[Insert Title Here]

I suppose I could have stayed at my friend Drew's apartment to get internet [We stopped paying for ours, so I suppose we should have expected the natural consequence of not having any], but these past two days haven't been incredibly social ones. True, I've spent just as much time with acquaintances as normal, but my heart hasn't quite been in it. I opted for the university internet at Barnes and Nobel, and the solitude of knowing no one here [with the exception of my friend Sam who just creeped up] has been very refreshing.

I've been people watching this evening. It's something I honestly wish I did more often. Behind the coffee bar is an employee whose boyfriend has come to visit her. He'll walk up, inventing something that he really needs just so he can talk to her. They chat, both smiling so much, and then he walks away and she stares after him, with such a sweet, content look on her face that I wish I was somehow involved so that I could share in that warmth. In the far corner of the reading area are four middle-age women who have gathered chairs together and are talking animatedly while knitting. They laugh, they look serious, they are basking in each other's friendship. There are loners who are reading copies of the New York Times, there are couples who come to study and have coffee with each other. Then there are people like me, with a book at their side, their headphones in, a laptop open on the table, and eager eyes glancing about them. People are a mystery to me.

I've been reading an unusual amount lately. I can't say that I haven't enjoyed it, for in the last month I have consumed several good books. This evening, I look forward to starting Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If ever you need to get books off your hands, mine are always open, hoping for another favorite to pass through them. Sitting in this store is like waiting expectantly under a Christmas tree. Every book here [well, almost every book] has a surprise waiting inside, all of these crisp, unturned pages waiting patiently on the shelves. I would come here more often, but the temptation to buy is just too great. If I could spend money on any books right now, I think I might buy Airships by Barry Hannah, The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Brisinger by Palini, Oliver Twist, and maybe some T.S. Eliot. Last night I finished The Little Princess for the second time, and for a while just lay on my bed, relishing the feel of my warm quilt under my back. There was no music playing, no loud noise coming from the living room, no responsibilities to be fufilled. I was able to just be still and relish that magical feeling one gets when they finish a good book. Nothing could have made my night better. I texted my room mates and canceled our plans to go watch a movie. Anything else that night would have just brought me back to earth, and that was the last thing I wanted. I finished a letter I had been writing, washed my face, and went to bed by 10:00.

Speaking of people watching, a group of three just walked past me, and I've noticed that it is the same strangely grouped three friends I always saw together my freshman year. They fascinate me, because just by outward appearances, I never would have placed them together as friends. I wonder how they all met?

Writing anything else here would be a pointless attempt at pith now, so I believe I'll call it a night.


"He sat there cowled up in the blanket. After a while he looked up. Are we still the good guys? he said.
Yes. We're still the good guys.
And we always will be.
Yes. We always will be.
Okay."
-Cormac McCarthy's, The Road.