comedy/tragedy

I did a lot of community theater growing up. It's a fantastic community in which to be a gawky teenage girl (or for that matter, a deeply closeted teenage boy), full of instant intimacy with strangers and the kind of validation and affirmation you can't beat with a stick. Where else in life can you get applauded on a regular basis?

My family got into theater along with me, and after I departed for college and became a Massive Political Tool, they stayed with it. When my father and sister performed in a production of Evita my freshman year, I went home to catch the show. The night ended with a cast party at the Aut Bar, a downtown gay club where the cast and their families gathered. As I sat between by dad and my grandfather in a gay bar crowded with blue collar workers and Burns Park academics, I was struck with the thought of how unlikely this scenario would be if I had taken up another hobby, say soccer, as a child.

Last night, bearing photocopied sheet music and a childhood of memories, I auditioned for a play. Who knows if I'll get in, but even if I don't get so much as a callback, it was worth the fear of singing showtunes in public just to hear a fellow auditionee exclaim "Oh, that's how I know her! She used to be my voice teacher when she was a man!" Ahh, community theater in Dupont Circle.

Instead of a prepared monologue, the director had asked us to spend a few minutes talking about a romantic relationship. This simple-sounding request became one of the most intense things I'd ever seen. Complete strangers were telling stories of losing virginities, falling in love, coming out of the closet, being cheated on. It was emotionally exhibitionist even by theater standards, swinging from high to low and back again as we all took turns climbing onstage, standing under the glare of the hot lights and telling our war stories. By far the best (even better than the transvestite) was the girl who described her booty call from a very famous and very married musical theater/TV actor. No, I won't tell you who he is... suffice it to say that the second we were done auditioning I called my mother to tell her, since she is a huge fan of his and also went to college with him.

So if I get in, great. I'd love to rediscover that part of myself that I stashed away during my preadult life of cheap suits, interning and history books. If not... well, it was a reminder that even though I miss the applause and joy of performing, it's the theater people I miss most of all.

***********************************

UPDATE: Just got a call from the director-- I got called back!

there's more to life than being really, really ridiculously good-looking

I had actually taken a post-pool, pre-kickball shower in anticipation of flirting with him. Now, I enjoy everyone on our team for their own unique contributions to our group. The way they catch fly balls, their outrageous stories, their ability to pound Miller High Life like a seventh-year-senior. That said, I especially enjoy chatting with beautiful, if slightly dense, men (not specific to those in my kickball league). I hadn't seen him since the first game day, when I was still incredibly raw and the ego boost of a stranger's hand on my hip and a crinkly, smug smile flashed at me felt fantastic. I may not be so raw anymore, but ain't nothing like the prospect of messing around with a hot teammate to complete the healing process.

"So what's your excuse for missing the game today?" I asked him. Play it cool, EJ, play it cool. He knows he's hot, you gotta make him want it. Besides, you have to make up for the damage inflicted when seven of your friends simultaneously elbowed you when he walked in the door.

"Oh, yeah. I got caught in traffic coming back from Charlotte." OK...

"Riiiight, a likely story." Ugh, are my attempts at being a flirtatious tease really that bad? Granted, he's not giving me much to work with.

"Naw, I swear! No way would I have missed you and the game otherwise." Yesssss. Am Sex Goddess.

"So what was down in Charlotte?" Please say the beach/my brother/a really boring conference for work or something equally neutral.

"Oh, I was helping my girlfriend move."



Well fuck. So much for my scandalous post-breakup fling. Why do guys do this? They wait until they know the girl is interested and then drop the G-Bomb, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so earlier, saving that girl a lot of time and energy. Maybe the girlfriend could have been brought up when you were telling me about what else you've done this weekend, or why you decided to move to DC or why you should probably leave the bar early because she's at home waiting for you with a seven-course homemade meal and a copy of the Kama Sutra.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I'm totally guilty of reversing the roles and casually mentioning my boyfriend after an indecent amount of flirting with a guy. But as long as women continue to make 75 cents to a man's dollar, we have to get our power from somewhere.)

Since it's silly to mourn what you never had, I moped for approximately .78 seconds and then resumed playing. I was still doing this a half hour later when I caught side of him at the other end of our tables, whipping his head around to-- I shit you not-- check himself out in the mirror behind him. Not in a "do I have something in my teeth?" kind of way, but a full-on "How you doin'?" to his own reflection. It was priceless; a real-life Zoolander moment for the drunken jock set. One of our captains was standing next to me, also looking in his direction. When she turned back towards me, we looked at each other and fell apart laughing. "Did you see?!" "At himself??" "Omigod!" Stomach-throbbing, sidesplitting hilarity. We lost the round because we were laughing too hard to stand, much less drink beer and not spit it out cackling.

Hot guys will come and go, but the joy of catching extreme narcissism in the act will last forever.

things that make you go HA

Go immediately to see The Aristocrats. I laughed, I cried, I will never be able to watch reruns of Full House in the same way again. And can someone please tell me why Sarah Silverman is not yet a humongous star while Jennifer Love Hewitt gets one show after another? Between that and Rafael Palmiero's continued career, I'm pretty sure there is no justice left in the world.

In honor of The Aristocrats, here is a list of other things that crack me up, make me gasp with laughter as tears run down my cheeks, even if those around me are totally confused or grossed out:

• The "This Bulging River" song on the DVD deleted scenes of Waiting for Guffman
• The fake Chandler-Pheobe seduction scene on season 5 of Friends. It's such brilliant acting and writing, it never gets old no matter how many times I see it in reruns on TBS.
• Sifl and Ollie's "The Panda Song." I'm drunk on panda mystery!
• Stephen's Lynch's "The Gerbil Song." Lil' furry gerbil in yooooour bootyhoooole...
• Re-enacting the "we would like some more alcohol and some more beers" scene with X.
• Most people, if they even remember The State, remember Barry and Levon ("Two hundred... and forty dollars... worth of pudding.... awww, yeah!") or Doug, or The "I'm gonna dip my balls in it!" Guy. For me, the best sketches from The State were "Fragments" and the "Mr. and Mrs. Laupin Variety Programme." The incredibly disappointing show Viva Variety was based on this latter, but the original is gold. Insane, loony, Belgian gold involving Billy Joel, an escaped Ape-Man and a guy running around dressed as a cuckoo clock. The former includes a similarly odd cast, except the sketch is framed by Michael Showalter presenting a performance art piece based on some poetry he wrote because he'd been "going through some pretty heavy stuff."
• The mere memory of that Saturday afternoon sophomore year of college when Jonas and I came across an ice skating exhibition by Tara Lipinsky, backed by the vocal stylings of Aaron Carter. Priceless.
• The crack den in Wet Hot American Summer.
• The dopey folk singers of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
• Adam doing the spoken interludes when singing Boyz II Men at karaoke.
• The moment in Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the little boy mentions Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld, and Mr. Snuffleupagus incredulously says "A GANGSTER?!"

What makes you laugh until you cry?

the blower's daughter

I do love the film Closer. I'm sitting at home after Quizzo watching it now, practically salivating over the delicious lines and Clive Owen's harsh brutality.

I love movies in which beautiful people are unspeakably cruel to one another while using stagey, too-articulate dialogue. It's such a perfect representation of what I want to be capable of but can't quite make myself utter. Decorum blunts the tip of brutal honesty. It's why I spent 17 euro on a script of The Shape of Things in Amsterdam yet can't quite bring myself to finish the four cutting, nasty, stingingly perfect blog entries I've started since Sunday morning.

This weekend was a perfect example of the cruelty it would be great to be capable of. Many scenarios in my head, and the one that came true was the completely inevitable option. Of course that's how it would be. It was so theatrical, so worthy of a dramatic monologue for junior-year English class. In fact, it reminded me of the time I broke up with my high school sweetheart for the second of three times-- or, I should say, he broke up with me-- and I scathingly said to him "Oh, save me the freshman drama monologue." Seriously, I said that out loud.

I do miss the drama, but not in the real-life, crapass dating game way. I miss the performing and rehearsal process and analysis and the applicable lessons learned from fictional situations. Time to get back in that saddle again. Time to utter the lines without the consequences, to be pushed to my limits without being responsible to anything beyond my fellow cast members and the written word at the end of the day.

Sometimes a girl needs the catharsis of saying things like "I don't love you anymore. Goodbye." Even if it's not to a person who deserves to hear it. Even if she doesn't mean it.

lord knows what she does all day when i'm at work

EJ: oh fuck
EJ: brb
EJ: sorry, the cat was trying to drink my chardonnay
LMo: smart kitty

WWCWD?

Like emotionally functional, liberal, handsome heterosexual men in the greater Washington area, this is way too good to be true. Yet, just as we cling to the hope that the former do in fact exist, we may ponder what a better place the world would be if Christopher Walken were president.

"We've got a neverending conflict with unacceptable military and Iraqi civilian casualties that is widening the cultural divide at home and distracting us from pressing domestic issues of affordable health care, access to higher education and the preservation of worker retirement benefits... and the only prescription is: MORE COWBELL."

ej quixote

Sometimes life and circumstance is hard enough, and yet I go out searching for windmills to tilt at.


