la pomme du ciel

A few weeks ago, I was given the honor of an invite to a friends’ wedding. My guest and I chose to make a full weekend of it, and planned to go to Cleveland, to enjoy an evening in my hometown before driving to Mercer, PA for an outdoor wedding that promised to be a wonderful time.

We never made it to the wedding. Thursday evening and on into Friday, I felt increasingly ill, but I’m young. I thought, fuck it. I’ll get my ass in gear and get to the wedding just fine. After a nice night out, ending with a quiet session of Pabst consumption in my folks’ backyard, I went to bed, and woke up literally speechless and in what could be termed as agony.

It would be easy to pin it on a hangover, but hangovers don’t test your intestinal fortitude for three days. I caught a nasty bug, which may or may not have been avoided had I been nicer to my immune system that week. We were forced to go back to Pittsburgh, and I was forced into bed for about one straight-laced forever. No wedding! No wedding cake! No wedding dances! No wedding stories! No wedding hook-ups! The heavenly missed opportunity hung heavy in my mind.

But something, at least to my mind, redeemed my absence. My friend and I, eager to kill time before the evening began, started our brief stay in Cleveland with a trip to a convenience store for a six pack of Great Lakes Brewery’s finest, a double treat for us Pennsylvanians. If you were not aware, I cannot saunter down to the gas station for so much as a forty. That requires a trip to the bar or other licensed dispenser, due to Pennsylvania’s monopolistic and arcane laws. So, it was a beautiful late afternoon, my old college friend and I, shooting the breeze, strolling through my old neighborhood.

Then we made a friend.

A long-haired tiger tabby, skinny as a rail, came out from a bush and demanded our attention, which we gave for a minute, before walking on, going by the pet store on the next block. My friend peeked into the window of the shop, and while I waited I looked at the missing pet notices. We both agreed that our new friend was potentially someone’s missing pet. We walked the last block to the store, picked out a six of Edmund Fitzgerald, a slurpee and some cigarettes. On the way back, our little feline friend’s cries seemed even more desperate.

I put down my load, told my friend to wait and watch the cat, while I went back and got the number and called the supposed owner.

The lady, whose name was Mary, was not much help. She seemed terribly confused, but happy, but also confused, and said she would call me back. After hanging up, I resolved to bring the cat back five blocks to my folks’ house to figure out the next move. Neither of us were a fan of that maneuver. The cat of course managed to get loose when my unwitting sister let two Newfoundlands outside. My folks’ neighbors, who were out gardening, helped track her down and provided me with a cat carrier. When Mary finally called back, letting me know her daughter (apparently in possession of the only means of transportation) would not be back for an hour, I commandeered my sister and her car to take the cat a good mile and a half back to its home.

My fear that I had kidnapped an overly friendly and needy cat vanished when Mary broke into tears at the sight of Munchkin. Munchkin. She gave my friend and I about ten hugs while poor Munchkin, who had been lost for four months, been carried five blocks, spooked by 300 pounds of dog, and forced into a box, tried desperately tried to get free of her owner’s gracious clutches. I rapidly became more concerned that we would get roped into a brand-new rescue mission, but as we bid our goodbyes to a lady who does not know our names, we watched her bring poor, wayward Munchkin home and into the bosom of a fully closed door.

It’s not the same as being there for my friends’ wedding, but it feels pretty good. What’s more, it sets the mind aglow with all the permutations of what ifs, whens, whys and what-have-yous.

To close this little ball of fluff, I would like to address another ball of fluff:

Munchkin, the next time a thunderstorm occurs (as they are wont to do around this time of year), please be sensible and stay the fuck indoors. Or at least have the sense to get back to your owner before she thinks you’re wormfood. It’s common decent courtesy. While I am amazed at the resiliency of an indoor cat (kudos, you furry fucker), four months is a long time to worry somebody, and I hope you’re learned your lesson.

Two weeks ago, I managed to land myself in some poison ivy. As it turns out, my body no longer offers much protection from the havoc the evil plant is currently wreaking on my epidermis. I am in need of an ocean of calamine lotion. It might have been smart to talk to my doctor earlier, but I already had the appointment, and I was going to be a big tough man about the whole unsightly and hellish rash thing.

