last night was trivia night. Once a week my friend Sarina and her boyfriend James go into Boston or Cambridge, meet up with his friends at a pub and play trivia they hold there, and I go with them when I can. I was really excited because I hadn't been to trivia since last summer, and you all know how much I love random trivia questions, especially when I know the answers. But there was a tiny problem: James needed gas. No big, right?

Wrong.

As we drove into a Shell station in the Fresh Pond area (it was a little sketchy, and as Sarina said the projects were nearby), we heard this metallic scraping/rattling sound. "James, is that your car?" Sarina asked. The next thing I know, the guy who is running the service shop comes out and asks with a bewildered expression, "What's going on?" Well, that's not a good sign, is it?

Turns out something is wrong with James' car, I don't know if it was the wheel or the brakes or what as I don't pay attention to things like that. But we were stuck at this gas station for however long it would take the guy to fix it.

To my great relief, it only took about a half hour (in which time we ate a pack of fruit-flavored Mentos that we took off the shelf of the snack shop--we paid for it, don't worry). And to my surprise, the guy didn't charge James! James still gave him $20, but man that was nice of him!

And we still made it to the second half of trivia.

Some dating advice for men.

At work on Monday, I noticed this guy who walked up and down the romance aisle, where I was (ironically) putting away books. That in itself is weird, but this didn't occur to me until this conversation happened:

Guy: "So have you worked here long?"

Me: "Yeah, pretty long." *pause* "Do you need help finding something?"

"No no no, I'm okay." *pause* "I just thought you were pretty so I thought I'd say something."

*forced laugh* "Oh, well thank you."

"You're welcome." *starts to walk away, stops and backtracks* "Not to be weird or anything, but... do you think maybe I could give you a ring sometime?" *makes one of those stupid hand gestures that is supposed to indicate a phone*

And this is my favorite part:

"Like maybe we can go kayaking or something?"

I told him no, first because he was not attractive and second because HE IS A STRANGER. I lied and said I had a boyfriend so I would not hear anything more about it. But KAYAKING? Seriously??? First of all, what a weird thing to ask a girl to do. Second of all, why the hell would I go kayaking with this complete and total stranger? I don't know if he's any good at it, I don't know if he'd be able to save me if I flipped my kayak over (which, let's face it, would most likely happen).

Here's the cherry on top of all of this. Later that day when I told my friend Eric, he told me that the same thing happened to another girl in the music section, except the guy asked her to go rock climbing. The manager of the music department then told her that Maxim or some other guy magazine ran an article about asking women out on dates, and one of the tips was to ask them to do a sport.

Here's a tip from an actual woman: That only works if 1) it's a sport that doesn't have the potential to drown you, and 2) you ACTUALLY KNOW THE GIRL. I would hope most women are smart enough not to go kayaking with some guy who thought they looked pretty at a bookstore.

But maybe that's just me.

My fifteen minutes? (I sincerely hope not, it would have been a waste of 15 minutes,)

Most of you know that I have been "promoted" to fiction lead at B&N. I put that in quotation marks because I am not getting paid more, and I am not technically full-time despite my 8-hour shifts five days a week. But that is not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to relate an odd event that happened on my first day back, while Kelly was training me in the wonderful world of projects.

Kelly was showing me how to do stuff on the computer, when a group of three high school kids came up to us. The girl with the video camera asked, "Would you mind answering a few questions about the book The Shack?" But you have to read it in a Boston accent and imagine gum-chewing. I'm not sure I remember gum-chewing, but I feel like it adds more to the character and the overall scene, don't you?

Kelly and I looked at each other, at the camera, and back to the girl. "Um. Have you read it? I haven't read it."

"Nope."

The girl told us it was okay if we hadn't read it, she'd just ask questions about religion and God. (Side note: The Shack is about a man who goes to a shack and meets God. This is after his daughter is raped and killed. Another side note: They were from Austin Prep. I didn't know girls even went to Austin Prep.)

So, being the kind-hearted soul I am, I volunteered to be the one in front of the camera that day. I will not go into details; I'll just say she asked me about God and whether he has a plan and if everything happens for a reason, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill.

And so, I will go down in the archives of Austin Prep for years to come as the worker at Barnes & Noble who volunteered to talk about the book The Shack for some seniors in high school. I didn't even have my name in there, and I hadn't even read the book (I was their book expert apparently).