Still, just because I go looking for them doesn't mean they aren't there.

yes that's all there is

Writing has been difficult the last few days. Usually when a thought comes into my head, I ache to push it out and document it as soon as possible. Lately, though, I've feeling kind of verbally constipated. I know something is there, waiting to be expressed, but the words just aren't manifesting themselves. It's a strange combination of feeling stuck in one place and yet not wanting to move an inch. I suppose that I don't know how to feel because I don't know what I want from the forseeable future.

Maybe it's that nothing terribly exciting has happened very recently. Funny how writing comes easier when one is getting lost in Italy or being dumped by someone she thought she could really be with. Event-based writing has never been an issue for me, but when the inertia of stability takes over I'm quite literally at a loss for words. Do you really want to hear about how I spent last night clipping my cat's nails and watching All About Eve? Or worse, about yet another night spent in the same bar I've been going to for three years drinking overpriced domestic beer and listening to prematurely bald men drone on about drafting floor statements?

Maybe it's August. Nothing like a heat index of 106 to render a girl completely useless. Walking home from work, I'm waiting for my brains to melt, pushing my iPod earbuds out with the force of their gray sludgy laziness. I've been trying to fight that laziness with other kinds of stimulation. I've been reading the trashy romance novels of other centuries, starting with Les Liaisons Dangereuses and working my way to The House of Mirth. They're both delicious and inspiring, but in this heat all I can get from them is a fervent gratitude that I am not required to wear a corset.

Maybe this weekend will jolt me out of it. There are goodbyes to be said, reunions to be celebrated, birthdays to toast, kayaks to be paddled, balls to kick and beer to drink. House of Mirth, indeed. Beyond that, there's much on the horizon-- my first graduate class, promotion at work, new relationships and actually enjoying the new home and roommate that I've scraped together in the last few months. I've never been good at settling and enjoying the moment. I've always been about anticipation and looking beyond, trying to see what's just around the corner. It's probably time to try and get over that... you reach a point where you've accumulated and discarded so much that it just becomes flaky. I don't want to be flaky.

Still, as I sit here at my computer at my pleasant job with nice co-workers, house and friends waiting for me when I leave, I can't help but hum to myself:

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friends,
Then let's keep dancing...

why can't all democrats be so aggressive?

If there is any doubt that Sadie is meant to be my cat, this photo of her decapitating her George W. Bush chew toy should pretty much take care of it.

journey(s)

I totally did this. Oh, the shame. Well, am not really sure which is worse-- downloading Journey because one hears it on Laguna Beach, or downloading Journey because one sincerely feels one's heartstrings tugged by the melodic stylings of Steve Perry and company.

To switch to a whole different kind of journey, I join the many people who mourn the passing of Peter Jennings today. Though I became a news junkie rather late in life (at least in comparison to fellow Washingtonians, many of whom have professed a pre-potty-training awareness of the Big Three anchors), I felt a special fondness for Mr. Jennings. He reminds me of that friend of your parents who you always found to be kind of handsome and harbored a very innocent childhood crush on, only you really liked him best because he listened to your youthful opinions and never talked down to you. He was given a dream job as lead anchor at the age of 26 and quit three years later because he knew he wasn't ready yet. Instead, he paid his dues with ten years on the road as foreign correspondent, striving to become worthy of the office he was offered free and clear.

What a class act. Can you imagine a 26-year-old today doing that? Yet look at all that he reported on. Apartheid. The construction and fall of the Berlin Wall. The Munich Olympics. The Oklahoma City bombings. Iraq. The search for Jesus. September 11. He was a man who sought to educate himself and his audience on the most pressing ideas and events that shaped our world. If I could go back in time and live somebody's life through his eyes, Peter Jennings would be in my top five.

His death is all the more sad because it is so senseless. This morning, NPR played the recording in which he announced his diagnosis of lung cancer and his regret for taking up smoking again after September 11. Hearing his courage in voicing his condition, voicing his anger with himself and the voicing the admission that he needed support and prayers just broke my heart. This is a man who has traveled the world over and seen more proof that life is worth living than most of us will ever dream of, yet he still could not conquer a habit that wound up cutting his life far too short.

Someone very dear to me has a similar habit, and I have only recently acknowledged to myself that it will probably take that person from me too soon. I don't know how to help, how to even offer to help, or whether any move on my part could help. I have always been about action, solutions to problems and finding a fix that will last. Today reminded me that there will always be things that one is powerless over, no matter how much we want to solve them. That sometimes, even we when win in the end, winning is not a one-time activity. Success over addiction, even if maintained for a lifetime, may still not be enough to repair the damage inflicted.

baby girl

Dear Sadie,

You are just about the cutest thing in the world. I do feel slightly disloyal to my other kitty back in Michigan for loving you so intensely after just a few hours. But oh sweet Moses, you are cute and fuzzy and so aggressively in need of my love that you just wipe all of that away.

You are a bloody expensive acquisition, do you know that? Between your adoption fees to the Nazi-Esque Animal League of Northern Virginia, pet fees to the landlord and purchase of the organic kitty food they fed you with, you are the equivalent of a new iPod and several pairs of very good shoes. None of those items, however, are capable of posing on my windowsill or headbutting my shin with such adorable glee. You, my sweet girl, are oh so very worth it.

Sadie, you have this incredibly sweet habit of lifting your butt in the air whenever I pet you in a manner that approaches your belly. God, that's cute. You may leave a grayish-white fuzz over everything I own, you may shred my really nice (though cheaply obtained) couch with your front claws, but hoist your hindquarters up with gratefulness and look at me with those big green eyes and we'll be okay. You and me, girl-- we're a team, and I promise to take care of you and buy you kitty food and pet you and not holler at you TOO much when you rip up my furniture.

I don't know who had you before me or how it is you wound up in an organization for abandoned animals. You are so cute and affectionate that no one in their right mind could ever leave you alone to the elements. Watching you curl up in the crook of my arm, knead my sweatshirt blanket with your little white paws and hear your purr-factory throat tell me just how content you are in my home, my heart swells up. I don't want to go to work tomorrow; I just want to spend all day dangling a string in your face and watching TV with you curled in a furry, purring heap on my lap. I'm so glad you're here and that we are going to take care of one another.

You and me, baby girl.

Love,

EJ

Notes from a Friday night on U Street

I like DC. I really do, I swear. Sometimes I even love it.


But for godsake, it would be nice to live in a place where the phrase "Department of Defense" is never involved in a pickup line.

We probably shouldn't discuss how long it's been since I've done laundry...

But I did have to buy underwear.






Twice.

Vienna waits for you

I saw someone I knew on the Metro yesterday.

This is hardly earth-shattering, I know. Just the previous evening, with two other friends from college, I found myself sandwiched between a former residence hall director/co-worker and a previous president of my College Democrats chapter. Clearly, I have been in this town too long.

But this person was not from college, or Washington. I couldn't quite place him, but the preppy navy polo shirt, backpack and slightly snub nose were definitely familiar. He and I got off at the same stop, and I followed after him trying to guess where I recognized him from. Then, after two blocks of highly conspicuous glancing, I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me," I asked, "This may sound kind of weird... but were you in Vienna this last February?"

He pushed up his sunglasses and squinted at me.

"...Emily?"

"Omigod!"

"Yeah, it's me-- Will!"

Will is one of many Notre Dame students I met while backpacking earlier this year. Four of them had been on my delightfully cheesy Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and after we'd yodeled our way through the soundtrack while ambling around the Austrian countryside for four hours, they invited me to join their group for the evening. We had a delicious dinner at a pub called Zum Affen Fidelen (literally, "To the Faithful Ape") and then joined more people from their London study-abroad program, about a third of whom happened to be in Salzburg that night. This was how I'd found myself in pounding Steigl inside a Irish pub in a mountainside in central Austria with 40 Americans (and a good 20 Italian schoolboys on holiday).

I met up with their group in Vienna, where we stayed at the same hostel by the Hauptbanhof and spent a perfect day tramping along the city streets together. This is where Will and I actually met, and bonded over our mutual love of sociocultural anthropology. I recall being in the Historiches Museum with the him, staring at stuffed birds and Venus of Willendorf, debating the merits of Jared Diamond's scholarship. It was one of those days where, looking back, I can't believe we fit everything into just one day's worth of light. We went to several museums, ate overlarge amounts of schnitzel, lingered in Cafe Central (the most famous of Vienna's cafes), saw the Hapsburg crown jewels and watched a production of Aida from the sardine can standing section of the Vienna Opera House.

I loved Austria for everything it had to show me, but the wonderful people I met there were a large part of why it was my favorite country. Now, running into one of them in the middle of normal life, on my morning commute, was overwhelming.

"God," I exclaimed "such a small world!" I winced inside a little at the cliche, but it had never felt more true.

Turns out he was in Washington looking at law schools. Maybe not the most exotic raison d'etre, but it works. We wound up having a two-hour lunch later that day, reminiscing about our travels and trading plans for the future.

Walking him back to the Metro, I asked him if he'd had any trouble readjusting to life back in the States. After all, he had actually lived abroad, while I'd bummed my way across the continent with just a backpack. He paused to think for a minute.

"Well," he finally replied, "I miss easy public transportation. And I don't miss the food. But even though I'm keeping busy and writing my thesis and looking at schools...."

