The Pittsburgh Diaries, Part II

Saturday, July 19
HanRo is getting married today! I have visions of her leaping from her bedroom like Monica on Friends wearing pajamas and a wedding veil, shouting "I'm getting married today!!" as she trips on her pant leg and falls to the floor in a moment of comedic perfection with no bruising. Or maybe that's just what I'll be like someday! Either way, it's an exciting day. Partly because it starts with Pamela's.

For the uninformed, Pamela's is a breakfast joint in Pittsburgh that makes easily some of the best pancakes--nay, hotcakes, as the restaurant calls them--this side of the...who am I kidding, some of the best pancakes ever. Loaded with butter, the spongy, thin cakes are crepe-like, with softly crispy edges that are somehow simultaneously sweet and salty. Standing in line as we wait for our table (because that is something else you will also do when you go to Pamela's, but fear not, time will go quickly and it will be worth it. Even Obama agrees...that's actually him in the restaurant, next to the Mrs.), I realize it has been over four years since I last had Pamela's, as my two trips back to Pittsburgh after graduating had not involved a visit, nor, I think, did my senior year of college, strangely. This location is new, decorated with endless accolades and publications and family photos of the owners and their staff, but here we are and we dive in and it's perfect, exactly as I remembered it however many years ago. It's nice when some things don't change.

After breakfast is another trip to Avalon. Everyone is able to find something rad, including moi: a pair of saddle shoes with silver spikes around the laces. Finally a pair of shoes to wear to Fashion Week in the winter! Praise be to Our Lordess and Savior RuPaul.

Then a brief stop in Shadyside, on Walnut Street, where there is a main drag of sweet little shops, but also an American Apparel and a Sephora. There's also very funky and awesome Kards Unlimited, always one of my favorite haunts in Shadyside. It has a fun, informed selection of books, some of which are labeled 'Books About Families More Messed Up Than Yours' and 'Books You'll Like If You Are A Serial Killer', alongside stuffed cartoon body parts, fake mustaches, hand-printed greeting cards, and handmade jewelry. Once we finish there, it is time for a disco nap because all the carbs from breakfast have caught up with us and we are old.

After a disco nap and a dolling up session, we are off to the wedding at Phipps Conservatory, a botanical garden. There are trees and flowers all around us, and there's even a waterfall! The ceremony is beautiful. HanRo looks stunning in an ivory gown, bright white flowers in her hands. I get the feels when she and her husband look into each other's eyes and repeat their vows. Afterward, we sip cocktails amongst the greenery. There are passed appetizers, including a famous Pittsburgh staple, a potato pierogi topped with a caramelized onion. Proceeding to the ballroom, we find that each of us have been given a special HanRo and JH coloring book (and crayons!), chock full of Pittsburgh history and word searches, as well as a pickle pin to don (long before Pittsburgh was known for its ketchup, it was known for its pickles!). They also have a cookie table, another 'burgh staple. Tradition!

Post-wedding, some of us wedding guesty folk head to another Pittsburgh staple, at least if you were ever a college student, anyway: Mad Mex, home of the 22oz. Big Azz Margarita. AM and I share one of these lovelies which, by some stroke of genius and Pittsburgh magic, is only $7 between the hours of 10pm and 12am. Mad Mex is near and dear to my heart--it is the place I went for my 21st birthday, had lots of margaritas and then drunk-dialed my mother. We nosh on Mexi-goodies and eventually shut down the bar.
 
Sunday, July 20

TS has set up a brunch for Pittsburgh folk and wedding guests at Zenith, on Pittsburgh's South Side. Though it hurt to wake up early, it was important to get there right when they opened (!) because we had such a large party. Also, it completed my superfecta of neighborhood visits -- Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, and now the South Side. I had heard TS talk about Zenith many times before, especially something he called 'peanutty noodles,' but I had never been. Now having gone there, it is mind-boggling to me that I had never been before this trip. Zenith defines itself as a "Vegetarian Cafe-Art Gallery-Antique Goldmine" and it is so my thing I can't even believe how much my thing it is. Walking in, you're immediately surrounded by vintage oddities and curios, clothing, books, and god knows what else. Lamps stuffed with old Barbie dolls, mannequins wearing welding gear, antique liniment bottles and glass containers full of old Christmas lights. 

