It's 10:49 a.m. EST and I'm on the plane home. I say "home" with a sense of displacement, however, as these days I'm unsure where that safe place really is. If everything in life is so temporary, how can I choose a home base? I guess for now, home is just what is most familiar, and I can't say I don't intimately know this tiny corner of California. Like old friends, I know the smell, the taste, the nostalgia of the suburbian sidewalks I wandered as a kid.
You know you're on your way to San Francisco when you sit down in row 10, seat C, and watch the passengers file past -- long-haired hippies, people with piercings, tattoos, mountain men, business people, surfers and skaters, students, a guy with an entire desktop computer tower for a carry-on, Giants and Niners fans, kids, old Chinese ladies with bags of dim sum buns, engineers in Birkenstocks and free T-shirts and elastic shorts. A girl with a black leather jacket, a college sweatshirt, and an east coast heartbreak, who misses the snow and the hockey fanatics.
I spent Thanksgiving in Boston with Saturyne, and we've managed to see each other more in one year on the other side of the U.S. than we have in the past five years in California, half an hour away from each other. It's a testament, I guess, to our bizarre and unique friendship, unphased by time zones or tidal patterns or the distance between our two warring planets. You might think that in order for such a friendship to survive, we'd have to get along. But still, after all these years, we crossed a street in Harvard Square yesterday only to argue about which way to go around a decorative sidewalk landscaping, took different routes, and ended up at the same place in the end. Upon reaching the Dunkin' Donuts, we expertly forgot we had disagreed in the first place. And so the trend continues.
Beantown was beautiful, even in the dead, windy winter, and the Atlantic air dried my Pittsburgh tears cold on my face. As I sat in the courtyard outside Faneuil Hall, on hold with Oracle Travel and trying to blink and sniff away over a week of emotional trauma, Saturyne pointed across the street and said, "Hey, Ben Franklin is going into McDonalds."
I wiped my eyes and looked, and sure enough, Mr. Franklin was crossing the street in his elaborate satin coat and tri-corner hat, apparently hungry for a Big Mac. "Let's go take a picture with him," Saturyne said excitedly. Well, what could I say? It's not every day I see Ben Franklin. I finished booking my flight over the phone and hung up.
We found Ben sitting at a lonely corner table in the McDonalds with a coffee. We asked him if we could take a picture with him, and he asked for $2. "It's for the kids," he said. So his accent wasn't too authentic but hey, if all the panhandlers dressed up as colonial figures I might be more inclined to give them money too. So as you can see, I got my picture taken with Ben Franklin in the Boston McDonalds. Ben told us he and his wife (Mrs. Franklin?) toured the country giving lectures to schoolchildren about his life and American history. He said his wife especially loved Florida and Sonoma, California. "We don't drink the hard stuff," he explained. "We're wine lovers." For those of you unfamiliar with northern California, Sonoma is a great place for wine lovers, so Mrs. Franklin has some pretty expensive taste. Some other things I didn't know about Ben are that he's also given lectures to foreign schoolchildren in other countries and he pays for all his travel himself. Ben opened his leather satchel to reveal a Dunkin' Donuts bag and some crumpled flyers that he proceeded to hand to us. "You have Dunkin' Donuts!" Saturyne exclaimed, who had become quite a connoisseur of the chain since moving to the east coast. "They give me two free donuts every morning," he said. We were silently impressed.
I looked at his flyer. His business card was photocopied in the corner. Benjamin Franklin is alive and well. Have kite, will travel. I decided after this that if Oracle doesn't work out, being a famous historical figure might not be such a bad job. You get free donuts every morning just for being a patriot celebrity, and everyone wants their picture taken with you. I'm just not sure who I would be. I bet all the good ones like Paul Revere are already taken. I wouldn't want to dress up as a character that someone else had already picked, because then you'd get into the complications of explaining to kids how Mr. Revere could have been in Duluth, Minnesota and Tampa Bay, Florida within three hours of each other. "Fast horse," probably wouldn't cut it. It'd just get messy.
Aside from Ben, Saturyne took me to visit a lot of Boston, including the Commons, Quincy Market, the Cheers restaurant, the Freedom Trail, Lexington, Concord, Harvard Square and campus, and MIT. I saw the State House museum, Paul Revere's house and grave, lots of statues, Beacon Hill, the Charles, Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and I rode the T. We went skating on Frog Pond Wednesday night, where I managed to wipe out quite glamorously in the middle of the rink after our hot chocolate/zamboni break. Friday at MIT and Harvard we wandered around imagining what it was like to be smart, and we rubbed Mr. John Harvard's bronze foot for good luck. I'm not sure if it's as good as rubbing Buddha's belly, but from the gold shine on his toe, it looked like a lot of people didn't want to miss the opportunity, just in case. I know there's some places I've forgotten, but you can check out the pictures. Friday night we went to Big City, an outstanding pool house, bar, and restaurant, where I managed to win four out of four games of pool while becoming increasingly incapacitated by fruity drinks. It got to the point where I kept tripping on the carpet yet sinking balls all the while. Who knew. Maybe this would improve my bowling average as well. I'll have to try it next time.
11:58 a.m. EST, though I'm not really sure what time zone I'm in right now. My laptop is about half dead, and I am somewhere over the middle of the big U.S. of A., so I think I'll write an update later when I get back to the land of golden gasoline, bench-pressing governors, and 65 degree winters. With some regret, I'm hanging up my thermal underwear.
You know you're on your way to San Francisco when you sit down in row 10, seat C, and watch the passengers file past -- long-haired hippies, people with piercings, tattoos, mountain men, business people, surfers and skaters, students, a guy with an entire desktop computer tower for a carry-on, Giants and Niners fans, kids, old Chinese ladies with bags of dim sum buns, engineers in Birkenstocks and free T-shirts and elastic shorts. A girl with a black leather jacket, a college sweatshirt, and an east coast heartbreak, who misses the snow and the hockey fanatics.
I spent Thanksgiving in Boston with Saturyne, and we've managed to see each other more in one year on the other side of the U.S. than we have in the past five years in California, half an hour away from each other. It's a testament, I guess, to our bizarre and unique friendship, unphased by time zones or tidal patterns or the distance between our two warring planets. You might think that in order for such a friendship to survive, we'd have to get along. But still, after all these years, we crossed a street in Harvard Square yesterday only to argue about which way to go around a decorative sidewalk landscaping, took different routes, and ended up at the same place in the end. Upon reaching the Dunkin' Donuts, we expertly forgot we had disagreed in the first place. And so the trend continues.
