Rest stops

I feel like I’ve been advertising this for years now, but my newsletter anni party is on Friday! It’s gonna start at my apartment and probably move to nearby bars if it gets too crazy. If you need my address, just message me. I don’t want it on the internet at the moment! RSVP, BYOB, TTYL.

Evening, loves. Guess how many bug bites I got yesterday? 18! All I did was sit near a pond for 30 minutes then sit outside at a bar. They’re all on my legs aside from one on my left ring finger. I’m engaged…to mosquitos.

I was home in Pittsburgh this past week before returning home to New York on Friday. I don’t really have too much to say about my week, so I’m going to rattle off some topics.

Having Pittsburgh connections here can be great, but they’re even better when they have an open passenger seat in their car going back home. My friend Georgina and I did musicals in high school, lost touch as one does, then she coincidentally interned at one of the magazines I work at last year. Now, she’s in New York and regaling me with being dragged against her will to Hair of the Dog.

I was her passenger to Pittsburgh last week, and we didn’t stop talking for the whole journey. It’s nice to learn about someone you feel like you know both lots and little about. We had a ball.

It was time to get gas, and we were on the Pennsylvania Turnpike (one of the most expensive highways in America). The turnpike is mostly boring, with idyllic rolling hills that look lame if you grew up here…but I’ll always be excited to say Horses! when I see them (and we saw a lot).

A near inevitability is stopping at one of the turnpike’s service plazas. Not all rest stops are created equal, but the turnpike ones share a facade. They’re these large, imposing, multicolored structures with parking lots as endless as the hills around them seem. It’s one giant room with a few stalls aside from halls leading to the bathroom kind of stalls.

Again, not all rest stops are created equal. These tend to have 5 or 6 food vendors, which usually includes a convenience store and a coffeeshop. The first one we happened upon (Blue Mountain) was lackluster. Who ever craves Roy Rogers? Sbarro? I enjoy Auntie Anne’s, and Hershey’s Ice Cream, but it’s not the time. The luxury of traveling with a friend is you can appear at one rest stop, deem it unworthy, and drive further to a better one. We drove over to the Sideling Hill stop, in which I chose Popeye’s and Georgina went with Burger King.

I’ve been hitting up these rest stops in various moods at many ages. I used to hate road trips as a kid, and these usually were ones that would reward me by ending in a beach. Now, I enjoy the go (just like the Charmin commercial tells me to) and relish in my rest stops accordingly. Everyone working and stopping there just feels peak PA. Rest stops see you at your most vulnerable…you’re in a foreign land, in no-man’s land, and maybe you just woke up from a nap. They see some of our truest selves.

I haven’t been home since May and was super excited to return. Why is it that as soon as I walked in the door I felt my mood plummet? Nothing happened, I just walked in and surrendered. I like to think I process things but I’m clearly wrong. I’m not sure who I walk in as, but it never feels like 25-year-old me. Sometimes I’m 8 and already planning my escape, other times I’m 17 and unnecessarily angsty. Sometimes I’m a college freshman missing her friends, or I just graduated and can’t wait for the holidays. No matter who I am, it doesn’t feel like me…and I feel the same anger that a baby does when they’re craving boob or pooping their diapy or feeling a tooth pop through their gums.

I’ve talked about this discomfort at great length here, which is why I hate that I still feel it. I’m tired of having complex feelings, and it feels like a privileged person problem. I’m not sure if going home as infrequently as I do makes this worse and/or if it’s the reason why. My deep desire to have fun and not disappoint makes me, in fact, disappoint. The lights get too bright, and I get too bratty. I wish I could just be pleasant!

The next day, I was still feeling like a mess. Once Ben got home from his weekend away, I took his car (my old car) and drove to my favorite park to clear my head. For Pittsburgh being an unchanging entity stuck in the past, there really were a lot of businesses I had never seen before. Maybe part of my problem here is that I’m tethered to versions of the city that don’t exist anymore, that I don’t have completely new experiences. I laid in the grass, talked to myself, and stared at the trees. Bugs don’t bite me in my old home like they do in my new home. I hate strenuous activity in nature, so I’m thankful that a roll in the grass can be enough to reenergize me. I felt like myself for the rest of the trip and ended up having a great time, but I hate that this has been happening recently.

