It’s four in the morning
The end of October
A cold rain is pattering
Out in the blackness
The wood fire has cooled
The house remains warm
Down in the valley
The few lights that can be seen
Are fuzzy Monet-like
Gray-blue blurs in the darkness
It will rain all day
Dead brown leaves
Will be plastered to pavement
Tomorrow is Halloween
Winds will howl
Red, yellow, orange leaves
Will fly through the sky
Scrabble and scratch the streets
Chase across the fields
That have not yet been covered
With cheap ugly houses
“Starting in the 800s”

Where did the month go?

I know.

Amongst an impossible avalanche of books.

On the edges of that, I live my other life. Such as it is.

What’s next?

It is too predictable.

Thursday morning. A long deep sleep aided by physical and mental exhaustion. A strange schedule I’m keeping, but time doesn’t matter anymore.

I got home last night and carried the boxes of flower bulbs into the garage.

I guess I got carried away. They’re mostly daffodils. I need to keep up with the Wordsworths! We will see if spring rewards all the effort. The boxes needed to be cut open so the dormant flowers could breathe.

Then it was on to the mulch that had been in the back of the truck for ten days or so. Is it an endless load? Or have I just not been motivated after the recent strenuous days?

Dinner was leftover sauteed eggplant from Modern Asia while watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Which we’re sponsoring at the Weinberg in January.) It took me three nights to get through the movie. It is poetry in motion. Low key. Subdued voices. Except for the monkeys, of course. The cold dark infinity of space. The movie had its world premiere at the Uptown Theater on Connecticut Avenue in DC on April 2, 1968. Two days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. Washington was soon on fire. I remember wondering if the riots would reach out to Rockville where I lived. I was 13.

The burned-out neighborhoods of DC remained derelict for decades. There may still be some abandoned shells down there.

Now my memory conflates about that year. It was a terrible time. My dad had been called to active duty as a colonel in the Army Medical Corps. He was 59 years old and aging fast. They were desperate for doctors due to Vietnam War casualties returning to Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital. He loved wearing the uniform. We had left the idyllic home and neighborhood of my childhood in Amherst, New York and moved into a five-year-old split level in a wasteland development in “nowhere” Maryland. My mom was chronically ill. Life had become dystopian.

Ok. Back to 2001 and 1968. My childhood friend, Billy Burnham, had flown down from Buffalo. I think my parents felt sorry for me. Billy and I played golf at the Old Soldiers’ Home. We must have been given cab money, but for some reason, decided to walk. I vividly recall us walking up Georgia Avenue with our golf clubs over our shoulders. Surreal. And likely pretty dangerous. We also saw 2001 together. It made no sense to me, but I liked the outer space stuff.

That had to be in the summer of 1968. Billy had to be on summer vacation.

As bizarre in some ways as the movie.

Back to 2025.

The movie is prescient in so many ways. But we haven’t got Hilton hotels in space stations yet.

And the rain continues pattering on the roof and windows in the blackness on the morning of October 30, 2025.

Yesterday was another blur as we finished the first 100,000-book order and began the second. We were at capacity before this. Now we are at more than capacity. No. That’s not possible. Redefine capacity.

Anyway, any day was as it has been this past month. Carts and supervising the building’s upheaval of pushing 10,000s of books out the door while trying to deal with the flood of books coming in other doors.

What can I show you that you haven’t seen before?

In mid-afternoon, I got paged to the office.

“There are four people here to see you.”

“???”

It was four economic people from Frederick City and County. I’d forgotten completely. (Should I be worried?)

So many appointments. Doctors. Vets. Insurance. Sales reps. People selling us loads of books. Lawyers. Accountants…

I knew they’d want a tour. So we began. We crossed through data entry. Then sorting. Out onto the loading docks. North along the 21 loading docks into the Books by the Foot region. Then the rear cross aisle that goes through the long, long orderly aisles of 2.5 million internet books. (There’s always a “Wow” when visitors look down a row and see how far away the tour started.) Duck into the former Post Office cafeteria, which is partially a break room but also contains thousands of very old books whose only value is decorative.

(We are currently overstocked.)

