D.C. day three.

So day three on my own in DC.
I woke up to Heather knocking on the door and cursing her stupid hotel key for not working again, stupid hotel keys. We went to breakfast/lunch at a little place called Cosi. It was very very good. I had a flat-bread sandwich with some chicken, some sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, mmmmm. Heather went back to work and I did a quick google search to find the exact intersection to tell the taxi driver to take me to.
I hopped in the cab, "Could you take me to the National Art Museum on the corner of G street and 9th?" he responded with something that sounded affirmative. He drove for a lot longer than it looked like it should have taken on google earth and I was just about to say something to him when I saw G street and relaxed a little.
The National Art Museum was huge and it took me all day to go through it. I really liked the old Abraham Lincoln artifacts, they had a huge assortment of Civil War era paintings including a really old painting of Joseph Smith with an interesting blurb about the Mormons rapidly growing and evicting residents from their homes. Weird. Other items I really liked was the photography and portraiture exhibits and the marble sculptures. There was one such sculpture whose robe was sculpted so well I literally had to touch it to see if it was cloth or marble.
There was also a very weird exhibit. I'll try to explain in words as best I can. Imagine a room the size of a 2 car garage tall enough for a camping trailer. On one wall of this room were 16" TV's floor to ceiling; maybe about 10 TV's tall and 40 TV's wide. 2/3rds of these TV's were playing nonsense, no discernible reason to what it was showing, just video clips of very random things. Like men skiing, dancing people, cows, fences, roller skate wheels, bugs. then the other third of the TV's were all playing the same thing, which was also a bunch of randomness, save for the center TV which was playing........well porn. Well I guess it wasn't full on porn, but it was just a bunch of different clips of naked women laying on a couch doing weird things. One would kiss a woden totem-pole statue; Then one would hug a clear glass sculpture. One would try to make a cat lay next to her on the psychiatrist style leather couch, then another would push her boobs together and make a pouty face. Oh but it's okay it's art right? It was supposed to represent our plugged in world that's out of touch with reality. It was just nonsense and weirdness if you ask me. The little TV in the middle on the right up in that picture was the naughty one.

I took the Metro back to the hotel and waited for Heather to come back so we could go to her work dinner with her co-workers.
Bad idea. The dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant whose name I don't recall and it was gross. Heather wanted me to try some new foods, but this was so disgusting. Oh it can't be that bad, you might be thinking to yourself right now, but it was. To start with there was bread that was the consistency of cornbread mixed with a glue stick and the flavor of some carpet-based bread concoction. Next up, soup. The soup wasn't that bad, some tomato basil snap pea soup, which to me tasted exactly like a can of Campbell's vegetable soup, except instead the the familiar shapes and colors of vegetables, this new soup had strange shapes and most things I saw in the soup when I dared to look were white, and last time I checked, neither basil, tomatoes or peas are white right? Then after that they started serving this turnover looking thing which smell absolutely delicious and I was getting hungry after picking at my other food. The little turnover thing looked very good indeed, and then I cut it open. Apples? Honey? Pie Filling in the Center? Nope, chicken. Yep meat was wadded inside of this little turnover that was covered in cinnamon and powdered sugar, I tasted it and I had to swallow my gag.
At this time the belly dancer came out to dance which had a little too much belly and was little too old to still be a dancing, I tried not to make eye contact and told everyone at the table to avert their eyes so as not to lure her over. The main course then came consisting of "free-range" chicken and lamb Currie. I scraped all the weird looking stuff off of my chicken and ate just the meat part, tasted and very much disliked the lamb, it kind of tasted like fridge burned deer meat. I didn't get my hopes up for dessert which was a good thing because it was just honeydew and cantaloupe squares that were too soft and a very hot minty tea. I agree it's good to try new things to get yourself cultured, but I am not going to eat Moroccan again. Oh and also this all took place over a 3 hour time period, very slow service, and everyone else who works with Heather was getting drunk and trying to belly dance and/or arm wrestle anyone who was up for it. It was a fun weird night and dinner.
Long post I know.
-Reluctantly Cultured

D.C. day two.

