This Little Piggy Ran to Market

I ran in the Flying Pig Marathon again. I know, I know. I'm a liar.

After the debilitating pain (ice pick, remember?) of last year's 10th Anniversary Flying Pig Marathon, I swore I would never run another marathon again. The excruciating pain of limping seven miles down Eastern Avenue with IT Band Friction Syndrome picking it's way through the soft tissue of my left knee convinced me of that, as well as the prison-camp style diet and completely non-existent social life.

[Quick aside, quicker than Sonic the Hedgehog's double-tap left: For those of you who are newer readers, my whole blogging career got started last spring when CiN Weekly picked me up to blog for them about my first year ever running a marathon. At the conclusion of my ~28 chapter memoir, I vowed never to run a marathon again.]

And true to my word, no marathons have crossed beneath these knees since.

In January, my generous place of employment (keeping head low to appease the gods), asked if I would head up their Flying Pig team. In years past, they had attempted to assemble people to participate in the weekend events; however, out of the rank and file of ~200 employees of various skills and merits, usually two would take on the half marathon or 5k. They assumed that since I ran The Pig (grumble, cuss word, sinister slur) last year, I'd be more than elated to take it on this year.

Those who can't do, teach. (This is a lie, but the statement fits my attitude toward me accepting the role)

I sent out the usual mass emails; and with the help of a couple other excitable staff, we scheduled a couple info sessions for our runners.

I began a weekly email blast to those who expressed interest the first couple weeks, creatively titled "Weekly Flying Pig Email." In these emails I would take 1/3 of the document to coordinate business (getting people registered, giving directions to Saturday morning runs, collecting money, etc), and the other 2/3 of the email offering a topic of the week, discussing nutrition, shoes, running gear, stretching, the day of the marathon, etc.

It always blows my mind how much I actually learned about health and exercise during those five months of Flying Pig training last year. Granted, I have been into health and exercise for

about five years now, but marathon training accelerated that education a million times a minute. I feel like everytime I throw some stat out there about health, someone outside of the marathon community goes "bah, he only did it for five months, how does he know?" But here's the thing - for five months straight, you think about or live marathon training. That's, on average, sixteen hours a day. You're envisioning runs, eating healthy, taking stairs instead of elevators, strategizing, upgrading gear, hydrating, and then of course the exercise and strengthening. So for five months straight, which is twenty weeks, which would be 140 days......times 16 hours........I spent 2,240 hours focused on achieving one task and one task alone - crossing the Pig finish line

. For a little easier number to swallow, 2,240 hours / 24 hours = 93.33 days / 7 days = 13 weeks / 4 weeks = Three months and ten days I was solidly focused on that achievement, without stop. You learn something well in that time.

So each week I threw out my tid bit of insight to the group; and by mid-March, we had 17 people running or walking the 5k, 10k, relay, or half marathon. The most in the company's history. I attribute the success to begging Finance to give each person $12 off their Pig registration....gu

h, I hate groveling to people who wield calculators. Ugh. But it's true...make it cheaper, and they will come (get it right, Costner). 

It finally struck me that I should probably join the ranks of the athletes, and give it a try. My ankle had suffered a sprain in the fall due to a twice rolled indoor soccer injury, and I had pretty much quit exercise since November. My jeans now leaving an irresistibly sexy imprint on my

 waste when I took them off, I was in prime distance running condition. But, I didn't suffer any chronic pain from my ankle, IT Band, or Oshgoodslaughters (god I love my left leg), so I felt daring. I talked around the building, and was able to convince three other crazy souls to attempt the relay with me. A relay, I could pull that off! .....gulp.....

Before the week of The Pig, I had probably run a total of ten times within the year prior. I was out of shape, eating insanely unhealthily, and truly embarrassingly unready. But hey, you only live once, right?

As none of my other teammates had run the whole marathon before, I let them pick and choose which legs of the relay they wanted, as I had already "seen it all." To my dismay, I was left with the longest leg; 7.67 miles of small, rolling hills. However, on further examination, it was EXACTLY what I had hoped for. Not only would I run through the neighborhood where I grew up, but I would get to run past mile 19. Damn you mile 19........

In last year's marathon, mile 19 is where the pain finally became so unbearable in my knee that I had to give up running, and walk the remaining seven miles to the finish line. So this year, I had been given a golden opportunity - I could run right past the spot where I had to stop last year, stick my tongue out, and laugh at it. It was game time.

Just like last year, I awoke somewhere around 4:30 a.m., as we all had to report to downtown at 5:30 a.m. to catch our school buses (I know I had to have been sitting on some 2nd grader's boogers he picked on the way to school on Friday) to our various relay spots. Allison was kind enough to get up pre-dawn and drop me off downtown among the masses (which, it's REALLY creepy to see hundreds of people walking around downtown in the pitch black of 5 a.m. in reflective gear). In the drizzling rain I found my bus, hopped on, and closed my eyes to nap.

Somewhere around 6:45 a.m. we pulled up to the backside of the Hyde Park Kroger, were

 dropped off and the buses skidded off to wherever they keep buses when they're not being used (have you ever wondered that? Where buses go without kids? It's a creepy mystery, like hidden elephant graveyards......).

So there we were, hundreds of us stranded in an empty parking lot in the rain with no shelte

r and nowhere to sit but the wet ground. It was awesome, let me tell you. And so I waited, and I

 waited, and I waited. I saw "the elites" glide by at an insane clip, as we were stationed at mile 12, and they were silent machines that floated by on the wet pavement. So. fast. Around 9:30, I

 saw my Hyde Park leg partner trotting up to the group wearing a pig mask (really?) and shouted for the exchange.

And so I took off. this year, no freaking Batman tool belt of salt, food, water bottles, cell phone, & grappling hook - that weighed me down too much last year. But this time it was an overcast, cool misting spring morning; and besides the blubber I had packed on for hibernation throughout winter, I was light on my feet. 

I made it a point to thank people who were cheering us on, stationed outside of the big sections of groups, raking up water cups, and handing them out. As I approached a water station, I'd point to some tired little kid and shout, "you're my girl/man" a

nd snatch the water cup from them. It was so much nicer not to have tons of water strapped to my hips, and just a bag of Shot Bloks pinned to my shirt.

As I reached the intersection near the Eastern Drycleaners in Mariemont (halfway done), I spotted three friends from work (two of which ran the 5k) and Allison, who all subsequently lost their freaking minds with noise makers and glittery signs as I came by. I said it last year and I'll say it again - the most refreshing thing in a race is to have people there to cheer you on. When I came by the second time, I even swooped in for a smootch with the lady - I was feeling good....

Although I wasn't flying by like I did last year at a speedy 8:15 pace, I trotted along strongly at what I would guess was a 9:25 pace. Not fast, but not walking. I always said that marathoners hate relay people; because marathoners are at their most tired the second half, and refreshed relay runners who just started are blazing by. Yeah, I felt like a jerk as I passed person after person, and was never passed myself. I encouraged TEAM in Training participants as I passed them on their long journey - and a part of me wished I had with them again, but the bigger part of me was glad that I tried it, but don't need to go down that road again.

I ran down the exit ramp off Columbia Parkway towards Eastern Avenue, and it struck me that there was no pain in either my knee or my ankle - I didn't even have a cramp. Last year, tears had begun to trickle down my face at this point and I was choked up, as I had come to accept that I would not be running across the finish line, but walking. But this year, as I saw the mile 19 sign approaching and I ran forward strongly, I muttered "you're my b&%ch mile 19" and glared down the double digits. 

