But darling, there's a gun in the garland.
David Berman is calling it quits with the Silver Jews.

The story ("the son of a demon come to make good the damage") is fascinating and beyond fascinating, whether or not you are a big old devotee of this band. I don't know quite what to say about all this music has meant to me. I mean, this website's been riddled with it for years (see above). The lyrics are often the autopilot, archetypal answers-in-the-brain to any weird, new situation. And although I think DB is saddling himself too much with a sense of overwrought responsibility, I also get it, and it makes my heart soar in sympathy.

Oh, I've written too much. Just read the link, and the link's link.

"When I go downtown
I always wear a corduroy suit
cause it's made of a hundred gutters
that the rain can run right through"

Requiescat in pace.

I hope that you are proud of you, too.
Remember that Mr. Rogers song? “I’m Proud of You”? This was a song my family co-opted to sing to one another in moments of accomplishment large and small, and my sister remembers it as a sweet thing, and I remember it as an ironic, condescending thing. This is what happens in the course of a nine-year age difference.

Good morning, Henshaw. Now would be as good a time as any, I suppose, to admit that I walk around feeling distinctly un-proud, most of the time. Like a lot of people I know, my principle motivator in this life is dread. You know, (maybe you know): the stone in the pit of the stomach. The name I give to the stone changes, constantly: It becomes “all those papers to grade,” or “that phone call to make,” or a glance at the dwindling bank account, or, “What the hell will you do with yourself once you graduate?” (Effing boulder, that one.) There are also more abstract boulders, like “President Bush,” or “Environment,” but I’ll admit that those ones mostly get pushed by the wayside when faced with an imminent doozie, like, “You have to revise that horrid chapter.”

I’ll admit that waking up knowing that Double-You is no longer representing me to the world feels like a mitigation of this load; knowing that Obama is in feels even better. But it is not these things I credit for my unusual good mood this morning. The thesis is almost (gulp) done, and I know that this fact is just as likely to translate to panic for me as to a sense of accomplishment. Because, you know: Now, what?

But this morning, I feel good about it. I look up above my computer, at the insane chart of chapters crawling across the wall up there, see the red checkmarks next to very-nearly each, and feel like I actually deserve to spend some time out in the twenty-degree sun today.

And, inexplicably, I don’t feel imminently stressed out about anything right now. Sure, I have no job and no prospects for one, and sure, it looks like my car is dying, and sure, I’ve been subsisting on this secret, ridiculous notion that this book would pave the way, sort of magic-carpetlike, for the fancy career in writing I’ve wanted all my life, just like thousands of other people who are more talented than I—but, watching my friends and family members who’ve been taking such things as “I’ll find a job that satisfies me” on faith lately, inspires me. Moreover: relaxes me.

Plus, I get to play music with my Carolina friends when I go to visit next week, and plus, I get to play music with my friend here in Atlanta later this week, and plus, I’m teaching myself to play the Decemberists’ lovely, heartbreaking song “The Engine Driver.” Plus, Marshall and I will go for a long walk in the mountains this weekend. It’s just plain freaking good to be alive right now, damn it. It’s a neighborly day in this beauty wood.

If you were never so much a watcher of Sex and the City, and you’re around a clique of women who are, and they start in with that, “Which character are you? Which character am I?” game, they will always, always tell you you’re Miranda.

Oh, you organic gardener/librarian/tax consultant/drummer, you. You’re practically just like her.

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.