March 6, 2011

Happy Birthday Peter Lewis. I hope the weather was much better in Knoxville than it was in DC. It was pouring rain. So I figured this was great weather to go to the Holocaust Museum. I just don't think it would be right to be distracted in the museum thinking about how nice the weather is outside while reading about a systematic annihilation of a people. Pouring rain eliminates that distraction.

And this should go to show how serious I am about actually leaving the house now as it was perfect sleeping weather too. I may have slept in a little later than is ideal (noon) but upon waking up I remembered the Tennessee-Kentucky game was on. We lost and you would never know that Bruce Pearl was on the sidelines given the lack of discipline and intensity in the second half. Whatever. We beat Pitt and Villanova on the road. And nobody wants to go to the Holocaust museum in a good mood anyway.

I lack drama in my life so I decided to take the bus down 14th street to the museum rather than the metro. But it was uneventful. Nothing is going my way, which is pretty much ideal for visiting the Holocaust Museum I think. But seriously, what are so many people doing out on a Sunday in pouring rain no less? I can't even imagine what it would be like on a nice day.

So I basically have two offices where I work--one in College Park, MD at the office of the contractor for the project I work on at the Treasury, and the other at the Financial Management Service building at the end of 14th St. SW before you hit Virginia. When I started working there about a year and a half ago the first thing I noticed about the Holocaust Museum, which is two buildings up from the FMS building, is the sign for the exhibition "State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda," which is a special exhibition, and my first reaction was "Is there really a need for a special exhibition on the power of nazi propaganda because I am pretty sure the fact that this building exists is a strong enough testament to its power?" But that is me being insensitive.

I wish I could say the museum destroyed me from the inside and left me a broken and different human being, but I am nowhere near empathetic enough to be affected that strongly. I don't know if this is an indication of my stoniness or a defense mechanism I (or people in general) developed a long time ago to counter being overwhelmed by the level of banality in the human race, but I felt so completely removed from "the holocaust" that I couldn't comprehend the extent of it as anything more than an isolated event in history with it having no emotional affect on me whatsoever. However, there is a photo of a man kneeling over a mass grave of other victims and there is a soldier standing over him about to shoot him so that he will fall into the grave himself. You can see the acceptance of his fate in his eyes. That made it a little more real to me. Then there is an exhibit between floors that is a collection of shoes from victims and you can smell the leather, which added a unique touch of reality to it that is lacking from a picture of a pile of shoes or the picture there of a pile of hair removed from the women before they enter the gas chamber. But other than that it was hard for me to view something of that magnitude and contemporarily extraordinary as something other than fiction. I am not saying I am denying the Holocaust but rather if it all were a story developed by an author--albeit bewilderingly sinister one--it would affect me similarly. And I envy you if it affects you differently because I don't think I was always like this.

Anyway, I had every intention of going to the Washington Monument (if you had to click on that to see what the Washington Monument is, you're weird) as well since it is right there, but given the fact that it was pouring rain and visibility was 0 it wouldn't make much sense. And I chose to watch the Tennessee game so that eliminated the chance to do two tourist things before 5:30 this Sunday, when they lose. So I went back today (Monday March 7) because that is the effect this blog is having on me. I should not have been doing this at all and should have been up the Washington Monument already in life because I have lived in DC for like 2 years and visited many times when I was younger since my aunt and uncle used to live here, but it was under construction for years and no one could go up, or at least that is what my parents told us. If this is not true, congrats parents that is a brilliant way to avoid the enormous lines and time commitment that go along with a summer time visit of the monument.

So I get there today at 3:30 to finally do what probably most all visitors to DC prioritize early on their trip to see that all tickets have been given out for the day. IT'S A RANDOM MONDAY AFTERNOON IN MARCH. The tourist guide person says you should come at like 8:30 to get tickets for the day.

Fuck it, I never wanted to go up the Washington Monument anyway. And I hear it's something you should do with kids, so I'll just wait till I get one or more of those to do it.  Plus I walk by it pretty frequently on the way to work so its lame to me now. [Add excuses, and excuses, and excuses, etc.]

But really this blog is affecting me on more than just Sundays. For example, on Saturday me and a couple of my roommates were thinking of what to do that night. One suggested a hookah bar and I was like no need to pay for that, I have two of them. And he was like "What, why haven't you brought it out earlier?" "Well I did when I lived and Virginia and you were there once when we used it but yea I have no excuse for not using it in DC yet." But really I was waiting for it to get warmer out to go and get tobacco and coals to fire it up again. The closest place to get these is in Adams Morgan about a mile away. My first instinct is finding out who will drive us there, but then I thought "No, Jeff, you need to get your pants fitting again and get out of the house not just on Sundays." So my one roommate and I decide to walk there in large part because this blog has motivated me to do things like that. We told the other roommate that we will be right back and that we could smoke it and go out to eat, etc. after.

So we get to Adams Morgan faster than we realized we could by walking and get to the convenience store that also sells hookah supplies. We buy them. Then I see something that might be a food truck so we investigate. It is just a truck for Capital Hemp. But it is right in front of Amsterdam Falafelshop, which was in the original DC Food Hall of Fame and I have never eaten at. And since we are a little hungry we decide to grab a falafel. If I were there after a night out in Adams Morgan it would have been perfect, but it was still good at 6pm. Then right next door is Black Squirrel, which I have also never been to. So we decide to grab a beer because I had heard they have a good selection. And they do. And I get a Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, which is the best porter I have had in a while as it was properly bitter and not overly sweet from the vanilla. And on the way back we get more wine to make it 9 bottles for the house in 2 days (Friday was an impromptu movie and wine night in the house--and by house i mean about 5 of us--all but one of whom is a guy, but we all had similar estrogen levels after watching It's Complicated and 17 Again. HBO needs better movies). We had planned on coming right back but this is what leaving the house can lead to. Amazing.

We ended up that night at Wonderland Ballroom down the street from our house. I like the place when I am not upstairs on the dance floor area because I am not a dance circle type of person (unless it is at Sassy Ann's in Knoxville) and luckily neither is my roommate, but that is where we were so we don't stay long. And we're hungry. And the Giant down the street is now open 24 hours. Being in this Giant at any normal hour you would think it is a popular tourist destination but at midnight it is like a ghost town, which is awesome. And we have the munchies. So my roommate goes on a personally funded shopping spree getting all three types of Baby Bell cheeses, Munchies, a Simply Apple, and whatever else adds up to $30 and we get back and have a cheese tasting session.

All three Baby Bells are delectable FYI.