A Day in The Life with Boundary Books

[09:38]

I wake for the second time — my partner had already slipped out earlier, careful not to disturb me. He's a dutiful company man on weekdays, sometimes not home till past midnight, and somehow still spends his days off mountain climbing, which I will never understand. My shop doesn't open until 13:00, so there's time to fill. Weekdays I hold down an ordinary office job; Saturdays — only Saturdays — I run a gay/queer artbook shop called boundary books, a ten-minute bike ride from my apartment. Mornings tend to move slowly: the gym, or YouTube. I'm on ADHD medication, and the side effects can leave me feeling a little off, though a workout after helps. Today, though, I actually have somewhere to be — which almost never happens to me. I'm off to collect a print by Taisuke Nakano, a photographer whose photobook we carry, from a framing shop in Ebisu.

[13:45]

I cycle to the shop in Higashi-Shinjuku, a couple of subway stops from Ni-chōme, Tokyo's actual gay district. Before opening: unlock the door, sweep the entrance, tidy the desk, pick a few books for the window. I post a photo to Instagram, my only real marketing. What still strikes me is hearing directly from artists I'd never cross paths with at my day job. Customers tend to show up right after I open, and today's no different — one visitor. My shop is three square meters, half of which is where I sit, so first-timers are usually taken aback. Possibly the smallest bookshop in Japan, haha. But small as it is, the new-release gay and queer art lineup can more or less hang with the well-known shops in Europe or the States, or so I like to tell myself.

[14:27]

My focus is nonexistent today, as usual — every task gets interrupted by Instagram, then X, then a few YouTube Shorts. I'm more or less addicted to Heated Rivalry at the moment. My timeline is wall-to-wall Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander sex-scene GIFs. Only three episodes have aired in Japan as I write this — my one real indulgence of the week. I upload the new stock to the shop's site and post it to Instagram: three titles today, The Shy Guy #8, Lionel Wendt, Boy With Feelings. It never stops feeling good when a post gets a reaction — not just from customers, but from the artists and publishers themselves. A few years ago I was just another reader.

[18:29]

My weekly regular comes by — an older man from the neighborhood, a photography enthusiast, an odd fixture here somehow. Says he's straight, which is unusual for this shop. He browses everything, from BUTT Magazine to Wolfgang Tillmans, then tells me what he thought. Today's update: he biked over to the ethnic music museum nearby and caught a free harpsichord performance.

[21:00]

I close up for the night. My partner usually cooks, but he isn't back from the mountains yet, so it's a convenience-store dinner on the way home. I get a message from the photographer Keiki Banja about the photobook tied to his show at platform 3, a Tokyo bookshop dealing in queer and gender-focused titles. I'm just a bookseller, and without stock to sell, there's nothing I can do — a fact I have to keep reminding myself of, gratefully, whenever a Japanese photographer reaches out like this. I keep thinking I should be carrying more work by Japanese and Asian artists. Europe still dominates in sheer output and distribution, but gay and queer art exists everywhere — I believe it belongs to everyone, not to one continent. I'm writing this while I wait for my partner to come home; before bed, I load the bread machine with tomorrow's loaf and turn in. Goodnight.