He trailed off again, and we exchanged looks. "Yeah," I replied. "I get that."

Admission

I've tried, but I can't make myself like The White Stripes.

Interns vs. Tourists

Another summer in DC. Another season of bitching about the heat, women's shoes and the lack of easily accessible beaches. Yet perhaps the heartiest complaints a DC resident will hear are regarding the twain poxes on our fair city-- Interns and Tourists. Like Beatles versus Stones, pop versus soda, Christianity versus everybody else, the side you take in this Beltway version of Who Sucks the Most? says a lot about you. Yet, for all the blogging bitching about both groups I've read this summer, to say nothing of the conversations I've heard for five years now, no one has done a side-by-side comparison to declare a "winner."

I feel that I am a worthy judge for such a noble competition. Having had recent experience making a complete ass out of myself as a tourist in many foreign lands, I am sympathetic to the disorientation that accompanies all travelers. Likewise, I have held no less than three internships (Senate, think tank and media outlet) in my youth and can navigate the icky world of the intern like the street I was born on. Personal biases now accounted for, I can also be a real bitch, too.

So let's consider some of the major categories in which Tourists and Interns compete to become the most annoying guests in Washington since the cicadas.

Attire

Tourists: Cannot dress themselves to save their lives. Pleated demin shorts, a fanny pack and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap do not a fetching travel outfit make. Oh, and put away that fold-out map with the 3-D Washington monument-- you look like a douchebag.

Interns: Cannot dress themselves to save their lives. Miniskirts, Steve Madden platform heels and epaulet-clad blue blazers with khakis do not an approproate work outfit make. Oh, and take off your ID badge before you get on the Metro-- you look like a douchebag.

More Annoying: Tourists

Companions

Tourists: Hordes of crying children and angry teenagers. The shrieking, the whining...oh, the humanity! However, Tourists are often accompanied by Locals who guide them into quiet alcoves, usher them to kid- and Grandma-friendly restaurants and generally bear the brunt of their most obnoxious questions, ie. "But why is it called 'Foggy Bottom?'"

Interns: Each other. Interns who are only in the District for the summer are incapable of doing anything, including having sex, in a group smaller than six people. Like the strain of flu that becomes exponentially nastier as more people get sick, interns get stupider in these groups. I witnessed the ultimate example of this on Saturday night at 3rd Edition, where a group of eight be-highlighted young women bogarted the bartender for a good ten minutes, debating whether they had enough cash among them to buy their vodka-cranberries or if they should try to get the guys next to them to pony up. The angry bartender tried to leave on several occasions but was summoned back with a plaintivly drawled "Ah'm so soooory, we're ready, kay?!" Drinks ordered and put on Daddy's AmEx, they then proceeded to block the door and the only source of ventilation, loudly complaining about how hard they had worked over the last week and what total losers their bosses were. Well, sorry ladies-- those envelopes aren't going to lick themselves.

More Annoying: Interns


Metro Etiquette

Tourists: One more time for the cheap seats: stand on the right, walk on the left. There is no Metro stop in Georgetown but you will survive this; the rest of us do. Please do not ride between 7 and 9 AM, as some of us do live here and would like to get to work on time. And for the love of Pierre L'Enfant, do not greet every stop with an announcement of how many more stations until the Smithsonian.

Interns: I'll give credit where it's due, those little scamps figure out all of the above relatively quickly. Occasionally some poor girl's heel will get stuck in a grate, but that's actually pretty good for a chuckle.

More Annoying: Tourists


Duration of Stay

Tourists: A week, tops.

Interns: Eight to ten weeks, depending on how many credit hours your college is giving you to open and sort constituent letters.

More Annoying: Interns


Attitude/Personality

Tourists: If I can take a moment to be, well, not snarky, I'll confess something. Sometimes, the Tourists are kind of cute. I remember one time in college when I was jogging by the White House and overheard a little boy pipe up "Mommy, I can't believe that's where the President lives!" Yes, with moments of innocence and sweet awe like that, those pesky souls sometimes remind me of what I love about this town despite all that makes me batshit crazy. They are here for all of the noble, educational, historical sights that balance out the spectacular bullshit DC trades for a living.

That said, I wish they wouldn't gawp at people who play sports on the Mall. We're adults playing kickball, not exotic birds of prey in a zoo.

Interns: There are two main kinds of interns; Scared Intern and Cocky Bastard Intern. You know Scared Intern by her quietly preppy clothing and petrified expression, like she's expecting someone to tap her on the shoulder and say "I'm sorry, but you don't belong here." You might not notice Scared Intern, though, because Cocky Bastard Intern completely overshadows everyone else in the office. CBI can be a boy or a girl, and his or her internal monologue goes something like this:

Guy: I can't believe they have me answering phones. Don't they know who my
father is? I have two years of higher education for godsake, I should be running
campaigns right now. Fuckin' morons. Do they not see my red power tie?? I'm gonna own this place as soon as I graduate. Damn, that girl from SMU is hot. I'm so gonna nail her after happy hour at Cap Lounge.

Girl: I can't believe they have me doing data entry. Don't they know who my
daddy is? I have two years of higher education, I should have my own interns to
boss around. And my shoes cost more than my boss will make this month, which
means I am so much better than her. Wow, that nice man from Appropriations who
looks like Uncle Marvin sure is friendly. Maybe I can work that... just have to remember not to use his real initials when I blog about it.

More Annoying: Interns

Congratulations, Interns! You have proven yourselves worthy to inherit the Mantle of Obnoxiousness from the cicadas. Just remember to add this to the list of things you will embellish and brag about when you go back to school this fall. In the meanwhile, keep your nose clean, don't fuck your boss and enjoy your stay in our-- not your-- city.

If ya hoooold on for one more day

This kickball thing is going to be good.

First off, I think this might be the one athletic activity where even I cannot hurt or embarass myself. The games themselves are only forty-five minutes long and we have twenty people on our team, so I can stand in left field, kick a couple of singles and be a wild success at the sport. Besides, I have always been a phenomenal heckler and look forward to that activity as my main contribution to team spirit.

Any attempts at athletic prowess really shine at the post-game flipcup competitions. Sure, it's a hackneyed game that probably should have ended with the acquisition of a bachelor's degree, but it never stops being fun. Flipcup and beer pong are the equivalent to being in a car with a group of people when Wilson Philips comes on the radio, and everyone kind of looks at each other out of the corners of their eyes and mumbles "I could change the station if you want... I don't care... whatever..." Then two minutes later everyone is singing "Someday somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye!" in screechy harmony. You may pretend you're better than it, but you're not, and you're gonna cave.

So yesterday at the rules clinic and scrimmage, there was kicking and there was drinking and there was flipping. There were excellent people full of entertaining stories that made me laugh my ass off. However, kickball kind of kills the rest of one's Sunday. I got home around 8 with a good quarter of a keg coursing through my bloodstream, finally passing out at 9:30 only forty pages into my second reading of the sixth Harry Potter.

Urban Fantasy, indeed.

This weekend in crappy filmmaking

Maybe I've just been in liberal, politically correct enclaves my entire life...

But why isn't anyone talking about how incredibly offensive-sounding this movie is? Every time I hear "You know it's hard out there for a pimp!" blaring from my TV, I think "And sucks for the girls whose vaginas he sells for 20 bucks a pop."

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I have another item for my list of Reasons to Avoid a Movie at All Costs: any "spontaneous" protofeminist singalong of an easy listening hit. It worked once, in My Best Friend's Wedding, but it never will again. Extra demerits if the song is so bad (ahem, Partridge Family-esque level of bad) that it actually threatens to eclipse an infinetely superior moment also involving music, John Cusack and women behaving in very silly ways. You know what I'm talking about... don't make me mention it in the same space as this drivel.

Thank god the weekend is full of plans with actual people and that the heat has finally broken. Another week like this one (speaking of both emotions and temperatures) and I might have sat through one of these just for the sake of distraction.

Say your prayers

Dear God,

I am pretty sure that I will regret this outfit in the not-too-distant future. That being said, rainy Friday mornings were made for gaucho pants and a shrug. I understand that you are very busy dealing with famine in Niger and hunting terrorists in London and other such pressing matters. However, if you could find a way to keep these two items of clothing in fashion a little while longer, I would be very grateful. They are ever so comfortable. I know I'm already going to hell and all, but you and your son are pretty famous for loving the sinners and I'd really appreciate it.

Your friend,

EJ

PS- Can I have a pony for Christmas? Oops, sorry-- wrong letter.

Yes I said Yes, I mean it really, Yes

Thanks to everybody who emailed/IMed/called, and I promise, I'm really doing fine. I was not doing so fine yesterday because I spent too much time on Tuesday with many good friends, chief among them Mr. Absolut. Apparently that fellow has missed me a great deal this summer (I've been hanging out with my fair-weather friend Sir Sam Adams Summer Ale quite a bit), because he welcomed me back with the kind of enthusiam usually reserved for soldiers returning from war.

Now that I am capable of holding my head upright without wanting to vomit, it's crazy busy around these parts. I've spent the last couple of weeks designing a new publication that will go out today. It's a big deal and involves many super-complicated web design elements I've never used before, so hopefully all will go well and I won't have to spend the next two weeks replying to angry sociology professors wondering what the hell I've sent them.

