Marching Into March

First, I have a new-old story up on Drabblecast this week, a reprint of my "classic" (hah!) story "Sea Changes," first published in Ideomancer in 2008. Check it out! This all-flash episode also contains stories from Keffy Kehrli and Jonathan Schneeweiss.

Second, I now have a tab that lists all the Community Education classes I have upcoming at Portland Community College, or you can just follow the link here. The next four-week cycle of classes starts April 11 and the sign-up isn't active yet, but once it is, I'll let the world know.

Last weekend Rob and I went to the Rainforest Writers Retreat in Lake Quinault, WA. I had a great time, though I didn't get as much done as I wanted to. I only wrote a shade under 15,000 words, all on short stories. We also went on a hike (well, Rob went on the hike, it was too slippy for me) and saw waterfalls and a herd of wild elk. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a laid-back place to hang out and write for a few days. We likely won't be going back next year since we're saving up for a possible East Coast/Readercon trip, but if you want to go, register fast! It always sells out.

Some jerk elk sticking his tongue out at us.

Finally, today it was 55 degrees and sunny all day oh wait I mean it rained all day and was terrible don't move here. Man, everywhere in the entire country sucks except this place.

Publications, Also an Ocean

First of all, my story "Five Days to a Better You with Parallel Worlds (Executive Edition)" went live at Daily Science Fiction last week. A sample:

Mandy the receptionist will press the alarm when you burst into the room, but that doesn't mean you should be alarmed. In the real universe, the one you come from, her name is Sandy. She loves cats. Flash those pearly white teeth of yours.

Second of all, the newest issue of Shimmer is out and it contains my story! "We Take the Long View" is a story of telepathy, colonization, body horror, and evil forests. The story will be online in mid-October but you should really buy the issue now.

In non-writing news, I finally put my feet into the Pacific Ocean:

Picture taken by Rob. Doesn't this look like it could illustrate some self-help article about following your dreams?

Rob's parents came to visit and they wanted to go to the beach, which I was very excited about since I have never seen the Pacific Ocean and one of my friends said the Oregon Coast is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. We didn't get to see the sunset, but even so, I can see the appeal. The first beach we stopped at was pretty wild, with rocks jutting up from the coast and mountains in the distance. It was cold, and there was an old shipwreck on the beach. We spent the night in the very cute town of Astoria where I somehow managed to crash a loaner beach cruiser. On the second day, we went to the town of Seaside, OR, which reminded me more of the beach towns on the Atlantic. The beach there was also much more "tame," though there was some grass and of course the mountains over the horizon. There was also a swingset. There aren't many things in life more relaxing than swinging on a swingset while facing the Pacific Ocean on a hot (but not too hot) day.

Clatsop County is also the ancestral home of Bigfoot:

Sup?

We also went to Lewis and Clark's winter fort. Man, Oregon is just lousy with Lewis and Clark stuff. It's like that's the most important thing that's ever happened here. (I can't judge. The only historical thing that happened where I grew up was a battle from a war nobody cares about anymore.) We ate some really good vegetarian burgers at the Coast, drank some excellent microbrews, and fed seals at a small aquarium that has its own Wikipedia page. After getting back, we took Rob's parents to Powell's and I failed to convince them to eat at a food cart. Then on Sunday we went to Mount Hood, which was very impressive. I've never seen a real mountain up close before, and it was actually a little terrifying. There's a sign at the hiking station that basically says "if you get stuck up there, you're on your own." (Fine, Mount Hood. Be that way. I guess I'll never find out if you're filled with candy.) I have pictures of this stuff too, but there are already too many pictures in this post.

And finally, a picture that proves once and for all that Portland truly is Etsy's brick and mortar storefront:

Goddamn, I love it here.

2013 Year in Review

So, 2013. Kind of a year. Recap time!

Writing: I wrote ten short stories this year, which includes three flash-length pieces and one novelette. (This only counts stories that I sent out for submission.) This is three times as many stories as I've written in any other single year dating back to 2005 when I made my first sale, and comes very close to equaling the amount of stories that I have written in all years combined since that time, counting the two or so years I was all "fuck writing" and didn't type a word of fiction. I didn't track word count, I only care about individual stories.

