Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Not long ago I made mention that I wasn't sure if I would want to have a beer with "the girl in Birks" who moved here in 2000.  Wild eyed with untamed hair in shades of auburn with blondish highlights, her peasant blouses with tattered jeans, and tanks with long hippie skirts, leather knapsack on her shoulder and gypsy scarf around her neck spoke of her age more than anything else.  In college she had read Jack Kerouac's On The Road no less than twenty-five times; always scenting the air with clove cigarettes and littering the desk floor, and any flat surface with beer bottles.  Sadly, or maybe aptly, they were not uber cool micro-brews.  Back then Miller and Bud Light called to her on Kentucky nights.  One of the roommates--Mere--"borrowed" the cherished book, but that should really read she "lost" the novel in the forlorn flat surface with papers, clothes, and trinkets.  Most just call it a desk.  Shortly before graduation the mysterious flat...

Amongst the raindrops and puddles wider than my height, I plunged for an afternoon engagement . . . oh, it was the sexiest kind . . . a hot, steamy, rekindle with the New York Public Library.  So sexy indeed.  So, up I traipse getting there to realize I've lost my access card.  But that's okay.  I'm a bonafide city resident so I got a library card, after a gem of a librarian let me pull up an online bank statement for a current address.  Seriously, do you see where this is going? After climbing the stairs of ascension, to room 308, I requested my requested off-site material now on-site via an email request that I verified via a digital image on my phone.  I then schlepped a shit load of American Legion magazines to a table for the latest book I'm muddling on.  For the next two hours--since final grade insanity got me there late, and the rain played its too long game of showering me and the city--I plunged through 12 issues from 1960.  Among ot...