Mile 19 came and went, and as I neared the "finish line" of my leg at Linwood and Eastern, my cheer squad came into view again, plus my father. I can't lie, I had a little choke when I saw my dad. I so badly wanted my parents to see me run strong through the finish line in 2008, but felt a disappointment when it was more of a hobble. To see my dad seeing me running strong with a smile on my face, even if it was only after 7.67 miles, made me feel redeemed, proud. At 100 yards, two of the squad, Allison and Kris, ran up next to me to cheer me in. I felt good, and with a cheeky grin, said "you guys ready?" "For what" Allison responded, and I took off on a dead sprint to the finish. I felt strong, I felt good, but that doesn't mean I didn't collapse on my back sucking wind after I crossed the finish line and tagged our final relay member. Yeah, my knee felt great, but that doesn't mean I wasn't carrying a year of pizza, beer, and burritos in my waistband. Pizza DELIVERS fast, but doesn't run fast.

After I was hydrated back to normalcy and stories of the adventure related, I parted ways with the cheer team and hopped on the bus to head to the finish line to catch my team. We waited. and we waited. and we waited. A woman on the other end of the bus driver's radio, let's call her Barb, was ordering the driver to stay put and wait for one runner, who was about 30 minutes out from meeting us. The rest of the bus, plus two girls who worked for The Pig, wanted to leave so we could end our trial. The driver wanted to leave too, but the non-logistics moron on the other end of the radio insisted we stay put, despite the fact that the driver could get to the finish line and back before the runner arrived (did I mention we were packed 2-3 to a seat?) As a joke, the driver said over the radio, "well I really want to go, they're threatening to beat me up over here. They're hungry!" We all kind of chuckled; and although no one wished violence on the driver, we did really want to go.

After about 40 minutes of waiting, Barb, in all her trailer trash glory of fake bake and huge poofed blond wig, stormed onto the bus. She had driven in to give us a talking. Mounting her yellow steed of bus-i-tude, she said to the driver, "Are you alright? If anyone threatens my bus driver, they can get off this bus and walk home," and she said this in the most serious of tones.

Now the bus got dead silent, and no one said a word. And before I could stand up in the footsteps of Spartacus and rebuke, she dismounted and stormed off. I had wanted to say, "Hey, NO ONE gets off this bus. We all just ran 7.67 miles, some of us for cancer, some of us for diabetes, some of us for kids who are dying right now in Shriner's. We're tired, hungry, thirsty, sore, and some of us are injured. It is NOT a ridiculous request for us to go to the finish line to be with our loved ones. We did our job, now you do YOURS!" Of course, like every great comeback for a diss, insult, breakup, or idiot driver, I thought of the line 15 minutes later as I smoldered to myself on the ride to the finish. You got away THIS time, Barb.....

I met up with my team for a photo op, and spent the rest of the day relaxing on a couch watching movies and sleeping with an icebag on the knee.

I finished it, without any physical therapy or pain. I know it wasn't a full marathon, but it was a baby step. Ya know, the half marathon doesn't seem so scary next year.....

Sweet Route

In about three days, I'm going to have to try and say this in front of a congregation of people. I figure I better give it a test drive here first; as with many things for me, it may be easier to type than to say.

When I was a little, little boy; let's say, from age conception to nine, we used to come home to Bedford, PA very often throughout the year for major holidays: Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Each holds extremely precious memories, and make up the very fine fibers that thread me together as the man I am today.

For the Spring and Summer trips, there was one tradition that I looked forward to with bated breath, and asked with garrulous breath the entire eight-hour drive out to Bedford from Cincinnati each time: Sweet Route.

When my begging and pleading would finally cause the family to cave to my needs to stop me from trying to swindle them, the journey began.

Down to the garage we'd go. Inside that garage, Tom Bailey, my grandfather, had a place for every item, and every item was in it's place. It was always dark in that garage, but each tool, fluid, plant, bag of soil, wheelbarrow, and 24-pack of soda was meticulously placed so he could find it in the dark wearing a blindfold and mittens. Still today, that garage has a beautiful and unmatched smell of earth, brick, well-used tools, and clean car; not a bad smell at all, but a smell that makes you stop, close your eyes, and inhale every last particle in the air until your lungs are full, and you want to exhale so slowly because you don't want to lose the taste at the back of your throat.

The garage door would bang open as the gears rattled and bounced on the ceiling above our heads, and we'd all climb into his Buick road-boat. This car has no age to me - it's been around since I was conscious of vehicles, but there are no scratches or dents on it's glistening white outside, the dark blue seat fabric doesn't have a tear or a stain and is soft as a kitten, no scratches on the dashboard, and rides as smooth as water on ice. Tom was the only man who could back this massive road vessel out of the tiny garage in one fell swoop, and remains so today.

My spot was unchallenged: the front middle of the deep blue bench seat. Even as a lightweight 40 pounds, my rump sank into the plushness of it. Three reasons why this seat was mine:

#1: I could squeeze right up next to our pilot pap, who always smiled and chuckled at me no matter what I did.

#2: I had a perfect view of the road ahead. Now of course I had to loosen the belt buckle, wiggle up to the edge of the seat, and strain to get my eyes above the dashboard. But my eyesight was very important for the journey ahead.

#3: I could see and report the digital temperature readout.

Directly in front of my little excited face was a glowing green digital readout that showed the strength of the fan in the car and the current interior temperature. Every time that temperature changed even one degree Fahrenheit, I'd shout out the change, "68 degrees!"...."69 degrees!"...."70 degrees!" While other members of my family (mom, dad, brother, Nana) would tell me to "shush" or "calm down," pap would always encourage it. He'd say things like, "what's the temperature now, Ben," or "temperature report!" He'd laugh so hard at how excited I was and thanked me for the report, and drove on without his eyes ever cracking from the road ahead.

That's the first of two very important lessons in this story. Pap has always been happiest when he brought joy to other people. It could be entirely mundane and uninteresting to pap; but if you were happy and having a good time, pap delighted in your joy. And his joy was cyclical. If pap was happy, he'd get ralled up and tell stories and be on top of his game with wit, which made everyone else laugh and be happy. And as I said, if everyone else was happy, pap was happy. It was a beautiful thing. To truly delight in someone else's joy without jealousy or sarcasm....it's something I wish all of us could be good enough to do.

So through the streets of Bedford we'd gently cruise, all the while the adults talking over my head about who lived where and reminiscing about stories long before I was even a thought to bring into the world. I heard none of it: my giant brown eyes were fixed on the road ahead, waiting for the turn I knew signaled the adventure I thirsted for. I'd stay close to pap - he was warm, and had that smell that only each of us loves about our elders. This ninja-like focus (ok, ninja after 12 cups of coffee) was only broken by the occasional, "status report! -- "73 degrees, pap!"

And then we'd turn onto Sweet Route. Never was a road in history named more adequately for what it meandered through, not even "Main Street" or "West Street." I want you to picture the quaint township of Pleasantville, that blossoming drive in Rain Man, and the winding beauty of Big Fish - combine those together, and you'll almost be able to see Sweet Route. The road was far out in the country, and meandered for a number of miles over gentle hills, winding through lush forest, and traced an old creek that spent it's twilight years picking it's way through the soft underbrush at the foot of the tall trees.

