2013: Good Things In [Book] Store

Off the Record - My Morning Jacket

Today was pretty great. A good portion of it was spent in the company of a good friend of mine as we spent some much-needed time together talking about life, etc. for a few hours at a coffee shop. It was a welcome conversation that spanned time reaching as far back as 2004 and then to the present as we recounted different stages of our friendship, the twists and turns in our individual lives and the enigma that is a relationship, be it friends or of the more romantic variety.

I love good conversation.

Much of our exchange concerned each of our individual resolutions to more fully appreciate the people in our lives who truly loved and respected us for who we were. We'd both found that in the past year, there were several friendships or relationships that we had been a part of where we were giving more than we were receiving in return. Of course, when you sincerely care for someone, you give of yourself without necessarily expecting an equal amount of reciprocation. Usually because you DO get things out of the relationship, whether tangible, physical, emotional or otherwise. However, an extended period of effort in something that is as vulnerable and energy-consuming as a friendship or relationship, if you're getting nothing from the other end, it becomes stale and, frankly, discouraging.

BUT, the purpose of this post was not to divulge our conversation (and believe me, 3 hours worth was MUCH more than my little nugget above) but was to celebrate a little blessing in disguise I had today!

The plan my friend and I had laid out was to meet at 12:30 at the coffee place. However, I got there a bit early (likely due to my admittedly lead foot) and after sitting in the place for a few minutes alone, I had the presence of mind to skip over (not literally) to the used bookstore next door to see what they had to offer. I scanned the modern fiction for a few novels I'd been looking for and after being met with disappointment, I looked over the classic literature. [Tangent - I prefer classic literature to modern literature because there is so much mediocre writing that has been put out en masse during the most recent decades. I'll explain more in a later post; hold me to it!] I found, much to my surprise and elation a book I had been looking for for years: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. Better yet, it was four dollars. Better even still is that it was a hardback and featured three other short stories from the author.

So, point is, adventure - in the form of good deals on novellas you've been searching for - is out there. Just follow your intuition. God loves us.

Always,

Mike

The Big Picture - Bright Eyes (You'll be seeing a lot of them, no doubt)