rebeccmeister | A matter of density

One of the things I enjoyed most about my brief visit to the Bay Area was the density of people. I feel like there's some critical thresholds involved in being around people--I prefer few or the crush of anonymous crowds, and in-between numbers do not suffice. Berkeley and surroundings surpass the crowd threshold--I am comfortably crowded; lines in coffeeshops, bicycles riding helter-skelter through ambling cars, people walking on the streets or sitting on the subway. In Arizona, the density never seems like quite enough, except at events like the First Fridays artwalks, and then the intensity of the crowd is almost too much.

Perhaps it helps to understand that in moderately-crowded areas (=suburbia style), I hear the internal and external monologues of those around me just a bit too clearly--they're never loud or quiet enough to tune out.