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♪I figured I should start making use of my camera and not just quit using it when the batteries die. This is the result; a smattering of images dating all the way back to last August. Ah, innocence.

小のイタリア

I've always had sort of a love/hate relationship with Cleveland. Throughout my younger years I lived miles and miles away in the secluded Fairport Harbor where it was painful just to venture across the dirty river into Painesville. (I don't think I ever came into direct contact with the water, and how disgusting to think that it flows into the lake.) Going back to these places now is like some strange time warp. Everything looks strange, skewed, and just plain filthy. I've always been frolicking about the Heights for as long as I can remember, especially after I triumphantly escaped Fairport in mere hours back in the summer of '02 (throwing every personal belonging into garbage bags and out of a second story window into a truck bed.*). Around the age of fourteen I was damning the renovation of Coventry along with the abolishment of the Green Tomato and blaming it on the Bush administration. Out of it all though, the biggest part of this love/hate relationship was showcased in my tour of Little Italy.

When I entered college I found myself spending nearly all of my time in an apartment above Corbo's bakery. This place was infested with anime wall hangings, dirty dishes (so dirty they were moldy), and ferrets of all things. The place more or less reminded me of the song "I love living in the city" by Fear (watch SLC Punk). I think that's what did it for me at first. Somewhat of a dream was fulfilled by that place that had always been in my mind even in my Fairport-locked youth. After a short time the euphoria suddenly vanished after it too began to look filthy and strange.

I can remember a specific night when I lay awake at around two in the morning singing along to the Dean Martin songs playing outside. I had memorized all of the words subconsciously and probably in my sleep. I'm sure no one would believe that the music at Patrizia's plays full blast throughout the night. It was demented, and after this night it was all down hill. I got sick of the same men sitting across the street at the unnamed bar obviously not letting any outsiders in. They stopped selling Orangina at Presti's. I made a movie called "The Real World Cleveland Season 173 'The Last Resort'" and submitted it to one of my Freshman English classes. Although my character is nothing like myself ("If prayers were pudding, would you eat well?"), I now see that I also had somewhat of a struggle and eventually "left the house" just as she did.



*I took a test on poverty in one of my Education classes last semester (constructed by Ruby Payne, I believe) and one of the point boosters was knowing how to move out of a house in an hour, as well as other things I learned back then and wouldn't have attributed to being impoverished if not for this test.



♪I reflected on all of this when I ventured to the Heights City Hall last Monday to pay off my pile of parking tickets. I guess that was my New Years Resolution. No more parking tickets! Hint to anyone paying parking tickets in the Heights: they hand out so many they don't even record some of them so go to city hall, give them your license plate number and be as surprised as I was. $65 poorer, I cursed Severance for well, being Severance, and cursed my car for being yet another medium for this love/hate relationship.

休暇の夢

I went back to Cold Stone Creamery to work. A job I had throughout my Junior and Senior years in high school*. Making waffle cones was once my specialty. Burning the tips of my fingers and ignoring incoming customers all to get the perfect fold (and to make sure there was no hole in the bottom of the cone. I don't think my coworkers were as considerate). This day, though, things were different. The wife of my old boss stood on guard training the new employees how to master the stone and her glare constantly flashed my way. My waffle cones looked like waffle bowls instead; lopsided and sad.

Somehow, as the day progressed I began making cheese and bean quesadillas on the machine. They, too turned out less than perfect as they were soggy and downright inedible, but I was told that this is what the people wanted and that they were fine. Taco sauce splashed everywhere and the day was foggy. "For only thirty cents more you can get almost twice the ice cream with the Love it Size," I heard my new coworkers repeat constantly. My schedule showed three and four hour shifts scattered throughout the weeks to come, but I already had blisters on my fingers.



*Not counting the one night I got fired and rehired via telephone, but that's another story.



♪One of the wonderfully ridiculous dreams I had on my vacation last week as the weather got colder and colder and I slept more and more.