Café Procreation

Yesterday, I went in search of café writing. It's my favourite kind of writing, but something I've been unimpressed with here in North America. Is it that Parisian cafés are that much cooler? Or is it that screaming babies are more acceptable when the screaming is in French?

Normally, I go to the Rocky Mountain Bagel Co. not because the coffee's spectacular, but because my friend Tanya used to own it. She owned it with her husband and another couple and they all lived in some trailer on the edge of town. Only the other couple broke up, so the Bagel conglomerate dissolved as well.

Then Tanya's hubby opened a car wash and Tanya opened Café Books – the place where I had my first and only very embarrassing book signing and also where I have the dubious honour of having been a bestseller...for like a week.

But, given that Tanya no longer owns Bagel Co. (or Café Books if the rumours are true) and also given that if I'm to be a "local" here in Canmore I should know more than one place besides the Safeway, I decided to try someplace new. I went for Communitea, where in addition to their irritating name, they serve an esstra-snobby brand of espresso called Intelligencia.

Mm. Pet peeve? People who call it expresso.

Communitea makes an excellent first impression – all chic and fabulous and white on the inside. But then that first impression shatters into a million really sharp pieces as shrill, mind-splitting voices and clattering plates bounce off the stark, minimalist decor and into your brain, edging you into homicidal maniac territory almost as soon as you sit down.

I cursed myself for ordering a large coffee. It would take me forever to drink it and get the hell out of there.

There was a table of teenage girls in the corner. I used to be one of those. Remind me why we needed to yell everything we said? Remind me again why we needed to shriek with laughter? Has anything in life ever really been that funny?

I took my shit and relocated to the other side of the white lacquer IKEA shelving unit which separated the Chic Café Area from the Hippy Hang-Out Area. Lots of beanbag chairs going on over there. Bean bag chairs are hard to write in. But if you build a wall with them, they muffle the glass-breaking shrieks of teenage girls.

Everything was fine for a moment. Until the Babymamas moved in. Two of them. They were really cute and mountain-stylish. And their husbands were cute, too. And the babies, being offspring of cute, were...you get my point.

They looked so happy and balanced and healthy and attractive. And one of the kids was named Aria, which is not an annoying 10 Most Popular Baby Names name and neither is it a Let's See Whose Last Name We Can Bastardize Into A First Name name. It's a really smart, beautiful, culturally aware, I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that name.

And it wasn't that I felt bad about not being married and having kids.

Well, yes, it was.

I stared at these blissful family units and I thought, 'That would be lovely. Just....lovely.' And for a brief moment, I considered trading in my laptop for a onesie.

Because, can I just say? It gets a little tiring watching every single person you know get engaged and married and pregnant. And sometimes you think, 'If I can't beat 'em, maybe I should join 'em.' And then I can wear a cute Lululemon coat and cute clogs and drink cappuccino with my cute husband as our cute daughter with a smart name runs around the café before we go to our eco-friendly home and drink organic wine while we prepare vegetarian cuisine.

Rather than being the anti-social, agoraphobic spinster artist huddling her shriveled, dried-up ovaries behind the wall of bean bag chairs mumbling about The Road Of Trials and how it's not coming clear goddamnit.

A year ago, my biological clock was bonging so loud, I couldn't hear anything else. I'd been pressing the snooze button on the thing since I turned 29. And then my best friend had her daughter and all bets were off. Clanging, banging, ringing, buzzing insanity. You wanna talk Aria? I had an internal procreation soprano shrieking at me 24-7.

And then I went to Paris. And on April 27, the bio-clock stopped. Tick tick.....nothing. For real. It was bizarre. And now, most of the time, except for these moments of I'm A Freak weakness, the whole marriage and babies scene makes me a bit itchy.

Which I think makes my parents want to cry. Because their grandbaby clock started going off awhile ago and they are getting antsy. All signs point to The Middle Sister delivering (ha!) on that front.

And me? I just think I'll give café writing a rest for awhile.