You, me and the Shins
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: college, love, music, nostalgia, penn state Leave a comment »The girl behind me in the second row had been crying nearly the entire set. The show was almost over, and as James Mercer sang the opening line to “New Slang,” I took a look over my shoulder. High-waisted jean shorts, a blonde top knot with a streak of purple at the base of her neck. Wing-tipped eyeliner, which was starting to glisten at the edges, and teeth that looked like the braces just came off. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
I was sixteen the first time I heard The Shins. Lloyd Cargo, that motherfucker, he put “Young Pilgrims” on the ever-famous “California Mix.” When my father saw the jewel case casually strewn on the kitchen table, he picked up and squinted. “With love? Is that what that says?”
Later that year, I snuck into Garden State by buying a ticket for Open Water (which, it turns out, was also rated R) and I was convinced I was falling in love for the first time. When he kissed me I felt fireworks, and even though he was only the second boy to have his tongue in my mouth, I was sure it was the real thing. He burned me the Garden State soundtrack in addition to both Shins albums onto CDs that played in my 5-Disc changer on heavy rotation. He left for college a few weeks later and I started my junior year of high school in the deepest yet most delicious depression I had ever experienced. The first few notes of “Caring is Creepy” sent my face into a histrionic place of heartbreak and I reveled in the pain. To this day I have never shed so many tears over a record.
Half a year later I was “celebrating my three-month anniversary” (wasn’t high school funny?) with my boyfriend, who also gave me these so-called “fireworks.” We had tickets to see The Shins at the Electric Factory. It was April 27, 2005, and I was convinced I was going to lose it (control of my teenage emotions- not my virginity, come on now). “Pink Bullets” (acoustic) rocked my world and I bought this t-shirt, which had a bleeding heart over my own.
The first time I got drunk it was that coming August, and I was wearing that t-shirt (at Lloyd Cargo’s house- full circle, right?) I know it sounds crazy, but the beers I drank during a game of Kings completely destroyed that shirt. The fabric looked bleached in all these weird places and I eventually ended up cutting out the Shins design and sewing it onto super worn-in and perfectly fitting undershirt I found in a drawer at my great aunt and uncle’s.
A year later I left for college. A few weeks after I was dropped off at Penn State, my brother Michael texted me. “Mom cries every time she listens to that Shins song you love.” I had left some of my CDs in the car. “Kissing the Lipless” was the opening track on “Chutes Too Narrow,” and it was bringing my mother emotional turmoil about me growing up and getting older. If you only knew, ma. If you only knew.
I didn’t listen to the Shins very much after that. “Wincing the Night Away” came out my freshman year, and I thought it totally sucked. I hated that the Shins changed after I was the one who went away to college and wasn’t changing at all (at least, I didn’t think I was changing- wasn’t college funny?) My mom still listened to CDs I had left behind in the family Expedition, but I barely touched my MP3s at school.
At the Tower Theater last Thursday night, I was front row and center thanks to my friend Caroline. I had been listening to the Shins latest release, “Port of Morrow,” after being offered a ticket to the concert, and I was enjoying it very much. Most of the concert was spent sitting down, as there’s really no reason to stand up when you’re eye-to-eye with the band. But when “Kissing the Lipless” started booming from the speakers that were right in front of my face, I jumped up and started singing. Though I know the song is really about sex and breakups, I like to think of it as a homecoming song. “Called to see/if you’re back…” When it came to a close, James Mercer looked at me, and then the keyboardist. “That was a good one, that was a good one,” he said quietly. I had been smiling the entire set. A band that used to bring me to tears at the drop of a hat brought me only a look of sheer joy that night. As the lights came up after “One by One All Day” and people started collecting their things to leave, Caroline grabbed the setlist and I looked behind me once more.
“I have to know,” I asked the long-haired girl standing next to the blubbering top knot. “How old are you guys?”
“I’m 22,” she said, “but this concert is my sister’s 15th birthday present.”
“Perfect,” I said, nodding. “That’s perfect.”
Springing
Posted: March 29, 2012 Filed under: job search, life experiences, nanny diaries, work 4 Comments »There’s a man who sits on his stoop next to Dmitri’s, right on my corner of third and Catharine. He’s there every day, wearing those old school headphones that hug his ears and connect around the back of his head. When it rains he holds an umbrella; when it snows he sits in the driver’s seat of the pick up truck that’s parked right in front of his house. A stack of books a foot high rests on top of the console. He’s probably in his early forties.
