this is the day to wax frenetic and poetic about how there are so many things to be thankful for. and it's true, there are. for example, i am thankful the lovely little sugar cafe has a free wireless-connection, since mine has decided to go on a very untimely sabbatical. and so i get to see a parade of interesting randoms go by. on a holiday like this, i wonder what brings them to this narrow hallway of a coffee shop. are they alone, without family in the city, like me? or are they more into croissants and cupcakes than turkey and stuffing? hard to say. the two-some behind me are in the midst of a heated french language lesson. and while that sounds like a euphemism for romance - it's not. they really are just going over verbs and conjugations. loudly.

a few nights ago, i found myself at another coffee shop - a bakery, really - using their free wireless. it was a tiny postage stamp of a bakery, and the only other patron was an old man watching 'heroes' on a huge wall-mounted flat screen. why a small bakery would have a huge flat screen wall-mounted television is the first mystery. the second, of course, is why an old man would come to the bakery to watch 'heroes'. and why he would think i was interested in his running commentary on the show. and yet, i kind of was. even the teenager behind the counter and the british lady in the window got into the discussion. the random conversations you have in this town. people are willing to share just about anything - personal space, personal details of their lives - personal belongings. maybe it's how a city of transient loners has evolved to avoid loneliness.

at any rate, i left the 9th street bakery much like i'll leave the sugar cafe today - with a renewed sense of the strangeness of this place. but i dig it, oh i do.