Here in DC.
Here I am in DC! One last night here, and I feel like I need to be here for a longlonglong time before I'll even scratch the surface of getting the feel of this city. Here are some things I've learned.
The Washington Monument is 555 feet tall, and rumor-has-it, it is sinking at a rate of a quarter-inch per year. (Unconfirmed.)
DC is easy to navigate! Even if you're me!
The Reflecting Pool kicks ass unless it is goose and duck-infested. In the event of a duck or a goose infestation, it is most important to walk ot sit at a reasonable distance AWAY from the Reflecting Pool.
The Jefferson Memorial looks just like the Pantheon in Greece, which means it looks just like Hendrick's Chapel in Syracuse. It is at the Tidal Basin, which is a great place to walk around, and to REFLECT. I watched the sun set here.
Old people are the weirdest tourists. A busload of them came to the Jefferson Memorial. They were very unhappy about climbing stairs. One old woman asked another (more spry) old woman to take her camera and photograph the statue of Thomas Jefferson for her. I wondered why you'd want to have a photo of a statue you'd never actually seen. What would that mean to you.
Restaurants here in DC close early! I had to search and search and search far and wide to find a place that was still serving food after 8 PM.
Some things change, some things stay the same. Sometimes the hospital you were born in gets torn down and re-built elsewhere.
Sometimes you miss somebody, and you see them again, and it is like no time has passed by. And at the same time, it is like eons have passed by.
+ + + + +
There's a full moon out tonight. It is hanging huge and yellow, and here in DC (and also from my 7-hour bus-ride) I can see all the little craters and nuances on its surface. It makes my brain swim a little to think too hard about it. A sphere in orbit--another world (uninhabited)--that looks just like a paper cut-out from down here. I used to think (and still do) that a really good full moon looks strikingly similar to an old paper-plate. One with grease-stains soaked through (evidence of pizza?), forming the dark shades of craters. One which was left out, overnight, on a picnic-table and rained-on, so that the edge flattened out, leaving a white perfect-circle with the leftover grease-spots of a former meal.
+ + + + +
This hotel is extremely nice. Jesse's company is paying for it, since he has been here on business. Except for when Jesse went on business calls and later to the wedding (where he is now), we have felt extremely under-dressed to be here. It is a stone's throw from the White House. We walked past it last night. We found there to be surprisingly little visible security. We saw one guard watching us pass by.
+ + + + +
Overheard: "I don't think it's any different than any other city." (Old lady, near the Jefferson Memorial, at dusk. Everything white and aglow, and the sky a deep, deep indigo.)
+ + + + +
Overheard (Two women, while walking in Downtown DC.)
Woman 1: "It's not too cheap, and it's not too expensive."
Woman 2: "It's pretty great."
Woman 1: (agreeing.) "It's medium."
+ + + + +
It was my goal to find and purchase a William Howard Taft souvenir. He is my favorite president. I didn't find a tacky presidential souvenir shop until 8:30 PM. There was all this Taft memorabilia in the window, with a sign that said: This Month's Presidential Birthdays! The lights were on, there was a woman inside at the counter. But the store had closed at 8.
+ + + + +
I felt like writing some personal things today. I bought a journal at Barnes and Noble, even though I have about 18,000 journals at home. I didn't have a single one with me. I also bought a map of DC, so I wouldn't get lost. I didn't. I went to the Jefferson Memorial and wrotewrotewrote.
+ + + + +
Sometimes I don't know what to feel or how to communicate. Sometimes I just roll with the punches, and hope. Sometimes I feel I-like-you, do-you-like-me. Sometimes I'm 14 years old. Sometimes I'm 24. Sometimes I don't speak up. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I have blue eyes and sometimes they are green. I am: shifting. I am: a spectrum. I am still learning me. I don't know what I want. I know what I want.
Megan asked me, days ago: would you eat in a restaurant all by yourself? I hemmed and hawed. Said I probably wouldn't. Said if I did, I'd hurry out just as fast as I could. Today: 8:30 or 9 PM, I found a sushi restaurant all-by-myself and ate at the bar and drank Sapporo and read Vonnegut.
