Hooray for DVD players, MP3s, large hard disks and Bose QuietComfort Noise Reduction headphones!

Every once in a while I go from one extreme to the other in terms of craving interaction with other people. For the most part I enjoy interacting with other people. But there are days in which I'm highly ambivalent about being around people. Those are days on which I prefer to watch people but not necessarily interact with them. Today was definitely one of those days.

So my answer to this was to go to Starbucks, armed with my notebook full of MP3s, a DVD player, a bag full of DVD movies and audio books from the Carnegie Library and he ultimate weapon in creating your onw personal world... the Bose Noise Reduction headphones.

As I context-switched between a multitude of tasks ranging from writing this blog entry, to writing essays for graduate school applications, to watching Elizabeth on DVD or playing with CSS for my website the headphones made sure I was always in my own personal world and though my peripheral vision would catch people moving around and talking I could only see their lips move and not hear a sound outside of what I chose to pump through winamp or PowerDVD - just the way I like it.

A public solitude -- all of my own. A public place with my own space. The ideal place for a pseudo-recluse.