thoughts in a sandwich shop with Wi-Fi

* That man over there is using the only outlet in the entire room. He has been in that seat by the outlet since I arrived here two hours ago, when he appeared to be already comfortably settled into the seat, so I imagine he has been here for much longer. He is dressed up in a suit and tie. I wonder what he does for a living? He obviously doesn't need to go to an office. I'm going to guess that he travels and meets with important clients (whom he largely converses with over the Internet), and that he has a vital meeting to attend later, with no time between the sandwich shop Internet work and the meeting to return to his hotel and change clothes. Therefore he has to look formal at the sandwich shop, even though for all I know he might just enjoy dressing up and playing solitaire in public places, which would be kind of weird.

* Everyone is gossipping here. It is much more exciting to listen to the high schoolers in the booth across from me than to continue reading Jonathan Swift, even though I usually don't mind Swift.

* Important Tie Man has gone outside to use his cellphone. He hasn't unplugged his laptop, though.

* Why am I so good at grading here? The shop's noisy and kind of distracting, but I've gotten more papers read than I did last night and this morning combined, in much fewer hours. Maybe it's because I'm much better at restricting computer and TV viewing here. Maybe it's the air conditioning--my warm apartment just makes me want to sleep and eat popsicles.

* ITM is back at his laptop. He will not leave until I do.