Everything is happening

 

I was walking to work this morning. The street I walk down to get to the Metro is a bit “dodgy”, i suppose. a speckling of prostitutes just getting off work or heading to whatever place they call home, junkies at the bus stop. Kids walking to the charter school, old grannies with head coverings and prescription bottles in their bags.

It’s not dangerous. It’s broad daylight and everyone has yet to make any huge mistakes, so no one is pissed off yet. We are walking on a blank canvas, brush in hand but haven’t gotten to the palette yet.
On this particular morning, i was doing what I always do on my morning walks – reevaluating my entire life. ha! totally counter-productive, but not always. It’s full of typical questions, like:

Am I living my purpose? I don’t like my job. I should apply for a new one. But what would that be? What would make me happy? I should be a full time writer. But that wouldn’t pay my bills. I wish i was a teacher. But that’s not what I truly am. I want to live in an Italian villa and write. I am going to save up my money and move to Italy. Why should I wait, I should move to Italy RIGHT NOW.

I want to work in a surf shop in Costa Rica. 

*huge sigh, thoughts pause*
it’s tiring isn’t it?

I am walking to the street corner, to cross. The other side is the metro. As I approach there is a junkie. He is wearing all black, sweat shirt and black jeans, even though the swampy DC summer has arrived. His face displays Vitiligo, as if someone has thrown glass into his face and the shards have stuck, taking away the black pigmentation, leaving peach, tan blotches. It is painfully striking.

As i get closer to the street corner, I sigh and end my morning ritual of anxiety and self doubt. I will come back to that tomorrow. I mutter out loud to myself to close this contemplation:

“Ugh, I have no idea what is happening.”

the junkie turns around, looks up at me suddenly, fiercely, as if he had heard my mutter. I did not think i was that loud, and his back had been turned to me.

He opens his hands, spraying them out like tentacles in the air, shakes them around. He is electric. He speaks to me above a normal voice, an aggressive yell:

“EVERYTHING is happening!!!”

He immediately turns around and keeps looking at the street’s red traffic light.

I cross the street and choose to hear his words echo in my head.
Everything is happening.
Everything is happening.

Everything is happening.

My hood.

I like the subtle little characteristics of my neighborhood.

Every morning i am awoken by four bitchy Pekingese dogs yapping at each other. In the beginning of this custom i wanted to strangle all of them, but now they are a sort of alarm that rings to let me know it is time to get up.  They yap at each other every time they get outside, like they are biting each other. it's weird but it's amusing in a similarly weird way. They are walked by their mom or dad, who live across the street from me.

There is a middle-aged single mom who always talks to her old male neighbor every morning, in between yelling at her child to "get ready because we NEED to GO!"  they always seem to share a laugh though.

This morning, while walking to the metro to go to work, a little Hispanic boy maybe 7 years old, with striking green-blue eyes was walking towards me on the sidewalk. He smiled at me with a huge grin and said, "Hola!" It was great to get that enthusiastic of a greeting from a complete little stranger. He most likely thought i was some other old lady, but he was a sweetie.

Random things like that make me like my neighborhood.

i also love the fact that everything happens so close to where i live. last night i got to get drinks w/ girlfriends and saunter home to my little place. i am doing yoga tonight at the studio in my hood and pub trivia with some co-workers.

life is long and life is good.

party prose.

my favorite sort of night is when you have a glass of wine while putting your makeup on. but not too much wine, because you don't want to put on too much makeup.

you go out to your favorite bar. with your friends. and then other people show up that you don't know and you exchange names. everyone is friendly and talks and gets along.

everyone likes hearing what you choose to play on the jukebox. everyone likes motown so you play motown. everyone likes Sam Cooke.

you continue on with beer because that's what you started with, or you move on to whiskey. and moving onto whiskey is usually always a bad idea, but you chose to do so anyway. you are little older now, so you know to sip it and it won't be as bad as you know it could be.

everyone gets sick of the first bar and you go to another bar. the second bar is never as good as the first one, but you needed to leave the first bar. right now you couldn't say why you did if anyone asked you.

someone is restless like you and invited everyone back to there place. it is not yet 12am but everyone still wants to go back to someone's place. some of you go and some of you take cabs home together to make love, and some of you go home alone to watch a movie, eat drunkenly and bitch.

