At least this was how I felt this morning, navigating through a series of them for a conference I dare not describe, both to keep my own job safe (oh this economy) and to keep whatever reader interest this blog has managed to scrabble together. It was early morning and I’ve run out of friends who live off 495 whose couches I could sleep on, so I took the back way, through long traffic light upon long traffic light. When I drove home, I abandoned all pretense to hypermiling, floored it up 95 until I reached the gently sloping offramp to MLK.

I have never really thought of Baltimore as beautiful, either, but it was to me as I coasted down the ramp. I saw landmarks: the Bromo-Seltzer Tower, Ravens Stadium, the cluster of modest skyscrapers in the Inner Harbor that ring the dome. At last I felt as if I was somewhere again. It was not as beautiful as a real city, a New York or even a Philly, but it really was beautiful.

Maybe I should start calling this home, I thought to myself.

I’ve lived here now five years, three with Wendy. Love (true love, even… am I allowed to call it that? is it safe?) has a way of obliterating all the small details that would bother you otherwise — that, and having to hop three jobs in six months. But I’ve only lived here. I’ve never really felt like I belonged here.

I don’t know why she did it, I certainly know how to mind my business on the street. I guess you can’t question witches. The whole rest of my day was blown.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

It was empty last Saturday. It was okay, I didn’t mind. I was getting sick of being stuck in my own head. I know I’m being miserable here, I can recognize that it’s just plain old planesickness, but I can’t turn it around in my head. Soldiers Delight is actually pretty beautiful. There are all these plaques that will explain what exactly is going on with the geology or whatever there, but the only thing you really need to know is that for just a little bit, if you look at things the right way, you can feel like you’re somewhere other than where you really are.

At least that’s what I got out of it.

After a while of walking the trail alone, I started doing the same thing I always do given enough time — I start imagining running into people I haven’t seen in forever. Norman especially. The last time I came home we had coffee or something and there was something I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t figure it out and anyway he was seeing somebody. With time dilation he is probably married now, and even without it he was happy. That was what he is best at. I imagined him coming down the trail, looking as astonished as I was. He wouldn’t wave at me, or even run up and hug me. He would just be surprised in that uniquely Norman way. And then — I don’t know, my imagination goes all fuzzy after that first moment. That’s really the point, just that first moment. In a lot of ways it is as good as it gets.

Finally as I made it to some scenic overlook and there was a couple there walking their dog, and the illusion popped like a little bubble, and honestly I was happy that it did.

My worry as a fan, of course, was that this early bye, in only the second week of the season, could cause unexpected harm. The Ravens won their first game, but any momentum they had was suddenly put on hold. On top of that, a bye now means no bye later in the season when a potentially tired team may need it. My concern is not unfounded; Nature has played havoc with the schedule before.

1980 – Hurricane Gene swept through the Miami area, forcing the cancellation of an early-season Dolphins game and giving them a week 3 bye. The team had won their two prior games, but came off the bye looking uncharacteristically disorganized. They finished the season out of playoff contention.

1988 – Strong storms in the Midwest spawned tornados that damaged the Colt’s stadium, causing them to miss one game and play their next home game as an away game. The weeks after the storm saw them on a five-game losing streek.

1994 – Chronostorm Gamma swept out of the North Atlantic, striking the Eastern Seaboard in mid-October, causing the 1994 Jets to be swapped with the 1978 Jets for the duration of the season. Many fans may argue this actually benefited the team.

Despite my concerns, things are what they are, and the Ravens went into this week’s home game against the Browns ready to get back to some serious football. Joe Flacco played well early on, but gave up 2 interceptions in the first half and didn’t put any points on the board. The defense also looked a little sluggish, letting the Browns pull ahead early on.

The 3rd quarter, however, turned everything around, as the team came out looking super-energized. The defense forced some key turnovers, and Flacco led the offense on several scoring drives. Final score 28-10 Ravens.

Here’s looking forward to next week!

Grackles are noisy birds, and they always give me the impression they are really trying to tell you something. That something is probably “feed me,” but that’s a message nonetheless. This particular grackle was being even extra jabbery, so I couldn’t help but glance up to see what it was doing. It wasn’t doing anything in particular, it turns out. Just being a noisy bird. What lay beyond it, though, was far more exciting.