At this arrival, my grandfather nearly had to stop the car to avoid hitting my eyeballs, which were glued, unblinkingly, to the road ahead. You see, in the warm months, Eastern Box Turtles would travel from the refreshing coolness of the shaded creek up to the road above, and warm themselves on the toasty asphalt in the afternoon sun. Loaded with cardboard boxes in the trunk of the car, our prize was to collect every turtle we found along the road.

If there was one small, darker black spot on the road, I'd shout with excitement and bounce up and down in my seat, and pap would gently ease the car to the side of this beautiful, country road. On a good day, we could head home with five turtles; however, even turtleless, there was never a bad day on these trips.

Once back at pap's house, I'd keep these turtles out back for the whole week we were home. Each one would be named, we'd have pretend adventures in the long grass, and my parents would acquire tomatoes and lettuce for me to feed them. On the rare occasion, pap helped me sneak the turtles into the kitchen, which was off of the back porch. As the turtles would crawl and claw their way around the linoleum, Nana would shout in surprise and frustration, and pap would just laugh and laugh at Nana's dismay at the reptilian intruders. I thought it was a gas. Pictures of this line nan and pap's refrigerator.

Then the hardest part of the trip came: we had to take the turtles home at the end of the week. My beloved companions, who I had fallen in love with so quickly and known for such a short time, had to be returned to where they came from. We loaded them into their cardboard box in the back of the impeccable road boat, and headed back out towards Sweet Route.

When pap and I had selected a beautiful spot along the side of the road, he softly pulled the car to the curb and he would carry the box for me, as the weight of five turtles at once was far too powerful for my little arms. But paps arms were very strong. The selected location was usually well shaded, quiet, and had a gentle slope down the burbling creek below.

In the beginning, I would throw a fit and cry, shout, and make a tantrum about letting my turtles go. I had become so close, and never understood why they had to go back to the woods, and found it so unfair and so unjust that my turtles had to be let go. But over the years it became easier to say goodbye, and I began to understand that they were never my turtles. Pap helped me to understand that. You can fall so deeply in love with something you've known for such little time; but to understand it's interconnectedness to the rest of the universe, beyond your love of it, allows you to say goodbye knowing it's in better hands than you could ever conceive. And with that realization, there comes a peace.

Eventually the tradition ended, as our drives out along Sweet Route yielded little to no turtles year after year, but the memory of those beautiful, warm, Spring afternoon drives is clear as the perfectly washed windshield of pap's Buick.

I will always love my grandfather.

Roller Freaking Derby

There may come a time in your life when you'll be sitting on a backporch with some close mates, sipping a frosty beverage and laughing into the evening over the insanities you pulled in days when your jeans fit better and your credit card debt wasn't so high. You may pause to reflect while a story drones on in the background, and you'll tilt your head back in your plastic deck chair and smile contently at the stars as the hoppy goodness makes your memories sweeter and funnier than they were when they happened. And then, from the celestial ceiling above, you may catch a moving speck of light that drifts across the pallet of the night sky; and if you're lucky enough, it gets bigger and bigger as Earth's gravity coerces it closer. And if you're even luckier, this little xenomorphic lightning bug will catch on fire as it hits the atmosphere, and will plummet in fiery glory to the field behind your house. As you and your compatriots stumble through the grass to find what happened, you'll begin to detect bits of evidence that will start to reveal a story - you may find grass scorched at its tips, scraps of rock laying haphazardly around, or the beer can your buddy crushed and chucked into the field in the passion of reliving a tale.

And once you've gathered that evidence, your mind begins to formulate what might be at the end of this yellow brick road. You'll either discover an amazing explosion of flashing lights and beeping buzzers as the door of an alien space craft creaks open to reveal that aliens from another planet are actually the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and they brought you chicken wings; OR, it's going to be a piece of really boring, smoldering space rock that you could've created yourself by leaving a muffin in the microwave for 23 minutes.

A couple weeks ago I went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls Rollerderby; specifically, The School of Hard Knox. Much like your theoretical sky light, the evidence I found along the way slowly framed the picture of what was to come. By the end, you decide if I found a space rock, or an amazing extra-terrestrial leviathan of awesome glory.

I arrived at the Cincinnati Gardens promptly at 6:15 p.m., for the first bout to begin at 7 p.m.

Space Rock Evidence Item 1: I couldn't quite remember what the Cincinnati Gardens was used for. I feel like I had seen a hockey game there, but Mighty Ducks or Cyclones was beyond what I knew. There was a chance that I had seen a Silverbacks indoor soccer game in the area, but that memory died as fast as the team did. Maybe a circus, or a convention? At any rate, the setting gave me a feeling of dilapidated, multi-use generalization that you get from finding an old roll of duct tape you're not sure is still sticky anymore.

Once inside, I waved down a buddy of mine, Danny, who I knew from high school and was the valedictorian of our graduating class, now an engineer for G&E. Let me just make this clear - I can say with near OCD certainty that he was the only valedictorian within a two-mile radius. But a decent into an off-kilter sport as an academic is exciting as the descent into a foreign cavern by me.

Space Rock Evidence Item 2: Soon after I had connected with Danny, Tina Turner leapt from around a corner as she exploded from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and started skating towards us at breakneck speed. Two thoughts crossed my mind: First, dear god let her be looking at someone behind us. Second, if she is to make us fight in a giant steel sphere and then destroy us, please let it be over with quickly. But she came to a screeching halt in the style you did to spray your little sister with snow when skiing, and sweetly asked, "you guys want a program?" Taking them hesitantly, we reached out our hands, waiting to have them bitten off by the techno cyber-chick. "Have fun," she touted, and sped off to feed Mel Gibson to the lions.

Danny and I found the entrance to the arena, and stepped in through the tunnel. Sweetly enough for us, our contact (a Jammer for the Cincinnati Rollergirls) had secured us floor seats in the area known as the "suicide seats." Now, they're very adamant that they're no longer called this, but we all know what the are. The "suicide seats" are where the players land when they get a thorough butt-whooping from an opponent, and go flying into the audience. Yeah, we get to catch the defeated. We got second-row seats on steel, fold-up chairs, with 40 minutes until game time.

Space Rock Evidence Item #3: A big banner over the arena declared "$1 PBRs until 7:30." First, "$1 anything" at any location immediately helps set the environment. You've never been offered "$1 caviar," "$1 cappuccino" or "$1 monkeys." But this just wasn't your average $1 well drink or hotdog special: these were $1 PBRs. Sure, PBR is an experience all unto itself; but $1 PBR: you're talkin' culture, baby! Danny raised a questioning eye brow towards me, and I immediately nodded with an understanding gesture. Our hands were frosty and full of PBR goodness within minutes.

We were seated along one of the ends of the track, an elliptical slalom of destruction about the length of a basketball court. Single rows of chairs lined the long end to our left, where the athletes would sit and cheer for more blood, and along the other end was a flat wall, from behind the scorekeepers calculated away in safety. In the far corner from us were the announcers, of whom I couldn't understand a single thing the entire match because either A: They had been involved in $1 PBR for the past six hours; B: Their faces were full of nachos with cheese and pork rinds found outside; C: The microphones were technology from 1974; or D: all of the above.

Beyond these walls were regular arena-style seating up either side of the long stretches of track, and in the middle were the referees and more scorekeepers, ever slowly circling on their roller skates denoting the lead jammer and fouls. You have to have guts, or be insane, to stand in the middle of this womanly whirlwind for three hours. By game time, there were over 1,200 people seated in psychotic spectatorship.