This course of action proved to be a poor decision, but the ordeal put a few things in perspective. To start with, I used to be immune to poison ivy. Never worried about it. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe it was part and parcel of being your run-of-the-mill indestructible child. Revisiting valleys and creeks, wines and rope swings, I started to wonder when the whole self-preservation instinct kicked in. My money is on 19 or so, when I became crazy boring. Or boring and crazy. Whatever. That timeframe locks up nicely with the end of a regular camping schedule that I enjoyed for the bulk of my teenage years.

The more I wander abandoned factory yards, the bowels of parking garages and the miniature jungle on the hillside behind my house, the more said self-preservation eased off. Sure, hurtling down a hillside in the middle of the night is made easier with some dutch courage, but not so much courage as to preclude a brief moment of hesitation, especially when faced with army-crawling through the underbrush. I swear there is a good reason for said crawling. Honest.

A week ago, while flailing about in the dark, running into trees and rolling around in who knows what, I managed to somehow compound my rash. And slice my left hand. And bash my legs up for the nth time this summer.

The point is, the more I wandered around, the less I worried about comparitively minor annoyances, like rashes, sunburn, or potentially impaling, breaking or ending myself somewhere in the dark green busom of the hill. I’m having fun, which unlocked the riddle of what happened to my childhood penchant for suicide missions: They never left, I had just been lazy. It was kind of like finding an old bike in a basement. Imagine that.

While it may seem preferred to chill out and watch Godzilla in the air conditioning (especially with this relentless heat), it is entirely more fulfilling to be Godzilla. Outside. Not that there’s anything anything wrong with AC, but is nice to earn it in a sense- especially if you’re coated in fresh scratches. Or lingering plant-based rashes. Or whatever. I mean, you don’t wanna die without any scars, do you?

About 12 years ago, in the Cleveland Metroparks, I took a pretty nasty spill going downhill on a brand-new, shiny mountain bike. My grandmother, the gift-giver (along with grandad), was convinced it was because I had not read the instructions. To her credit, the idea of a suspension system on a bicycle was a wholly foreign concept. Sadly, the burden of the error landed squarely upon the pilot’s head. And ankle. My helmet cracked in two (always wear it, spilled brains are for nerds!) and my ankle swelled up to the size of a Florida grapefruit. Thanks to Boy Scout training and the company I keep, we managed to get me up the hill (my impatient self hobbling the last and steepest bit of the way) and to the ER. In the agonizing recuperative months that followed, the company I keep became better and better at mountain biking, and I resolved to post up and get back in the saddle ASAP. However, an unforseen consequence of my accident was that my riding confidence was FUBAR. I rode a few times after my leg mended, but with all the courage you would expect to find from someone who’s part French. I was terrified of going fast, going downhill, riding trails, even riding down the street. I never touched that bike again, unless it was to clean out the garage.

Last year, I found a bike in the basement of the bar where I work, which the owner encouraged me to remove, mostly because he had no clue how and when it got down there. Also because I am pretty sure he likes me, because I have yet to be shitcanned. The bike languished in my basement for about a year, until I finally got it fixed about a month or so ago. I bought a helmet. I bought a U-lock. I was equipped. Of course, two days out of the shop, I landed myself in a pothole, threw both wheels out of true and blew out my back tire. The learning curve on city riding is pretty sharp. I was nervous at first, but a month later, I’m more concerned with the fastest routes around town and buying new brakes. Because I apparently enjoy going fast. On a bike. Who would have guessed? Certainly not me- The only time I rode a bike in the last twelve years was a nerve-wracking trek to work a few years ago in Squirrel Hill (read: uphill), hungover and with no helmet. Now, I’m looking for excuses to ride and getting on my friends’ cases about getting their own wheels. The big downside to my bicycle hiatus is that I’m not skilled, and will probably get doored tomorrow.

I have lived in Pittsburgh for five years now, and I feel like a grade A pendejo for not getting a bike earlier. And for riding the wrong way in the bike lane several weeks ago. Oops! I am trying so hard to not be judged by the extensive cycling community. I shouldn’t be too worried though- as I was carrying my bike away from the pothole that christened my bike, Dude in a Subaru slowed to offer a ride. Judging from the roofrack or just using common sense, Dude was totally a sympathetic fellow rider. Thankfully, my lack of skills landed me in said pothole a mere two blocks from my house, but Dude’s gesture was an encouraging sign on a number of levels. With any luck and a little time, I’ll be the guy rendering assistance to a greenhorn rider, so long as I don’t get plowed by some jagoff, thus ensuring another riderless decade, or, horror of horrors, a Jason-less reality.

