Postcard from… Vail, Colorado

If you want to be humbled by your relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things, while at the same time being inspired by mankind’s ability to bend nature to our will, have I got the place for you: Vail, Colorado, where my family and I just returned from a week of outdoor fun.

Vail is one of the world’s toniest ski resorts, of course, but I have only gone skiing once in my life, as a young boy on a class trip, and nearly died on my second attempt, as a grown up, so I have no interest in venturing there in the winter.  No skiing for me, thanks. 

But I do enjoy whitewater rafting and the occasional hike, good food and great weather, and absolutely killer scenery.  Vail in the summer offers all of the above in great quantities and a whole lot more. 

Let’s spend a moment on the scenery, which Mother Nature has been working on for, oh, about 500 million years.   Mountains, canyons, rivers — stunning.  How does all this happen?  Slowly, I suppose, and you quickly realize that living to 100 is a major milestone for a human, but not so much for the planet. 

But, oh, the things we humans can do!  There are power lines that go straight up and over those mountains and train tracks that follow the contours of the rivers — massive feats that are a testament to wild imagination, brilliant engineering, and sheer willpower.  I kept envisioning some guy in the 1900′s standing in a massive canyon, wiping his brow, and saying, “You know what would be great right here?  A four-lane highway!  Now, get me the donkeys and some dynamite!”

Here are a few of the things we did…

We did, indeed, go whitewater rafting — twice, in fact.  The first time, we splashed through Class 1 and 2 rapids, then we took it up a notch and did some high Class 3′s.  The water is frigid, even in mid-August, but a great time was had by all, including my five-year-old, who scampered into an inner tube for a portion of the rapids and, at one point, disappeared from my view as he plunged into a rapid and our raft shot up pretty much over the top of him.  Father of the year!  All forward!

We went to a free open-air concert at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.  Playing that night was Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band, which I insist you say out loud, immediately, just for the hell of it.  They were awesome, though I suspect some of their awesome-ness had to do with the fact that tree-lined mountains were visible in the background and the concession stand stand sold bottles of wine in buckets of ice.  Nice.

We visited Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, and enjoyed a very cool cave tour, as well as some crazy thrill rides, including the Giant Canyon Swing.  “Feel the excitement of the wind in your face,” the brochure reads, “and the thrill of floating with zero-Gs.”  I assumed that I would need to remove my baseball cap before strapping in, but knew I was in for it when the ride operator suggested I also remove my shoes, since they were slip-on Merrills.  It’s kind of hard to describe, but at the high point swinging up backwards, you are basically looking straight down 1,300 feet into a gorge leading to the Colorado River.  At the high point swing ing upwards, I was treated to a lovely view of the horizon upside down.  I screamed pretty much the whole time and, I’m ashamed to admit, a lot more than my ten-year-old daughter, who wanted to do it again the moment the ride ended.  I love you, my dear.  But not that much.

We attended the Beaver Creek Rodeo, a low-end affair to be honest, which featured barrel racing, steer roping, bull riding (the bull owner was awarded the championship buckle at the end of the night, since no rider stayed on any of his animals for the requisite eight seconds), and, best of all, mutton busting.  This latter event involved putting helmets on small children, plopping them down on top of big-ass sheep, and seeing which kid could hold on for dear life the longest.  Most kids hit the dirt instantly and hard, but this one little guy stayed on top of the sheep for just about the entire length of the arena.  When he finally fell off, he landed in a big pile of horse shit.  Classic!

All in all, a wonderful week out West.

The Time I Lost My Child, But Not Forever

My mom likes to tell the story about the time when she and I were in the local drugstore in Queens, NY, where we lived when I was a young boy.  She purchased her items, walked a few blocks home, and greeted my father.

“Where’s Tom?” he said.

Ah, yes!  My mother had left me in the drugstore, all by myself.  I was five years old.

She sprinted back to the store and there I was in the toy aisle, oblivious to the fact that I had been abandoned, albeit accidently and temporarily.

Many year’s later, I had a similar experience…

My daughter was the world’s worst sleeper.  For the first few years of her life, it was nearly impossible to get her to go to sleep and truly impossible to keep her asleep.  When she would wake up, it was as though someone were torturing her.  She would cry and scream and thrash about.  It was terrible.  (And, we later learned, due to severe acid reflux.)

