Spent yesterday afternoon in bowels of local Friends of Library "Bookworm" used book trailer clearing shelves of decades-old compost to make way for (finally, at long last) fresh stock. Much of what we removed will be "recycled" at local junk store or landfill, but I was privileged as volunteer to skim the cream, though not as completely as I would have liked. Found a couple of volumes that will go for 50 or 100 dollars, but I may spend tomorrow rooting around in the stacked garbage-book boxes (awaiting Monday pickup) for more.

Today we continue - I have offered a free corner of my storage unit for the group to store the boxes of high-graded material soon to be donated to another FOL group 50 miles to the north, which is starting its own shop and needs good stuff to get off the ground.

I am so incurably mercenary I can't stand the thought of any possibly valuable volumes being lost, even though the idea of returning to my old bookseller daze makes me queasy. It was something I did while my mind recovered from emotional breakdown mid-2000s, when I couldn't think well enough to do anything else. I enjoyed it. Eventually though my physical health broke down, too, and in 2010 I got rid of my entire 20,000-volume stock to make space in my hovel and to rest for a few years. I can't believe I'm into it again, but the profit potential when one is knowledgeable is seductive - especially if, like me, one is barely surviving on minimum-wage dole while attempting to create "art."

Flat dry heat and relentless hammer of UVs returns. The plants burn and curl no matter how moist the soil.

I dreamed last night of an old African woman who fed the famished inhabitants of the drought-stricken interior from the gardens around her hut beyond the mountains, in a green moist crescent up against the sea and sand.

Nights chock full o' dreams lately - New Moon.