Well I have a lot of ramblings, half of them should probably go on KS, but I'm too tired to separate stuff. So without further ado, this is stuff that happened today:

1) Man. I knew they had the dummies/idiots books for EVERYTHING, but it made me laugh so hard when I found them in the erotica section I was straightening today. "Pleasing your man--for dummies!" "A complete idiot's guide to the art of seduction." "Amazing sex for dummies!" I can't believe dummies get all the amazing sex. And I think we should leave the art of seduction to someone other than complete idiots, but who knows. I mean, I've always hated the titles of those things. Maybe I can stomach it for the computer books that they originally started as, because computers make most people feel like dummies, but all this other crap is amazing. Like in psychology there's "bipolar disorder for dummies!" and it makes me feel bad for someone who has to buy that. Is it their fault they're bipolar? Don't they have enough problems without being called a dummy as well? So, anyway, that's my take on the dummies books for now. Oh, also, I noticed "Lewis and Clark for dummies." That just seemed SO random. There was no Abe Lincoln for dummies or the battle of 1812 for dummies, just out of nowhere, a dummies book on Lewis and Clark. Also, have you ever noticed they're all the same length book? I bet someone dictates to the authors how long they have to be. Because otherwise there's no way there's enough useful info on Lewis and Clark to make a book equal in length to a book that comprehensively fills you in on the art of seduction, I feel. So... Okay, now THAT was my complete take on dummies/complete idiots.

2) There was a guy who bought Ben Folds Live today. I am such a music snob. I don't really look down on people who like horrible music (okay, I do, but not like some people I know), but I really, really, instantly love people based on music preference. Anyway, it turns out he's hardcore about Ben, he was actually re-buying the album because a friend lost it, and he has all of Ben's albums and back when napster was big, he had the second largest collection of Ben Folds mp3's on napster, and weirdly he actually is roommates now with the guy who had the highest number at one time, and ran the biggest Ben Folds fan website. I was ready to suggest a three way, man, that's how much I loved this guy and his roommate I'd never met. I think working late is when I see more college age people with closer tastes in books and music to me, I managed some banter with a guy who bought the new Death Cab for Cutie album, too. So that was nice. I find it a lot harder in the mornings to muster up enthusiasm for all the sudoku books and copies of "you: the owner's manual" the middle aged women buy.

3) That album full of music about Illinois by Surfjan Stevens I've been thinking of, I'm definately going to have to get (though I'll probably wait and make it a christmas thing). At closing, the one guy I was working with actually had it and played it over the loudspeakers, and it was really good. I don't think I'll ever see him again, though, because apparently tonight was his last day of working there.

4) I finally took atvantage of my employee discount and shopped some over my break today. I can't remember exact titles, but I wanted to go for somewhat "smart people" reading, as I call it, because we're always having to reccomend stuff in the morning and I want to be pretentious about it. Except I'm not going hugely far up the smart scale, getting Dickens or any dry nonfiction, I got one guy's memoirs and a book of essays by Nick Hornby.

On the Nick Hornby book, I really love his stuff and am always meaning to get more of it, but find myself rebelling because most of his stuff is the big expensive paperbacks. But I thought I could take the plunge, since I'm all employee discounting it up nowadays. And on the essay front: essays are horrible when the wrong person writes them. But I find I can enjoy an essay on almost any subject as long as the right person writes them, and Hornby is a right person, I really liked Songbook, another collection of essays he wrote, on music (the one I got tonight was essays on books he likes, which is also good because if I think something he mentions sounds good, I could end up getting that too somewhere along the line.) The other one, I can't remember the author's name, just that he was the drummer from the band Semisonic. Yeah. "Closing Time," Semisonic. And it's basically how the music industry shitted on him, but I'm told he writes it in an amusing and engaging manner, and my interest was piqued, once having been a Semisonic devotee.

I actually got a few comments from coworkers on that one. My one manager, who is actually a pretty cool lady she's been in the peace corps and stuff, and you can really tell she loves what she's doing at the store, she's just so happy and enthusiastic and it rubs off on me--asked me what I bought and when I mentioned why I picked up the Semisonic guy's book, she was like, "You really like music, don't you?" and I think part of that is for reccomendations one day I DID mention Nick Hornby's Songbook and occasionally I'll wax eloquent on an album I like. And I was like "yeah," and kind of happy that such an integral (I feel) part of my personality was noticed. Anyway, we got to talking about learning the piano, and I told her about my travails with my mom, and how Heartland (the community college around here) has piano lessons for pretty cheap, so I might try that sometime (though right now I'm all tired from the job, so maybe I'll wait until I'm used to being tired all the time before adding more to my plate). The other comment I got is from another manager who transfered recently to our store from the one in Champaign, which is a town near here, and apparently she'd actually met Semisonic guy, he was actually from around there and did a signing. So good times.

I think that's all I felt I had to spew my words out about. Though I'm sure I'm forgetting something and think of it in the middle of the night and be all, "doh, I should've blogged that, but I got too bogged down in erotica for dummies and forgot."