One evening, my now-ex-wife went out to dinner with some of her girlfriends.   Sad as it is to admit, I was terrified.  Terrified to be alone with my own baby daughter.  How on Earth would I get her to go to sleep?  And what would I do once she woke up and freaked out?

I decided to take her for a looooong walk in her stroller around bedtime.  Lots of little bumps on the sidewalks along the way to gently jangle her off to sleep.   Sure enough, she went down and I felt like a champion. 

I walked her back to our house, which was set up on a small hill.  It was dark by then and I had forgotten to put on the porch light.  As I fumbled for the keys, desperate to maintain absolute silence, I clicked the little foot brake on the stroller into the “lock” position — or so I thought.  I unlocked the main door to my house and set the screen door latch thingy so that it would stay open while I brought my daughter into the house.  I turned around to grab her — and the stroller was gone.  Gone, baby, gone.

I remember looking up at the night sky.  Had a spaceship perhaps captured my daughter and her stroller in its tractor beam?  Nope, the sky was clear.  No close encounter here.

I squinted into the darkness.  And there she was, in my neighbor’s yard.

I had not set the foot brake properly.  The stroller had silently rolled down the hill in my front yard, across the street, and into my neighbor’s front yard.  All in all, it had probably rolled 100 feet away from me.  And my daughter was still asleep. 

When I think about this little incident, I think, “Wow, there are so many ways to lose the parenting game, it’s just terrifiying.” 

I also think, “Man, there may not be space aliens, but there is a God and He sometimes smiles down upon us, even when we don’t set the foot brake right.”

The Worst Experience of My Life That Wasn’t Actually All That Bad

My fiance lives in a beautiful new house in a beautiful new development in beautiful Avon, CT, but, man, around this time of year, her yard is infested with little sand fleas that freak me out BIG time.  It all tracks back  to the worst experience of my life that wasn’t actually all that bad.

Let me clarify…

There are bad experiences in life and then there are BAD experiences.  Like your daughter having open heart surgery, like mine did when she was 13 months old.  Like getting ovarian cancer in your mid-30′s, like my sister did.  Like having your father die two days before your wedding, like my ex-wife’s father did.  This is not a post about any of that.

But those damn sand fleas reminded me of a lower-case-”b”-bad experience that I had about a dozen years ago in Costa Rica.  I was on vacation with my ex-wife and we were having an absolutely wonderful time.  If you’ve never been to Costa Rica, go at once — despite what you’re about to read.  It really is a beautiful country and well worth the trip.

One day, though, we signed up for a kayak tour of a mangrove swamp.  The idea was to see nature “up close and personal” in a kayak.  There would be birds, fish, maybe even a crocodile.  We met up with our group and drove in a van to the middle of nowhere – which is not hard to do in Costa Rica.  We each had our own kayak and we plopped into the water to start our adventure.

As we entered the mangrove, I found myself swatting at a bee or two that circled around my head.  No problem, right?  We’re getting in touch with nature, man, that’s the deal!  Hey, is that a fucking CROCODILE I see over there?  (It wasn’t.)

Alas, one or two bees quickly turned into many, many bees, none of which stung me, but ALL of which seemed to find me — and only me — quite irresistable.  I paddled over to our guide, who I’m sure thought I was having an epileptic seizure, since I was swatting so violently and repeatedly at the air around my head.

“What is this?” I pleaded with him.  “These bees are driving me insane.”

“They like you,” he said, smiling.  “Try wiping off your sunblock.”

I did, but it didn’t seem to make any difference.  At one point, I could see my shadow reflected in the water of the swamp.  “How did Linc from the ‘Mod Squad’ get into my kayak?” I thought for a moment, until I realized to my horror that I actually had an afro of bees on my head.  I considered simply jumping into the water, except that it was about two feet deep (and there were those crocodiles to take into account, of course). 

I pulled my t-shirt over my head as best I could and soldiered on.  At one point, our guide spotted a Caracara Hawk and everybody came to a stop to admire it.  I was oblivious.  We could have spotted Bigfoot and I wouldn’t have cared — unless he would’ve scared away the bees.

About two hours later, our journey through the mangrove swamp was complete.  We got out of our kayaks and, about 12 seconds later, the bees were with me no more.  Some of our fellow kayakers came over to me to express their sympathies — and their amazement at the number of bees my head seemed to attract.