I sold five of these stories, plus two written in previous years. Three are currently out:

• "Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long" in Daily Science Fiction
• "You Will Never Be the Same" in the Whispers from the Abyss anthology (buy it!)
• "Thirty-Six Interrogatories Propounded by the Human-Powered Plasma Bomb in the Moments Before Her Imminent Detonation" in Daily Science Fiction. I will never write a better title.

...and the remainder will be out sometime next year. I sold a story to a dream market and three to print anthologies. I joined SFWA as an associate member, and then became active a month later. I went to four conventions, and paneled at two of them (although one was a "stealth" paneling, ha!). I did not work on any novels.

But though sales and publications are certainly nice, the most important thing is that I was writing. Even though certain things in my life are less than ideal right now, I kept writing, and I didn't stop. It's like a switch has been flipped, and while I wish this switch-flipping would have happened in the mid-aughts, better it happened now than not at all.

What is this thing?

Non-Writing: Okay, here's the part where I get to talk about Portland. We went to Portland, and it was amazing. We also visited Boston, which was similarly amazing. I've made no bones about the fact that I haven't enjoyed living in Baltimore, where we relocated in 2010 for Rob's Teach for America job. We went to both Portland and Boston partly for a vacation (and in the case of Boston, an excuse to go to Readercon), but also to "audition" these cities as possible places of habitation. Boston, I love you but you're expensive as hell. Portland, however, lives squarely in the center of an imaginary Venn diagram with "affordable" on one side and "spectacular" on the other, and in that space is a one-bedroom apartment for less than a thousand dollars a month with our name on it.

Everyone, or at least a lot of people, love Portland and I didn't expect it to live up to the hype. But it totally did! It reminded me of the best parts of Pittsburgh (which never gets any hype). The weather is beautiful, even the rain. Bike lanes, cheap food carts, and Powell's Books, yay! Also, we already have a lot of friends there, as opposed to Baltimore where we knew nobody before moving here and had to build everything from the ground up. And even though we did manage to do that, it was very hard going there for awhile.

So yep, we're shipping out, hopefully in April. I will dearly miss the friends I've made here in Baltimore, but this is something we have to do (also there's this thing called "the Internet" now, which makes distance easier to take).

What's up for 2014? Well, moving to Portland and acquiring at least one of their notoriously scarce jobs will take up a lot of our time. I still plan to write at least one more short story in 2014 than I did in 2013, and keep on submitting them. I plan to finally, finally, FINALLY get my novel (yes, that one) ready for submission to agents and/or small presses. I want to put out a zine and keep my hand in the zine community, since my fiction writing has essentially put zining on hiatus. That won't be hard in Portland (will you be at the Portland Zine Symposium? I will, for the first time!), but my priority going forward will still likely be fiction. I feel grateful to have my creative life on track

Portland Trip (Part 1 of ?)

Normally if it rains most of the days you're on vacation you'd call it a bad vacation, but Rob (who took all the pictures in this post) and I knew what we were getting into when we decided to travel to the creative mecca of Portland, Oregon last week, so he could attend the Rose City Comic-Con and so we could both explore a city that was high on our shortlist of potential future homes. There's far too much awesome for one little post to contain, so on his advice I'm going to be splitting up this series of posts topics-wise, so you can read or ignore at your leisure.

First of all, let's get this out of the way: Portland is fucking beautiful. Look at these fucking mountains:

Nature in your face.

The first area of the city we stumbled into was the Pearl District, where we saw one Portland landmark right off the bat.

Words to live by.

A few days later we went to Powell's World of Books, which really deserves its own post that I might write at some point, but just so you know it contains over four million books both used and new, takes up an entire city block, and is the largest independent bookstore in the world. There were also a lot of smaller independent bookstores and even though we didn't go in any of them I'm certain that if we lived there I'd never step foot in a Barnes & Noble again. (Not that I do that now.)

Four million books!!

