D.C. Days 4 & 5

This morning we rolled out of bed and headed to Rock Creek Park, where we took a long, brisk walk. It was beautiful and peaceful.

We headed to brunch with B.'s mom at Kramerbooks -- a lovely and fun place -- and had a nice little visit with his family at the Dupont farmer's market.

Now we're sitting in Artfully Chocolate Kingsbury Confections, which is delightful as all get-out. I'm drinking a lavender lemonade.

(Later ...) We got Chop't again for dinner and are turning in early. Goodnight.

(The next day ...)

This morning I woke up early and headed to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. My sister left me detailed Metro instructions because she went to work, but after calculating that it was exactly 2 miles from her neighborhood, I decided to just walk it. My iced coffee and I had a pleasant walk down 14th Street for most of the way until I reached the Mall and lost all shade and started pouring sweat. The line wasn't too bad ... I definitely recommend that you get there early, though.

This is an amazing museum. It was very similar to the exhibit we saw in London but was obviously on a larger scale. Haunting and unforgettable. No words.

I stopped in the museum cafe when finished to grab a bite to eat as it was past 2:00 and I was hungry. Then I learned that my sister had 40 free minutes at her office so I got my roasted vegetable panini and sprinted through the streets eating it, stringy mozzerella flying into my hair, making it to the Metro and to her office in the nick of time. It was great to see where she works and meet her colleagues.

Then I met up with my old friend J. at Dupont Circle and we decided to go to Kramerbooks for a couple of pints of beer apiece and some good conversation. The graphic novels section was right by our table, so I grabbed a few to show him what I've been reading for class. It started pouring down rain, but we decided to trek through it, me with the umbrella and him walking his bike, to Busboys & Poets, otherwise known as the cutest coffee shop/restaurant in all the land. We each got a pint of beer; he had a blackened fish sandwich, my sister had pesto veggie lasagna, and I had a spinach, feta, and red pepper pizza. It was delicious and fun.

Overall, it's been a great trip. Hot as hell, but what're you gonna do? It was wonderful to get away, see my sister, drink a little, eat a lot, exercise a little, visit two awesome museums, and spend time with some dear friends. I didn't get to see all my friends who live there, but I tried to see those I've seen the least frequently in the past few years. Hopefully I'll get back soon and will be able to see everyone! P.S. Dragon Slippers is a really cute book ... thank you, Melissa.

D.C. Day 3

We woke up early this morning and headed to the Y. I ran 2 miles and my head exploded. Then we walked over to a farmer's market where a lot of pretty loaves of bread and berries were being sold.

We headed into Old Towne Alexandria, where we're at a coffee shop. It's very pretty and peaceful here. Tonight we are having dinner with my dear friend Elizabeth, and I CANNOT WAIT.

We got a little lost on the way home from the coffee shop, but it was enjoyable because we did some loud, obnoxious harmonizing to such songs as "Somewhere, Somehow" by Amy Grant & Michael W. Smith.

We decided to stop at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall, featuring NASA, Bhutan, and Texas. It was pretty hot, so mostly we just enjoyed a giant rocket popsicle and a giant slab of watermelon.

(Later ...) Dinner with Elizabeth was great. We went to Zengo, ordered six appetizers and mojitos, and all was good. It was so wonderful to see my beloved friend again! We headed to Gifford's for ice cream after upon her suggestion, and I had a scoop of hazelnut ice cream with chocolate cookies and chocolate fudge swirls, throwing my new healthy eating habits under the train for the team. It rained like a mofo, and we caught a cab. We parted ways and vowed to see each other again soon, hopefully in November to celebrate rather than mourn the presidential election results like we did four Novembers ago.

After that, my sister and I met some of her friends at L'Enfant. They were nice and I liked them but I cannot stay up late so we left about 11:30.

Goodnight!

D.C. Day 2

Whew! A full day. I slept not a wink last night. We rolled out of bed and did Turbo Jam. I don't think my sister enjoyed it very much but I was excited for her to experience it. We made the foolhardy decision to walk from her U-Street neighborhood to the Newseum at high noon. We thought a grande iced coffee would be enough to help us along the path. It wasn't, and sweat poured down our faces and we got too delirious to find a Metro station. Luckily we passed some pretty flowers along the way.

55 minutes and a couple of cases of severe dehydration later, we arrived at the glorious Newseum. We contemplated not going, but Elizabeth insisted, and I'm so glad we did. It was first class. A top-knotch museum experience from ceiling to floor. The view from the terrace was amazing, and each exhibit was better than the last. The only con is that it was like a walk-in freezer. Normally this would bother me, but I was generating so much heat from the walk that I welcomed it for the most part. My sister was shivering and turning blue, however. I cannot recommend this museum highly enough.