Beantown was beautiful, even in the dead, windy winter, and the Atlantic air dried my Pittsburgh tears cold on my face. As I sat in the courtyard outside Faneuil Hall, on hold with Oracle Travel and trying to blink and sniff away over a week of emotional trauma, Saturyne pointed across the street and said, "Hey, Ben Franklin is going into McDonalds."
I wiped my eyes and looked, and sure enough, Mr. Franklin was crossing the street in his elaborate satin coat and tri-corner hat, apparently hungry for a Big Mac. "Let's go take a picture with him," Saturyne said excitedly. Well, what could I say? It's not every day I see Ben Franklin. I finished booking my flight over the phone and hung up.
We found Ben sitting at a lonely corner table in the McDonalds with a coffee. We asked him if we could take a picture with him, and he asked for $2. "It's for the kids," he said. So his accent wasn't too authentic but hey, if all the panhandlers dressed up as colonial figures I might be more inclined to give them money too. So as you can see, I got my picture taken with Ben Franklin in the Boston McDonalds. Ben told us he and his wife (Mrs. Franklin?) toured the country giving lectures to schoolchildren about his life and American history. He said his wife especially loved Florida and Sonoma, California. "We don't drink the hard stuff," he explained. "We're wine lovers." For those of you unfamiliar with northern California, Sonoma is a great place for wine lovers, so Mrs. Franklin has some pretty expensive taste. Some other things I didn't know about Ben are that he's also given lectures to foreign schoolchildren in other countries and he pays for all his travel himself. Ben opened his leather satchel to reveal a Dunkin' Donuts bag and some crumpled flyers that he proceeded to hand to us. "You have Dunkin' Donuts!" Saturyne exclaimed, who had become quite a connoisseur of the chain since moving to the east coast. "They give me two free donuts every morning," he said. We were silently impressed.
I looked at his flyer. His business card was photocopied in the corner. Benjamin Franklin is alive and well. Have kite, will travel. I decided after this that if Oracle doesn't work out, being a famous historical figure might not be such a bad job. You get free donuts every morning just for being a patriot celebrity, and everyone wants their picture taken with you. I'm just not sure who I would be. I bet all the good ones like Paul Revere are already taken. I wouldn't want to dress up as a character that someone else had already picked, because then you'd get into the complications of explaining to kids how Mr. Revere could have been in Duluth, Minnesota and Tampa Bay, Florida within three hours of each other. "Fast horse," probably wouldn't cut it. It'd just get messy.
Aside from Ben, Saturyne took me to visit a lot of Boston, including the Commons, Quincy Market, the Cheers restaurant, the Freedom Trail, Lexington, Concord, Harvard Square and campus, and MIT. I saw the State House museum, Paul Revere's house and grave, lots of statues, Beacon Hill, the Charles, Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and I rode the T. We went skating on Frog Pond Wednesday night, where I managed to wipe out quite glamorously in the middle of the rink after our hot chocolate/zamboni break. Friday at MIT and Harvard we wandered around imagining what it was like to be smart, and we rubbed Mr. John Harvard's bronze foot for good luck. I'm not sure if it's as good as rubbing Buddha's belly, but from the gold shine on his toe, it looked like a lot of people didn't want to miss the opportunity, just in case. I know there's some places I've forgotten, but you can check out the pictures. Friday night we went to Big City, an outstanding pool house, bar, and restaurant, where I managed to win four out of four games of pool while becoming increasingly incapacitated by fruity drinks. It got to the point where I kept tripping on the carpet yet sinking balls all the while. Who knew. Maybe this would improve my bowling average as well. I'll have to try it next time.
11:58 a.m. EST, though I'm not really sure what time zone I'm in right now. My laptop is about half dead, and I am somewhere over the middle of the big U.S. of A., so I think I'll write an update later when I get back to the land of golden gasoline, bench-pressing governors, and 65 degree winters. With some regret, I'm hanging up my thermal underwear.
Is that all there is? It seems like a terrible waste of heart.
Goodbye Hollywood Hotel. I am officially out. Two days till Boston.
My time here ticks away.
Schenley rink is finally open again. Everything I loved about my first winter in Pittsburgh has come full circle. Thursday night I stepped out gingerly onto an inch thick sheet of clear ice through which I could see concrete and various trapped brown leaves. The insensitive wind was accompanied by random flakes of snow flying about in several directions as I slid, oblivious to the weather, across the rink in sneakers and fascination. I followed the Rink Father and his pack of derelict but faithful minions to the garage to watch in wide-eyed youthful wonder as he filled a zamboni with several hundred gallons of white paint and hot water and drove it steaming over the new ice, leaving a whitewashed trail in his wake.
"Get a squeegee!" he shouted over the roar of the zamboni and the painful wind. We dashed out onto the ice, sliding in our shoes through a slimy white coating like watery mayonnaise, trailing awkwardly behind the zamboni. We slopped paint against the boards as best we could while dodging splash back and the white flood that spread from the back of the machine. We ran back off the ice and when the zamboni came off I shoveled the snow clumps passionately. I couldn't wait to try out the ice.
* * * * *
Saturday I worked my first shift at what was to be called "a slow day at the rink." After surviving an initial onslaught of kids at the rentals counter ("A size 7 kid's skate, we don't have that, what is that in an adult size??" and "How do you work the skate sharpener?") we settled down to a rather quiet existence watching football on a black and white TV and sometimes relacing figure skates. At times, one of us would put on our skates, don a sportive neon yellow vest with "PITTSBURGH GUARD" on the back, and trade 30 minute shifts out on the ice. I waited eagerly for this, with nothing much else to do.
Now, before I describe my first experiences skateguarding, I must spend some time developing the off color cast of characters from whom I learn and share my duties with at the rink. For you to fully appreciate the oddity of my very public occupation, you must come to love and understand my co-workers. I've had to give them appropriate nicknames, in the rare situation they find my web site and later "trip to kill" the day after they read this and find me skating at the rink.
"Ms. Disney" is a woman who I discovered I am actually intimately familiar with, and who now orders me around at the rental counter. This is the same woman who yelled at me last winter for parking in the staff lot and who also let me in for the 19 and under price.
"These are thousand dollar skates," she said to me, pointing to her painted neon green figure skates with the curly orange flowers adorning the boot. "I got bored," she said, "so I painted them." I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. "I used to skate for the Ice Capades," she continued. "We had to have beige skates. I got fined because right before our last performance I painted my skates pink." What does one say to this? That takes balls, I guess. I had no hopes of skating for the Ice Capades, let alone defying them with the wrong color skates.
"Rebel" is a skinny 21 year old girl going on 12, who smokes incessantly and was game to show us her three tattoos, one of which her mom "was SO pissed about," because it was on her lower abdomen.
