Pittsburbia

It was one of those winding-down weekends of summer when you realize you haven't done half the things you said you would, but instead of rushing to cram it all in, you catch fireflies in the night and forget that someday you'll have to grow up. He was trapped in the suburbs, and we decided to rescue him, or maybe he rescued us from South Oakland as we pulled away from the T-station in his bright red Jag. Suburban dinner at a decidedly typical Italian joint. Throwing lettuce at her. Bitching about nothing in particular, as he relates his days of watching Lifetime TV and smoking cigarettes with his mom, confirming what we perhaps already knew: that he had become a middle-aged woman. Flash-forward fast track back to the 90's. Backstreet Boys with booming bass blasting, windows down, and we're all singing a song whose words we don't even know. Home to the fireflies and family photos. Suburban backyard, knowing that these are the stories you will have from college, and these are the friends you will never forget. Knowing that no matter what else is going on in your life, now is all that matters and it is perfect. All fronts are down and everything comes out, and that's the way it should be with friends like these. And you drive across the river, and the song comes on, and it's loud. It's the perfect one, and no one talks because everyone knows that something this perfect can never happen again. And I looked into the sky at night and at my friends around me in that car, and I thought that I'd never been happier, and I knew I was home. And around the corner a hometown ice cream shop with portions bigger than you can handle, standing under a bridge as the last rays of the sun fall away, and the conversation continues, and you think that nothing has ever been more right than this. Back to the car to a party with old friends and friends you've never met, and you are always welcoming, and you know that so everything is okay.
Never lose it. This is happy.