I'm ashamed to say that I occasionally watch Live with Kelly in the morning (used to be Live with Regis and Kelly - you know what I'm talking about). This week Kelly reported that New York City was voted the number one rudest city in the U.S. What?! Us rude? I'm not a native New Yorker, but have lived here about twenty years, so I consider myself a New Yorker by default. I'm originally from the Southwest of the U.S., where people are so polite it's almost sickening. I almost dread…

On a mild December night, I took my husband for a surprise visit to an independent bookstore in Brooklyn to give…