Tables are adorned in vintage tablecloths in a variety of colors and textures and you drink out of vintage glassware in infinite patterns. The buffet is chock full of delicious food--cucumber salad, couscous, cakes in infinite flavors you didn't know cakes even came in (mint chocolate, chili chocolate!), and of course those noodle dishes. My favorite is a penne walnut balsamic raisin concoction, but TS's peanutty noodles, which really taste like a ton of peanut butter has been stirred in with them alongside a bunch of vegetables (and I mean that in a really good way), come a close second. After eating, I traipse around the restaurant taking pictures and I even find a rad little pair of earrings for $1. Good god, Pittsburgh, you are spoiling me.

Post-brunch, it is time for AM to leave. We hug our goodbyes then TS and I hang out on the porch and have a long, meaningful conversation about relationships and academia and the two combined. There is something in the air that tightens my throat, makes me know that I'll be leaving soon. It's that same emptiness I felt when I pulled away after graduation: who knows when you'll be back? However, I still have a few more hours in Pittsburgh so I'm going to make them last. We head to Harris Grill, on Ellsworth Avenue, for drinks and vittles with SC, who is also visiting this weekend. We sit outdoors and make selections from their massive crazy drink menu, but as I page through I don't know who I'm kidding--I'm obviously having their famous frozen Cosmo. Or two of them. TS and I split a mac and cheese with veggies and it is absurdly delicious.

A few sunshine-y hours later, it's time to head back to the house. EL is picking me up and we're going to an outdoor concert at some place 30 minutes away that I've never heard of. Adventures! But before we go, TS has to leave. His drive back home is hours long. My throat does that tightening thing again. But luckily he's around New York with relative frequency, so I feel better when we say goodbye.

In EL's car, she says she hopes I don't mind that Pandora is on the Shakira station. We drive through Lawrenceville, the place where all the cool indie and DIY crowds hang out, and into the suburbs. The suburbs in Pittsburgh are different than other places I've seen because they're so country. Not in mannerism, but appearance: long, winding roads cushioned by green grass and a whole house's worth of space in between houses. Eventually, we roll up to the Hartwood Acres Amphitheatre and my brain sort of explodes. It's all trees and grass hills and and people in lawn chairs (some with Pittsburgh Steelers tattoos) and I just love it.

The air is cool and it feels like being in the mountains. We set up camp on a beach towel EL brought and we listen to the band Lake Street Dive strum their jazzy-bluesy sounds--one of my favorites is the song "Bobby Tanqueray." Parents hold their babies and a girl spins her LED hula hoop when it gets dark.

I felt that mythical summer feeling when everything is slow and moments have more meaning. In just a few hours I will be up and at 'em on my train back to New York. I want to sit and take everything in just a little bit longer.

**

And for your viewing/listening pleasure, here are two videos I took of my friends talking about what they love about Pittsburgh, while driving to Mad Mex. Probably more for listening since my video skills are sub-par at best. Listen for my chaotic ramblings interspersed with their commentary.

The Pittsburgh Diaries, Part I

This past weekend, my dear friend HanRo got married in Pittsburgh, where she lives and where we went to school (at Carnegie Mellon, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on here before). The weekend was a gorgeous swirl of friends, tree-lined streets, five-dollar cocktails, porch sitting, hilarious memories and sublime happiness.

Thursday, July 17

Penn Station

I board my very first Amtrak train out of Penn Station. The journey will last about nine hours from New York to Pittsburgh. It is the longest I have ever traveled anywhere by myself (even a flight to England is about 8 hours!). I am a little nervous, and I don't know what to expect. I loathe the bus for long trips, so the train was an easy choice on a budget. Throughout the course of the trip, I see beautifully decaying industrial buildings ("decay porn" as I think it's known), a bunny (!), and bikers and children alike waving enthusiastically at the train as it passes by.