I am: a spectrum. I am still learning me.
The Washington Monument is 555 feet tall, and rumor-has-it, it is sinking at a rate of a quarter-inch per year. (Unconfirmed.)
DC is easy to navigate! Even if you're me!
The Reflecting Pool kicks ass unless it is goose and duck-infested. In the event of a duck or a goose infestation, it is most important to walk ot sit at a reasonable distance AWAY from the Reflecting Pool.
The Jefferson Memorial looks just like the Pantheon in Greece, which means it looks just like Hendrick's Chapel in Syracuse. It is at the Tidal Basin, which is a great place to walk around, and to REFLECT. I watched the sun set here.
Old people are the weirdest tourists. A busload of them came to the Jefferson Memorial. They were very unhappy about climbing stairs. One old woman asked another (more spry) old woman to take her camera and photograph the statue of Thomas Jefferson for her. I wondered why you'd want to have a photo of a statue you'd never actually seen. What would that mean to you.
Restaurants here in DC close early! I had to search and search and search far and wide to find a place that was still serving food after 8 PM.
Some things change, some things stay the same. Sometimes the hospital you were born in gets torn down and re-built elsewhere.
Sometimes you miss somebody, and you see them again, and it is like no time has passed by. And at the same time, it is like eons have passed by.
+ + + + +
There's a full moon out tonight. It is hanging huge and yellow, and here in DC (and also from my 7-hour bus-ride) I can see all the little craters and nuances on its surface. It makes my brain swim a little to think too hard about it. A sphere in orbit--another world (uninhabited)--that looks just like a paper cut-out from down here. I used to think (and still do) that a really good full moon looks strikingly similar to an old paper-plate. One with grease-stains soaked through (evidence of pizza?), forming the dark shades of craters. One which was left out, overnight, on a picnic-table and rained-on, so that the edge flattened out, leaving a white perfect-circle with the leftover grease-spots of a former meal.
+ + + + +
This hotel is extremely nice. Jesse's company is paying for it, since he has been here on business. Except for when Jesse went on business calls and later to the wedding (where he is now), we have felt extremely under-dressed to be here. It is a stone's throw from the White House. We walked past it last night. We found there to be surprisingly little visible security. We saw one guard watching us pass by.
+ + + + +
Overheard: "I don't think it's any different than any other city." (Old lady, near the Jefferson Memorial, at dusk. Everything white and aglow, and the sky a deep, deep indigo.)
+ + + + +
Overheard (Two women, while walking in Downtown DC.)
Woman 1: "It's not too cheap, and it's not too expensive."
Woman 2: "It's pretty great."
Woman 1: (agreeing.) "It's medium."
+ + + + +
It was my goal to find and purchase a William Howard Taft souvenir. He is my favorite president. I didn't find a tacky presidential souvenir shop until 8:30 PM. There was all this Taft memorabilia in the window, with a sign that said: This Month's Presidential Birthdays! The lights were on, there was a woman inside at the counter. But the store had closed at 8.
+ + + + +
I felt like writing some personal things today. I bought a journal at Barnes and Noble, even though I have about 18,000 journals at home. I didn't have a single one with me. I also bought a map of DC, so I wouldn't get lost. I didn't. I went to the Jefferson Memorial and wrotewrotewrote.
+ + + + +
Sometimes I don't know what to feel or how to communicate. Sometimes I just roll with the punches, and hope. Sometimes I feel I-like-you, do-you-like-me. Sometimes I'm 14 years old. Sometimes I'm 24. Sometimes I don't speak up. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I have blue eyes and sometimes they are green. I am: shifting. I am: a spectrum. I am still learning me. I don't know what I want. I know what I want.
Megan asked me, days ago: would you eat in a restaurant all by yourself? I hemmed and hawed. Said I probably wouldn't. Said if I did, I'd hurry out just as fast as I could. Today: 8:30 or 9 PM, I found a sushi restaurant all-by-myself and ate at the bar and drank Sapporo and read Vonnegut.
I am: a spectrum. I am still learning me.