"Yeah it'll get all stretched out of shape when you get pregnant," said Dropout, a former high school slacker who was now going to night school to get her GED, after realizing "thug" wouldn't pay much as a career.
"You just put coconut oil on it," said Rebel, making a rubbing motion on her stomach. "If I get pregnant I'll use lots of coconut oil."
Rebel had earlier made a point of very seriously showing me the skate rental counter and where all the extra skates were stored. When I questioned her about the skateguarding shifts, she said "We go out in 30 minute shifts and I'm going to go first -"
"No, I'm going first," said Ms. Disney, walking tall into the rental room in her neon green skates. Rebel looked quietly stunned and dejected. I later learned her "dad used to drive the zamboni" (this fact was reiterated to me several times) and that this family history seemed to stir in her a sense of ownership and imagined rights. I felt mildly sorry for her, but more because she had no sense of humor than for any other reason.
All of this verbal volleying about who was going out to guard made me nervous about my own shift. I started to think that sitting behind the rental counter was a much lesser duty than actually skating, and began to wonder if I'd have to fight it out to get ice time. Well, I figured, it wouldn't be the first time I'd have to hit someone over the head with a hockey stick.
"So where are you from?" I asked Dropout, trying to make lame conversation. I learned she was from Pittsburgh, and used to come to Schenley all the time as a "rink rat," which I'll explain later. "We used to just come here to fight," she said. "You came here just to fight?" I repeated, confused. "Well, we came here to skate," she said, "but we ended up fighting too." I raised an eyebrow. "Why pay to get in here and fight;" I asked, "why not just fight outside for free?" "Hm, I don't know," she contemplated. A bit of logic forever lost in the intricacies of complete stupidity, I concluded.
"The Outlaw" looks like he's recently escaped from a minimum security prison and is trying to hide in the folds of society as a rink attendant. I must admit I was at first afraid of this man, but he later grew on me as one of the few undisturbed people at the rink. (Which, if he really is trying to hide, would actually make him stick out like a guy in an orange jumpsuit here.) During the first few shifts, while everyone else was out fighting to skate, he and I sat behind the rentals counter poking fun at the customers, relacing skates, and talking hockey.
When Dropout returned from her surprisingly short shift on the ice, she sat down next to me to remove her skates. "It's freezing out there," she said. This, to me handing out rental skates, seemed like a pretty poor reason to cut an ice shift short. I asked her generally about the current skating conditions and the customers, to which she replied, "Well I'm afraid to skate like I normally do because I think I'll run someone over."
I sat back on the bench with some apprehension. I realized then that my ability to skate around proficiently and not fall on my ass while trying to do some simple thing was now a lot more critical than it had been when I was simply a rink visitor. I envisioned everyone I worked with as mad skaters.
The true "Mad Skater," however, (who we'll call "Mad" for short) is an alternately affectionate and annoyingly gang-like individual who skates like he has been doing it in at least three former lives, and who I saw last April running the ticket booth at Carnival after the rink closed. Last February he gave me skating pointers and saved me from some unruly children during a late night game of tag. Working alongside him has changed our relationship a bit, although I still find him quirky, unpredictable, cute, and offensive. Proud of his new job driving the zamboni, he wasn't as adamant about skating as Rebel, and I didn't actually see him on the ice until the final session I was scheduled to work that day.
We were well into the second session and I had yet to go out and skate. That's when I saw Rebel lace up her skates a second time and go out on the ice without her guard vest on. She's just going out to skate for fun, and ditching us behind the counter, I thought. I pulled on my skates, grabbed a vest and my gloves and went out.
I hadn't skated outdoors since last winter, and it was invigorating to glide out into the cold, and this time without the hesitating instability I always felt the first five minutes after transitioning from rubber mats to unforgiving ice. I at first skated out with some zest, before becoming sweatily aware that many eyes were on me, as I whizzed around in a reflective yellow blur. I slowed down and skated cautiously, being careful not to put myself in any precarious positions such as maneuvering while skating backwards. A group of children, a.k.a. rink rats, started to accumulate behind me.
Rink rats are unloved children whose parents give them money for all four skating sessions a day and abandon them at the rink. The strange characteristic about rink rats is that most of them have been coming to the rink for years, skate every single day, and still are disappointingly poor skaters. Their priorities appear to be socializing, picking fights, and being generally annoying. Rink rats know all the current and former skateguards and other rink employees, and can smell fresh blood. They followed me erratically like a cloud of gnats before I had even completed a full lap.
"What's your name?" one of them said, peering up at me while skating stiff-legged to catch up to my slow, deliberate stride.
For someone who isn't overly fond of children, I deal with them extremely well, even to the point where people think I really like them. I told her my name. Then I asked for all her friends' names. They skated up one by one beside me, offering their names and some bit of rink lore or gossip that I nodded appreciatively to in response. After giving them my express permission to harass everyone working behind the rentals counter, and telling them I would "work on getting them in for free," they finally drifted away in the same nebulous mass in which they had arrived.
I turned the corner and Rebel was skating whimsically with no guard vest on. "You know," I said to her, "no one ever asked me if I could skate before I took this job." "You don't have to skate much," she said. "You only have to skate when you're going to yell at someone."
I thought about this and then said something else instead. "I don't skate that well." She looked at me, skating around with her arms cautiously out to the side, balancing her two-footed stride. "I can't crossover," she said. In fact, Rebel didn't skate much better than the rink rats, sadly. "My dad used to drive the zamboni here." I wanted to finish her sentence for her but I didn't. I skated away with a humorous expression that I didn't think anyone saw.
My first shift on the ice turned out to be uneventful, as there weren't too many visitors and since I spent the majority of the time worried about whether or not the general public was evaluating my skating ability. It didn't get bizarre until the sun started to go down, as is the rule with delinquency and youth.
After I got off the ice, I went back behind the rentals counter and had hardly removed my gloves when someone appeared with their very expensive hockey skates looking for a sharpening. I picked up the skates and the chip dumbly and turned around. Mad saw my helpless look. "I'll show you how to sharpen them," he said, "it's easy."
We took the poor sucker's skates into the zamboni garage and Mad jammed the skate into the machine and clamped the blade down. He turned the sharpener on, grabbed the handle, and pulled the wheel down over the skate blade. A dramatic spray of orange sparks flew out from either end of the wheel, which Mad completely ignored. A small voice in the back of my mind said that perhaps we should be wearing goggles or some other sort of protective equipment instead of sticking our faces down by the skate blade and the sparks, but I immediately banned all thought of mentioning it for fear of getting razzed as much as I do for my wheelie hockey bag.
