Oh, Philly, my hometown, and yet, a place I do not live and have not lived in for many years

So, today... today was one year exactly since my father died...

I slept later than intended, but that worked out okay. I woke up feeling so lousy -- so completely stuffed up and unable to speak, or swallow -- that I pretty much went to the supermarket and bought some decongestants as an act of desperation (I couldn't swallow my Dayquil tablets). Oh, and a sandwich and some birch beer and Tastykakes. You know, important things.

After eating and taking the phenylephrine, I sat around for about an hour trying to figure out how I felt, health-wise. I played piano! That was fun. And I decided I was okay to go, so I drove to Spring Mill and took the train downtown. I parked in a questionable spot that was in the midst of a whole bunch of areas marked "DAVID'S BRIDAL PARKING, WE TOW YOU 24/7", although that particular area wasn't.

I got downtown and realized: wait a minute, besides meeting everyone for dinner down on South Street, do I really have anywhere I want to go? No -- I don't. Everything I used to like in Philly is pretty much either 1) something that was cool in high school 2) something that involves food 3) gone

So I went to Modell's and shopped for a Flyers t-shirt, which is something I've kinda wanted for a while. Looked at the Phillies offerings, wasn't impressed. Whatever.

I walked down to 4th and South, by way of the following:

1) my dad's building at 9th and Chestnut. I walked in the Chestnut St. side... saw the guys at the desk and they were the same guys who were there a year ago when I was coming in for my last time. I thought of saying hi, but first, I had pretty much NO voice, and second, what was I going to say? "Hey, I kind of lived here for 16 years but not really... do you remember my dad? He died a year ago today?" So instead, I just walked straight through and out the 9th Street side, and basically started walking the ridiculously familiar path that I used to walk ALL the time to get to South Street.

2) Washington Square. Actually, I started crying a block before I got there. I mean, I can't count how many times I'd left my dad's apartment to walk that path and that particular block, but now I was doing so as a real outsider. I could even hear my dad's voice in my head, you know, telling me to go pick up some lima beans or split peaches or milk or whatever. Except I'm never GOING to hear it again. Grar.

3) Superfresh. I still can't believe I went to the trouble of hunting down succotash for him and he never ate it. My dad's a dumbass. On the other hand I couldn't tell whether to giggle or not at the reflex of also inwardly hearing Aiton or Ben's voice saying "Death! At Superfresh!" (It's... a Boy Scouts joke...)

4) Old Pine Community Center. I sat on the steps for a while and thought about spaghetti and sent Ben a text message.

Then I got to South Street, where I realized every single building I actually gave a shit about is gone. Seriously. Except for Jim's Steaks, I'm pretty sure that none of the shops that had any significance to me are still there. If the Dead Milkmen weren't already dead...

I sat in Starbucks for about 30-40 minutes reading a book (I'm working my way through Chris Coste's book finally) and drinking chai until Jason showed up. Unfortunately, around the same time he got there at slightly-before-6, Jenny texted me to say that she and Chris were going to be super-late and show up around 7. So Jason got some tea and we sat around talking. As he already recounted, there was a completely batshit crazy dude sitting at the table next to us. I don't think he even had a Starbucks drink. He had a bunch of bags and was talking to himself and laughing maniacally and eventually started rubbing deodorant on his face. Seriously, WTF. We decided we'd had enough of him (and there was also a super-chummy Indian dude to my left who had been asking me about the chai and whatnot before, and started talking about the Famous deli here) and went downstairs with the intention to go wait outside Jim's, when Jenny and Chris showed up. Good timing.

