EndorphinGirl™ had a secret chuckle Monday evening when she was flipping channels on the telly and a commercial showed that Ellen (you know Ellen DeGeneres) indicated this is ‘kindness week’. Who knew, certainly EndorphinGirl™ didn’t know this when she referenced Ellen in last Friday’s blog about her kind soul and random acts of kindness. Nice!

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Today’s blog looks at activating endorphins through another type of experience. As we know endorphins are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise and excitement and pain and consumption of spicy food and love and EndorphinGirl™ is adding another to the mix - books. So today’s blog is a bookstore episode.

According to Merriam-Webster, a bookstore is ‘a place of business where books are the main item offered for sale —called also bookshop’. Today though a bookshop is so much more than that, with all the other items sprinkled throughout the store, sometimes music, sometimes greeting cards, and sometimes other baubles. Seems Merriam needs to update ‘her’ definition, though EndorphinGirl™ likes it as it is!

But EndorphinGirl™ does not want to talk about the more-than-books store, she wants to talk about the bookstore experience. Today on a recent trip to a local bookshop to purchase the book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you know by Shakespeare, the William one, for her endorphin offspring, she decided she was going to enjoy the bookshop experience more than ever when after being in the store for but a minute she stepped back into time reflecting on when she read William’s book back in her youthfulness!

You see she loves the bookstore experience, sometimes even more than reading the book, because there are so many possibilities to explore! So EndorphinGirl™ made this simple book purchase into something along the lines of ‘Night at the Museum’. She called it an ‘Hour at the Bookshop’.   Because, yes because with all those nooks and kindles and iPad readers she realized that her bookshop visits may one day become obsolete. So she pretended just for that hour that the bookshop had already turned into a museum. She went from floor to floor and picked out a few sections where she allowed herself well really her imagination to sway away for a minute or two taking her into the experience of the section.  Okay did you get that?  Well otherwise said, as she got to each section she was curious to see what the first book to catch her eye would be.  And she decided whatever it was she would pick it up, flip through it and briefly step into the experience’ of it!  Aha.

She had no plan as to which sections to visit, rather she wandered about and wound up exploring the following sections, which might or might not say something about her?? - Art, Graphic Designs, Architecture, Decorating & Interior, Fashion, History, Cooking, Wines & Spirits, and ended in the Yarn Section.   

So first it was the Art Section, and as her eyes observed the shelves Georgia O’Keefe popped out. Well not Georgia per se, but the cover of a book with one of her beautiful oversized flowers. EndorphinGirl™ at one point in time had a collection of Georgia’s prints adorning her wall – the prints of the oversized flowers. But she also admires Georgia’s New Mexico
landscapes as well. Georgia was a pretty progressive chic for her time, this didn't have to do with the aforementioned art work, EndorphinGirl™ is just sharing an opinion; and she was happy to meet Geogia again!

From the Art Section she sashayed over to the Graphic Design
Section.  Staring straight at her was a little blue book called LOGO R.I.P. A Commemoration of Dead Logo Types by The Stone Twins.  It shares a list of all the logos that have gone to rest, yes to rest in peace (you get it right the R.I.P. part!). The book also depicts a picture of each logo with its own tombstone and some amusing text. Flipping through the book she was reminded of companies such as Pan Am, Kodak, Xerox and many others. A bit of ‘gloomy’ perhaps, however being reminded of some of the logos of defunct or slowly fading companies was interesting, particularly since EndorphinGirl™ is a logo girl! Well, she likes to think up these types of ideas!

Next she moved onto the Architecture & Decorating & Interior Design Section and glaring at her was a couple of Scandinavians. Go figure.  First there was a book about Eero Saarinen, Furniture for Everyman, by Brian Lutz.  Eero was a Finnish, minimalist designer.  Sitting right next to Eero on the shelf was a Swede, Lars Bolander, a prolific designer who now also cooks!  Both have the Scandinavian flare and simplicity and beauty in their designs.  EndorphinGirl™’s curiosity was piqued by all the other designers sitting on that shelf, but she needed to move on.