Space Rock Evidence Item #4: The announcement for the national anthem came, which more or less sounded like "murgle mck burble niner STAND UP murgle blip scratch tickle." When the crowd rose, most shakily from the PBR extravaganza, I noticed a golden retriever just hanging out on the floor to my left. The owner, looming overhead, was clearing looking around at the crowd and pointing things out to his friend; thus, this was not a seeing eye dog. I can confidently say that I've never been to an indoor sporting event where pets were allowed to just "chill." Can you image at The Masters, as Tiger begins to come down from his backswing, you heard "woof!"? First case of canine proctology club removal, I guarantee it. Oh, and the dog was wearing an American Flag scarf - "America, f* yeah!"

As our singer crooned on in America's tribute to women beating the crap out of each other, a bat quickly darted in and out of the spotlight highlighting the voice of our country. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Roller Derby is played in the Bat Cave. Again, do you think sweepers in the Olympics have to brush away winged rats as they polish the ice for the rock? No.

So lets recap before we hit game time: $1 PBRs, Tina Turner, dogs, bats, and duct tape arena. Got it? Awesome. Game on.

The lights dimmed down and the crowd began to roar, all on their feet, as laser lights and your usual arena start-up music began to thunder the stadium (sadly, it was NOT Space Jam). Each athlete (or homicidal octo-wheeled maniac), would come from behind a curtain, skate at lap, and sit at her respective bench. Names like "Sadistic Sadie," "Polly Rocket," and "Shirley Temptya" were shouted over the speakers. We apparently were behind Sadie's mother, as she literally lost. her. mind. as Sadie was introduced. Perfectly normal-looking soccer mom - except with a hidden agenda of wheeled doom.

The game began, and Danny, myself, and my boss and his family (joined shortly before gametime) watched on in anticipation at something we have never seen before. Here's the basic premise from an EXTREMELY layman's point of view, and what my fuzzy memory can handle:

Two teams of girls (I think there's about six on each team) begin to skate around the loop. After a few seconds, two other girls, one from each team, begin to skate after the pack. These two psychotic murderers are known as the jammers (and this has NOTHING to do with delicious toasty toppings). To begin the round (which is relatively short), a jammer must pass all the girls of the opposing team. Once she does that, she can score one point each time she passes the entire group again. Her teammates, while blocking the opposing jammer from passing, can push and fling her forward to get through the blockers of the other team. There are a bunch of these little rounds in each session, and the jammer can call the session over at any time by smacking her hips (which oddly looks like the "su*& it" move). They can't outright punch, kick, or headbutt each other - but full on hits with dropping the shoulder - not only allowed, but awesome.

There is a Junior Varsity game and a Varsity game, both of which are equally exciting (unlike HS soccer, which was like watching Bumblebee ball, and then the World Cup). The girls skate around in this circle at breakneck speeds trying to maneuver between each other, wearing black helmets, sparkly tu-tus, rhinestone onesies, fishnets, biker gloves, and even war face paint. Mad Max meets WWE meets Roll Bounce. Yes.

I loved every minute. You pick your heroes early, and cheer your heart out for them. Whenever a Jammer makes it through the blockers, the arena goes nuts. Every time there's a big hit, the crowd goes wild, like a fight in hockey. I kid you not: by the end of the night, three girls were carried out on backboards. One, while being paraded out by paramedics, raised the devil horns. We call that "bad - ass."

I nearly forgot to mention! Between JV and Varsity, there was a halftime performance by Cincinnati Cool. It was Roll Bounce incarnate, skating in beat and time, jumping over each other, and just trying to look smooth on roller skates. Who knew roller skating could not only be hardcore, but hip too?

My favorite part of the entire night was this one, single, glorious, kiss my @$$ moment. The Cincinnati Roller Girls were ahead by at least 60 points, and there was NO hope of the opposing team ever coming back. Before the match had started, I had picked my player on the opposing team I wanted to watch: Goblin. A woman standing about 5"10, Goblin wore a green helmet and white facepaint with her eyes and mouth blacked out. She looked scary in the program, so I assumed her level of awesomeness as a Jammer was high.

She provided the performance of a sprinter: strong and scary in the beginning, but tired out quickly. By about 3/4 through the final match, she looked like a lazy little pre-teen aimlessly skating around Castle Skateland - as a JAMMER! Sadistic Sadie, our home town girl, whizzed by again and again like a moth around a light, racking up the points faster than Michael Jordan alone on half-court. But, the problem was, Goblin was a trash talker. Even when beaten, she had a big mouth that liked to fire, especially at Sadistic Sadie as she whizzed by Goblin each time.

On one of these advantageous passes, Goblin shouted out some insult to Ms. Sadie; inaudible to the crowd, but certainly stinging to the lead Jammer. As Sadistic Sadie passed Goblin, a gleam shot through her eye, which usually signifies for most of us brilliance, or pure evil. S.S. slowed her speed to a casual drift, and allowed Goblin to catch distance. As the fatigued skater closed the gap, Sadie smiled a self-satisfied grin, lowered a shoulder, and threw her entire body weight into Goblin as she attempted to skate by. Goblin's exhausted, yet war-painted body, flew a good six feet through the air before she painfully thudded to the arena floor. The crowd went wild; and as Sadie skated on in satisfied triumph, Goblin brought her hands to her hips in pathetic loss, signifying defeat.

The Cincinnati Roller Girls compete one Saturday each month. Tickets aren't expensive, and it is an athletic and cultural event to behold. Go. See. a. match. Wherever you are in the country: look up your local team and go see a match. It's 100% real, and 130% fun. It seriously worth it = you find a hero, get committed to the match, and will really miss something if you blink. The Bengals lose, the Reds are a toss up: the Cincinnati Rollergirls will entertain, whether they rollaway in victory, or are carried out on a stretcher.

Dogs

It has been over a month since I last blogged. What have I been doing? Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip.

After the musical was over, I spent most of my free time studying for the GRE in mid-January (which I've come to the conclusion stands for Grades Really in Excess). I believe this because every publication I've read, the GRE is simply taken to prove to Graduate Studies Programs that you're willing to suffer months of self-torture, loathing, and convincing yourself that you might fail, only to scrape by and survive with only some minor degree of lupus or hemorrhaging. If you can survive that sort of flagellation, then graduate recruiters want your squishy pink hide to come and slave away for their researching professors. Every publication professes that the GRE is just one small aspect of what recruiters look at, like how a pimp may factor in the height of his newest employee's heels as just one part of the whole enchilada. So the stress was all completely unnecessary, and now I have a new batch of numbers that apparently help project what sort of intelligence I may have gleaned from sixteen years of schooling. I think in 30 seconds of conversation you can tell more than a glance at some digits; unless the digits are 666, then you shouldn't be friends with that person. And you should run. Fast.

Probably the primary reason I haven't written much recently is that nothing extraordinary has happened to me in the last six weeks. I took the GRE, some best friends moved out of town, a really good friend landed a job in Pittsburgh and is leaving, some other best friends are considering ending their marriage, and I got some free sandals from Teva. Thanks Teva, my old black, velcro sandals from 1998 are apparently no longer hip. These however, are hip. (and if your picturing it right now, NO I never wore socks when I wore sandals - completely out of the question).

Plus, I'm a summer junkie. That's when all the best and most interesting stuff happens - concerts, amusement parks, camping, road trips - all the fun stuff you can do in the warmth. How many times can I write "I chiseled my car out of the snow again today," and it still be interesting? 0.