I walk past him at all hours of the day, no matter if my work day starts early in the morning or late in the afternoon. He sees me ushering the boys out of the house in their karate uniforms and watches them race to their front door once they let go of my hands crossing third street. After a few months of nannying, I started waving and smiling at him. Just little nods, or a “good morning!” type exchange. Neighborly, curiously, kindly.
Two weeks ago I was offered a full-time job at a Philadelphia start up company called TicketLeap. Everything happened so quickly- I applied for the position Monday night by sending a tweet to the CEO, corresponded with him on Tuesday, interviewed Wednesday morning and was hired Wednesday night. I can fully apply my finding a job is like finding a relationship theory to the hiring process at TicketLeap. No games, no messing around. “I like you and you like me, let’s do this thing!”
After I got off the phone with TicketLeap, I burst into tears. This is what I had been waiting for for almost a year and a half. A job that matched my skill set and personality perfectly. I moved to Philadelphia in November of 2010, worked a part-time job for a non-profit, interned for Yelp for 9 months (“It’s like we made a Yelp baby!” my boss said to me at my last event as an intern) and nannied for nearly as long. I had applied to countless jobs, went on over a dozen interviews and had a quarter-life crisis every two weeks or so because of it. My time had come. And now I had to tell the boys’ mother that I was going to leave.
I called my parents first, barely able to speak through my tears.
“I always knew you were emotional,” my dad said, “but you have to calm down. Where’s Zack?”
“Sitting next to me.”
“Is he wondering who this crazy person is he’s been living with?”
I hiccuped, then smiled. “No.”
“This is what you’ve been waiting for. Cheer up and go celebrate.”
Before we could enjoy a fancy cocktail at Southwark, I had to run down the street and tell my “family” about the job I was so excited for. At this point my face was red and puffy, especially below my right eye (you can always tell if I’ve been crying by looking at the beauty mark). I passed the guy on his stoop but barely made eye contact.
“Is everything okay?”
I stopped in my tracks. I’ve never heard the man say more than two words.
“Yeah, I just,” deep breath, “I finally got a real job and now I have to tell the boys I can’t be their nanny anymore.”
He smiled sympathetically. “Ah, I see.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll be alright.”
I nodded.
***
This is what I will miss about nannying (in no particular order): greeting the boys as they get off the school bus, perfecting the toasted bagel with butter and cheese, M’s serious thoughts from the bathtub, A’s self-confidence, hearing A ask to be tucked in to bed, mid-day trips to the bookstore and Mama’s Vegetarian, being constantly flabbergasted by M’s level of intelligence, the look on their faces after they earn a new stripe on their karate belts, making friends with the other Queen Village moms (they don’t recognize me unless I have the boys by my side), my #nannydiaries, the fudgey brownies their mom bakes every week without fail (I will probably lose three pounds by not having one of them each day), Shabbat hugs, brushing up on my Hebrew while helping them with their homework, sleeping nine hours a night, spending my mornings at Bodhi drinking tea and writing (the one place I can truly call myself a “regular” at), catching M in the middle of a nap, introducing A to some of my favorite childrens’ authors (Judy Blume, Julie Andrews Edwards), listening to M ask questions about life, love and my relationship with Zack. He is truly the most insightful and adorable kindergartner I have ever known.
***
This is what I’m looking forward to (in no particular order): having a “regular” schedule, interacting with real adults, Tweeting for a living, planning events, working on a MacBook Pro at a desk in an office with green and brown walls in the heart of Center City, making new friends and contacts, putting everything I learned from Michelle C to good use, blogging and learning more about WordPress, using my brain and being proactive, wearing clothes other than leggings and a t-shirt, “evangelizing” the company (how many people did I convince to sign up for Yelp? I’m confident in my abilities), and finally, managing an online community. This job was made for me.
Monday Monday Monday
Posted: March 5, 2012 Filed under: college, music, nostalgia, penn state 3 Comments »In August, Penn State Alumni magazine “The Penn Stater” was calling for submissions about concert memories in University Park. I had a lot to choose from. I saw Death Cab for Cutie at the BJC in August 2006, right before I starting going to school there. My dad came all the way up from the Philly suburbs to see Guster with me in the fall of 2007. Band of Horses played at the State Theatre, where I had a really awkward encounter with my super cute French teacher when I was a little bit too inebriated (I got embarrassed and told him the reason I was acting so weird). I saw Third Eye Blind at the Theatre, and Illinois, too. I danced onstage with Jens Lekman at Chronic Town, the hookah lounge on West College, and played the tambourine at Cafe 210 with local favorites The Kalob Griffin Band. Wednesday nights junior year were dedicated to blue grass and the all-inclusive crush on singer Natalie Berrena (she went from blonde to brunette to red and rocked it all). There were house party shows that I wish I could revisit, like Menya at the co-op and Endless Mike and the Beagle Club at the guys’ apartment on Hamilton.
