Life of Brian

I missed blogging on Sunday and yesterday; I’m still here, so don’t call out for a welfare check. They were just days where nothing happened.

It started innocently enough. There is a fellow back in Augusta, GA, that I follow on Instagram. He took photos of cars and old junkyard cars, but he also took boudoir photos. I’d like his photos, and he’d hit me back. There was one photo shoot of a car he had taken in an alley with some cool graffiti as a backdrop. I asked him where it was so I could take my Miata there too. He sent me the directions. And I would love to know where those pictures are so I could add one here.

Slowly the car photos stopped, and he just transitioned into the boudoir stuff. We still trade likes. Yesterday he had posted 3 sets of photos, and they were at the top of my feed, so I hit the likes and continued to scroll through the rest of my feed. Down through those I follow, interspaced with ads. This shifted into Miatas, other cars, planes, and more ads.

Then I started getting reels of pretty young women in tight shirts, in between the other stuff. Those reels became women in backlit gauzy fabrics, and pretty soon that was all Instagram was showing. Deeply cut halter dresses. Skirts so short that you thought you saw something. So many headlights shining. My favorite was the woman off-camera with arms in frame dangling a lacy negligee, like getting a baby’s attention with a rattle. Then it is zipped out of frame; the woman pops back in wearing said negligee, blink, she’s gone.

Okay, so you probably figured out how come I didn’t blog last night…

Along with my lunch in Sandy yesterday, I stumbled on a small bookstore in the town. It was actually in the shopping center I pulled into to find my lunch spot. After eating I headed back, it’s called Once Upon A Tome, so points already before I even went in. Turns out it is a small shop that has been open for only one week shy of a year. They have a decent collection of both new and used books. Of the used ones I looked at, the books themselves were in near-perfect shape. I ended up buying one used book and one new.

I have been missing going into a physical bookstore. I live in “Portland” and there is a very famous bookstore called Powell’s Books here. It bills itself as the world’s largest independent bookstore. It’s a tourist attraction for crying out loud. I have never darkened its door. Mainly because it is in the downtown of the big bad city, but also because it is 4 stories tall; I’d never be able to find a book, too many choices.

Back in Klamath Falls we would visit our local independent bookstore, Canvasback Books, once a month on haircut day. It was easy as we walked right by it on the way to the salon. I liked buying a book a month for two reasons: I like to read an actual physical book more than something on a screen, and it was nice to support a local business.

As it just so happens, I got my haircut the day before my trip to Sandy. Now that I know about the place, maybe I’ll revive the haircut/book-buying event combo. The only thing different will be a 15-mile drive one-way instead of it being right on the way. The drive to Sandy is a nice low-traffic one and is literally only a mile further away from me than Powell’s…