Portland bears a lot of similarities to Pittsburgh, with its rivers, bridges, and mountains (although according to westerners, the Appalachians are just big hills... they're right). It doesn't rain a lot in Pittsburgh, but it's the third cloudiest city in the country, and I quite appreciated the blanket of haze between me and that big glowy thing in the sky. Pittsburgh is kind of a "weird" city, too. They're both pretty cheap. But unlike Pittsburgh, Portland is almost totally flat which makes it excellent for cycling and walking. They're also a little less clannish in Portland, maybe? Probably because most Portlanders weren't born there, and Pittsburgh has a large native-born contingent. I mean, I love Pittsburgh, I think it's a vastly underrated city, and I was happy to see that the elements that make Pittsburgh great exist somewhere else. I'm totally a city girl, but I'm coming to realize that what I really love are small, easily-traversable cities that are not part of a megalopolis. Baltimore/DC is just too big for me.

Just one of Portland's eight bridges. Pittsburgh has more, but it's not a pissing contest (or is it??).

The public transportation in Portland is amazing, especially for such a small city. I never waited more than twenty minutes for a train or bus, and that was at night. Every stop was announced both over the loudspeaker and visually (in Baltimore they usually skip a few, especially at night when I can't always see where I am, and the trains don't have a visual display). It's also super easy to roll your bike onto the train and they have bike hangers for them. They actually want you to ride your bike in Portland! Bike lanes were fucking everywhere and weren't full of cracks and debris. Drivers are not insane and they will stop for pedestrians. Since I have given up trying to get a driver's license, it's very important to me that wherever I live permanently is a good place for non-drivers.


Happy little streetcars.

Everyone in Portland, or at least everyone I talked to, was super nice. Almost Canadian, really. I've never been west of Ohio so while I'd heard about how different the "vibe" is out west, it has to be seen to be believed. On the East Coast, and even in Pittsburgh to some extent, life is all about maximizing your time for ultimate productivity and making sure you look super busy. Portlanders work as hard as everyone else (especially the self-employed ones) but there's not that rushing around "get out of my way, I'm an important person!" feeling. Even the people who were obviously going to work were playing it much cooler than their East Coast counterparts. A question you will never get asked in Portland, at least not by strangers, is "what do you do?" That could be because the unemployment rate is so high, but I'll take it anyway.


We went to all four quadrants of the city, though all of our neighborhood walking was on the east side (the side with the cheaper rent). It rained more days than it didn't but when it wasn't raining there was zero humidity. I thought the weather was awesome, actually. And while Portlandia is more fiction than fact there are certain "trapped in the nineties" details like free-standing record stores and even a Suncoast in the mall. I was really excited about the Suncoast.

Up next: beer and food of Portland, or, why I may turn into a foodie after all!

Writing Progress, Stories That Aren't Mine, PDX Trip!

Apparently I continue to crank out work to make up for the time I wasn't writing. I'm currently finishing up revisions on a novelette, which is the longest thing I've ever written that isn't a novel. Also have two short stories and several pieces of flash in the revision pile. So if you've been missing my posts here (which have never been very frequent to begin with), that is why.

If you like opera and/or Hungarian mythology, check out my friend Samantha Kymmell-Harvey's new story "Cadence" in Waylines Magazine! I'm sure this is only the first of many stories for Sam.

In non-writing news, I am thrilled beyond words to be traveling to the adultlescent dreamscape of Portland, Oregon next month. September 20-26, right after my birthday. Rob will be attending the Rose City Comic Con, and we will both be conducting more exploration of residential neighborhoods than one normally does on a vacation. Any tips on can't-miss sights? We already know about the Tardis Bar, the Lovecraft Bar, the Japanese Garden, Voodoo Donuts, and of course Powell's World of Books, surely one of the few destination book stores in the country. And I will of course be visiting a handful of zinester hubs, which I hope is okay considering I don't necessarily consider myself a zinester anymore. (But I don't NOT consider myself a zinester. It's complicated! I still love you, zine world, I just have so many hours in a day and I prefer to spend most of the free ones writing speculative fiction right now.)