Today while Heather was in meetings I went to walk the streets in search of some shops to take her to later. After forgetting to grab my umbrella and running back up to the room to get it and tuck it into my backpack side pocket, I started my long walk south toward the Georgetown shops. I was actually walking up to check out Urban outfitters of D.C hoping it had some cooler big city clothes than the clothes at the U.O in S.L.C. Too many acronyms?
There are a ton of people who walk the streets of this city, and surprisingly most were my age. Normally you see a lot of families or old people out, but this neighborhood is strangely young. With the neighborhood so young you'd think that most people would be here for the same reasons as myself, just wandering looking for shops. Of the conversations I heard they were all business conversations, people talking about meetings they had been, what the company needs to be doing, costs, projections, travels and company idiots. It makes me feel like there is hope for young people, such as myself, in the business world. Where I live the business class is so much older and it's very disconcerting to someone who wants to start there business career.After stopping buy some shops and making note of a few I know Heather would like to visit, I walked back towards and past my hotel to grab some lunch at a sandwich shop I noticed the day before. In a crowded intersection there's a small patch of grass and some park benches, in between the benches, on a grassy little knoll stood a women dressed in a tattered overcoat and a winter Russian style hat was screaming at the top of her lungs.
"You're stealing my life! This is my life and your taking it from me!" It was weird and kind of frightening actually. I wonder what this crazy lady would do if I yelled back at her. Do you think you're the only one who has a hard life? Everyone walking on this street is struggling with there own problems, why do you think we owe you anything!? I half considered walking up to her and slapping sense into her and screaming right back in her face.
I made it to my sandwich shop and sat at a table right by the window to watch people scurry by. After I ate and stood up to clear my table I noticed a small sign above. Handicap accessible only. Whoops. I made my way back to my hotel and up to my room, sat down and turned on the TV to the one movie channel we have, Blair Witch project was on. I was just starting to get into it when a tap tap tap came on the door, room cleaners at 3 o clock?! I was just leaving, I lied and went back down to the lobby to start my book. The Road by Cormac Mcarthy. The first twenty pages are great.
That was my second day on my own in D.C.
-Unexpectedly Grateful

D.C. day one.

I'm in Washington DC, waiting for Heather to get back from a business dinner with a few of her co-workers.
DC is great, flying in I sat on the left rear side of the plane giving me an awesome look at the Washington monument. Stupid ridiculous comments about it being a giant penis statue. The huge obelisk was fashioned after the Egyptian obelisks, which now are crumbled and ruined. The monument was originally going to be a pantheon containing statues of many great presidents to come, I think they chose the correct building plan.
The memorial side of DC seems like a different country almost, with such old buildings that look so oddly Un-American, while ironically they are supposed to stand for everything America is.
Sometimes I wish I lived in a very large, multiculturaly diverse city. I find it very refreshing to be around different sorts of people, breathing different air, thinking different thoughts, with there own worries and problems that are so very different from what I'm used to seeing.
As odd as it sounds I took my first taxi ride today, silently noticing the expansive trunk, nice leather seats, cigarette smell and an unusually friendly taxi driver, unusual only because TV tells me they are not.
We have a very nice hotel room that Heather's work is paying for, well all but one night. This nice hotel makes me want a different job more than I have in along time. My wife has an adult realistic job, she goes on business trips and works with real people. This is what I need, this is what I am going to school for. Do you ever feel like you are not where you need to be. You are not using your potential? I wish I could know what job I would be the very best at and I could feel good about working there.
I start school January 5th or 6th I beleive, I am only taking 9 credits until I can get back into the swing of all things school. I'm a little nervous for math, I have a hard time remembering what the instructor has taught me in math when I get home to do my homework. Maybe in highschool my mind was elsewhere, lets hope that's all it is. I 'm excited for my other two classes. Writing is something I usually like doing, and am excited to hone in on some of my writing skills Also I have recently become interested in philosophy. I hope this class is more of a discussion of philosophies rather than a study of philosophers.
I have all of my Christmas presents already purchased and ready to be wrapped and gifted. If you were lucky enough to be one of the few people I am giving presents to you will not be disappointed.
I bought the newest Killer's CD and so far I'm am not the biggest fan, feels like a record executive told The Killers that people were really into the eighties feeling of some of there songs off of Hot Fuss, so they tried to make an entire eighties album. Also I think Brandon Flowers wants to be Chris Martin of Coldplay so he's trying to mimmick him, which is so stupid because Hot Fuss is so much better than anything Coldplay could even try to think about writing. Coldplay sucks.
I'll try to post more frequently.
-Vocationally Dissatisfied