The four of us went to Jim's, which is MY FAVORITE CHEESESTEAK PLACE ON THE WHOLE DAMN PLANET, seriously, I know most non-Philly people have only heard of Geno's and Pat's, but believe it or not, there is a third one in the triumvirate and that's Jim's, which IMO is ninety bazillion times better than either of the other two. I had my typical pizza steak with American cheese and a birch beer and oh god it was so good -- talk about an amazing taste and texture and everything that simply hasn't changed and still triggers all the same things in my brain. Everyone got various kinds of sandwiches and we got a table on the second floor, and here's the odd thing -- it never got crowded enough that I felt required to leave. Usually Jim's is insane on weekends and they actually time the line to let people leave the upstairs so there'll be seating for people once they get their sandwiches, but this time there was no trouble, so we hung out there for like 2 hours. To be fair, while I have talked to Jenny quite a bit over the last few years (and she'll be staying with me in Tokyo for a few months), I actually can't remember the last time I saw Chris. I know it's been *years*. So, it was good to catch up and find out what the hell he is actually up to -- and he seems reasonably happy with everything, which is good. I worried things might be a bit weird since I wanted to talk to Jenny about Japan, and despite Jason and Chris graduating in the same SCS class they apparently never met before, but it seemed okay anyway.

I got a ride back to Market East for a 9:45ish train out here. The train was HOT, and the parking lot was EMPTY when I got to the station and I was REALLY scared for a moment that the car had been towed -- then I saw it around a slight bend in the lot. Whew. Drove back here and then spent a bit too much time goofing off on PP drinking birch beer for Bling's birthday CI run.

It's been a pretty overwhelming day (Thursday will be harder when I go see Dad's grave), but I'm glad I got to see some friends and eat some yummy food, at least. Also... right now I actually feel a little bit better -- I'm still coughing and terrible but the decongestants wore off about 2 hours ago, I think, and I haven't been TOTALLY run over with my sinuses. We'll see whether I can sleep, though, and what condition I'm in when I awaken...

hoagies and movies and stuff

Feeling kinda woozy, gonna try to make this a quick entry.

I didn't do much in the afternoon, because I still woke up feeling sick. Well, I drove to the Bruegger's next to the Haverford train station, I suppose that was a big deal. I just really wanted the comfort food taste of familiar bagels (Bruegger's is the place that I went for bagels all the time for 8 years in Pittsburgh). Damn was that good. Also, I was very proud of myself for DRIVING ON THE HIGHWAY!!!! It was only 5 miles, but still, I was feeling a little nervous about it. It was neat to drive down Lancaster Ave though -- I briefly thought about going all the way to Merion, but figured that'd be silly.

I did laundry and practiced piano for an hour or two after that. I downloaded some Clementi sonatinas sheet music (Op 36, the first 3) and basically re-taught myself a bunch of them -- it was funny having the laptop on top of the piano since I couldn't print out the music, though I was able to rememorize a few anyway. I felt really good playing though, it's been a long time. I should look into getting a keyboard one of these years.

Stewart Clamen came by to pick me up around 5:45pm -- this was the only evening that'd work for us to hang out, and since he'd even been out here for the shiva last year (the post-funeral family/friends gathering), it wasn't too hard for him to find it. We went to the Lee's Hoagie House in Norristown since I had insisted on getting Lee's this trip, and it was SO worth it. Seriously, sitting in a Lee's looking at a wallful of Philly sports stuff and eating a hoagie just triggers a lot of nice memories.

Then we dashed over to Plymouth Meeting Mall and saw the Sherlock Holmes movie at 7. The movie was long, but interesting -- I'm not sure why it got such lousy reviews other than well, I guess people expect a more subtle mysterious mood to a Holmes movie and this was more like "Why don't we make a James Bond movie but set it as Sherlock Holmes? There'll be two main dudes who kick ass and solve huge cases that save tons of lives, and it'll be set 150 years ago all in London, BUT there'll still be chase scenes and gunfights and stuff blowing up and a hot chick that's a double agent that both screws Holmes over AND has her life saved by him..."

But all in all it was mostly fun, if a little bit different than what one might expect.

Stewart and I went to Dave & Buster's after that to have dessert (because it seemed as feasible as any option like finding a coffee shop). Other than me having a coughing fit at one point, which totally sucked and I had to go blow my sinuses out, it was good and we caught up on a lot of stuff.

Now, home. My uncle gave me a cough syrup to try, which I think is what's making me woozy, but I need to wake up tomorrow earlier to go do stuff anyway so that might not be a bad thing.