Harvard Square, Cambridge - It's early and cool and light is coming in at just the right angle to blind. A Peets patron wearing big oval sunglasses squints at her iPad, scraping off something crusty with a long pink thumbnail. Through the window, below layers of patterned green, soft shadows stretch between segments of glittering grass. In light like this the exhaust of passing cars can take on a romantic cast: trucks skate through bright billowing clouds across asphalt that has gone flat and white and receives shadow starkly, as though each haloed shape has been matched with a hole. Brilliantly backlit hairdos bob across the crosswalk, revealing skullshapes and follicle density with a clarity that almost feels private. There's a guy smoking a cigarette on a park bench nearby and the writhing wreathes of smoke that rise slowly from his right hand are so eerily captivating as to all but mute the sound of nearby jackhammers.

Twenty four hours later and I'm sitting near the window of another coffee shop, Spanish language game (one of three hearts left, pounding) being played over coffeetivity, a 30 minute long MP3 track of coffeeshop noise. A lime green owl would like me to translate yo como una manzana.  Voices in coffeetivity land don't talk so much as burble. The clatter of plates in their kitchen is distant and atmospheric, steam wands have been done away with entirely, and although you can't actually make out what people are saying, their average is a cheerful mix of murmurs and chuckles and grunts. Next lesson. A woman's voice calmly repeats  "Los niños. Comen. Azúcar. " twice  and awaits transcription.  She has been remixed too, artificial pauses inserted after each word in a way that I suspect is exactly the opposite of what real spanish speakers will do. The green owl waits patiently, though I know that soon it will swoop down from its roost in the navbar to hoot sadly over my broken hearts. The food lesson is a difficult one.

Later, after my three hearts have been spent many times over, I meet Margaret at The Squealing Pig and we talk about law school over artisanal pizza and dark beers that sweat through their mason jars. A pair of swinging doors divides the bar neatly in to acoustic halves: the front is boisterous and full with the student crowd, collapsing in to hugs and beers and news of the day (boozitivity? Anyone?), the other empty and quiet and brightly lit. I had arrived early, hoping to finish my chapter from this morning, but after getting a few lines in found myself looking up at the doors, trying to make out what was being said on the other side.