Single white male

I've been six feet away from a total stranger for the past six weeks. We pass each other in the hall, bump into each other in the kitchen, watch the same TV show and frequently park next to each other and walk into the apartment together.

But all in silence.

Sure, there's the nod, the half wave, the mutual laughter at "Scrubs." But there's no dialogue, no understanding, no underlying sense of friendship unspoken. There's just awkwardness.

And plenty of it.

I'll admit, that a lot of it can be traced back to me. After two or three days living together, I noticed three details that said, "He and I shan't be friends."

1. He told me he's not a "going out kinda guy."
2. He's into motorcycles.
3. I couldn't remember his name.

The first two aren't necessarily character faults, just inconveniences. He could just as easily been into salsa dancing or country music or Ingmar Bergman, any of which I might have tolerated, in small doses. But, no, he was Mr. Man from Michigan who spent money on a motorcycle even though he could only drive it two to three months out of the year (his admission) and despite the fact it made him less, not more cool (my assertion).

The third detail, I'll admit, is entirely my fault. I guess I decided in my head that his name was Kevin or Ryan or something like that. Anyway, I spent the first week avoiding any direct contact. I think when I moved in that I was more concerned with the unpacking/ relocating/ reinventing scenario than remembering specifics about the Wisconsin-sounding louse on the couch.

I mean. I forgot.

Top 10 Lessons from the Weekend

1. If you're not willing to watch a child without the aid of a leash, you shouldn't have one.

2. A Wendy's in another country is still just a Wendy's.

3. Southern women will make friends with anyone and everyone in a ten-foot radius if you leave them alone for a minute.

4. Canadians don't appreciate being made fun of in their own country.

5. That being said, Canadians take a long time to run a cash register.

6. Kris Kristoferson acts terribly.

7. You never, ever pack the map. It stays in the car. At all times.

8. Native Americans can rock out.

9. It is not OK for a non-Native American to rock out with Native Americans.

10. Grandparents initiate sappy moments at every possible juncture.

The Mute-It Agreement

With Grandma, come a few rules.

No radio. No CDs. In fact, no music at all. No talking about drinking, partying, politics, religion and, especially, homosexuality.

Laugh at her jokes. Smile at her stories. And, for God's sake, don't argue when she complains about those "men holding hands on the beach."

When Grandma visits, appeasement is the rule of the land. We all tiptoe through conversations, often quietly laughing to ourselves or shooting glances to other in-the-know family members. Then again, sometimes, we're slowly rotting from the inside.

Sometimes. And probably just me.

I often wonder what we're afraid of happening. I used to think she'd reach out for the nearest tree branch and slap us across the face just before a lengthy, nay, very lengthy sermon about drinking/ smoking/ voting for Hillary Clinton. Pick your poison.

Perhaps, she'd toss one of those looks, the ones that say she's angered but also distressed, bothered, saddened. The one that says she has her values, and she won't budge, but that she's afraid of pushing away any more members of a slowly thinning out family.

Thus, we compromise, we appease.

Appeasement, after all, is a popular way to avoid confrontation. Wait, let me rephrase that. It's a popular way to delay confrontation. Remember Chamberlain ... 1938 ... Munich ... Hitler's unopposed conquest of a nation?

Remember the crowds cheering the British diplomat outside Downing Street when he returned, claiming "I believe it is peace for our time."

Ah. In our time.

It's not about avoiding confrontation or soothing Grandma's fragile ideals, per se. It's about protecting ourselves right here, right now. From awkwardness, a cold shoulder, even war.

So I'll keep the car silent and hide the liquor bottles and sigh sheepishly when she points out a table of women sitting next to us at the seafood joint. For now.

Jokes before judgment

From my post at the In-Turn blog at GoErie.com

Something about the Thomas J. Maciulewicz Jr. case struck a chord with me.

And, before you ask, it’s not the part about theft.

It’s the way some McDowell High School Students responded — T-shirts and Facebook groups, including “My high school principle (sic) is going to prison.”

Clever.

It reminds me of my attempt at a snarky rebuke toward another authority figure behaving badly. This time, it was the Ohio University football coach, who, in December 2005, was found passed out against the steering wheel of his car, pointing the wrong way on a one-way road. He was charged with an OVI, and, to add to the embarrassment, later claimed that he had been drugged while downing margaritas at a favorite OU nightspot.

A judge rejected that defense, as did most of the embarrassed Athenians watching the production unfold.

Dozens of Facebook groups popped up afterward, including one created by a friend called “OU Students for Buying Frank Solich a Bus Pass.” The sale of “Frank the Tank” T-shirts skyrocketed. The new OU mascot even earned the name “Rufus” during a student vote. “Rufus,” as in “roofie,” as in GHB. The drug that the still-employed football coach claimed fell into his one of many drinks that night.

Administrators spread the word that it was in honor of Rufus Putnam, one of the OU founders. Sorry, guys.

