Lunch at Panera (campus)

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. - Kurt Vonnegut

(Artist's rendition of girl)

By ART MCGREGOR
Blog on the Run editor

Special props to the girl stunning stunning AND sunning around noon today on the roof top over at 126 E. Chittenden Ave. Made my first campus lunch visit in more than a month. Don't ever want to have to say that again. In campus terms, campus is dead in the summer but there's more than just a few examples of the living dead in the south campus area. They fuckin' look better than the George A. Romero version.

(not so much)

The EGG's outdoor patio was bumping. A near perfect afternoon and at least seven or eight parties enjoying below average food and shitty service on a splendid Tuesday.

For those not on or around a college campus often, there's no way to describe the amount of weirdos that circulate the Ivory Tower. These aren't even the homeless bums or bums in general. They're like women in their late 40s, early 50s that look haggard and college-professored out. They walk around in weird clothes and tote bags and likely have five or six cats at home. They all are moderately thin with stringy, frizzy dark hair. They talk as if every phrase they say is the most interesting tidbit of information to ever infect the 43210.

Thing is, these women are always around. It's just students, like the lovely sun bather above in the swim suit, usually are around to drown them off. I noticed a similar epidemic in my first summer-go-round in the campus area in 1999. Kept seeing the bums, just stopped seeing the finely sculpted ass checks. That's not crackin'.

I guess the bums have blended in for me in the past decade. With fashion and facial hair styles, it's tough to differentiate between the bums and the asses. Hell, my favorite bum probably isn't even a bum. That's Bear. Bear is the greatest person to ever go into the EGG. Got a ratty beard, white man's afro, zubaz pants, various plastic bags, etc. He kinda looks like Kurt Vonnegut.

(Bear - without beard)

But these women, maybe best described as rejects from a Hillary Clinton rally, are still everywhere. Parking cars, crossing the street, going into used book stores, taking four hours to order a sandwich at Panera. They're everywhere.

Sadly, the girl on the roof went inside when I drove past her again.

See ya in less than a month.