The new oven is finally being installed today, or at least is supposed to be. Let's hope all works out, because for some reason I volunteered to throw a dinner party tomorrow night. My Domestic Goddess side made me do it... without an oven or microwave, I've kept her firmly under wraps as I consume a never-ending succession of soup, hot dogs and Chicken Kee Mao from the truly excellent Thai place on 7th. If all goes according to plan, I will be more than making up for it on Friday. Check it out.

That said, I make a mean hot dog too.

Hot damn

I should get dumped more often. Apparently, if quadruples my blog traffic.

To say nothing of reminding me that I have the most phenomenal friends and acquaintances in the world.

Guess this means I have to buy a microwave after all

I started to write a really long, angry post about what a cowardly piece of crap you are, the things I will not miss the least little bit about you, and how I can't believe how much time I wasted someone who would treat me this way.

I couldn't get into it, though, and more importantly, you don't have that kind of power over me. You never did. And even if you had come close, I know now that you're so not worth it.

I'm pretty willing to bet that you don't even feel badly about the way you handled it. Suit yourself. Just know that people who are this immature and selfish are cut out of my life. Done. I can be really ruthlessly efficient like that. You say you want to stay in my life?

No. The End.

**************************************
UPDATE:

Why on God's green Earth would He choose to make TODAY the day my prom date IMs me in a "I'm getting married in four days" panic? Was I a serial killer in a previous life?

We got more bounce in California than all y'all combined

I am so in love with Laguna Beach, it is not even funny.

Generally speaking, I would rather slice my eyeballs with thousands of tiny papercuts than actually watch a reality TV program containing characters filmed after 2002 (I include this exception to allow for Real World/Road Rules Challenge, truly the best show involving goat testes, threesomes and bungee jumping).

American Idol? Annoying and played out. Any show involving a psychotic boss and/or colleagues? Lived it; don't need to watch it. Season 157,938 of The Real World? So. Fucking. Formulaic. "Ooh, what a great house!" "Ooh, gay/black/Hispanic/Midwestern people are weird!" "Ooh, I love my boyfriend but I need my space while I'm here!" "Ooh, my roommates are insane!" "Ooh, I'm growing so much as a person!" "Ooh, I can't believe it's time to go home when I just realized how much work I have to do to continue to grow as a person!" I'd like to see Bunim-Murray tell the kiddies they're going to live in Jamaica, only to pull an eleventh-hour switcheroo and dump them in Detroit. That, my friends, would be some quality TV.

Laguna Beach, however, is in a whole different category. For all of us who clung to the lower rungs of popularity in high school (and since this is a DC-based blog, I assume that's all of my readers), it's the entree into the minds of the most popular kids in school. Only the best part is, the ugliest cast member on Laguna Beach (*cough Morgan! cough*) would have eaten the popular girls at my high school for breakfast, if they weren't so damn high in carbs. Seriously, the uniform for the popular girls at Pioneer High circa 1998 was a charmingly weathered University of Michigan sweatshirt, a hair ribbon with your particular sport (lacrosse, field hockey or swimming) on it in puffy paint and Mavi jeans so flared they obscured your sneaker-clad feet. Can you picture Lo wearing anything involving puffy paint? Girlfriend probably had an Louis Vuitton diaper cover.

These kids are fantastic. They're all insanely good-looking and rich, with no flaws except a propensity for indiscriminately fucking one another. Though critics of the show accuse them of being dumb and shallow, they're actually pretty efficient and smart. They've all seen enough of the non-Laguna world to know it sucks and is filled with tedium and drudgery, and so have wisely chosen to ignore it. Hell, they'll never have to live in it, so who gives a damn?

This is why I'm actually a little apprehensive for this season. LC is apparently failing to take San Francisco by storm, and appears - gasp! - a little beaten down by life. This is not how it works in "The Real O.C." LC and Kristin perpetually spar over Stephen (who, ladies, is really not that great a catch) (but then neither is that sleazebucket Talan), make bitchy comments behind each other's backs and flip their hair. That is the show. None of this "I'm not sure I'm in the right career field" or "I feel lonely and insecure" crap. Still, Kristin is narrating this time around, and I can't wait. She's the best. I love that she got the guy even though LC is hotter. Besides, she has actual smiles and facial expressions-- who cares if she's kinda whiny as long as she doesn't have that Cheerleader of the Damned thing LC and Lo so fetchingly sport?

Please guys, we need our escape. Just live your flawless lives, shot on beautiful filmstock, and for the love of Bunim-Murray, don't ever add a confessional.

I'll stop wearing flip flops when Karl Rove is fired

There are a couple of things that men just should not express opinions on because they will never experience them. As far as I'm concerned, a woman's right to choose is number one.

I speak, of course, of a woman's right to choose her footwear.

Summertime means professional women District-wide can breathe a hearty sigh of relief and merrily flip-flop about town in their Reefs, the best thing to happen to feet since rickshaws. The other eight months of the year, our poor feet are confined to toe-scrunching heels, perenially caught in the cement throughways of our fair city. Do you know what I spend annually on fixing my shoes because of sidewalk potholes? This is why men buy the drinks-- women have outrageous heel-repair bills.

Men of DC, you get to wear socks. Big thick black socks that cushion every step you take with the delicious assurance that no matter how far you walk, your feet will not open up and bleed all over creation. We women get no such comforts. You see those shoes up there? Are they hot? Hells yeah. I own the black ones, and I look damn good in them. However, I can't appreciate the effect because I'm too busy praying for the sweet embrace of death to whisk me away from the all-consuming pain south of my ankles. Those motherfuckers hurt. Let's see how you do walking around all day, every day in three inch heels with your toes smushed into a space roughly the size of an electron.

Remember in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion when Romy blows off the guy in the club with the line "I have to go, I cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood"? That actually happened to a friend in college. We're out being sloppy and silly somewhere in Adams Morgan and she drunkenly commented that she didn't realize the snow was so deep. When we got home, turns out it wasn't slush she'd stepped in, but the discharge from her own blistered, bleeding feet. That, my friends, does not happen with men's dress shoes.

So give us our Summer Shoe Vacation and shut up about it. We wear the hot-yet-painful shoes the rest of the year, in no small part for your viewing pleasure. Until you walk a mile in my shoes, your opinion doesn't count.**

Of course, it wouldn't be a completely pointless conversation without having a George W. Bush link to it. The Northwestern women's field hockey team was invited to the White House to celebrate their NCAA championship, and several of the women dared to don offensive footwear.

Let me get this straight. Our nation is at war, Iraq civilians are dying by the hundreds every week, terrorists are bombing our closest ally with great abandon, Karl Rove intentionally outed a covert intelligence agent and apparently gets to stay in the White House unrebuked. Yet when a national championship team of athletes tries to take a moment to celebrate their phenomenal accomplishment, they get lampooned in the press for being disrespectful.

I admire their restraint. If I were given such access to the White House, not only would I skip in the door wearing Reefs and a wifebeater, but I- GASP- wouldn't get a pedicure.

The horror.


**However, I might be willing to work out a trade-- we'll cut back on the flip flops, but men are never allowed to wear that godawful dress shirt and tie/baggy Abercrombie shorts combo. Do you know how dumb you look when you dress like that? You're not in college anymore, and the world is not your Phi Iota Dickwad Annual Shareholders Meeting/Clambake.

Planning ahead

One of my colleagues just announced she's pregnant. Here and now I call Desdedididawn for my own first-born daughter, and may Angel Moroni smite K if she steals it.

Things that tick me off: Wednesday Edition

Going to the trouble of wearing cute toe-pinching shoes, walking to a trashy happy hour in a hotel bar and paying ten dollars for a pitifully weak vodka gimlet only to be cropped out of the picture on mediabistro.com. And I'm not even the one with the insane halter tanline!

The fact that as of September 1 I will be doing three people's jobs without so much as a whisper of a pay raise before my six-month evaluation. Apparently I am doing well enough to take on loads of monkey work in addition to my regular, brain-using duties, but not well enough to be paid a wage that will feed both myself and my soon-to-be-acquired cat.

That I am not on the beach right now.

That I will not be on the beach for the rest of the summer.

The District of Columbia, for its psychotic parking registration laws that mean I either pay an additional thousand dollars a year to get DC insurance and plates or give up my precious one vacation day to drive the Focus back to Michigan where it will sit, unloved and undriven, for the remainder of its lonely days. Except, of course, for when my sister comes home on Christmas break from her fancy-schmancy school to drive it into the side of the garage and get in accidents in the parking lot of Starbucks.

Myself, for not having the balls to stand up to my landlord and refuse to pay part of the rent because my oven, garbage disposal and living room light have all been broken since I moved in (to say nothing of the closet shelving that was in pieces in my bathroom).

Also myself for not having bought Raid the last time I was at The Teet. This oversight led to me trapping two enormous, disgusting, extremely buzzy flies in my bathroom last night and subjecting them to a slow, painful death via a spray bottle of Clorox and a rolled-up copy of last month's Elle with Lindsay Lohan on the cover.