Pre-Post "Boston Is Awesome" Filler Post; Also Readercon

So for the past 10-ish days Rob and I have been hanging out in New England generally, Boston specifically, and I have already decided that Boston is the greatest place in the world and I want to live there right now. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move there until 2014 at the earliest, but I am super stoked to see there is a place where people can talk about things other than traffic and parking. While I gear up to write the giant BOSTON RULES post, let's talk about Readercon, which is where I spent the last three days of our trip. It was awesome! This is only the fourth sci-fi (yes, I do call it sci-fi) con I've ever been to, and without a doubt it was the best due to its focus on books to the general exclusion of other forms of media. (Context also has more of a book focus as I recall, but I don't remember all that much about it overall. My memory for things that happened prior to around 2011 is seriously spotty as hell.)

Rob and I brought attention to ourselves by livetweeting several panels. I definitely found the panels much more in-depth and useful than previous panels I've witnessed; again, the focus on books helped, as well as the fact that the panels were quite diverse and/or evenly split by sex. (There WAS an incident with men passing over women in the audience early on, but it only happened once and after that I avoided dude-only panels.) What's funny is that it seemed nobody was really livetweeting at first, but after an hour or two more people started joining in. Thus begins and ends my entry into Internet trends. If you want to read some of the livetweets (by now that word has lost all meaning), go to my feed and scroll down. I don't tweet much. You can't miss them!

I also went to the Broad Universe reading and read part of my upcoming Daily Science Fiction story. Both exciting and nerve-wracking, as readings tend to be. (Psst, story email-drops on July 30th, pass it on.)

And on the last night there was hot tub and swimming pool aplenty. My one regret at Readercon is going to late night panels on the other two nights instead of going to the pool because I friggin' NEVER get to go to pools.

In addition to hanging out with some people from Secret Online Writing Club, I also met several authors and editors who I've known of or vaguely communicated with for years. If I try to list names it will come off sounding smarmy or I'll forget someone important, so I'll just say that if I spoke with you (yes, YOU!) this past weekend, it was a delight. I will absolutely be going to Readercon every year it's feasible.

(Crossposted from LiveJournal.)

Hartford/Boston/Readercon Trip, Day 1

We just stopped at the first hotel of the giant, ten-day-long New England Adventure, after a drive that wasn't nearly as terrible as long drives usually are. Our last semi-long trip, to Richmond, was practically unbearable. Then I realized that the reason why it didn't suck could be because we're heading north. That tells you all you need to know, really.

The ultimate destination of this trip is Readercon in Burlington, MA, which is like any other science fiction convention except that instead of a person dressed as the Fourth Doctor having a heated conversation about anime with someone dressed as the Seventh Doctor, it's actually about writing and authors and junk. Which means that this is a con made for me!

Tomorrow we go to Hartford, CT. And then to Boston, a city I expect to love. No updates every day, just when I feel like it.

(Crossposted from LiveJournal.)

So Okay, I'll Update My Damn Blog

It's perhaps typical of the way I conduct my "writing career," and indeed my entire online persona, that as soon as I got to the point where I got a dozen or so hits on this blog a day, I immediately stopped posting. What can I say, other than that updating a non-LJ blog feels way too much like performing in front of a live audience and takes away from the time I spend doing "real" writing.

But anyway: updates! I sold a story to PodCastle, so look for "The Hand of God" to invade your auditory canals sometime in the early fall. This is the first time my writing has been adapted to the form of a podcast. I hope to be in smells by late 2014.

Also, my zine distro is still running (though not accepting any new submissions -- when I'm sold out I'm sold out for good!), so maybe check it out? I'm also probably going to whip up something in time for the DC Zinefest, though I'll probably not be tabling since someone (uh, me) didn't register in time. But I'm easy to spot: just look for the lady with the fresh tattoo of two Jeffrey Brown-inspired cats riding a tandem bike on her right arm.

