There are those who are comfortable with being alone, and those who are comfortable with being alone in a crowd. Just because you like to lay on your sofa by yourself for twenty minutes or two hours does not mean that you qualify.

Today is the first day of classes. My first ended at eleven, and I have nothing to do until one-thirty (where I have an appointment with the Dean. I wanted to include that to sound important, or notorious). I have spent my time avoiding bees, who were attracted to a banana lying in a Walmart plastic bag next to me. Two bees frolicking in a noisy bag with a hungry student peering in, concentrating while inserting her hand into trapped grey and too much yellow. Even when I moved they followed. I almost left the banana. I had to go indoors, and then when I left another (or the same?) buzzed around my fingers, so I dumped the contents of my water bottle to reduce toxic banana fumes.

I also spent my time walking around looking for a secluded patch of grass. There isn't much. People here, people there, people walking by, people looking out of open blinds. It is easy to be alone when no one is watching you trying to take a banana out of a plastic bag with bees inside. I sat in a common area listening to a band that was okay until they started rapping. I sat by a tree and looked at bits of blue and green thinking about bees and then closed my eyes for a while.

I thought about texting. There's a good chance most of the people I know here are bumbling around somewhere, with their friends or not. I chose solitude. Solitude amongst other solitude, amongst visiting fourty-somethings at a picnic table nearby, and first-years who've just met and have so much to get to know about each other, and those who thought to bring a book but keep on setting it down to look at something else. I would rather think about bees and test myself every time another (or the same?) comes by. No one gives a bee attitude. Even when crying trying to get away there's always someone saying to be still. Like when I was passing some Hell's Angels on the way to Lloydminster a while ago. Be still, and don't look at them.

There are a few things I've observed about myself. I touch my face a lot, I like to be alone, and I get insulted when old friends call me a guest and tell me to eat first with all the others who they don't really know.