(You can see the top of my head in this whole video.)
Ultimately, I chose to write about Raise Up Roof Beams, which was a band I fell in love with during the first few months of my freshman year. This is what I sent to the Penn Stater:
My first two years at Penn State I was in a club called SOMA (Students Organizing the Multiple Arts). It was the first club after high school that I joined and it made me feel so connected. I loved the responsibility of attending meetings, walking north on Shortlidge to the Thomas building after dinner in Simmons every other Wednesday. I loved meeting other kids who shared a deep love of independent music. Over the course of my college career, I saw many shows put on by SOMA and even organized one myself (The Good Life at The Hub, October 2007). However, the first SOMA show I ever went to was one where I worked the door, handing out fliers to the attendees who gathered on couches in Waring Commons. The opening band, a group of kids from Harrisburg, was called Raise Up Roof Beams, and I remember being mesmerized by the door, listening intently to the lyrics, the accordion, the harmonica, the guitar and the huge bass played by a small blonde girl. After their set, I borrowed $8 from one of my new friends to buy their CD (all I had was Lion Cash). Raise Up Roof Beams’ first record, “Fingers and Photons,” will forever remind me of walking across campus in the fall of my freshman year. I booked Raise Up Roof Beams to play another show at Dragon Chasers downtown in the Spring, which was when I met the members of the band. Five years later in Manayunk, Phliadelphia, I ran into the bass-playing blonde at a bar. I was happy to hear that the band is currently working on their third full-length album.
(This video is five years old, but that’s ok.)
I never heard back from the Penn Stater. The cover of the November issue was originally slated to feature “Concert Memories,” but after Sandusky etc. they put out “Our Darkest Days,” which makes sense. But where did the thousands of submissions go, and will the magazine ever use them? I was really hoping to be published– if only to promote the band. Something inside of me has pushed to make Raise Up Roof Beams “happen” for years. Summer 2007, Sara and I drove an hour and a half to see them play with Koji on the Roof inside a rec hall in Camp Hill. I’m not sure if I saw them play after that– until this past Friday.
Roof Beams opened at The Fire, with only three original members (the others aren’t performing with them right now, but they are recording remotely to contribute to their third album) but with a gorgeously familiar sound. I was looking forward to seeing Nathan (lead singer/guitarist) who is now married and has a baby, which is a total mind blow. Zack said I seemed nervous when I was talking to him. I felt like I was nineteen, starstruck by a local band who hit my heart in just the right way.
After their set, I went to the bar for another beer and made eye contact with someone who looked so familiar. “Do I know you?” I asked. “I’m not sure, but you look familiar as well,” he replied. His name was Chad, his girlfriend was Lisa, and they said they had been to a SOMA meeting or two back in the day. “I fell in love with Roof Beams when they played in Waring Commons when I was a freshman,” I told him, “fall of 2006.” “You’re kidding,” he said smiling, “me too.”
Greetings from Saint’s Cafe, State College
Posted: February 1, 2012 Filed under: life experiences 1 Comment »On the drive from Upper Bucks County to State College, Pennsylvania, Zack and I listened to a “This American Life” episode entitled “Pray,” which originally aired in 1997, years before evangelical pastor Ted Haggard’s gay sex scandal. The longest act of the show, clocking in at 41 minutes, focused on TAL contributor Alix Spiegel’s time in Colorado Springs and her exploration into the “prayerwalks” of an incredibly Jesus-centered community. While she’s in Colorado, Spiegel can’t sleep, and later finds out that one of the pastors she’s been interviewing has prayed she won’t sleep until she finds a place for Christ in her life. Extreme, no?
I think the only times I’ve been routinely approached by religious folk have been in State College. In a town where there are nearly a dozen places of worship (only one of them a synagogue), it was always the Mormons who were out to get me, though I will admit, the kind folks at the Chabad house were always trying to suck me in to their Friday night Shabbat dinners, too. Whether it was before my shift at Viet-Thai on North Atherton or walking home from class past the Allen Street gates, I always had a hard time saying no to the cute, clean-cut blond boys handing out pamphlets or the modestly dressed girls in peacoats who wanted to tell me about the Book of Mormon. The weekend after the Sandusky bullshit began, I sat down on a bench outside of Schlow Library to check my Twitter feed or something when I was immediately targeted by a nice looking girl, again, in a peacoat. She offered me a postcard and I took it. “Thanks,” I said, “but I really like being Jewish.” She nodded and smiled, still hoping to save me with a 3 X 5 prayer.
