What I Learned This Summer (2014)

“It’s all up in the air, and we stand still, to see what comes down.”

Yes, there’s a good reason why I’m quoting The Fray lyrics. It’s because they speak of hope. They bound across a field of flowers with the enthusiastic hope that we embrace at the start of each new summer. …Or maybe that’s just me. And maybe I just like The Fray. Temecula. [for those who don't get the reference]

To know me is to know that I hold the summer in high regard. Those months of sun-drenched weather are my best of the year. Maybe I’ve never gotten over the anticipation that permeated every last-day-of-school I’ve lived. Maybe it calls me back to the majority of those early years, when summer meant going back to Los Angeles to live with my dad until the school year was ready to begin again. Or maybe the warm weather just reconnects me with that SoCal heritage. Whatever the reason, late-May through early-September is my spiritual center.

As with the previous four editions, this write serves as my lessons-learned report on the summer that was. The idea was originally borne from a need to cope with love lost, but has since grown into a way to find closure with one June solstice and move onto my inevitable love affair with the next.

And in retrospect, the Summer of 2014 was, on the whole, rather mild compared to its predecessors. Old age is mellowing me, and I’ve found my dial is more often set to “turn down” than “turn up”. But there’s still fun to be had—and lessons to be instilled—in a summer, even in limited run. After all, if we as human beings aren’t constantly learning and evolving, then we’re sinking.

Sometimes the lessons are obvious, sometimes they’re gut-wrenching. But each one is important, and improves the man or woman who learns it.

• There’s no way to casually visit a bartender at work. Driving back to my apartment late on a Saturday in July, I decided to stop by Shady Grove to see my boy Jed. He’d just come home from Tales of the Cocktail, and I was eager to hear all about the trouble and drinks he’d gotten himself into. Just one beer, while living vicariously through his stories. That’s it. That was all I’d have, before continuing on my way home. Heck, I might even be in bed before midnight!
  
  Around 3:30 a.m., I dragged myself through my front door. About 11 hours later, my face was in my toilet, vomiting like it was put on this planet to do just that.
  
  
• There’s no way to casually visit Alex at happy hour. On the previous Monday, my company held a happy hour at Eddie Merlot’s downtown. Not long after I’d arrived, my wine loving homegirl texted to tell me she was doing happy hour at Harris Grill. So after I’d tipped back a couple of free Negronis and bs’ed with coworkers, I headed home with the intention of making a quick stop at Harris along the way, to have a drink and say “hi.” Heck, I’d be home before the sun even went down!
  
  Around 11:30 p.m., I dragged myself through my front door. About 11 hours later, my head was on my desk at the office, swilling coffee and aspirin like my bosses paid it to do just that.
  
  
• All good things come to an end. Shannon moved into her Mt. Washington apartment pimp pad in 2006. In the time since, she’s hosted countless days and nights of shenanigans: New Years Eves, summer night house parties, her sister’s pre-wedding activities, rainy-night drinking games, and the best St. Patrick’s Day parties in the city. And, sadly, that all came to an end this past August, when she closed the front door behind her for the final time.
  
  If there had been a camera crew there that day to put together a Real World-final-episode-moving-out montage, every flashback would’ve featured our circle of friends living a fabled moment of our early adulthood. Life goes on, things change. But sometimes memories feel like old friends you’re leaving behind.
  
  
• Jams are international incidents. The summer’s World Cup brought a little bit of the outside world to Shadyside. Standing on the street with Pakistanimal during June’s Jam on Walnut, a flash of bright yellow caught my eye. A crowd of seven or eight Colombians, men and women, were dancing in front of the stage, wearing the soccer jerseys of their nation’s heroes and waving the flag of their homeland.
  
  
• “Schlammered” is the same in every language. Later, as we sat drinking in Shady Grove, one of the Colombianas stumbled upon Pak and me. When the homie raised his glass to Colombia, the wobbly mami happily raised hers as well. When I said I was cheering for Colombia when I wasn’t cheering for the US, she tried to square off with me.
  
  Crazy, drunk, Latina, and cute. I politely erased her number from my phone the next morning. I’ve already been down that road enough for this lifetime.
  