On the way home, we stopped at the famous Chop't. I was overwhelmed and had no idea what to order so I just started randomly picking stuff. I ended up with romaine lettuce, shrimp, feta cheese, egg whites, carrots, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, ginger carrot dressing, and possibly something I'm forgetting. I ate the entire thing and regret not one bite.

Tonight we watched my beloved Lars & the Real Girl. Now there is nothing left to do but eat ice cream pops and collapse.

D.C. Day 1

Character-building moments while traveling.

(1) Realizing that getting into an empty metro train at the airport and spreading my luggage out meant that I would have to end up holding my little rolling backpack on my lap once people started pouring in. So wheels on my lap. Wheels that had rolled through two airports, multiple airport bathrooms, and a metro station. On my jeans. One leg of which has a small hole in it through which the plastic wheel was touching my skin. I tried to be brave and un-germophobic like Robyn (seriously -- I am in awe) but it was really hard. I felt myself about to burst into tears. I held this bag on my lap to make room for a soldier of some kind to perch himself next to me while balanced on one buttcheek because my other bag was also in the way but my lap is only so big. I thought to myself, "At least I am making room for a soldier." I felt, not unlike Sharon Cooper and Louis DiMucci, that I was doing it for my country.

(2) Realizing I would have to veer from my sister's explicit instructions and switch trains because it's rush hour. This makes me itchy and frantic because I don't know what in the hell I'm doing. I remind myself that I have navigated subway stations in Paris, Rome, and New York, albeit unsuccessfully sometimes, and to get a goddammed grip. I finally figured out what other train to ride and found the Starbucks at which I'm supposed to be waiting for her.

(3) As I'm standing at the counter ordering my grapefruit spritzer in a bottle or whatever the hell it is, I ask for a cup of ice. One barista calls out to another that I need a cup of ice. She ignores her. She ignores her time and again. Finally I say: CAN I PLEASE HAVE A CUP OF ICE? She wiped her paw all over her face including her nose and then got me my cup of ice, mauling the lid with her hand in the process by pressing it on way more times than it needed to be. I sighed and told myself that this is a part of food and beverage service and that the ice itself is probably dirty and to chill out. (The germophobia spirals ... it starts with a dirty bag on the lap and snowballs into further irrationality from there.)

(4) As I'm settling in at Starbucks preparing to plug in my laptop whose battery ran out on the plane while watching the special features of In Bruges (more on that later, wow), a man makes a dive for the plug at the same time, coughing tubercularly without covering his mouth and pulling an actual jambox out of his large duffel bag to plug in. By this point I'd had it, so I said, "EXCUSE ME," and plugged in my laptop first. I wasn't trying to be rude but I think I might have been, a little. Of course there are two sockets, one on top of the other, so we could share, but for some reason I felt like I had to go first if he was going to kneel down there and cough wetly on my brand new running shoes. I have no idea what he needed to hear so badly on the radio but all he could get was loud, jarring static so he left, thankfully. I was not feeling like the nicest version of myself.

(5) In keeping with my seat-hogging tradition, a little girl asks if she can have my other chair so I move one of my bags off of it. She proceeds to stand on the chair, not sit, peering over the counter and yelling hello to the ignoring, face wiping barista, and then she knocks over my bottle of grapefruit spritzer! And it spills on the table, millimeters from this very laptop. I was so aghast that I just blinked in shock while her mom or caregiver or whoever she was cleaned it up and told the girl not to stand on the chair again which the girl proceeded immediately to do. Which only leads me to ask as I sit here: WHAT KIND OF STARBUCKS IS THIS?

My mom thinks that putting up with other people in the world teaches us virtue. And I think that I am a normally pretty tolerant person. I really cannot stand when people act completely put out that other people live in the world … stand in line in front of them, stop at red lights in front of them, etc. After all, other people DO live in the world and we must all try to live in harmony. I really do believe that, and I think that people who get mad at kids in restaurants and grocery stores are giant assholes. But when people start coughing and spilling on me, that is where I draw the line. Is that wrong?

