pittsburgh pirates? try giants

Yesterday’s entry was never written due to a lengthy day of Scrabble playing and play watching and pot roast eating. Sorry.

Eric’s mom called yesterday morning around eleven our time. She’s in Poland right now, on Sabbatical. There’s something about talking to someone in another country that makes you feel like you have to yell on the phone, because that’s what you do in the movies and it’s terribly romantic to say, “WHAT? NO! YEAH, I LOVE YOU, TOO!”

But this connection to Poland was incredibly clear. I know, I answered the phone and handed it to Eric.

But for some reason, Eric was still yelling like it was 1958.

I guess he was excited, which I can understand… but if I’m in bed next to you trying to sleep, perhaps moving into another room would be polite. I know he’s gotten miffed at me when I do the same thing, so I find it ironic that when placed in a similar situation he stays in the bed.

It’s not even the same situation, the time he got upset with me for yelling in his ear on the phone while he was trying to sleep… I got a surprise call from my mom, but I was feeling ill, so I was telling her that I’d call her when I woke up, but there were a couple things that we had to discuss before we hung up. Not like we were catching up across continents or anything. This is different.

Really.

Anyway, the whole point of me going into this was Eric hung up the phone and said that his mom is doing really well, which is great, because that’s a big scary place and I want her to have fun. Eric rolls over with that dimply grin and says, “She says her roommate at the dorm makes you look tall.”

Eric’s mother seems to think I’m short.

I think that there’s something wrong with the genetic structure of Pittsburgh, or they at least have some sort of height requirement to reproduce.

I go to meet Eric’s family for the first time last Thanksgiving. I meet his brother (six foot four?–Kevin, is that right?), his dad (I don’t know… six…three?) and his mother, (right at six feet, I’m guessing)… and I’m five feet, two and a half inches tall.
Oh, and Eric is six foot two as well.

So, we all go out to eat and I’m trying to impress them with my lovely charm and effortless wit, and we all have a couple beers and we get back in the car and Eric’s mom whispers–

Do you guys know what a stage whisper is? Like that. Really loud, and we’re supposed to think it’s only intended for the ear that it’s closest to. That’s what she did. Anyway she says–

“I DIDN’T THINK SHE’D BE SO SHORT.”

Eric: “Alright, mom.”

“NO, I MEAN, SHE’S REALLY SHORT.”

And my hobbit-like ass is sitting on the other side of Eric, having to pretend that I didn’t hear that, because I don’t know her well enough yet to ask why she spawned a family of giants or something like that and I just want to get out of the car and let them stretch me on the rock so I’m more like one of them.

But what happens is I go out to meet Eric’s friends. Tall. Tall. Tall. Sitting down. Tall.

Sitting down guy was tall, tall, tall.

So I’m squatty next to everything and everyone in Pittsburgh.

And I learned to deal with it… I found a girl at a bar the last time I went to visit, and we discussed the freakish size of the people in the town, and how you have to jump up to sit in the bar stools and everything… but anyway, I’m dealing with it.

But Eric’s mom is obsessed with it. Somewhere, in another continent, in broken Polish, she’s telling someone how unbelievably short her son’s girlfriend is.

There’s no doubt in my mind.

Eric’s play went really well. It’s good. If you live in Austin (I think that’s like one reader or something), please go see it.

Something weird must be going on this weekend, because as far as I can tell from my usual haunts, the only one who made a new entry yesterday was The Mighty Kymm, and she was sick off her ass. Kind of an unwritten, unspoken journal holiday.

I know I was busy eating chinese food and watching the Longhorns slaughter O.U.

(on the drive home from eating last night. “Chantilly Lace” is playing on the radio.)

PAMIE
Do you think I have Chantilly-Lace-like qualities?

ERIC
And those are?

PAMIE
Uh… let’s see. A pretty face.

ERIC
Check.

PAMIE
And a ponytail… well, sometimes.

ERIC
Hanging down. Sometimes.

PAMIE
A wiggle in my walk and a giggle in my talk. That’s it.

ERIC
I guess then you have Chantilly-Lace-like qualities.

PAMIE
Well, is that what you like in a woman?

INSIDE ERIC’S HEAD
I don’t fucking believe this.

ERIC
I never really thought about it.

PAMIE
Or do you like more the girl that the guy can’t find in “Has Anybody Seen My Gal?” Because that’s more like me.

ERIC
What?

PAMIE AND MOM
“Five foot two, eyes of blue–”

PAMIE
“Doo-do-do-de-do-de-do”

ERIC
Those are the words?

PAMIE
More or less–“HAS ANYBODY SEEN MY GAAAAL?”

ERIC
Well, I guess that I like that girl, if that girl is you.

PAMIE
Except I’m not missing.

ERIC
Exactly.

PAMIE
And she’s technically a ‘gal’ where Chantilly was a ‘Baby.’

ERIC
Okay.

PAMIE
But I still have a giggle in my talk, right?

ERIC
I’d say yes.

PAMIE
Cool.

INSIDE ERIC’S HEAD
Jesus.