My days are built around going to coffeehouses as much as they are walking. Both activities are part of what it means to be a flaneur -- a sentient ambler through urban space.

It's a little more purposeful than it sounds. I'm not idling my time away, which is what flaneurs are said to do. I walk for exercise, which is a part of a diabetic's daily regimen, especially for someone like me, who has been recently diagnosed and is highly motivated to get the disease under control.

My time in coffeehouses is  equally productive. Once the caffeine hits my bloodstream I become energized and focused. I do rough drafts of blogs, make lists of chores and errands to do, figure out my household budget, read books, write in my journal and engage in people-watching.

The immediate effects of caffeine in my system are so salubrious that even if I choose to back my chair away from the table where I'm sitting, cross one leg over the other and stare into space, I will have some significant "aha" moments. It's my best time to brainstorm blog ideas. But even when ideas are scarce, my random thoughts are of a higher caliber in coffeehouses than they are elsewhere. These are good times for me time to think about eternity.

Coffeehouse visits are especially fruitful when the places are crowded. The background din of conversations helps me do better work and stimulates my thinking. I'm accustomed to working in noisy, distracting newsrooms, so I seek it out in other environments.

Occasionally, I end up sitting next to pontificators: people with loud voices who dominate the conversations at their tables. That's too distracting. If that happens, I get up and move to another table.

Sometimes I end up sitting near community movers and shakers and then, of course, I eavesdrop. The twitchy vitality of these people is hard to ignore. You know that once they've finished their coffee break, they're going to go out and pull off a couple of moves and the most strenuous part of  a shake before lunchtime.

My current coffeehouse favorites are Cafe Paulo (which I have mistakenly called Cafe Paolo for years), Empire Coffee, Augie's and Higher Ground. I'm always willing to check out new places, but lately no new places have opened. In fact, some of the old places have closed.

Empire, which is in a train car next to the Chico Train Depot, can sometimes be a little to quiet for my taste. It's hard for me to concentrate in an atmosphere that reminds me of a study hall.

Lately, the chairs at Augie's are getting hard for me to sit on, so I don't go there as often as I used to. The chairs are the same, but something about me is different. I've lost a lot of weight, so I have less natural cushioning to protect me from the unyielding wooden chairs. I try to grab a place on one of the padded pews. Sometimes, it's so crowded at Augie's I'm lucky to find any place to sit.

It's hard to believe Higher Ground, across the street from the Longfellow Terrace Shopping Center (which has been almost completely taken over by In Motion Fitness), has been around for nine years. Here's a photo I took of it when it was being built. You might have guessed by now that I like taking photos of buildings under construction or being torn down.

Higher Ground can also be extremely busy at times.

By the time I've taken my walk, visited a coffeehouse and done chores and errands, I've had a busy day. Then it's time to go to work, which lasts from mid-afternoon until about midnight. Sometimes, when I leave work, I feel like I've lived through two days.

Because so many of my waking hours are spent either running around or sitting in front of my computer at work  dealing with the unvarying deadlines of the daily news cycle, the time I spend at coffeehouses is an oasis. It's a time to sit  down and accomplish mental tasks without having to stick to a timetable or just do nothing except muse about life.