My Neighbour Stole My Bird Feeder

I'm sitting here at The Gallery this morning, enjoying a treat and drinking coffee while listening to a trio of people discuss their plans for the novels they are writing. Their prospective stories sound interesting, as does all the thought they put into each segment.People and their stories are interesting -- though not so interesting that I would want to be thrown amongst vast groups of strangers like I was at the last writers conference I attended. A whole room of people you don't know, sitting at round tables that make conversation necessary and polite. Working in design gave me the excuse to meet people under controlled conditions -- you have to interact at some level with the people who use your product.Some people are fascinating in their contradictions. You can be talking to someone who seems perfectly reasonable and ordinary, and then they start talking about how much they admire a certain leader who, to anyone who can stop laughing or being alarmed long enough to listen…