Brick & Mortar Friends: Book Passage

A big fat Bean Up The Nose Art "Howdy!" to the venerable and fabulous:

Talks by famous authors.  Local authors.  Tons and tons of all kinds of books, gizmos, beauteous objects.  In short, Book Passage's store in Corte Madera (with another in San Francisco) has just about everything that the English majors and travel-lovers among us (STAND UP!!!) could want.  

This is just one shot of one small area in their terrific two-part store.  (Yes, two locations across a breezeway . . . and a cafe, to boot).

Thanks to the kind and forward-looking eyes of buyers Susan and Polly, Book Passage has been selling Bean Up The Nose Art luggage tags since September, and just today added a very nice supply of our greeting cards.  THANK YOU, BOOK PASSAGE!   You rock! 

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Driving there in the rain today to make my happy delivery, I spotted these two terrific tiny bumper stickers on the car stopped in front of me.

In case you can't read it in the photo, they say, "Legalize happiness," and "I'm Glad You're Alive."  Wow.  That's pretty darned nice to read right in front of you at a stoplight.  And it reminds me of what I loved most last night from what I was reading in Julia Cameron's The Sound of Paper:

At bottom, cynicism is a cheap and shoddy response

to a life we are afraid to love because it might, for a time, be painful.

Heck yes.  Those of you who know me can attest:  I can fall right into some pretty darned dark, sarcastic and cynical wells.  This succinct and pointed little gem gave me pause . . . to reflect . . . and practice . . . and realize . . . umhmmmm . . . that is just what cynicism is.  

Can't say I can obliterate my cynicism and sarcasm.  They've been in my tool chest for a really long time.  And I have to admit:  sometimes they offer a brand of solace that's hard not to fall into.  But those words in green right up there are a good sort of stop sign . . . at which to choose instead to say, "Hey -- I'm glad you're alive!"  And I am.