Archive for the 'Philadelphia' Category

11
Feb
12

Conflict avoidance

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: People We Don't Like, Philadelphia and Strangers Observed
Tags: , ,

When I got out of the subway and turned the corner, there was a fight happening in front of my destination, so I turned around and started walking in the other direction.

I would have to go to the 7-11 instead of the Rite Aid, I decided.

All I saw at first was a quick burst of isolated action among a loosely gathered crowd of people. I thought two kids were rough housing, joking and shoving. And people were always loitering on that block. I thought of maybe just making a wide arc around them to get to the front door. If I minded my business, they’d leave me alone.

But then I noticed one of them had his belt in his hand, doubled up, and as he backed away from the other guy, he took swipes at his head. Continue reading ‘Conflict avoidance’

26
Jan
12

Have a nice trip. See ya next fall.

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, Philadelphia and Strangers Observed

The first thing I thought as I fell was I’m going to tear my pants.

I knew I was going down. No way to stop it. No time for anything graceful. Just minimize the damage. Oh, shit. My phone.

And then I heard myself say it, casually, calmly—”oh shit”—as I landed on my right knee (There’s the tear.) and my left hand, scuffing the palm. The right hand swung out and landed somewhat more lightly, just to steady me and stop me from rolling forward, the corner of my iPhone scratching hard against the ground. (Its just the case. It’s just the case.) And my gym bag pivoted around my body on the strap across my chest and slammed down on the sidewalk behind me. I heard the combination lock, in an outside mesh pocket, rattle against the concrete.

The high school kid in front of me, on is way to school, looked terrified and suddenly wide awake. My headphones were still in my ears, but I heard the panic in his voice: “Oh, god. Are you all right?” Continue reading ‘Have a nice trip. See ya next fall.’

19
Jan
12

The last day of car acquaintance

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Life the Universe and Everything, Minneapolis, My Favorite Things, New York, Nostalgia, Philadelphia and Sad
Tags: ,

We were just going for a test drive.

Sooner or later you reach a point where you have to sink so much money into your car to make it sellable that it’s worth just as much or more as a trade-in. And even if that’s not precisely true, it’s worth something to have someone else take it off your hands.

So Jeff and I drove to a suburban car dealer in a 1997 Jeep Wrangler, and we drove home in a 2011 Honda CR-V.

When Jeff bought that Jeep in 2002 he joked, “It makes me look 30% sexier.” And he was right. It was true for anyone. It was a hot little number. Now we’re lulled into a need for reliability and comfort, room for groceries and, one day, room for a kid. Sturdy. Sensible. Soccer mom.

The new car is lovely. But it sure is hard to say good bye to the old friend who saw us through three moves and three cities. Continue reading ‘The last day of car acquaintance’

05
Jan
12

The 12 Ways of Christmas: the lights

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Detroit, Fun, Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia, Philadelphia and The 12 Ways of Christmas
Tags: , , ,

[Part 8]

This is disgusting to me now, but it would have delighted me as a kid.

It wasn’t December if my family and I were not driving around looking at other people’s Christmas lights.

We started in our own neighborhood, admiring the wild and colorful houses, and the simple monochromatic houses in white, gold, red, blue. In my little kid’s logic, I always assumed the blue houses must be Jewish. Or something. Just a feeling. I wanted to say so, but it seemed rude. I never knew any Jews growing up—at least none that I knew of.

My mom and I especially loved the ones that looked like gingerbread houses with sidewalks lined, every angle of the roof highlighted, doorways and windows lit. Our house should be like that. I studied them carefully as we slowly passed, making mental notes between audible gasps every time a new extreme came into view.

I really appreciated the people who did their trees. Those were the ones who really cared. Random placements among the branches were popular one year. Then our neighbors began to include the trunks, too. A few years later, a tightly wrapped cluster of lights on the trunk with a contrasting color densely filling up the branches was en vogue. Continue reading ‘The 12 Ways of Christmas: the lights’

04
Jan
12

O’er the fields we go, packing all away

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, My Favorite Things, Nostalgia and Philadelphia
Tags: ,

We just finished un-Christmasing the house. I have never before seen so many dead pine needles all at once. It’s weird to have things back to normal, but I’m getting used to it.

I came home to find Jeff pulling ornaments off the tree. He was putting them in the wrong boxes, but I didn’t say anything. It may seem like it does’t matter, but I have a system. They should go back in the boxes they came from. Different colors should be distributed evenly to ensure equally even distribution next year when we hang them on the next tree. But at least they’re all put away. We can deal with it next year. Continue reading ‘O’er the fields we go, packing all away’

26
Oct
11

Off the wall

By Eric 2 Comments
Categories: Art and Philadelphia

Frank is ... top of the heap?


