"She’s caught me watching at least five times. Zero self-consciousness, on either side."

What I saw while writing at the mall

The house was bustling and noisy on Monday morning, and I couldn’t concentrate. I’m not one to write outside the home, but the cutie pie who appeared 18 months ago is presenting challenges to my word count. I find the idea of posting up at a coffeeshop unbearable—the writer-ness of it all—so I went to the fuckin’ mall. I plopped down at a table outside Nordstrom.

And lo, my most productive hours in ages! I can think of no place less cool to be creative, but it worked, and I’ve been back every day this week. People watching breaks have nicely replaced what used to be pauses for smoking weed.

Today, a combo of my friend Greta and an ex-client’s ex-girlfriend is at the tables. I watched her arrive with four massive shopping bags from different stores draped across her arms which she dropped before setting up a temporary office. She opened a laptop, put on chunky headphones, and dialed up a video call. I can’t hear anything she’s saying, but for the last half hour she’s been animated like a talking head, waving her hands around, holding a perma-smile for the camera. She’s caught me watching at least five times. Zero self-consciousness, on either side.

Twitter tells me today is the retail launch of Apple’s new VR headset. There’s a silly video making the rounds of a customer walking out of an Apple Store in New York through a crowd of 20+ cheering employees in company-issued t-shirts. The guy’s holding the product box up like it’s an offering from a higher power, and I guess maybe that’s exactly what it is.

Here at the Green Hills Mall in Nashville, there are four employees stationed outside the Apple Store with expectant looks on their faces, rubbernecking left and right waiting for the hordes to arrive, but so far it’s nobody.

Upstairs, lurking in front of Chanel, there’s a guy talking photos of the first floor down below. I can’t imagine what he’s trying to capture which might be photo-worthy, but I’m definitely in the frame.