The Public Sphere

As we speak (so to speak?) I am in a public computer lab. It's very odd. I have never been one for public accommodations—parks, libraries, and stadiums have never been my favorite places. Lacking my laptop (he's been sent for diagnostics and repair at Apple, Inc.), I find my self logging on to a CPU using my UT EID, not my regular old username. It's distinctly unsettling. Not to mention there are about seven people in the room with me. Strange beyond all reason.

Parks are simple to dismiss: they're just too sunny, outdoorsy, and Republican (in the apple-pie flag-waving uber-Christian large-family sense of the word), so I've avoided them with the help of my parents. (Unsurprisingly, I am an only child.) Also, we live on roughly thirty acres of land, so we don't need to head to the park to walk the dogs—back and forth to the forest does just fine. Stadiums are even easier to wave away: sports are simply uninteresting. My dislike of libraries, though, is harder to define. Everything about me screams that I should adore libraries. They are, after all, quiet places (screams, I realize now, was bad diction—sorry) filled with books—and how is that bad? I guess I don't like the concept of it, the basic reason they exist: libraries are for the public. This means that you have to be careful with every book you handle. You have to put them back exactly where you found them. You have to be quiet. You have to return them or get fined. I hang mainly at Barnes and Noble for my intellectual thrills. There, you can purchase forever what you've just perused, and sip coffee to boot, something librarians undoubtedly frown upon. Honestly, I wouldn't know. I've never been in a library long enough to find out.

I didn't think I'd like the still, metro early 2000's coolness of Starbucks, either. They make fine hot chocolate (I don't like coffee), and I've obviously been there a couple of times (try existing and not going to a Starbucks at least once in your whole life), but I've never exactly hung out at one. Tonight, however, I had to wait somewhere for an hour, and there was a Starbucks was close by. Skeptically I settled down in an armchair with a drink. I sipped and read some Strunk and White. Thirty minutes in I realized I liked the atmosphere. The music wasn't Muzak (maybe it was muzik, since it wasn't completely legitimate), the chair was deeply comfortable, the people were nice (and wonderfully quiet), and the temperature was pretty perfect. Plus, the smell of coffee was everywhere. (I can like the smell but not the taste, can't I? Maybe it doesn't make sense, but that's how I am.) I was relaxed, most shockingly, something I rarely am in public.

I guess there is something to be said for social interaction, even if it's mainly observation. Who knew! I'll be spending a lot more time at Starbucks from now on. The computer lab, though, not so much. I can't wait until I get my poor MacBook back.

Currently Reading:
A Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer
"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by MLK