I feel a bit like a piece of old farm equipment when I admit that I discovered St. Vincent through an NPR special. You know, rather than one of my cool friends or my hip elder sibling. The sad fact is, my friends are not that cool (which is why they never  go to shows with me) and my siblings, although lovable in their own right, are neither hip nor elder. So I count myself lucky that I am enough of a pretentious ass to listen to NPR, if only for the fact that I found out about Benji Hughes and St. Vincent through it, among others.

I had planned on going to the show for a long while, since shows here in Pittsburgh are a bit like the mirage of an oasis in the desert, always just over the next erg. Or month. Or, for the most part, never.

I had my doubts about Diesel, because I had been there before, ostensibly to dance, but that effort ended up as a bitch session about the South Side in general, and bad DJs at large. I was pleasantly surprised; the management has figured out how to turn a profit with what must have been a dead night by bringing national acts in for early evening, all-ages shows. Thankfully, the upstairs was blocked off to the scabby teens. Rather than jostle for position at the railing overlooking the first floor, the lady and I relaxed on the mostly empty couches and enjoyed the music.

The opener, Wildbirds and Peacedrums, was a borderline jam band of two; a very proficient drummer and a lady with a magnificent set of pipes. A little too much warbling and drum-noodling at times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual album was better.

After the usual interminable wait and another gin and tonic, St. Vincent came on, opening a solid set with “Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood”. I had watched some live performances a few days earlier on the interwebs, and I was not disappointed. Despite the general lack of vocal effects and looping (there was a bit), Annie Clark’s vocals didn’t fail to rise to the occasion, proving all the production tricks in the book can’t really improve upon an angelic voice like hers. Where the studio tracks sometimes sound restrained and artificial, even contrived at times, the live band gave Ms. Clark’s computer-wrought symphonies the Lazarus treatment.

The noisy fury of “Marrow”‘s breakdown was especially intense, and the alchemy of improvisation turned some of the dull moments on the studio tracks into gold. Most of the set was from Actor, but they did manage to hit a couple tracks from Marry Me, including the Ophelia-tinged hopelessness of “Paris is Burning”.

The highlight of the show was a slow snowfall treatment of Nico’s “These Days”, done as a solo by Clark. It totally made up for her lead-in to the song, which somehow tied Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day” to the song. You know, if it were sung thirty years prior, by a “morbidly depressed” woman. Artists have funny ways of stringing things together. With the icy hell we’ve come to expect outside for the last few weeks, taking the bounce out of a classic felt like just the right dose of just the right medicine.

I didn’t time it, but the set was around 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour, which is a little lame. To boot, there was no encore, which is total bullshit. If Pittsburgh gives you love, throw a bone. Judging by the fans’ reaction on last.fm to Diesel, a lot of people, myself included, swallowed our tongues just to be there. The venue didn’t even stay open past 10:30, cutting the bar off and hustling people out around 10:15.

On the whole, for 16 bucks it was a little under par. But if an all-ages show is the only way we can get any attention from national acts, I guess I’ll be at Diesel the next time someone decent comes around. I guess.

Grade: B

Wednesday I went downtown with a friend to sniff out the fortifications, the giant medieval iron cages wrapped along the sidewalks and the reported sniper posts. And also to see how many businesses were boarded up.

Other than said cages and a palpable sense of dread, there was nothing doing. We were briefly tailed by…someone? while walking around and under the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, checking out the journalists checking in.

Pretty boring, but I got a Dozen’s cupcake out of the deal.

Then today rolled around, much to the chagrin of everyone in Pittsburgh. Day one of the G20 Summit.

To be clear, I completely support the right to protest. I even support most of what people are coming to my city for. I also support the right of the populace to vote on whether they want a giant clusterfuck dumped in their lap.

Even more than all of that, I believe that if you are going to protest, know what the hell you’re doing.

My neighborhood was a focal point of what I wish I could say was an effective protest against the fiscal policies of the increasingly real world government, or the lack of equal rights for all, or, you know, anything. Instead, from the comfort of my porch, I witnessed neverending troupes of grungy, white, 18-mid-20 year old kids, grinning with all the excitement a bountiful Christmas morning brings. A bounty, I am sure, many of them are well acquainted with.

I also was on the other side of the street when they smashed the windows of a KFC and a Mini dealership. I’m not going to lie; I disagree with destruction of property, but it’s already happened all over my part of Pittsburgh and elsewhere, and if it’s going to happen, shit…Those places have great insurance and corporate monoliths backing them. The same cannot be said for Pamela’s, and Lulu’s Noodles in Oakland, or Ritter’s in Bloomfield, just to name a few. Those are home-grown, and attacking those is pretty much an affront to the entire city.