"For new skates," Mad said, "you usually go over the blade like seven times." He then proceeded to grind the guy's skate fifteen times on one edge, then turned the skate around and ground it another fifteen times on the opposite edge. I cringed, thinking about the first time this guy would try to stop on his newly mutilated skates.
When I returned to the counter, Ms. Disney had just sat down on a bench with a divided plastic tool carrier full of ice cubes. She proceeded to put her feet, complete with socks, into the ice in each side of the carrier. Her neon green skates were strewn across the floor beside her, laces everywhere.
"I have this knee injury," she said. I kept staring at her feet in the ice. "I have a bad knee also," I replied. "You know how I got this?" she asked me, apparently disregarding my comment. I tried to look interested without speaking. "When that new Kaufmann's department store opened up, they hired me to go out there and rollerblade around in this Victorian dress. Me and a bunch of other people. And it was this big hoop skirt and my wheel just got caught right in the dress and I did a header in front of four news stations." I still kept looking at her feet. Eventually I was interrupted by customers at the counter asking for a size 10 instead of a 9. When I came out from the back, Ms. Disney was telling someone else what was wrong with her feet. I decided I had heard enough medical ailments for the day, and when Mad finished zamboniing the ice, I donned my styling vest and went out for my second ice shift.
It had started to sprinkle a bit and dusk had fallen when Outlaw joined me on the ice. Several new hoodlums had shown up, and things started to get rowdy. One kid, who appeared to be about nine years old, had taken off his sweatshirt to reveal a torn, sleeveless T-shirt underneath, 50s greasers style, and was skating around backwards hooting and twirling his sweatshirt in one hand. "All the girls wanna see this!" he screamed, weaving in and out of the crowds while occasionally glancing over his shoulder. He then leapt forwards onto the ice, sliding on his chest across the length of the rink. "I think he should do that without his shirt on," I said to Outlaw. He laughed, I suppose thinking it would be a nice sight to see but that the kid wouldn't do it.
I smiled crookedly and followed the kid around. He skated up to me and asked "Want me to take my shirt off?" "Sure," I said. "Do you think the girls wanna see this?" "Of course," I replied. As we glided down the long side of the rink I added, "I think you should slide without your shirt on." "Really?" he said. "Yeah, but you might get ice rash."
He looked a little concerned about this. "Ice rash? Are you sure?" "Yeah," I said, "but don't worry, it'll go away after a while." He seemed to ponder this for a bit and then apparently decided the benefits outweighed the consequences. He gathered up his harem of pint-sized girlfriends and made them all watch as he leapt onto the ice in all his nakedness. He slid for about half the rink before jumping to his feet screaming and twitching like a stuck pig, and skated immediately off the ice and disappeared. The girls giggled uncontrollably and I skated over to Outlaw who couldn't respond except to shake his head.
By the end of the evening session and before the start of the night sessions, Ms. Disney appeared on the ice to join Outlaw and me, and Mad came out skating in a long hooded sweatshirt over his baseball cap. Ms. Disney gallivanted about, twirling and spinning and crossing over backwards without picking her feet up. Mad skated around -- well, madly -- disconnected from the ice yet never falling, jumping three feet into the air and twisting around and landing with one foot in front of the other, only to cut backwards, turn and stop. I couldn't have maneuvered in my sneakers the way he did on skates.
With four guards out and not many visitors, I grew bolder, and started skating backwards and working on my crossovers. Mad came by to give me pointers on turning around both backwards and forwards. "Pivot off your inside foot, see," he said, turning around and around again in succession as I watched his skates. I tried this, but my outside foot kept dragging like a dead appendage and catching my edge. Backwards and forwards and then some fourth dimension between the realm of backwards and forwards and I went flying onto my rear end in the middle of the rink.
Ms. Disney guffawed. "I think every guard has wiped out today!" Mad took offense. "I haven't wiped out," he insisted, reaching out a hand to help me up. I brushed off the snow and continued my backwards strategy. It was all I had.
Ms. Disney skated up to me after a half lap around. "Those kids want me to teach them how to do tricks, when they can barely skate forward!" I looked at her in a daze, with my mind still on my throbbing hip. She explained. "I'm one of the top figure skating teachers in the country, and I'm not giving out pointers for free! I charge $40 an hour for lessons." I wanted to tell her that horseback riding lessons in California were $40 for a half hour, taught by people who were far from national caliber, and that she was getting ripped off, but my preference was to run away from her. It also occurred to me that I wasn't going to get any tips, so I just skated away.
About half a lap later as she watched me crossing over backwards pitifully around a turn, she shouted from the center of the rink, "You aren't leaning inwards enough! You have to lean in like this, see?" She skated in a small circle backwards, crossing over elegantly. I wondered if her recommendation would be deducted from my pay at the end of the week. One thing I've learned from both teaching and being a student is, that if you are pathetic enough, someone will eventually give in and try to help you just so they don't have to continue watching the suffering.
By the time the session ended, I actually felt like my backwards skating, which had plateaued over the last two months, had improved, primarily from all the taunting and ridicule. And so ended my first day working at Schenley rink. I was off Sunday, but if you're really interested, ask me about the country music frog on hockey skates.
"Get a squeegee!" he shouted over the roar of the zamboni and the painful wind. We dashed out onto the ice, sliding in our shoes through a slimy white coating like watery mayonnaise, trailing awkwardly behind the zamboni. We slopped paint against the boards as best we could while dodging splash back and the white flood that spread from the back of the machine. We ran back off the ice and when the zamboni came off I shoveled the snow clumps passionately. I couldn't wait to try out the ice.
Saturday I worked my first shift at what was to be called "a slow day at the rink." After surviving an initial onslaught of kids at the rentals counter ("A size 7 kid's skate, we don't have that, what is that in an adult size??" and "How do you work the skate sharpener?") we settled down to a rather quiet existence watching football on a black and white TV and sometimes relacing figure skates. At times, one of us would put on our skates, don a sportive neon yellow vest with "PITTSBURGH GUARD" on the back, and trade 30 minute shifts out on the ice. I waited eagerly for this, with nothing much else to do.
Now, before I describe my first experiences skateguarding, I must spend some time developing the off color cast of characters from whom I learn and share my duties with at the rink. For you to fully appreciate the oddity of my very public occupation, you must come to love and understand my co-workers. I've had to give them appropriate nicknames, in the rare situation they find my web site and later "trip to kill" the day after they read this and find me skating at the rink.
"Ms. Disney" is a woman who I discovered I am actually intimately familiar with, and who now orders me around at the rental counter. This is the same woman who yelled at me last winter for parking in the staff lot and who also let me in for the 19 and under price.
