No Joy in Slushville

This must be how the residents of Mudville felt after Mighty Casey's ninth inning debacle.

Yesterday, the day after one of the most ill-played football games this side of my high school football team's season, the city of Pittsburgh lay buried in a shroud of despair. My boss drank countless cups of coffee to compensate for what must have been a rough night. I had to console a co-worker, nearly frozen in despair, multiple times throughout the day. Traffic that usually moved at 70 mph slowed to 55 and not one person cut me off all day. Radio DJs spoke as though the world were coming to an end then played songs that wouldn't make us cry or remember that it was Black Monday. The local news even ran a non-story about how the winning $14 million PowerBall ticket was sold in Pittsburgh. Nobody knew the winner and it was only $14 million. But yesterday it was news because, as my dad said, "anything else would make these people slit their wrists." We traveled from home to work and back again under a dark sky that reflected the dirt-colored muck and slush through which our gray tires unceremoniously cut. It seemed as though God shrouded the town in the colors of his own mourning.

"It's only a game," you might say. And you'd be right. But to this town--these people--the Steelers represent more than just a game.

You see, Pittsburgh is dying and everyone living here knows it. We hear the news every day--cuts in public transportation, commuter taxes, higher property and occupational taxes, industry moving out of the city, young people coming here to be educated and then leaving this gray fortress of working-class America for glamour jobs in places where downtown bars stay open past 9 p.m. Although more and more families relocate to Pittsburgh each year, they don't come close to replacing the population of senior citizens who pass away, the grannies on the South Side who wear their babushkas and housecoats while they sweep the stoop. And to top it all off, we have fewer days of sunshine per year than even Seattle. These are bleak times.

But for those of us who call Southwestern Pennsylvania home, the one beacon in the doom and gloom this year was the Steelers: an improbable rookie quarterback who, against all odds defeats the opposing team each week for 14 weeks; the returning running back who, despite pay-cut and reduced role, rushes for at least 100 yards in most games he starts. As a city, we couldn't hold our own economically, but the Steelers' defense made up for it by not letting any of the opposition through. We lived vicariously through the team each Sunday and forgot for a few hours than the city we grew up in has become anything less than the stronghold of the nation. On Sunday, we were unstoppable.

It's all over now. And the team we lived for has walked off the field with their heads bowed, some even in tears as they thought of what could have been. Fans have packed away their yellow face paint and Terrible Towels to patiently wait until next season. Rumors of baseball spring training have even begun to spread. ("Does this town have a baseball team? Well maybe they'll be better this year.") For the next few months, we'll wake up to invariably cloudy skies and trudge through the remaining slush of winter.

But when the Black and Gold take to Latrobe for their own training camp in August, the sun will come out. And we'll live again.

"Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Slushville--the mighty Steelers have struck out."

A Funny Story

Picture it: a conference room in an elegant mansion, filled with the history and nostalgia of your not-so-typical eastern university. The shine of the table reflects an ornate chandelier and cushy chairs surround the table in a somewhat haphazard arrangement that is both formal and relaxed. It’s a room where deals are created, plans are made and the future is decided. In the days before it was a conference room, it was likely a parlor with large French doors opening to the expansive front porch, where its residents could enjoy the lush woods and wildlife that were eventually replaced with academic buildings and students in backpacks. It is in this room that our action occurs--a room virtually breathing with the past, adorned with the history of this stately university.

Our protagonist, let's call her Susie, was sitting at that shiny table in one of those cushy chairs, waiting for the agony of a two-hour Friday meeting to be over. Somehow she was positioned in such a way that she was not only sitting by the person she most despised in the world, but was much too far from the bagels and cream cheese to make a casual attempt at grabbing them. She was out of coffee and the tights she was wearing under her dress pants (worn in place of jeans this Friday only because of this God-forsaken meeting) were cutting off her circulation. In short, our protagonist was a hungry, caffeine-deprived mess who could barely feel her legs.

Susie tried to pay attention during the meeting, but her mind kept wandering. In fact, in order to maintain her pleasant "perky" attitude, she often had to travel to her mental happy place throughout the two hours. There are some people who use the same happy place all the time, but Susie's changed from moment to moment. That day in the conference room, her happy place was as simple as a mental image of herself eating a loaded bagel, or as complex as determining the path she would take to land her first book contract. Often, she would mentally cast the movie version of her life story. (This made her think really hard, often forcing her forehead to wrinkle, so others would think she was seriously concentrating on the matter at hand.) The toughest character to cast was always, of course, herself. There being no starlet in Hollywood with her build (or personality, come to think of it), Susie would have to play Susie in the movie. There. Another problem solved.

Whoops. Long digression.

Anyway, the meeting finally ends and Susie hasn't killed anyone, a testament to her charming personality and desire to remain jail-free. She quickly rises from the table and notices that her fastest escape route around the gleaming oak table is blocked by various public relations professionals in overcoats, chatting loudly about the upcoming Steelers game. The other route, though much longer, holds only two obstacles--a scary-looking man who once stole a paragraph directly from one of her articles and claimed it as his own and her boss' boss' boss, who was wearing white leather pants. She would have to brave the word-stealer, white-leather route.

