@the local library branch, 20 degrees outside

 I find myself scratching a lot of neckbeard while I watch, not really working, not really having any fun sitting at the logan square library desk. Days, at least, have patterns when I make my way over to supposedly do work here; they have a logic--a logic like that of the shamed old Japanese businessmen who still gets up at the right precise time, still puts on, straightens out, and buttons all the buttons of his perfect suit before boarding the subway train to ride around and around all the work day, only to arrive home at 6 o'clock carrying a well-worn newspaper and a few thin lies about what happened at the ol' job that day--a logic, if not a purpose.

 And I've gotten much more familiar with the other people who are at the library everyday, too!  I'm not so different then them. My eyes are open, I have better taste in sweaters (though, actually mine is picking up a few holes at this point and a certain musk), and I'm much more likely to say some wry thing in agreement about how somebody is being too loud in here or about how the phone needs to be picked up than to be confronted (everyone strictly soto-vocied, obeying the library rules), but neither of us are up to much. We're here, out of the cold, to wait.