"What Happens When There Isn't Any More Room for a Book?" "Then the Books Shall Walk the Earth." [Strand Day 1]

Yesterday was my first day working as a goddess of fiction at The Strand. That is my self given title of course, but I think that business cards should be made up. My job at the moment is essentially to stack fiction books back on the shelves and help customers. Which is all well and good, however I came across some unexpected challenges.

The Strand is essentially a warehouse and anyone who has ever heard of it knows that its famous credo is "18 miles of books". The entire mileage of Manhattan is 22.96 miles. Think about that. Ok. Good.

My first challenge came with John Grisham. I had one of his books to stack and as you know, he has been quite prolific. When I tried to stack this particular book it wouldn't fit on the shelf so I took to rearranging it. If you take out some books and put them behind the other books you can make more room. This was my first time doing this yesterday morning and I was very proud of myself for learning how to be efficient so quickly. As usual I jumped the gun. Just when I slide the book I had into place a huge stack of books got pushed out on the other side of the shelf, falling from way high up. Luckily there was no one browsing in that isle because I'm pretty sure I could have caused some pretty serious injury.

My manager laughed and said "Ah yes, the old tumble." The first step of any sort of indoctrination is learning the language. "Tumble" is my first word. I proceeded to "tumble" again yesterday... again, no one was harmed. When I asked a fellow employee what happened when there really is no more room for a book he looked at the stack of books on the shelf that needed to be put back, looked at me, looked at the book in my hand, and said completely dead-pan "Then the books shall walk the Earth." Ok. By 5 PM my manager caught on that I was a "greeter" type (I'm guessing this means friendly? Haven't worked out this vernacular yet) and I was placed in the front of the store saying "Hello, welcome to The Strand" like a puppet. However, it was a welcome break from stacking books and a lot of funny people said "Hello Rachel!" (I had my name tag on) New York City man.

In my down time I've been doing a lot of writing. I'm applying to creative writing summer programs, hoping to refine my MFA manuscript so that I can send it out in the fall. I think that the Strand will be a positive place for me at the moment because if I don't write after being there then I will just feel straight up lazy. I've found that nothing good has ever come of this.

Today I will embark on day 2. Colorful stories to follow but now its time to be gracious.

Gratitude Journal [entry #6]

1. Mucinex
2. HBO on demand
3. The characters of New York City