My first D.C. roommate.
I drove from El Paso to D.C., 1,962 miles, in the Spring of 2009, because my former editor, Charlie Ericksen from Hispanic Link News Service, invited me to crash at his house and use his free parking spot to find a job here. I was one of his reporter interns during the summer of 2008 and one day he called me out of the blue while I was a recent college graduate to see what I was doing. He assumed I was up to no good when actually I was registering for an online dating site and watching T.V. at my parents’ house. He was right. Things were not looking good.
I was reluctant to return to Washington, but when I thought about my experience that summer, I recalled that I met tons of great people, always had something to do, and felt good about myself. I had a lot of reasons to return and now have even more reasons to stay.
D.C is an important city where major decisions are made all the time. Politicians can make us a little jaded about the political system, but when you stop and stare at the Capitol you realize that this is a place where winners are. That may sound lame, but all of the presidents of school clubs, top notch students, and worldly people are here doing what they can to make a difference in the world. Sure the news may make us believe otherwise, but hey, there is a demand for negativity so I don’t blame them for supplying the fix to those bad news junkies. Anyway, you can pry my viewpoint from my warm fuzzy hands. I stole that from a poster at the Rally for Sanity. I thought that was so cute.
On the Mall for Fourth of July
I must say that the music scene here is so amazing. I feel cool every time I see a show at the Black Cat or the 9:30 Club. I feel cool when I walk down into the caverns of the U Street Dancehall. I feel cool when I walk to work with my friend. I am quite content. In fact, I’m too content. Something bad is going to happen. God just got the signal and is going to throw me a curveball. He winds up..here’s the pitch, and… Patrick really swung for the fences when he decided to put a baseball metaphor in his story.
Anyway, back to why I love DC. I thought that answering that question was going to be easy to explain, but that’s just it. Love is complex, thus its appeal. DC appeals to me. It takes me dancing and makes me laugh. Sometimes when I wake up, it’s there staring right at me, just like the Burger King with a nice breakfast sandwich. Do you remember those commercials? You probably don’t even have a T.V., not because you can’t afford one, but because you’re above that. I respect you. I watched T.V. all the time and stupid movies and thus I really bore the hell out of intellectuals that don’t read fiction when I get in depth about the politics of being a caveman in high school. If you don’t know what movie that’s from don’t worry. I worry about you though, because Encino Man is fucking awesome. Alright. I’m going to shut up. Enjoy this next photo. I’m proud of it. Guess what metro stop it is.
One day you will use this metro stop and say, “Hey, I’ve seen this before.”
