and so

Since when have our cafés become temples of silence, rather than places to talk and banter?

We’re at Paul’s café, our almost daily hangout toward the end of the day. There’s much to toss around and bicker about. For example, Ed is convinced that the best way to prepare fresh winter spinach is to microwave it. I beg to differ. I want to make sure Paul isn’t for a minute convinced that Ed knows the best way to prepare spinach. I get a frown from a patron who is trying to concentrate on her writing. I want to tell her that there is a beautiful library right across the street where silence is golden. But I say nothing. She has won. They all have won. Up and down State Street, Monroe Street, any street in any town, you have to stay quiet. Life demands it.





Me, I have work too now, finally. The exams are starting to trickle in. I go to campus to pick them up this afternoon (students were still writing this morning) so that I can start the mammoth task of grading, even as most people are thinking jingle thoughts and flooding the malls in search of... something.

They say it will snow tonight. It would be nice to see snow before Ed and I leave next week. Remind me in March that just a few months earlier, I was hoping for snow.