Well, November is upon us, and since I signed up for a blog of the same name last year but have lost the password (think of it as the same blog for all practical intents and purposes) I guess I'd better start writing. With all the other mathoms in my life, whose purpose is beyond my guess,this blog has rested empty; like some used boxcar, purchased by a shortline railroad, all traces of its former identity painted over in a fresher dab of its original colors, but stored vaguely serviceable in a weed-infested and forgotten siding due to the tragic loss of an important customer.
But no more! Up comes this post, with all the rusty innocence of a chop-nosed, weatherbeaten ex-Illinois Central GP10 still in orange and white; with its old roadnumber and a small stencil of its owner's reporting marks. Bang go the couplers; the hiss of airbrakes pervades the atmosphere as the brake line is linked and the handbrake comes off; with a toot on a Leslie three-chime airhorn, the staccato bark of the enduringly supercharged 16-cylinder 567C engine block revving up, and all the corroded creaking and groaning of an empty, aged freight car trundling down the rails, this train of thought rolls on.
I've moved the spot I write from since those two paragraphs above; this started in the stairwell/vending machine congress of the Joab L. Thomas Building on the Pennsylvania State University campus. Much of this space is formed by one quarter-circle wall featuring several tall windows whose sills are big enough to use as benches; curl up in one and you have the perfect spot to hide form the world in-especially the far one behind the snack machine; to read, write, use the campus wireless internet, or even sleep. I was here, for the second time and the same reason: Spanish class, 002 this time. Over the summer it was 001, with a really cool crew and an awesome professor named Erin. The next step across is taught in my section by a tall and middle-aged, good-natured profesora from Spain, with heavy (but arousing) accent and a penchant for thong underwear (I could tell. We'll leave it at that.). Putting this thought far, FAR aside, this class also rosters Danielle, a capitvating brunette with a wonderfully talented artistic side and a refreshingly individual sense of fashion. I really like her; in our few after-class chats (including the ones from Spanish 001, her being a charter member of said cool crew) she's revealed herself to be an interesting and attractive person, not defined as just another but worthy of her pretty face.
But no, now it is after class, a 9.something-or-other-of-10 on a brief composition on my non-existent high school routine in Spanish, and another, quite long chat with the lovely Danielle (whose last name I do not know) that I sit at Canyon Pizza, on Beaver Street, State College, PA 16801 that I continue this essay. This place is the cheapest meal in State College-no exaggeration. Certainly not terrible quality, or they would have been shuttered a long time ago. Then again, nobody expects too much from a $1.50 slice of pepperoni or sausage. Does the job and how. Tonight the chick who lost her bikini top while working in the September heat, multiplied by all those great big pizza ovens, isn't here; more's the pity. I admit I can't well describe her topless, having not been there to see this momentous event, but even as tattoo'd and pierc'd as she is, she's a sight for sore eyes. Serves a mean slice of pepperoni too. Alternate as a girl can get without creeping me out at all, green-hoodie-over-
a-red-and-white-bikini-top-what-has-an-addiction-to-gravity pizza shop babe, I heart you. My mind revs up to sexy thousand rpms and redlines; my body follows on like a homemade flatbed trailer, rattling and bumping along helplessly.
On the way over to this temple to the urbanity of Italian cuisine, I passed a delivery car for another favorite culinary cathedral of mine; Wings Over Happy Valley. Not to issue a chicken fatwah here, but these are the greatest wings I've ever had.
Hands-and feet-among other things-down. If manna from heaven and the nectar of the gods made hot, sweet, beautiful love; then these wings would be their bratty, mischievous love child. I'm not a big bone-in wings fan, however; I usually get their boneless wings (read: glorfied chicken tenders). Damned if these things aren't huge; they're more like whole boneless chicken breasts. Chicken breasts from the Gianna Michaels of chickens. And the sauce-Oh! What joy! In the form of 20 varieties available. I'm not brave (or rich) enough to try them all; some appear to be unfit for human consumption. But the kickin' BBQ and honey BBQ are totally worth the heartburn.
I just wish I had a group of friends I could better share all this with; it's surprisingly lonely on a campus of 42,000. I only know a few people; most of them people I knew from the PSU New Kensington branch, 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh (but located in Upper Burrell). People like Matt who is as big as me (not my good railfan buddy Matt, who's the youngest and tallest of y railfan bunch back home); Brian, a Pittsburgh Penguins fan and all-around good guy, famous for picking me out of a crowd of 300 in astronomy class, and introducing Guitar Hero to the uncultured savages; Shane, my friend Mike's former high school metalhead friend, the only one of the group of Mike's friends from high school to come up here; and Emily, an awesome punky girl who likes Tiger Army and only comes up to somewhere between my shoulder and elbow whom I have lunch with quite often. The people I've met here, a very short list, is made up of Danielle and a few others I don't talk to anymore.
Still, this is a unique experience; one I don't appreciate one iota. Oh, don't get me wrong; I love being on my own. But Penn State is giving me problems. Right now I'm failing two classes; Lately I've begun to think the problem was my choice of major. What happened was one day I was flipping through the catalog of majors I was given as part of registration and happened to notice the word 'Railroads'. Going all gooey over someone else realizing that not all vehicles have rubber tires and a steering wheel, a screw and rudder, or wings and jets; I immediately signed up for Supply Chain & Information Systems, not realizing until last week that I would probably have been better suited to my alternate choice of journalism. Didn't figure that out 'til it was too late. Sometimes, like this, my geekiness gets the better of me.
Well, I better pack it in. It's 20 til 7, the tiresome U2/Green Day ripoff band playing next door is really getting on my nerves, and even though the sun has gone down and brought the streetlights on, I still have my prescription shades on.
Ah hell. I think I'll leave them on.
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