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06 august 2000
----- excerpt from an email I just wrote to a friend... But it was an ok weekend, and Saturday was beautiful weather-wise, and we did touristy stuff like Union Station and the metro and lunch in downtown. Then the wedding, which wasn't all _that_ bad except for the fact that it took me forever to get my tuxedo on. Yesterday was brunch with the bride and groom, a two hour nap in Adams Morgan, then a very nice coffee shop (Tryst, I think, on 18th st) full of poseurs, whom I found DC to be infested with, even moreso than LA (great entertainment, making fun of people -- like everyone walking in carrying their book in a way so that the title was clearly visible to everyone else -- "um, judge me by what I'm reading, please, and nothing else", lots of cigarettes at the ends of outstretched arms, painstaking positioned as props -- I never saw anyone put them in their mouth aside from lighting them), and an aimless drive which deposited us in Maryland at Crisfield's seafood (on GA ave in silver spring -- I highly recommend it), which is really good and cheap and at this point the only reason I'd really want to go back to DC -- maybe I just hit an off weekend, but that city doesn't seem to have any soul. Very cold, sterile, unsatisfied with itself, and longing/pretending to be something/somewhere else. Then again, it might be better if I knew more than two people there...If Delaware is indeed hell, then Washington DC must be some kind of purgatory, a soul-less place where people come to wait until they figure out where they need to position themselves on life's gameboard. Maybe it's just me and my mood, but I've never seen so many poseurs in such a small geographical area. Everyone seems to be playing an unrehearsed role, hiding behind a facade of "cool, calm, collected, and beautiful." How do people live here? I asked Jayme that, and she had no definitive answer, having just moved here herself. Today I also realized that if they took the little grey signs out of the big grey DC metro stations, all the big grey DC metro stations would look exactly the same. Contrast this to the NY subway system, where each station has so much individual character of its own, ya really don't need the signs. After a while, you can just feel (and often smell) where you are. DC seems mass-produced, whitewashed, and filled with temporary yet self-important "residents" on their way nowhere very quickly. The city feels like a giant stage set, and no-one seems real except the tourists. It took me nearly a half hour to don my tuxedo for the wedding yesterday, and I made it downstairs just in time for the bus ride to the church in Arlington. I knew no-one, and was surrounded by lots of couples. I struck up a conversation with two gentlemen in the row across from me, who also turned out to be a couple that had been living together for twenty years on the Upper East Side of NY. I found that so cool, and we became friendly rather quickly, probably because they were the first "real" people I had encountered since leaving Jayme hours earlier. The ceremony was nice, and we were bussed back to the hotel for the reception, where I danced with a lonely bridesmaid and consumed an amount of alcohol concurrent with the fact that my bed was only a short elevator ride away. Hence, I was left seriously hungover for the bulk of today, my last day in DC. Driving around with Jayme, I gave her the iBook and she wrote a few words... Oyster's aren't in season, soft shelled crabs are. Crisfield's doesn't serve salmon. I'm not sure how to spill out someone else's memory of a day so I'll summarize. I woke up to no cat, C woke up hungover from the wedding reception which he assures me he did in fact enjoy - somewhat, despite the lack of company in my city of poseurs. Um. I've been rambly and mellow, sleeping for the first time in a week which has made me - the one at the keyboard - rather bland company. It's a rainy Sunday in Washington, my sixth in seven days where Saturday was a bit of a break, a bright spot in a few too many clouds. C came by after brunch for an early afternoon nap. I offered him the floor in a thunderstorm and he's suprisingly adaptable. He keeps reciepts as souvenirs for events - you can't go wrong with someone who will empty their pockets and explain. In the coffee shop that is my living room, we woke up and people watched - a few too many cigarettes and books carried, displayed for pompous titles alone. People who, even in the element of fakeness, can't stand to be alone. Late in the day we find his rental car - C drives, I give bad directions. We ended up in Northeast, Howard University for a bit - this was not a brilliant plan though it seemed more real than the previous hour and a half. More uncomfortable than napping, less pretentious than a coffee bar. We're on the beltway again by 6:24 after dinner (the aforementioned crabs, I had flounder). He's giving me a few more minutes to listen to MP3's in route to my apartment - before his drive home (New Jersey for a plane back to LA). I don't know what else to say on a borrowed iBook screen. I'm fighting off introspection myself. Sunday seems appropriate for driving and napping, coffee and wandering rather aimlessly for seafood in Silver Spring. I'm all out of words. There are tall buildings; I'm almost not quite home. C is hitting the highway, sweet smelling cigarettes in tow. Sweet-smelling cigarettes and an iBook wired into the rent-a-car tape deck through one of those cd-player-cassette adaptors. A five-hour drive that convinced me that if I'm going to be listening to my computer through the car stereo, I need more MP3's in my collection. Delaware was surprisingly accomodating on the ride home, and even less one tollbooth heading north. The only traffic I hit was in Central New Jersey, a bit of congestion on the turnpike. But I landed back at the 'rents house at around midnight, tired, ready for bed if not sleep, and looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow before tuesday's flight back to LA. The heat and humidity are oppressive. The City of Angels beckons. In the forum:I'm gonna lose the forum soon because no-one ever posts. So there! 06 august 1999: : didn't write 06 august 1998: benefits of life : The custodial staff has informed us that within just the last few weeks, the toilet paper useage on the fourth floor has risen dramatically and subsequently the pottys have been overflowing and creating an inconvience for all the tenants of the fourth floor. [ swim back | email me | swim ahead ] |
