Value-packed, accurate, and comprehensive

It's the night before I leave! Yeah, I don't know how it happened either. For my part, I certainly don't feel like I'm leaving for a big trip across the planet's second largest ocean tomorrow. This blog post itself is actually the final nail in the coffin of my trip planning; I tried for what seemed like forever in advance to assemble some kind of coherent travel plan, but for some reason I just could not settle on anything in particular ...at least not settled enough to wager airfare over. But tonight in the car, listening to my dad's copy of Enya's "A Day Without Rain," I finally kind of came to terms with the weeks of indecision: the trip has resisted planning because the trip is itself about getting as far away from planning as possible. I guess that's the reason I'm not just using the $2000 to drive to Seattle and live like a king--not far enough!

Anyways, the car I was driving was moving in a direction away from the residence of Mr. Andrew J. Shal, whose name almost always gets formal treatment because anything less is unacceptable. Likewise, I found my dad's boat of a Camry to be unacceptable, as the history of that particular model continues to confirm that nothing other than the '92 SE will do. I briefly met Shal's girl, Ammora, and we headed towards a local brewpub where we talked about lasers over my final East Coast beer of the forseeable future. Later, Shal and I took a walk--what all good friends should do-- in Devon's dark suburbian alleys and compared the weights of our two worlds. We were out long enough that Ammora had gone to bed and I felt bad about not saying goodnight. The problem was solved when I mentioned this fact in a blog entry that she would likely read. (Let me know if I am spelling your name wrong).

Nobody is actually at my house right now. My parents left for France before I arrived, Danny just started his second year at Penn State, and Michelle deposits sunflower seeds over the streets of Pittsburgh. Aside from a little grey cat, I am here all alone and it's been strange. The effect has been a complete absence of any semblance of time usefully spent. My house has always been a place where it's impossible for me in my adult life to feel comfortable--mentally or physically-- but this time it was ridiculous. And, although better arranged, the mountains of junk continue to build to a point where some of the larger collections may no longer be safe. One ludicrous stack of magazines in the corner of the foyer crawls almost halfway to the ceiling. In a time when the only true mental peace I enjoy comes from various manifestations of organization, my parents' house is a karmic house of horrors. I'll have to concede the game point to 1072 Plowshare road and just hope I can get my shit together enough to pack everything up tomorrow and get myself to Newark.

Pittsburgh was a great time. I'm pretty sure that nostalgia for things that happened not so long ago is evidence that I'm mentally destined to be a dumasses twentysomething until no sooner than till I actually hit thirty, but it felt great to be back at Pitt. College was definitely on the mind constantly. All I could think about while I was walking through South Oakland on the first absolutely beautiful, summery night was "why would anyone not go to school here?" For the entire weekend, my memory and I were frolicking in a valley of warped reality, like an eighty year old vet. So was the Pitt faithful until Saturday at about 11:30 PM, at which point Notre Dame was nailing shut coffins of its own. 42-22. Embarrassing.

Tim and I stayed with our friends Steph and Alicia, who we hung out with in college and whom I had not seen since I left Pittsburgh. But things became very natural as quickly as it takes for a squirrel to get run over, the smell of which causes someone to hilariously dry-heave for two minutes continuously. Stephanie now works as a social worker and recently bought a little old house on the eastern edge of Pittsburgh. It's old and rickety and I liked it a lot. Coming from a city that sometimes feels like a giant middle class theme park, Pittsburgh's teeming authenticity is almost too much to handle. Blue Bell might make my karma puke, but Pittsburgh makes it dry-heave.

Thank god that a weekend is a long enough time for college friends to have some bumbling adventures. Our plan for the game was to put together an elaborate tailgate, ferry across the Mon to the stadium, and to have Pitt win. Well, we went as far as buying a new grill at Wal-Mart and stopping at Sunseri's in the Strip district that morning to pick up 2.5 pounds of beautiful, handmade hot Italian sausage. But by the time we were approaching the parking lot of choice, it was apparent that we had forgotten to bring the sausage and the tailgate was going to consist of corn on the cob, baked ruffles, onions, and celery. The Veggie Deluxe. On the boat to the stadium, Tim and Steph harassed assorted hordes of Irish fans--who, in retrospect, took it so well probably because those fucks somehow knew they were going to win-- which is a reason I will always love hanging out with Tim and Steph. We got to our seats but promptly tiptoed into the student section to avoid all the cranky old men everywhere. Pitt won the first quarter. Everything else was downhill.

We got to hang out with Michelle and Andy the night before. We all sat on the front steps of their little den, drinking beers and Amber Myst while my sister grilled up some sausage of her own. Hmm that last sentence sounds a little off. But that's exactly what she was doing. And it tasted exactly like what summer should taste like: Yuengleng and meat, grilled in the brisk night air. Later, we somehow ended up drinking on the rooftop of a Shadyside bar, where seniors from the 40th year reunion of Peabody High in progress hit on us. I got drunker than I expected, which, in this case, was a good thing. My memory starts to blur at the point when someone ordered a pizza.

It was a dreamy, slow-paced week. I didn't realize that it would be such a marathon of reconnections, but by the time it was all said and done, I had visited my three childhood homes and met up with a bunch of people that I haven't hung out with in a while. I was trying to sort out in my mind the muddle of shit that was going through my head at the time, but as with a suburban basement filled to the brim with petticoats, computers, and young adult novels, harmony remains elusive.

This has been my best attempt.