Lindsay Lohan, for still being a redhead on the cover of last month's Elle, because if there is one thing that blonde, freakishly-skinny, coked-out Lindsay Lohan is good for, it is being rolled up and used to swat asphyxiated flies. Using red-headed, boobalicious Lindsay just makes me feel bad.

What I Did on My Four-Day Vacation

Northern Lites, where we drank $6 pitchers of Miller Lite and watched drunken teenagers perform Backstreet Boys karaoke. You can't see it, but there's a sign reading "Budweiser Welcomes Fishermen and Truckers"


Ewwwwww

Northen Lites is also home to a vending machine that sells both potato chips and cigarettes. Michigan: Meeting all your grease and tobacco needs since 1827!




Starr didn't believe there were beaches in Michigan until he was actually in the water.






However, he needed no such convincing regarding the awesomeness of swingsets.


















Starr and I went to Okemos. There isn't much there.

Then we drove to Northern Michigan. There's lots there!

For a Purple State, Michigan can be pretty damn Red in some parts. I had forgotten that north of Lansing, there is a complete and total lack of irony. While driving past the endless cornfirelds and forests, Starr and I kept on coming across handwritten cardboard posters taped to stop signs advertising "Mal's Party!" or "Leelenau Firehouse Sourdough Pancake Supper Fundraiser!!!" If we'd had more time, I would have loved to spend it at Mal's or the firehouse listening to people's stories and connecting to total strangers with absolutely no agenda or cynicism.

One of my favorite moments during the vacation was stopping in Rite-Aid for bandages and tape for Starr's infected knee (this following my least favorite vacation moment, watching him get very gray in the face after having all manner of nasty liquids drained from said knee). While buying all manner of supplies, I made fast friends with Jai the Rite-Aid checkout clerk. In our four minute conversation, I heard about her Olympic runner turned alcoholic-lupus-patient sister, Jai's battle and 23-year victory over cancer, her history as a softball and football player for Traverse City High and the gossip from the horse show up Route 31. I love Michigan. We're all too busy to appreciate shit like this in DC, when such encounters are the great stuff of life.

Between hospital visits and bonding with the locals, we did all of the great Up North traditions-- beaching at North Bar Lake, wine tastings on Leelenau Penninsula, a quick walk around Interlochen. Stopping at the EZ Mart for truly excellent gas station cappucino, eating cherries from a farmer's stand at the side of the road, heading to the movie theater gasping from heat because it's the only air-conditioned place in the whole zip code. Starr and my family got along really well, which delights me to no end. Watching him and my dad play football on the beach was among the best things I've seen all summer.

All good things must come to an end, and I'm back with nose firmly pressed against the grindstone (two cliches in one sentence-- top that, bitches). Because our flight was delayed no less than three times coming back to DC and Northwest finally flew us into Baltimore as a pitiful subsitute, I slept in yesterday only to incurr the wrath of the HR gods who monitor my vacation time. Wish... had... comp... time... policy...


Oh, and I forgot to post it, but I also have a truly excellent photo of Starr being attacked by a racoon puppet. Pretty well summarizes my home, no?

Still I often think of going back

I.

Need.

Vacation.




I need Stocking Drive, and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, and strange yet oddly endearing musical child prodigies dressed in navy blue courduroy.

I need a big juicy burger from Art's Tavern. I need to buy the new Harry Potter from the adorable independent bookstore on Front Street. I need beaches and local two-week-old gossip in the Interlochen Public Library that has nothing whatsoever to do with Karl Rove and what he did or didn't say.

Thursday night... I can make it to Thursday night.

Misdirected anger

This is a note to those who decry Beltway denizens for being out of touch. To the red-staters who stand a safe distance behind the citizens of New York and Washington, hollering about patriotism and rootin' out the terrorists. To the readers of small midwestern newspapers who wrote Letters to the Editor after September 11 to express their fear for every time they heard a plane buzz overhead.


The kind of America whose morning commute does not involve submachine guns.

You want to say that as a liberal living in a city I am not in tune with "real Americans." That because I have not served in the armed forces and know very few people who have done so, I am somehow not as qualified to have and express my opinions on military policy. That because I care more about the plights of undereducated children, AIDS victims in South Africa and the one-legged homeless man on my old block than your hanging the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, I am somehow without "core values."

You have no problem checking my civil liberties at the door, expelling students and foreign workers in the name of my safety and invading nations when our leaders can't attack the nationless cells that caused this whole damn mess. You will gladly holler "Bring it on!" in proud tones, issuing those defiant words from the safety of Tempe or Indiannapolis or Mobile.

At the same time you issue such fronts of bravery, you will also act scared. You know that fear is the best motivator for rapid change, and you embrace your fear because you have kids, traditions, a way of life to maintain.

Here's what I have to say to you: BUGGER OFF. Send your money, send your sympathy, send your condolences, but don't you dare be scared and don't you dare encourage us to be confrontational. Don't you dare. After September 11, I deeply resented you groping to connect tragedy to your own lives, when there were more than enough Americans, myself included, to feel panic and fear quite tangibly.

Maybe it is hugely hypocritical of me to rail those who would adopt an external tragedy as their own. London, after all, is hardly in Washington's backyard. For the citizens of London, I have nothing but sorrow and my own righteous anger to offer. I ache for you and your city.

You will notice, however, that there is a pattern here. Just as terrorists are not attacking Tempe or Mobile, they did not attack Newcastle or Leeds this morning. Cities. They attack the cities, the dens full of the godless gay-loving mixed-race liberals you fear so much.

For those Americans who see this tragedy as yet another reason to blindly follow politics without a questioning eye, whose eyes dart suspiciously around their suburban Home Depot parking lot because a man with a turban is parking his van-- Stop. Just stop. Don't give us your confusing mix of hate for Americans like us and hate for those who attack Americans like us. You live with the fear that terrorists will attack your country, and let that fear guide so much of how you treat others and shape your principles. I live with the fear that terrorists will attack my street. We don't want to hear how scared you are, or how brave you are in the face of terrorism. It's insulting. Just stop.

Because when you were on your way to work this morning, I am quite willing to bet you were not thinking "It's only a matter of time before it'll be my morning commute."

I have no idea what you're talking about

Do you know how much it is KILLING me to not write a post on this humongous issue with which I happen to be personally connected (albeit in a small, unimportant yet tangible way)?? Do you know how many opinions I have about this groundbreaking, incredibly charged, highly controversial event that concerns many issues I am deeply passionate about and involved individuals I have known decently well within my very recent history??? And do you know that every single goddamn blogger in Washington is writing all about it right at this very moment??? And what a hugely, spectacularly bad idea it would be for me to write anything about it on my own blog??????????????



That all said, I am very happy that tonight, somewhere in Washington, a very good man will come home to his wife and adorable son.

misty watercolor meme-ries

After getting double-teamed by both Lindsay and Hughes, I feel the need to respond to this whole Childhood Meme business. Sadly, I am incapable of "pollinating" or however it is that you "tag" or "extend" the "meme-ing" because you guys already tagged pretty much all of the bloggers that I actually know (Carolbean is pretty much defunct and AnnaMo is preocupied with pesky things like moving to Connecticut and starting a Huge New Job). *

However, I am capable of serving up some reminiscing with a side of dramatic flair.


The ChildHood Meme: What 5 Things Do You Miss About Your Childhood?

1) Not Paying Bills. I miss having absolutely no concept of where money comes from, why it is needed or what happens if one does not have it. Remember how when you were a kid and such basic necessities as shelter, food and air-conditioning just appeared? Moving to a new apartment, accumulating furniture and filling out kitten adoption papers that ask what you are prepared to annually spend on worm medicine makes a girl yearn for Communist Poland, where we may have faced hardship and turmoil at every turn but Comcast would not charge you $97 a month for a package that does not even include HBO.

(Side note: The Amalgamated Education Corporation that employs me did actually pay me this month! At least now I can eat real food in July! )

2) Being Unaware of What a Dork I Am. Back in the days where we wore full sweat suits with our flannels and crunchy perms. Back when we collected X-Files trading cards. Back when we sang showtunes with unabashed glee on the back of the school bus as it traveled down Packard. Back when there were no voices in our heads judging us for being silly and childlike, because, let's face it, we were children. Back before we had to argue with ourselves to embrace our Not-So-Inner-Nerd, that other people's opinion shouldn't matter because you love it/them/him/her, but then at every turn you're bombarded with approval and disapproval that turns on a whim from both the arbiters of popular culture and the people around you and suddenly you're really embarrassed that you can name every Amy Grant Christmas album even if it does win you a point at Quizzo and and now my head hurts and I'd better lie down.

See? Kids don't worry about that crap. Kids sing the techno remix of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and don't give a damn about anything else.

3) A Metabolism That Allowed Me to Eat Nothing But Raw Cookie Dough for Four Days Straight Without it Having Any Effect Whatsoever on My Tummy, Ass or Thighs

4) Others have written that they miss their idealism, or their youthful liberalism. I'd like to think I still have both of those in spades. What I miss is the energy that is required to act on idealism. Like most adults, I'm just too damn worn out at the end of the day to fight the good fight like I wanted to as a kid. When you're bogged down with the details of everyday life, it's difficult to muster enthusiasm for anything beyond cynical observations and commentary. Particularly when your day job involves fighting the good fight, you're oftentimes just over it by the end of the day. Your job, and by extension, your life, becomes about doing enough good during the day so that you can go home to your fifteen dollar Eastern Market pasta after adult kickball practice and still congratulate yourself when you look in the mirror.

