Coffeeshop

I remember with deep nostalgia the gloomy coffee shops of yore; they were places where one could sink down in the not-so-new furniture, and feel an enveloping privacy bubble protecting one from the harshness of social interaction. Not that the other patrons had the slightest interest in anything outside their own books, papers, or laptops. No, the dissheveld professor with the mysterious books, the researcher with the odd-format document stacks, the sleep-deprived student -always different, always there- they had not the slightest interest in me or anyone else. I miss them terribly. Reading my favorite book to the incesant background chatter of hyperactive teenagers at a shinny-new Starbucks... well, it just isn't the same.