Renata, Alicey, and Seejiles — be happy! I sent all the Gaiman-y goodness your respective ways yesterday. They would have been sent Friday, but the Mailboxes Etc half a block from my dorm wanted to charge twice as much as the FedEx in Union Square, about 8 blocks away. I decided to go the next day, where I would have more of an excuse to be out over there. Tra la. $8.25 per parcel versus $16 each is worth the walk, says I.

Also, I reiterate my love for used bookstores. Following Ann’s example, I went off to look for a big atlas for sketchbook fodder and wallet-making material (Marcelina has made a gorgeous wallet from snipping up a Van Gogh calendar, inspiring her friends to start an artsy wallet-making industry), and I found:

  1. a giant $3 US/Canada/Mexico road map book thing

  2. a gift for Marcelina that I’ve been searching for the pasy week, but shall remain nameless as she reads this blog and I want it to be a surprise

  3. a figure drawing thingie

  4. and a ridiculously hilarious, short, fat Episode II illustrated storybook (which is ideal random sketchbook fodder and will definitely be made into a wallet). I’ll have to scan some of the images in when I get home (a month from now ::sobs::). Hilarity.

I also found some luvverly (and most importatly, inexpensive) books of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh paintings that would probably make good wallet material, but I decided to leave them for a time when my brain wasn’t wired in impulse-buy mode.

Good stuff.