Kid EJ would have been pretty tough on Present Day EJ.

Then again, Kid EJ would not have many friends. Or much of a life. She was very similar to Katie, only her hair wasn't as good.

5) It took me a long time to come up with a fifth thing I miss about childhood. To be honest, I really prefer being a twenty-something to being a kid, or god forbid, repeating a single day of adolescence. I like beer, William Makepeace Thackeray, sex, swearing, politics, reruns of Law and Order: SVU, spooning, Thai food and getting lost in European alleys. Children may embrace these things occasionally, but they are really best appreciated at exactly my current stage in life. I don't like car trips with my parents, children between the ages of 6 and 12, visiting relatives who heap insane amounts of guilt and judgment on me, actually playing most outdoor sports, or anything approaching a team-bonding activity, particularly if it includes "trust falls" or "rap circles."

So when it comes down to it, I guess the one remaining thing I miss from childhood is catching fireflies in my yard on a warm summer night. Because if you don't feel a pang every time you trudge home from work or happy hour and see that familiar glow darting around the neighbor's yard, you're probably a little dead inside.


*And sorry about all those "quotation marks."

bad blogger

Urgh. Head hurts. Too much Fourth of July fun.

Random moments from the last week, where I've been a bad blogger but a good worker bee and a very busy packer/mover/organizer:

-- The unique horror that is realizing that eight hours earlier you signed a lease on an apartment that has neither a dishwasher or washer/dryer.

-- Watching Starr and Hughes pee on the Young Christian Women's Home on the way back from the fireworks and getting disgusted looks from some Young Christian Women.

-- Wrestling the Couch from Hell down the steps and into the doorway after picking it up from a woman named MonaLisa in Alexandria, only to get it stuck in the bars, scrape it up on the concrete and mud, and still be unable to fit it in my goddamn entryway, leading us to eventually dump it in a heap outside Remley's apartment in the barrio.

-- Playing something like three consecutive hours of flipcup.

-- Trying to convince myself that I don't need cable, that I'll be just fine with NetFlix and good books and Internet access, only to realize after a day what spectacular bullshit that is.

-- Finally hearing my mother acknowledge out loud that which I have known for years-- my aunt is not a very nice person.

--Bidding goodbye to AnnaMo as she heads up to the great white north to become a wildly successful campaign finance director and star of independent cinema.

keys to the kingdom

I'm really kind of ticked off by this whole "Barracks Row is the new Logan Circle, which was the Adams Morgan, which was the new Georgetown" phenomenon of DC real estate.

First of all, we are not New York. Thank God. I will never live in New York because all its young, overeducated, snappy people can talk about is the superiority of their particular slice of burrough, just to justify making them feel better about paying $1600 a month for a shitty studio over an Indian restaurant.

"Sure," they say, smug glances sliding up and down your Gap-clad body, "Everything I own smells like curry. But it's so much better than living on the Lower East Side, that gentrified hellhole. Astoria is where it's at, bitches."

Second, the investment required in real estate requires a certain flexibility when it comes to judgment. If I'm signing a year-lease for a place, you can bet your ass that the question "Whatever will others think of my neighborhood?" has only slightly more relevance than "Are the closets big enough for all my diamond dog collars?" Roll your eyes at my total lack of coolness when it comes to my CD collection (currently holding two different casts recordings of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), but when it comes to the ass-expensive property for which one pays, merely nod your head in sympathy that one must fork over such outrageous sums in order to live in a great city.

I will never judge anyone on where they live in an urban area (though if you voluntarily reside in, say, Cleveland, you can bet your trucker cap I will). Ballston, Silver Spring, U Street, whatever floats your boat and allows you to find what you want.




Like, for example, an adorable one-bedroom English basement in Eastern Market!

I knew it was meant to be when I stood outside the door waiting for the real estate agent and heard the birds in the front yard tree squawking "PIT-EUW! PIT-EUW!" Growing up, the tree outside my bedroom window housed a family of these exact same birds. Normally I hate anything that wakes me before 11:00 and is not Jake Gyllenhaal, but for some reason I really liked that birdcall. Very silly, but the familiarity of it was the universe's way of telling me "So what if you can't really afford to live here until you get your raise? RENT THIS HOME."

And so that's what I did.


Oh, and you Yahoo searchers are still pervs, and were absolutely no help.

spanking new real estate fantasies

Urm, why did someone link to my blog through a Yahoo search of spanking stranger fantasy???

More importantly, how about helping me find an apartment? Studio or one bedroom for under $950/month. Needs must include cheap/free parking, Metro access and allowance of cats is a bonus. Acceptable neighborhoods include Capitol Hill (preferred), U St. corridor, Columbia Heights and Woodley Park/Adams Morgan.

Go use your search engines for something productive!

If you're not part of the solution...

Please visit Waiter Rant. His latest post made me cry, it's so gorgeously written.

And unlike the stupid, trivial things that have made me cry in the last 24 hours, actually means something in the end.

I don't mean people are stupid or trivial. They are being judgmental and small-minded, but I feel fine writing that here because I can and have said it to their faces.

There are unsolvable situations in the world. This is not one of them. Come on, let's do this thing.

Office Laziness: A Ode

This is my cute new dress.

This is the spill.

On my cute new dress.

This is the Diet Coke I have snorted onto my keyboard.

That made me spill.

On my cute new dress.

These are the quotes that make me laugh.
That make me snort Diet Coke onto my keyboard.
That makes me spill.
On my cute new dress.

This is the website.

That holds the quotes that make me laugh.

That make me snort Diet Coke onto my keyboard.

That makes me spill.

On my cute new dress.

This is the door of my office which is luckily closed.

Because of the website.

That stores the quotes.

That make me snort Diet Coke on the keyboard.

That makes me spill.

On my cute new dress.

Reclaiming Faith

We should all be very grateful to the New York Times Magazine, and specifically Russell Shorto, for this article. In following a group of Maryland conservative activists in their fight against "the homosexual lifestyle," he gives us an excellent blueprint of exactly how those on the far, far right come to their conclusions about others. Put it this way... George W. Bush is by far the most moderate-sounding individual in the article.

The article draws a critical distinction that the media and liberal activists simply cannot get through their heads. Just as Dennis Kucinich is not the same kind of Democrat as Wes Clark, there is a spectrum of conservative philosophy. There is an enormous difference between the mother in Ohio who doesn't know any gay people (or get Showtime) and is vaguely queasy about the idea of two men having sex, and the activist in Maryland who uses Bible-thumping to conceal good ol'fashioned hatred. However, both of these people would likely say that they are against gay marriage, and that is all we see-- not the ability of the former to be educated, to be made more open-minded, nor the absolute rightness of calling the latter out for the prejudiced bigot that he is.

This brand of conservativism is especially frustrating to me because it ultimately leads back to Christianity. Those who espouse it absolutely will not argue or budge on any shred of their philosophy, because they believe that they hold the ultimate endorsement of Jesus. It's like talking with the proverbial brick wall, only a brick wall that shouts back at you while standing firm.

This brand of hatred was exactly why I became an ex-Methodist at the age of fourteen. My church brought up the idea of becoming a "welcoming congregation"-- Protestant-speak for "accepting openly gay members"-- yet ultimately rejected it in a contentious vote. It was my first lesson in how otherwise good people could be capable of spewing hate and vitrol. In our townhall meetings I watched seemingly tender, lovely churchgoers stand up and proudly proclaim their hatred of "those people" and "what they do."

I remember speaking up in tears, crying out "I know gay people! How could I tell them that they wouldn't be welcome in this place I love so much?" I only managed to choke out "God's love," before I couldn't continue, and I sat back down in my chair, my mother's arm over my shoulder as some members of the congregation applauded in a combination of solidarity and pity.

After that, one elderly widow with whom I sang in the choir came up to me and said "Oh, honey, I wasn't talking about your friends. I wouldn't want you to think that! It's just..." Her leathery, paper-skinned hands grabbed mine and she implored me with her eyes: Don't think I'm a bad person. I know this is what's right. I had to look away.

After the "no" vote came in, I stopped going to church, instead embracing the apathy and indignation of an agnostic teenager in a hippie town. At that age, only a dramatic gesture would have the impact I wanted to make. Staying in the church to discuss my beliefs, to learn how they worked and could be reconciled with Biblical text was out of the question. Even if I had cared enough to continue that education, I refused to spend time in the company of those whom I considered bigots.

Looking back, I wish I had stayed longer. I only remember the bad of that time now, but I know that some of that applause for a self-righteous, emotional child was in agreement with what she had to say. There will always be people who hate without reason. Far more common, though are those who fear what they do not know, and are fundamentally decent individuals. Jesus and God really have very little to do with it. If I had truly wanted to change people's minds, I could have toughed it out, showed the same strength of will that those who hate show every day when they insist that gay people spread diseases, that two women in love have the power to damage a marriage between a man and a woman, that a gay Cub Scout leader will molest their sons.