So, here is the only minor, semi, kinda, sorta, mildly interesting thing that has happened (and I apologize in advance, since it's more of a rant than a comedic rendition, as I was livid when it happened, and I get livid just about as often as Bob Marley got NOT high).

Allison was scheduled to take the GRE this past Monday, February 2. We have both been resolved that we want a future, but we have no idea when to begin it or what it should entail. However, we feel the GRE is a semi-essential part to making that future happen - like bringing a pocket knife camping (you don't know when you'll need it, but the time will come, and you know you'll go "DAMMIT, if ONLY I had a pocket knife" when that time comes and you left it at home). She studied extremely hard for the GRE and put in tons and tons of hours studying (which means I put in tons and tons of hours of reading, napping, and video-gaming). The night before the exam, we wanted to guarantee she got a full night's sleep, to be fresh and ready to kick some serious Get Reading for Excitement testing. We opted to stay at my place. Why?

Allison lives in a circus. To begin, her apartment is WAY hipper and trendier than mine, she simply has an eye for decoration and style that apparently got stabbed out of my forehead when I was a simple infant (please see childhood photo: age 3, with the extra hole in the noggin, and I'm wearing a navy blue t-shirt with black pants and brown shoes). Although she has created quite the comfortable oasis sanctuary, elements outside of her control have taken the great zen of the dwelling, slapped it around, put it in a package, and mailed it to Bali.

The apartment is steam heated, which means two things. #1: The apartment is a sweltering tropical abyss in which the effort required to drink from a straw causes sweat and fatigue. #2: The pipes BANG all. freaking. night. Beginning at 11 p.m., and running sporadically throughout the witching hours, the pipes thunder and clang enough to cause objects to shake and rattle throughout the apartment; and at 3 a.m. without warning, makes you suddenly feel like the Blitzkrieg skipped London, flew to Cincinnati, and just went hog wild on your pillow. We have earplugs, but its kind of like taking a sponge to the day of Katrina and saying "stop wave, I'll sponge you!"

Allison also owns a cat, Jasper. I have been allergic to cats since I was born; but for Allison, I'm doing everything within my sinusy power to make it work. I'm becoming a little more accustomed to the cute furball (yes, I admit he's cute), but I still sneeze and cough pretty regularly when I visit. He is a nocturnal rocket, so the minute you lay down to sleep, he immediately wants to play invisible Twister on your chest, dives off the bed to show Michael Phelps up (not that Jasper smokes pot), and leaps from window to window constantly to investigate the oncoming intruding zombies he imagines are out there. Cute? Yes. Tolerable? No.

To layer it on more, Allison's upstairs neighbors are raging, around the clock alcoholics. Besides the fact that they're simply awkward and uncomfortable people to encounter in the hallway (picture Joe Dirt, but not charming), they create more noise than Fran Dresher laughing for three hours straight. Joe drives when they go out on the town to get sauced, and while they're away attempting to drown themselves (please see article: Economic Strategy: Drinking the Recession Away?), their massive dog barks consistently and deeply for hours on end. It's loud, and it echoes off the buildings around us. Despite knocking on the door and leaving messages, the dog has been allowed to continue to make this noise. I'm beginning to believe he's actually been hired as a sort of of lighthouse to keep cars from crashing into the building.

The neighbors fly into the backyard at around midnight with their stereo, which is made of three pieces of aluminum foil, a spring, and two trash can lids, blaring. You know the kind - one of those stereos the driver thinks is pimped out, but actually just rattles the metal of the car and sounds like your angry grandma rattling at the screen door to be let back inside in the summer? They then proceed up to their apartment, where they engage in Capture the Flag, wrestling, hide and go seek, and American Gladiator's final challenge Olympic games with their dog. For about and hour.

So, when it came to GRE night, we were staying at my place.

As we laid down to bed around midnight on the silent, quiet, desolate winter street, we both breathed a synchronized sigh of relief to the peace and quiet that filled the room. And just as our eyelids lazily closed, and the sugar plums began to dance in our heads......

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

We both laid in silence, trying to pretend that it wasn't happening.

WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!

"dammit....." slipped like a noxious gas from between my lips.

We rolled over and looked out the window, and sure enough, the neighbor kitty-corner to me had left his dog outside (mind you, it's midnight on a sub-freezing winter evening) after the Superbowl. As the little black hound ran back in forth in the snow blanketing the fenced in yard of the person's hovel, he barked loud and consistently, probably something like, "help! I'm freaking cold! He's passed out drunk! Bacon!" But alas, his little barks that echoed off all of the brick buildings up and down my silent winter street were to no avail, and it just. kept. going.

This was a problem back in the fall, but just as I had called animal control back in September when the Animal Street I live on had reached it's maximum decibels of chorus, it got cold, and all the dog owners took their pets inside. But now, on the night we needed sleep the most, I had had enough. I hopped out of bed, put on my boots and disheveled "I'm really pissed and this is my disgruntled outfit" ensemble, considered arming myself (but didn't), and stomped outside.

I approached the guy's fence, and sir-wags-a-lot came up and announced his presence over and over again. I wanted to go to the guys' door and knock on it, but in case the dog's "I'm friendly, pet me" act was all just a ploy, and he was a flesh-hungry demon ready to devour me, I opted not to risk the front-yard endeavor. I considered throwing a snowball at his window; but we were below freezing, and the packed snow could be really hard, and the last thing I wanted was an angry neighbor coming at me with a shotgun because I smashed his window (but then at least the dog would have a way to jump back inside and be quiet). So, I did the most rational thing I could think of - I rattled the gate to the fence and shouted. Through his front door window, I could see the tv on and his head cocked back in the couch. Did he care? No. He had better things to do, like see just how far his butt could sink down in the cushion. Me? A priority? No.

After five minutes of rattling and shouting, I walked back across the frozen street as the dog behind me pleaded, "please, no, don't go, god I'm cold, he never lets me ride in the car!"

Back inside the warmth of my home, Allison and I debated our options. Both of our parents' houses were a good 30 minutes away, so it'd be 1 a.m. before we got to bed. Hotels in the area were just way too expensive, so a room for the night was out. I did the last thing I could think of - I called the police.

We anxiously sat by the window, our breaths fogging up the glass with each exhale, as we waited and watched for the cop to arrive and for swift, merciless justice to be dealt. Within five minutes, the cruiser pulled up (our hearts beat with victory) and then drove away. Really? That was it!? Then the cruiser came by from another street this time (ah hah, getting a better angle to drive into the guys' living room), but then he just pulled away. What the crap is he doing?! Then after fifteen minutes, the cop pulled up, parked, and got out of the car.

We thought the moment had come, that justice would be served and we would receive a night of dreamless, peaceful rest. He approached the fence, looked at the guys' front door, walked back and forth, rattled the fence door, shined his flashlight down the side of the house, AND THEN GOT BACK IN HIS CAR AND LEFT! Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I called the police back and explained what I had just witnessed, and ask how that resolved anything. "Officers can't enter a front yard where a dog is present," was her response. Woah woah woah woah woah. So let me get this straight. Cops can bust down doors where guys are makin' a meth lab and are armed with uzi's, assist in the salvation of residents in a burning building, and even perform routine traffic stops on a busy highway at rush hour in blinding snow, BUT YOU CAN'T ENTER A YARD IF A DOG THAT COMES UP TO YOUR KNEE IS PRESENT AND BARKING?! Holy mother of let-down. I asked, "so where do we go from here?" The dispatcher responded that the cop would check back again in the night, but couldn't enter the lawn until the dog was gone. THE WHOLE PROBLEM IS THAT THE DOG IS OUTSIDE. I gave up, and realized that yet again, red tape had ruined what seemed a simple solution.

