TooMuchInformation

Last summer while I was in
Columbus, I was introduced to Punk Rock Aerobics.  The Surly Girl Saloon, a bar in the Short North, offers a free class once a week.  It’s led by three women who do it just for kicks.  They begin each class with a disclaimer about their amateur status and a reminder that we shouldn’t sue them.  At the end of each class everyone is offered a complimentary can of beer.

I started the class with new friend Michael.  As a 12 year old, Michael climbed a tree to read a book instead of taking out the trash and accidentally touched an electric line that sent him flying.  He fell to the ground screaming.  His next memory is coming in and out of consciousness in an ambulance and then a lengthy recovery at Children’s Hospital.   Twenty years later, he had a burn scar across his thigh but no super powers. 

Three weeks into Punk Rock Aerobics, Michael decided the class wasn’t for him.  In spite of being abandoned in a room of sweaty girls, I chose to stick it out.  We did moves called “The Lead Singer” and “Beat on the Brat” to the music of the Sex Pistols, the Breeders, and the Ramones. 

After one particularly grueling class, I drove to Kroger to get a bite to eat.  I wandered the aisles of the supermarket trying to find something satisfying and healthy.  I passed a display of Entenmann’s cinnamon rolls.  Jumbo sized.  I have a weakness for Cinnabons and can’t seem to manage to get through an airport without buying one.  I decided to pick up a box of the similarly delicious Entenmann’s just to hold onto while I pushed my cart through the store.  For comfort.  As a reward for not ditching the class as my friend had.

My plan was to have the box in the child seat of my shopping cart so that I could fantasize about their sweet glaze and sticky cinnamon while I filled a container at the salad bar with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, celery, etc.   Afterwards, I would remove the rolls from my cart before checking out.  I rationalized that the pleasure was in the memory, not the experience itself.

When I got home I set my salad on the kitchen counter, filled a glass with water, pulled a plate out of the dishwasher and heated up one of the cinnamon rolls in the microwave.   Some plans don’t work out as intended.  Something came over me as I was checking out of Kroger.  I hadn’t pushed past the Entenmann’s display on my way through the store and never had the chance to replace the box.  And I didn’t want to be one of “those people” who unload stuff in the gum and magazine racks.  I ate the heated roll before even opening my salad.  Punk Rock Aerobics was hard.  I was hungry.  The roll was delicious.

My salad wasn’t bad either.  I ate it dry, without any salad dressing.  You know, because of all the extra calories and corn syrup they put in there.  

 

My first week in Columbus I contacted a friend from college – Chris Hughes. He’s one of those people who requires two names. In school Chris Hughes was quiet but not shy, wore button-down shirts, and smiled with half his mouth and forehead. Today he works at the Columbus AIDS Task Force and has developed the catalog of morbid humor needed to get through a day. He invited me to a cookout one recent Saturday. I said yes, took some beer, and went. I met his partner Jeremy and their two shelter rescued dogs – Lucy and Susie. “Why not Lucy and Ethel?” I asked. “We didn’t want to confuse them,” they replied. I’m a cat person, so it didn’t make much sense to me either.

The cookout was at the home of their friends David and Daniel, so we packed up the beer and some more beer, and headed over. There I met a dozen or so interesting people, including Tim and Lyndsey, who Chris met in 2004 while waiting 2-3 hours in line to vote. Their voting precinct, and its majority Democrat voter registry, only had one Diebold voting machine. Long lines lasted all day. So they made the best of a Slavic situation and chatted each other up, discussed home ownerÂ’s insurance, exchanged phone numbers, and became friends.

As the night wore on and the beer flowed, I grew hungry. I panned the back yard for a grill. I saw one, but it wasn’t heating. There wasn’t a tank of propane, no bag of charcoal, no bowl of marinating chicken breasts, no bag of hot dog buns. What the hell kind of cookout was this? As soon as the question entered my mind someone said “lets order pizza!” I love drinking beer outdoors and I love pizza. It was a great night.

