Still Alive!

Don't worry, I haven't died. I just went to Pittsburgh.

It was a nice break to be able to take: Going to Mike D's (lovely) wedding. It didn't occur to me that there was a place in the world that wasn't experiencing 100 degree heat, so I was shocked to find myself wearing short sleeves and bermuda shorts and sandals, freezing my tail off in the 50 degree chill of the northeast. Surprisingly green: I previously thought of Pittsburgh only in greyscale images of soot and steelworking equipment.

I somehow slunk into stealth mode during my travels. Sometimes I find myself chatting with strangers, but I guess all of the personalities within me spun the wheel and the James Bond wannabe won out for this trip. I had an interesting experience at the airport standing in line to get on the plane. The exiting passengers had to walk right by me one by one, and I my creative backlog broke through the dam: I made up a flash short story in my mind about each person as they filed by me. Each one was surprisingly complete and took only about 1-2 seconds: If Fran was there, I would have whispered them to her and it would have kept her laughing for days (she gets me).

It would be anticlimatic to list them all or even to write them out in complete detail, but here are snippets:

-(Older man with white, puffy hair and deep creases in his face, very clean clothes) He has a deep, dark secret that, when he was a kid in junior high, he and some friends killed a hobo who was just passing through by smashing him with rocks. He still has nightmares about it. He's on this trip to visit his elderly aunt who is his last remaining relative.

-(Young, short guy in workout clothes carrying a gym bag: he's about 32) This guy works out like a fiend every day to compensate for only being 5'3" tall. He tries to pass himself off as athletic but really only works out in the gym. He's really proud of his muscled physique, so he went to the airport in his workout clothes to call attention to it. Gay.

-(twenty-something woman, glazed look on her face) She was having sex exactly one hour before getting on this plane.

...and so on.

then, I overheard this man who made call after call in a booming, baritone voice. He was in his mid 50's and was wearing a fedora, speaking in the blandest midwestern accent yet using the strangest dialogue and laughing at his own cleverness. He would start his conversation with:

"Commodore! How goes it with thee?"

and continue with the quirky language and plays on words all the way through to the end, which he completed with: "Over and Out!"

It took quite a lot of self-control not to fall on the ground laughing at his self-important silliness.

During this time, I sat against the wall and started writing a story about Ryan. It is really personal and I was thinking of having it bound and giving it to him as a gift. I was really focused on it and typing pretty fast, when I realized that a woman next to me was reading the story over my right shoulder--I didn't know if I should be flattered or outraged, if I wanted her to read it or not...at any rate, I got distracted and lost my train of thought. I tried to pick it up again but started writing a ridiculous analogy and got embarrassed that she was reading that particulary idiocy, so I packed it up.

--more to come.