never a dull moment

There are evils local and large and further out, interesting to watch my skeptic friends become convinced of hearts of darkness and the existence of hell to deal as a local creep justifies the unjustifiable, while meanwhile other abuse is justified higher up without the attendant outrage. I guess the one is closer to home, I couldn't bring myself to watch the proceedings.

And the night before I met up with a girl I went to school with in 7th grade who I ran into again this summer. She was two years older than me and one of the few people that year who wasn't mean. I guess she had an awful time of it too there, and we briefly touch on the past, having nothing there to be nostalgic for, and move onto other things. She majored in anthropology and is also eternally curious and up for random adventures so we go down to YuppieLandia to dance to Afro-Peruvian swank courtesy of Novalima.

There were some African and Puerto Rican girls with great moves, a Peruvian family waving their flags, and the white guy who was trying to get into everyone's personal space, and the usual hippies and hipsters, and I remember being at a party dancing to this stuff with a guy who worked at the kitchen at a mansion of some friends of friends, he was the only person who talked to me there, and the 4/4 time kept my feet from tripping over and it felt good to move and not care.

Too much mirth led to introversion the next two nights, of reading books on the porch and general slacking around. We lost our softball game but I singled in a run and caught a popup so it felt like a personal victory. My dad was home alone that night so I went over there and we had dinner together, listened to garage rock on the radio, and talked about stuff. He was talking about how bad he feels for the people stuck working at the walmart he delivers to and keeps trying to get them hooked up with better jobs. City life and racism and rock and roll, and things I never knew about their early married life, I'm glad I get this time with him because I'm always amazed at what an incredible person he is.

And then one of my friends is departing for out west, in hopes that things will work out better there, and there are so many things we want to say, because the guy she's married to seems unhappy anywhere and unwilling to try or deal with things not being perfect. You take who you are everywhere no matter how idyllic or not it is. I wish I could say I was happy for them, but I'm not convinced that it's the answer.

Thankfully I don't have to ponder this the whole day, because one of my fellow girl geeks who digs weird tunes invites me out to her parents' place so we can go hiking and explore her old stomping grounds, a state park with some abandoned buildings from the canal days, ample amounts of ravine, rivers, and woods, and all sorts of spooky haunting tales of Salem, Ohio, which had a witch trial of its own, as well as eccentric millionaires with dubious attentions and such. As she appreciates the true nature of darkthroning, that is indeed what we did.

After getting some fantastic Mexican food (since it's farmland out here, mostly owned by Monsanto subsidaries where the land isn't being fracked, there's migrant workers, which seems to correlate with good and cheap south of the border food in the outskirts of Ohiostan), we drove down Egypt Road, well known in local lore for having both a "crybaby bridge" and a grisly murder in the past couple years, and other tales mostly involving delinquent teens getting witchy or gangsta in the woods.

I'm an agnostic when it comes to tales of hauntings, but at dusk, with the desolation, the abandoned houses, it was pretty spooky.

the hills of Pittsburgh

There's a sizable number of Clevelandians who really hate Pittsburgh, but as far as I can tell, Pittsburgh doesn't seem to notice we exist, except when it's clear that I don't know my way around on this two-lane one way street, but that's different. As far as football goes, they hate the Ravens. In Cleveland, a Pitt game is a big event full of drunken rage, for Pittsburgh, it doesn't seem like a big deal. For true rivalries there has to be some kind of competition and there is none.

At any rate, me, the Queen of the Bondo, and her consort, decided to road trip there this past weekend because I wanted to see some chapel full of more relics than anywhere besides the Vatican and because it's nice to get out of Clevelandia every once in awhile especially when there's willing partners in crime.

Anyways, we got to some old part of Pittsburgh that was pretty deserted and wandered around until the place opened, and it was us and a bunch of elderly folks, and it reminded me of some place in Europe a long time ago, the way everything was so old-school, to the point that they're still talking about saints who have gotten de-sainted by the Vatican in the late sixties, and the gift shop reminded me of all the stuff I got when I made my first communion but it was a worthy trip, and I took photos though I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to until we made our exit.

oh and by the way, you can have weddings here, which is kind of morbid, but interesting.

So after that, I was extremely thankful for my copilot's navigating capabilities which took us to the Strip for tacos and wandering around, and then through the beautiful University of Pittsburgh campus where I really wished I had taken classes and worked in a Cathedral of Learning instead of several wastelands of brutalist architecture.

from there we drove around explored and would jump out and take random pictures of old churches and graffiti

 and of course stopped by the cemetery because why not.

Dinner of middling Indian food and then a drive home minus northern lights sadly. It's good to get out and realize the world's got more going on than the usual places.

the skyline vanishes

It's surreal driving on the shoreway and seeing only the road ahead of you, as if all the buildings have evaporated into the ether and vanished and I always wish I had a camera, but there's nowhere to stop and snap the photos off the bridge of these things, or the incredible smogridden sunsets that come over the bridges and industrial valleys.

Twenty more minutes and I'm back out into the grey, plotting out adventures in Pittsburgh and beyond, chortling at the strangeness of the powers that be, pictures to follow if all goes well, hopefully the car doesn't die.