This is what someone who is also working at the fair is encouraging me to do. I think as she says this, that she does not know me or about the exigencies of my life. For example, it’s 10:56 p.m. as I am writing this – I have not gone and cleaned the horse pen yet. When I’m done writing this, and done doing my chores, I am going to fall into bed. My feet will be level with my head.

Putting my feet up – I guess this would be on a high stool in front of a television screen. If I did this, something else would not get done.

I have not worked on Shelf Life since the beginning of the fair. The morning time that I was using to work on it has since been spent puttering. I will, on September 2, resume work on my ms. I did leave off wanting to write about the fair. Today I was thinking about fair smells. Popcorn, sawdust from the Lumberjack Show, and the mixed smell of fried fast food.

The fair is pretty strange. Too many out of shape people roaming around snarfing down turkey legs and whatnot. It’s the whatnot that’s making them fat.

I got to the fair early, and as usual, I didn’t have to deal with any traffic. I unloaded books. Then Melina appeared. We had a rare disagreement, and I returned home. After moping around for a bit, I picked raspberries with Pete; then I went and distributed books. The break from the fair who-ha felt good. I took my time distributing, which I usually do not do.

I did stop at the literacy center/hotel in order to pick up the books for distribution. Just one person was there. I quickly got my books and left.

I deliberated a bit about going back to the fair because there was some traffic in town and I thought that perhaps that this was fair traffic. I took the back route, down Chugach Street, and discovered that the traffic problem had another origin.

I entered the barn and all evening long, people entered and exited with me saying more about the book project than about the former Colonist barn, or about Kid’s Kupboard. Pete went and did the distributing. And so, by the day’s end, we had parted with numerous boxes of books, we being Pete and me.

It was quite the crowd. I spoke with one woman who had a carnation tucked in the rear of her backpack. I complemented her on this and she said that someone gave it to her in commemoration of her having that carnation, and she jumped to life, saying that she had told this person that she’d now been sober for 36 years. I told her how impressed I was and this led to a long discussion about a variety of topics.

Kelly, who was recycling stopped by – I didn’t recognize her at first, but I figured that she’d keep doling out the clues.

Next: 227. 8/23/25: Unfair