Back south to peer into some of the collectible rooms where the old books do have value. A quick stop to meet Annika in her research room and see if she’s found anything exciting lately. Then, completing the circumnavigation, back where we started.

They announced they had an award to give us.

The key to the city! Well, not exactly, but still very cool. It is gratifying to be recognized for good citizenship and longevity.

Then it was back to the books that I love so much. Perhaps too much.

It is Friday, October 31st. Halloween. The wind is howling out in the darkness. Occasionally, a dose of dead leaves is tossed against the black bedroom windows.

I don’t feel good. Worry and stress? I hope nothing more organic.

The week has taken a lot out of me.

Last Friday afternoon, I drove a friend to Baltimore. I’d bought tickets months ago to see Little Feat. My car’s navigation has been misbehaving lately. For some reason, it directed me to take Rt 40 in through west Baltimore. Soon the commercial strip turned into blocks of boarded-up row houses. Baltimore once had a proud “stoop culture.” Now you could see through some upper-floor windows that the roofs were gone. Some blocks were completely abandoned. Others partially. It was like a war zone. How could anyone escape this? It was frightening, and I kept myself ready to speed off if necessary. Then we were in the center city, where the classic architecture belies some of the city’s problems. I used to love to come to the Inner Harbor or to Orioles’ games in their old stadium when they had their glory years. I attended the Orioles’ final game there. In a post-game ceremony, 78 former players marched out of a “cornfield” in left field to mimic Field of Dreams.

Finally, the parking deck for The Lyric Baltimore was just ahead. The tickets included a “Meet and Greet” with the band. That was kind of weird. The concert was a blast. It is cool to see musicians rock into their 80s. When they played Lowell George’s iconic “Willin'”, chills went through me. The group my brother Jim was in, Seatrain, recorded it—maybe first. Jim would tell me this guy Lowell George would chase them down in airports with a song he wanted them to hear. It was produced by George Martin in his first gig after the Beatles. Sigh… they were so close…

The drive back was torture. Getting up and dragging myself to work on Saturday was even worse.

When I pulled into the dockyard to let the dogs romp, I was struck a body blow by the sight of 500—actually 498—boxes of books piled on the pavement in front of Dock 2.

We’d worked so hard on Friday afternoon to get everything in the building, and now… THIS!

Impossible.

Sunday, I went in early to grind my way through books. I’d committed to speak at the DC Rare Book Collecting Festival and Fair at the University Club.

The show was produced by Eve and Edward Lemon, who have created a renaissance in rare book shows around the country as well as seminars and other bookish events with their organization Fine Book Fairs. Everything they do is first class. My car misled me again. It took me into the heart of DC but failed to note there was a marathon going on. I got there in time to speak to a handful of people about the current state and future of books and old bookselling. Then I went up to the show to visit Annika, who had set up our booth. It looked great and was actually pretty successful.

I bought a book from my friend Jeff Bergman.

And a mid-18th century copy of Paradis Perdu from Ben Pagel, who is Buzz Bookstore. I’m a sucker for anything Paradise Lost.

Then I headed back—using my much more trustworthy iPhone for directions. A few hours of books went into the night. There’s no question of getting ahead, but I’m compelled to struggle to not get too much further behind.

The rest of the week? A blur.

The sun is up. Its rise has just moved into the trees. The dawn was striking. Nearly blood red.

It was heartening to see a flock of turkeys has returned to the mountain.

I thought they’d all been killed by the coyote pack or plague.

Now that it is November, we need to think about Christmas. We always sell out of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This little one doubles as a tree ornament.

Here’s our email for our November store sales. Stay tuned for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales later this month!

We occasionally get complaints that we don’t pay enough for books.

“I paid $25 each for these Nora Roberts and James Patterson bestsellers, and you’re only offering…”

Well, we get a hundred of books by authors like these for every one we can actually sell.

But we also get a number of these, “Please come take our books…”

“Free!”

I wonder if the stress of it all is worth it. All the books coming and going—it’s overwhelming. It may be taking a toll on me. But what else is there to do?

I would like to return to Grasmere and see Wordsworth’s daffodils in bloom next spring.

And I’d like to go to…