About a week and a half ago, I took the R5, excuse me, the “Paoli-Thorndale Line” from Market East to my home in the western suburbs. The train was pretty empty for 6 p.m. on a Saturday (I guess most people are coming in to the city around then, not leaving it) but two younger girls, completely unrelated to each other, chose to sit behind me. One voice started talking loudly.
“…it’s just that my boyfriend broke up with me, not that I really care, because he was always drunk. I’m sorry if, like, this is too much information, but last night was so awful. I woke up at like 4 a.m. when he started heaving and escaped his vomit, by, like five seconds before it came out of his mouth. His sheets were totally nasty and I had to sleep on the floor. I’m just so upset because I don’t really get along with my parents, and I always depend on my boyfriends. But they always break up with me, you know?”
“Mmhm.”
This pattern of conversation went on for a few more stops. At this point I started live tweeting the event (does this make me a bad person? Don’t answer that).
“…and I know you don’t care, because we don’t even know each other, so why should you, and I feel like I’m rambling but it feels so good to talk to someone.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind listening. My life has really changed since I decided to only date Christian boys. I’ve been reading this book called ‘The Satisfied Heart,’ and I think you should too. Those boys can’t satisfy your emotional needs like God can.”
“I just have a hard time believing in God when I was raped at 12 and given this shitty life. If there was a real God, he wouldn’t let that happen.”
“God is good,” the quiet girl said, unsure of how to respond to that. “He loves you. It’s the devil who is trying to corrupt us.”
“If I could find a way to see that God is really there, maybe I could believe?” the loud girl said/questioned.
“The first step is you opening your heart. You can test God. You can ask for him to reveal himself to you, if you want.”
“Okay,” the loud girl said slowly, as if she was started to get it. “I think I can do that.”
“It’s such a blessing that we’re having this conversation,” the quiet girl responded excitedly. “Gods redemption is real, I’m telling you.”
The loud girl continued to talk about her perfect, unfairly pretty older sister, her parents who don’t understand her, and her record of older ex-boyfriends. She talked about how tired but “hyper” she was, and the medicine she forgot to take this morning. She cried a little bit. The back-and-forth slowed between them.
As the ticket collector called out my stop, I stood up and looked behind me. The voices I had been hearing matched faces that looked about sixteen years old. The one by the window had mousy brown hair, no makeup and simple wire frames. The other donned braces, acne, smeared eyeliner and damaged hair that appeared as if it had been tie-dyed four different shades of auburn. She smiled sheepishly at me, knowing that I had been listening to their entire conversation. “Hi,” she said. “Hi,” I replied, confident in my demeanor. I am a 24-year-old who remembers high school perhaps too well. “It gets better, okay?”
She nodded and said thanks. I stepped off the train and waited at the platform for my father to pick me up.
Pack Rats
Posted: December 28, 2011 Filed under: life experiences, nanny diaries, neurosis, nostalgia 3 Comments »I used to save everything. I think that’s why I love boxes so much. Everywhere I go, I seem to fall in love with another decorative tin, another brass or wood box. It’s a habit that takes up a lot of space.
I was given a “treasure chest” as a young child that still sits underneath my bed. It’s pretty big– maybe two feet wide and a foot and a half high. That’s where all my class pictures are, diaries I started and left incomplete, felt flags signed by all my camp friends at ESF, pieces of a Princess Jasmine Halloween costume that I put in there because I associated the tiara with a kindergarten friend who died when we were five. Drawings from an imaginary world, marble notebooks filled with stories. Over time, the treasure chest lost some of its innocence. I hid bottles of liquor there in high school, and buried deep are print-outs of high-lighted medical journals from a time when I thought a close friend had an eating disorder.
The two little boys I nanny for have similar boxes under their beds. Instead of a flowery treasure chest, complete with locks, they have plastic bins, like the kind you’d keep under your dorm room bed for extra socks or notebook paper. In these boxes they keep their “Precious Things,” which I learned about when I was asked to go through their closets and pick through the clothes that were too small for them. “A” is 8, “M” is 5. If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably read my #nannydiaries hashtag and gotten to hear some of their quips and phrases. These boys are wildly intelligent. “M” is especially emotionally mature, often asking me questions about life, death, and relationships. He asks about Zack a lot.