Dear unwanted anarchists, the only point you are proving is that of a fear-mongering media. If you want the already suspicious older demographics of this beautiful city to be frightened, you win. If you want the younger folk who try to make Pittsburgh a better place pissed off and disappointed in the rest of their generation, you win. If you want the baton-happy, out-of-state, shake-n-bake police state we have in town for the weekend to use your actions as an excuse (as one local encouraged them on the news) to “kick some ass, boys.” you fucking win.

Some of my more metropolitan friends have implied that I’m whining, have gotten older and by extension, have washed out. Maybe they think I should be out walking around aimlessly with a bunch of clueless kids.

On that note, the local news remarked that the foreign media barely raised an eyebrow at the action on the streets today. This is an average day, a quiet day for them.  As far as some around here are concerned this is the fucking apocalypse.

The point is that this is Pittsburgh. We are not New York. We are not London, Moscow, Paris or any other fantastic travel destination with embassies aglow. We’ll never be, and we revel in that fact. As much as a backwater this can be, and as (charmingly) antebellum the people can be (there is nothing better than having a Yinzer realize you’re on the same team as they are). We didn’t ask for this clusterfuck, that’s the fault of our opportunistic megalomaniac of a mayor.

Before today, I think most of Pittsburgh was on that same page. After the petty destruction I witnessed and later watched on the news, I think the people that could have been won over to supporting the First Amendment unequivocally will now grin when they watch news footage of protesters being smoked, gassed and beaten. I think that despite the feelings of nausea I felt when I watched a fully mobilized (sonic crowd dispersal, SWAT trucks, school buses of riot-clad officers) army of police herd a group of protesters barely a hundred in number, a part of me is hoping they manage to break the jaw of one of those elusive bad apples.

Tomorrow is when the approved marches take place, the assemblies with actual permits. After the adrenaline both sides felt today, I wonder how civil the disobedience will be. I wonder how those entrusted to guard the safety of this nation’s citizens will interpret “Serve and Protect”.

I’m pretty sure my taxes don’t go too far in paying their salary. If there’s anything that crystallizes the disparity in wealth and power on this planet, it’s the fact that my city has been turned into a military base to protect a handful of world leaders from the rest of the world.

All I know is that tomorrow, I’m wearing a tie. And bringing my camera. It’s my day off, and there’s a world event in my backyard.

EDIT: It has come to the author’s intention that he’s a bit dim sometimes. And that yes, he likely became lost about three times because he doesn’t even know the name of the reservoir he was at. Please continue for a lovely account of a trip to the Allegheny Reservoir.

As much as I love the 412, I tend to get a little stir crazy. As hectic as my life can appear on the surface, it ends up being pretty routine. So any chance to break the cycle and get outside my head is a wonderful gift. The last week had been all kinds of what-am-I-doing-with-my-life and I was asking myself, “How do I win more efficiently?”

Let’s be clear, I know what I’m doing with my little l life. I have a five-year plan, I’ve got projects and goals. Hell, I even quit that stupid call center to make way for the trip account you’re about to read. I was concerned with the big L, and this last weekend was the capstone to answer my questions, if only for the fact that I was out of Pittsburgh. It gave me the perfect vantage point to strategize.

My buddy Hot Shot’s family has had a tiny cabin (more of a shack) a mile down the road from the Allegheny Reservoir for decades, and it’s become a large part of my orbit, sort of like I’m a comet that swings into view every year. A core group of five Eagle Scouts (Hot Shot, Sugar Ray, Flex, Shirtless J and yours truly), count ‘em, have been going up there at least once a year for the last 9 years to get silly, build fires and play cards. Before that, we went as part of Boy Scouts. It was a happy day when we managed to pull the beer and driver’s licences together for that first unsupervised trip at age 17.

We try and supplement our group with new faces; this time my good friend and roomate TCKTOCK came, and was gracious enough to not make me walk. He even let me pay for half the gas. He is a swell dude. The last few new guests never really stuck, but TCKTOCK took to it like a fish to water, and we’re all pretty stoked about the upcoming winter trip.

