On thrift stores, books, and Phantoms

Thrift store

DEFINITION: A non-profit or for-profit retail establishment selling previously owned, second-hand items ranging from clothes, housewares, appliances, books, electronics, and miscellanea. Donations to thrift stores are usually tax-deductible. Here Wikipedia's international description of a thrift store, also known as a charity shop.

The thrift store was always an exciting place to go growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money, so every couple of months, we’d hit the local thrift store for clothing and other supplies. This is a picture of the thrift store I remember the most. It’s the RAD Thrift Store, located at 215 West Main Street, Santa Maria, California.

There is a smell to thrift stores (at least all the thrift stores that I have ever visited). It smells like body odor, mildew, disinfectant, perhaps ages of perfumes, cigarette smoke, dank attics, danker basements, and lastly, I suppose it smells like poverty. I can remember running through the aisles of this thrift store with my siblings and playing with the toys for sale. My mother was always looking at the clothes and linens. After an indeterminate amount of time, she would call out and all four of us would make our way to the cashier’s stand.

We always wore what my mother chose, and I can’t remember ever hating anything she made me wear. In fact, the only clothes I truly hated were brand new ruffle dresses with poofy sleeves. There was nothing inherently wrong with them, except I would have to wear them to school with little shiny shoes while the other girls had tennis shoes and sneakers, jeans, and a t-shirt. When I was a bit older, I remember buying old dresses to cut up and make into skirts from this very thrift store.

As an adult, I have gone to the thrift store for many reasons. As I have two boys roughly the same build and height and who are growing quickly, I find I need to constantly buy clothes that fit them. It is cost-prohibitive to buy them new clothes all the time, but I can go the thrift store and buy them five or six pairs of jeans for under $20. I have also gone for cheap and sometimes very interesting artwork to decorate my home with. But most importantly, I go to thrift stores to buy inexpensive books.

Going to the local thrift store to pick out my latest batch of used books is always exciting. The pleasure I get from looking at the worn and not-so-worn spines is only topped by actually picking the books and getting to read them. During my last visit, I found a few gems: Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima. I also picked a rather meaty, but altogether random romance novel, a suspense novel and Dean Koontz’s Phantoms.

I loved Phantoms. Not because it is extremely well-written or impressed me terribly. It is classically Koontz. What I loved about this book was the previous owner’s notes. On several of the book’s pages, the previous owner had written her impressions, predictions, sarcastic comments, and references to other books. At least I think it is a woman from the handwriting, but I cannot be sure. Where else could I have picked up such a book if not from the thrift store? I can’t decide whether I will follow this woman’s example and mark up my books with my thoughts. There is an ingrained distaste for defacing books. But I will think about it.

TheThriftShopper.com is an excellent resource on thrift store shopping.

Thoughts and Memories of the Ex- January 4, 2007

There were times when things were going well with the Ex. Times when everything was great, and we were working together towards the goal of having better lives for us and our children. I have beautiful memories of my time with him. I remember how it felt to lie together in our first apartment. We would lay nude on our futon under the window. There was a huge oak tree outside and the wind would blow in, making the curtains billow. Young, sexual, and in love. He was the first person to tell me that I was beautiful. He would stare at me and touch my face. It felt like love then. I remember him crying at the birth of my first son. Crying to me that it was a boy. So many memories -- 11 years worth.

My Ex was one of the few people who understood the things that make me truly laugh. We had sexual chemistry and desired each other. Since he saw me grow from child, to woman, to mother, I could be nude with him and not cover my imperfections. I could be ridiculous and nerdy. I could sing at the top of my lungs, and he would smile or roll his eyes. I could discuss my views on politics, and he would debate with me and see my side-- even when we could not discuss our relationship. Small things made us happy. We loved watching the same TV shows (most of the time) and the same foods.

More than that, he saved me from a sad childhood. He knew every detail of me, and I knew every detail of him. I knew the sadnesses of his childhood, his fears, his quirks. I devoted my life to him to the detriment of my own life.

Yet, he always thought I did not do enough for him. To him, I never dressed up or wear sexy things for him. He thought I didn't think of him first. But how could that have been true when the most important pieces of me were cast aside to make him happy. I didn't visit my family; I stopped writing and communicating with friends because it made him insecure.

Things were never perfect, even at our happiest. There are far more bad times than there are good. He recently asked me if I was ever happy with him, and I said, "Yes, I was happy. But you killed it." That is the truth. The love I describe in the beginning is just a story to tell now. I feel so much anger when I am near him. I feel raw. His presence rips open the tenous threads of my normalcy, and I feel like I can scream. He sees it too. He has asked me if I am okay, and I have no other response but to say that I do not like having him around me. When he still lived with me, he once asked if we would ever make love/sex again. If I would "call him up" when he moved out. How can I do that? How could I consider opening up my body (and by connection, my heart) to him when he had ripped me to shreads?

Remembering the good times is bittersweet and often makes me feel hollow inside. The self-recriminations begin. I ask myself what could I have done differently? How do you make a cheater change? How do you make him love you? I think to myself, Why was I not enough? The fact is that there are men married to women who are awful, unkind, cruel, petty, unkempt, unhappy, but they still do not cheat on them.

He either loved me but was not strong enough to resist the allure of other women, or he never loved me. Both are painful to accept. What I have to accept is that Ex's cheating was not my fault, and that I could not have been more than what I was.

It was not my fault.
It was not my fault.
It was not my fault.

The guilt and self-doubt rise like the tide; swelling to huge peaks and then ebbing. I just wish the memories would not break the surface.

After all, we are no longer together and I am trying to be happy. But the memories of him and what we went through are coloring my current perceptions. The second someone reminds me of him, I no longer can speak with them the same way.

That's enough of this long-winded post.

Amidst Paper Mountains

I am quite sick at the moment. I have not been truly sick like this for a long time. Don't get me wrong, I get tummy-aches and generally feel awful, but what I am feeling now is an overall miserableness. I have a fever, my head hurts, my throat feels swollen, the tip of my nose is rubbed raw because I have been blowing it so much. I left work early so I could rest a bit.

[In an interesting side-note, I am so congested that when I blew my nose, air popped out of the side of my eye and fogged the inside of my glasses. That has happened twice now. Yes, gross, I know.]

This brought to mind a nice memory. I used to have huge tonsils that would act up several times a year. I would get so very sick with throat pain and fever. Yes, this memory is a nice one. Bear with me. I had been dating my ex-husband for a couple of months and we still had not kissed. Remember, I was only 13 at the time. Well, he had never seen me get sick with tonsillitis before. I was in the daybed that was in our living room, and he was looking down at me, putting a wet cloth on my forehead. Then he leans down and kisses me. Mind you, I was miserable and could not breathe with my mouth, but it was still a wonderful experience. My first kiss was stolen when I was too sick to resist it.

I got mad afterward. I wanted my first kiss to be romantic or at least when I was more conscious. But it was a touching moment nonetheless.

*sigh*