You'll Have to Excuse Me, I'm New Here...

Hello, reader(s)!  If you’ve been here before, then you’ll notice some changes.  For example…I updated.  But, in more superficial, but no less exciting, news, I changed the background and my profile picture, which should indicate the following things:

-The party really doesn’t start until I walk in.

-I finally learned how to work the template on blogspot.

-I am a sophisticated intellectual now.  Please note the glasses and scarf.

-I learned how to tie a scarf. 

That’s right, newness is everywhere.  In fact, a mere month ago, I moved to Pittsburgh.  Now, I’m from a small, rural town. Like, there’s literally a place you drive past where you have to exercise caution to avoid the grazing goats.  We don’t have a sign up yet; we’re waiting for the appropriate graphics to become available.  The point is, Pittsburgh has been a bit of an adjustment.  But, as I assure my potential employers in every job interview, I’m a quick learner. 

A few weeks ago, I had decided my next entry would cover everything I have learned so far in the city.  Lesson One: Fairly quickly I discovered the secret to crossing the street is not actually to wait for the “walk” sign, but to find people in business suits with briefcases and jet across with them.  They don’t wait for cars, but cars wait for them because they have briefcases.  They look important.  They look like they can afford good lawyers.  In comparison to them, you probably look like you would not be able to afford the change to call an ambulance to scrape you off a bumper, so just follow the gainfully employed to the sidewalk.  And the other thing I learned so far is…

I lied in all of those job interviews. 

There are still a lot of mysteries staring judgmentally at me, waiting to be solved.  I tried to wait to write this until I learned how to do more than cross the street, but, let’s face it,  it’s 2012 and Glee was renewed for a fourth season: all signs point to an imminent apocalypse.  I might as well update.  So, here are some things I really want to know, but haven’t figured out about the city yet.

Where is everyone driving to that’s making them so angry?

Seriously, there are some incensed drivers here.  Like, the light will be red, and people are honking their horns for you to get moving.  Sir, the laws of the road demand that I stay stagnant.  And, really, it doesn’t even seem to matter if traffic is running smoothly, people just sporadically honk their horns or yell profanities out their window, as though negative energy is the new natural fuel.  So I want to know where these angry people are going, that way I can go somewhere else.

Why would people think I’d give them money to buy tickets to a Steelers’ game?

I passed about five people today with “Need Steelers’ Tickets” signs and empty cups for money, and…OK, I appreciate their honesty, I guess.  I mean, if they would be looking desolate and have a “Need Money for Food” sign, I’d toss some change in there, so props to them for not going for the obvious deception.  But, really…do people, like, give money to fund someone’s football addiction?  I’m not even offended, just baffled.

If I live here long enough, will I develop a sort of Spidey Sense?

My roommate and I walked to the neighborhood next to ours the other day to get some pizza, and we passed two people yelling racial slurs at each other from opposite ends of the street (one man apparently thought that his shirtlessness would add some weight to his argument, so he peeled off his t-shirt), and two arrests.  Now, had my roommate given the slightest hint that he was uncomfortable and we should turn back, I would have jumped all over that opportunity like Lindsay Lohan should jump on any guest-staring opportunities offered to her, but I did not want to be the person to suggest we go back.  I know, pride will be such a nice companion for me in the police station identifying Mugger #2.  But I don’t even get it, because that neighborhood is a hop, skip, and a jump away from ours, so how do you even know where a safe piece of pizza can be had?  And will I ever be able to tell just by, like, tilting my head in the wind and sniffing out danger?  Because I’d like the opportunity to pull a street-wise, “It’s quiet.  Too quiet.  Let’s go to that well-lit Primanti’s instead.”

Do people expect me to say “Stillers” instead of “Steelers”?

Because I won’t.

Am I convincingly faking a sense of direction?

Pittsburgh geography escapes me, yet I still insist on asking people where they live like I’ll actually have any conception of what they’re telling me.  But I do the fake smile of enlightenment, and, “Oh.  I see” so they don’t feel the need to offer more directions I won’t understand.  Though, I suspect we both know what’s going on.

Now, I’m not despairing or anything.  I know if there are 1,000 things I have yet to learn, and I learn a new thing every three days, math will happen and one day I’ll know more than I do now.  For now, though, I am content to simply glance out of my window at all of the cars on the street below and be thankful I’m not driving.

Happy reading.

(Also, my sister, who has been a good sport about having several cameos in my blog, started her own blog for a social work class.  Check it out--it's funny and informative.)