In D.C. now. Nice place. Been here about a bazillion times as a kid, but always as a kid playing tourist. This is the first time I've actually hung out in the city-part, the part where all the people actually live. It's a lot different from what I thought it would be like, but on the other hand, all I know about living here is from what I've seen in "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The West Wing."

The city itself is kind of a small, mellow big city. Add a dash of old skool, colonial Philly, a dollop of Southern southerness, a pinch of European cafe culture, a dollop of multi-ethnic New York and hootchie-mama Miami and you get it. It's like all of that, except turned down several notches so that the hootchie isn't really that hootchie or the cafe culture isn't that cafe culture. But you get my point.

Couple interesting little side notes. Went to one of the big, divy type bars in the city, the Pharmacy Club. It was divy in that it was darkly lit, had what you would consider a theme, and had a juke box full of Sabbath and Minor Threat tunes. As for it being a dive bar, though, it was still a little too.....clean. Not enough grunge, which fits into what I'm discovering is the city's kind of up-scale boho'ness. Behind us in the bar, six early 20 somethings even ordered Long Island Ice Teas. I wonder what would happen if you tried ordering a Long Island Ice Tea at the Zeitgiest or 500 Hundred Club? Would 15 surly tattooed biker boys throw you out. Would the skanky, female bartenders laugh in your face and force you to drink a Pabst? Have I told you how much I love Zietgiest?

On the other hand, the free Weekly paper is just like the weekly paper's in SF- complete with the Savage Love column and the pages and pages of ads for escort services. Strangely, it's all written without a hint of political polemics, masturbatory writing, or that smug tone of "my CD collection is more obscure than your CD collection" attitude. Score one for D.C.

Yesterday's fun even was my brother took me to a Middle Eastern cafe in Georgetown to smoke out of a hookah. A real cafe, not some touristy place with couches, pillows and belly dancers. This was real enough that if you squinted real hard, you could imagine yourself in Egypt or Jordan, complete with the over-use of the air conditioner, the Arab-American patrons, and Al Jezarra being broadcast continuously on the big screen tv. Needless to say, kind of an interesting place to be in these dark times. My brother and I kind of slunk into the corner, taking our hits, while trying to make sense of what was being broadcast and all the nasty things that were probably being said about the Jews (meaning us), trying to eavesdrop on other people's conversations, and hoping that nobody would notice that not only were we the only white people in the cafe, but that we had definite signs of having been slapped in the face with a yarmulke. Nobody noticed or said anything. Being kind of high, however, part of me wanted to go talk to the kids at the table next to me, all young Arab-Americans- some of the women in head gear some not- and try to do our little part for peace. To bridge the gap of misunderstanding and to do my part to bring a little love to the world. I was hoping that we'd have a nice civil talk, agree that we actually all believed in the same thing (which I believe is true) and then hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Didn't do it. Oh well.

Did I tell you how high I was?

Off to see Blad II