you go back to the house, because you are restless and still want to meet all these people and talk about their lives and talk about how they see the world. this all sounds better while holding a glass of wine. you sip that too though, because you want to enjoy every sip, every word that is coming out of this new person's lips.

the lights are lower in the room you all sit in. slowly, everyone goes off to bed, except for you and an attractive man. you stay up and talk. you exchange stories, know where he is from, what he did in high school with his friends - however nerdy, although you don't find it nerdy you find it endearing - who he is or who he is not in love with, his favorite drink, what he likes about women, what he hates about women.

he is fascinated by you and everything you say and you can tell he wants to kiss you. but you both don't do that because all this connection is too comfortable to mess up this late at night. so you fall asleep on the couch and the next morning you walk home and you see him in a month and you feel like he forgot about all of it, but you look at him like you didn't. 

fotos, booze & boys

I will be causing a ruckus in our fair city this weekend and it pleases me to no end.
 


Upon getting ready tonight i will be listening to this song full blast. No, i do not agree with the blatant misogyny the song is founded on, but i love that GD tune!!!

 

tonight I am attending a city photography organization's annual photo week launch party complete with music, OPEN bar, and art ART AND MORE ART. i got the ticket for free, valued at $60.00 :)

Music, booze, and art. My personal paradise. 

The only BAD thing that could happen would be if the WHITE WHALE showed up. It is his crowd's sort of thing. But I'm sure he's too jaded by such imbibing and fuss over art he's already seen. We'll see. I can't say i wouldn't be GIDDY AS A SCHOOLGIRL if he was there to see me in my tight little black dress. 

I was also invited by my gypsy jazz guitar playing neighbor to a belated-themed-Halloween bash. Of course I could not refuse the offer. boys & booze at that one.

 

Saturday welcomes a DJ that only plays soul 45s at a local bar/resto in my hood. I don't even have to travel to get my groove on. VERY excited to dance to Hipster's avenue. I actually had a DREAM last night i was dancing to this very song and everyone was looking at me with shame and embarrassment and i couldn't figure out why. Was this a prophetic apparition? Only time will tell. 

Sunday morning i am going to a exercise class and then brunch. W/ Levo League gals! I've discovered my new haremmmmmm.

 

Sunday night i am going to see JAMES BLAKE!!!!!!

He actually does have the voice of an angel. and the vices too.

You'll never guess

Ok. So now i am seriously thinking the Universe has moved beyond playing pranks on me and is actually trying to tell me something significant. cuz nothing makes sense anymore!

You'll never guess who emailed me to mention "that we should hang out and catch up soon - and did i see you walking down the street last week?" And yet i then saw him today running with his lady friend of last Sunday??? I don't even know if he's single. Does he really JUST want to be friends. He's just too sexy for me to do that with him.

The WHITE WHALE, the RPJ, returns and i really wanna know the beginning of this story, or the end of it.

if anything does happen and Ahab finally catches the White Whale, you'll be the first to know about it, dear reader.

like i said. BIG if.

i really think he's just playing tag with me, adult style.

Crushed and Conquered.

I finally stopped having a crush on the RPJ about a month ago. i realized he had no interest in me, i was too young for him, and i needed to stop wasting my thoughts on him.

Yet - i couldn't really stop thinking about him because that man is so GD hawt. So I never really did. I still would imagine us on the island of cyprus, in bora bora, or bali, drinking beers, and having amazing sex.





Of course i realize this would never happen but that is half the fun in day-dreaming, isn't it? if it could or would happen it wouldn't be so fun to think about. Anywho - i never really stopped fantasizing about the RPJ.

And today i think the Universe decided to fuck with me.

Today i left my house in the later part of the afternoon. I was in a great mood. I got dressed in my cute hemp crocheted hippie "Almost Famous"-like shirt and put some makeup on my face. nothing fancy but let's just say i was fucking RADIATING today for some apparent reason. You know, the days when you get dressed up and you just feel great about how you look and confident? it was one of those awesome days.