Anyway, as we sorted through their closets they insisted on keeping some of their favorite t-shirts and putting them in Precious Things even though they had grown out of them. This I understood. My closet in Devon, Pennsylvania is home to my Bat Mitzvah dress, my prom dress(es), my favorite pink cotton dress from when I was four with the hearts on it (my yia-yia lovingly sewed a layer of lace onto when it got too short), my favorite zip-up hoodie from high school, and strangely, a few of my zade’s suits which are stored there for reasons I do not know.
However, this morning, as I was scraping dried up bright blue toothpaste from the boys’ bathroom sink, I took a look at the two large plastic cups on either side of the faucet. Toothbrushes, at least a dozen of them, each encrusted with fluoride, sat awkwardly in each cup. Collections, the boys had insisted when I first started sitting for them. No. These were bacteria breeding grounds, and it was grossing me out. I started channeling my neat freak Aunt Tammy and summoned “A” and “M” into the bathroom with me.
“These,” I said slowly, “have got to go. Pick the one that looks the cleanest and we have to throw the rest away.”
“A” looked at me fearfully. “NO!” he cried, tears immediately sparking from his blue eyes. “No! You can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I love them. You can’t take them away.”
I had each boy bring their handfuls of toothbrushes to the kitchen. I boiled water, poured it into a measuring cup, and swirled each toothbrush until all the dried paste and spit and mold had dissolved and fallen to the bottom.
“Look,” I said, holding the glass up to the light. “That’s bacteria. That’s yucky. These toothbrushes will make you sick if you keep using them. You have to throw some away.”
“A” started crying again.
“A, M, you understand what I’m saying, right?” “M” nodded. “Pick one to use, throw your least favorites away, and the rest we will put with your Precious Things.”
“A” lifted his head. “Okay.”
This attachment to, of all things, toothbrushes.
“Do you not want to throw them away because they remind you of being little?” I asked.
“A” nodded.
I understood this, too. I once cried into Sara’s shoulder in the bathroom at a sixth grade YMCA Carriage House dance because the DJ was playing Savage Garden and “Truly Madly Deeply” reminded me of the fourth grade and “being young.” I shit you not.
And with that, one by one, after inspecting the characters on each colorful handle- Spiderman, Batman, Cars, Yo Gabba Gabba (these were deemed “too babyish” and discarded)- we disinfected and bagged the most Precious, to be kept under their respective twin beds.
I went through a phase in middle school where I kept every note my mother left taped for me on the side door because I was scared she was going to die and I wanted to have everything that she had written or touched or thought. This included post-its that said things like “pls empty d/w” and “went to yoga, be back at 4″ and “love you, have fun at kelly’s” scrawled inside giant heart. I still have these, amongst many other notes and letters, pictures and invitations, in boxes, under the bed.
“M” asked me about dying today. “Can you die if you’re a letter or a number?” His face looked puzzled. “What about metal or glass? What about food? Food dies, because we eat it, right?”
I explained to him that only the animals that breathe and the plants that grow can live or die.
I wonder, if years from now, the boys will look through each of their Precious Things and remember why they believed them to be so precious.
Five Year
Posted: December 1, 2011 Filed under: life experiences, making friends, nostalgia 11 Comments »The Top Five Strangest Things that Happened at My Five Year High School Reunion
Most of these events happened towards the end of the evening, at which point I was extremely intoxicated. They are being recalled to the best of my ability, but I could easily be leaving things out because I don’t remember and/or embellishing them because it all seemed so much bigger in my mind at the time. If you find any of these stories untrue or are upset by them, you can message me via whatever and I will take down whatever has offended you.
1. A boy I went on a couple dates with during the second semester of my senior year came up to me and apologized. “This is the reason I came here tonight,” he said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for being so awkward with that whole thing senior year. I really gave it my all, I put too much thought into it. I still think about it sometimes, and I just wanted to tell you in person.” This was a nice boy, a cute boy, a boy who paid for my round trip ticket on the R5 and walked me down South Street, a boy who shared a plate of fries with me at Minella’s after my very last Inkwell and drove me home and pulled into my driveway, a boy who never kissed me. The reason it didn’t work out was because I had my heart set on someone else, which I wished I just told him in 2006 and should have told him that night instead of making him wonder.
