Let’s Move To The Country - Smog
Let’s start a
Let’s have a
This song has been in my head all day. We went to buy a Christmas tree, we ended up with a real one, and by that I mean not what I envisioned, which was one you put on a little table or a stool or something. It was $55 dollars. We both stood there wavering. Of course we want a Christmas tree but we know there are better things to spend you’re money on. This is silly. I won’t even be here on Christmas. But we split it, dividing our cash up and standing there for a while, too long, watching everyone else, not talking to anyone or asking to be helped. “Is this how much Christmas trees are normally?” “In New York, yes.” “Yeah, but—” “No, in the rest of the world you go out into the woods and chop one down — ” “And it’s like 20 bucks right?” “Not even.”
This is our myth we’re already building about what life would be like outside of here. That we’d go out into the woods and cut down a tree for $5 instead of stand here in what is usually, I think, a barren fountain or a dog park, in the middle of a big intersection, surrounded by $60 trees, our view a highway overpass, a diner, a gas station, and a few bars. We felt foolish. Or young. Or new. Which was nice, too, granted.
A couple with a little baby took pictures of each other in front of some of these trees and two friends buying a table tree asked the tree guy to take their picture. “Everyone’s trying to have a moment here, on this street corner. It’s sad.” I stood up on the edge of the dried up fountain, where I could reach to kiss his temple. “Are you trying to have a moment?” “No.” I jumped down. Someone took the tree we wanted. We’d been standing there 10 minutes, watching these weird swarms of bugs fly around and wondering how they got there, if they lived in the trees. I wondered if they were what in Louisiana they called “no see ‘ems.” This wasn’t a word used in my family but a word I’d hear my friends say, so that I never wholly got a grip on what no see ‘ems were, yet appreciated the sentiment, and have spent the rest of my life turning the phrase over in my head and wondering if what I’m seeing are no see ‘ems (as you can imagine, a bit of a conundrum).
We got our $55 tree and walked proudly home, across the street from the couple with the little red-haired baby (“a ginger baby!” “I knew you were gonna say that. I knew.”) who did not, as it turns out, buy a $55 Christmas tree. They just went over there with their stroller and took some pictures.