On the train itself I meet a man named Rick who was in Massachusetts visiting his granddaughter. He is eating some excuse for a hamburger that has been warmed up in the microwave and his hands are covered in yellow mustard. He offers me Doritos and he has criscrossed America by rail. He doesn't like to fly because he doesn't want to have to take all his clothes off to get on a plane. As we get closer to Pittsburgh, I see a woman sitting in front of me wearing a Steelers' Polamalu jersey.

TS and AM meet me at the train and I am instantly excited to be back. "YOU GUYS! PITTSBURGH!" I squeal loudly, repeatedly the entire trip home. "HAPPY HanRo's WEDDING WEEKEND!!!" I have not been back in two years, and it is exactly as I remember it. Winding hills dotted with houses, each different than the last. Cars dotted with WRCT bumper stickers (Carnegie Mellon's radio station) and Steelers logos; the big, old brick buildings of the Strip District which once housed factories but now house a variety of funky restaurants and grocery stores; and lastly, Oakland, rife with its college-student friendly restaurants, coffee shops, and bookstores. It's where we spent so many days and nights trekking up and down Forbes Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Centre Avenue, and everywhere in between.

Our first stop after dropping off some things at AM's house is Union Grill. Union Grill was a staple for us in school, mostly because of their $10 bottle of wine special. I order the only thing I have ever ordered there, the Turkey Devonshire: an open faced sandwich laden with turkey, bacon, and, in true Pittsburgh fashion, a pile of endless cheese. My arteries cower in fear, but my tastebuds rejoice. Eating something like this once every two years won't kill me. And besides, even if it did, it would be a lovely way to die.

Next stop, Razzy Fresh. The self-serve frozen yogurt spot was the first I ever knew of its kind, and now similar places are absolutely everywhere. It opened my senior year of college and instantly had  a cult following. If we couldn't think of anything else to do, we'd just go to Razzy. I sprinkle mochi and graham cracker crumbles onto my taro and pineapple frozen yogurt. It's like I'm in college again.

And then, perhaps the best part of the night, we went back to AM's house and we just...sat on the porch. A porch! I could hardly believe it. Imagine, a place attached to your house where you can just sit outside! I tried to treat my fire escape like a porch at my old apartment and my neighbor yelled at me. We sat and we talked for hours. And then? We went inside, and fell asleep in front of the television, then went to bed at a reasonable hour. It was utterly glorious. I mean, who even does things like that, am I right?

Friday, July 18
Today I am meeting one of my professors, the utterly incredible and divine Scott Sandage (if you aren't aware of his work or his awesomeness, please check him out here and buy his book). Scott was my professor for two classes, The Roots of Rock and Roll and American Individualism, but he could teach Quantum Physics and I would sit there with rapt attention, taking in every word.

Jerry's Records, Squirrel Hill

Much to my joy and amusement, my Carnegie Mellon ID still gets me a free bus ride from campus up to the big ol' hill. Before meeting Scott, I meander around to some of my favorite old haunts: Avalon Exchange, a funky consignment shop that just so happens to be having its famous $1 sale this weekend, where select items are, yes, just a dollar. Then I poke around at Jerry's Records further down the hill, a place where I spent many an afternoon surrounded by hundreds of thousands of musky, dusty old records in hopes of finding something that really struck me.  Eventually I make my way back up to the 61C Cafe to meet Scott. He arrives wearing glasses with bright green lenses and tells me he was just trying to get some settlers across a creek (he is writing a book about race and Nebraska from 1804-1941). Hours fly by as we talk, and soon he has to leave for a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game. Later he will text me a picture of the stadium from his seats.

I decide to walk all the way from Squirrel Hill to Schenley Plaza, which is approximately two miles, give or take a bit. On the way, I stop at campus, checking out my old haunts in the photography studio and the creative writing center. It's a strangely powerful experience, walking through the halls of the buildings where I learned to be a person.

