Nothing major has changed in Brooklyn. And if it had changed, it’s now changed back. I know how folks like to repeat the past. Maybe it’s just that Toby and I have changed too much. After all, most folks don’t completely rewrite their lives in two years. But in a city the size of New York, where its occupants desire to be different, you half expect you might return to cow pastures and silos.

While Enids is now serving food, Lola Bell (yes, the famous Lola) still works there. Her hair is longer, but she still looks the same. The same guy runs Photoplay. (Scroll down halfway.) And when he recognized Toby and I while we were updating our phone number and address, and then realized how long it’s been since he’d seen us, he mentioned as much.

Where did the two of you go? California?

Yeah. First D.C. Then San Francisco. And now we’re back.

Well, we’re still here. And the movies are still the same exact price.

That, too, has not changed.

Union Pool is still rock-a-billy (or whatever the proper term used to describe men with side burns who wear dark bottoms and white tops. And is it clear that I have no idea what I’m talking about? I hope so.) Teddy’s is still exactly same. (Well, minus an unfortunate incident involving an out of control car and their storefront windows on the corner of North 8th and Berry.) Even the menu there is the same. Vera Cruz? The same. The Verb? The same. (Scarily so. Only, I’d say that the bathroom, after years of dealing with morning-after booze-bingeing runny hipster shit, might now be considered a biohazard.) The Garden is still littered with hot and goth polish teenagers. Williamsburg is still swingin’ and Greenpoint is still next to it. Le Cue is still open. Dee and Dee is still (somehow) in business and Wizard electronics as well. And Ryan Adams still hangs out at Kate’s Joint in Manhattan.

In State College last week I discovered my first apartment had been demolished to make way for a parking garage. (May it rest in peace.) When I arrived in Brooklyn to find everything pretty much exactly the same, it was the best homecoming ever. But there are some differences.

In Manhattan, we tried to go to the Veg City Diner and it was gone. Healthy Pleasures (where we once saw Parker Posey buying groceries and Toby called me from isle 5 to tell me she was in isle 3.) is now some other place and it appears to sell less insanely expensive shit. Probably the biggest change is that the G train is now fairly regular.

This has to be the easiest transition I have ever gone through. It’s even easier than our move to D.C. I feel as tho I never left.

Now, if only I can find a job.