To paraphrase TCKTOCK, the cabin is refreshing because it’s just dudes hanging out. The standing rule is no women, only because the cabin is the only dependable time of the year when the five of us are together. And also because girls have cooties. We don’t need to muck up a good thing, so we don’t. Our phones also don’t work out there, unless your wife has you so whipped you stay on the phone with her so she can tell you about the shoes she bought. Suck it, Flex. I love your wife, but three calls a day is ridiculous.

We don’t worry about anything, we all chip in, we all take care of chores and projects with joy and vigor. Each of us values the chance to get the hell out of the day-to-day; ask me to dig up my back weedpatch and I’ll probably tell you to go screw. Take me to the cabin and tell me we need to level out a 14×10 patch of ground for a shack, and I will revel in how sore my muscles are, even as I type this.

Hot Shot relayed a pretty funny story to me when we arrived. He and Shirtless J  played Disc Golf courses on the drive up. Hot Shot was pitching to a hole right near a stream, but it wasn’t a tough throw by any stretch. Just as he was releasing, a voice in his head half sung, “Don’t throw it too ha-ard,” and the disc ended up in the stream. That phrase became the slogan of the trip and it was applied to everything, from the shed to the fire to the cooking to making Euchre calls. By the end of the trip we had all learned the importance of moderation yet again, but more importantly that sometimes it’s worth your while to throw too hard and lose some time  making up for your mistakes.

In recent visits, we’ve been working to improve the cabin. It started with some hardcore cleanup. Then we got a new awning to replace the busted-up aluminum one that kept you from opening the door all the way. Then we built an awning over the propane tank. Then we built two new sawhorses. This time, we built a shed for the new rider mower (the plot of land is about an acre) and got a composter-toilet to replace the filled-to-the-brim outhouse. Next time, we have to replace the roof.

My favorite job was the propane awning, because before that, every winter we had to heat up water on the pot-belly wood stove (which took like an hour) to melt the ice on the propane line outside. Every morning. Now we don’t even have to think about leaving the cabin until we’ve had breakfast.

Building the shed was a really cool excercise in problem solving and general gusto. Everyone fell into a role, and we all worked together pretty well. After we had hucked about forty cinder blocks into place and put the plywood decking in place, we were forced to confront the fact that we only sorta leveled the frame. Our solution? Shims, drill new holes in the frame and muscle the panels into place. It worked. For a modular sheet metal shed, I was surprised how often we had to muscle panels into place (even after we finally leveled it), and I am also surprised I only have one (superficial) cut on my hand. I am also surprised that Flex, an engineer, went to school for five years and still managed to put in the roof beams upside down.

I got to play with power tools, including a reciprocating saw. I had another opportunity to play Cups, and I also got a couple games of Cornhole in. On the first night, we stayed up all night drinking, drove down the road to the reservoir and swam around in the dawn and took a bath. We listened to Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” about a dozen times (Sweet Jones!). We took about eighty trips to Lowe’s. I made delicious chicken with a 160z can of Stroh’s, honey, pepper and garlic. Six guys hung out and threw their problems on the fire. As always, we all came out slightly better people. We’re almost tolerable humans now.

Remember, when you’re digging your own grave, don’t dig too dee-eep.

This last weekend, two of my buddies, J and B, graced me with their presence. Our time together started with an ignored call from J and a voicemail early Saturday afternoon.

“Hey, we can’t make it man. B drank way too much  last night and he’s puking.”

Satisfied to let my sadness happen later, after my hungover ass got a bit more shuteye, I tried to sleep. Then the doorbell rang, repeatedly. I knew it was them, but I had convinced myself it wasn’t, and I continued to roll around in bed for another hour.

Then, the phone call.

“Hey, did you want to get up? We’ve been here for an hour.”

I shouted a few choice profanities and cranked up some music. It was time to be a professional. After some brief hand-shaking, hugging and discussion, myself, my friends and two roommates hoofed it in the sweet sun to Tessaro’s, home of the best burger in the city.

It hit the spot (medium rare with dry blue cheese, bacon and the works), and we were off to my house for several games of Carcassonne. If you’ve never played, try it. It’s a great game, and that’s coming from a guy who has never won a single game. And I’ve played a lot. Always just one point shy. Generally because J, that witty guy with his clever little white lies, is playing. He destroys all he touches. The man has beat people at Monopoly in under five minutes. But he probably cheats.

After I had been trounced, after my roommate Quinn won playing for his first effing time, after I had been soaked in shame, we saddled up for the Roller Derby.