“How bad was it?” I asked my ex-wife.

“Bad,” she said.  “It was bad.”

I’m just too dang sweet, I suppose.  No, that can’t possibly be it…

Postcard from… Mystic, CT

Many years ago, when I was living and working in New York City, I found myself at a design firm, waiting for changes to be made to the annual report I was in charge of producing.  I was restless (patience never being my virtue), so the head of the firm said to me, “When’s the last time you went to the Empire State Building?” 

Julia Roberts was NOT in the house!

 

I stared at him for a moment.  I was a New Yorker – the real deal, not a tourist. 

“I haven’t been since I was a kid,” I said.

“Well, let’s go!” he said and we did and it was fabulous.

I was reminded of my trip to the Empire State Building this weekend when I visited Mystic, CT, for the first time — this, despite living in CT from the time I was seven to the time I graduated from college.  I always knew Mystic was there, I’d always heard good things about it.  But I never actually made it there.  Now I have and I’m very glad I did.  It’s lovely.

I was traveling with my girlfriend, her two kids, and my two kids — my life, fully loaded.  We arrived around dinner time on Saturday and headed to the legendary Mystic Pizza, where the slices really do taste like heaven and the walls are lined with memorabilia from the 1988 coming-of-age movie of the same name.

On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast at the Equinox Diner, where the Silver Dollar Pancakes were the size of regular-sized pancakes.  From there, we visited the historic Mystic Seaport, exploring the Amistad, a famous slave ship, and taking a boat tour along the beautiful Mystic River. In the afternoon, we went to the Mystic Aquarium, home of some fabulous beluga whales and many other wonderful creatures of the sea, including some absolutely gorgeous jellyfish.  For dinner, we went to the S&P Oyster Co., which offered both great food and great views.

On Monday morning, the Fourth of July, we rented kayaks from River Dog Kayaks to see the Mystic River up close and personal.  I had my kids with me in a triple; my girlfriend was with her son in a double; and her daughter was in a single.  It doesn’t get much better than this for me in my life — doing cool things with the people I love the most.  We kayaked under the massive drawbridge in the center of town and then watched it go up and down from about 50 feet away.  Sweet!We had lunch at the Sea View Snack Bar, where the views were, to be honest, better than the food, but, hey, it’s a snack bar, baby, all is forgiven.

All in all, a great weekend in a great town.  Mystic, it may have taken me 43 years (and rising) to make my first visit, but it won’t take that long for me to return.

Miami Vice

There’s a great scene in “Monsters, Inc” when the two main characters, Mike and Sully, are banished to a frozen tundra in the Himalayas and meet up with the Abominable Snowman.  The not-too-bright Snowman tries to give them some helpful advice for getting by in their harsh new environment. 

“Always,” he says, before pausing for a moment and beginning again.  “NEVER eat the yellow snow.”

To all of you with children, I say this:

Always… no… NEVER bring your kids to South Beach, Florida.

I spent a weekend there recently with my two college buddies and we had an absolutely wonderful time.  But it is one of the more – oh, how shall I put it – colorful places you’ll ever visit.

We stayed at the Beacon Hotel, one of the lovely Art Deco properties that line Ocean Drive, SoBe’s main strip.  All of the hotels have restaurants that line the sidewalks, tables on either side.  What you end up with is a kind of gauntlet that is being constantly run – and, at times, overrun – by a parade of people that truly reflect the diversity of life in this wonderful country of  ours.  Shirtless muscle boys on the prowl.  Bikini-clad girls covered with tattoos.  And, yes, even the occasional family – moms and dads pushing their children in strollers, wondering why the hell they didn’t trust their instincts and go to Disney.

At one point, a couple pushed a two-year-old boy past me.  His eyes were bugged out wide open and his mouth was frozen in a little “o” shape.  Poor little fellow.

Ah, did I mention that it also happened to be the weekend of the Gay Pride parade?  We were slightly hungover on Saturday morning, having breakfast out in front of our hotel when I noticed that Ocean Drive was closed to traffic.  A few blocks away, we could see a parade of some sort gathering steam.  Was it Veteran’s Day, perhaps?  Memorial Day, maybe?  No and no.  Was it totally over the top and awesome in its own way?  Yes and yes. 

