Bookstore Therapy

Something comes over me when I am down and in the dumps. I don't know why or how this began, but when this something happens I have no other solution, but to go to a bookstore. Sometimes I buy and sometimes I don't, but today was a buying day. There is probably a connection between how upset I am and how much I'm willing to buy. Today I bought a lot.

I started at Border's because they emailed me today with a coupon. They email me about every other day with coupons and I always have some reason to use it. Today's reason was that I wanted to buy Knuffle Bunny. Yes. A childrens book. I fell in love with this book a few years ago with its fun story but especially with the illustrations which uses black and white photographs and colored illustrations on top. There is a sequel, Knuffle Bunny Too, which I will buy next time I need Retail Therapy. I was hesitant to buy it, so I did my usual process of walking throughout the entire store and having multiple employees ask me if I needed help finding something. "Yes, my sanity." I should have said. I just always smiled and said "No, thanks." Because part of bookstore therapy is just reading the sleeves of multiple books, smelling the books, flipping through pages and realizing you're so small and have so much more you could learn.

When I finally was done browsing and decided the one book I wanted was Knuffle Bunny, I asked for help because I wasn't sure where to find it. I don't know if the sales person thought I was weird as I, a twenty-something asked her, "Do you have Knuffle Bunny?" I didn't give a reason for why I wanted it. Because honestly, I couldn't come up with a good one. I didn't think telling her, "I'm just in one of those moods and today's mood will be lifted if I buy this book." She'd think I was weird. And no one needs to know that truth.

(On a side note, I've seen You've Got Mail probably 73 times and today reminded me of the scene when Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, is in the children's section of the big bad Fox bookstore. Kathleen sits down and overhears an employee being asked what the "shoe" books are. Of course the employee has no idea. Kathleen tells the person working who the author is, as she fights back tears. It's one of my favorite scenes. And you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UZ3t1iQuTo It starts at about 6 min. in. Anyways when I was at Borders today, the girl working didn't know Knuffle Bunny even though it's right there at the big Caldecott Award Winning display. I was very upset she didn't know. I should work at Borders. Seriously.)

After I left Borders I decided to just go to Half Price Bookstore because I needed a new journal and they always have cute ones for $5. So in I went wanting to spend $5. Then I remembered wanting to buy Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger. The last time I was there, they had nothing by Salinger. Well, today was my lucky day. They had Franny and Zooey, Catcher in the Rye and In Search of JD Salinger. I decided against Catcher in the Rye but got Franny and the biography on Salinger because he is so fascinating to me (The fact that he's alive yet no one knows anything about him). I am excited to read what this guy that researched Salinger discovered. It was published the year I was born, so I suppose it won't be the most updated version. So I left Half Price $17.06 poorer but ten times happier. And I think my bookstore therapy did just the trick.