Truly, what is better than a trivia night? It can be sober or involve alcohol, include your closest friends or your newest acquaintances, and can vary by the night and location. No matter what, trivia always makes me feel grateful for my crew and feel entrenched in whichever community I’m playing in. It’s how I started to feel like a person when I lived in New Hampshire.

My mom, somehow, had never done trivia before. Ben and I have — and won. We ended up going the three of us at the one gay bar I know and love in the city, 5801. It was completely full, and we got so many stares not just because it was a gay bar, but because we were, I thought, obviously a family.

But while I was getting everyone drinks, a guy at a table near where we were standing asked Ben and Mom if they were dating. This was hilarious. We ended up befriending him and who he said was his friend until bar seats eventually opened up. Trivia here is different than anywhere else I’ve done it: 1. Team names were the raunchiest ever 2. It used an app I’ve never seen 3. The questions were really easy 4. Points were based on accuracy and speed. We thought we were killing it but ended up in 24th place out of 50. On the audio round, we could not figure out which Nicki Minaj song was playing until our new friends ran up behind us to whisper “Barbie Dreams” (how didn’t I know it?).

It was the favorite event of the week for all three of us. We all knew different things and laughed at everything. I pity those who can’t find the same joy in shutting up your talking team as the host reads out a new question.  

The next night, Ben, two of his friends I’ve known forever, and I went to Sheetz, got perfect crappy food and drinks, and went back home to consume. I made them all try Beatboxes, my favorite party drink because it has a lid and is basically jungle juice. Ben and Benson detested it, but I converted Malachi into a Beatboxer.

We chatted and watched South Park, a show I’ve barely seen because it seemed to scandalous to child me (I was much more of a Simpsons girl). This was my first time watching multiple full episodes in a row, and it really is a great show. The creators also made The Book of Mormon musical, so I knew it had to be somewhat clever.

My one controversial take is that I think it was our generation’s Andrew Tate. Both of them create media that attracts boys free from parental supervision, and both of them are wildly offensive. Cartman’s constant antisemitism towards Kyle is hilarious to me as a Jewish adult who knows that one of the creators is Jewish, but this parody of antisemitic idiots is a bit too casual for the goyishe middle school boys watching. All of the -isms and -phobias are present in this show, which is not meant for children…but watched by plenty of them. Anyway, it’s Tatelike in its effect on young boys, introducing them to what they call dark humor (what people who tell racist jokes categorize those jokes as). Tate is obviously far worse, but I think this program was almost as much of my generation’s bigot-creator as the Call of Duty lobbies were. Let me know what you think.

Pop artist and Studio 54 frequenter Andy Warhol was born and buried in Pittsburgh. There’s a museum downtown showcasing his art, which is much bigger than you’d think a place honoring a single artist would be. Thankfully, Warhol was prolific enough to allow for changing exhibits and 7 floors of content.

I haven’t been to the Warhol museum since high school, and I’m not sure why. But I went back and had a great time. I think it is an underrated Pittsburgh museum, but maybe that’s just because I underrated it.

Warhol lived such a cool life and made lots of great work, but I realized that if he existed today, we would all hate him. So much of his work is about capitalism, advertising, and celebrity. It was subversive and exciting at the time, but I think we would hate this today and find it shallow. The same picture of Elvis repeated 11 times in a row next to each other would probably be annoying if it was…I dunno a rocker that is young and relevant today…Bruno Mars?

My hypothesis proved itself on the rotating exhibit floor, which was a collaboration between the museum and Kaws, the guy whose art mostly has the same cartoon character or two with X-eyes over and over. His art felt too commercialized and derivative, and the exhibit was supposed to show how similar his art is to Warhol’s. It felt like it cheapened both artists. Ben called Kaws’ art NFT art, which I agree with. My mom said it was a lot like Jeff Koons (derogatory), which I also agree with.

I usually chose one day a week to take my prescribed adderall, and I usually take it in the morning soon after I start work (unless I have a meeting and want to sound human). Today, the day just kept feeling more and more stressful, so I took one at 3 p.m. I’m still sort of feeling the effects. I like this better than a second coffee.