Behind Carnegie Mellon's campus

I walk through the back of campus and TS and AM eventually pick me up down near the University of Pittsburgh, just in time for me to take a few pictures of their famed Cathedral of Learning. We go to Lulu's, a Pan-Asian joint that's another of our old haunts, that, for me, has always been consistently mediocre. Still, it's fun to rejoice in its mediocrity and remember the times we used to go there in herds, and they could only seat us in the back where the one long table is. I have a plateful of noodles and a red bean bubble tea and we head home and back to the porch. AM makes sangria with peaches and cherries. She pours it nto our glasses from a pitcher shaped like a chicken (the "chicken spit" pitcher, as it's known), and I play with her orange tabby cat, delightfully named Hobbes. Fireflies sparkle as the night turns from periwinkle to navy to black. Tall trees in front of her house are highlighted only by the orange glow of streetlamps. Light rain begins to fall. The wedding is tomorrow.

***

Not-So-Merry Weather

New York, I love you, but your weather is bringing me down.

What is the meaning of this weather? I simply cannot understand where or why it’s coming from, and why now, of all times. It is early May. I should already be wearing the delightful spring dresses I bought in that heat wave we had back in March. I should be spending evenings up on my rooftop with a glass of wine. I should be able lay in the sun in Central Park.

But no. I have been relegated to my layers for yet another week. I leave my house wearing jacket layered upon cardigan layered upon t-shirt. I am still wearing boots and SOCKS of all things. I hate socks, and always have, yet my wardrobe has, annoyingly, been incomplete without them these past few months. At the beginning of March, I got antsy, but I understood. Then the beginning of April rolled around and I chalked it up to Mother Nature taking her revenge for a rather warm winter. But now it’s May and to say I am peeved is beyond an understatement.

And for the past few days, it’s not just been cold, it’s been rainy and, weirdly, warm. So when I leave the house, it’s a gust of chill, followed by an awkward slap of moisture, followed by warmth gathering in my sleeves as I walk anywhere, be it around the corner or to the train station. It’s like as if good ol’ Mother N doesn’t want to get rid of the cold just yet, but can’t fight the inevitable change. I don’t like being forced to deal with her menopause.

The warm-moist hybrid (what normal folks call ‘humidity’) is on a scale now where it reminds me of post-hurricane weather in South Florida, when the air conditioning is off because there’s no electricity and all you want to do is lie on the Mexican tile in the house until sanity is restored. Water pools in the air but doesn’t fall and sticks to your face if you try to walk around. Except in New York, on top of all of that, there’s that chill again. WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON.

I’m trying to choose my outfits sensibly, checking the weather every day, which is something I don’t normally do (chide away, CH). I usually look outside and wing it which, granted, is not the best way to conduct oneself as a New Yorker, but those are some old South Florida habits I can’t often be bothered to fix. But choosing an outfit for this weather is impossible. For once, everyone I see on the street is just as awkwardly, improperly dressed as I am—it runs the gamut from solo cardigans to winter coats to trench coats. Nobody understands what’s happening and I’m glad to feel like less of an idiot.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m annoyed when I wake up in the morning. UGH, ANOTHER DAY OF THIS? The weather affects people’s moods significantly, so it’s not really a surprise, but I feel like I’ve been in a mediocre mood for a little bit each day just because of the stuff.

All I want is sunshine and weather warm enough so I don’t have to wear sleeves. Seventydegree-ish, if I had my choice . I don’t think this is so much to ask. It’s certainly happened before. Oh, Elyssa, you might say! You poor, naïve little thing. We will never have such weather. But I disagree. Every day until it happens, I will wake up hoping for the best, whether or not weatherchannel.com seems to say otherwise. It’s time to get your act together, New York. But I believe you can do it! Here’s to bootless, jacketless, rainless weather. It’s May, and it’s about time.

P.S.-- It's 80s and sunny as I sit and write this from my weekend jaunt in Pittsburgh (more about that later). Get your act together, NYC!