Allison and I had a moment of very difficult frustration, which I will not go into detail here out of respect. But, things were not well in the household. We opted to drive back to her apartment, and sleep away the night with earplugs. As a final resort, we called some great friends of mine (at 1 a.m.) who live in the area, and asked if we could use their guestroom. They have the patience, kindness, and understanding of all the Buddhist monks in history put together. They graciously said "yes," and in all honesty, we had the best and quietest night's sleep we'd had in months. Allison took the GRE the next day, and did splendidly.

I wished the story stopped here, but on Wednesday night, when we hit sun-zero temperatures, the dog was left out again. I think the owner is testing to see how cold the dog can actually get, trying to prep him for the Iditerod. He barked all night, begging for salvation from the ice forming beneath his paws. In the morning, I called animal control, since the police refused to help. The man on the other end, upset by the injustice (yes, I was upset by the barking, but now leaving the little guy out in the sub zero is not cool, the only cool Sub Zero shot snowballs out of his hands), he promised to "pay that gentleman a visit" on Friday (today). We will see what happens.

I love animals, I always have. Growing up I had countless goldfish and Green Anole lizards, and four different dogs, who were all awesome in different ways (although I'm allergic to the little ones now). But when you're a dog owner, you have a responsibility to not only take care of your pet, but to respect your neighbors who are paying hard-earned money to live in that neighborhood. Giving your pet "fresh air" does not mean leaving it out all night in the frigid winter. There are tournaments, paintballing, road trips, and another show on the way - so I promise far more thrilling tales to come. But for now, please keep your dogs inside :).

Take a Bow

As a senior in high school, I was completely sure that I had an amazing future on the silver screen ahead of me. With a few local commercials under my belt and my name in bronze in my high school auditorium, a number of generous locals felt the same as well. But after two years of taking theater in college, I wanted out, and didn't want to look back. Theatre was not for me - at any given time, 1% of all actors on the planet HAVE work; and of those 1%, 1% are the ones you see on film and television. I do have a dream of someday being a devoted family man, and I can't buy braces or fund a college education on that, let alone even be home for family Scattergories night.

Beyond that, what I found in theatre was a culture of promiscuity, drugs, and drama that simply did not align with my morals and how I was raised. I felt the gravitational pull into the black hole of that aspect, but luckily hit the accelerator and launched myself away from that cosmic catastrophe. Don't get me wrong, I have MANY wonderfully delightful memories from my two years in theatre - but much like a rotten orange, you only need to peel away the bright surface to reveal that things have gone sour.

And on the final note, the type of acting we were taught was not "memorize your lines, move here, smile now, drink from the glass." I guess it's what you call method acting - where you actually BECOME your character. You spend literal days-worth of hours getting into the mind of your character - and where you may only have 30 lines to deliver, you investigate and imagine in your head an ENTIRE backstory to make your person real. You imagine what they eat for breakfast, are they a creature of habit, what was their favorite cartoon as a kid, what was their prom night like - all this stuff you imagine, to give your "fake" person a history, and make them real. Although this has given me a REALLY great ability to understand other people now, after I had become a nazi, mentally-disturbed doctor, soldier, abusive boyfriend, and countless others - I had spent enough time in dark-people's minds that I was done.

So after I transferred and changed majors, I only dabbled here and there. I played a wily old man in a murder mystery dinner theatre, and then played a small role in some artistic film student's piece about a bomb shelter. Mostly I sat in a corner wearing camouflage and cried under a swaying light. I generally imagined what it would be like if macaroni and cheese had never been invented - it brought the tears.

But after the trial of the marathon was over, and I survived the blistering hippie-heat of Burning Man, I for SOME reason, felt that I needed a new challenge. So, I decided to give theatre a try again. I kept it mostly secret that I was going to audition, but gained great support from those who I told.

Wouldn't you know it, I landed the first audition I went out for? Despite the audition being completely beyond what I had expected (I had to sing, and did not bring my own music - and I had to dance, and was wearing jeans and shoes NOT happy with dancing), I somehow landed a very nice part. It was a musical, and for the next three months I would rehearse in an abandoned car lot with a cast of characters of all ages and backgrounds.

My role did not actually have a lot of stage time, although a relatively important character. I actually spent more time on stage as "Mysterious Man #4" (as I came to call myself), than my primary role. You could distinguish the two by whether I wore my glasses or not. ;)

Most of the time at rehearsal, I either read or txtd on my phone with friends. Looking back, I can see this gave off an aura of disinterest and isolation; however, I was doing it simply to be able to concentrate and listen for my cues and director's notes, and to not talk and get in trouble for making noise. In addition, it kept me out of the drama forming backstage. For most of rehearsal, it was not there - however, come opening week of the show, lines had been drawn and gossip had begun to flood the backstage. Thankfully, I had remained in limbo in my digital hand-held, and thus my enemy list remained at zero.

There were a NUMBER of children in the show; and although I love kids, this made me really re-evaluate how much I like the little ones. Explosive balls of energy ages 8-16, the kids sprinted around backstage, fought, played video games with the sound on, left garbage all over the place, listened to ipods as they carried props on stage, and dropped, banged, crashed, and smashed more loud objects backstage during performances than Rodney Dangerfield at a cocktail party. It was a true test of patience.

I am not here to single any particular person out. I felt all the employees of the theatre (non-actors) were VERY professional, and very good at what they did. There were people in the cast who I truly enjoyed their company, and will stay in touch with after the show. There were people who, when I caught sight of, made a lump in my stomach. There were the familiarities I remember of college - loud, dramatic people who's lives are "all a mess", and are very gossipy and "sassy", if I may so. But there were a number of delightful people, who kept me laughing and smiling throughout the entire ordeal. Was the rush I felt from theatre six years ago gone? Yes, yes it was. I enjoyed putting on my final costume, and smiled inside when I was onstage and I knew someone in the audience. But the flash and excitement and energy of the old days are gone; and by the end, I felt as if I were just going through the motions.

It meant the world to me how many people came out to support me - my wonderful gf, my supportive father, awesome fellow employees, and best friends who road-tripped all the way from Indianapolis to see the show. They all mean everything to me. But as for the show, I simply missed my life. Working a 9-5 job five days a week, and then having four hours of stage work almost every night for three months took an exhaustive toll on me, and I missed out on so much quality time with my friends, family, and Allison. It made my mother so happy that I was acting again (she has always been my biggest fan), but was not able to come to the show due to family illnesses out east. So I will HAVE to act at least once more so she can see me on stage; but for now, I'm ready to get back to my people and to this city. There's much to be done - and it's not pretending on a stage.

I do not regret at all doing the show - I am truly glad to have given it a sample again and to see what acting outside of college was all about. I had many a great laugh and heartfelt moment, and a number of disappointing frustrations - and from them all, I can say that I've learned and grown that much more as a person. Patience for the young, patience for the old, the ability to avoid gossip and cruelty, and to show appreciation to those who reach out and make you smile - there are good things to be taken from the last three months.

I took a final bow yesterday, and it is time to be with those I love.