"These are thousand dollar skates," she said to me, pointing to her painted neon green figure skates with the curly orange flowers adorning the boot. "I got bored," she said, "so I painted them." I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. "I used to skate for the Ice Capades," she continued. "We had to have beige skates. I got fined because right before our last performance I painted my skates pink." What does one say to this? That takes balls, I guess. I had no hopes of skating for the Ice Capades, let alone defying them with the wrong color skates.
"Rebel" is a skinny 21 year old girl going on 12, who smokes incessantly and was game to show us her three tattoos, one of which her mom "was SO pissed about," because it was on her lower abdomen.
"Yeah it'll get all stretched out of shape when you get pregnant," said Dropout, a former high school slacker who was now going to night school to get her GED, after realizing "thug" wouldn't pay much as a career.
"You just put coconut oil on it," said Rebel, making a rubbing motion on her stomach. "If I get pregnant I'll use lots of coconut oil."
Rebel had earlier made a point of very seriously showing me the skate rental counter and where all the extra skates were stored. When I questioned her about the skateguarding shifts, she said "We go out in 30 minute shifts and I'm going to go first -"
"No, I'm going first," said Ms. Disney, walking tall into the rental room in her neon green skates. Rebel looked quietly stunned and dejected. I later learned her "dad used to drive the zamboni" (this fact was reiterated to me several times) and that this family history seemed to stir in her a sense of ownership and imagined rights. I felt mildly sorry for her, but more because she had no sense of humor than for any other reason.
All of this verbal volleying about who was going out to guard made me nervous about my own shift. I started to think that sitting behind the rental counter was a much lesser duty than actually skating, and began to wonder if I'd have to fight it out to get ice time. Well, I figured, it wouldn't be the first time I'd have to hit someone over the head with a hockey stick.
"So where are you from?" I asked Dropout, trying to make lame conversation. I learned she was from Pittsburgh, and used to come to Schenley all the time as a "rink rat," which I'll explain later. "We used to just come here to fight," she said. "You came here just to fight?" I repeated, confused. "Well, we came here to skate," she said, "but we ended up fighting too." I raised an eyebrow. "Why pay to get in here and fight;" I asked, "why not just fight outside for free?" "Hm, I don't know," she contemplated. A bit of logic forever lost in the intricacies of complete stupidity, I concluded.
"The Outlaw" looks like he's recently escaped from a minimum security prison and is trying to hide in the folds of society as a rink attendant. I must admit I was at first afraid of this man, but he later grew on me as one of the few undisturbed people at the rink. (Which, if he really is trying to hide, would actually make him stick out like a guy in an orange jumpsuit here.) During the first few shifts, while everyone else was out fighting to skate, he and I sat behind the rentals counter poking fun at the customers, relacing skates, and talking hockey.
When Dropout returned from her surprisingly short shift on the ice, she sat down next to me to remove her skates. "It's freezing out there," she said. This, to me handing out rental skates, seemed like a pretty poor reason to cut an ice shift short. I asked her generally about the current skating conditions and the customers, to which she replied, "Well I'm afraid to skate like I normally do because I think I'll run someone over."
I sat back on the bench with some apprehension. I realized then that my ability to skate around proficiently and not fall on my ass while trying to do some simple thing was now a lot more critical than it had been when I was simply a rink visitor. I envisioned everyone I worked with as mad skaters.
The true "Mad Skater," however, (who we'll call "Mad" for short) is an alternately affectionate and annoyingly gang-like individual who skates like he has been doing it in at least three former lives, and who I saw last April running the ticket booth at Carnival after the rink closed. Last February he gave me skating pointers and saved me from some unruly children during a late night game of tag. Working alongside him has changed our relationship a bit, although I still find him quirky, unpredictable, cute, and offensive. Proud of his new job driving the zamboni, he wasn't as adamant about skating as Rebel, and I didn't actually see him on the ice until the final session I was scheduled to work that day.
We were well into the second session and I had yet to go out and skate. That's when I saw Rebel lace up her skates a second time and go out on the ice without her guard vest on. She's just going out to skate for fun, and ditching us behind the counter, I thought. I pulled on my skates, grabbed a vest and my gloves and went out.
I hadn't skated outdoors since last winter, and it was invigorating to glide out into the cold, and this time without the hesitating instability I always felt the first five minutes after transitioning from rubber mats to unforgiving ice. I at first skated out with some zest, before becoming sweatily aware that many eyes were on me, as I whizzed around in a reflective yellow blur. I slowed down and skated cautiously, being careful not to put myself in any precarious positions such as maneuvering while skating backwards. A group of children, a.k.a. rink rats, started to accumulate behind me.
Rink rats are unloved children whose parents give them money for all four skating sessions a day and abandon them at the rink. The strange characteristic about rink rats is that most of them have been coming to the rink for years, skate every single day, and still are disappointingly poor skaters. Their priorities appear to be socializing, picking fights, and being generally annoying. Rink rats know all the current and former skateguards and other rink employees, and can smell fresh blood. They followed me erratically like a cloud of gnats before I had even completed a full lap.
"What's your name?" one of them said, peering up at me while skating stiff-legged to catch up to my slow, deliberate stride.
For someone who isn't overly fond of children, I deal with them extremely well, even to the point where people think I really like them. I told her my name. Then I asked for all her friends' names. They skated up one by one beside me, offering their names and some bit of rink lore or gossip that I nodded appreciatively to in response. After giving them my express permission to harass everyone working behind the rentals counter, and telling them I would "work on getting them in for free," they finally drifted away in the same nebulous mass in which they had arrived.
I turned the corner and Rebel was skating whimsically with no guard vest on. "You know," I said to her, "no one ever asked me if I could skate before I took this job." "You don't have to skate much," she said. "You only have to skate when you're going to yell at someone."
I thought about this and then said something else instead. "I don't skate that well." She looked at me, skating around with her arms cautiously out to the side, balancing her two-footed stride. "I can't crossover," she said. In fact, Rebel didn't skate much better than the rink rats, sadly. "My dad used to drive the zamboni here." I wanted to finish her sentence for her but I didn't. I skated away with a humorous expression that I didn't think anyone saw.
My first shift on the ice turned out to be uneventful, as there weren't too many visitors and since I spent the majority of the time worried about whether or not the general public was evaluating my skating ability. It didn't get bizarre until the sun started to go down, as is the rule with delinquency and youth.
After I got off the ice, I went back behind the rentals counter and had hardly removed my gloves when someone appeared with their very expensive hockey skates looking for a sharpening. I picked up the skates and the chip dumbly and turned around. Mad saw my helpless look. "I'll show you how to sharpen them," he said, "it's easy."