A quick aside… It always amuses me that I absolutely did NOT realize the Village People were gay when I was a kid and they first hit the big time.  Now, I listen to their songs and it’s like, “Oh, right…”

So here’s a quick rundown on some of the fun spots we visited…

Mango’s — Sodom and Gomorrah wasn’t destroyed, friends, it was simply relocated to Florida.  Mango’s is a club that specializes in Latin music and dancing.  At regular intervals, staff members jump up on stage, take off the vast majority of their clothing, and dance their asses off in highly choregraphed numbers.  Once finished, they instantly return to their jobs — tending bar, waiting tables, etc.   

Osteria del Teatro — We ate dinner here one night and it was outstanding.  The restaurant has been in operation for about 25 years and our waiter had been there the entire time.  He told us that, back in the day, he used to park his car right outside the restaurant for fear that it would be stolen.  Things have changed a bit since then.

Club Deuce — Voted one of the best dive bars in the country by Esquire magazine and for good reason, Club Deuce is stripped down to the bare essentials of a good bar.  A pool table, a juke box, lots of cigarette smoke, and a few alcoholic patrons slumped at the bar amid the tourists, like us.

The Clevelander — Now THIS is South Beach.  Loud music, beautiful waitresses, disco lights.   I think we raised the average age by about ten years as soon as we walked in.  Screw shuffleboard, when I retire to Florida, I would like to hang out here.

Cafe Nuvo — We wandered down Espanola Way one night and ended up having a fine dinner here.  My buddy downloaded a Mojito drink ticket, which enabled me to have two for the price of one.  Steady, man. 

The Deck at the Betsy Hotel — It doesn’t matter if you are terminally un-cool like me.  Head up to the rooftop bar of this ultra-hip hotel and you will feel like Don Johnson before he started dating Barbara Streisand.  To the East, you get a gorgeous view of the ocean.  To the West, you can see the city lights twinkling.   My buddies and I raised our glasses.  “We did it,” we said, toasting more than just a fun weekend, drinking to each other, our 25-year friendship, and life in general because life is good and often great, especially when you’re in South Beach.

Desert Island Discs… Weeping Tile, “Cold Snap”

Most people never forget their first date with their spouse because… well, because it was their first date with their spouse.  I’ll never forget my first date with my (now former) spouse because that’s the night I first heard Weeping Tile, the band responsible for one of my all-time-favorite discs, “Cold Snap.”

We were at a club in New York City with a mutual friend to see another long-ago-forgotten band.  Weeping Tile was the opening act and I absolutely loved them.  Their CD was on sale at the back of the room, I snapped up a copy, and I’ve been listening to it ever since.  That was more than 15 years ago.

“Cold Snap” is alternative rock at its finest.  All the songs are good; several are great.  The lyrics are often indecipherable.  Here’s the first line from the album’s first song, “Poked”:

“I poked my eye with my finger/Lying on the bed.”

Now I’m sneezing and I’m blowing/And I can’t clear my head.”

Things don’t get much clearer on “UFO Rosie,” which features the chorus:

“They saw a UFO in the valley/There’s an alien in the street.

We slept in the trailer/In January’s heat.

A neighbor named Rosie/Pockets full supposedly.”

I’m pretty sure that I understand the meaning of “Pushover,” a song about always giving your lover her way, even though you know you shouldn’t.  “Westray” is about a coal mining disaster that seems to have been caused by management neglect, as in these lyrics that open the song:

“As a natural disaster/Comes out wasn’t natural after all.

“In a small town on the east coast/They’ve gathered in the firehall.

“And who forgot to let the canary out?

“Will you be there when they’re pulling bodies out?” 

There are two ballads on the album, the better of which is “In the Road.”  I especially like these sad lyrics:

“Well, you call, I write, I may answer, I may never send anything.

“You’ll leave and you’ll go, it’s alright if we don’t remember.

“Did I say I’d stay?  What if I was wrong?

“I’ll be out in the road before you know that I’ve gone.”

My favorite line on the album comes at the very end of “Joint Account,” a song (I believe) about a young male prostitute:

“As morning comes, he does what every night boy does.

“Deeply inhales a cab/Catches a buzz.”

I’ve never smoked a joint in my life (honest!).  But I catch a buzz every time I inhale this wonderful record.

iConcert: Miranda Cosgrove at the Wellmont

If you don’t know who Miranda Cosgrove is, take heart, gentle reader.  Neither did I until about a year or two ago. 