She rose from her cushy chair, placed her laptop computer and meeting binder securely in her left arm and began her negotiation of the Long Way Out of the Room. As she was nearing the exit, something inexplicable happened. She took a confident step, placing one foot in front of the other as she had been doing for nearly 26 years, but she lost her balance. Her next step, not so confident, sent her flailing into the empty space between her head and the floor. She was airborne, like Joe Pesci during most of the Home Alone movies.

And then everything was in slow motion--the futile attempts to regain balance, the arms waving like an ostrich willing itself to fly. Her only thought was "must not drop the computer," which she repeated over and over on her inevitable journey to the stained blue carpet below. She threw her arms in front of her body to keep the laptop from being squished under her frame. But in doing so, her torso slammed into a cushy chair, which then rolled into a lamp that hit the wall and almost collapsed onto her. She opened her eyes (which she must have closed) to find the lower half of her body stretched on the floor and her arms resting on the cushy chair cushion. Indeed, she had not dropped the computer.

It took her only seconds to right herself and brush off her dress pants, casually acting as though nothing happened. But the concerned loud voices overcame her. "Oh my God! Are you alright?" "I've never seen someone fall like that!" "Are you hurt? Do you need help?" At least 16 people were staring at her as though they'd just watched the Hindenburg explosion and now didn't know what to do.

What these people didn't know was that Susie was an expert at only one thing: falling. Sure, she could write. But if there were an Olympic falling event, she'd take the gold. Once, she slid almost the entire length of her kitchen on a renegade corn kernel and was stopped only by the kitchen table, which she hit at roughly 20 mph. Another time, she tripped and turned her ankle in the parking lot of a newspaper for which she was interviewing and, while taking her editing test, watched her ankle swell to three times its normal size. On yet another occasion, she saw her friend Suzanna at the top of the stairs in an academic building at her college and, when she waved, fell flat on her face and was immediately run over by the throng of students behind her. When she was 16, she landed sideways in a flowerbed after trying to hop some marigolds on her paper route. She has only one tendon remaining in her left ankle because she's had so many sprains. Doctors even tell her she will fall more frequently now (is that possible?) because her ankle no longer communicates with her brain. She's a card-carrying member of UFF--the United Fallers Federation.

As she rose from the ground in that historic room with that shining table, she quickly reassured everyone that she was fine and had, in fact, tripped over air and not, say, a stray purse. As she gathered her dignity (but not the laptop, because she hadn't dropped it) and began to walk from the room, a colleague loudly said, "I'll bet that was embarrassing," and the room exploded with laughter. But Susie was used to this; her own mother, she knew, would be laughing hard enough to cry if she saw her fall into a chair that rolled into a corner and hit a lamp that almost fell on her daughter's head. Susie joined in the laughter and, attempting to remain upright, climbed the stairs to her office, where she tried to forget that clumsiness was one of her best attributes.

Procrastination

OK, so I did two of these to kill some time (and recover from a humiliation I'll write about later). Here they are...

Bands // Song Titles
Created by BourdiezFreak and taken 18338 times on bzoink!
Choose a band/or artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band:	Pink Floyd
Are you female or male:	See Emily Play
Describe yourself:	Coming Back to Life
How do some people feel about you:	Momentary Lapse of Reason
How do you feel about yourself:	Shine on You Crazy Diamond
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend:	Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend:	Is There Anybody Out There?
Describe where you want to be:	Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Describe what you want to be:	The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Describe how you live:	Breathe
Describe how you love:	Stay
Share a few words of wisdom:	Run Like Hell
Create a Survey | Search Surveys | Go to bzoink!

Bands // Song Titles
Created by BourdiezFreak and taken 18339 times on bzoink!
Choose a band/or artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band:	Bruce Springsteen
Are you female or male:	Red Headed Woman
Describe yourself:	No Surrender
How do some people feel about you:	Blinded by the Light
How do you feel about yourself:	Growing Up
Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend:	Hungry Heart
Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend:	Lonesome Day
Describe where you want to be:	Land of Hope and Dreams
Describe what you want to be:	Born to Run
Describe how you live:	Dancing in the Dark
Describe how you love:	Tougher Than the Rest
Share a few words of wisdom:	From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)
Create a Survey | Search Surveys | Go to bzoink!

Testing Your Resolve

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions, because really, who actually keeps them? But this year, I resolved to brush my teeth at least twice a day and use my Listerine mouthwash even though it makes my eyes water. So far, I've only screwed up one day and that's because I was sucking down a vitamin C tablet and didn't think the toothpaste would complement its orangey-ness very well.

So what's your take on resolutions? Do you make them? Do you keep them? What's yours this year?

(Just a side note that I've kept my resolution as long as it's been raining in my corner of the universe, where we haven't seen the sun for four days...)

Choose Your Own Adventure

Remember those "choose your own adventure" books from the days of yore? At the end of each chapter, you had to pick one of a few options and, based on the choices you made throughout the book, you either saved the world and got the boy/girl or died alone, drifting on a raft in the Amazon where bugs and cannibals could feast on your sun-bleached flesh.

