At some point, I will start acting like a student...

I walked down to Chinatown to pick up Shaen and to beginning a long weekend of playing hostess, wishing I had a bike to make the streets roll past me. DC's Chinatown is nothing more than an attraction, where I was surprised to find on my first week not even a market or discount clothing stores. Instead, its a block or two of Asian restaurants and liquor stores. But that is where my friend's Chinatown bus from NYC was going to drop her off, and that is where we started our weekend.
Thursday I lost my DC bike, and on Friday evening, Jawuan calls me up to tell me that my mountain bike in Ann Arbor got stolen, too! Argh! I suppose this would be the time to reflect on a life lesson centering on the motif that shit happens everywhere, not just in DC. But no, I think I am damn cursed. I refuse to think it is bad karma stemming from the adoption of Ludovic. I DID NOT STEAL HIM. It must be some other unrelated manifestation. Don't take me as religious, karma is just a term I culturally appropriated for my superstitious tendencies.
Any, things started to suck a lot less. Shaen provided us with cinematic entertainment of the highest Sapphic order, and the next day we were shameless tourists. I wore my narcissistic shirt to demonstrate this, and if I had a fanny pack, you know I would have rocked it. We visited a few of my favorite places, like the botanical and sculpture gardens. We also saw some paintings, she just loved Edward Harper and his depictions of isolation!



And, dare I say, we actually had fun at the dyke bar! But I jump ahead of myself, because there was the pinnacle of our tourist day, a trip to the zoo.

We wandered around with our friend Jane Claire for a few hours, expecting to see all the animals the zoo boasted to have. I thought early evening was the time when all the creatures came out to play, but we and the many tired parents with crabby children came only to be stood up by the monkeys, zebras, even the damn invertebrates. But we did see THE PANDAS!!! That is what the National Smithsonian Zoo is known for, hosting the first Panda birth in captivity, after all. Even if all the other animals are a no-show, or what I reckon to be non-existent, you have plenty of Panda observing. So damn cute, even when they are being unabashed exhibitionists, those bears.

The next day, after having a magical time at the dyke bar, we ventured into Georgetown. The neighborhood is a bit unreal to me, although I did stumble across the Mongolian embassy. As some of you may already now, as a child I submitted an application to have a Mongolian pen pal, because I wanted to talk to someone from a sparsely populated region, much like my own. I never got the hook-up, but I have had a sweet spot for the country ever since. Now I have a reason to go back to Georgetown. Shaen convinced my lazy self to go on a canoe ride on the Potomac, which was pretty picturesque, and we both agreed that it would have been ideal if we were actual lovers.

And now, I am back to the working week. I have accepted that I traded in insanity for monotony, but it is no use to regret. Perhaps some people would choose dealing with assholes all day versus less-than-satisfying internship chores, but after tasting both, I prefer the latter. The change in work environment has had other affects, most notably my gender expression. While working at Kucinich's office, I reveled in wearing a pencil skirt and heels, and wore a special low cut number for the day I planned to quit the internship. At the new place, I work alongside a gaggle of girls who could double as J.Crew models (another bonus of the switch, if you ask me), and who always wear the cutest feminine work clothes. I can't compete, nor do I want to, really. So instead, I embrace my inner dandy and rock vests, slacks, scarves, and suspenders. Hooray!