Ode to My Office, AKA Starbucks

Today I'm using #TBT to share a stream-of-consciousness post I wrote last fall, but never published.  It's about my office, or as I like to call it, Starbucks.

This is my happy place.  Starbucks, at the little round table for two in the corner.  It is raining, which means I am extra happy because I love rain in all its forms.  I'm wearing my favorite walk in love. shirt, my first pick from the load of laundry I washed and folded in the wee hours of this morning - after Madeline got on the bus, but before the boys woke.  It is bright pink, which normally isn’t my jam, but maybe that’s why I like it so much.  I’m feeling very fresh – showered and scoured hard with a louffe and mint soap, to wash off the days of sweat, and Sam’s peanut buttery fingers, and the little bumps on my upper arm.  What are those, and why? My hair is still damp, swept up into a slick, minty bun on the top of my head, and I’m pretty sure my mascara is looking the bomb.  But I always think that.

I’ve missed this place so much.  I feel like it’s been ages since I sat in my spot – it’s actually been 2.5 days - and I went through the drive-thru during that time.

I keep wanting to bring Henry in to show him off to all the baristas, and to Mr. Carl, a regular who comes every afternoon at 2:30, gets a black coffee, and sits in his chair.  Everyone vacates his chair when he walks in.

I felt silly for a while, loving this place and these people so much, until I realized:  these are the people I work with.  I also work with my agent and my editors, but during this phase, this writing phase, these are the people I see every day at my office.  And we are relational people - humans, I mean.  I like my work and I like my work-people: David, who was raised an orthodox Jew, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, and is an artist that creates these incredible pictures by stippling dots with ink pens.  And Jamie, who is a movie buff; we laugh every day when Dan comes in because Jamie once noted that he looks (to her) like an actor who played a pedophile in a movie she saw.  He’s taken the whole thing very personally, but we think its funny.

I am drinking blonde roast coffee with cream in a big for-here mug, because I’ve officially made myself at home.

I can't think about the task at hand; I'm too busy being happy.  I want to sit Indian-style on my bench, with my table pulled super close, like a desk, and drink it all in.  Coffee and music and rain and my pink shirt and great mascara.  David in front of me drawing before his shift starts, an old man in a UNC cap and a knee brace reading on his kindle.  The students moved into the dorms yesterday, so there are all manner of college girls here.  Some in work out clothes, some in PJs, and one in the most adorable black dress with little white birds flying all over it that I suddenly feel like I need.

I think I’ll go write my book now, seeing as the manuscript is due in 15 days.  That would make me insane with anxiety if it weren’t so completely wonderful in here.

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Do you have a conventional or an unconventional office?  What do you love about it?