As 2004 becomes a wisp of haze in my foggy past, I can't help thinking that if life were a choose-your-own-adventure book, I'd be well on my way to dying alone on the drifting raft.

Don't get me wrong, I'm doing OK. But as a new year begins, I can't help dwelling on the past and the seemingly random inconsequential decisions I've made that have carried me to this crossroad in my life. It seems like one day, you wake up and have to choose--Pop Tarts or Corn Flakes? You innocently pick Pop Tarts because you're out of sugar and BAM! It's 10 years later and you're single with five cats because if you had just gone to the stupid grocery store to buy the sugar instead of being lazy you would have run into Mr. Right in the express checkout, dated for two years at which point he would have proposed to you on the Jumbotron during the seventh-inning stretch of the All-Star Game. Everyone you know sees it on TV and calls your cell phone to congratulate you and, in honor of the big event, your boss gives you a promotion because, really, you're the best writer he's ever EVER encountered and he knows that if he doesn't act before the marriage you might never come back from your fairytale honeymoon in Florence.

And you missed all this because of Pop Tarts.

As I sit in my dreary office in my dreary city at the most dreary time of year, I wonder about the course of a person's life. My parents raised me to believe that God has some kind of plan for me and, while I can exert free will, the Story of Susie is at least outlined in detail somewhere in the larger-than-life Book of What Will Happen on Earth for All Eternity. But even though it's all worked out somewhere else, I've got to play it out. I have to choose my own adventure.

Take, for example, a random choice I made about five years ago. I was in Boston, visiting a friend during spring break and while I was away, my mom went to some kind of party where each guest had a psychic reading. During her reading, the psychic told my mom that someone in our family would have a baby girl on Christmas--which was about nine months away. Since my sister had just had a child the month before, it was pretty much out of the question that she would have a girl by Christmas. That left me, and knowing me, my mom laughed the prediction off as a bunch of hooey, fun to hear but impossible to believe.

What mom didn't know was that while she was at her party, I was visiting an ex-boyfriend and had the opportunity to, well, let's say "renew our acquaintance." Still upset about my grandfather's death less than a week before, I extracted myself from the renewal before anything could be renewed. I just kept picturing Pap looking down at me, thinking I was a horrible person. In my half-drunk, half-grieving state, I even thought I saw him looking at me.

The ex-boyfriend got mad (as per his usual) and the next morning gave me a kiss on the cheek and sent me on my way only to tell me a few weeks later that being with me again reminded him of all the reasons we broke up in the first place. (Ouch.) We don't speak any more and I'm pretty sure he's living with some girl he's dated longer than he dated me.

But the weird thing about this story is that, while my mom's psychic person was telling her that she'd have a granddaughter by Christmas, I traveling down a road that could have made it come true. I made a decision (or quickly rolled away, however you want to phrase it :) ) and I've always wondered if that one moment changed the rest of my life. If I hadn't gotten cold feet, would I now be the mother of a four-year-old daughter instead of a single girl married to her career and graduate work? Can one tiny decision--Pop Tarts instead of Corn Flakes--alter the course of your life forever?

I don't know the answers, but I like to think there's always a chance for redemption, a chance to choose another option at the end of another chapter that puts you back on the path you're intended for. I like to think that things happen for a reason and that right now I'm in exactly the right place for me. Sure, some days life would be better if I hadn't been haunted by the Ghost of Grandpap. I might be married to the ex-boyfriend, have plenty of money for nice things and someone to come home to. But I also like to think that someday, somewhere down the road, it will be better than that. One day, maybe I'll wake up and want Corn Flakes instead of Pop Tarts. I'll go to the store and Mr. Right will ram me in the ankles with a grocery cart (accidentally, of course). I'll drop my wallet and, in stooping down to pick it up at the same time, we'll smack heads and fall hopelessly in love. All because of Corn Flakes.

As we progress through 2005, I hope all Defying Gravity readers will choose the adventure that best suits them. But as you do so, remember that if things get scary or depressing or the fire-breathing dragon gets a little too close, you'll always have another choice at the end of the next chapter. The important thing is that we just keep choosing. Maybe, just maybe, that's where the real adventure lies.

Too Late, but Still Funny

Some good advice from my "Worst-Case Scenario 2004 Survival Handbook." Although it's too late now, maybe I'll keep it in mind next year.

How To Survive If You Have No One To Kiss on New Year's Eve

1. Kiss a Pet--Dogs are generally agreeable and have a relatively clean mouth. Cats are usually well groomed, but are more passive and tend to get rather than give. Keep your mouth closed.

2. Kiss Yourself--Find a mirror, pucker up, lean close and kiss. Keep the lips slightly parted.

3. Kiss a Celebrity--Watch a favorite movie or show on television and kiss the screen when an appealing star has a close-up. Wipe the screen to remove dust and static electricity, and wipe the screen after to remove any evidence.

4. Hug a Pillow--Full-body pillows are more satisfying.

5. Call a Friend on the Phone--After you wish your friend a Happy New Year, give the telephone mouthpiece loud, smacking kisses. (This works less well with cellular phones.)