The trees that run along the sidewalk at the Center Street platform have never stood out much; this is probably because they appear to have been dead for quite some time. As such, I usually pay them no mind. Looking up at the grackle, however, I found myself looking at the dry, gray top branches of the tree on the opposite side of the platform. There, climbing up the central trunk, plain as day, was a Downy Woodpecker. I recognized it immediately, as growing up as I did in northern Baltimore county, along the edge of the woods, they were frequent visitors to the suet feeder in the backyard. This was the first time, however, I had ever seen one in so urban an area.

The woodpecker shuffled around the trunk a bit, took a few testing pecks different areas of the tree, and then finally took off to the east over the building tops. I only saw it for a few moments, but it really instilled me with a sense of hope; if this little woodpecker had found a way to survive in a place so trampled by humans, surely that was a good sign for nature in general?

The train came shortly after, and when I got off at my stop in Timonium, I quickly ran to the edge of the platform overlooking the drainage ditch and stooped down to look under the ledge where the sylphs had been residing since the incident of a few weeks ago. They were looking worse than ever, covered in grime and sleeping in what looked like half of an old car tire.

I told them my tale of what I had seen, and how I thought it might inspire them to give things another go. They hardly seemed to care, and one of them asked me if I had any matches.

Fuck them, I thought to myself; I know a sign of hope when I see one.

I have to admit I was a little bit underwhelmed, but I don’t really blame the festival per se. For the massive number of newly-minted nuclear families with babies in strollers, it must have been novel, the collection of food and arts + crafts. But I’ve had friends in Hampden for a long time now, so getting a bite to eat from the Golden West was not quite as exciting as probably it should have been. But then, it may not be that long before I’m pushing a stroller myself, God help me…

We made it to the end of the festival, where at the Squaaks were playing at the Atomic Books stage. And again, the music was credible and kind of catchy but I couldn’t really get into it. My mind kept wandering and my eyes kept scanning across the crowd, watching other people react to it instead of reacting myself. Who knows? Maybe it was the humidity.

After the set wrapped up, a man maybe a few years younger than me came up to me and asked, “Are you a musician?” For some reason he seemed like an actor in a play — his clothes were immaculate, well-tailored, seemed as though they had never been worn by a real person before.

“No,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I’m collecting signatures for this petition–”

He held out a clipboard with a fifth-generation photocopy of the old anti-music petition from two years ago. “Sorry, man,” I said, “I can’t help you.”

The man frowned and said, “Yeah, we’ll see what you think when they’re running this country.”

And the truth is, it’s not that hard to imagine them winning the election in November — but then, I really do believe America gets the government it deserves.

I’ve actually managed to spot tunnel dragons twice so far: once was a total accident, and the second time was after a couple months’ worth of experimentation. (This little fascination was the main reason I got an E-ZPass.) Here’s some advice:

• I’ve only had luck in the Fort McHenry tunnel… maybe they hang out in the Harbor Tunnel too, but I’ve never spotted any.
• Late at night is your best bet. They’re nocturnal creatures and I think the noise from heavy traffic tends to scare them off.
• Drive a little slower than you normally would. This is for the aforementioned noise reasons and it also gives you more time to spot them as you drive.
• Turn the treble all the way down on your stereo and the bass all the way up, roll all your windows down, and blast some music that has a steady beat to it. I realize this sounds like this is totally random, but when I did this (Kanye West’s “Good Morning,” no lie) I actually got one to leave its roost on a tunnel camera and buzz the car. It was really cool, and yes, of course no one else was in the car to corroborate my story.

Have your own tips? Share ‘em in the comments.