  
• Furries and supercars aren’t mutually exclusive. While basking in the glory that is our annual Furry Safari in July, the men in our crowd of 20+ were soon distracted by the sight of two new fearsome beasts posted up on the block: A Ferrari 458 and drop-top Lamborghini Aventador parked curbside directly in front of our sidewalk seating. I saw a furry pull out his smartphone and take a picture of the cars, in one of the more ironic moments of my lifetime.
  
  
• Whiskey doesn’t judge you when you cry. When I lost my homie Otis in September, I was broken. It’s been a while since I’ve cried that hard. Or that often. Every day for a week or so, as quickly as I felt like no one could see me at my desk, in my car, in my kitchen, wherever, my eyes would instantly well up with memories. Memories of youth. Memories of promise. Memories of a group of friends ready to take the world by storm, and scheming every minute on how we’d make it happen. I’d frequently find myself reciting old R&B songs as I washed dishes (O loved him some R&B, like any child of the 80s and 90s who grew up singing in a church choir), and choked with tears by the time I reached the chorus.
  
  Miss you, O.
  
  
• Murica is the land of the free. The Fourth of July was, as usual, a star-spangled orgy of red, white, blue, and alcohol. Participating in the bacchanalia was TD’s friend from work, a pretty, petite brown-haired chick from Philadelphia. And Philly Brown was expertly filling out a patriotic pair of Budweiser leggings. About 10 minutes after meeting us on Swag and Canada’s back porch, she decided to pose for a picture between TJ and I. Doing a handstand. Budweiser-booty shimmering in the sunlight. Yeah, she fit into our crew almost as well as she fit into those leggings.
  
  
• I mean, REALLY free. The festivities hit their highpoint at Bang’s place overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline. While the cool people—and those we allow in our presence—were floating in and out of Bang’s house in particular, every household on the block seemed to be teeming with revelers. And freedom.
  
  
  
  One reveler was a tiny, sandy-haired gal with a bountiful bosom. Swag introduced us to Four-Foot-D’s (no really, that’s his nickname for her), who quickly found a new fan. TD is my Lil Sis from another mother, and we’re a family that appreciates boobs. And shortly after meeting her, Sis looked FFDs in the eye (let’s just pretend she made eye contact) and said, “Can I motorboat you?” The sequence of 20 action shots I still have on my phone tells me that FFDs isn’t afraid to party.
  
  
• I’m 35. I mentioned that I’ve slowed down this year, compared to last year. And last year I’d slowed down compared to the year before it. One weekend in August reminded me why that regression is necessary.
  
  Over the course of 30 hours, I barhopped, I stalked, I drank afterhours at a bar with the staff, I did lots of shots, I escorted a buddy who’d drank too much, I ducked police, I attended a 40th birthday party, I watched a woman take a selfie while oblivious to everything else around her, I met my wife (pending), I spilled tequila all over Alex, I gave love advice, I followed the party to William Penn Tavern, I worked the door, I did lots of shots, I met a cute girl, I forgot a cute girl’s name, I ditched a cute girl while she was in the bathroom, I walked into a bar solo, I drank afterhours at a bar with the staff (again), I did lots of shots (again), and I—I still don’t know how—came home in one piece.
  
  I purposely stayed home the next weekend. I’m 35.
  
  
• Pay it forward. I spent the second week of July in Chattanooga, visiting my dad (The Admiral) and stepmother, as well as Sis C, who was stateside for the first time in years. It was probably the driest week of my summer. I expected that, since my stepmother is 23-years-sober, and my pops is diabetic. What I didn’t expect, though, was a bottle of Four Roses waiting for me on their kitchen counter—a gift from Step Bro, who had been there the previous weekend. Nothing takes the edge off Chattanooga like a finger of bourbon after dinner.
  
  
• The party doesn’t stop for the weather. At the summer’s second Jam on Walnut, Tony, FGT, and I were posted up at the bar in Shady Grove, when our resident southern belle decided we should walk to The Ave. Never mind that we were holding prime real estate near the epicenter of the night’s action, or that The Ave was a 10-minute walk to the other side of the neighborhood, or that it was pouring rain outside. Yayy…
  
  On the other hand, standing at the bar in soaking wet clothing, drinking beers and not giving a fuck does allow you to accurately measure your drunkenness.
  
