New in the letterpress goods shop this afternoon, a 2-month calendar for January and February 2021. Also accurate in 2027, 2038 and 2044.

Night Shift by Lucy Dacus.

My friend Peter writes about wrapping up his pants business:

I was quite grateful to our designer Cecilia for not mentioning early on that pants are pretty complex pieces of apparel with plenty of complications built in, and lots of variety in how they would be used. In other words, all bodies are different. (Sidebar: Let’s face it, legs are weird once you start thinking about them.)

I was one whose body was different enough to not have a pair of Zephyr pants that suited, so I know the truth of this (the curse of the Rukavina men: short of leg, talk of torso).

There’s a lot that rings true in Peter’s postmortem when I think about my own experience of running a physical goods shop for the last month.

There’s now an electric vehicle charger at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which would have been a big help to use when Catherine was regularly receiving treatment there.

I’m hopeful that a charger will also be installed at the PEI Palliative Care Centre, a place where, I can attest from personal experience, the last thing you want to be worrying about is whether your car’s battery has enough juice to get you home.

Jessica Spengler on Christmas lights and neighbours:

When the sun goes down, I turn our Christmas lights on for us because they make our flat feel cozy. But I also turn them on for everyone else on the street, so when our neighbors look out their windows, they see something bright and pretty in the cold night. And when I look out my window and see the twinkling lights and candles and Christmas trees of our neighbors, I feel like they’re partially for us, too. We’re sending out little signals to say we’re here, and we know you’re there, and while we may all still be isolated and afraid, we see each other, and we care.

Everything I know about merchandising, including what the word itself means (“the activity of promoting the sale of goods, especially by their presentation in retail outlets”), I learned at Canadian Tire as a teenager. While my primary role there was selling Commodore VIC-20 computers, I received all the training that any floor staffer would, so I learned all about how to put English-language labels facing front, making sure there was always the appearance of products being fully in stock, and that Canadian Tire sells most of the Armour All in Canada.

All of which made me appreciate this floor display at The Bookmark even more.

After being out of stock for a week, Using Her Marbles is back in stock at The Bookmark.

From Black Ink, Fighting the Virus at Central Michigan Prison:

As the unrest inside Michigan prisons continues, how might we make the most of these shared sentiments between what are usually antagonistic groups? The Michigan guards union is holding pickets and calling for the resignation of Director Washington. And some guards are not silent about their sympathies with prisoners. In April, a CO at Cotton Correctional put it plainly, writing “I get it. [Prisoners are] panicking too. While prisoners can still call their families, visits have been suspended. Sometimes we look at each other and we can both tell what the other is thinking: I don’t know what to do.”

The Love & Sex section of The Guardian is an endless source of fascinations, none more so than the “How we stay together” column. Here’s a good example.