Miranda Cosgrove kicks it tween style.

Cosgrove is the 17-year-old star of Nikelodeon’s “iCarly,” a smash hit among the tween set — which happens to include my ten-year-old daughter.  Like Miley Cyrus before her, Cosgrove is seeking to leverage her TV fame into a successful music career.  Based on her show last night at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, NJ, it’s going to be a rocky transition. 

Full disclosure: I actually LIKE watching “iCarly.”  It’s good, clean fun and Cosgrove more than holds her own as the star of that show, surrounded by a cast of equally appealing young people.  She took the stage last night (at the very civilized hour of 8:00 p.m.; Prince, she is not) to the squeals of about 1,000 girls and promptly launched into the “iCarly” theme song — just in case anyone was unclear about her claim to fame.  Cosgrove displayed tremendous energy — skipping across the stage, slapping hands with fans in the front row, and whipping her hair back and forth to the beat.  But her vocals were clearly lacking.  It’s never a good sign when an older woman (by which I mean someone in her late twenties) is on stage singing along with (and, presumably, over) Cosgrove pretty much throughout the entire show. 

But here’s the thing.  Most of Cosgrove’s songs were damn catchy.  Here’s the set list from her show a few days ago at the Beacon Theater in NYC, identical to last night’s line-up.  I very much enjoyed “Disgusting,” “There Will be Tears,” “Kissin’ U,” and her latest, “Dancing Crazy.”  These songs are perfect bubble-gum pop — all about boys and break-ups — and the audience LOVED it.  At a time when listening to the radio with your children in the car can be hazardous to their moral health — when did the word “bitch” stop being beeped, anyway? — it was wonderful to just sit back and watch my daughter and her friend get jiggy wid’ it. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that Greyson Chance opened for Cosgrove and, holy smokes, can that boy SING.  Chance became famous when a video of him covering Lady GaGa’s ”Paparazzi” at a local talent show became, deservedly, a You Tube sensation.  He sang that song last night and a few others.  Unlike Cosgrove, Chance’s voice is SO BIG that he often needs to hold the microphone as far away from his mouth as his arm permits.  No back-up singers here.  On the downside, he could learn a thing or two from Cosgrove about stage presence, even though the girls in attendance didn’t seem to mind too much.

All in all, it was a fun night.  Put Chance’s voice into Cosgrove’s body and then you’d really have something.  At least until Chance hits puberty…

S is for Sharks

Some people love dogs, some people love cats.

I love sharks.

I’m not really sure where it all started.  I remember being home sick one day as a kid and my father bringing me a magazine all about sharks.  On the cover, there was a truly incredible photograph of a great white shark with it’s mouth WIDE OPEN.  My guess is that this was probably around 1975 — shortly after “Jaws” was released and sharks entered the American consciousness in a big way.  I would have been seven years old. 

In college, there was this weird grant given every year by wealthy alumni that would allow a student to do pretty much whatever the hell he/she wanted to do for a summer as long as he/she promised to return and tell the rich old white guys all about it.  I applied for the grant, asking for money to allow me to go “cage diving” with great white sharks in Australia.  I didn’t get it.  (As I recall, the grant went to a total dork who wanted to juggle across Europe.  Dude, are you SHITTING me?)

As you might imagine, I absolutely love “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel.  The genius of “Shark Week” is that it’s roughly the same hour or two of footage repackaged about 800 different ways.  No matter.  It’s all good. 

And, yes, “Jaws” is one of my all-time favorite movies.  For me, the biggest scare in that movie comes at the very beginning, when that poor girl goes skinny-dipping and gets eaten alive — but not before we see her propelled through the water, screaming and thrashing as she fights for her life against the (completely unseen) great white.  Genius!

A few years ago, I went on a snorkeling cruise in the Florida Keys.  I brought my young daughter with me, but the moment she plopped in the water she declared it too cold and retreated back to the boat.  I was on my own, which was fine with me.  The snorkeling was fabulous, maybe the best I’ve ever experienced.  At one point, I was snorkeling near another guy in about 20 feet of water.  We were hovering over a coral reef and then — boom — there it was, a gorgeous shark swimming slowly along the ocean floor.  Six feet long, I’d say, though that may be an exaggeration of memory.  I was a little bit nervous, but mostly in awe.  When we got back to the boat, the guy said to me, “Did you see THAT?” and I just laughed and we gave each other a high-five.