  
• “I’ve gotta stop hanging out with white girls.” That’s a direct quote from the following Saturday, when I found myself jogging down a sidewalk behind Alex, through a torrential downpour.
  
  
• There’s no gift like the gift of blackouts sir bourbon. Swag’s birthday was in August, and his girlfriend, Skeets, hosted our crowd of loud and boisterous drunks. I handed the birthday boy a bottle of Woodford Reserve, which he once christened “Sir Bourbon” when finding it in my liquor cabinet (a bottle of bourbon being sealed with a cork was a radical concept to him at the time). Things rapidly deteriorated from there, but I do know I woke up back in my own bed the next morning, confused.

Here’s to the next love affair being as memorable as the last. See you in June, summer.

Take Me to Another Place, Take Me to Another Land

I love road trips. I grew up with them sort of being standard fare. When my mother and I moved from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, we did so by 5-day, cross-country drive. Though he still lived in California, my dad would often fly out to Baltimore for events (much of his family resided there, as well as in other eastern seaboard locations); part of his itinerary would then be to make the four-hour-each-way journey to pick me up. I’d spend summers back in my sunny native land of SoCal, where my dad’s job as a Xerox sales rep (he was responsible for slangin’ photocopiers to universities all over the region) regularly meant I was riding shotgun with him from UCLA to Cal State Northridge and back, logging hours upon hours in his BMW 325e as it charged through the tan hills and long-blonde-haired valleys. And a portion of every summer seemed to find us back in the east, driving across upstate New York on our way to a weekend in Boston, or down I-95 on our way to a family reunion in Raleigh.

When I got old enough to be behind the wheel of my own car, it didn’t take long for me to forge my own paths. Washington & Jefferson College was only 30 miles from my mother’s house—a pittance to an experienced road warrior like me; but I trekked the roundtrip at least once a week, just because I could. Soon, with or without a copilot, I was making the four hour sprints to Baltimore for familial gatherings, or just to kick it with my cousins. And a couple of times, cousins strapped into my little Ford Escort LXE with me, I’d make the drive down to North Carolina. Eventually there would be many of the crazy trips with my crew that have been highlighted on this page—Ocean City, MD (twice); Washington, D.C. (three times); Ohio University (12 hours of madness); Thousand Islands, NY (oddly enough, no real great stories came from the weekend, which disappointed on countless levels); and various others.

What I’m trying to get at here, is that I like travelling by automobile.

And yet, with all of that, I was none too excited about my scheduled drive to Tennessee at the end of July for my father’s surprise 75th birthday party. For starters, the travel time (about nine to ten hours, depending on what state troopers are watching) from Pittsburgh to Chattanooga was daunting for a solo mission. And although my cousin, Mrs. Bluemoon (MB)—normally my closest ally in our family’s boozier episodes—would be there, she was most certainly going to be sticking to water and un-rummed Cokes, being that she was seven months pregnant. Which brings up another knock against attending this family gathering: MB’s pregnancy means that I’m one of the few 30+ year old members of our clan who have never had kids and/or been married. And I was rolling dolo. The last time I saw my family, I had The Ex with me. Though, I can’t say for sure whether or not that was seen as a step in the “right direction”…

Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to miss my pops’ big day. Nor was I going to pass up a chance to see a lot of other family who I hadn’t seen in years. So on the last Friday of July I soldiered up, tossing a suitcase in my trunk and a couple of newly-burned CDs on my passenger seat. I did over half of the grueling drive that night, stopping at a rest stop several miles past the Tennessee border at around 2 a.m. to sleep. By 6:30 I was back on my way, and by a quarter to 9 I was waking up my brother, “Big Bro”, from the front desk of The Chattanoogan so he could let me into our room. I showered the previous 14 hours off me, and then I crawled into my bed and slept until about 1.

