Misplaced Nostalgia Part I

I’ve been out of college since May, and have been working a full time office job every since. Now I find myself facing the first trip back to a place I’ve utterly despised as recently as January 2006.

Pittsburgh oh how I used to loathe you, wrinkle my nose at the very smell of you, and secretly plot to destroy your pathetic excuse for a bus system. No, I was never really fond of your multiple gun shots two blocks from campus, or your overweight black women sporting pink spandex. Neither did I care for the ultra-inflated cost of basic necessities such as food and condoms within a ten mile radius of Pitt campus. Never in my wildest, psychotic dreams did I ever see seventy five cents purchasing ONE package of ramen noodles. The fact that your corrupt political leaders thought a good way to curtail your impending bankruptcy was to raise Parking Authority lot rates AND increase the quota for parking tickets. Also, the fact that the lumberjack and T-Boz looks are still fashionable with your locals continues to baffle me. Let’s not forget those trifecta of stupid (drunk, ignorant, violent) football fans that also inexplicably pop up in every single U.S. city I’ve ever been to.

Now, however, I sense I am starting to miss your unpretentious, veiled charms. The fact that I could get anywhere from campus to downtown to Squirrel Hill in twenty minutes. The confused and dejected looks on your tourists faces after stepping off a Just Ducky Tour vehicle. The honest way the old people on the Port Authority bus would call me a “little asshole” for invading your pristine and financially independent borders. And of course $1 Yuengling Fridays at Hemingway’s, your bar by a scholarly drunk for scholarly drunks.

Most of all, I miss the Pitt atmosphere of intellectual slacking. I never truly appreciated my years in college until I got my piece of paper and token ball-point pen. It was a magically detached atmosphere where wearing pajamas in public at 2pm would turn no heads, and drinking 3-5 days per week still fell under the “social drinker” category. Yes, it was quite the carefree time, where ‘finding yourself’ was more important than rent money, and underwear was optional.

If I survive the trip, I’ll do follow-up blog about how old I feel and my quarter-life crisis. Stay tuned.