Pains [Growing]
Feeling like a housewife atrapada, so I came to the coffeeshop where I used to work, to work on this magazine piece I’m doing and on el thesis. This is the coffeeshop where, on a visit to Atlanta in the fall, I spotted Rainn Wilson getting mobbed by college girls outside on the sidewalk. Do you ever get that feeling that your world is becoming very terrariumlike? Very self-reflective and no-degrees-of separated? That moment was like that. The Office is my favorite show and there was Rainn Wilson outside the coffeeshop of my 20s and next, I expected to see my aunt come waltzing in and hang a poster that said my favorite band was playing the next day at the café where we once saw that horrible one man band guy play, only their new drummer was my friend’s boss from Carolina or a former student.

There’s a man here, now, with a four-year-old daughter and a stretch baby carriage bearing, apparently, twins. I worry that if I were a parent right now, I’d be more like the curmudgeonly owner of the record store across town, whose little son is always there with him, a kid who the man seems to me, to resent the hell out of. Eternally annoyed by the kid’s frustrated “I’m Stuck With My Dad at His Job All Day” triggered actions. But instead of ever laying down the law, the man’s always sort of telling the kid to “Aw, c’mon, cut it out, please,” in this wheedling voice. He seems largely annoyed by his ten-year-old son. I fear that’s how I’d be. Largely annoyed by my ten-year-old son.

I am so excited to be back in Atlanta when I stop and think about it. This weekend, Marshall and I went for an epic bike ride all over, and went out to see friends on Saturday night for a Mexican fiesta. We are having more fun than should be legal decorating the house and doing things like putting up ceiling fans (a task for which my role remained, largely, handing him things and holding the big heavy motor part aloft while he connected wires). But during the week, everyone has jobs and I am at home working on my thesis, worrying about the No Job Status, and missing my Carolina friends. This is finite. This is finite, I remind myself. Good with bad. Phew.

Also, the big record store in town has moved down the street. Also, in Carolina, my main beer was Yuengling Black ‘n Tan, because it was delish and only five some bucks a sixpack because they made it in the state. As soon as I moved here, they started making Yuengling here, too, and it was kind of eerie yesterday afternoon to reach for the Black ‘n Tan from the shelf, like an echo of an echo, a sort of deja-two-seconds-ago weird.
I am the most nostalgic person in the universe. I am more nostalgic than you. Let’s have a Nostalgia-Off, Henshaw. You are effing on. Aww, remember a moment ago? When we decided to have a Nostalgia-Off? Sigh.