As she sidled towards the other side of the store, she was struck by an oversized book on a display table in the middle of the store called The Little Black Jacket. The book of course is about black jackets – designed by Karl Lagerfeld and Carina Roitfeld as part of Channels Classic Revisited.  EndorphinGirl™ let her thoughts float for a minute as she flipped through the pages imagining herself throwing one of those-pretty-little-black-jackets on over anything, even an endorphin-gym
outfit!  Oh and yes, she was in the Fashion Section.

Her hour was winding down so she had to keep moving on. She next found herself starring at Lincoln.  Well she was now in the History Section.  Funny enough the first book that was staring back at her from the shelf was “A Team of Rival’s” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. This book is about Lincoln; well you must have figured that out from the first sentence of this paragraph.  She and Jack Steel recently saw the movie by accident (that’s a whole other story), and a past Christmas she had given this same book to Jack.  He is reading it now. EndorphinGirl™ stood in the aisle, thought about the movie for a few seconds and felt a momentary connection to that period in time.  That Lincoln was quite the story-teller among other things!

As she bid adieu to Lincoln the escalator invited her to the floor below.  And as she walked off the escalator there were two bargain sections.  One was Bargain Books and the other was Bargain Prices. These sections took up a quarter of the floor. Going out of character for a moment - she wasn’t planning to blog about this but just remembered this – she walked around to see what types of books were in the bargain section.  Bloggees, you would be amazed.  There was everything from serious-people-you-would-want-to-know books, to books about cars, the military, games, romance, classics, books-you-would-never-want-to-read, etc!.  That may not sound unusual but all the authors, famous or otherwise and books, hardcover or paperback were ‘reduced’ to US$6.95 or US$7.95. Hmm!

Turning the corner she found herself in the Cooking Section. Here the first book that caught her attention was of course about chocolate.  It was titled everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-chocolate or something like that. She ignored the title completely because well just because. You do get it don’t you?  And she quickly moved on – but first - you know chocolate is an endorphin pleaser. Okay that was just made up!  Well sort of made up, there is some potential truth to chocolate being an endorphin pleaser, if you want to believe!

Funny how the Cooking Section is near the Wine & Spirits Section.  As she entered the Wine & Spirits' section she wanted a wine book about Tuscany to be the first book to catch her eye.  And she stood for a minute pretending to be there.  Yes, there meaning in Tuscany.  She didn’t entirely succeed.  However, two other books jumped off of the shelf about other wine regions.  One was Grand Cru, The Great Wines of Burgundy through the Perspective of its Finest Vineyards published by Sterling Pub Co. Inc.  The other book was The Wine Region of Rioja, by Ana Fabriano.  Interesting, especially because the Rioja region is where Cava is from.  And EndorphinGirl™ appreciates Cava.  A flip through both books managed to take EndorphinGirl™ away briefly.  And she hopes to get to one if not all three of these regions one day!  Okay, okay back to reality!

Her next and final stop was to take a rest in the Yarn Section (oh wait a minute it wasn’t yawn it was yarn, ha-ha!).  Well more seriously, she did stop in this section and took a peak at the “Clever Crocheted Accessories” book edited by Brett Bara.  Crocheting is a pastime of Endorphin Girl^™ and it should be noted it can be a good endorphin exercise for the wrists! Just sayin’!

And before her ‘Hour at the Bookshop’ concluded, she was thankful for her extended-imagination visit and appreciated the individual endorphin experience some of the Sections offered!  She then pulled herself back into reality and strolled out of the bookshop landing in Union Square and went on her merry way!

Next time you’re in the bookshop feel free to try the ‘Hour-at-the-Bookshop’ experience - because not only may the bookshop experience be fading so you want to get more in; there are also many endorphin experiences the different book Sections offer!  Just sayin! 



This week EndrophinGirl^™'s son drew a picture of EndorphinGirl^™ reading "Zen and the Art of Endorphin Fortitude".  Keep on endorphing in whatever way that suits!

EndorphinGirl^™



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AFTERTHOUGHT:  EndorphinGirl^™just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. What a read!  She was bedazzled by Jobs' story.  And she is a big fan of biographies but did not manage to get to that Section. Next time!  

[Countdown: 81 days]