Now here’s what I call a good weekend: After taking Max to a friend’s fourth birthday party on Saturday morning, Rose and I decided to drive the kids around the perimeter of the Ravenna Arsenal, just to see how creepy and weird it is to have 20,000+ acres of semi-contaminated land fenced off in the middle of otherwise ordinary Ohio. I guess they used to make TNT and other munitions there, primarily during WWII. To put it in perspective, the Arsenal covers more land area than the nearby city of Akron (population: 210,000+). Afterwards, heavy fried food at a local pub.

David Lynch Moments

Rose and I operate under certain principles that we constantly keep in the back of our minds. They condition what we do, and how we respond to things. Some of the principles are very serious, and some serve only to underscore the delightful absurdity of life. One example of the latter is something we call “A David Lynch Moment.”

Put simply, a Lynch Moment is any life occurrence that seems to be plucked directly from a David Lynch film. Here’s an example: Last Thanksgiving, Rose and I were driving home from Cornell to visit her parents—it was the beginning of the university’s fall break. We decided, as we often do, to take a non-interstate route once we entered Ohio. It would take us about twice the time to arrive at our destination, but we use any excuse we can to go on a roadtrip. (Interstate driving doesn’t qualify for roadtrippin’.)

On State Route 44, somewhere south of Painesville (aptly named), we came across a car stopped on the side of the road. Since it was Thanksgiving Day there wasn’t much traffic on that route, so we decided to stop and be helpful. We were a little wary—you know, you just don’t approach strange cars these days—but we did it anyway.

As I approached the car, an older woman got out, slowly. At first it seemed like she could barely walk. She was wearing one of those plastic medical identification bracelets they give you during a hospital stay. “Are you alright?” I asked.

She had a flat tire and it turns out she’d just been released from the hospital, having undergone heart surgery. “My son was supposed to come and get me today, but I guess he’s already gone to the house for dinner. So I decided to drive myself home.”

We let her use a cell phone to call her son, who arrived about ten minutes later as I was changing the tire. He looked twenty-five or so. “You guys can go,” he said. “Bein’ from New York and all you’re probably in a hurry.” Well, we were now.

So we went on, slightly more awake, slightly more aware of the world around us, hoping that this kid had it in him to escort his mother to Thanksgiving dinner.

Our Weird Neighbor update: On May 25, 2002, the day before Cornell’s Commencement Day, Our Weird Neighbor (O.W.N.) stopped by our apartment to borrow some coffee…relatively normal, except she wanted us to brew it for her on the spot. My entire family was, at the time, sitting in our living room (they were in town for graduation). Even stranger is the fact that we actually did it for her. What were we going to do? Deprive her? Rose took care of the matter and for about fifteen minutes engaged in possibly the most awkward conversation of her life.

Today, I was coming home after a busy morning of doing nothing, and I heard O.W.N. singing (at the top of her lungs and very off key, which is her true style), “DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA; THE TRUTH IS I NEVER LEFT YOU…”

There was no music accompanying her—the a cappella melody carried through the hallway like nails on a chalkboard. I just want to point out that Rose and I experience and observe mildly strange behavior from this person on a daily basis. I only feel inclined to report that which I find particularly interesting or disturbing. Thank you, this concludes the update.

Our weird neighbor is singing "The hills are alive...with the sound of music..." at the top of her lungs today. Mmm-hmm.

Perhaps in preparation for Easter (?), Our Weird Neighbor has replaced the scary straw doll hanging from her apartment’s doorknob with an even scarier bunny.

Our Weird Neighbor

I hesitate to share the story I am about to convey, for fear of discovery. However, this tale is just begging to be told.

Just down the hall from the apartment in which my wife and I reside lives a young woman who hangs a straw doll from the doorknob of her entry door. This is the only visible ornament in our building’s corridor – the décor of which consists of smoke-stained ceiling tiles, chewing-gum imbibed carpet, and walls the color of that stuff the janitor used to spread over the floor when some kid vomited in elementary school. “That’s great,” I used to think to myself, “here’s someone with a little bit of self-expression.”

As I have come to learn, self-expression is something that this woman has been blessed within an over-abundance of. After having lived in the building for only a few weeks, I discovered that she has a charming habit of praying out loud, at the top of her lungs’ capacity, two or three times a day. Now, I don’t know if this is a requirement of her particular religious beliefs or simply her own personal preference, but the praying can be distinctly heard throughout the entire floor.

One day, as I emerged from the stairway onto the third floor, I heard her pray something that struck fear in me and immediately made me begin to tiptoe my way back to the apartment: “…OH GOD, PLEASE HELP ME REMEMBER TO BUY MILK TODAY, AND ON THOSE DAYS WHEN I FOGET TO TAKE MY MEDICATION, PLEASE HELP ME TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF MYSELF…”

Oh my God, we’re living with a lunatic, I thought. I hurried back down the hall to the apartment, praying my own prayer that I hadn’t disturbed her.

Now, it should be noted that this woman’s apartment sits right next to the door accessing the main stairway of the building. I typically use this stairway three or four times a day. So, unless I want to take the rear stair and follow a path that doubles the distance I must walk to reach the street, I’m stuck with confronting this door every day.

One time, as I was passing the dreaded doorway on my way out, I heard her doorknob begin to unlatch and saw an ever so slight swinging movement of the evil straw doll, indicating that her emergence from the prayer-den was imminent.

Now, I had interacted with this woman several times before. The last time, my wife and I had passed her in the hallway. When my wife said “Hi,” she just stared at us, eerily. And in the time since then, I’ve learned enough about her to strive to avoid all contact. I half expect her, at times, to pull out a dull letter opener and attempt to stab me to death.

So, of course, this time I wanted to pass her door unnoticed. I hurried my pace, the stairway door just seconds away, but to no avail. She stepped out of her threshold right in front of me, stopping me dead in my tracks. I almost peed my pants.

“Hi!” I said shakily. She just stared at me with those huge eyes through enormous, perfectly round glasses, sitting securely on her pale, pudgy, perfectly round face. She stared at me like a deer caught in headlights – and gave no response to my greeting. “Ok, then,” I said as I made a quick loop around her and booked it for the stairway.

I entered the stair, and just as the door was about to close behind me, I heard her yell “HI!” in that kind of loud, flat, scary voice that villains in movies use as they tell you the special method they’ve concocted for your death. I heard her grab the door before it closed, and enter the stairway. “Aarrgh! She’s after me!”

She wasn’t really after me, but at that moment I sure was thankful for only living as high as the third floor. The mind fills the gaps that reality leaves, and sometimes our perception of what is really happening at any given time is wildly inaccurate. Needless to say, with my imagination running full-tilt I made quick work of the staircase and ran out onto the street, where there were lots of people and she and her evil doll couldn’t get me, no way.