C-130

Gora is the new DC hero. Many thanks, all.

This afternoon I decided on the advice of yon Michael to get a quick start on learning the streets of the city. I'd hoped to simply allow myself to leisurely, inactively absorb the patterns through use in true flâneur fashion, but considering I came startlingly, you'd-better-start-jogging-ly close to missing the Metro's last run last night (on the other side of town from where I live, mapless) I've decided to be practical and hit the pavement.

The first step I'd like to conquer is habituating myself to walking what I would ordinarily consider an insane distance for point-to-point transit. Walking for forty-five minutes never before sounded appealing when I could simply hop in the car and drive for two minutes, but that's all got to change considering my baby is on the market a thousand or so miles away, and drivers here seem to dislike most standard rules of movement (like one-way traffic flow).

I chose to walk to the vegan heaven of Adams Morgan for lunch, which was a nice, long walk uphill. Extended walks here aren't as dull as I'd expected them to have been, and I maintain that this is because people-watching is an incredible way to spend otherwise idle mental time. In fact, once the seasons begin to change and things get a bit cooler I won't have any argument against walking (or biking, I should bring my bike next time I'm home) everywhere.

Adams Morgan is an attractive section of the DC population, a central point where dichotomies meet in spades: wealthy and impoverished, punk and hippy, active and lazy, and so on ad infinitum. It retains an element of dirtiness that most cities aim to eliminate, either through intensive redistricting or simpler cover-up techniques. Most importantly is that it feels quite vibrant and welcoming; my walk up 18th Street today was the first time thus far that strangers have smiled at me with frequency, and a couple of them even dared the boldness to ask the time.

Speaking of which, I think I'm going to make a tee-shirt designed especially for walking around among scores of bitter businessmen that reads, "Smile, Asshole." It seems to fit the local paradigm, but it might get me cut... we'll see.

Empanadas for lunch as a cheap option, then back to campus for my last required immunization and some q&a with the SPHHS, and now I'm ready to call it a day and head back to my temporary home. My legs are jelly this afternoon, but that probably means that I've gotten a good start on my latest mission.

..."Irreversible" is the most hardcore movie that I have ever seen, and now I'm introducing it to the Washingtonians. Come for the fire extinguisher scene, stay for the rape scene, then leave with a heavy impression of the ignorant, brutal lack of value of all humanity clothed in your own morbid, guilty fascination. Go see it, and don't hide your eyes behind your hands.

Well, about a week of hardcore packing, plenty of compensatory pot indulgence, and a disaster-eliminating pre-flight Xanax later and I've actually arrived in D.C. in one (physical) piece. I will admit that I kinda lost it in the last minutes I spent at home--looking out over the woods in the backyard, petting my dog, looking for my cat while the humid wind pressed its weight through the green leaves of a Strange Summer... I didn't think that I would need the kindly-donated anti-anxiety pill (well, half of it), but it certainly coaxed me into a state of calmness from which I could assess the situation and still function in an appropriate manner.

I had enough money in my checking account to buy books for two classes (yes, I am the nerd who likes to read it before the first meeting), but the rest will have to wait until I either have my Stafford loan disbursal or I find a serious sugar daddy.

Speaking of which, anybody know a friend looking for a rent boy in D.C.?

Marion Barry has left his mark n this city; his legacy is one of potholes and ill-will. Here's to Taxation Without representation.

I don't care what anybody says, the Chesapeake and Tidal Pool are beautiful. I can't wait to see the cherry blossoms in full glory.

If you're wondering about exactly what the GWU campus resembles, think of downtown Little Rock, all of it, then double it, then widen all of the streets, then add lots of federal security, then replace the capitol building with the White House, then add a few hundred thousand people, then add a few more hundred thousand people, then ablate your familiarity with the city, then add tiny parks with ostentatious statuary hither and thither, then put vegan food all over the place, then charge $900 per credit hour, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's like.

I miss my friends.

It's eight thirty in the morning on my last day in the state and I'm still packing. I could hear my alarm buzzing every few minutes over the intermittent call of Megan's, both on permanent snooze staccato.

"You getting up?" she called through the wall from her bed.

"Unnhnmm," I replied, an ambiguous affirmative while I came to and assessed my condition. Not bad, all things considered, and the past few days of irregular sleeping already had me primed for a quick start to the last long day of work.

I scooped up my stuff, patted kitty in thanks for having purred me to sleep, and got dressed, not quite ready to yet get gone.

While she was driving me back to Gravel Ridge, Megan put on 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea,' putting me in a mood to quietly stare out the window at the arrangement and structure of downtown, suffused by haze-filtered light and empty as it ever gets.

"So I take my / good fortune / and I fantasize..."

Still waking up, I mill over the events of the past several hours. I got a lot of hugs, I determine. And "animal in heat" stickers. And a Bible Bar. That I (still) didn't get a Runaway Planet CD is no big bother because the show kicked ass. I can still faintly read Damian's email address scrawled on my palm, I should write that down before I forget that it's there. Having it pointed out that, expletive, I'll be in "some fuckin' hard nerd class" in just a couple of days.

Pulling off the interstate, the vista fills with lush and full trees. I can smell Bayou Meto and the barbeque place's smokehouse. It is an ode to one's home to bask in the soothing glory of the familiar. Yes, this is home, it says.

I still have a lot to do today, but I'm calmed. I'm not ready, but there is plenty to think on, plenty to tell, and much left to be seen.

Thanks, everybody. Visit soon and often. See you around Thanksgiving.