Some Days You Feel Like a Nut....

I was in Barnes & Noble this evening when a man and woman began making one of the biggest scenes I've ever seen in public. They shouted at each other and at the store manager, cussing and calling names and demanding to receive the customer service to which they were entitled. At one point, the store manager politely asked them to leave, and they dared him to try to make them. "We'll sue you for false arrest!" the woman roared.

My dear friend Dee Ready once said of someone who was behaving abominably, "He's new here. Hasn't been through many lives yet and doesn't know the ropes."

Maybe these folks were on their first swing through the oxygen-rich atmosphere of Mother Earth. Perhaps after another cycle or two, they'll be better prepared for life's little disappointments.

Speaking of which, I went to B&N in search of Inventing the Truth, The Art and Craft of Memoir, by William Zinsser. Crescent Dragonwagon, a writer, teacher, and former Arkansawyer now living in Vermont, recommended the book in response to a comment I made on her new blog, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer.

I've followed Crescent's work and life for quite a while now and was delighted to find her blog. I love the way she leaps from one thought to another and then circles back to tie the whole piece together with filaments as fine as spiderweb and just as strong and beautiful. If you don't know her cookbook, The Passionate Vegetarian, you should. Even if you're not vegetarian (and I'm not totally, I simply don't care much for meat or for what its production does to the planet), you're bound to find treasures among its 1120 pages. And then there are the stories of her life, which she weaves into the text. Delicious.

I'm anxious to read her new cookbook, The Cornbread Gospels, both for the recipes and the new stories.

Anyway, I didn't find Zinsser's book at B&N. Guess I'll have to order it online. Oh dear. I feel an order-fest coming on. Perhaps someone should complain to my manager.