2. A girl I’ve known since the second grade told me that she thought I was really cool. We were friends at New Eagle Elementary, but didn’t talk that much throughout the rest of our time as students in the same school. She told me, again, with a glass of wine in her hand, that she thought I was really cool. “I follow everything you do on the Internet!” she said. I was extremely flattered but at the same time did not know what to say. Luckily I had about nine drinks in me and simply thanked her, trying to wave it off. “My parents just moved to your neighborhood,” she said. “No way!” I said. “We should hang out when you’re in the city!” “No,” she declined immediately. “I couldn’t. You’re too cool.” This justified my silly dream to become an Internet personality. I told her to stop it, and that wasn’t true, and we exchanged phone numbers. Her good friend was standing next to her, and I said, “Hey, I remember your first day as the new girl at Valley Forge Middle School. Your locker was next to mine, and you were wearing a tye-dyed t-shirt.” She told me I was the first kid who was genuinely nice to her.
3. A boy who I never spoke to in high school but had an English class or two with at Penn State sought me out almost as soon as I got there. He is responsible for my first broken wine glass (there was another later in the evening). The first thing he asked me was “are you still writing?” Which I answered with a shrug. He told me that I had to, and that the nonfiction piece I wrote about Matt Wanetik that was published in Penn State’s litmag was one of his favorite pieces he read as that year’s nonfiction editor. We talked about having non-writer boyfriends and girlfriends, and agreed that they are important to have for a sense of balance, among other reasons.
4. I’m not sure when I started crying or how long it lasted for, but I started thinking about how badly I wished Matt Wanetik was there. Over Thanksgiving, I had broken out the home videos and watched a few clips from my 14th birthday party. Two of the girls who were at that party, who I don’t keep in touch with anymore but are two of the nicest girls I’ve ever known, came up to me immediately and asked me what was wrong. I told them I was crying about Matt, and asked one if she remembered 5th grade and our imaginary boyfriends and the notes we used to pass back and forth in Mrs. Hewittit’s class and how I hated how “Mrs. Allison Wanetik” sounded but if I really wanted to, I could keep me own last name. She remembered. I found Matt’s best friends and hugged them tightly, cried into their shoulders. They told me Matt wouldn’t want me to cry, he’d want me to be having fun. I drunkenly agreed and I think this is where I broke my second wine glass. The next morning I sent both of them Facebook messages and apologized, hoping I didn’t bring them down.
5. Two friends had slept over. In the morning, we gathered in my bed and passed around the bottle of Advil and giggled for about two hours, recalling the weirdest moments, the highlights, the bizarre interactions. We couldn’t believe who was in law school, who was engaged, who looked better than ever (bravo!). However, we did not know where one of our friends ended up. We called and called, no answer. I wrote on the event wall asking if anyone knew where she was, which had us laughing so hard my abs hurt. We met up with a few more friends for brunch. “Did you see our Missing Friend making out with That Boy by the bar?” one asked. Um, no. “Yeah, they left the Field House together after like, twenty minutes.” We found her safe and sound.
***
I was wondering where the following people were: Evan Wattles, Michaeleen Colgan, Shirley Pan, Reggie Pierce, Julia Ries, Julie Watson and Brittany Lee, Scott McCallum, Kristin Toler, Wesley Dunkel, and our resident Stoga celebrity, Mark Herzlich, who has yet to respond to any of my tweets.
I was happiest to see: Robyn Liebman, Natalie Zucchino, Asa Curry, Perry Wang, Sarah Edelson, Adam Blitzer, Jen Satzman.
There was one person I saw but could not remember the name of. That person, I later found out, was Greg Nestle. There was also one high school crush confession. The person is now following his dreams as a rapper. I couldn’t stop smiling about any of it.
One more thing. There is someone who has been jokingly stalking me online since 2005-ish. They have followed me from virgostarr to amsterdam_n to hydeparkblvd. We have had one email interaction and the only clue ever given was that they sat behind me in Mr. Smith’s 10th grade American Literature class. This person goes by the name of “The Giraffe” and writes me hilariously weird comments on my blogs from time to time. This is your time to come forward, Giraffe. Who the hell are you?
On Mononucleosis
Posted: October 20, 2011 Filed under: love, nostalgia | Tags: love, nostalgia 2 Comments »When we were younger, it didn’t matter when we got sick, when our noses got stuffy or our glands were swollen. A pile of cough drop wrappers meant nothing, and when we fell under the weather as temperatures rose, nothing stopped us from touching, from feeling a gentler skin to the other’s burn.
In the first few weeks at Penn State, I came down with a case of mononucleosis. “Let the kissing jokes begin,” I told everyone, and they did.
