The Weekend of December 9, 2011

On Friday it was either head out early without really getting to relax after work to a fancy pants place or take it easy for a bit and head to the neighborhood hipster watering hole. I chose the latter, which is the hipster watering hole, Wonderland, for those not keen on the former/latter verbiage. And this was enticing at first. Until we got there and went right upstairs where the dancing is. You know my thoughts on dancing: avoid it.

So to keep myself entertained I just start screaming because it's acceptable in this atmosphere where terrible rap/pop songs are being played way too loudly. And, besides, where else can you just let out a scream at the top of your lungs without drawing attention to you from people other than those standing right next to you?

And then I tried to get a group of stranger ladies to get a dance circle going, which worked for like 47 seconds and then they were probably like "all right stranger guy, if you're going to ask us to form a dance circle make it worth our while by acting like you care about dancing or at least make it less awkward than what it inherently is." Once that failed, I cut my losses and started heading towards Giant for some cheese and fried chicken.

Upon arriving at the Giant, I noticed the bikeshare bikes. Then I thought to myself "well, damn, i can still salvage this night by hopping on one of these and meeting up with some others that only minutes earlier were out of my sphere of willing to get to but now are quite within a sphere of where i would be willing to go." So I grabbed a bike and met up with some people down at Cafe St. Ex on U St.

It was on the bike ride down the hill that I realized how I really love living in a city. Then I thought about where I might be next year at this time based on where I applied to law school. I mean I really want to live in a big city so why did I apply to anywhere in North Carolina? That's like $90 I won't ever get back. Pittsburgh is a city but is it large enough to keep me entertained given I know what it is like to live in a city with the options of Washington, DC.? And can I even get around there by bike/public transport? Same goes for Baltimore. And then there's Chicago and New York that are on like the other end of the spectrum. They are both enormous cities, which means they are really expensive and loaded with things to do, which can be overwhelming. I haven't been to Boston in several years and both times I went it was summer so a winter there may trump all other things it has going for it like big city feel in medium city size. And then there are the wildcards that are the cities of California.

Fuck. I don't know. I am hoping one school gives me a full scholarship or a fortune cookie identifies a school by name for me or something so that I don't have to make a decision.

Anyway.

So I get to Saint Ex and it's a dancing place downstairs where my friends are. Is there anyone in this city that likes to meet up with friends at a bar and just have conversations while drinking good beer? If I found these people, I would probably just stay here in DC. This type of social interaction has to exist somewhere, though, right? Or is that just wishful thinking? I swear I had this in my life at one point.

Instead of a block of cheese and fried chicken from Giant we ended up at Ben's Chili Bowl where on the way to it I ran into my roommate. Things like that happen when you live with six people.

So when I was in Denver I was tasked with buying some warm weather clothing at a Ross's that I had not packed ahead of time, but failed at this after being distracted by some neat shoes. Do you remember that? Well, the shoes I was distracted by were monochrome--or all the same color--blue chuck taylor's. Had I known I would not have been able to find them anywhere else, including the entirety of the internet, I would have purchased them immediately.

I bring this up because it's time to buy shoes again, which is good because I like lots of shoes out there so this gives me a chance to mix things up, but bad because it's annoying buying new shoes every other month due to their cheapness of construct and susceptibility to stains at the bar/walking down the street.

So on Saturday I hopped on a bikeshare and went down to Georgetown to get a new pair of shoes, preferably something colorful and durable. I had a pair of asics in mind but I don't think they exist outside of there. Really, I don't like dark shoes, but I am tired of having to wash/get new shoes because they get dirty too quickly. So I got shoes that are the opposite of colorful: brown canvas toms desert botas.

Not sure why I wrote about new shoes so much there.

I did some christmas shopping too.

Then my roommate and I kicked off our DC wing tour at Duffy's. A lot of people say these are the best wings in the city, but they're wrong. They're unique in that they are like pure pepper sauce rather than tangy, but nowhere near the best wings I've ever had.

My roommate agreed as well, so on Sunday we tried out another wing place, Nanny O'Brien's, and these were even further from the best wings I have ever had. And crazy expensive too, so I wouldn't recommend there.

Having every other Monday off is probably close to the best thing to ever happen to me. But I am sure that if I ever have a job that I don't look forward so much to the time I have off from it it will top that in terms of best things to ever happen to me.

Yesterday on my day off I decided I would do what I promised with this blog and get exploratory in DC. So  I decided I would go to the bikeshare thing down the street from my house (I have mentioned the bikeshare a lot here and that's for good reason: countering my fat person diet) and pick a place on the map that I had never been before. I decided this place would be Barracks Row.

But first I stopped at Soul Vegetarian Cafe down by Howard. I got this sandwich called the Garvey and it was surprisingly delicious given its veganness. Honestly one of the better sandwiches I have had in a while.

And then I bikey biked it down to Barracks Row, which is on 8th St. SE by Eastern Market, if you had never been there/barely heard about it like me. I really don't spend enough time in the Eastern Market/Capitol Hill area, though. Quite beautiful with the 19th century houses lining the streets.

So Barracks Row is a quaint, few block area with a bunch of businesses of all types on one side of the street and the Marines Barracks on the other side until you get to a point where the businesses are on both sides of the street. I was looking for a coffee shop where I could read the internet and do some law school stuff but I wasn't able to find one of these in what I think is called Barracks Row but did in what I think is technically Eastern Market. I don't know. I walked around, enjoyed the 19th century feel of it all, which is quite different from my gentrified neighborhood, and wondered who I would have to marry to live down there, until I found a coffee shop that wasn't curiously crowded for 3pm on a Monday afternoon (I'm talking about all of you at Pound).

If it's you I must marry to live there, let me know. And can you pay for my law school and pick the one that you would like to pay for me to attend too while we're at it? Thanks.