I went outside, walking around my neighborhood and was looking at everything, soaking it all in. As i walked down the sidewalk i saw NONE OTHER THAN THE RPJ walking towards me on this lovely Sunday afternoon with his lady friend of the moment.

I could see the "oh fuck" expression in his face. if you've read my posts before you know this man was/is like my WHITE WHALE. my moby FUCKing dick. The one guy i really want but will most likely never have - but i'm willing to act a fool and do anything to possibly get him. I AM CAPTAIN AHAB in this situation, basically.





So i saw the "oh fuck" expression - or maybe just a "awkward" expression. BUT instead of being awkward back, or adding to the "most painfully awkward interactions i've ever had with a man" top ten list that is included with every single time i've ever seen the RPJ, i decided to play it cool. i gave my most disarming, sweet smile, said "Hey, RPJ*" and on top of everything I LOOKED REALLY FUCKING BEAUTIFUL TODAY.

(*sidenote: his name - which i can't write in this blog post just in case he ever would somehow see this post, even though he will most likely never will - is the most delicious name to come out of your mouth. You feel flirty and free saying it and you wish you could whisper it in his ear so badly, but like i said, he is my Moby Dick. When you have a crush on someone, their name is so beautiful to hear and you just wanna write it into a song and sing it in the shower, hear it bouncing off the walls, enveloping your ears and echoing back to you. This may sound like crazy-talk, but hard-core crushes include intense adoration like the sounds of names or the weird observance of the way they walk or wondering how they look stark naked.)

He responded with a warm smile, hello, and how are you as well. He was with a woman who i suspect is older than me. He must be into women his age. But i swear if he just gave me an afternoon i'd change his mind.


The reason i'm even bothering to write about this interaction is because I'm so happy I was able to have at least ONE NON-PAINFULLY AWKWARD interaction with the crush that rejected me. It's hard to see someone who you asked out on a date and rejected you. It's not something you want to do every Sunday. But I'm glad i took the opportunity to make amends and just "be cool." At least now i can hope he doesn't realize how big of a crush i had on him and how embarrassed i was when i was around him before.


I like to think someday this will not all be so hard.

This weekend

Friday i got a frozen pizza, a bottle of wine, watched Hart of Dixie and went to bed at 10:30.

it was epic.

Saturday i went to the farmers market, hung out with my awesome friend, Eric, i went to a friends housewarming party, met tons of cool new people, rode my bike, went to karaoke, sang "Rehab" and "I want you to want me", got kissed on the cheek by an adorable undergrad Georgetown student, came home and ate the rest of the pizza from the night before.

Today i ran in Rock Creek Park, rode my bike, went to brunch with HCMW then got for yo, then kissed, then went to Pho with Hawt ginge, then had two saison beers as well.

SOLID WEEKEND. 

Labor Day weekend in DC

One of my BEST friends Jessica came to visit me in DC for the long weekend. We did SO much in the short time she was here!! Holy Moly.

A quick run down:
Friday: I brought Jes to Ping Pong Dim Sum. My favorite Dim Dum place in D.C. thus far. I'm sure there is a more authentic, cheaper place, but this place never fails to delight my senses. With the flavors, textures and beautiful presentation it's always a delectable time.

After Dim Sum we walked around, looking at the monuments at night.

Then, we headed over to my corner bar.  The bar manager who has seen me there before bought me and Jes TWO rounds then asked me on a date. He seems to be a playa, and when i quipped this to him he said, "i truly do find you absolutely stunning." - oh my. ALSO - mind you this is the same bar i have gotten two dates at previously after going there in yoga clothes, no makeup. I'm CONVINCED this bar like releases pheromones in my body or something. CRAY-CRAY.

Saturday: We woke up, got breakfast at a cute french bakery next to Eastern Market, then went to Eastern Market.  I bought a pack of organic lavender products a lady made and was selling and Jes got a stellar jade ring that matched her sea-foam green nail polish. Then we went to the American History museum - saw Julia Child's kitchen, the ORIGINAL star spangled banner (like the one the song was written about, AKA the one Francis Scott Key saw as he watched the battle), and Dorothy's red slippers.We then went to the Natural History Museum and after traipsing around we saw the Hope diamond and an IMAX film in which they played this song:

The film was "Ultimate Wave" with Kelly Slater surfing the ultimate wave in Tahiti.
Later that night we went to Alexandria for Eamonn's Chippery and PX Lounge Cocktail drinks. PX Lounge feels like an old Speakeasy. Kinda like being in "Midnight in Paris."

