of things vintage, new, and excluded

This is the famous Zingerman's, in Ann Arbor, home of all that is delicious and good. Oh, Zingy's, let me count the ways I miss you...

Today I'm conjuring up some of their Paesano bread in my mind, and dipping it in the fine Arbequina Olive Oil I recently bought from the Oilerie, an Olive Oil bar in Fish Creek, WI (the most touristy of the Door County towns). Fantasy bread and real olive oil. Hmmm.

And this is me in the photo, wearing a dress that used to be my Mom's, from the late 80s/early 90s, that I like to call vintage, but she doesn't like to hear called vintage.

This is me before I got my hair cut (note to any former students who happen to be reading this blog, yes, I know, I used that abhorrent word GOT)...which I had done right before moving, I'm sure subconsciously it was a symbolic act. I'm still adjusting to my sassy layers that just barely fit in a ponytail...last year this time my hair was flowing halfway down my back. Last year I was also training for a half marathon and confidently running up to 8 consecutive miles with limited difficulty. Today I'm lucky to manage running 1 consecutive mile before sucking air...

But I digress. Today's a day of memories and bits of the past that make me homesick mixed in with my new reality, which is thrilling and positively full of potential.

But. I really wanted to post a mini-rant today about the discrimination against RN's in used bookstores. I've frequented quite a few such bookstores lately, and have noticed that while they include special sections for all manner of odd and esoteric subjects (including the always interesting Circus Book genre), and include sections for other popular, mass-market genres of sci-fi/fantasy and mystery, ROMANCE is no where to be found. A few may be scattered in with the general fiction/literature, but these titles are teetering towards the slightly more "respectable" women's fiction. This exclusion made me mad. I've been formulating reasons in my head--i.e. there are simply too many RNs to even admit any because it is, after all the MOST popular/best-selling genre, and the bookstore would be overwhelmed. But wouldn't this also then mean that these books would come in and out of the store with greater frequency? Surely they could set aside a little shelf space for tales from the heart.

I suspect the exclusion has more to do with perceptions of high/low literature, class/cultural capital perceptions, and suspicion of those damned scribbling women, and their impressionable readers. Again.