A week later I contacted another friend from college, Sweet Melissa. Sweet Melissa was three years behind me at Western, when we both had long curly hair. She wore heavy wool Himalayan sweaters then. Maybe she still does, but in the current heat wave she was sticking with short sleeved cotton. We met up for coffee, discussed brick buildings, relationships, and trash talked old friends.

That night I discovered that Sweet Melissa and sister Tanya play on the same softball team. Small world. Apparently my sister and I have the same propensity for meeting everyone. And our mother’s propensity for being memorable.

Tickled by the connection, Melissa invited us to a barbeque at her friend Tex’s home. We arrived to find trays of olives and cheeses and roasted peppers waiting for us. Tex poured a bag of charcoal in the grill, doused it with kerosene, and singed the branches on a maple tree. We ate salmon and Vietnamese salad and drank white wine. Tex told us about khat and growing up in Corpus Christi.

Besides reconnecting with old friends, staying with my sister and brother-in-law this summer has been a truly amazing thing. It’s great to witness the warmth and health in their home. Being far away, it’s easy to forget and worry about family members. But seeing the supporting network of friends that Tanya and Chad have created makes it easy to know that everything outside the reaches of my possibility to control go well. It’s a gift.

With half the summer gone, I can already say that it’s been the best of times. With more to come.

Family has always played a big part of my summers growing up. Heat and cousins were synonymous. Since that time, I’m closer and more comfortable with cousins than friends. Or rather, my closest friends are in my family tree. Even if it’s a grafted branch. Who better to commiserate about the absurdities of parents, but the people who probably experience the exact same idiosyncracies?

Within hours of being back in Ohio I was hugging both sisters, my mom, an aunt and uncle, and my two nephews. I don’t think my younger nephew Nema recognized me. His older bother Kaveh gave me a big hug and smile. Such a great feeling. But Nema held back behind his mother’s legs and gave a cautious smile.

He warmed up to me in a short time. Now he frequently jumps into my lap. My favorite is the first moment he’s awake each morning. I’ll be up eating breakfast or watching the news and he comes down stairs, all smiles and giggles. He’s very social.

When I was about 4 years old, my family took a trip to Toledo to visit Aunt Verna. I remember my sisters being very happy about the trip, and I caught some of their enthusiasm. But, after the 90 minute drive I grew cautious. Verna was my grandfather’s sister. In my young mind though, I had confused her with my grandmother’s sister Vera.

At 4, I knew and loved Vera. She had dark hair, wore Keds and glasses, drank wine and laughed. She was born on the island, but lived in Cincinnati. She said she didn’t like to be touched, but looked in your eyes when she spoke. Where my grandmother was crazy scary, Vera was crazy fun. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Aunt Vera. She came up to the island multiple times every summer. She told stories about the islands and knew the histories of every home and family.

When we pulled up to the home in Toledo my sisters ran to a strange woman. She had thick red hair and wore a pant suit with a matching purse. She smelled of perfume and hugged us tightly. I didn’t know who she was. I was expecting Vera. I didn’t want to get out of the car.

Eventually my sisters and parents convinced me to meet this woman. She won me over with multiple hugs and ice cream. But the initial feelings of confusion and shyness I haven’t forgotten. For better, her hugs became more familair as the visits became annual.

And so, it’s been two years since Nema last saw me. I don’t know if he’ll remember re-meeting me in Columbus, but I hope he’ll recall later the smiles he gave me each morning this week.

Like my own childhood, this week has been a juggernaut of family. In addition to the large group retrieving me from the airport, I’ve been lucky to reconnect with two more aunts, three more uncles, and 22 cousins (1st through 2nd-once removed), not to mention visits to two cemeteries. Like my own childhood we’ve caught lightening bugs, watched fireworks, played board games, gone on bike rides, boat rides, car rides. This time around though I’m one of the adults. Sort of.

I’m still at times that kid sitting in the car hoping there’s been a mistake and that the universe will follow expectations., but trying to muster the courage to accept that things might be better.