Okay – In Bruges! This movie is so fantastic! I read Heavy Liquid and V for Vendetta and Serenity: Those Left Behind for the first few hours of travel, all of which were good, but I needed a break from the freaking comics so I put a movie in on the way here, and In Bruges … like I said, wow. Okay, I won't give anything away. So I'll just say that I have a deep appreciation for Colin Farrell that heretofore I never imagined possible. He was brilliant. Brilliant, I am telling you. He gave one of those performances where you can see a million different tiny emotions from his heart and thoughts from his head all over his face at any moment, in all the right places. I thought it was a relevatory and incredible performance. The rest of the cast was great, too, but he made my jaw drop. I am trying to think of someone his charisma and nuance reminded me of, and all I can come up with was Robert Downey, Jr. at his best. He was funny and heartbreaking. I was laughing out loud on the plane. Even though it's not always easy to watch. I will say that. But wow! I liked it so much.

And …. now the girl at the next table is taking off her nailpolish and re-painting her nails with reckless abandon. What kind of a person opens a bottle of nail polish remover in a crowded, small, hot coffee shop in June? I can never return to this Starbucks. Ever.

---

It's now later and I'm showered and calm. We went to eat at Rice, which was delicious even though my basil, tofu, and vegetable concoction over purple rice set my lips aflame and made me sweat profusely. She bought red and yellow gerber daisies and is taking great care of me. I love the look of the buildings in her neighborhood. We're about to watch the results show of So You Think You Can Dance (we think Comfort & Chris should go), and life is good.

Catching up

How can it already be Thursday? Flashing back ... I enjoyed my weekend. On Friday night, I watched the amazing mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica. I woke up early on Saturday morning, went to the library, where let's face it I am going practically every day these days, and headed to the gym. I planned to walk briskly on the treadmill in my first visit there in eons, but after a five-minute warm-up I decided to try to run for a couple of minutes. And I ran for a little over a mile! It killed me, but I just kept going and told myself to suck it up. Then I walked some more. It was a great work-out, and I felt so proud of myself to know that I am still capable of running (slowly) and might even possibly be able to build up to several miles again. It was the best feeling I've had in a long time.

Then I went to the produce market and stocked up on butternut squash, acorn squash, little red potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, brussel sprouts, onions, garlic, oranges, apples, bananas, green beans, whole almonds, and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting! I know I need to eat more protein, and I'm going to work on that. I spent the next seven hours or so working on school work either at the coffee shop or at home, and then I headed to a different coffee shop for a game of Scrabble with a girlfriend. I tried to steam some green beans for dinner, but I let it go too long, the water all boiled away, and the bottom of the pan turned into a bubbly black mess. The green beans clearly did not taste very good. Oh, well.

On Sunday morning, it was time for brunch with the family. My brothers, parents, and I all loaded into one car and headed about 20 miles down river to the restaurant where B. and I ate a few weekends ago. We had a nice visit if you count all crying at a letter my dad wrote and read aloud about being a father as a nice visit, which I definitely do. (Of course my sister was very missed.) After brunch, I headed back to the gym to do the weight machines. When I logged in, the screen flashed ALERT! CAUTION! to warn me that I hadn't logged in for more than a year and a half. Nice. I did one set of 10 reps on each machine and it took every ounce of determination and strength in my body to make that happen. My muscles were quivering and my teeth were clenched and I still feel like I've been beaten about the arms and legs with a baseball bat. But I'm going to try to keep at it.

The rest of this week is blur of work and homework ... I've started referring to my graphic novels class in my head as The Class that Ate Summer '08. It's an unholy amount of work, and I'm just trying to keep up. Favorite new reads: The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman (a zombie story with heart) and Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon (just because it's Joss) and Runaways by Brian Vaughan and Amelia Rules! The Whole World's Gone Crazy by Jimmy Gownley -- it was just really sweet and funny. I actually got up at six in the morning yesterday to Turbo Jam, which was unheard of, and I felt pretty great about it. I still don't have all the moves, but I think I'm getting a little better. I am slightly uncomfortable every time the teacher says, "Do you feel that? I know you feel that," but I laugh every time she instructs to "Make that W!" (with your arms) "...because you're a WINNER!" She is so upbeat it is unreal. But I like her, mostly. I am waiting to get the weighted gloves in the mail, so we'll see how that goes! I find that sometimes in bed at night I still hear echoes of the Turbo Jam music, like I used to do with the Super Mario Bros. 3 music as a kid, sort of like the way the bed rocks after you've spent the day on a boat. Last night I was lulled to sleep by the beat of "bump and grind, bump-bump and grind."

Last night I made a stir fry for dinner -- in olive oil, I cooked up red, green, and yellow bell peppers, tofu, almonds, broccoli, and carrots and ate it over a little whole wheat pasta. Yum! Overall, I am really trying to embrace this whole healthy routine and find that I am not even craving junk food because I am not nearly killing myself taking almost 400 stairs every morning just to squander that fitness on a goddamn Reese's peanut butter cup, you know?