We took the poor sucker's skates into the zamboni garage and Mad jammed the skate into the machine and clamped the blade down. He turned the sharpener on, grabbed the handle, and pulled the wheel down over the skate blade. A dramatic spray of orange sparks flew out from either end of the wheel, which Mad completely ignored. A small voice in the back of my mind said that perhaps we should be wearing goggles or some other sort of protective equipment instead of sticking our faces down by the skate blade and the sparks, but I immediately banned all thought of mentioning it for fear of getting razzed as much as I do for my wheelie hockey bag.
"For new skates," Mad said, "you usually go over the blade like seven times." He then proceeded to grind the guy's skate fifteen times on one edge, then turned the skate around and ground it another fifteen times on the opposite edge. I cringed, thinking about the first time this guy would try to stop on his newly mutilated skates.
When I returned to the counter, Ms. Disney had just sat down on a bench with a divided plastic tool carrier full of ice cubes. She proceeded to put her feet, complete with socks, into the ice in each side of the carrier. Her neon green skates were strewn across the floor beside her, laces everywhere.
"I have this knee injury," she said. I kept staring at her feet in the ice. "I have a bad knee also," I replied. "You know how I got this?" she asked me, apparently disregarding my comment. I tried to look interested without speaking. "When that new Kaufmann's department store opened up, they hired me to go out there and rollerblade around in this Victorian dress. Me and a bunch of other people. And it was this big hoop skirt and my wheel just got caught right in the dress and I did a header in front of four news stations." I still kept looking at her feet. Eventually I was interrupted by customers at the counter asking for a size 10 instead of a 9. When I came out from the back, Ms. Disney was telling someone else what was wrong with her feet. I decided I had heard enough medical ailments for the day, and when Mad finished zamboniing the ice, I donned my styling vest and went out for my second ice shift.
It had started to sprinkle a bit and dusk had fallen when Outlaw joined me on the ice. Several new hoodlums had shown up, and things started to get rowdy. One kid, who appeared to be about nine years old, had taken off his sweatshirt to reveal a torn, sleeveless T-shirt underneath, 50s greasers style, and was skating around backwards hooting and twirling his sweatshirt in one hand. "All the girls wanna see this!" he screamed, weaving in and out of the crowds while occasionally glancing over his shoulder. He then leapt forwards onto the ice, sliding on his chest across the length of the rink. "I think he should do that without his shirt on," I said to Outlaw. He laughed, I suppose thinking it would be a nice sight to see but that the kid wouldn't do it.
I smiled crookedly and followed the kid around. He skated up to me and asked "Want me to take my shirt off?" "Sure," I said. "Do you think the girls wanna see this?" "Of course," I replied. As we glided down the long side of the rink I added, "I think you should slide without your shirt on." "Really?" he said. "Yeah, but you might get ice rash."
He looked a little concerned about this. "Ice rash? Are you sure?" "Yeah," I said, "but don't worry, it'll go away after a while." He seemed to ponder this for a bit and then apparently decided the benefits outweighed the consequences. He gathered up his harem of pint-sized girlfriends and made them all watch as he leapt onto the ice in all his nakedness. He slid for about half the rink before jumping to his feet screaming and twitching like a stuck pig, and skated immediately off the ice and disappeared. The girls giggled uncontrollably and I skated over to Outlaw who couldn't respond except to shake his head.
By the end of the evening session and before the start of the night sessions, Ms. Disney appeared on the ice to join Outlaw and me, and Mad came out skating in a long hooded sweatshirt over his baseball cap. Ms. Disney gallivanted about, twirling and spinning and crossing over backwards without picking her feet up. Mad skated around -- well, madly -- disconnected from the ice yet never falling, jumping three feet into the air and twisting around and landing with one foot in front of the other, only to cut backwards, turn and stop. I couldn't have maneuvered in my sneakers the way he did on skates.
With four guards out and not many visitors, I grew bolder, and started skating backwards and working on my crossovers. Mad came by to give me pointers on turning around both backwards and forwards. "Pivot off your inside foot, see," he said, turning around and around again in succession as I watched his skates. I tried this, but my outside foot kept dragging like a dead appendage and catching my edge. Backwards and forwards and then some fourth dimension between the realm of backwards and forwards and I went flying onto my rear end in the middle of the rink.
Ms. Disney guffawed. "I think every guard has wiped out today!" Mad took offense. "I haven't wiped out," he insisted, reaching out a hand to help me up. I brushed off the snow and continued my backwards strategy. It was all I had.
Ms. Disney skated up to me after a half lap around. "Those kids want me to teach them how to do tricks, when they can barely skate forward!" I looked at her in a daze, with my mind still on my throbbing hip. She explained. "I'm one of the top figure skating teachers in the country, and I'm not giving out pointers for free! I charge $40 an hour for lessons." I wanted to tell her that horseback riding lessons in California were $40 for a half hour, taught by people who were far from national caliber, and that she was getting ripped off, but my preference was to run away from her. It also occurred to me that I wasn't going to get any tips, so I just skated away.
About half a lap later as she watched me crossing over backwards pitifully around a turn, she shouted from the center of the rink, "You aren't leaning inwards enough! You have to lean in like this, see?" She skated in a small circle backwards, crossing over elegantly. I wondered if her recommendation would be deducted from my pay at the end of the week. One thing I've learned from both teaching and being a student is, that if you are pathetic enough, someone will eventually give in and try to help you just so they don't have to continue watching the suffering.
By the time the session ended, I actually felt like my backwards skating, which had plateaued over the last two months, had improved, primarily from all the taunting and ridicule. And so ended my first day working at Schenley rink. I was off Sunday, but if you're really interested, ask me about the country music frog on hockey skates.
The girl looked up, listening, and then turned toward the boy who had just freed himself. She pushed against his great chest and clung.
"Larry," she said.
The other boy undid his fists and looked at the two of them, then turned toward us, with tears in his eyes and an uncomprehending look on his face.
"Too bad, man," someone said. "She picked Larry."
"Good going, Larry," said another.
It was done; people clapped. The battered policemen rushed over, the reinforcements squealed up, Larry kissed his girl.
"One more Pittsburgh heartbreak," said a voice right beside me.
- Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
"Larry," she said.
The other boy undid his fists and looked at the two of them, then turned toward us, with tears in his eyes and an uncomprehending look on his face.
"Too bad, man," someone said. "She picked Larry."
"Good going, Larry," said another.
It was done; people clapped. The battered policemen rushed over, the reinforcements squealed up, Larry kissed his girl.
"One more Pittsburgh heartbreak," said a voice right beside me.
- Michael Chabon, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Saturyne's back in Boston now but we made a lovely mini-vacation of it -- eating, sleeping, and antagonizing other people, as is the custom.