For lunch, Big Bro, my stepbrother (“Step Bro”), my sister (“Sis C”), her boyfriend Mike, and I stopped at North Shore Grille; the guys tossed back beers (Red Stripe for moi) while Sis C used the Bloody Mary bar to ease the hangover punishing her for the previous night’s bar fun. Step Bro and I soon found a fun game to play while we waited for our food: “Pin the Tail on the Bar Slut”. I quickly identified my preferred practice target; she was sitting at the bar in a short and complimenting white sundress, her modest-but-beckoning curves highlighted by the portions of skin tactically put on display. She sat with a male suitor whose dingy mop of blonde hair would’ve made Kurt Cobain proud. Our booth was located at an angle that positioned me in a line of sight just a few degrees left of her mismatched beau, and I frequently caught her eyes straying over to treat me like an amusement park. I enjoyed the innocent (on my part) fun, and the smug satisfaction in knowing I could, if I really wanted to.

Step Bro found a practice target of his own. Well, actually, he found several. Being relatively fresh off a divorce, my 41-year-old stepbrother has been living life to the fullest, fearlessly flirting with and pulling tail in various states. His newfound freedom has turned him into the proverbial kid in a candy store. In this particular aisle he eyed up several treats, but the biggest gobstopper of all sat at the far end of the bar. She wasn’t a perfect ten in looks, but she was a perfect piece of low-hanging fruit: she was of impressive physical characteristics (…below the neck), she was sitting by herself, and—as I quickly discerned—she was one-step-forward-two-steps-backward-drunk. And remember, we were there for lunch. It was maybe 4 pm at the latest now, and she was doing a dead-on “drunk Sweet Dee” impersonation. From the little pieces of her slurred passing conversations with the bartenders that I could hear from our booth, I picked up that she was a server or bartender at some nearby bar or restaurant (maybe even that one), who was finally off-duty and taking full advantage of the liberty she had been granted.

Eventually, the other people at our table picked up on Step Bro and I discussing her merits. Sis C simply called us “dogs,” but Big Bro contested the woman’s physical qualifications. “She’s not even hot!” “You’ve gotta remember, though,” I countered, “it’s not about quality; it’s about quantity.”

(*pause* My sister might’ve been onto something.)

After lunch we did some shopping —well, Sis C did; the guys just tagged along—and then headed back to the hotel to clean up before making our way to St. John’s for the party. Somehow, I was put in charge of (1.) getting my stepmother’s laptop and a projector set up in the restaurant’s private room, where the party was being held, and (2.) getting everyone neatly tucked away in the room before the birthday boy arrived, to ensure a quality surprise. I couldn’t help but wonder just what it said about my family that I, of all people, was the one entrusted with these vital responsibilities. But, like a good sailor, I shouldered the weight. As I worked with a waiter to get the electronics connected and operating properly, I frequently sipped from a glass of Grey Goose and tonic and periodically checked on the arriving guests to be sure they were safely in the dining room and out of sight before the Admiral got to the restaurant. [Note: “The Admiral” is a nickname used for my father within our family; though he was a naval officer, he retired as a Chief Warrant Officer. But he is the oldest of his parents’ seven children, and therefore often stands atop the family’s chain of command, especially since the passing of my grandparents several years ago.] Guests continued to roll in, and trays of drinks rolled out; before long the Admiral arrived to a raucous “surprise!” With my work done, I ordered a third Goose & tonic and set about having some fun.

I caught up with aunts and uncles who I hadn’t seen in some time, I laughed with my dad and his friends while eating an excellent meal, and I repeatedly availed myself of the open bar. …So you can imagine my surprise when, near the end of the party, “the kids” were asked to stand up and say a few impromptu words about our beloved old man. I was light on my feet; my buzz fully pulsing in and around me, I started my speech with, “I’ll keep this short…” “Good!” interjected Uncle Red, as he dug his spoon into his dessert dish. Talking to a room full of people—family, no less—with Grey Goose feathers lulling my brain to sleep is an experience I hope to never have to repeat, though I seemed to make it through without any hiccups (figurative or literal).

