Dear My Darling Public
Today was an elaborate success. I woke up with more intention than usual, but a bit early to ready myself for being a little under an hour early to pick up my friend Yukiko from her dorm at EUP. It was an interesting drive, but none the less fruitful due to the fall like breeze in the bright August sun. It was the kind of weather that allowed for a lover of tweed jackets like myself to wear it all day without breaking a sweat. I got to EUP just twenty minutes shy of my meeting time, but that gave me time to use a bathroom, something I had been waiting to do for some time before leaving. When the five minute mark approached, as I always do, I waited in our meeting spot in anticipation, and checking the time on my phone faster than the minutes could go by, and, looking around, I could see that the trees and other plant life were in full bloom for the fall semester. I sent a text message to Yukiko's cellular phone to alert her to my presence and she responded "ok", and before I knew it, she was directly behind me. She told me about her savage addiction to watching anime as we approached my car in the parking lot just across the street explaining to me that it was the only thing she had been doing for the better part of the previous forty-eight hours. I guess I just don't understand the appeal or the fanaticism surrounding Japanese anime, or cartoons for that matter, but, at the same time, I suppose she might have felt the same way about my obnoxiously otaku-like taste in world cultures, hookah, and the liberal media.
The drive to downtown Erie facilitated some interesting conversation between Yuki and myself, particularly regarding the state of affairs between her and the housing and residence life office at EUP that had forced her to live in the highlands dorms for the coming academic year. This is, by sheer dumb luck, the same challenge that I have been faced with for the greater part of the summer, however, I had gotten out of it by calling the housing office on a daily bases to inquire about rooms that may have opened in the traditional dorms, and, sure enough, one had just in time. I told her she may be late and she may not and making it known to them that you need to be switched back to traditional dorms. By the time this conversion had transitioned into a talk about what traveling we had done. I had explained that I had traveled locally while I was living in Chicago, and around Erie as a way to do research for my writing, and she explained to me that she had done the majority of her traveling through the English as a second language class she was in. I told her of a common destination of mine, New Buffalo, MI, that I had visited at least once a year for the Ship and Shore festival when I lived in Chicago. Because it was just around the tip of lake Michigan, it was an easy-access place to enjoy a weekend.
When we got to about fifteenth and state, I proceeded under the artistically painted viaduct that was right next to BT and turned right into the small, but accessible parking lot that I use every time I go downtown. When we got out of the car, I immediately felt a breeze blow my hair all the way back and turned my head to the side and shielded myself with my hands to avoid it from blowing it into my face because I absolutely hate that feeling. So it was that we made our way down State street taking photographs of various locations. Usually places that looked very urban-like (red brick buildings, ally ways, busy streets, etc) and the subject of what to do next was brought up and I froze and turned directly to my right, and there was the Erie Art Museum. I went up the stairs in the assumption that the gargantuan doors at the top of the white, marble stair case was the main entrance; I was wrong. The main entrance was actually just around the block in the other direction, so there we went. Upon entering, we were greeted be a very articulate male host that had a keen artistic authority to his explanations of the various exhibits. The first one had a display of fine three dimensional art, which Yuki and I took multiple photographs of on our cell phones. The next was a series of photographs themselves by this famous artist whose name I cannot remember. The day went by in the art museum quite well, and You will be able to read more about it in the review I will post about it in the near future.
The next place we decided we would go to visit was a restaurant by the name Scully's Pizzeria. It was a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint attached to a bar, and, or at least from what I could tell, the one employee working as the bar tender was also the one serving Yuki and I, the only patrons of this restaurant at the moment, pizza and sprite. I would say that the pizza was alright, but I would be lying. This pizza was greasy beyond belief, the pepperoni was too small, and the pizza was small itself. The cheese was nice and thick though, so I guess that was good. Yuki began, after having finished her first slice, to explain to me that I would have payed thirty dollars for the same pizza in her native Japan. Now, I'm a lover of long distance, but this still made me instantly stop drinking and almost spit out what was in my mouth. To think somebody had spent thirty dollars for a less than satisfying pizza. By the time we were done we headed back toward my car and, when we finally got there, she took my CD case and started browsing through the large selection of CDs contained within and pulled out, without having known the group, my Pearl Jam Ten CD and asked if she could put it in and I said "Of course".
When we got back to Edinboro she met up with her friends and I made my way back home when I thought to myself. "I could really go for some hookah right now." I made my way to the Casablanca Hookah Lounge on fifth and Peach in the same place I had been just hours before and and sat down at one of the couches. The lounge actually had menus for the shisha that was available for consumption. I picked out, in my eternal love of all things citrus tasting, the Orange flavored hookah, but I had not anticipated how strong it would be. Later on that night I had a conversation with a friend from school that had walked into the lounge after my third coal and left the bar for home.
Yours Truly
Thomas F.
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