dc days of summer

2009-07-30 1:11 p.m.

This blog entry is being written on the magnificent goodwill of the Bolt Bus free wifi and outlets. I’m like an excited kid in a foreign place, marveling at the technology. We’re currently en route to New York from Washington DC, and I couldn’t be happier both to get out of DC and to go to NY.

I arrived early yesterday, and was unpleasantly welcomed by the oppressive heat and humidity. It was 6 am and already nigh on 85 degrees. The sun wasn’t even up yet! It took me some time to get from Dulles to the city proper; I had to take a bus to the metro, the metro to the city center, and from my stop walk three or four blocks to the UCDC center where I am staying. All the while wearing a majority of black and inconvenient tights. Setting my things down in Christina’s apartment only helped a little. While she went to work at Interaction for the morning, I walked around the city idly.

Mostly I sat reading in the middle of roundabouts or parks, continually changing my location because I kept getting approached by mentally ill people. Even though it was daytime, I accumulated six or seven bug bites, and even though I was in the shade, I melted. At one point, I even applied deodorant in the middle of a park.
To cap it all, it started to rain, but still the heat was unrelenting.

Christina and I lunched briefly before I accompanied her to a House hearing on Sudan. We trekked all the way out and up to the Hill, all for naught it turned out. As we were walking from the Metro stop to the building the hearing was in, the entrance was closed off and surrounded by police and ambulance vehicles. More concerned with our inconvenience than the possibility of an actual emergency affecting other people, we complained when we had to walk around the entire building, both downhill and uphill and in scratchy cardigans donned in a last minute attempt to look less inappropriate among the business suits.

I was wearing a polka dotted tank top, high-waisted shorts, and of course tights. I asked Christina dubiously if it would be okay to attend the hearing in this outfit.

“Um, probably not, but there are always some random crazy people.. You could be that crazy person.”

My life’s ambition, right. Although… I usually am that crazy person, so it didn’t make much of a difference. My outfit turned out to be the least of my worries about decorum.

Just after finally making it to the room, we were told that the building for the hearing was being evacuated, and the one figure of authority we could turn to didn’t know what he was talking about and abandoned us early on. Christina ended up being the one explaining the situation to everyone who came in and asked. We joked that she should just assume the podium at the front and lie to everyone, telling them confidently that she was a House staff member, nevermind the starburst wrappers and relaxed demeanor.

I mention starburst because the entire forty minutes that we were in that room, I did little more than eating starburst, reading a True Blood book, or take ridiculous pictures. In one, I actually ran up to the dais meant for actual politicians and posed glamorously with a steady poker face. Then Christina mimicked a stern portrait of I assume Rutherford B. Hayes (I say him only because his name is so grand) while holding a bulk bag of candy.

Eventually we did leave, and though Christina did get out of actual work early, it was annoying to have traveled all that way essentially to goof off and eat sweets.

Back at the apartment, I took a short nap – uncharacteristically. Usually my naps are epic and three hours long, but this time I set an alarm because I thought I would have to get up to go play softball with Willis and some other UCDC interns. We joked about it a lot, because I am the furthest thing from “sporty” that you could get. I’m really competitive though, and once Willis told me that they were the worst team, I was determined to win for them. By that time the rain had worsened, though, so we cancelled.

Ryan came soon, and we immediately went out for dinner and drinks. Much to my satisfaction, we got empanadas from Julia’s. Those pockets of dough are the best thing I’ve ever eaten. They even beat Java City blueberry muffins, if you can believe it. Because we didn’t sit down for dinner, we were done really early and it was strange to go to a bar at 8 pm. We went into one at random in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, where tragically Christina had the worst gimlet of her life. We only went to one more, Pharmacy, before calling it a night and walking back.

Despite being giddy like children, we went to sleep remarkably well and relatively early. This morning was just relaxed as we prepared to leave for New York.

I’m glad I’ve started blogging early on this trip, so that means I’ll feel obligated to be regular. Good, I won’t leave it to the end, when I’m loathe to write and it’d be many thousands of words. There won’t be too many pictures, and then only from Christina’s camera.

Unfortunately/incredibly, I forgot my camera on this trip! Blasphemy, I know. I’m having the worst separation anxiety.

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