It's been a hockey weekend, which of course never makes for a bad weekend. Saturyne's good luck touch didn't hurt either. First excellent news is that we won our game Saturday against the Ice Hawks. Here's a photo of me helping to win that game (click it):
How I got in there is unclear to me (ok, I skated in there after a ref about to have an aneurysm pointed at me and then at the box) although audience sources claim that I attempted to scalp an opposing team member with my stick. I still don't understand what her head was doing by my blade but hey, maybe she just wanted a really close look at Superstar's awesome taping job. So I conclude it's really Superstar's fault I spent the last two minutes of third period in the box. Case closed.
Other great game pics are courtesy of Saturyne, and now I'm just waiting on the film pics before I post them to the images page.
What I am missing here is a photo of the CMU team colors "banner" we made to help cheer on Superstar at his Saturday game. They won, of course, and we all know it was due to our candid support and the camaraderie of his doting team members...(I hope you find that sign soon, Superstar, before it ends up laminated as a permanent fixture at Ice Castle.)
Sunday Saturyne did an admirable job of keeping up during Piranhas practice; in fact, she skated way better than I did, since it was apparently my night to crash into and subsequently get knocked down by every member of my team. I was going to say a little bonding never hurt, but my left arm does not agree with that theory.
The question now is, can I lift a 60 pound propane tank into a zamboni? Stay tuned to find out...
It's been a hockey weekend, which of course never makes for a bad weekend. Saturyne's good luck touch didn't hurt either. First excellent news is that we won our game Saturday against the Ice Hawks. Here's a photo of me helping to win that game (click it):
How I got in there is unclear to me (ok, I skated in there after a ref about to have an aneurysm pointed at me and then at the box) although audience sources claim that I attempted to scalp an opposing team member with my stick. I still don't understand what her head was doing by my blade but hey, maybe she just wanted a really close look at Superstar's awesome taping job. So I conclude it's really Superstar's fault I spent the last two minutes of third period in the box. Case closed.
Other great game pics are courtesy of Saturyne, and now I'm just waiting on the film pics before I post them to the images page.
What I am missing here is a photo of the CMU team colors "banner" we made to help cheer on Superstar at his Saturday game. They won, of course, and we all know it was due to our candid support and the camaraderie of his doting team members...(I hope you find that sign soon, Superstar, before it ends up laminated as a permanent fixture at Ice Castle.)
Sunday Saturyne did an admirable job of keeping up during Piranhas practice; in fact, she skated way better than I did, since it was apparently my night to crash into and subsequently get knocked down by every member of my team. I was going to say a little bonding never hurt, but my left arm does not agree with that theory.
The question now is, can I lift a 60 pound propane tank into a zamboni? Stay tuned to find out...
It's come to the point where I have to address the issue of the blog comments. Now, I knew I was asking for trouble when I implemented the comments, but so many people were crying defamy of character that I had to add the feature just to get them to shut up. (And yes, I am aware of the irony in letting people respond to get them to shut up, so don't bother pointing that out.)
Now, I'm flattered that so many people are reading my blog and even feeling the need to comment. It's true that the blog comments have led to the discovery of a fan base much larger than originally realized (as well as a disturbingly larger stalker base), so I would appreciate it if, when I ask you who you are, you tell me. Few things are simpler in life, but I guess some people just can't follow directions. I am fairly certain these are the same people who open cartons of milk from the wrong side (and maybe that guy who put the huntseat saddle on the horse backwards). If I don't ask you who you are, then rest assured I know who you are and I also know where you live. So don't worry your pretty little head about that.
I've had to ban someone from commenting recently for not being able to follow directions. Starting now and in the future, if you find yourself banned and you'd like to be reinstated, please send me an e-mail with two essays each 100 words or less, addressing the following:
In another bout of shameless self-promotion, I'd just like to remind everyone that my FIRST HOME GAME is this Saturday, November 8th at 8 p.m. at Bethel Park BladeRunners -- be there or be forever excluded from my elite social club (i.e., please show up so it looks like I have friends). Stalkers, please don't bother coming, although you are welcome to root through the dumpster outside the rink. If you're lucky you'll find the tape I used on my shinguards, which you might even be able to sell to my other stalkers on eBay.
Now, I'm flattered that so many people are reading my blog and even feeling the need to comment. It's true that the blog comments have led to the discovery of a fan base much larger than originally realized (as well as a disturbingly larger stalker base), so I would appreciate it if, when I ask you who you are, you tell me. Few things are simpler in life, but I guess some people just can't follow directions. I am fairly certain these are the same people who open cartons of milk from the wrong side (and maybe that guy who put the huntseat saddle on the horse backwards). If I don't ask you who you are, then rest assured I know who you are and I also know where you live. So don't worry your pretty little head about that.
I've had to ban someone from commenting recently for not being able to follow directions. Starting now and in the future, if you find yourself banned and you'd like to be reinstated, please send me an e-mail with two essays each 100 words or less, addressing the following:
- Apologies to Jessica for being a dumbass and making me ban you from commenting.
- A concise explanation of why you think you should be reinstated and allowed to post to my blog. In this essay, remember to describe the steps you will take to not piss me off a second time.
In another bout of shameless self-promotion, I'd just like to remind everyone that my FIRST HOME GAME is this Saturday, November 8th at 8 p.m. at Bethel Park BladeRunners -- be there or be forever excluded from my elite social club (i.e., please show up so it looks like I have friends). Stalkers, please don't bother coming, although you are welcome to root through the dumpster outside the rink. If you're lucky you'll find the tape I used on my shinguards, which you might even be able to sell to my other stalkers on eBay.
It's a November summer in Pittsburgh. Now that I'm unemployed and my brain is wasting away (although I'm not sure it was any healthier prior to quitting) I decided it was high time to get thee to a bookstore and see if I remember how to read. It's clear I've already forgotten how to write, so I'm trying to prevent everything from going to hell in the same short time span. Not to mention I've already made a whole loaf of banana nut bread and five dozen chocolate cookies with white chips, and if I stay at home any longer baking like Dolly Domestic I'm going to be indistinguishable from the natives in less than a week.
I haven't been in a bookstore (not to mention a library) in a long time and upon walking into the Barnes & Noble on Murray Avenue I found myself instantly sucked into a corner, surrounded by tall bookshelves and dozens of novels encircling me, eyes darting furtively back and forth reading two books at once. I wonder if anyone from my childhood remembers me as the bookworm that I was. Starting in elementary school and even through middle school, my mother used to take my brother and me to the miniature library about a mile from our house, throughout the long summer months. After five summers of this I think I had read nearly every book available for checkout. That library (Hillsdale Branch) is still there, on the corner of Park Place and Hillsdale Blvd. out in San Mateo, California, although a recent web search informs that the branch has been closed for renovations since May of this year. It'll be curious to see how they've changed the library I practically grew up in.
