On our date last evening, after savoring our three small Dairy Queen sundaes (we had free coupons), M and I stopped over at Barnes and Noble to buy The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.
Now, I used to own the book, but I think I must have loaned it out, apparently for good. I’d bought it after visiting a Sunday school class that I attended only once or twice just before M and I started dating. I would have gone back for more Sundays, probably, but I quickly became too otherwise encumbered.
We sat there, last night, in the outer limits of the bookstore’s indoor cafe and did journaling-based marital self reflection using the library edition (on Monday it is due for the final, nonrenewable time) and the one we pulled off the store shelf.
But self reflection in a bookstore cafe is quite nearly impossible. As I commented to M, “There are just too many books about too many things.” How could I possibly journal when feet away from our table of contemplation were the titles How to Write What You Want and Sell What You Write (I just now saw that they start at fifty cents on amazon.com) and the No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit (apparently more effective, considering amazon’s $7.51)?
And there were other people to watch, people absorbed in books or magazines or in mindless monologues about what they’re reading, like one husband to his wife two tables away from us: “This woman had a 19-pound baby…. ‘And I quote, “She has a lot of mental illness; she’s had a needle in her arm for 34 years.”‘… What do you say we go eat something?…. Did you know Sandra Bullock has a sister? Doesn’t look anything like her. Well, just maybe around her eyes. I see Sandra’s wearing a Rolex Mariner.”
I struggled but managed to finish scribbling my thoughts. It was getting late–almost 8:30–and as unprivate as any private discussion there would have been, we bought the book and took our notes with us for the drive home.