train read (research read) + the pretzel dog

This weekend I went to Baltimore for my friend Mary's bridal shower. As a bonus my friend Morgan drove up from DC and I finally got to meet her boyfriend of 1.5 years. After a night of drinking in Fells Point, Morgan and her bf also bought me my first pretzel dog. I've been going to Fell's Point since childhood--much longer than my prep-school classmates who discovered the neighborhood only when they started going to bars there after college. In fact, I'm pretty sure I learned to ride a bike in the Fells Point square, where the pretzel dog stand lives. Regardless, I seem to be the last Baltimorean to have discovered the pretzel dog. This is weird because I have a very specific memories of buying limes-aids at this stand after high school dates CD shopping at Sound Garden. I mean it's understandable I wasn't dying to eat a hot dog cased in a pretzel as 16-year-old on some of my very first dates, but shouldn't I at least have known what this stand was famous for selling? Don't you think at least one of the boys I was dating back then (regardless of the guy, we usually ended up at Sound Garden and I almost always wanted a lime-aid after) perhaps fancied a pretzel dog? I guess not because until this weekend, I didn't know what a pretzel dog was - much less that anytime you find yourself in Fells Point, you should definitely eat one. And eat one I did, and it was delicious.

Before getting on the train on Sunday, my mom took me to the new, large Red Emma's bookstore next to the train station. Red Emma's existed when I was in high school, but not in it's large, hipped out location. And they definitely did not used to sell delicious vegetarian Bahn Mi sandwiches. Being at Red Emma's made me wonder what my life would look like had I moved back to Baltimore after college. I don't think I'd be getting drunk in Fell's every weekend, I'd outgrown the prepster scene when I was still wearing a uniform. But possibly I could be running a theater company in the new station north arts district. I don't think I'd be as happy as I am in New York, I probably never would have met Adam, but it's a weird alternate universe of what might life might look like now. Just like when I went to London I wondered what would have happened had I not gotten into Juilliard and stayed abroad after the Royal Court Program ended.

While killing time and browsing post-Bahn Mi, pre-train I saw Michelle Tea's memoir How to Grow Up. I already had two books in my bag - one I'd just started and one I'd stolen from my mom's bookshelf but for some reason thought I needed to buy this one too. Yesterday I realized why -- it's the perfect research for the teen angst musical. Tea is basically a real life version of one of the characters that I've been writing for the past couple of months. I'd never read any Tea before, and apparently this one isn't as acclaimed either of her two previous memoirs, but for what I needed out of a book this week - it was great.