I wish I had not let hate get the better of me then. I hope that we can show the same certainty of our moral rightness that those who hate seem to have. I hope that we can debate and grow and educate without ever stopping to spread a message of decency and kindness to all people.

Maybe one day I can change a mind, after all.

Must be ovulating

I have got to stop buying iTunes after two glasses of chardonnay.

Ditto watching Closer and Garden State in the same night. Natalie Portman's shining career should not be taken in such concentrated doses.

If used recklessly, the combination of the above can lead to listening to Lyle Lovett's "Nobody Knows Me Like My Baby" while looking at this site.

Thank God tomorrow is a work day. If left to my own devices, I would probably wind up crocheting baby booties while crying into a pile of scented tissues over Ordinary People. As it is, I listen to Interlochen Public Radio on my office computer.

Girls are silly. I'm going to listen to some Ramones and eat beef jerky before I become an even more horrible cliche.

Confessions of a 23-year-old drama queen

If you cancel our plans because you need to go apartment hunting and car fixing, I will be a little upset but I will be understanding. If you cancel our plans for these reasons and then leave me alone in a bar while you go talk to other people for an hour, I will be very upset and I will not be understanding.

Ex-girlfriends are a sore spot. I don't care about them as people, I don't want to know anything about your relationship and I will view them with suspicion no matter what. Sorry, it's my one completely irrational, obnoxiously stereotypical girl thing I do (besides spending entire days watching Sex and the City DVD,s but we don't talk about that I said that is not the point here!). I don't like her, I don't like that she's still in your phone and your life, and I will not ever try to change my mind. The last time I did that, I wound up getting cheated on. End of discussion. And by the way, when your new girlfriend has the same name as your old one, do you think it might be just a touch insulting to have your new girlfriend listed as [Name] 2????

Which brings me to the confession that I see metaphor, allegory and meaning where there is none. It's a girl thing, a writer thing, an acting thing, but I will see subtext when all you mean was exactly what was said, no more and no less. I know that's really bad, and I'm trying to stop. I'm a lot better than I used to be, seriously. For example, I once picked a fight with someone entirely based on the fact that he gave me cookies for an anniversary, when I'd totally set myself up for it by suggesting that we "make gifts for each other." Wow, someone baked for me, what an asshole. Yet of course, I flew off the handle, saw it as a symbol for all that was wrong, and dumped him a week later. God, I'm a bad person.

Look, there are things I want to fix and change about myself, and then there's stuff there that's pretty okay. You were right when you said that I'm holding back, that I'm not letting you see all of me. Frankly, that's because I want you to still like me. When I was growing up, my mother used to say to me "EJ, you and I are like spinach. Not everyone likes us, but we're good for people."

Sometimes I get tired of being good for people. Sometimes I just want people to find me pleasant and adorable.

And, in my final confession, sometimes I work stuff out by writing about it on a website.

Oprah says I should keep a Happy Journal

• How the first three emails in my personal account this morning were Evites. Rooftop parties with semistrangers are what makes living in a city great. Urm, and the museums, too. Yeah.
• Starr and I have been dating for over two months and have yet to see a movie together. This will be remedied on Friday, and then continued on Saturday's movie marathon. The fun thing about this period of dating is that you know one anothers' friends, stories and basic likes/dislikes, yet have a great deal still to share. In that spirit, we're having a "this is my favorite movie ever/omigod how can you not have seen this movie/you are so watching this movie right now" weekend. Do you think I can make him watch The Way We Were if I bring over a six-pack of Stella?
• How a perpetual snit I was in with a Very Important Friend seems infinitely better. Am not 100% sure of why, but it makes life seem happier and sunnier.
• CNN had a headline that included the words "virus-laden poo."
• I have managed to go out three nights this week and STILL watch eight episodes of Dawson's Creek on TiVo. And Pacey is just starting to fall in love with Joey.
• Speaking of my girl, how the TomKat Clearly Heterosexual and Entirely Real True Definitely Not Fake Sexy Lusting Passion Together Forever Engagement has delighted me so much, I'm not even sad that I forgot to TiVo the PWT wedding of Britney and Cletus Federline. Of course, I'm still proud of my girl Brit-Brit. They said the worst thing she could do was have her own reality show on UPN and once again she proved the haters wrong: the worst thing she could do was have her own reality show on UPN be a spectacular failure. That'll show 'em, y'all!
• Wonderful, wonderful music. Great concerts over the last nine days. Even better, it will be a loooong time before I battle 6PM traffic to Columbia again.
• That it's no longer 89 bajillion degrees Fahrenheit, and I can actually walk from my back door to the Metro in the morning without requiring a second shower. I know, enjoy it while it lasts, EJ.

Dawning of a new era

As I walked off the Metro this morning, I ran into a fellow tool from college. This particular individual has attained far greater levels of toolishness than I ever aspired to, as my involvement in student government elections merely involved passing judgement on those foolhardy enough to run for office (no seriously... it was my job). Our brief conversation, however, brought back memories of that universal college experience. No, not beer bongs.

Him: "So, you know CI starts today?"

EJ: *Shudder*

CI, or Colonial Inauguration, is the pissing contest that my alma mater/employer masquerades as freshman orientation. There are laser shows, Capitol Steps performances and useless free stuff like beach towels with the university logo for every student. I can still hear my mother's gleeful cackle upon finding out that the parent itinerary for Night #2 included a moonlight trolley tour of the monuments followed by cocktails and jazz on the quad.

And now, five years later, the prefrosh are back for another chapter in the saga. Flipfloping around campus, toting spanking new Kate Spade bursting with glossy color brochures extolling the virtues of shitholes like Thurston, they trail behind impossibly petite and overtanned mothers in gold lame flats and tasteful-not-matronly linen capris. Two of them were behind me in line at Starbucks this morning, mother yapping away.

"This... Scholar's Village Townhouse... Dawn, that sounds cool, doesn't it? Dawn, doesn't that sound cool?"

Dawn did not respond, her stoic early morning face only hinting the mixture of pride, mortification and anticipation that appears during the pre-prom photo session and college orientation. She stayed silent execpt to order her nonfat grande caramel macchiato. Maybe she thought it was cool, but the excellent poker face didn't betray any emotion. Clearly, Dawn will fit right in here.

As I waited for my own four dollar cup of coffee, I debated striking up a conversation with them. A friendly encounter can take on extra significance in a transitional time. I remember my own CI experience with incredible clarity-- the small group I was late to because I was too busy talking with someone who I would later learn had massive people issues, the test-tube shots at Tequila Grill, the hideously cloying clap and chant routine used to introduce us to our leaders ("HI! I'm Shendrika, and if you're in Group 28 you're with me!!! *CLAP!*), waiting in line for student ID cards with a stranger who would wind up causing insane amounts of drama in my life exactly four years later. Orientation can be a time when everything takes on incredible importance and seems filled to the brim with possibility and potential. Yet, as Peter Parker taught us, that potential comes with responsibility. Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, you absorb everything around you in fear that should you stop you'll miss out on what could make your college experience fantastic.

The admissions staffer part of me wanted to say hi and welcome to Dawn and Dawn Mom. The 9:00 AM worker bee part of me didn't let that happen. EJ before a cup of coffee should never be anyone's defining memory. I just hope she and all the other newbies have a great time at CI and still manage to leave having learned something about their new city and their new selves. They'll have successes and make mistakes, and the groundwork for some of those mistakes will be laid over the next few days while they meet each other and try to get a handle on the next four years. Still, I hope Dawn lets herself be wide-eyed and eager, as I suspect she probably is under that facade. The last thing this school needs is more apathetic yes-men.

And if nothing else, hopefully she'll learn never to go to Tequila Grill.

"Omigod you guys, he is SUCH a loser!!"

In addition to being a rudderless party with no direction that takes its base support for granted and condescends to its core constituents, the Democratic Party is now sniping at one of its own.

The Washington journalistic establishment just doesn’t like Howard Dean. He’s rough around the edges, and he doesn’t play by the rules, especially the rule casting Democrats as perennially weak and apologetic . And reporters didn’t have to look too hard to find Democrats who would go on record about their displeasure with Dean...

Everyone now agrees that Howard Dean needs to be careful about what he says. But there may be no way for him to win. Consider the last of Dean’srecent“controversial” comments, his statement that the GOP is “pretty much a white Christian party.” In other shocking news, the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east. According to the 2004 exit polls, 87 percent of Bush voters were white and 89 percent were Christian (by comparison, Kerry voters were 66 percent white and 71 percent Christian). If as mundane an observation as that can be twisted into the question, “Does Howard Dean hate white Christians?” (as Fox News did), no amount of care on Dean’s part will stop Republicans and the press from turning what he says into a “controversy."

Does it ever once occur to a member that because we are ostensibly working for the same causes, are members of the same political party and are faced with the ever-growing dominance of a common opposition, that it might be nice to show unity? How are we ever to convince an undecided voter that Democrats can provide a functional, beneficial alternative to a Republican-dominated government if we can't even keep talking points straight?

Pelosi, Biden and Co. might not especially care for their new chair, but it would be in their and their party's best interest if they could learn to save their snippy sound bites for attacking Republicans instead of fellow Democrats. Priorities, people, priorities. If you want to make your party appear strong and groundbreaking (to say nothing of actually being stong and groundbreaking), perchance 'twould be unwise to trash thy leader at his debutante ball.