Some other things I've been doing/reading/etc:
**Read Daryl Gregory's Pandemonium, which is if anything even better than The Devil's Alphabet. Man, if you aren't reading this guy right now you're a chump.
**Reading Robert Jackson Bennett's The Company Man. Remember the kerfuffle on Twitter a few weeks ago about steampunk being fascism for nice people? I only vaguely do, since I mostly use Twitter to keep up with the antics of John Darnielle and DadBoner. Anyway, if you're tired of steampunk about aristocrats this is the cure: Bennett's steampunk is dirty and political, showing us the lives of the crooked company and the corrupt union that fuel a magical city made of gears, gaslights, and wonder. Despite a slow start, recommended!
**Going on a trip to western North Carolina, which included camping in the Blue Ridge. Note to self: next time bring mattress.
**Working on a short story about generation ships, and also misery.
**Eating food, breathing, sleeping. You know, human stuff.

Anyway, see you in a month I guess!

xo,
Erica

The Room: The Play

Sunday was my 30th birthday. I'm not a big birthday person, and haven't been since the age of twelve (nothing is more tedious than adults who make a big fuckin' deal out of their birthday, just saying), and prefer not to do anything special for the day aside from going out (or calling in) for a nice meal. I am certainly not the kind of person who goes to the theatre for my birthday. But, as luck would have it, His Roomliness Sir Tommy Wiseau was appearing the day before at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, MD for a special live version of "The Room." No amount of emphatic typography can accurately capture the joy I felt at learning of this event.

For those not in the know, The Room is an epic saga of infidelity, betrayal, football, lies, and covert recording techniques, brought to you by the ambiguously European auteur Tommy Wiseau, who really did wear these pants:

Only $29.99 at Hot Topic!

I've seen The Room: The Movie about four times now, I think, which is four more times than any sane person, but I'm not a sane person. I'm a bad movie aficionado. And while I was basically expecting -- and would have been happy with -- a staged version of The Room, the play was way different, being more of a broad comedy (instead of a "quirky black comedy"... what T.W. called his masterpiece when people didn't appreciate its dramatic aspirations) with a fair amount of improv, caused by Tommy purposely throwing off the rest of the cast. He may not have been in on the joke before, but he is now.

There were also a number of changes to the cast and plot, although all the best scenes and lines are still there. Relatively minor character Scott was a main player, and was the main foil for the actor playing Denny (who did the best job in this aside from the Wiseauminator). A new character, Travis, added a musical flourish:

Yeah baby, open your hard to me.

In closing, go see this if you're a fan of The Room. Or even if you're not, what the hell. I gather that the Silver Spring theater puts on live showings every few months, although this was the first with The Tommy Himself. I'll miss his leather pants and surprisingly sculpted upper body when I see it next time, but he's so busy with publishing The Room: The Book, converting his film to 3-D, and in general milking this puppy* for all it's worth. A full touring schedule would tear him apart.

(These pictures were taken by Rob, who has a way better cell phone camera than me.)

* Hi, doggie!

Going to Centralia

Last weekend, just because we could, Rob and I took a weekend vacation to East-Central PA. The highlight of the vacation wasn’t the tiny alternative comic-con we went to on Sunday but, instead, a trip to Centralia.

Because not everyone knows the story: up until 1964, Centralia was a hamlet in the heart of anthracite coal country. Somehow or other, the coal underneath the town caught fire, and the town had to be evacuated and the residents paid off, except for the dozen or so stragglers who stayed behind, because one’s town being on fire is merely a small, temporary imperfection along the lines of having to deal with a drum-playing neighbor and isn’t the kind of thing you should, like, run away from as fast as you can. It’s the inspiration behind the movie and video game “Silent Hill,” which I’ve never seen or played, and also the Simpsons episode where they have to move Springfield because it’s taken over by a landfill. (Ix-nay on the asshole-tray!) In addition to rousting out the last Centralians, PA also knocked down the last houses, which is kind of a shame because you don’t really get the same ghost-town effect when it’s just a collection of broken foundations. There’s enough coal under Centralia to keep the fire going for another two hundred years, and it’s likely to swallow up a few other towns as it burns. So, now you know.

