Rainy Thursday

Hey folks, I’m here at Denny’s — this time in a corner booth so no one can spy on my websurfing. Not that I care if they see what I’m looking at, but I just hate even thinking someone is reading over my shoulder. I will say that so far people seem to have developed a sort of public computing etiquette that prohibits the sort of “Whatcha readin’?” questions that busybodies used to bother me with all the time when I was a kid and just wanted to be left alone in the corner with my book. I suppose that the fact that it was usually some scifi paperback with an embarrassing cover illustration (one book I used to have years ago had a naked green alien woman on it; needless to say the cover was the only place a naked green alien character could be found in the book) made it that much more mortifying. So my childhood tastes did not run to Little Dorrit or Anne of Green Gables. So sue me.

Anyway, it seems that people with computers are assumed to be always engaging in Serious Business, not hunting up the latest news on Doctor Who, so I don’t get bothered. I even got the waitress to pull down the blinds behind me to reduce glare on my screen. It’s all good. I still have cable tv at home, though, and I’m getting a little bit miffed — did they make a mistake and take my boxes away early? My luck with cable companies makes that likely. Oh well, I don’t care. I’m going to be leaving either next Wednesday or Thursday depending on how soon I can get my act together — I’ve decided not to wait until Friday. I probably won’t be getting on the internet all that much in the next few days; the “free” wireless is starting to get expensive (I feel obligated to at least buy coffee at these places) and I still have a lot to do. I will be occasionally updating my Twitter page by phone. (I can actually get on the internet with my cell phone, but its tiny screen and primitive mobile browser make that difficult.) Yesterday I was able to get rid of a lot of books — about thirty to the local library, and also several paperbacks at a used book store. I still might go through my books one last time but I kept the ones that meant most to me that I couldn’t bear to get rid of as well as some that I have yet to read. And I still have to do laundry and then go through my clothes again to cull more that I really don’t wear. I also need to print up some signs to plaster around the neighborhood — I’m going to try to have one final sale of stuff over the weekend.

Those are my plans anyway. I’ve got about an hour of battery life — I usually don’t bother carrying the bulky cord and outlets are few and far between at these places, but this computer’s battery lasts about two and a half hours which is more than enough time to fool around on the internet. Later, mes amis.

Update: I forgot this very important news — while I was driving through my neighborhood I saw this gigantic raccoon going across someone’s yard. The thing was huge, the size of a small dog or large cat. It was bigger than a possum, anyway. That was nice — I usually only see them dead by the road. (Though not as often as I see armadillos dead by the road. I’ve seen maybe two live armadillos, and countless dead ones. They’re supposed to be pretty dumb, poor things.)

A gigantic storm is brewing, and I’m stuck in Denny’s with a full bladder and a nearly-empty computer battery. Time to bug out.