At the time, I thought it an appropriate way to express a collective disappointment with the former Cornhusker coach. That is, until discussions turned to my father’s accident 10 years ago, when a 62-year-old drunk woman roared out of a parking lot down the road from our house and smashed into the driver side of his teal Sundance, sending the rearview mirror into his face.

“Drunk driving,” as a friend said, “Isn’t funny.”

She was right. Instead of seeing the football coach situation for what it was — despicable, outrageous — we laughed it off as just another punch line, just one more clever Facebook group, sandwiched between those advocating for a new Mexican restaurant and those lamenting that, “When I was your age, Pluto was a planet.”

And, here, it’s happened again.

I mean, what did people really feel when they heard that a principal stole from a school? Rage? Frustration? Disillusionment?

I guess I can’t say what an “appropriate” response to the McDowell debacle would have been.
I’m just pretty sure it should not have been laughter.

Southern fried tradition

From my column at the Erie Times-News

At some point in the 1960s, my mother's family -- Mom, Dad and six children -- left their Virginia home in the heart of Appalachia for someplace more metropolitan in search of a better life. Grandma waved goodbye to the farm (Grandpa had moved a few months earlier) to the tract of land that other family members shared and moved to Dayton, Ohio. (a snap of a Southern meal)

But trust me, they brought Virginia with them.

I grew up noticing the little things: the twang with which my Grandma said "wrench" instead of "rinse," the dutiful gardening of her blackberries, the annual predawn trip to pick strawberries, the way my mother's accent would creep back when she spent too much time with the relatives and, of course, the food.

Fresh, clean, wholesome. My grandmother's kitchen evaded the tide of insta-bake, microwaves and dining out. If she knew of health fads, she ignored them, keeping the lard next to the stove until a few years ago.

My mother, in turn, raised my sister and me to appreciate fresh foods. Corn just tastes better after an hour of shucking. Mashed potatoes have more taste when they're not from a box. Fruit from a farmer's market looked better than the piles at grocery stores.


Home-cooked meals were just that, created from (mostly) scratch, not reheated or microwaved. It was about flavor, not convenience.

Now, I live on my own, and I can't say that I always follow my family's advice. I'd rather nuke something boxy-looking than spend an hour concocting the perfect meal. But I still appreciate the good stuff. It's just that I haven't found the good stuff -- yet.

Yes, I know that every Thursday, vendors sell fresh items at Griswold Park, but that's only for a few months during the workday.

I have to wonder: What about the waterfront? Part of the image I have of coastal towns is an open-air market by the bay, where locals and tourists can purchase fresh fish or fruits and vegetables or even Erie-made souvenirs.

When two other interns and I visited Pittsburgh this past weekend, the Strip District fascinated me. Vendors sold fresh food in little stores dotting what was formerly an industrial district.


I know that if I could stop by a market on my way home from work during the week, I would.

It'd make my family proud.

Harry Potter and the National Monument

All I had planned to do this weekend was visit Washington D.C., see a few monuments, snap some pictures, spend time with friends and visit the neighborhood I will be living in once I move in August.

That, and read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from cover to cover.

The three-day jaunt and the eight-hour read are not entirely unrelated; at least in my mind. They are both products of my inability to wait, to be patient, to enjoy this moment without constantly contemplating that moment. It’s either a character flaw or boredom.

I visited D.C. partially to see the new neighborhood, the next place on my list before I eventually return to Ohio. I read Harry Potter in two days because I could not put the book down (I would have finished it in one day if I had not been sick).

Both exhilarated me and, at the same time, left me disappointed. The trip raised my hopes for living in Washington — it’s a nice neighborhood with easy access to the metro and I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting in and out of town. The book, meanwhile, satisfied my curiosity. It ended the story that I loved in an imaginative and near-perfect way.

And yet, as I sit here, I know that I still have to spend another month in Erie, which has looked more and more drab since I returned — partly the weather and partly that this-isn’t-Washington feel. And the series, for all intents, has ended. I have no more Harry Potter books to look forward to.

Maybe I’ll savor the time that I have left with friends and co-workers that I’ve met. Maybe I’ll simply let go of Harry Potter. Maybe.

I’ll probably find a televised substitute and waste away the last few weeks discovering a new fictitious world.

An Ode to Jazz the Fallen

Like a lot of the older cartoons, I remember Transformers as a moral and heroic struggle against Megatron and his evil Deceptacons. I sneered at Starscream, cheered for Optimus and laughed at Jazz. But I was never really "into" the cartoon. I remember as much of it as I remember from Voltron and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- namely the toys that came along with the shows.

Then a new Transformers appeared, with a new look, new characters and a darker tone than its squeaky clean predecessor. The show, Beast Wars, ran each morning at 6:30 a.m., the perfect time for a teenager to watch TV while I got ready for school. That show probably kept me from being tardy two or three times a week.

It was one of the first shows where the good guys didn't always win -- in fact, they often lost spectacularly and not because the bad guys cheated, but because the heroes had their own flaws. Apparently, the few characters was an accident that came about because it would have cost too much to have more characters digitally animated.

It worked.

