(no subject)
i think my only regret about leaving boston is that i never managed to scout out the place where ho chi minh once served as a busboy. dc takes itself more seriously as a city, with prompt and spitshine clean public transportation and a newspaper that avoids kitschy drivel. in boston people polarize everthing: you're either born here, or you're a foreigner. you're a democrat, or you're mitt romney. you like either the red sox, or you like the patriots. if you like neither, you're probably just a pussy. still, for as much as i've sealed away my affection for boston, i'll never stop missing those fly-by-night clam shacks.
there are often minor threats around the capitol building, one mile from where i live. sometimes it's a bomb scare, other times it's a schizophrenic in an SUV mowing through security checkpoints. i call these minor because when they occur i am always tucked away in the guts of the district. nothing harms you inside the dimly-lit metro tunnels whose lunette-shaped ceilings have dimples like a golf ball.
we got tapas three weeks back. when his sangria came without apple trapezoids, i speared some of mine and put them into his glass. it felt like a carnival game, bobbing in a tub of water for fruit, minus the spit and on a much smaller scale. last night i sat in the dining room with maura and we made him unfurl his conference poster. we tried to make out the science, hell, even the language of it, but it was far, far over our heads. and he's so modest, displaying this scroll of scientific beauty, pointing to an image of pipettes containing colorful drug compounds and calling the image flare -
except, when he says it, it sounds like flay-ah. flare. his version is better.
i tell him, you'd better fix cancer or at least earn a million dollars for your troubles. maura says, first, get a ring on your finger!
i'm joking, she's not, the three of us laugh, anyway.
i'd follow him if he wanted to do science in antarctica, or borneo, or san juan, or oxford, or vancouver. or australia.
at the end of the day, it's two burgers in two red baskets at the bar with gutted oil cans for overhead lamps. a boy, a navy discharge, was missing texas like he was the only person who had ever missed anything. he hogged the jukebox a while, though we cut in with songs from ac/dc. matthew's teaching me a more refined appreciation of bon scott. the drunks at the bar would yell aussie-aussie-aussie at him. how did they know the battle cry without having loved an australian as a reference guide?
when the homesick songhog ran his lot, he kissed my hand for playing bob dylan, even though it was matthew's choice.
the nats beat the phillies, nobody cared.
there are often minor threats around the capitol building, one mile from where i live. sometimes it's a bomb scare, other times it's a schizophrenic in an SUV mowing through security checkpoints. i call these minor because when they occur i am always tucked away in the guts of the district. nothing harms you inside the dimly-lit metro tunnels whose lunette-shaped ceilings have dimples like a golf ball.
we got tapas three weeks back. when his sangria came without apple trapezoids, i speared some of mine and put them into his glass. it felt like a carnival game, bobbing in a tub of water for fruit, minus the spit and on a much smaller scale. last night i sat in the dining room with maura and we made him unfurl his conference poster. we tried to make out the science, hell, even the language of it, but it was far, far over our heads. and he's so modest, displaying this scroll of scientific beauty, pointing to an image of pipettes containing colorful drug compounds and calling the image flare -
except, when he says it, it sounds like flay-ah. flare. his version is better.
i tell him, you'd better fix cancer or at least earn a million dollars for your troubles. maura says, first, get a ring on your finger!
i'm joking, she's not, the three of us laugh, anyway.
i'd follow him if he wanted to do science in antarctica, or borneo, or san juan, or oxford, or vancouver. or australia.
at the end of the day, it's two burgers in two red baskets at the bar with gutted oil cans for overhead lamps. a boy, a navy discharge, was missing texas like he was the only person who had ever missed anything. he hogged the jukebox a while, though we cut in with songs from ac/dc. matthew's teaching me a more refined appreciation of bon scott. the drunks at the bar would yell aussie-aussie-aussie at him. how did they know the battle cry without having loved an australian as a reference guide?
when the homesick songhog ran his lot, he kissed my hand for playing bob dylan, even though it was matthew's choice.
the nats beat the phillies, nobody cared.