The first thing you run into when you finally find Centralia (this is a challenge!) is the interstate, closed due to damage, which you can walk on:

This stretch of interstate goes on for around a mile, and is covered with graffiti, which ran the gamut from the bigoted:

To the scatological:

To the inspiring:

To the nerdy:

There are also three well-kept cemeteries, including this small Orthodox one:

And then the town site itself, which doesn’t look like much anymore since they tore down the houses and uprooted the street signs. But the town is where you get the best view of the fire, as you can (kind of) see here:

There’s also an area where you can literally put your hand into the rocks and feel the fire, which is cool as hell, and also illustrates the utter insanity of anyone who chose to remain here. If I’d had my hand in the rocks more than half a minute, I would have gotten burnt. I bet I could have fried an egg in this little rock niche:

Gotta say, PA’s tourism board is really missing the boat here, though. Where are the tourist shops with T-shirts saying “My Town Burned Up and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt”? Rob says it’s because “nobody wants to remember Centralia,” but the next day we went to the town of Jim Thorpe, which capitalizes on the execution of the Molly Maguires, which you wouldn’t think we’d want to remember either. Nobody even died in Centralia! I mean, it’s certainly not a pleasant history lesson, but it’s interesting, and we ran into a dozen other people while we were there (including two guys who drove Jeeps onto the broken interstate!), so clearly there’s a market for tours, knickknacks, and other things to drain rubberneckers’ pockets. I have ideas, PA! Call me!

Centralia's past vs. Centralia's future.

Ultimately, I came away from this trip struck by how many differences there are between Western and Eastern PA. We’re bituminous, they’re anthracite. We put French fries on our sandwiches, they have a lot of Amish people. Like two different planets, really. I was also struck by just how empty a lot of the eastern part of the state is. Except for Pittsburgh, Western PA is pretty rural, but not to this extent. There was just a lot of nothing from Centralia all the way down to Philadelphia, which became very concerning when it came time to find a motel. So, go to Centralia, but get a reservation first! This message brought to you by the Centralia Tourism Board.

Adorabletown, USA

I've been getting some Bulgarian spam on this blog lately, which probably means that it's time for an update, lest my fallow blog serve as a fertile crossroads for Balkan insurrectionists, counter-insurrectionists, counter-counter-insurrectionists, and people selling discount Tramadol at low low prices (protip: it's really Tums).

The week before last, Rob and I went to Virginia for our second anniversary. We started by going to some Civil War sites around Richmond, and then Richmond itself. As previously stated, Richmond is one of my favorite cities, but as I have already spoken of my love for it I don't need to talk about it again. AND THEN we drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway, which I had never been to. And it is fucking gorgeous.

Look at this fucking mountain.

I drove most of the way, and even though I hate driving, it was a good experience to have. Along the way, we passed a group of like thirty people on mountain bikes, which gave me the idea to bike on the Blue Ridge Parkway myself someday, although I probably won't be able to do it on a fifty-pound Raleigh comfort bike. But even through the windshield of a car, the majesty of the Blue Ridge shines through. It was like spending three or four hours in a postcard. And everyone we talked to along the way was really, really fucking nice, the kind of nice where you don't know if they are actually sincere. But they are. They do the same Pittsburgh "make a little bit of eye contact, wave and smile" thing that I've had to train myself out of doing here, because on the coasts eye contact is considered a threat resolvable only by mashing one's forehead into the aggressor, antelope-style. I don't think I realized how much a very slight amount of eye contact with strangers meant to me until I was back in the Appalachian corridor.

AND THEN we visited Roanoke, which is the most adorable city I have ever been to. Among the cute things we saw there:

One of Roanoke's many, many adorable storefronts.

• Tons and tons of old-timey advertisements, including an original Muffler Man, these giant coffee and Dr. Pepper ads on the top of buildings, and "gas" lamps lining the main downtown streets. Oh, and their buses look like old trolley cars. Even the chain restaurants and stores in town (and there aren't many, I only saw a defunct Subway) are made to look old-fashioned. And all these old-fashioned buildings are still functional. It's like stepping into a time machine, except the people aren't horrible, like real old-timey people are.

The only thing that would
make this better is a
squirrel in the saddle.