My mother wanted me to come home as soon as I called her with the diagnosis, and I got on a Greyhound immediately. Three hours later, I began crying as the bus drove past the King of Prussia Mall, continued to sob as we got off at the Devon exit and drove up Valley Forge Road. I cried in the driveway and when I walked in the front door. I hugged my brothers really hard. I ate challah french toast that my mom cooked for me at ten o’clock at night. I took a shower without wearing flip flops, unafraid of athlete’s foot. I walked around my room naked. I put on pajamas and walked down the stairs and heard that familiar sound that my feet make on our hardwood floors. I cuddled with my mom in my room, on a bed with four posts and a frame. It was a homecoming I hadn’t expected.
When I returned to school, I was still lethargic. I mustered up just enough energy to go to a Halloween party, but not enough to get into costume or to drink anything at all. On a balcony overlooking Beaver Avenue, in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, I puffed on a small cigar I connived out of a drunk boy whom I had just met. We kissed a few days later, after I warned him more than once. “I’m just getting over mono,” I told him, our lips already touching. “I don’t care,” he said. My best friend from home claimed that if he didn’t care about getting mono, he was the real deal. He and I only saw each other four times after that.
Five years from then, I find myself in a new home, where I live with my boyfriend, who’s been asleep all day, feeling tired and achy with a painful sore throat. Chicken soup has simmered on the stove, water boiled, tea steeped. We’ve watched hours and hours of television together, not talking, just listening to other peoples’ dialogue. He rubs my shoulders to thank me for taking care of him, not wanting to pass along whatever it is that he’s got. At night, he lays an arm across my body, careful not to breathe too close.
We haven’t kissed on the lips since Monday. I don’t know why everyone was so unafraid of getting sick in college, I don’t know why we always chanced it. No real responsibilities, I guess. We shared sticky solo cups with a hundred people. We passed around backwashed water bottles and soggy joints and of course, wet mouths. I suppose no one really cared about each other like we do, now.
The Other AB
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: life experiences 3 Comments »At the end of junior year of college, I got an email from Barbara Berger with the subject title “Golf.” Odd, I thought. I’ve never golfed before! I read the email twice. Never in my life has my mother ever referred to herself as “mom,” either. When I realized that the other recipients of the email were people I didn’t know, I was beside myself. There’s another Allison Berger out there- and her mother’s name is Barbara, just like mine.
Later in the summer I started receiving various e-newsletters, from the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and a place called Pitcher and Piano, which is in the UK. There was also this:
Apparently this Allison Berger is a mother herself, or at least, at the time of the email she was expecting a child.
Yep.
I haven’t put too much thought into this other Allison Berger, even though over the past two years, I’ve collected a lot of information about her. She’s about 28 (I was invited to her 10-year high school reunion), lives in Georgia, has a kid or two, and goes on lavish vacations, or at least cool business trips (I’ve gotten hotel and resort confirmations for hotels in Colorado, Chicago, and San Francisco).
She also has an unknowingly funny mother. But that Barb’s got nothing on mine.
The other AB has never contacted me for a missing confirmation email and she hasn’t changed her email address on any of those listservs either. While the whole thing has been funny to me, how annoying has it been for her? More importantly, how hard is it to get her email address right? I’m pretty sure the only thing that differentiates mine from hers is a period between our first and last names. Google message boards have explained the dilemma before, and most people insist that the periods don’t matter. I don’t know. Try sending me a message at allisonberger@gmail.com and maybe the other AB will write back to you instead.
Decor
Posted: September 30, 2011 Filed under: playing house 4 Comments »I am very good at two things: finding home furnishings on the street, and telling people I just met what celebrity they look like.
Every single piece of furniture in Zack’s and my apartment has been given to us from my parents, Craiglisted or picked from the curb. Except for this gem:
…which we bought from IKEA in Houston for $59.99.
The vintage hoosier table was purchased by my parents from an antique fair in upstate New York, and was refinished by my grandpa. It served as my family’s kitchen table for awhile, and then spent some time in the room above our garage, always covered by a table cloth to protect the wood finish from blunt burns or beer spills. Now I cover it with four lime green crocheted plastic place mats my mom bought for me from Urban Outfitters when I moved into Burrowes Corner, spring of junior year.
The fancy Victorian green velvet chair that everyone loves to fawn over was found on Hunters Lane, by my mother, in front of the small house where the two big ladies live. It had a crack in the seat, which we half-giggled about, and Zack fixed it with wood glue.
The rug is from Zack’s granddad. Thick and heavy and Oriental (if it’s not PC to say Oriental, what do you say?), it covers most of the living room floor and hides dirt a little too well.
