Leslie Kendall Dye is an actor and dancer in New York City. She has written for Vela Magazine, Word Riot, Salon, The Washington Post, The Toast, Brain,Child, Off The Shelf, The Manifest Station, and others. You can find more of her writing at lesliekendalldye.net.
1. Set goal: vacuum the living room.
2. Vacuum. Did I say that already? Have you done it? I didn’t think so.
3. Wait—don’t get ahead of yourself! Plug in vacuum cleaner and leave it in center of living room. As a reminder.
In the early 1950s you could walk around almost any small town and, if you kept your eyes above shop window level, you would have no difficulty in finding a bookseller. Lower your eyes and you would most probably discover that he was selling not books, but stationery or toys or tobacco or fancy goods. No doubt he had started out with good intentions in his heart; but over the years the “other goods” had…