I guess that's about it for now. I can't get my camera to turn on, and I miss taking pictures. It might be time for a new little pocket camera or time to buy a DSLR. I can't decide. So I just take blurry pictures with the iPhone and call it a day.

Meanwhile, I continue to love So You Think You Can Dance beyond reason and cannot understand why everyone in America doesn't start watching this show.

Healthy

So here's where I am right now.

There is a pattern in my life (and others' lives, I'd imagine) where sometimes I care about eating well and physical fitness and sometimes I don't.

I've been holding steady in a "don't" period for longer than I care to admit. But here I am! Admitting it! I've felt removed from my body, almost disassociated from it, for a long time now. I've felt it getting softer and bigger and watched what limited leg muscles I had turn smooshy and I've watched my stomach become its own bizarre non-pregnant-but-looks-it entity, and I've ordered the French fries and eaten the daily Twix bars and drunk the Blue Moons and I've been fully aware that what I've been doing is totally unhealthy and yet I've been doing it anyway, for months and months and months. I've watched my clothes stop fitting right or at all. And somehow, at the same time, I found it very disturbing while somehow not caring, all the while wondering how that dichotomy was possible.

And then, recently, I came to my senses. I bought a Turbo Jam DVD, inspired by Linda. I pulled out my old yoga DVD. I'm planning to go to the gym this weekend. I've been trying to eat daily the amount of food a normal person eats in a day instead of three or four days' worth of food. I've tried to stop grazing. I've tried to eat things that are good for me. I skipped the cake and ice cream at a work birthday party.

I haven't had a Twix all week. This is unprecedented in 2008. Maybe even 2007.

I'm trying to take it slowly without going berserko and becoming obsessed. My yoga DVD is nowhere near a great workout, but just holding some stretches and breathing deeply seems like such a radical shift from where I've been. I'm actually paying attention to my body and trying to take care of it, even if I'm just lying there in child pose. And I know I need to pound some pavement and do some sweating, and while Turbo Jam is really hard and hurts my arms so much I feel like I cannot lift them which is sort of awesome, I know I need to diversify and do different active things on a regular basis.

This is where my head is. As I've been thinking about all of this lately, I came across this post, and it really spoke to me, especially the part about getting down on yourself when you start paying attention to your body again and really become conscious of how far you have to go to get into shape. I want to somehow be positive about this experience, but it's hard.

I've loved "Shame" by the Avett Brothers since I first heard it just because it's a kick-ass song, but I was listening to it on the way to work this week, and it says, "Shame, boatloads of shame, day after day, more of the same. Blame, please lift it off, please take it off, please make it stop," and suddenly in my head the song became about me and the way I've been treating myself. I'm tired of feeling shame and blaming myself for becoming unhealthy (even though it's my fault). (You can hear this most excellent song here.)

I want to put a new spin on things and not think about what I've been doing these past many months but think about the times when I most healthy and strong -- my sister reminded me, "You ran a half-marathon!" And I did! I still cannot believe that I did that. I don't want to keep shaming and blaming about how far I've fallen since then. I don't want to think about all of the times I've decided to start getting healthy and stopped or just not bothered starting in the first place. I want to remember that then is then and now is now, and now is what counts.

I just want to take care of my body so it will take me a long way through this life. I want to feel good about myself.

I took the stairs today at work and thought I might have a heart attack, but I did it. That's a start, right?

The actual "Murder in the City" track

My obsession with this song continues.

My only experiences with this song thus far have been live performances -- the one I saw in person and the ones I've watched on YouTube. Without all of the audience noise, the song seems so quiet. I love it, and I can't wait for Gleam 2 to come out next month.

Special thanks to reader Beth for sending me a really, really nice Avett Brothers e-mail yesterday thanking me for introducing her to them. One of my favorite things to do in life is blather on about things I love in the hopes that someone who hears me will start loving them, too. I don't know why this makes me so happy, but it does. It makes me SO HAPPY. Surely this makes all people happy. It's just the best feeling to feel like you have a gift to give someone, something you've discovered or something that's been shared with you by someone else, and they accept it and embrace it. It's sort of why I have fantasies of becoming a librarian. Whether it's someone I know and love or a virtual stranger, like Beth, it is so gratifying. Is this narcissistic? Maybe. Anyway, thank you, Beth! You made my day.

This is going to be one weird summer.

Weekends!