We missed the first half of B-Unit’s bout, but were just in time to see the ladies squeak out a tight win in the second half, beating the Ohio Roller Girls’ team by one point. My crush for any and all girls on roller skates continues to grow at a geometric rate.

The Steel Hurtin’ played a tough game with the Ohio A-squad, but generally commanded the flat track for the kind of victory I’ve come to expect from the Steel City’s best. The double-header ended and after a brief discussion, it was decided that J, B and myself were going to meet up with a friend of J’s on the Ohio team at Belvedere’s for the after-party.

I love Belvedere’s. So much. So did J and B. I trounced J so hard on the pool table, he chose to express his love for the place by disappearing and leaving me to take care of B, who brought a flask. The only time I saw the flask was when he was trying to pour its non-existent contents into his empty plastic cup. I’ll have to watch him more closely next time, but at least now I know he is fully capable of falling asleep standing up. While smiling, no less.

Eventually, J came out of hiding in the shadows of the neverending armchair section, and was joined by another derby girl he happened to know. She sat on his lap, I went to the dance floor and tried to figure out why things like that weren’t happening to me. It likely has something to do with, well…a selective lack of social skills in the pursuit of not being a creeper.

Maybe, like J, a derby girl will somehow magically sit in my lap.

Last call happened. We trudged back up Main, an icy hazard after a bit of wintry mix, and into Bloomfield, B stopping every few blocks to examine a shrub and giggle. We stopped at the Sunoco for cigarettes, where my apparent lack of luck with women reversed, and a pretty girl on her way back from clubbing in the Strip asked me to buy her some M & M’s. Sure, why the hell not? I am apparently “cute for a white guy”.

Finally home, we invited neighbors over, games were played, expletives were shouted, bottles of Jim Beam were exhausted. Various people collapsed onto the couch at various times and before I went to bed, I explained Life, the Universe and Everything to one of my roommates as the sun crept along behind the sky’s steel curtain.

I awoke to my neighbors continually calling my cellphone, painfully reminding me of promises made only hours before to go to Pamela’s for breakfast.

Despite three cups of coffee and surprisingly delicious chorizo, my physical state forced me to drag my ass through work after J and B dropped me off. I was still hurting on Monday and every inch of me smelled like Manhattans. Which won’t be delicious again for a long while.

It was a good visit, and likely the last time I’ll see J for awhile. Bastard is moving to Cali. B promises to be more visible, and it’s good to know that miles, years and the occasional bout of apathy can’t stop the friendships I’m lucky to have exported from Cleveland.

As an added bonus, I gave my Warhammer 40K armies to B for safe-keeping in the hopes they find a better home. One that doesn’t neglect them. He brought me a pair of Czech army boots, too small for him, and J sold me his climbing shoes, also too small for him. Everytime I get nice new-ish things, I feel like I am upgrading myself.

After such a positive experience, the upgrade is incidental. Turns out, I’ve done a few things right.

It’s been awhile since I had a full-on adventure of an evening, which isn’t surprising given the absolutely hellacious icy nonsense Pittsburghers have been dealing with until the lovely thaw we’re currently enjoying.

A couple of weeks ago, however, I braved the cold with one of my partners in crime, V. I’m still not quite sure if it’s something I should regret or not; I definitely remember how hard it was to lie to V while we walked around- “Dude, it’s not that cold! I can totally still feel my toes” but that’s not the reason for regret.

The plan was to meet in Squill (Squirrel Hill, guh) after I made it to quittin’ time, hop a 64A to Shadyside, home of well-dressed pricks in bars. We were meeting two friends of mine for a singular drink. From there we were supposed to hit up my local watering hole, Sonny’s Tavern, because I can only stomach Shadyside for about one or two rounds at best. Then I remember it’s home to well-dressed pricks in bars.

The plan started to go bad when V and I both missed our stop. That was walking in the cold round one, and it was about a half-mile. We get to Doc’s, the doormen are exchanging brah stories:

“So then I punch him in the head an he’s bleeding and shit and he runs off and T grabs me and holds me back, cause I was about to kill the kid.”

“Aw, serious brah? I wish I coulda been there to see that shit.”

Their pulsing neck-veins had succeeded in tweaking me out, and V’s famous stink-eye twitch was bolted onto her face for the duration of our stay.

We didn’t linger too long; the push of a crowd toting Mommy and Daddy’s credit cards was more than enough for us, so we opted to leave my buddies there and meet up later.

