Bookmark

One of the towns I do business in is home to a large university — a couple of them, actually — and this time of year it is stocked to capacity with early twenty-something students. Generally their main impact on my life is that they're roaming around fucking up traffic and clotting up the good bars and exhibiting every single possible combination of "10" on the weird-o-meter, from classic Hollywood casting-call "geeky freshman" to "torn-jean/toboggan-cap/carefully-scruffy-beard doofus dweeb" up through "goth shithead" and on to "unsuccessfully carpet-tattooed surgery-fails with giant plug-filled holes drilled all over their head" freaks. Good energy vibe, though and, once the high percentage of bizarro Japanese cartoon characters are disregarded, it turns out that most of the crowd looks pretty much like college kids everywhere — perhaps with a bit more ink than used to be, but still...

I was involved in a project Friday that was supposed to suck up the entire day. Instead we managed to wrap it up about 11:30, which means I had a whole half-day to dick around doing other stuff. How this relates to crowds of college kids may not be immediately apparent — but related it is.

Since I'm only rarely in this particular city, I took advantage of the unscheduled free afternoon to go to the simply gigantic used bookstore that's downtown. I have a large shit-ton (one of those fancy new metric measurements, if I'm informed correctly) of books on my Kindle, but I love the feel of a book, and will occasionally indulge myself.

Now, when I say "large bookstore," I'm talking a multi-floor, filled floor to ceiling, basement to attic, any-classification-you-can-think-of book store, from signed first editions to used paperback "Star Trek" sci-fi. The place is fucking enormous, but somehow gives the impression of — what — coziness(?) because the paths between the shelves of books to the subordinate rooms and stairs and shelves is very like a maze of old creaking wooden floors and early-20th century design. Not a maze that's claustrophobic or complex enough to really get lost in, mind, but still manages to be the kind where every time one comes around a corner, there's some slightly disorienting New Thing or doorway or book-lined passage to a room never before noticed. There's a constant slow-rolling midnight tide of jazz, from the classics to alternative filling the background spaces.
 
There have been days where I lost hours in the place just wandering around sampling.

Did I mention this is a university town? What this means in relation to the huge store is that there are a LOT of college kids putzing around in there. Mostly they're singles, occasionally small groups — they wander and read and sit on the floors and do all sorts of hippie-geek shit up to and including small impromptu discussion and reading groups. I'm pretty surprised that I haven't come around a corner and stepped into a drum circle, except that this particular crowd is pretty quiet. With some exceptions, they tend to near-whispers when they're speaking.

I was upstairs in the fiction section. I'd found a book I wanted, and was walking down the aisle reading a random chunk of it as I headed over toward another author I wanted to check out. I came around a corner and nearly crashed into a girl coming the other direction. 

Kind of a pretty little thing, early 20s — no raving beauty, but very nice. I normally prefer long hair, but her sandy-colored hair was in near-pixie cut and it looked great. Blue eyes. A little heavy — no, not right, a nice body, a terrific body, it just that her average size frame just seemed — I dunno, comfort-proportioned, and I mean that in all seriousness, not as some euphemism. Just all around a very pleasant person to nearly run into.

I smiled and apologized and went on by without a backward glance. As I say, lots of college kids in there, and she was just one of them. I wouldn't have given her another thought except I ran across her again in the poetry section and yet again down in the basement in the philosophy shelves. This last time, I distinctly got the impression that she'd decided to run into me. We laughed and made the same old corny jokes everyone does about who was following who and I went on my way.

I was headed to checkout with the two books I'd finally settled on, and she was standing in the aisle going through old music albums. She gave me a brilliant smile and said "Hi, again!" I smiled back with a bit of a chuckle and said "Good to see you — it's been ages!" She laughed and turned to face me and handed me a giveaway book-mark, one of those thin cardboard paper strips with the bookstore's information on them that they give out by the handful. Written on the back with a blue Sharpie was a phone number and her first name.

"I'd hate to lose track after all we've been through," she said. "Call me sometime — we'll catch up…" and then she smiled and walked out the front door, glancing at me through the window as she went down the sidewalk.

Who knows. Maybe she's just got a silver-hair fetish. Or maybe she's an Amway salesman who's got a whole new pitch. Maybe a setup for an elaborate practical joke. I am literally more than twice her age, more likely nearly three times. But you know what? I'm gonna pretend that she wasn't trying to jerk my chain, that this pretty little thing was actually hitting on me just because she wanted to, and for no other reason.

To be perfectly honest, I've been feeling my age lately, and it made my whole day. Probably my whole month. I still get a little twitch of a grin whenever it crosses my mind.

Thank you, Kate, whoever you are, from the bottom of my heart. You're a sweetheart, and I mean that in every possible way. Yeah, I tore up your number and dropped it in a dumpster on the way home. Sorry. For what it's worth, it was close and no kidding. But you know how it is.

Bookmarks: It's All About What's Printed On Them

In Our Next Episode:  Probably another way to mark a day.