In my eleventh year of life the library held a reading contest that simply encouraged kids to read vast quantities of books, then send in postcards, each listing three books you had read, along with your parent's signature. Each postcard you sent in gave you a chance to win several prizes, the grand prize being a whole lab full of Apple computers for your school. I'm not sure how many of these postcards I sent in, but it was at least 15 and I did indeed read all those books. Several months later when the contest was nearly forgotten, I was informed by mail that I had won a prize (although not the grand prize), and that I would be receiving 50 free paperback books and that the school I was attending (Abbott Middle School) would be receiving 250 paperbacks for their library. That was the first time they ever read my name during the morning announcements and I was personally congratulated by the school principal and vice principal. A happy day for a self-conscious sixth grader, and in retrospect, I'm very glad the school won the books instead of the computers, because by now those computers would be in a landfill keeping someone's expensive house in Foster City from sinking into the San Francisco bay.
Now I'm a self-conscious 27 year old with a masters degree who spends too much time in front of a computer and not enough time reading. Today I picked up The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, along with two other books. Now, I know what you're thinking -- "Oh geez, everyone is reading that, can't you be a little less mainstream?" And then suddenly all my "trendy" New York friends will start berating me for not reading obscure novels by left wing extremist authors and for eating at chain restaurants instead of ethnic cafes with "exotic jasmine rice" on the menus that they charge an extra $2.00 for when you ask for more. What I find intriguing about these upscale acquaintances of mine is how little they know about the breadth and depth of my own writing or about the multi-cultured environment in which I grew up. They are quick to condemn, however, and that tickles me and makes me want to laugh one of those snorting laughs that makes strangers uncomfortable. In an interesting parallel, I was reading Jurassic Park long before it became a "major motion picture" or long before it was even hinted that it was going to become such an abomination. When I was near the end of the book, I brought it to my trigonometry class in high school and left it on my desk during a fire drill. Upon returning to the classroom, my teacher had picked it up and was reading it, and Becky, our most brilliant, ultramodern class valedictorian said "Omigosh, that is the book to be reading right now." I found this funny, as if I was reading that book only because it was in style. Becky later found her way over to Yale University and I haven't heard from her since. I wonder if she is reading very trendy books there.
But I digress. I also picked up The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon (a coming of age novel set in our very own much beloved burgh), and A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. I have to admit the second book piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I was already looking for another book by Bryson, called A Short History of Nearly Everything but chanced upon this book instead. Two, a friend had shared with me his dream to take a six month break from life and the world to hike the very same trail. I drove out to Schenley park to sit on the grass in this amazing winter weather (80 degrees) and am now two chapters into the book. It is hilarious and superbly written. I don't usually recommend books so early on but this one looks like it's well worth a few hours of your life (that you'd probably waste anyway so you might as well just read this book). In fact, I'm going to go read the rest of it now, so that abruptly ends this blog entry.
I haven't been in a bookstore (not to mention a library) in a long time and upon walking into the Barnes & Noble on Murray Avenue I found myself instantly sucked into a corner, surrounded by tall bookshelves and dozens of novels encircling me, eyes darting furtively back and forth reading two books at once. I wonder if anyone from my childhood remembers me as the bookworm that I was. Starting in elementary school and even through middle school, my mother used to take my brother and me to the miniature library about a mile from our house, throughout the long summer months. After five summers of this I think I had read nearly every book available for checkout. That library (Hillsdale Branch) is still there, on the corner of Park Place and Hillsdale Blvd. out in San Mateo, California, although a recent web search informs that the branch has been closed for renovations since May of this year. It'll be curious to see how they've changed the library I practically grew up in.
In my eleventh year of life the library held a reading contest that simply encouraged kids to read vast quantities of books, then send in postcards, each listing three books you had read, along with your parent's signature. Each postcard you sent in gave you a chance to win several prizes, the grand prize being a whole lab full of Apple computers for your school. I'm not sure how many of these postcards I sent in, but it was at least 15 and I did indeed read all those books. Several months later when the contest was nearly forgotten, I was informed by mail that I had won a prize (although not the grand prize), and that I would be receiving 50 free paperback books and that the school I was attending (Abbott Middle School) would be receiving 250 paperbacks for their library. That was the first time they ever read my name during the morning announcements and I was personally congratulated by the school principal and vice principal. A happy day for a self-conscious sixth grader, and in retrospect, I'm very glad the school won the books instead of the computers, because by now those computers would be in a landfill keeping someone's expensive house in Foster City from sinking into the San Francisco bay.
Now I'm a self-conscious 27 year old with a masters degree who spends too much time in front of a computer and not enough time reading. Today I picked up The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, along with two other books. Now, I know what you're thinking -- "Oh geez, everyone is reading that, can't you be a little less mainstream?" And then suddenly all my "trendy" New York friends will start berating me for not reading obscure novels by left wing extremist authors and for eating at chain restaurants instead of ethnic cafes with "exotic jasmine rice" on the menus that they charge an extra $2.00 for when you ask for more. What I find intriguing about these upscale acquaintances of mine is how little they know about the breadth and depth of my own writing or about the multi-cultured environment in which I grew up. They are quick to condemn, however, and that tickles me and makes me want to laugh one of those snorting laughs that makes strangers uncomfortable. In an interesting parallel, I was reading Jurassic Park long before it became a "major motion picture" or long before it was even hinted that it was going to become such an abomination. When I was near the end of the book, I brought it to my trigonometry class in high school and left it on my desk during a fire drill. Upon returning to the classroom, my teacher had picked it up and was reading it, and Becky, our most brilliant, ultramodern class valedictorian said "Omigosh, that is the book to be reading right now." I found this funny, as if I was reading that book only because it was in style. Becky later found her way over to Yale University and I haven't heard from her since. I wonder if she is reading very trendy books there.
But I digress. I also picked up The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon (a coming of age novel set in our very own much beloved burgh), and A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson. I have to admit the second book piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I was already looking for another book by Bryson, called A Short History of Nearly Everything but chanced upon this book instead. Two, a friend had shared with me his dream to take a six month break from life and the world to hike the very same trail. I drove out to Schenley park to sit on the grass in this amazing winter weather (80 degrees) and am now two chapters into the book. It is hilarious and superbly written. I don't usually recommend books so early on but this one looks like it's well worth a few hours of your life (that you'd probably waste anyway so you might as well just read this book). In fact, I'm going to go read the rest of it now, so that abruptly ends this blog entry.