• Everything is themed around trains because Roanoke used to be an important railroading hub and even though it's not as important now we still saw at least 37 trains come through while we were there. Okay, more like five. But, still, more than you expect to see on a daily basis. Rob is a big railroad geek and even though I'm not as super into it I still thought all the train stuff was awesome. The trainy highlight was a visit to the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which houses over sixty old train engines, a few dozen cars, and three bikes!

• Bike riding is a thing there, which is surprising as Roanoke isn't that much bigger than Towson, but it's way less suburbanized and sprawley. There is even a Roanoke pedicab service. I saw over a dozen people on bikes while I was there, and since we were only in the town itself for like three hours... that is a lot. And even the bike-related stuff is cute; see the bike rack at right.

Roanoke is the kind of place I could see feeling comfortable in for a long time, and while I'm not about to up and move there (I can't imagine their employment situation is great), I felt instantly comfortable there, which is a lot more than I can say for Baltimore. It's no secret that I haven't been very happy here. Although, things might be changing for the better now that we're maybe definitely probably likely possibly moving to Hampden in August. I came to this we have to move NOW realization after my relaxing ride on Easter Monday afternoon turned into a near-disaster when a fratboy (who are to Towson as trains are to Roanoke -- huge, loud, and ubiquitous) reached out of his passenger-side window and grabbed my handlebars while his crony slammed on the horn. Even if it weren't for the hostility toward bikes, there would still be the un-walkability, the crush of chains (hey, I like Target as much as any Walmart-hating hypocrite, but not when it's the only place I can shop), the townies who don't like me* because they think I'm a student, the students I don't have anything in common with because I'm not one... the list goes on. I realize that I haven't really given Baltimore a chance because I don't LIVE in Baltimore. It's like living in Monroeville and hating on Pittsburgh; yeah, maybe you have a taste of what the city is like, but you don't really know, man. I doubt Baltimore will be our forever home, but maybe it can be more than our two-year home. And at least we'll have given it a fair shot.


* An example: I was riding in Rodgers Forge and this tiny shriveled-up white lady in a nightgown cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled "you don't live here!" It was actually kind of cute, but not as cute as Roanoke.

Don't worry, ma'am, that meth you ordered is right on schedule.

38 hours in philadelphia

So last week I went to Philadelphia for two days. Despite being a native Pennsylvanian, I'd never been to Philly, except for the block that the yearly Philly Zine Fest is held on. Pittsburgh tends not to like Philly, and vice versa. We think they're practically New Yorkers, they think we're a cowtown. After being in Philly, I think this latter pronouncement might be true. Philly is really, really big! /childlike amazement

First we (the friend I was staying with, a new acquaintance, and me) went to the Mutter Museum, the museum of medical oddities. I had never realized before how large a fetus is. I'm almost certainly never going to have kids anyway, but man, just thinking about how large a fetus skeleton is makes my ovaries crawl up into my lungs. There was also a display of old medical equipment, including an X-ray machine for use at shoe stores to measure feet to ensure a proper fit. Oh, those wacky 1950s!

Afterwards we passed the park pictured in this post, which had a bunch of game-related statues. Then we went to South Street, which reminded me a little bit of the South Side in Pittsburgh only BIGGER. We followed that up with a viewing of The Room (this is now the fourth time I've seen it, I think).

The next day, my friend and I walked around the Northern Liberties neighborhood and I became envious of the urban gardening there, some of it in very unique containers (see pic). I'm not very good at keeping alive things that don't claw and whine for their food and water, so I haven't done any gardening. Although I'm thinking about starting it up this next spring/summer, depending on if we live in our current house another year.

Damn, I really miss living in a city. Yeah, Baltimore is right next door to my town, but I can't just walk out the door and be in a city environment. The fact that I can't drive sort of accentuates this, since distances that "should" take twenty minutes instead take several hours of planning travel, waiting for the bus, waiting for the bus back, walking to wherever it is I'm going. Kind of a pain to do this unless you have a specific need to go into the city. And what with not having a job yet, I kind of don't.

So: Philly! I like it. Can't wait to go back (only two hours away on Megabus!).