This past one was an early birthday/bon voyage celebration and started with a mix-up of Elizabeth's famous bourbon slush. I decided to halve the recipe, so it went like this: 4 cups of water, 1/2 cup of frozen lemonade (thawed), 1/2 cup of frozen orange juice (thawed), 1/2 cup of bourbon, 1/2 cup of sugar. Freeze in plastic pitcher. It was frozen by morning, and we enjoyed it all weekend. This is the perfect summer drink treat.

Friday afternoon, we headed out for pizza with one of B.'s school friends and his fiancée. Blue moons and pizza were consumed and presidential politics was discussed. Then we watched Battlestar Galactica, which frankly was as dull as dishwater. It seemed like a lot happened, but it all happened so utterly boringly that I could not care. We also started The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but I slept through most of the first half. I blame the Blue Moons.

On Saturday morning, we headed out to the farmer's market for muffins, lemon scones, garlic cheese biscuits, and coffee. At some point, we finished The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which was so utterly gorgeous and profoundly moving that I wept throughout. I loved every performance in the movie, especially Max von Sydow's. Highly recommended. We had lunch at one of our favorite sandwich places and listened to the guitar man play the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on his fiddle very beautifully. B. went for a massage, and when I went to pick him up, I saw the teacher of my old circuit class!!!!! He gave me his card and I really hope to check out his new gym. B. said, "She loved that class," and I said, "I did. I really did." In the immortal words of my teacher, "Love yourself!"

That afternoon, we went to a reception at an art gallery where for some reason I almost had a heat stroke even though normally I'd be all about visiting a labyrinth, and then we went out to dinner. We had shrimp over eggplant and angel hair pasta and some other stuff. I can't remember. Oh yeah. A fried ball of crabmeat with little fried strings shooting out of it that looked like the flying spaghetti monster. Sazeracs. Cake.

A new dog park opened, so when we woke up early on Sunday morning, we decided to head over there.

I first brought Zuko home a little more than seven years ago because the shelter people told me he gets along with any dog, any time, and I didn't want a dog who would snap back at Daisy. They were right, and it seems this is his essential nature and hasn't changed. He just rambled around at the park and had a great time, not really engaging in serious play with the other dogs, but being unfazed by it all and peeing happily on every fence post he passed. Daisy was nervous, but she didn't snap at anyone and seemed to appreciate the wide open spaces she could retreat to. It was a good time.

Later that morning, we headed down the river for brunch. I got us hopelessly lost and was an asshole about it. But brunch was divine.

"Why don't we eat here all the time?" B. asked. "I was just thinking the same thing," I said. He had some kind of black bean soup with shrimp and bacon, and I had the best food on earth, otherwise known as a bread bowl with shrimp, yellow/red/green bell peppers, and purple onions in some kind of buttery, spicy heavenly sauce and a mimosa.

Then we split eggs over a fried grits cake topped with BBQ shrimp. All of this took place in a little old wooden building that used to be a general store right across from the river. This place is almost too perfect.

After that, we stopped at my parents' house so B. could look through their multiple boxes of crazy travel accessories. On our way out the door, my dad asked him if he had a pedometer. When he said no, my dad shrieked, "YOU CANNOT GO TO EUROPE WITHOUT A PEDOMETER!" and ran back into his study to fetch one. One of my dad's favorite things to do when traveling is to measure and then report how many miles he walked that day.

Early that evening, we met a couple of friends and their dogs back at the dog park. It was way, WAY more crowded this time, and while Zuko continued his easygoing wandering without caring where I was, Daisy was not as relaxed and stuck pretty close to my side. I think it was because she was pretty tired from the outing that morning and kept looking at me wearily while surrounded by fetching, spazzing dogs with an "I am nine, and I have had it" face. If she felt cornered and didn't appreciate it, she definitely let the other dogs know. B. kept reminding me that she picks up on my nervousness, so I tried to keep my distance, but usually I'd just walk away from the scuffle and call her to come with me to a less crowded area of grass, and it would work out okay. I really want to keep taking them, but I do worry about her sometimes. The funniest sight of the evening was seeing four large dogs sniffing the belly of a yorkie who'd rolled over and seemed to be loving the attention -- either that or seeing our friends' floppy, adorably clownish boxer / mastiff mix bound over, come to a face-to-face stand-off with a chihuahua, and lick it delicately on the nose.

The reason behind all of the festivity this weekend = B. is going to France for the summer. I just waved goodbye in the driveway and cried a lot. I am now consoling myself with cold cashew chicken and a Gossip Girl rerun.

I miss him already.