 Sunday: We had brunch, walked ALL over Georgetown, went to Madam's Organ, danced to an amazing Blues band (Stacey Brooks) and sang some Karaoke.

Monday: We went to the National Portrait gallery and then went to Teaism for really good zen food.

IT WAS A HELLUVAH WEEKEND. Love you, Jes!

IT IS SWELL.

I love my neighborhood.

my new yoga studio is fab. i have had two classes and i liked both teachers who taught. I'm getting my Ommm on - even if my arms, legs, and ass hurts!!! i feel like Stretch Armstrong. I guess my running doesn't really stretch me out, it just enables me to eat whatever the fuck I want and not get fat. But Yoga is amazing!!! Every time i leave a class i feel great, not only in my body, but my mind & soul (as cliche as that is) as well.

This week i got a free cupcake from the local convenient store (who is hosting a block party in my hood this Saturday) and two free shots and a beer from my corner bar because i have befriended the hawt ginge bartender, G.

I LOVE MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

people are genuinely friendly in D.C.

I HAVE ALSO BEEN ASKED OUT ON TWO DATES IN ONE WEEK.

one on Friday and one on Sunday!!!

\AS SOON AS I BEGAN NOT GIVING A FUCK ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX, THEY NOTICED ME.

On Friday I am going with the Lawyer to Eamon's Chippery, PX Lounge and then to a 90s cover band.

On Sunday I am hanging out with the sexy frenchie - we are going to re-build my bike , observe the epic sounding Meridian hill park drum circle and a BBQ party.

In Conclusion...
TONIGHT AT THE BAR THERE WAS AN IMPROMPTU MARCHING BAND performance.
that is all that needs to be said.

this marble god

moving in is awkward and i feel like i live surrounded by boxes. other than that i love my new place. i love the red headed waiter at the coupe, the father and son at the Ethiopian cafe. i love the graffiti, the riff-raff, the little girl with beads in her hair that walks by like a butterfly. i love each brightly painted row house, and the hydrangeas that try to drown it. i love the grimacing lawyers, girls who are prettier than their partners and grumpy and/or sassy metro workers.  i like how the air is hot the sun is out but never too bright and the gazillion accents that sweep you away when you run to the Lincoln memorial. you rush up the stairs and are awe-struck by this marble god, like it is the first time you've seen it.

Joie de vivre!

On Tuesday night I walked to a bar (my favorite so far) to meet a Canadian Man Whore (CMW). This was playing in my ears, I passed the colorful row houses drenched with hydrangeas on their doorsteps, and the bars and shops were buzzing.  Against my skin i felt just-the-right-amount-of-warm summer night air breeze by. And all was right in the world!

The Coupe

I celebrated my move in to my new place over Brunch with two of my Best Friends in D.C. It is a blessing to have so many friends in a new place you have moved to.  For some serendipitous reason I have made many friends in a very short time and feel very lucky.

Here is a group of beautiful Row Houses I passed going to Brunch on Sunday. You can't really see but they are left to right, pink, white, golden yellow and orange. One day I'd love to live in my own rowhouse. I sort of live in one now.  It is a converted one.

We were served by a super duper hot ginge waiter who wore black thick rimmed glasses.

We chose blood orange mimosas for cocktails and a waitress came out with them with a huge smile on her face saying, "Aw girls, get ready for these, they are FABULOUS." i loved her delivery.

I ordered a Pork Tostada and it was divine. It made me think of Austin tex-mex food. It was:

Black beans, sour cream, corn tortillas,Manchego cheese, cilantro, avocado, one sunny side up egg on top.

I'll have to visit the Coupe more often. Not only b/c of the Hot Ginge waiter, but their presentation and food was AWESOME.

Yesterday was sunny and bright and i did some errands and got to peek around my new 'hood. I love it so far!!! It's the perfect amount of hipster, yuppie, and culture! Culture being the most important ingredient in the mix, of course.