Why literary nerds have more fun

I feel like tonight will be a pivotal night for me, the type of night I'll hold in memory for quite some time. It's Thursday night, which might as well be a Saturday in Athens. I'm sitting in my tiny attic apartment with my boyfriend, cigarette smoke filtering through the skylight as ashes fall into a coffee cup. We're discussing our writing styles and Ginsberg and philosophy and creativity in general under the influence of beer and tequila. And I think I've reached another epiphany about soulmates.

I had just finished reading the first part of Ginsberg's Howl and discussing the finer points of the poem ("boxcar boxcar boxcar" and powerful speed-induced rhythms), when he interrupted me to say, "I love you." And that is what it's all about. Spending two solid hours just talking, bouncing ideas off of each other in a relaxed frenzy and realizing what it means to finally have someone understand you.