And, to be honest, when the game first started, things looked a little rough. Lots of dropped passes, some go nowhere runs, and that missing feeling of momentum. But as the game moved forward, something changed. The defense did an excellent job harrying Carson Palmer and crushing their run game, and that put the ball back into the hands of the offense. That’s where the best thing happened: despite this being his first ever real NFL game, Joe Flacco managed to remain calm. At least, he gave the distinct impression of remaining calm. That sense of being at ease under center is something the Ravens have been missing, and it certainly did a hell of a lot in helping to make the offense function better. No wacky passes, no stupid turnovers, no tripping over his own shoes. It also helped that the offensive line was able to give him time to throw, and also that he had two solid runners in Rice and McClain helping out as well.

So, in the end, although the offense certainly couldn’t be classified as “high-flying” or “overwhelming,” it managed to get points on the board, manage the clock, and give the defense time to rest. Those were all things that were missing last year, and we saw how well that worked out. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that this was the first game of the season, and that not every team will be as easy to push around as Cincy was, but it was enough to give me hope, and to send me into next week’s game feeling pretty good. We’ll see how things develop from here!

Sunday’s game also saw another first at M&T Bank Stadium: the premiere of the 4th Ravens’ mascot, Tell-Tale. Jeffrey Boyd, who was previously the man inside the “Poe” mascot suit, spent all of last year undergoing intense gene-therepy treatments to infuse his body with DNA features from the Great North American Raven, and Sunday saw him spread his (now no-longer-proverbial) wings. He danced, he strutted, and he cawed after every great play. He couldn’t fly, though, but I don’t think anyone was really expecting him to be able to. Generally, the audience seemed to react to him pretty well, and admittedly, the way he had equal parts feathers and human hair was pretty slick looking, I still found the whole thing vaguely off-putting. The kind of money the team laid out to have him undergo the treatments probably could have been much better spent fixing up some of the turf issues at midfield.

That’s it for the Ravens Report this week; until next time.

The Japanese-looking man at Jerome’s Liquors who watches tapes of Korean-looking television on a TV/VCR behind bulletproof glass wondered aloud at me in a cloud of slaughtered English: How ca’ you be so sa’ whe’ errbody so happy? He turned the rotating (and also bulletproof) little carousel and delivered me my Popov. While I can’t imagine anything more pathetic than the man who sells me cheap liquor calling me sad, at least he didn’t insinuate I was paranoid. Better sad. But he had a fair point. In this so-called Golden Age, there isn’t much room for sadness.

I dashed across Preston street to avoid any other members of the alcoholic community that might be outside Dionysus and started up the alley. Of all the noises I’ve ever heard while drunk, the SHHPOPP’ing noise that suddenly and forcefully eminated from the center of the dark parking lot has never been one of them. So I stopped and looked at empty space. My eyes were doing that thing: blobs of color, semi-visible and erratic, flashing and zooming toward some single point in my pupil. I turned to keep walking, but for the first time in my experience, the blobs stayed behind. That shouldn’t happen. I turned back just in time to see a man calmly step out of nowhere, through the blobs and onto the parking lot. I blinked. The blobs were gone. The man wasn’t.

“You there!” he shouted, approaching me. Were I paranoid, I would have been terrified and ran. As a drunk, I stood there and stared; this important distinction that I am making should be clear now.

“Where am I?” he asked, lowering his voice as he neared.

“Mount Vernon,” I replied easily.

“Baltimore…listen: I am going to ask you a few strange but very simple questions. I want you to answer them quickly and honestly.”

“Sure.”

“What year is it?”

“2008.”

“What countries are we at war with?”

“Uh…none?”

“Not Pakistan? Or Iran or North Korea?”

“No.”

This seemed to excite him for some reason.

“Who is the President? What is his name?”

He had a hopefullness about him when he asked this question, and that endeared me to him. I liked this stranger, if only because the questions were so easy and the answers made him so happy. I can take credit for this, for helping another human being be happy.

“Al Gore.”

He raised his hands over his head in victory and breathlessly mumbled something about “it working.” He hugged me firmly, like men should hug each other, and started jogging then running up the alley. Like 50’s Doc Brown after he sends Marty back to the future. I found myself smiling, but after a few seconds the reasons got cloudy. Was I smiling because of that man, or because of “Back to the Future?” Regardless, I turned on my heels and quickly walked back to Jerome’s. I would buy something better tasting and smile straight through the glass at my either Japanese or Korean neighbor.