At the corner of S. Broad and Wharton Streets in my neighborhood, a Frank Sinatra mural was recently unceremoniously covered up by a new building.

This is what it used to look like:

He had it his way for years.

I don’t happen to care about this particular mural, though I imagine many in my old-school Italian neighborhood do. And it is a bit odd to see Frank’s head and shoulders peeking out awkwardly over the top of the new structure.

Continue reading ‘Off the wall’

07
Sep
11

Looking outward, looking inward

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay, Health, Me, People We Don't Like, People We Like and Philadelphia

Half the fun of going to the gym is the chance to observe its particular biosphere. It’s treasure trove of wildlife. I say you ought to get something out of it. Lord knows I hate going to the gym.

It’s a symptom of my inexorable laziness. But I see results when I work out, and male vanity is even more compulsive than laziness. So I go. But always in the morning before work—because I hate going after work even more.

So I’ve become familiar with the characters of my morning routine. I think you see a more consistent recurrence of the same people in the morning. Everyone’s routines are a little more regimented early in the day. We still have discipline in the morning, and hope—as opposed to later in the day when we are apathetic and undone and much more inclined to get a cocktail than lift anything heavier than a gym bag.

Continue reading ‘Looking outward, looking inward’

25
Aug
11

I feel the earth move

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Me, Philadelphia and Technology
Tags:

I didn’t check in to Philadelphia’s “Earthquakepocalypse” on Foursquare with the tens of thousands of others who did.

I did check in to the Chinese restaurant where I was lunching with a friend when it happened. But I did that when I got there. Nothing to do with the quake.

Where were you when it happened?

Um, I was fighting with a vegetable dumpling as it slipped through my chopsticks for the fourth time.

I don’t check in to anything with the suffix “-pocalypse,” mostly because it’s dumb. It made sense for the snowfall of winter 2009, when we were hit three times for an accumulation of four and half feet, but not now. And the ironic, self-aware over-inflation of ordinary situations just isn’t funny anymore.

However, I guess an earthquake in Philadelphia isn’t, strictly speaking, ordinary—in a Chinese restaurant or otherwise. Bottles shook at the bar. Glasses tinkled against each other on the shelves. Plum sauce skittered across the table. And my lemon chicken sauce quivered obscenely.

Continue reading ‘I feel the earth move’

17
Jun
11

Two cheeseburgers to go

By Eric 4 Comments
Categories: Bar Stories, Gay, Me and Philadelphia

“I don’t care if you’re taken or not, because you probably are, but I’m going to ask you a question anyway.”

She said it without punctuation, and it came at me by surprise, the sort of introduction that makes you assume you’re not going to want to answer the question.

I was sipping a beer, waiting for a couple of cheeseburgers to bring home for me and my husband. She was the person nearest to me at the bar, two stools away, and was also waiting for her brunch. My order was to go. She had silverware.

She looked about 50 — maybe late 40s. It was hard to tell. She had brown hair that looked natural enough to me. The skin around her eyes was mostly unwrinkled. She was small, not unattractive, but not fit. She wore glasses and had a little nose that turned up at the end. Mousy, I would call her. Librarian-esque. IT, maybe. She wore minimal make-up; just some eyeliner, some powder. Just a neighborhood gal out for brunch on a Sunday by herself.

I didn’t want to talk to her, but my need to not be rude trumped my need to be left alone. “Uh, sure …” I said. Continue reading ‘Two cheeseburgers to go’

01
Jun
11

The Boy in the Bubble Emerges

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay, People We Like, Philadelphia and Work

Of the salient differences between my new job and my old job, I must say one of the most intriguing is the number of gay people. At a gay cable network, I was naturally surrounded by gays. At a public radio station, the demographics of the audience, and the people who serve that audience, widen considerably.

Delightfully, the reason this is intriguing is that it doesn’t seem to matter. Of course I never expected it to. It’s just a notable change for me. After four years of being surrounded by rainbows and unicorns — and a lot of straight women — every blessed day, one gets used to certain ways of comportment. There are certain facts about one’s life that don’t need explaining, a common way of looking at the world. It’s not so much that I now need to change my behavior. I wouldn’t. It’s more that I need to open myself up to new things, new people, different life experiences.

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