recession

I went down today and traded in some books that I'd grown out of -- or never grown into, for some Christmas presents.

Recession is interesting to me, mostly for the fact that it is a shared emotional reaction of an entire society.  

I can feel it though, the strange passive aggression of the masses, the folks around me fighting for their piece of the highway, for their parking space, lingering just a little longer at the milk and sugar counter at the coffee shop, and returning your apology with sharp silence when your bag hits their arm on the street.

Still, when every dollar counts -- at least in the anxious collective mind.  It feels pretty damn good when, after adding up the stack of books beside the cash register, the bookstore clerk returns on a limp to his side of the counter, and adds an extra dollar and a half to your store credit, because he knows you are, at the very least, trying to dig Yeats.