While I was closing out my tab, a funny thing happened:

This young-looking square next to me had been acting up since I arrived, trying to make jokes with the bartender but coming off as a total toolbox; he was the type of dude that every group of friends have,  so they can slag him off when he’s not around. At one point, he yells across the bar at some chick who’s dressed to play, calls her white trash. Well, whatever. I guess money doesn’t buy you manners.

While my back was turned and V’s stink-eye was burning a hole in his head, he sprinkled pepper flakes into his hand, ran around the bar, pushed through the crowd and chucked the contents of his hand into this chick’s hair.

I completely missed it, which is a good thing- V and I have a running joke that I will one day be involved in a bar fight on account of her and she was dying for the guy to come back.

He didn’t, we left, and proceeded to walk through the icy wastes to Bloomfield.

We close the bar up tight, but as we’re leaving, my errant buddies show up, one, as the other put it, “ten sheets to the wind”. He had a lot of important things to say to everyone, especially V. So important, he had to use his tongue. We made it back to V’s and there was a lot of this:

‘”Hey, listen, I have something to tell you. Listen. Listen. Come here. Listen.”

Whereupon a tongue would emerge and V would tell him to fuck off.

I had already made the mistake of bringing him along, so after a certain point, the novelty of a normally civilized dude acting like a total creeper had passed and I stepped in to escort him out.

We got as far as the entryway, where the conversation turned to this:

“Listen. Listen. You know me? You know me? You don’t know me. Let’s go outside. Listen to me. Shut the fuck up and listen! You don’t know me. I love you man. You know me. Don’t test me. Listen. Listen. Okay, let’s go.”

That went on for about twenty minutes. As amused as I was by my friend trying to trick my barefooted self into going outside first so he could lock me outside, it got old. Finally, my other buddy opened the inner door, grabbed my phone and got a ride for them.

The lesson here, if you haven’t picked one up yet, is that while drunken behavior is relatively amusing, it gets old at a rapid rate, and while engaging in it, you run the risk of getting stomped on, thrown out into the cold or having to give your buddy a shamefaced smile when you unexpectedly see them the next day at the movie theater.

It’s cool man, everyone gets their nights. Just don’t ever tell me anything with your tongue, I’ll be perfectly satisfied with not knowing that facet of you.

The day before the inauguration, I was in Baltimore after a pleasant drive, broken up only by the frigid onslaught a smoking habit causes on the winter road.

My hostess supreme, my friend E, showed me the city, sort of a brief and incomplete tour. For whatever reason, I never really thought of Baltimore as a city so much as I thought of it as that place that stole the Browns and broke my father’s heart in the mid-nineties, and more recently, as the home of the [insert expletive(s)] Ravens.

I was pretty jazzed about the drive-by experience; I love seeing a city at night. It offers a certain vitality that you can never match during the day. Baltimore is very attractive, despite the fact that many monuments and buildings were festooned with purple lights and banners for the Ravens’ doomed playoff season. Honestly, did anyone really think they were going to win? Honestly, was anyone surprised how long it took Polamalu to show us some fireworks? Because you knew it would happen. It was just a matter of when.

E showed me part of the waterfront, which I am told stinks a good bit during the summer. I abstained from a proper walk along the boards, reasoning that it was both ass-cold and we were already late for her friend’s broomball game.

Broomball, for those who don’t know, is a delightful Canadian invention, involving rubber brooms, a ball and ice, because that’s totally Canada’s largest natural resource.

The rink was in one of those plastic-bubble buildings, in the middle of Patterson Park, which I’m sure would be lovely in weather that wasn’t painful. In any case, we were late, so we caught the last few minutes of the game, and all of the post-ice sports stink. E’s friend and her team instructed us to meet them at their sponsor bar just a block away.

As we made our way there, I noticed a red neon face, winking from atop a building in the distance.

When we reached the bar and beers were distributed, I found out that this winking face belonged to the front of a bottle of National Bohemian. It’s a pretty goofy mascot.

See? That one eye? That's the one that winks.

The beer itself is fucking terrible. Baltimore has the nerve to say that Iron City (admittedly not my first choice) is made from filtered dredge from the Allegheny River. If that’s the case, then our bilgewater tastes a hell of a lot better than whatever the hell Pabst is putting into it.

That was the other funny thing I discovered. While Mr. Boh abounds in the city and surrounding area, the beer isn’t even made there anymore. After some ownership shuffling, Pabst ended up with the dubious luck of owning a terrible beer. I mean, this one can’t even lay claim to winning a Blue Ribbon, ever! 1892 and still going strong, brotha!