Please have a very very Merry Christmas! :)

Mix and Make

Every few decades, someone with a vision comes along, and takes that flurry of neurons spinning around in their noggin and turns it into something palpable. Something you can hold, see, taste, or sense. That decade my friends, is upon us.

One of my best friends from Illinois, Greg Zimmerman, has just released his first solo album. Having been the nucleaic catalyst for the Bahnann Brothers, his band later evolved into Certain Company, an ever-evolving band that's taking the Chicago bar scene tour.

Certain Company pulls its influences from a variety of sources, delving into 90's rock, sucking some long solos from 70's jam bands, and even taking a taste of ragtime and jass from the 20's and 30's. (Fun historical fact: "Jazz" was originally spelled "Jass", but when a Chicago promoter began putting signs up all over the city announcing brand new "Jass" players, youth would run around after him and scratch out the "J." Not wanting to taint the name of the cultural movement before it took off, he changed the spelling to "Jazz".) A heavy amount of original work inspired by love, sunsets, and 'shake' 'in it, Certain Company's music has really been taking audiences into long nights of singin' along, clappin', and dancin'.

In Folklore Troubadour, Zimmerman gets to experiment more with his own interests and talents. While brilliant, an artist's favorite pieces may not always be mainstream, and a solo project gives one the chance to play and challenge their own beliefs and convictions. Zimmerman's overarching themes seem to delve from dreams of a Utopian world, built on true love and striving for something better. Never satisfied and never settled, he begs for more passion, more fulfillment, and better days of back and looking forward.

Whether a folk ballad like the kick-off tune in "No Time to Lose", or a 90's catchy-tune rock like "Taught Me", his diverse talents reflect a youth and influence ranging from Sinatra to The Doors. An overdriven guitar, gentle plucking of an acoustic, mixing his own harmonic vocals, wicked drum breakdowns, and even lofty violin all originate from this artist's studio and create an album that will have you toe-tapping and already singing along by the second chorus.

Personal favorites of mine are "You Know What I Want", where Zimmerman lures his evening lover with bongos and sweet harmony; and "Spumento", a catchy 90's tune that has you bouncing your foot along to his guitar rhythm. "Dargento and the Legion of Death" simply has to bring a smile to your face, as every Lord of the Rings fan now has a rock ballad to go along with the film. "Backporch Blues" drips the essence of a slow jam from AC/DC, and you find B.B. King throwing his fingers onto the neck of Zimmerman's Stratocaster in the closing number of "Queen of Spades." Zimmerman loves the blues, and you can hear he's having a great time sharing it in the final piece.

It's a roller coaster of an album, but you can hear Zimmerman's smart smirk behind every lyric, and he's loving what he's doing. The music takes you down a positive road and through rolling tunnels of life crafted in the Midwest and aboard racing sailboats, and reminds you of your first love, your first political rally, or sipping some fresh-squeezed lemonade on a summer afternoon with friends. You finish imbibing this album and feel refreshed, energized, and right with the world. It's a musical high five.

So for a journey through music history and an enjoyable, toe-tapping, great back-porch-in-the-spring album, check out the music online: http://www.gregreedmusic.com/lyrics.

Rock on.

Waverly Hills Sanitorium

Halloween and Christmas are my favorite holidays, bar nun. Both holidays have the top activities, and provide the best decorations and movies, without argument. If you try and argue with me, you hate happiness, and probably sell puppies for drugs. Here's the breakdown:

Halloween

• Haunted Houses
• Scary movies
• Costumes
• Apple Orchards
• Pumpkin Patches
• Ghost Story Telling
• Candy
• Crazy decorations including crashed witches and spider webs
  

Christmas

• Skiing
• Snowboarding
• Ice-skating
• Festival of Lights
• Hot Chocolate
• Polar Express
• A Christmas Story
• Huge Sweaters and ridiculous socks
• Snowballs
• Giving presents
• Getting presents

Back in October, to help celebrate the fantastic month-long holiday of Halloween, Allison talked me and three of her best friends into visiting the Waverly Hills Sanatorium Haunted House in Louisville, KY. Thankfully, I'm with someone who's as obsessed with October as I am. We love haunted houses - I make sure to go to as many as I can every year, even if they're terrible. However, this was one of my first experiences into an actual haunted house.....

Brief history: in the 1920s, Waverly Hills Sanatorium was built to combat the tuberculosis outbreak in the United States, and was the most advanced hospital of its kind in the country at the time. Insert decades of thousands of people dying, mysterious employee deaths, and a creepy setting in the middle of the woods - and you've got yourself the perfect recipe for a haunted structure, having been closed in the 1970's for "malpractice." Yeah, goosebumps, I've got 'em too. If you want a more in-depth, gruesome history of the place, go here.

However, the fake haunted house is not the story here. I WILL say that I was extremely impressed with it though. They didn't focus on loud bangs and jumping out at you, but more on creating eerie, haunting images. My favorite of these involved us walking into a small cement room that only had one small spotlight cast in the corner. There was a hospital bed, and a large man sitting in a wheelchair next to it, staring over his hospital gown at his feet covered in blood and vomit. We had to walk right by him to get through the room; and although we anticipated him jumping at any second, he never even looked up. We passed through the room, and began to head down a long, pitch-black hallway - and then heard a rusted squeak behind us. Without us noticing, he had begun to follow us down the hallway in his wheel chair, staring at us up through his eyebrows, as if his neck were limp. He paused under a small, blue spotlight and just stared at us, then slowly rolled backwards and was sucked up by the darkness. Haunting.

At the end of the haunted house, we learned that you could actually take real, guided paranormal tours of the building in the off-season. Allison's eyes lit up like those of a 6-year-old in Toys R Us with $20, and wanted to find out when the tours were going on. So the next day I called into the Waverly Hills Office, and found out that only one tour remained available - the final tour at the end of November. Some secret coordination with two of Allison's best friends, a few flashlight purchases, a white lie here and there, and six weeks of secret-keeping later, and Allison's surprise ghost hunt was sprung on her.

Allison was under the impression that we were going to my father's retirement party; so when her "Friends"-like apartment-mate Andrew and her lifelong buddy Ashley knocked on her door at 5:45 p.m. and were ready to go last Friday, she was shocked. Hopping into my car (see previous blog about her car being incapacitated) with cameras and flashlights galore, we took off southward into the approaching darkness. Waverly was waiting.....

We parked in the shadow of the looming sanatorium, all lights out and every single window shattered to the ground. A traffic director (i.e. dude in a black hoodie and jeans) told us to wait by the one outside light of the building, which coincidentally illuminated a ferocious gargoyle that watched over the driveway. When nearly ten of us had assembled, the guide took us to a well-lit building off to the side of Waverly, flanked by a hearse.

Entering a door at the bottom of a set of concrete steps, I was shocked at what I saw: formal organization. Four rows of tables and chairs were lined up in a large room, all facing a large projector screen. Most of the seats were filled, totalling around 50 people in the room. A third of the space was taken up by Waverly merchandise - tote bags to hats - and about ten different Waverly employees, all in black, caroused around the cash register.

When everyone was seated and settled, they flipped off the lights, and began the movie. I thought to myself if I came all the way down here to watch a movie about a haunted place, SOMEONE is paying me back $40, or better jump out and scare me. But the movie was the perfect set-up. It began with an old black-and-white film actually FROM the time of the tuberculosis outbreak, which reviewed some of the prime facilities in the nation fighting the epidemic. Of course, Waverly Hills was the highlight, and the the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise as we watched real, live people walk through the rooms and halls we would soon be traversing. Well, ONCE alive.

