Birthdays are cool.
  Especially when you have a girlfriend as wonderful as mine. I'll freely admit that I'm harder than an extremely hard thing to shop for. I can never think of anything when asked what I want for birthday or Christmas gifts. I don't place a whole lot of emphasis on my wardrobe, beyond trying to coordinate shades of black, and I don't have any hobbies that lend themselves easily to accessorizing. Add that to a general lack of enthusiasm about the importance of my birth, and I tend to make a pretty lame-ass birthday boy.
  Amy, though, doesn't let any of that faze her. She works very, very hard to make my birthday a good thing. She's taking me to New Hope next weekend, and she still got me presents for the actual day of. A really cool book that I asked for, and another really cool book that I didn't.
  She also found this really cool thing online. If you don't feel like clicking, it's a Personal Library Kit. It comes with the pocket sleeves and insert cards that you find in library books, along with a date stamp and ink pad. It even has the stickers you put on reference books that aren't supposed to be checked out.
  It doesn't take knowing me very long to realize how retentive I am about my books. I hoard paperback copies of books that I especially like to loan out, so that my personal reading copies won't get bent or smudged or molested by urine-soaked vagrants. I've loaned out books, and brought them up to the loanee every single time we communicated until they were returned. This kit is simultaneously perfect for me, and something I never would have thought of. I don't know how Amy found it, but my theory is that she's a wonderful, thoughtful girl, who has a knack for finding people great gifts. Every time I open a package from her, I feel like the bar for good presents is raised a little higher. I am so determined to get her good stuff for Christmas, I'm actually shopping for things to supplement the usual books. It's a whole new world of gift-giving for me. I'll let you know how it goes.

Spoiler-free gloating.
  Sometimes, working in book retail can be cool. For instance, I'm reading this before you are. I'm not going to give you any spoilers, because I'd probably get sued and lose my job. In fact, it's probably not even cool that I'm reading it, but I like to live close enough to see the edge on a clear afternoon.