(Prompt: Who would you want to see again?)
“My 18 yo-runaway-self so I can show her that I find someone to love & own a home of my own – it did get better.”

This side of town is darker than I remembered, grungier. I remembered it as an artistic, safe-ish place, full of fun and interesting people; seeing it now, I wonder how this ever seemed appealing. I don’t go to areas like this, not at night.

But it’s December 1987, and I know I have a hard year behind and ahead of me. I’ve thought about it for a long time—these visits don’t come cheap—and this seems like the best time for me to come, to offer myself another chance. I’ll have another tough year after this, but I remember how terrible this winter was for me. I hope that coming now will mean I’m happier.

I pull…

Yesterday we got the news that Amazon has acquired GoodReads.

As usual, some people responded with predictable panic. “Greedy corporations, blah, blah, blah, they are going to own everything, blah, blah, blah, monopoly, blah, blah, blah, the End is Nigh!” (I’m paraphrasing here.)

Well, I’m not scared, and I’ll tell you why.  7-11.

Remember 7-11?  You may still have one or two in your area, but if you’re my age, you remember when they were everywhere.  This is the company that essentially invented the idea of the convenience store.  They were open all night, they had a small staff, they stocked only the items with the highest turnover.  They took the idea of a retail market and stripped away everything that wasn’t a high profit item, cut the overhead to the bone, and proceeded to price everybody else out of business.

So why don’t they still own the market…