The mosaic coffee table and simple black bookshelf were Craigslist finds (Dallas and Philadelphia, respectively.) My white wood dresser was purchased from a man on 18th and Pine, the “entertainment system” from a kid somewhere in northeast Philly.
The tiled glass corner table, sandwiched between the couch and the love seat, was waiting for us outside on the curb when Zack and I moved into our first Philadelphia apartment on 21st and South.
Over the summer, on 3rd and Catharine, I found an original print by a man named Harry Anderson. It’s signed with pencil, ’77, and has an image of two cowgirls (or boys) holding each other. The quote on top reads: “I’D SAY this is not a job for an amateur. Yes…I’m on your side. Yes.” I have Googled all of these words with all different descriptions and cannot find anything like it. Harry Anderson, however, does have a Wikipedia page and apparently paints a lot of Jesus. A lot of stuff was on the curb that day- an older woman who could no longer take care of herself was being sent to a home. The man unloading her apartment told me to take whatever I wanted. Aside from a small water stain, I think the painting could be worth something.
On the same block about two weeks ago, I found two decorative bundles of tall bamboo sticks bound with rope. Right now they’re standing next to the bookshelf. I have no idea where to put them. Zack thinks they’re silly.
The matching nightstands in our bedroom were purchased for us, by my mother, at the Clover Market in Bryn Mawr, just weeks before I moved to Texas. I knew that we’d never be able to transport them there, but I loved them so much and convinced myself that I’d be back on the east coast eventually. They’re vintage, painted slate blue, with cabinets and bronze hardware and smaller pull-out drawers on top. I keep medicines and creams and pens in the drawer (just call me Leone Kur) and my notebooks (every notebook I’ve written in since 2004) in the cabinet. “They’ll be waiting for you,” my mother said when she bought them from the antique seller at the market. “I’ll keep them in the upstairs hallway.” We piled them in the U-Haul at our Hunters Lane pit stop after the 25 hour drive from Houston to Philadelphia.
I found our couches on 4th and Fitzwater, about a month after moving to Queen Village. Our old couch (also found on Hunters Lane) and love seat (Craiglist, Dallas) were not what we wanted any longer (too shallow and too discolored from the sun, respectively) and Zack and I had been discussing buying something…new. But then I was walking home from work one day and stumbled upon these seeming leather goods with a simple sign that read “FREE!” I sat down on the couch and sunk into the seat. It was burning hot from sitting in the sun, and I did a little happy dance with my butt. They matched. They felt great. They fit perfectly. And they were going to cost us nothing at all.
I waited on the couch for about an hour for Zack to get home with his car. A couple people drove by, asking “Are you taking both of those?” and “Is that yours?” “Yes!” I screamed. “They’re mine!” Zack and I loaded one into his Jeep while I sat on the other. Couldn’t take any chances.
Turns out they aren’t leather, and they sink a little too much which means your ass hurts after too many hours of watching television, but they’re pretty good, for now.
Hot July
Posted: July 21, 2011 Filed under: life experiences, nostalgia 1 Comment »Do you remember the small stone ledge on the inside of the underpass at the Daylesford train station? In high school, people started leaving little trinkets on the carved-out rock– it sort of turned into this “thing”, this unspoken game for the Conestoga crowd. At the red light on Lancaster Avenue, you could roll down your window, reach your arm out and take whatever was being offered: a tootsie roll, an individually wrapped mint, a Wawa coupon, a lost & found Stoga ID card. You were then semi-obligated to leave something of your own. A mix CD, a folded up math quiz, a partnerless glove.
The majority of my high school summers were spent working the counter at Rita’s Water Ice in Paoli, at the freestanding location on Route 30 that is now Whirled Peace Frozen Yogurt. I sped the Steel Magnolia (the family “kid car,” a 1991 Honda Accord) down Conestoga Road, rolled through the stop sign on Old Lancaster and then always, always hit the red light at the train station. After that, you were allowed to go 45mph on Route 30 and it was a straight shot to Rita’s from there. That light took forever to change. The only nice thing about it was the ledge, which became one of the many things I loved and continue to love about “home.”
Two and a half weeks ago, Nick Guyer, one of my brothers’ closest friends, passed away suddenly. The memorial service was at St. Norbert’s, on Route 252, close to Rita’s. My family drove past the high school in my father’s car, came to a complete stop at the stop sign, paused at the red light. I looked to my right, out of habit. There was a brand-new pack of tissues on the stone ledge, just sitting there, waiting for someone in need to reach out their window and take it with them. Above it? A Conestoga sticker, maroon and gray, pressed firmly into the stone foundation of the overpass.
Recent Comments