I Love Them So Much I Would Die For Them Oh My God This Is So Cute

Okay, buckle up buckaroos, because today I met an honest-to-goodness cryptid.

I was out running errands and I made a stop at Intimate Books (…for a friend), and on my way out I realized that the bookshop next door was open.

This bookshop has existed for more than a hundred years, and in all my life it has NEVER BEEN OPEN. I mean, I assume it has to be open sometimes, but never at any normal, reasonable hour. Everyone says it’s a front for the mob or something.

So what do you do when the weird mafia bookshop is open? You go the fuck inside.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. You know that smell when you accidentally leave your towel on the bathroom floor all day and you come back to that mildew funk? The shop smelled like that times a thousand. I expected to see stuff growing on the walls, but the books were pristine. We’re talking first editions, rare editions, weird Bibles and books inscribed to really famous dead people. Librarians would weep for the chance to accession this place. In the first two minutes I found a signed copy of The Crucible and what I think was a first edition of Blake’s Book of Thel.

Then a clerk showed up out of nowhere—honestly nowhere. He looked EXACTLY like a bookseller should look, kind of fluffy and bewildered and really, really gay.

“Are you lost?” was the first thing he said to me.

“Nope. Just browsing, thanks.”

“Browsing, I see. Erm. How do you feel about snakes?” he asked. And without waiting for me to answer, he just walked away and vanished around a shelf.

I figured it was a metaphor, or a code phrase for the mafia. Until I turned a corner like ten minutes later and found a little reading nook. It was really pretty, although I feel like that particular window should have been on an interior wall? Anyway, curled up in an armchair in a patch of sunlight was the biggest fuck-off black snake I have ever seen.

Like, I don’t mind snakes in general. But in their normal context, right? Outside. On the ground. Not six feet long and sitting on a threadbare velvet armchair like it owns the place.

I was about to turn around and leave, but I saw a gorgeous first-edition copy of Leaves of Grass on a shelf, a little too close to the snake for comfort. But I had never needed anything so badly in my life.

So I went back to the counter to buy it, but the clerk was nowhere to be found.

While I was waiting, I noticed a collection of pictures hanging on the wall behind the counter, dating back to the very dawn of photography. A couple were of this rock-star looking guy from the 70s that I should probably have recognized, but there were authors and landscapes and stuff, too. There was even an old tintype portrait of Oscar freaking Wilde, sitting in this very shop with a guy that I would ACTUALLY SWEAR was the clerk from before. Like, I know my family all has the same nose, but this guy had the same everything.

After approximately one year of waiting, the clerk came back out to the desk. By now I’ve realized that he’s too bad at his job to be anything but the owner of the shop.

“I saw your snake,” I told him.

“Did you? Was he behaving himself?”

“He was sleeping.”

“Yes, he enjoys that.”

“Does he just stay out in the open like that? What if he gets out?”

He shrugged and smiled. “He always comes home again, the dear boy.”

Right, a homing snake. That’s totally normal.

Then he cleared his throat and asked, in a weirdly reluctant voice, if I was going to buy the Whitman.

“Yes, please,” I told him. “I saw it on a shelf by the snake, and it was just too tempting.”

He sighed. “Oh, yes, I expect it was.”

When I started to hand him my card, he went all fluttery and said that they didn’t take cards.

All right, fine. I had some cash on me, but I told him that he’d sell a lot more books if he got a Square or something.

He got this scandalized look on his face and went, “Why would I want to do that?”

Oookay. I handed over the cash and he popped open the ancient till and started making change.

In shillings. Shillings! I swear to god I saw Queen Anne’s face on one of them. The silver value of the coins was probably as much as I paid for the book.

But I had to have proof that this happened—at that point, all I had was a book in a plain brown wrapper, not appreciably different from what I bought next door. So I asked him for a receipt.

He looked delighted and wrote one up for me.

By hand.

With a fountain pen.

And that’s the story of how I met a bookseller cryptid and his pet snake.

The medical community on literally every female specific health issue ever: “very common condition” “no known cause” “no known cure” :))))))

whats the difference between outlaws and inlaws

*gently places a small clump of moss in your hand*

Cleaning the oceans one step at a time

Two Australians created this container that collects plastic, paper, oil, fuel and detergent floating in the ocean. They want to implement it the middle of next year to clean up the sea worldwide. It seems a great idea. The only “but” as always is money, so they are raising funds to get to their goal. You can see their project and donations here.

Hi love! Just dropping in to say I adore you to the moon and back!

I ADORE YOU TOO

Let me show you one of my favorite images on the internet: nuns performing “exorcism” on a very patient punk dude

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dbXr3GikQE

Morning Today

I enjoy silent early mornings. My cat is begging for my attention as of right now, nudging my arm, my leg, my shoulder - wherever he can reach, in all honesty. I have a fresh cup of coffee, it’s dark and silent. Just me and my thoughts, for at least another half hour. I can prepare for the world by myself right now, I can ready my thoughts to face the day. 

When my guardian wakes up, my coffee will either be cold or gone, and I will be in my room where she can’t see me. I enjoy being solitary in the mornings. The sound of coffee brewing, school buses stopping on my street to pick up silent kids, my own keyboard clacking away. It’s a comfort, this soft silence, the stillness of this morning. 

I hope that my day is good, that the rest of it reflects how peaceful and nice this moment is. I have taken my medicine, all that’s left is to get dressed, and brush my teeth. An easy feat, that I will soon accomplish - right after my coffee. 

i solemnly swear i’m up to no good