Around 10:30 we moved the party to the hotel, where a jazz band was playing in the bar. Since just about everyone from the party was staying at The Chattanoogan—including the Admiral and my stepmother—for the night, the bar overflowed with my extended family. Step Bro identified “targets” all around (including our waitress, a cute Latina with a slight southern drawl); Sis C. (who was easily the drunkest among us) accused each of her siblings of taking pictures from her Facebook page for use in the night’s slideshow tribute to our dad; Uncle Red chortled from a barstool about one thing or another; MB sat taking it all in, occasionally sighing because she couldn’t fully enjoy the moment like she’s accustomed to doing; and I downed Stella draughts and just soaked in a rare night of being drunk with my family. The afterparty’s limelight fell on the older of my two sisters, though (“Big Sis”), who joined the band for a song, her beautiful voice expertly rocking the bar to its foundation.

But, being a hotel bar, the place closed at midnight. As people filed stumbled out, Step Bro spit some game at the waitress while I talked to our cousin Sherri and finished my last Stella.

Sherri: “So where’s [The Ex]? She didn’t make the trip down this time?”
Me: *choking, as I try not to spit beer all over her*

After closing out my tab with our waitress—who shot down Step Bro, but seemed to give me a sly smile—Step Bro and I returned to our respective rooms to change into casual clothes before venturing out. When I stopped by his room to collect him, he handed me a jar of Tennessee’s finest clear liquid and told me to take a whiff. The 130 proof moonshine inside proceeded to rape my nostrils. Step Bro laughed when I recoiled in shock. “Take a sip.” I took a quick one, expecting to digest gasoline. But, to my surprise, the garage whiskey was much smoother than its scent had led me to assume. Step Bro took a quick nip himself and then sealed it back up. “Just enough to warm you up.” He wasn’t kidding; after five minutes I felt like my liver had clicked on a heat lamp.

We headed to T-Bone’s Cafe, a small bar within walking distance. While Tennessee didn’t overwhelm with its percentage of desirable women [in fact, by contrast it helped make me realize, upon returning home to Shadyside, just how many beautiful women populate my neighborhood], a solid 75% of those I encountered during the trip were at T-Bone’s that night. The problem, however, was that it was mostly a “local” crowd as well, which meant Step Bro and I made little traction. Nevertheless, I was satisfied with watching him engage girls in conversation without a moment’s hesitation, offering them an opportunity to sit down and get to know us. The fact that none of them were taking him up on the offer was of little concern.

…Well, it would’ve been of some concern, if Stella and her new buddy Garage Brew weren’t slapping around my central nervous system like two rogue cops looking for a lead. Our conversation as we walked home to the hotel that night is precisely the type of event I want a camera crew on hand to cover; the slurred, nonsensical stream-of-consciousness coming from both of us must have been absolutely riveting. As Step Bro peeled off at his room’s door, he offered me another shot of moonshine; the only reason I’m alive to tell this tale is because I said “Fuck off!” and shuffled even faster towards my own door.

A few hours later I found myself in the middle of a terrifying dream: I was trapped in a pitch black tomb, all by myself, with no flashlight and no hope for escape. As I clawed at the walls in a panic, confused as to how I had gotten here and shaking at the idea of the slow and agonizing death sure to befall me, my fingers smacked a switch.

I was in the bathroom. I opened the door, turned off the light, and shuffled back to my bed.

Sunday saw Step Bro and I squinting when we stepped into the daylight; we weren’t the only ones hungover, but we were by far the most hungover members of the family. We joined several others in checking out of the hotel and moving into The Admiral’s house, which comfortably slept nine guests that night. The entire cast of characters, however, was at the house that day for a family barbecue. We polished off more than a case and a half of Fat Tire (Step Bro and I were largely responsible for that), more than half the Mason jar of moonshine (Uncle Red and my cousin—“The Lieutenant”—were largely responsible for that), a case of Rolling Rock, and a whole “mess” of ribs and chicken (stereotypes be damned, we went all-in on that shit), as the party rolled on, well into the night. By 4 a.m. I was falling face-first into my bed in one of the guest rooms, slurring to myself, “god I love my fam!”

I love a good road trip. And so does the Mason jar sitting in my liquor cabinet.