So why do I love sharks?  I love them because they are apex predators — no one fucks with a shark and I like that.  I love them because they are largely solitary creatures – and I have always valued my time alone.  I love them because they are misunderstood — and I feel that I’ve been misunderstood in my life a time or two.  I love them because they haven’t changed a whole lot in, oh, about a million years or so – and I don’t like change.

I was talking to my mom earlier this week about the struggle to juggle work and family.   A high-pressure job and two young children.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said.

“You can’t stop,” I said.  “You have to keep moving.  Once you stop and think about it, it’s over, you’re dead.”

Just like a shark.

Names I Would Consider Naming My Band If I Actually Had a Band and Was In Charge of Naming It

My kids and I were listening to the radio this weekend (the alternative rock station, natch) and an ad came on for a band named Sick Puppies, which my ten-year-old daughter found both amusing and disturbing.  It got me thinking about what I might name MY band — a topic that I actually think about quite a lot considering that I’m not in a band currently, nor have I ever been in one. 

One fun way to go about naming a band is to simply observe what’s going on around you.  Sometimes I look at signs as I’m driving to and from work, and inspiration strikes with great regularity.  “Beach Camera,” for example, is a store that I pass every day and I think that would be a great name for a band.  “Hidden Driveway” is another.

I was watching iCarly with my kids a few weeks ago and one of the characters had a great line: “Who are those muddy hobos on the side of the road?”  (Spoiler alert: it was Carly and her friends.)  I love the word “hobos” because it’s so old school and politically incorrect.  “Muddy Hobos” seems like a great name for a band, if you ask me.

When I got my vasectomy a few years back, I studied up on my manly parts and learned about the “Vas Deferens” — which, according to Wikipedia, “transport sperm from the epidiymis in anticipation of ejaculation and which, according to me, would be a hell of a name for a band.

I was watching a special on PBS a few months ago when I heard the term “event horizon,” which has something to do with black holes.  Apparently, once you pass the event horizon, you are going into the black hole and you are NEVER coming back, baby, even if you are a beam of light.   “Event Horizon” is a cool name for a band.

One more… I’m watching my guilty pleasure, “The Bachelor,” right now on TV and so I think that “The Final Rose” would be a fine name for a band.

Oh, the list goes on an on, as does my rock-and-roll heart.  Give me some more ideas, dear reader. 

Anyone play the drums?

Stairwell to Heaven

About a dozen years ago, I took a new job at the company I was working for at the time.  I wasn’t crazy about the job, but it was a promotion and I was eager to get ahead.  About 15 seconds into my first day, I knew that I’d made a terrible mistake.  I was too proud or too stupid to raise my hand and politely ask for a do-over.  Instead, I gritted my teeth and decided to gut it out.  Every day, I slipped deeper into depression.  I was “reverse commuting” at the time, from New York City to the New Jersey suburbs.  I took a train to work every day and distinctly remember wishing that the train would derail, so that I would not have to go to work.  The train never derailed.  I became even more despondent, to the point that I was often at my desk near tears.  (Yes, this is a ridiculous reaction.  Yes, this is how I actually reacted.)

My office was near a stairwell that no one ever used.  I started hanging out in the stairwell, literally sitting on the cold, concrete steps for long stretches of time, holding my head in my hands, wondering what the hell I was going to do.  I eventually manned up, quit, and went to a new company where my career flourished. 

But I’ve never lost my love of stairwells. 

Now that wi-fi will soon be available on an airplane near you, stairwells remain one of the few places on Earth where you can actually be alone.  Just this morning, I walked several flights of stairs in my current office building — home to hundreds of employees — and, brother, you could have heard a pin drop in there.  It was wonderful.  Take the elevator and it’s packed, often with people going up or down just a floor or two.

I have cried in stairwells.  I have done the Tiger Woods fist pump in stairwells.  I have taken deep, anxious breaths in stairwells.  I have laughed my ass off in stairwells.  I have taken the steps two at a time in stairwells.  I have cracked the shit out of my shins in stairwells. 

Do me a favor, dear reader.  Tomorrow or the next day, take the stairs and linger for a moment.  If you’re feeling really frisky, wipe a little patch clear and cop a squat.  And then do…nothing.  And when you’re done doing that, drop me a line and let me know how it went for you.