I had one, just to say I did it. After I finished it, I understood why the Ravens fans are always so angry- if I had to deal with the hangover I’m sure that sludge causes, I’d hate everything too. Adding insult to injury was the puzzles on the bottle caps, like the ones on bottles of Lion’s Head. Please, just try and solve those while drinking.

We left for E’s parents’ house right after that, taking a nice scenic route out through the city, playing spot the junkie as we rolled through the streets of Charm city. Despite the cold, there were a considerable amount of junkies.

While that was the end of my abridged Baltimore experience, I’m excited to see more of the city. The experience rekindled my love of travel and reminded me I dislike being in any one place for too long, hence the fact I’m going to Columbus at the end of the month, hooray!

Tuesday morning around 6am, I found myself in a suburb of Baltimore, grumbling at my friend E to wake up and take a shower so we could leave and get the party started.

Breakfast was had, coffee was made, the pockets of a loaned coat were loaded down with string cheese, kashi bars and my camera and onto the Beltway we soared. All that nightmare traffic they talked about, all the mythological crowds that kept my neighbors, E’s Baltimore friends and thousands of others at home and indoors did not exist.

At least not at that hour. We stowed the car away at Bethesda and got down to the Metro station. Getting on was a bit of, oh, I dunno, usual crowded mass transit BS, the same with getting off. One lady kept it real by telling all the yokels that this was nothing like NYC. Then she shoved them into the middle of the train.

We got off a couple of stops early, not minding the walk and eager to avoid those tall-tale crowds.

It felt like some sort of joyous exodus; we were all on our way to a better place.

While the crowds weren’t scary, we weren’t alone; the whole city was closed down for the benefit of pedestrians, with only an occasional siren cutting through the throng. As we got close to the National Mall, the Washington Monument loomed in the morning sun. We rolled up onto the immense, frozen-solid dust clod to find that there was no wall of people.

Okay, there was, but they were well past the Monument, and we had already decided to stay the hell away from the front. Why see a speck when you have fleets of  jumbotrons around the place? Besides, even arriving around 9 or so meant there was no way to get that close. Just as well, because a friend I was supposed to meet got within that range and couldn’t get clear of anything until 2:30, when we had already left the city and were on our way back to Bethesda.

We strolled around the perimeter to kill time. I hadn’t been to DC for six years, and I really love the place, so it was a treat to walk a bit of the Mall, go to the Jefferson Memorial, see the Roosevelt Memorial, make a wish on the icy Potomac and mill around the front of the Lincoln Memorial. I chucked a penny into the Pool for ‘Merica.

It started getting reasonably close to the Appointed Hour, so we walked across the dusty tundra to about the Washington Monument. We had no interest in standing too deep in the human ocean. We hung around, exchanged chitchat with fellow Americans, shifted weight from one leg to the other and kept checking the time.

We ran into about a dozen Steelers fans, which was cool as representatives of the Steeler Nation. I liked seeing the Eagles and Ravens fans frown even more. One dude asked me who was cooler, Obama or Coach Tomlin. I was hard pressed to answer, but it was Obama’s day.

We had trouble hearing, and rather than risk not hearing the magic words, we skeedadled back towards the Reflecting Pool in view and generous earshot of the rigs that lined the Mall.

My friend and I both cried, cheered and laughed. Then it was over, and we peaced. We hit up a bistro for some food, then took the Red Line out and back to Baltimore.

It’s sort of strange; after the shouting in the streets of Pittsburgh, of America, on November 4th, the months of are we there yet, it still feels like we haven’t arrived. The sighs of relief haven’t released the tension and pressure of the last eight years.

My favorite part of the President’s Inaugural Address was this. I guess it explains a lot:

“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”

Here’s to the second wind.

…and boy are my wits tired.

I didn’t stay for the whole show (as I understand, the people still there are drunk on fermented dreams), but I have my own stories to tell, and it’s very important to me that you know that I am not being neglectful.

I will say this:

Last night I had a dream involving my Inauguration-trip-buddy and the Cloverfield monster. Have no clue why.

Why, I ask you, why?

Tonight, I expect my fevered head to be visited by an Obamafield monster.

Instead of destroying a city and letting loose with creepy spider-crab things, he snuggles the country and sheds Hope like a Newfoundland will drop its winter coat, all over your dreams.

Does this analogy even work? I submit that it does not, but I have an audacious hope that it can.