I had to get something notarized. I looked up notaries public in the yellow pages, and the only one listed on the Upper West Side was located on 57th Street, in the very same office building that houses my good friend Mark's office. I went down there yesterday before my cardiologist appointment and found that the establishment was no longer in that building, so instead I went up to see Mark and wish him a happy birthday. Then I went to a big sale at the Gap.

After the doctor, I saw Mark again and found the new address of the notary. It is now on 72nd Street. I stopped by on the way home and found a dingy apartment building. The notary worked from home. I rode the elevator to the seventeenth floor.

The apartment was a scene out of Stephen King's Needful Things. Almost as small as mine, it was crammed from floor to ceiling with shelves of books and oddities. I saw bones, puppets, and a ventriloquist's dummy. The small kitchen was unusable, stacked floor to ceiling with books. I had to walk down the entry hall sideways to get through the looming and teetering shelving. An obese person would have had to find a different notary public.

The man himself, a genuine New York City Crazy Person™, had wild hair and eyes. He spoke with a visiting priest as I fished through my bag for the papers I needed notarized. The topic of their conversation (really a monologue from you-know-who) was why religious people could never be trusted in business dealings. He was, however, simultaneously attempting to convince the priest to join with him in a business venture.

Three of us filled the stuffed room to overflowing. I got my papers signed and sealed (he did not check my identification, although he did boast about being the longest-licensed notary public in the city). He said I looked familiar and asked what I did for a living. When I told him, he asked me if I had read a book about some sort of frog, which had been reviewed in a recent New Yorker. I had not. Frogs are not my cup of tea. He, however, seemed to think the New Yorker was not my cup of tea (untrue; I read it all the time) and became instantly cooler.

On the way home, enjoying the first chilly fall day after the humid mustiness of the notary's apartment, I passed two of my neighbors on the street without seeing them. They are a lovely gay couple who live upstairs, and they challenged me later about why I had not said hello. I told them I never pay the slightest bit of attention to people on the street, and they seemed to understand.

I felt like a real New Yorker.