Sunday February 13, 2011

So I'm naturally disposed to sleep 10-12 hours a night. People know this about me or at least that I sleep until the PM any chance that I get. Given the fact that I get 6 hours of sleep during the week on a well disciplined night, that's a lot of sleep to catch up on the weekend. And my body gives it a go.

With this being said, I respect the sabbath de factoly most of the time other than a burgeoning ritual to Pho Viet, which makes my entire weekend most of the time. (Now chances are, if you are reading this, a random pho place in DC is borderline completely irrelevant, but if by chance you stumble upon this please don't take it to mean I am recommending you go and try Pho Viet. Not because its not like the best pho ever, which is probably is, but because it's small and the Washington Post article about it almost ruined my weekly trip last week with all the newbies. Don't be like them.)

I digressed.

I don't get out of the house much on the weekends because I'm usually really tired and I live in a house with 6 other people that I really enjoy, so we often end up drinking a lot at the house and either don't go out and, if we do (and if we don't), I wake up Saturday and/or Sunday too hungover to do anything other than cure the hangover with a bowl of pho.

But this weekend some friends from Tennessee were in town and they're real go-getters and non-lushes, which is a good thing at this age (25). One of them had never been to DC before so tourism was in store. This national capital virgin is also a really motivating person and said something like, "Jeff you need to stop being worthless and go out and see this exciting city of yours rather than drinking and sleeping your life away." Touche, but in my defense I work at 7 every day and get up at 530 during the week, so I'm only worthless on the weekend. But I have no defense on the drinking front.

So Beth inspires me to go out beyond the friendly confines of 14th St in Columbia Heights and I suggest, "Hey you're real creative. How about you think of one thing a week that you would do on the weekend if you lived here and tell me and I will go do it?" Well, we never really reached an agreement if she would be the brainchild behind the things I actually do on the weekends, but she was definitely the brainchild behind the idea to weblog my adventures.

Coincidentally, I had just watched the film, "Pushing the Elephant," as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival here in DC and had been thinking I lead a pretty worthless existence in comparison to this woman that has like ten children all of whom survived the civil war in the Congo and now not only does she have a healthy, adorably cohesive family in Phoenix but shes also a reknowned advocate for woman's rights and conflict victims throughout the world. Now I am not saying I need to save the world as she is well on her way to doing, but I should get out of the house on the weekends and take advantage of all there is to do here in DC, which is a lot. A side hope, other than feeling productive on the weekend, is that maybe the more exposure I have to people other than my roommates the less awkward of a human being I will become and the greater chance there is to socialize outside of my house. Not likely though. Baby steps.

As I mentioned earlier, friends I already have (well Beth brought a friend that I didn't know but after the following transpired it's like we've known each other for weeks) and are well adapted to my awkwardness were here. This is what happened on the first Sunday I left the house (not really but if time were measured starting with when this was created then it would be the first, and is):

We had every intention of meeting up with a couple other college friends at Busboys and Poets at 1030 but at least I had no pretensions that that would actually happen. So instead we made The Heights at 1130. Now I've heard that bloody marys are great for hangovers, so, fittingly, one of the weekends that I am actually not hungover is the first time I have ever had a bloody mary. Quite good. I'm feeling productive already. Just being associated with brunch will do that.

Some food was ordered and eaten, natually. Now nourished, we were off to commence the tourism; although we did some tourism on Saturday, too, that day of the week is not in the title of this blog. A year and a half ago I had just returned from Guatemala as a human rights observer and moved to DC in hopes of finding a job some time over the summer. That failed but I did visit all the Smithsonians, my favorite of which was the Portrait Gallery, and this Sunday was the last day in the Hide/Seek exhibit that caused some controversy. So while also satiating my need to feel relevant, my suggestion was to start the tourism at the Portrait Gallery. Landon Donovan looks like Daniel Webster and the Hide/Seek exhibit was well done. We did check out the Museum of Censored Art too but, honestly, the David Wojnarowicz video, "A Fire in My Belly," was a little too ADD and intense for me.

We then said goodbye to Laura, rested at Cosi, and stopped in the Museum of Natural History to see some dinosaur bones and the Hope Diamond. Some guy proposed to his gf in front of it while we were there. I said "lame" because I also have no heart.

Next up was the White House.

On the way Beth asked "What's that?" Me: "That's the Old Post Office. We can go to the top and see all of DC." I knew Beth liked high vantage points (might be redundant). Beth like the vantage point of the Old Post Office like I knew she would. It was also at this point that Beth recommended I do something with my life and write a blog about going to different tourist spots and such on Sundays in the city. Changed my life (hopefully).

And then we arrived at the front of the White House and like everyone else ever they were unimpressed and thought the back was the front. So we walked around back and they were more impressed.

Now it was dark and we were getting hungry. But first we were going to walk around Georgetown. So we take the Circulator there, walk on N St. to campus, sit in front of the main building to rest and hope we fit in as students, although it wouldn't matter, and talked about how we can find ourselves some sugar spouses so we wouldn't have to worry about money/doing anything other than what we really wanted. None of us was successful in this on the steps there.

Next up was killing three birds with one stone: getting my pho fix, introducing Beth and Liz to pho, and eating because we were hungry. Miss Saigon on M did the trick just fine.

Beth had also never been to Urban Outfitters so we stopped in there and read their books. Beth had also never been to Georgetown cupcake so we walked down to just miss it closing by two hours. Sunday. On the way there Beth tossed a mint into Liz's mouth and later when I asked what was everyone's favorite thing about today Liz said the mint incident.

Maybe all these words were for naught.

Beth said the Old Post Office.

Thanks for reading all this. Not even I wanted to read it all again so if you made it this far and thought, "damn, Jeff, if you're going to make me read all this, the least you could have done was proofread," I understand. But not enough to go back and proofread.