Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
I can't remember the last time I'd been to a State College Arts Festival, but my sister invited me and I went.
A lot of things have changed but a lot has stayed the same.
I got there Friday right around dinner time and we decided to head downtown and see what was going on.
First we ate dinner at a restaurant across the road from her new apartment. It was a pretty cool place and had terrific salads and a selection of interesting beers. I tried some Fancy Pants Blueberry Ale because I couldn't stop laughing at the name.
After we got ready, we headed downtown with her boyfriend. The artist booths were already shut down for the day, but we thought we'd see if any bands were still playing, maybe get a six-pack to take back to her place.
But first, we wanted to pack up a load of stuff to take back to the new apartment. My sister and her boyfriend got lucky; their leases for their old places overlap the lease for their new apartment. They get to move at a leisurely pace.
By the time we'd loaded up the car and headed downtown, the only band left for the evening was the Phyrst Phamly at the Festival Shell. They're a completely cheesy State College staple, and we wisely avoided them.
We kept running into people we knew and talking to them. Many we hadn't seen for ages. A small group of us congregated in front of a small bookstore downtown, Webster's, one of the many places that has sprung up in the years since I left Penn State. We were on Allen Street, across from a water device which was like a frame with buckets hanging up top. The buckets would fill slowly and then randomly tip on whoever happened to be walking across the platform below.
In the daytime, it's always being used by children in bathing suits. At nighttime, it's college students.
One of the guys we were talking to, Travis, was wearing a shirt for a science camp. It claimed he was part of the "STAPH." My sister asked him why they had chosen such a strange joke for their T-shirt.
"It's an inside joke for science people. It means you're not one of them," I said, knowing full well that my sister, a former biology major, got the joke.
As we stood there talking about such things as different ways to ride tandem bicycles incorrectly, I was in a great mood and being very silly, pantomiming how you could, for example, ride the bicycle on your stomach, using your hands to pedal.
This particular group consisted of intellectual teetotalers -- similar to the people I'd hung with in my undergrad days -- and would not be convinced that I could be so silly without having consumed quite a bit. I finally told them I'd only had three and a half hours of sleep the night before, and this satisfied them.
Those who know me well, however, know that it takes neither beer nor sleep deprivation to make me silly.
Somebody I'd known years ago came by. His name was Carey, and he always reminded me of Crispin Glover on speed. He used to work in the computer lab back when I had a mainframe account, and I always went to his lab to get pointers from him. These were the days before user friendly POP accounts, and he knew everything about how to negotiate the mainframe.
Carey didn't remember my name, which didn't surprise me. I'm amazed he can remember his own. He talked to us in his frenetic way about how he was doing some kind of research into different kinds of protein and how they can prolong your life. He promised to send us some results, and then he got on his bike and zipped away.
I'm not sure how long we stood in front of Webster's talking and watching a handful of frat boy types urging passing women to walk under the buckets of water, trying to get their own personal wet T-shirt contest going.
Eventually, some of us drifted off and the rest made our leisurely way to Leo's, a six-pack/sub shop open into the wee hours. It was, naturally, extremely busy. We stood outside for awhile joking around about how it was too bad we couldn't find a six-pack/sub shop open this late that wasn't crowded.
We bought a six of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat to have back at my sister's place. My sister, her boyfriend and I sat on her balcony, which has a great view of a nice little wooded area.
State College apartments compare to Philadelphia apartments in terms of price these days. This place is reasonably priced when you considered the location and all the perks. It even allows pets.
Even though the apartment was still obviously in process: boxes everywhere, bare walls, it was already starting to take on my sister's distinct style. She'd thrown some velvety cloth over the couches she'd bought for a steal from a coworker at her summer internship. She told me her plans for decorating the apartment with framed art prints and painting the wooden furniture dark blue.
We wanted to save our energy for the next day, so after one beer each, we called it a night. I fell asleep, once more, over the new Harry Potter book. I'm eventually going to get through it; I just hope it doesn't take as long for me to read it as it did for her to write it.
To be continued...
In tomorrow's installment, mimes on sticks and the piñata and porn party.
Other Arts Fest entries:
July 15, 2003 - Mimes, Dancers, Piñatas
Moral:
If you need alcohol to get silly, you're destined for a boring life.
Copyright
2003 by Alyce Wilson
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