Each character had a distinct personality, they were robots with souls, with senses of humor, failings and strengths. It engrossed me, I followed the three-season series as closely as I could.

And then last night, I went to see the new Transformers movie. The best thing I can say is that it's a series of computer generated action sequences loosely strung together by the best efforts of Shia LeBoeuf. Michael Bay surely must have spent all of his money convincing the voice actor behind the original Optimus to return for this movie.

It lacked that overwhelming sense of heroism from the first series and the character development from the second. It made poor use of some talented actors (John Turturro, Jon Voight) and of some not-so talented actors (cough-Tyrese-cough).

For a movie tagged "More than meets the eye," it was anything but.

Hard hat area

"Do I need to wear a hard hat," I asked as I hiked over a pile of copper wiring and piping strewn across the dirt.

"No," he said. "At least, I don't think so."

He seemed unsure. And he was wearing a hard hat himself. But he sauntered past, pointing at the hundreds of holes in the ground, explaining the environmentally friendly construction plans.

My mind was more focused on not tripping in the ten-foot hole to my right and avoiding the trucks on my left.

At last, the project manager stopped in front a crumbling brick wall. He started explaining the unique aspects of the construction, how it’s environmentally friendly and progressive and a step forward in the “green” building movement.

Then, it rained.

My cheap, blue-ink pen seeped all over my notebook, as I subtly hinted that we should move under some cover so we could keep discussing the project.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying about the geo-thermal systems?” I said, my mind snapping back to attention.

“Well…” he spoke, but I missed it again. I just stared when he popped an umbrella that was in his briefcase and held it above his head, which was already protected by a hard hat.

Partway into his speech about recycled floor tiles, he noticed the architect standing with the foremen across the yard. He led me through the obstacle course again, though this time, in dodging some wood planks, my right foot squished in mud.

“Oops,” the project manager said. “I should have warned you about that.”

Crying all the way to the second row

From my post on the In-Turn blog at GoErie.com

When another intern and I decided to see the newest Harry Potter film Wednesday, I could barely restrain my enthusiasm. I’d spent the last week editing stories about Potter mania and now, I had a chance to watch it for myself.

I arrived, late as usual, I sprinted in, found fellow intern (and self-described “huge nerd”) Andy Boyle and strode to get a seat in the theater, particularly after I learned that attendants had started sitting people more than an hour before.

We found two seats and then, fortunately, two better seats. But as the movie began, I heard a sound I am not accustomed to: a crying child. It started as a dull whine, with the sporadic spike of high-pitched whimpering.

It bothered me. A lot. I’ve spent the last few years in a college town, with an approximate age range of 18 to 23 with a few dozen 40- to 80-year-olds.

No children, just some college students who act like children.

Freshman year, I’d see curious toddlers walking hand-in-hand with parents at a grocery store, but when I could, I frequented the store long after the kids had gone to sleep.

Now, I knew children would be in the theater. I mean, the series “technically” targets adolescents and it was opening night at 8 p.m. Fine, but that does not excuse the piercing cries of an infant that someone brought to the show. I wanted to watch Harry and the gang clobber some bad-guys, not listen to the incoherent blubbering of babies.

As uncomfortable as children make any situation, I don’t oppose proud parents parading them around. I do, however, question the idea that a 1-year-old child would enjoy an unfamiliar place with dozens of strangers, no lights, loud noises and the regular cascade of cheers and jeers.

Come to think of it, I’m not even disappointed in the kids themselves. I think I would have cried even louder.

To be sure, I asked my mom if she ever brought me screaming into a theater. She said that she never did, pointing out that they’d have to purchase a ticket for someone who can’t understand what’s going on. Even when I could grasp the film, my parents took me to the drive-in theater down the street.

“In case you were out of control, we could leave,” she said.

Good advice, Mom.

I know a few twenty-something moviegoers I’d like to introduce you to.

50 percent off my youth

Standing in line at the grocery store tonight, I reached into my pocket, pulled out two jagged slips of paper and handed them to the cashier. "I have coupons," I said, somewhat ashamed.

I have coupons.

Lately, I've noticed a lot of these moments, when I call my parents from my kitchen and affirm that yes, I can cook the chicken and the potatoes in the same casserole dish. Other nights, I realize that I've scheduled my day around the laundry cycle, instead of bar closing hours. It's now more important to remove the stains than to jaunt about town, creating them.

Six months ago, I stumbled to class unshaven, unprepared, sometimes dangerously unaware of the world around me. That's changed. Anymore, I can't stay awake past 2 a.m. without regretting it the rest of the week.

I feel older, as if I went to bed a 21-year-old in the prime of his recklessness and awoke wearing a suit and tie, holding a daily planner full of appointments. I don't even dream of flying to work in a helicopter, I catch myself checking out Volvos online.

My always clever father, at 56, likes to remind me that if I'm getting old, what does that make him?

I'm not sure. I know I'm not truly old, in the physical or emotional sense. I think the word I'm grasping at is "tame."

I've been tamed. And I use coupons at the store.