The second video was from a '90's series called "Ghost Hunters", which I generally found eye-rolling and disappointing. It gave a general history of the building, and then followed ~six teenage girls as they attempted to spend a scream-fest night in night of self-inflicting terror in the building. Twenty minutes of watching make-upped, blonde Kentuckian teenagers scream and run around a dark building? Yep, bring on the Advil. The link doesn't seem to be working, but the website says you can watch the video here.

However the third video followed the newer TV show TAPS, a group of plumbers-turned-paranormal investigators as they spent a weekend investigating Waverly. Although the premise is ridiculous, this was a well-done piece that really highlighted some of the best parts of the building. My favorite clip from this episode is when they were doing a thermal scan of a hallway that is frequented by a young boy apparition, and you can CLEARLY see a pair of legs run across the hallway. No-joke. THAT got me excited to go into the building.

At the completion of the videos, we were split up into two groups, and each given a tour-guide, and our 90-minute paranormal investigation began. We. were. pumped.

The first stop was the "body chute"; which the website had claimed we were not allowed to enter, but our guide was being "the cool guide" and letting us go down. The skivvy: at the peak of tuberculosis at the facility, people were dying by the hour, and they felt that the constant flow of dead bodies past the patients would demoralize them (if having tuberculosis didn't suck enough). So they build a cement chute at the back of the building, which bodies could be discretely slid down inside to the bottom of the hill where the hearse was waiting - seemingly ~100 yards. However, sometimes there were just too many deaths and unclaimed bodies, so there is a mass-grave hidden somewhere nearby, which our guide would not reveal the location of. Bring on the eerie.

The chute was creepy, cold, and of course dark. I had no problem with walking down all the stairs (even on what I would find out later to be a sprained ankle), but was uncomfortable coming back up. Allison and I were the last to come out of the shoot, and I had the haunting feeling that we were being followed. We both refused to look back, and I snapped pictures over my head back down the tunnel as Allison shined her light behind us, as scary things stay away from light.

We then entered the building. I think what really made the tour worthwhile is we simply had a GREAT tour guide. He was patient in his story telling, believed his own stories, and had great set-ups. I can't tell you how many times he would shuffle us all into a pitch black room and say something like, "ok, now that you're all in here, let me tell you how many people died in this tiny room...."

Allison, Ashley, Andrew, and I (sorry, NOT an A-name) had created code-names for the night, as our paranormal investigator titles. Allison = The Lady in White, Me = Ecto 1, Ashley = Dr. Snakebite, and the last one escapes me. But our cutsiness ended quickly, as we had to remain silent for most of the trip, and our flashlights could only be turned on in the stairwells. Although cameras with flashes were permitted, we had to say "flash" every time before a picture, so everyone around us could close their eyes. Everyone hated me, I think......

The building was fantastically creepy, with Tim Burton painted all up and down the hallways. Abandoned hospital bedrooms, wind-whistling hallways with windows blown out, and never ending stairwells set a brilliant air of quiet haunting. We were taken down countless corridors and abandoned rooms, and told story after story of paranormal activities - from ghostly visions to playing catch with an unseen ghostly child. Stories of a homeless man and his dog found at the bottom of an elevator shaft in the abandoned sanatorium, and a hung nurse during its hey-day made the group grow quieter, and our friends grow closer. Two stories only really caught my unwavering (yup, that's a pun) attention.

1. Our guide was telling us stories of trespassing on the property, and how it used to be ~500 people a week would get inside, and now they have it down to around 20. He told us a story of one night they heard screams coming from inside Waverly, and knew that some trespassers had seen something that scared them, and were panicking. He and a couple of the staff went to the center of the building inside to hear where the screams were coming from, and located them on the (insert scariest floor in the building here). They went to the stairwell, and found three 16-17 year old boys pounding on the other side of an iron door. A small 1' x 1' window was slid open in the door, and the boys were screaming and crying, pleading to be let out. They kept yelling things like, "they won't let us out, they won't let us out!" Finally, the door fell open and the three boys fell to the floor in the stairwell, their pants covered in urine. One boy held a hatchet, which he had been hacking at the door with to break open. However, there are no locks on this door. Three late-teenage boys scared into urinating themselves, trapped behind an unlockable door, and trying to chop it down with a hatchet? They never said what they saw.

2. We then went through that door. I'll simply try and repeat the best I can what our guide said to us. "This is the most serious floor in the building. I know some of you have been wandering off and looking in other rooms, but not on this floor. On this floor, we stick together. If I catch you wandering off, your tour is over. This floor scares me. On this floor we have "Big Black." Big Black is one of the only physical apparitions in the building, and he is exactly what his name describes. One time I was giving this tour, and when I finished his story, Big Black hit me in the chest so hard that my breath was knocked out of me and I stumbled back (our guide was not a little guy). Another time, we heard a thud so loud that it sounded like a wall had fallen down on this floor. The tour group scanned the floor and found nothing. I came back the next day with the team, and we found no structural damage anywhere in the building. Anything that big and that strong that can shake a concrete floor, can hit hard. We stay together here."

Yeah, the crap was now officially scared out of me. Our group was divided into two, and we went down opposite ends of the hallways. Our new guides, who had been at the back of the group making sure we all got through the doorways, told us about "shadow people." Shadow people are the outlines of people that appear in darker parts of the building, and are most activated by a real body being nearby (I know, this KINDA sounds to me like just a "shadow" too, but I wanted to believe). So, with our group clustered around the end of the hallway, our guide asked for a volunteer to walk ~50 feet alone down the hallway with their arms out so we could watch the shadow people around them. Andrew, the other guy from our group, went first as he's "never been scared." He strolled down the hallway with a bit of a swagger, while some of the group members oo'ed and aw'ed at the shadow people running around him. I'm not going to lie, I saw diddly-nothing. So when they asked for a third volunteer, I thought to myself when am I ever coming back here, and I stepped forward.

I later found out Allison hated me for doing this, putting myself in apparitional danger. So as I strolled off down the hallway in the pitch black (and my sight's not that great in the dark), the guide said, "if you look out of you peripheral vision, you'll see some crazy things." Thanks guide, thanks. That's awesome. I followed her instruction, and just saw eerie abandoned hospital room after each other, until she forcefully said, "stop!" I had only made it about 1/2 of what the others had walked, and I could barely make out her mumbles and whispers to the group behind me. I was in complete darkness, and all I could hear was their whispers, and then Allison's gasp. "What!?" I exclaimed, and the guide responded by saying, "Um, you can come back now. Yup, just turn around and come back." I hauled it back to them, to where Allison gave me a big hug. A majority of the group looked at me wide eyed, and we were quickly escorted out of the hallway. "What happened?" I asked Allison. "When you got to the end of the hallway, a see-through-like mist, white, a little taller than you, appeared over your shoulder, then followed you back halfway," she replied. "Really?" I asked, "I didn't see a thing!" "Did you feel anything?" she asked, in seriousness. "Fear," I responded, in a half-mocking manner.

Did a ghost really follow me down the hallway of an abandoned sanatorium? I have no idea, and I have more doubts than the stock market has failures. But it was exciting, fun, and got my heart racing - exactly what I had been counting on. They offer group rates - 10 or more people, and you can stay the night in the building without any help from the paranormal team. When we found out this fact, Allison turned to me and said, "we are SO doing that for my birthday!" Never a dull moment my friends, never a dull moment.....