The Rise and Fall of Miss Prothero

This is the never ending post. I can't seem to finish it or read it or edit it. It is as if this blog belongs to someone else, and I no longer have rights. Maybe it does belong to someone else. It certainly belongs to an old ambition, an odd dream, a car that boiled over and broke down.

I've been busy not thinking about the bookstore. The landlord finally returned my damage deposit on Saturday. The cash register that was purchased on eBay was finally paid for last Thursday, and it's been more than a week since I drove by 1112 Santa Fe Drive. There was butcher paper up in the windows. The "For Lease" sign was still there. The usual conflagration of alcoholics was on the wall next to the shop. One was watching traffic, foot dangling off the curb, ready to make the sprint across the street. I didn't see it, but I could guess he would wait until it was almost too late, his needy body leading him into the path of the oncoming cars. Someone would honk. Someone would apply the brakes. But the chicken would get to the other side of the road. He always did. He always will.

I finally finished the August books tonight. There were a few things that made me smile, a few things that made me grind my teeth. Looking at my credit card processing statement fit in the teeth grinding category. From this moment forth, I shall think once and twice and maybe two or three times more whenever I want to use a card (debit or credit). The life of the world's financial industry may take Visa, but the life of the average consumer and the small business owner would be better without it.

I found out that Sonya Unrein gave up her partnership in Ghost Road Press (the press's loss, but whose gain?), that I'm lousy at registering voters (if you think Palin is a wonderful woman, I'm not going to argue with you), that getting a yard sign out of the Obama campaign is like getting a straight answer from a credit card processor and that my part-time job at the coffee cart might be full time for two weeks. After those two weeks, it may no longer be a job.

And I'm reading. That's a good sign, right? I finished Eliot Pattison's Water Touching Stone; The Brief History of the Dead; It's a Good Life, if you Don't Weaken by Seth; and The Madame Paul Affair by Julie Doucet. (The last two titles are comics recommended by Luke at Kilgore.) I'm trying to read a book about wikinomics, but it's not going very wiki-ly. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle has kept me engrossed. I could live without the Hamlet references. Even if you are smart enough to rewrite Shakespeare, I'd rather not hear about it.

Just give me the facts, ma'm. Just the facts.