More sights, sounds, and smells of Cleveland.

Had an interesting weekend. Saturday night after work, I decided to go to Edgewater Park and check out the beach there. On the way, I dropped off a CD of the photos of the dancers that I took a while back. I've been in email contact with the director of the studio. Anyway, I got lost and ended up at a park on Lake Erie called Lakewood Park. What a great place. I must've heard at least six different langages. Photographers were all over the place, some being a little less subtle (and a lot less polite) about their "street photography", but nobody seemed to mind. Took a photo of a couple sitting on a park bench silhouetted by the setting sun, but it was on an old film camera (forgot memory cards for my Canon. duh.) You'll see it later. Leaned on a fence and watched the sun dip below the lake horizon.

I decided to take a path down to the lake, and sat in the evening light on some big concrete blocks listening to the tide on the breakwall, when another photographer came down near me. We struck up a conversation, and ended up talking cameras for over an hour and well after dark. I gave him my phone number before I left, and we agreed it would be nice to have another person to take photos with.

I made an acquaintance. Yay!

Drove back home through the city, enjoying every second of living in such a wonderful urban center. Went out to a yet-unvisited bar down the street because Ashley, the girl who works my rental office and who I sit and talk to all the time, was going out with her boyfriend to sing karaoke and asked me to come along. It was nice. I sang "Wonderful Tonight". Ashley tried to play wingman for me, but to no avail. I really wasn't interested in anybody there anyway, save for a passing raised eyebrow for a girl who had a singing voice like Jewel.

Saturday I studied my map book and made sure to find my way to Edgewater Park. Remember where I'd taken photos back in June when I made my first apartment hunting trip up here? It was a windy day, and the lake was a little choppier than I'd seen it before, which was what I was hoping for. I want to see Erie when it's angry. I've only ever seen it placid. Anyways, there was a kite flying event going on with pro-level kite fliers and vendors and such, and lots of flexible poles with colorful flapping banners and those wind spinny thingys.





Walked down to the spot where I took the pictures of the splash and myself. The splashes were much bigger and dramatic this time, but try as I might, I just couldn't make them look any more dramatic than the first one. Asked a fisherman there if I could take his picture, and then walked up on the fishing pier to watch the lake for a while. Everybody was eating ice cream cones, and they looked good, so I headed over to the snack stand, and then headed off to the beach happily licking away at my chocolate-vanilla swirl.





Feel free to draw your own deeper meanings about racial harmony blending within the American flag.

I made a detour toward the sound of drums in the distance, and happened upon about seven or so people in a drum circle. Sat on a nearby bench, sheathed the camera (I was done for the day), and finished up the ice cream to the sound of drummers who occasionally gelled into a discernable rhythm, but mostly just fell out of beat with each and sounded like popcorn, or rain on a tin roof.

Got to the beach, took off my sandals, rolled up my shorts, and waded around shin-deep in the shallows of the Lake, the breakers splashing my knees and thighs. Walked the length of the beach which stretched, I'm guessing, maybe a third of a mile or so, and along the entire length, hundreds of relatively fresh carnation heads looked as though they'd washed up. Quite the mystery. I arrived at a gigantic fifteen-foot tall round iron door that smelled quite bad, and bore a sign warning that at any time, without warning, the door may open and discharge raw sewage. I left quickly, suddenly questioning the water I was wading through.

I have to admit, and maybe it was because I hadn't eaten anything for a while and my blood sugar was low, but I started to get a little depressed. The beach was littered with couples. Sitting on towels, walking along the edge of the tide holding hands, rolling around in the sand laughing and kissing, hanging out on the breakwalls, heads resting on the other's shoulder. I felt so alone. Gays, lesbians, elderly, teens, and everybody in between... They were everywhere, and it really started getting to me.

Here I am having an absolutely perfect day, and my brain has to start this crap again.

Looked at my map and drove to an area called "The Flats", Cleveland's notorious party district. I wanted to see the mouth of the Cuyahoga; I remember Dad taking me there for lunch back in the day. Being Sunday night, it was pretty empty save for the jersey-clad sports fans at the bars. Stood on the riverside boardwalk there at dusk, having bought a beer at the outside bar of a restaurant called Shooters, and watched a couple of gargantuan Ore Freighters go by. High above, the deckhands all waved and jokingly shouted over the thrumming engines for beer, and I raised my cup in a toast to them.

Suddenly the sound of amplified Brazilian drums erupted from down the boardwalk, so I decided to investigate. A ways down, it must have been a Brazilian wedding reception or something, because there were flags everywhere, a big buffet, and ridiculously beautiful dark-complected men and women dancing. Quite the scene.

It got dark, so I went home, ate something, and started feeling much better.