Bird Noises are Coming from Inside the Building

There were a couple of people arguing outside my building last night. She said something about his friends. He said nothing.

Whenever I hear people talking outside on the sidewalk, I worry that my neighbor's bird is going learn more words. The bird has a limited act. It can imitate a car alarm and it can do a cat call. Should a bird be doing a cat call? I can only hope that it has a panic room inside his cage.

Today people are looking up at its window and whistling. Their calls are quickly returned. The bird never hesitates. Fortunately, the bird ignored the couple who argued outside our building.

My hometown is underwater

My hometown is underwater tonight. It's the part I used to play baseball, where friends used to watch each other play Defender, and where an old guy used to sell bait. I wrote a screenplay a few years ago. In it the people of my hometown vote to flood the tiny hamlet and turn it into an underwater tourist attraction. Freud would say that I wanted to commit boonicide (sp).

Here's a brief description of my hometown before the real and the imagined floods. The fraying is occuring in the middle of town not at its edges. Driveways and streets fit seamlessly together at the edges of town. In the center of town homes have loose shingles and signs have missing letters.

I don't know if I would have voted to flood the town. I root for the people who sell bait on the side and wrestle with shingles, but I also like the idea of seeing scuba divers trying to fish out quarters from the coin slot of the old Defender game.

Apologies in Time: The Early Years

Mea culpa events from birth to age 25:

I ripped out one of my mom's earrings when I was a year old. Since then she has never been able to wear earrings.

I was practicing my tennis serve in the family living room and accidentally scraped the ceiling. I colored over the damage with a crayon.

I pushed for "Stand By Me" to be the prom song. The song is only 2 minutes in length and had to be played 15 times during the march. Stand by me, stand by me...

Once when out bicycling with friends my girlfriend collided with another cyclist. She said that she was ok and headed back to her apartment. I continued on with the bike trip. She had a difficult time getting home. It turned out she had a concussion.

I told someone that I had read Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court before. I read Disney's version when growing up.

I once told a co-worker that I had been fly fishing. I've never been fly fishing. That was a difficult conversation to get through.

I worked on twelve losing political campaigns. I want to apologize to the candidates for not doing a better job folding the letters and sealing the envelopes.

I made a friend come with me to a Meat Loaf concert at Summerfest. He wanted to see REM. They were playing at the same time.

Do you have anything to apologize for?

You're from Akron?

My friend BA and I went to a comedy club a few nights ago. The first comedienne told tales of pathos. She once dated her cello. It later dumped her. She convinced her female cat to get a sex change, so they could become closer. The cat died during the process. She changed the lyrics of "It's Not Easy Being Green" to "It's Not Easy Being Blue". Finally, in an attempt to extend this pathos, she mentioned that she was from Akron. At that point I felt even more sorry for her. Growing up in Akron must have been hard.

After her act I began to think about my hometown. I grew up in a small town in rural Wisconsin. Was it more difficult to grow up in Akron than in my hometown?

Akron has over 1 million people. My hometown has a population of less than 5,000. That's not enough people to qualify for an AA chapter or AAA service.

My hometown has produced one celebrity, Frank Lloyd Wright. He moved to a place twenty miles down the road because he disliked the town so much. Akron has produced a bevy of celebrities, including Hugh Downs, Chrissie Hynde, and LeBron James. If those three would have grown up in my hometown, then the major highway that runs through it would have three names.

My hometown had a single bowling alley when I was growing up. Now it doesn't have one. The bowling alley and all of its ten lanes went up in flames last spring. Akron (and surrounding area) has fourteen bowling alleys. What an embarrassment of riches.

My hometown had twenty four churches for less than 5,000 people. There is no doubt in my mind that many of our church leaders would have looked down upon women who run with cellos.

Akron, if only.

2 Family Myths Debunked

1. I'm Irish.
Growing up I was told that I was primarily Irish. It turns out I'm mostly Scottish. Corned beef and cabbage was served at family reunions. I wore green and orange shamrocks to school on St. Patrick's Day. I followed the troubles and hoped for peace. Confirmation of the Irish myth occurred in the early 80s after the family sent the wrong uncle to Ireland. He returned with "evidence" that the family had come from the Emerald Isle and that our family's name, orginally O'Eoroughin, not Irwin, had been changed at Ellis Island. I don't blame him. By the 1980s the Irish tourism industry was confident and mature. If someone wanted to be a part of the Irish story, then the Irish were happy to provide him with a family name, coat of arms, and a family tree with a warrior or two in it. In the early 2000s other, more sober, relatives did more research and discovered that the family came from Scotland. I've decided not to participate in family reunions until we discover our roots lie in India, Thailand, or Korean. I'm holding out for better food.

2. I'm allergic to tuna.
It turns out that I'm not allergic to tuna. This was more of a misunderstanding. My aunt is allergic to tuna. I heard the story wrong.

Helen of Troy

A thousand ships searched for the beautiful Helen of Troy. It would have been a thousand and one, but a single ship remained in the quiet Greek harbor. The captain of the tethered ship had dismissed his crew after learning that Helen had adopted a pet in Troy.

A leashed dog lunged at me this week. It was an unusual event on 66th St. Most dogs I see are able to fit in their owner's iPod cases. This dog was different. He was oversized, gray, and unlovely. I'm not sure what make he was. The whole thing left me a little unnerved. If I had been walking with someone, then I would have acted differently. I would have acted like a courageous captain during a violent storm. I would have felt like a captain who wished that he would have delayed the journey a day or two. Of course, my actions would depend on who I was with. If I was walking with the person who picked up the latest Harry Potter book at Duane Reade last week and read the last paragraph out loud, then I would slow my pace and put him between me and the dog.

Breaking Eggs

I walked home from 51st St. Wednesday evening. The story should have started "I walked home from 53rd St.", but I walked two blocks in the wrong direction. I tend to wander off when lost in thought. When leaving the subway station I was thinking about how my recent barbers have been spending less and less time on the top of my head. I think I counted three snips the last time I was in the chair. While Antarctica can blame greenhouse gases for its missing ozone, I am still thinking about the cause of my missing mop top. I think my hairloss can be traced back my youth when my father used to pretend to break an egg over my head by lightly tapping my head with his knuckles and slowly opening his fist. The broken egg trick always made me laugh. It was a genuine laugh, too. Not the kind of empty, cheap laugh that Gilligan's Island or The Brady Bunch evoked. More like the full, rich laugh from an Addams Family episode. Although my hairloss will probably disqualify me from a future presidential run, I guess getting eggs broken on my head was worth it. It's one of those memories that I hold on to- one that makes me relax then smile. One that may postpone more hairloss.