Coffee house

Lately, my usual coffee house is populated by unemployed people savoring $1.27 soup, East African men playing backgammon, and parents with children who just need to get out of the house. It's great (the company, not the unemployed thing).

When I chat to people at Ginko, it's usually about how they were able to make some money under the table just in time to pay the rent. Or how they caught a thief in their basement. Or how they are self-medicating an ear infection because they can't afford to see a doctor. Or how we should save the midway library where homeless people stay warm and people teach themselves how to read. (These are all actual conversations I've had in the last week.)

Unfortunately, it is very full at Ginko during the weekend, so I'm at a more-grad studenty coffee house today. Everyone is reading so not many conversations to report, sadly. But I did just overhear one grad student ask another: Have you read-slash-started the Agamben yet?

(Yes, he did verbally punctuate his sentence.)

I hate grad students ;-)