Why the rest of the world hates America

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/13/people.hilton.ap/index.html

RETIRE? RETIRE FROM WHAT?!?!

To be a bitch or not be a bitch, that is the question

Remeber the episode of 90210 where Brenda fell asleep at the beach and sunburned her back to a crisp and was unable to be a babe at Steve Sanders' highly illegal and shady poker game at the cabana?

Now imagine that instead of letting Cindy take care of her with ice packs and painkillers, Brenda went to a rap concert. Then you get an idea of how I feel/look/singe right now.

Ow.

Calling 'em like I see 'em

I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning, and thought to myself "Em, why exactly do you like this guy so much? He does nothing but trash on this city that you love so much!"

The answer, as always is with me, is multi-part and can be considered in either bullet point or essay form. We shall pursue the former.

1. Much of his anger comes from the incompetence of people in charge, something I happen to agree with. I love this city for its vistas, views, actual seasons and constant influx of new people. I do not love the jackasses who milk the system for their own benefit, leaving a trail of desperate, undereducated, impoverished people in their wake. I also hate Congress for treating DC as a petulant stepchild who must be punished when it asks for pesky things like informing the mayor's office when there's a suspected terrorist attack on the city.
2. He created the phrase "personalized novelty legislation" in reference to Terri Schiavo. Not one Democratic media consultant in the entire town could have come up with something that devastating if you locked them in a room for a week.
3. He lives in Virginia, and so I can see where a great deal of his anger stems from. I did a morning commute from Oakton to the Hill, and this 19 mile drive took me eighty fucking minutes. It's a wonder more people don't have websites dedicated to their hatred of DC. If I had to do that drive every morning, I'd probably snap and start picking off commuters with a sniper rifle from atop the Lincoln Memorial.

(And for a little of why I hate DC too, sometimes: that last sentence probably got me flagged by some government agency)

Mostly though, I love this guy because he figures out a way to be angry, to show you why he's angry and to get you to agree with him. Sounds simple, I know, but Democrats in this town are so scared of even the first step. Anger, it seems, can no longer be identified with companion words like "righteous." This just makes me even more angry, because there's so much to be angry about. I'm angry that media outlets allow pundits to say outrageous and idiotic things just for the sake of bringing up alternative viewpoints. I'm angry that no one in the mainstream media has the balls to call a spade a spade, and refuse to dignify lies, partisan slander and malicious intentions with the gift of airtime and space. I'm angry that there's no cantankerous old guard around to put the lazy, yes-men whippersnappers in their place.

I'm infuriated that the media clearly knows that they're in trouble, that they are increasingly not worthy of the public trust, and yet make no effort to fix themselves. They instead attack the sources of information that do editorialize, that point out the absurdity and crap that mainstream media dignifies as newsworthy. They slam The Daily Show and the blogosphere (and yes, I hate myself for using that word, but get over it) for being too opinionated, too subjective, for not presenting news in a respectful way. I say, however, that the real flaw is that not much out there is worthy of our respect. New media at least has the stones to call them on it.

While I'm at it, I'm also infuriated with Democrats. I'm infuriated with a party that is directionless and yet insists it knows exactly where its going, like a stubborn husband who obstinately refuses to stop at a gas station for orientation. It infuriates me that Democrats have at their disposal a cadre of young people who are willing to sacrifice material comforts and silly, frivolous things like health benefits or a year-long contract for the sake of working for the causes we believe in. As a reward for our sacrifices and idealism, we are underpaid, taken for granted and denied even the most basic respect from our supervisors. I can't tell you how many hardworking, devoted, highly educated liberals I know that have been unceremoniously dumped or abused by their so-called "progressive" employers.

I had drinks a few weeks ago with two close Democrat friends who also survived the election. Of the three of us, one had been chucked despite helping fundraise her way to an enormous upset victory. A second still had her job, but had not been paid in over a month because her bold-named boss was completely unaware that her organization's finances were in the crapper and was insisting on staying in big name hotels on various business trips (again, a Democrat). The third, me, had been so burnt out by a campaign job that she found two months being homeless in Europe to be hugely relaxing and was more than happy to leave politics behind for academia.

Politics and public service requires sacrifices of those who pursue it, make no mistake. I feel much the same way about politics as I do about the theater career I once considered and ultimately rejected: if you can see yourself being happy doing anything else, do it. You have to need it in your soul, crave the lifestyle and the high of devoting your career and life to doing good and working for causes you believe in, in order to deal with the lifestyle that accompanies your job (assuming you're lucky enough to havce a job).

I don't know the intricacies of finance and campaign management well enough to suggest specific ways of funding the young staffers that make up the bulk of the liberal workforce. However, I know that it does not have to be this way. Republican staff know how to keep their worker bees happily droning away. They keep humane hours, pay them a living wage and maintain functional offices that encourage as much order and respect as is possible in a political campaign. For more on this, check out what DC Media Girl has to say. She's far more concise than I could hope to be on this issue.

Sorry, didn't mean to lecture for so long. It's just beyond frustrating to watch talent and devotion be underutilized when it's needed now more than ever.

NERD ALERT

Not only do I subscribe to The Note, but I read it every morning and chuckle smugly when I understand the incredibly toolish "aren't we the dickens?" in-jokes. It is, after all, the best kind of validation a political nerd like myself can get. Every morning in your inbox is a smart, wittily worded and incredibly helpful summary of all the things you whisper in happy hours that normal people don't (and rightly so) give a crap about.

And then you get a Note in your inbox with the headline:

Don't Be Offended By Frank Analysis; Think of It As Personality Dialysis

And because your dorky side is not limited to politics, the first thing that pops in your head is "It's 'My Frank Analysis,' bitches!" And then you hang your head in shame.


The first step is admitting you have a problem.

It is so on

Summer time is here, and what is summer in Washington without music, beer and running around on the Mall dressed like a goober?

This week is an excellent kickoff to the Summer 2K5 FunFest. Lo and behold, Starr has turned me into an indie girl. Behold our 4 Concerts in 9 Days Extravaganza. Just goes to show, you can take the girl out of Ann Arbor...

June 7: Ryan Adams
June 8: The Killers, with Keane and a bunch of others (yeah, it's at Merriweather and not Vienna at an abandoned industrial slaughterhouse, but it'll do).
June 12: LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A. The former is all well and good, but I'm beyond excited for the latter. If you haven't heard her, she's a rapper whose music kind of sounds like African schoolchildren chanting to Missy Elliot beats. I really didn't know that I needed Sri Lankan dancehall music in my life until M.I.A.
June 16: Modest Mouse. 'Nuff said. Aren't I the dickens?

I also joined a summer/fall kickball league. Starting in July, I will officially be a 12 Stepper. There might even have to be the purchasing of a mouth guard. Let's be honest, though-- I'm in it for the flip cup tournaments.

The new job is going swimmingly-- people are lovely, work is interesting and fulfilling, and am treated with respect and kindness by everyone in office. Ahem. Wish, however, that was somehow able to transmit good office vibes over to those who are not having such luck with their employers. I remember only too well how tough that is, and how it colors everything else in your life, even the stuff that is supposed to be unrelated and separate from work.

Speaking of, much to do. Holla being useful!

Rainy Friday

Why is a website with randomly generated adjectives able to describe me so damn well?? Thanks to Lindsay for the site.

EJ is the last of the great eccentrics. The funny thing is, she doesn't know it. She thinks her behaviour is perfectly normal. She sees herself as a pillar of propriety and a paragon of protocol. EJ has strong views about every topic under the sun. There's not a subject she doesn't know about or a moral point she can't pontificate on. EJ is entitled to be a little arrogant. She knows an awful lot about an awful lot of things. She is well versed, well rehearsed, and deeply immersed in the kind of knowledge that we lesser mortals can only dream of attaining. Thankfully, she is there to shed the light and show the way. This, she does generously and patiently, as befits a person of superior intellect. EJ is wise, intelligent and (thankfully) oblivious to irony.

Or, at least, that's how EJ is, at her worst. She can't help it. She's an Aquarian and Aquarians are infamous for their occasional outbursts of pomposity. Happily there is another truly delightful side to her. EJ is as honest as the day is long, as generous as the ocean is deep. This is partly where the eccentricity comes from, for a person with such strong opinions EJ is surprisingly willing to please. she is keen to win friends and influence people. She loves to feel that she belongs. She always wants to be in on the action, part of the scene and one of the gang. Rather like Groucho Marx though, she is never sure that she would want to be part of any club that would a member. She is always on the lookout for some new cause to support, or enterprise to sign up to. You might think that this would make her fickle but actually EJ is exceedingly loyal. She may be forever expanding her horizons but she never forgets her friends and she never reneges on her commitments. This is why, despite the highly idiosyncratic nature of EJ's personality, so many people think the world of her.


Disturbing...

In other news, a girl got robbed in our backyard/alley last night and we had helicopters with search lights circling the neighborhood for an hour. In the immortal words of The Boyfriend "yessssss."

Also, I really like my new job. So this is what it feels like to be happy, hardworking and made to feel competent and supported! That warrants another yesssss.