victoria falls

This is my new dream. Awesome.

here we go

The couple seated behind me in the coffee shop where I've parked myself for the day to look for jobs is meeting with a wedding planner. While I managed to keep my face in my New Yorker my ears were at their table as they pieced together their dream wedding. As I eavesdropped, their choices began to seem kind of weird to me: the bridesmaids were wearing red, blue, and yellow dresses? Groomsmen in black tuxes with yellow shirts? A lot of talk about "the field?"

Then it clicked. A Steelers-themed wedding.

At which point I inconspicuously turned to sneak a peek at the couple. I saw a young, blond wedding planner, a pretty girl in a red sweater, and the fiance in a Troy Polamalu jersey with a black and gold Super Bowl jacket draped over his chair.

"I didn't want to hire a wedding planner 'cuz I thought you'd just make like phone calls and stuff, and I was like, 'I could do that,' but this is great, you can help us get like black and yellow napkins and stuff. Do you think we could get Steelers keychains and engrave the our names in them as favors?" - him.

"I mean, I think one of our biggest problems is going to be that my dad is a Cowboys fan" - her.

Oh man. Another reminder that adjusting to the atmosphere of this city (even fitting in with Colin and his crew, who are decidedly less psychotic about Ben and gang - there was no talk of walking down the aisle to "Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl") is going to take some serious work. Maybe I should be thankful that the Steelers didn't make the playoffs this year - more time to study.

oh, oh-ten

Hi 2010. I know we're rather recent acquaintances, but I feel like old friends. I've been thinking about you a lot over the past year, worrying, dreading, dreaming about our life together and what it would hold. Maybe that's why our several-week-old relationship feels more like 12 years than 12 days.

We met in Grand Rapids, sitting on Colin's couch. My eyes may still have been a bit puffy from mourning the passage of the last 22 years and all the changes they've brought, but by the time you came around I was happily chatting with my best friend about the year ahead and the exciting promise it held. Marriage? Apartment? Job? School? I felt ready for it all.

You came home with me and met my family, laughed and planned and played with us. I resented you when you asked me to pack up my clothes and sort through piles of memories and get in Roger on the road to Pittsburgh, but I did it. It hurt but I did it.

And now here we are in Pittsburgh and you were right. Time passes and it's not a bad thing. As I look out the window of this coffee shop and see the snow falling down, I'm thankful for you and the chance to see and and enjoy a new place. To write about its peculiarities. I mean, any place as obsessed with sports as this town is merits more than a few blog entries, I'm sure.