Just a quick little blurb from my bedroom in Petworth: I'm officially cool enough to walk the streets of any large city alone.
Ironically enough, I was on the path to impending doom in Georgetown (where all doom must clearly take place, amongst the popped collars and cologne) while on my way to find some Toms. Like the sneaker brand Toms, not a slew of attractive men that I could take home with me and have my way with. Though, that may have been the better option given my journey yesterday.
City Sports is at the end of the market stretch on M street, so I turned off on a side street, up a few blocks, and then on to another to finally park. The line at Georgetown cupcake, while I drove to find a spot, was absolutely ridiculous. I didn't even have to parallel either; I was able to slide in between a bumper and a driveway, given the dimensions of my little mongrel of a vehicle.
I decided that, after driving though a shitstorm of traffic to get there, I didn't want Toms after all-- I find them too narrow for my fat feet-- and that I would just grab some ice cream somewhere and head on home. This was about 6:30.
At 7:30, an hour later, I was still trying to find my god damn car. No joke. I kept thinking about what I saw, houses I noticed, etc., but unfortunately for me (and for the otherwise eclectic nature of D.C.) Georgetown is simply a slew of red brick row houses, one after the other. The only defining features are whether or not they have cast-iron fences to keep away the riff-raff. Apparently they also tried to do that by making the nearest metro stop Foggy Bottom, because they didn't want a culture of in-and-out to develop.
I know all of this because my friend Gene, from Bread Loaf, explained the culture of GTown and how some people consequently view it as a town of snobbery and, as stated earlier, popped collars and cologne. I didn't care about that, though-- I wanted to get my effing car so I could get the eff home because I was effing tired. Fortunately, I found myself at the ice-cream shop (I WILL not add the extra consonants at the end of shop, ever.) that I wanted to find myself at: Thomas Sweets. I walked out with my Oreo fro-yo, and despite my worry about not finding my car, I was happy as a pig in shit. Walking around, aimlessly, searching for something that was somewhere, surrounded by people doing the same thing. At that point, I really didn't care about my car.
8:00 then rolled around as I re-traced my steps from City Sports-- it took me over an hour to figure out I should have done that to begin with-- and I was on my way to my car. A young couple abruptly stopped me. The female of the pair was quite pretty, with long, dark hair, and an orange dress, and the male was too preppy for my type, with the parted-wave look. If you weren't aware, that's a deep part on either side of said male head with a gigantic, combed over coif that somehow pairs well with, yet again, popped collars and cologne.
She quickly said, "Excuse me, do you know what the quickest way to get to Columbia Heights is? Like should we take a bus or just walk back to the metro?"
I couldn't believe it. I obviously looked cool enough, confident enough, suave enough eating my frozen yogurt (98% fat free) out of a cup that these fools actually thought I knew the answer! I played it cool: "Hmm. Buses are always a pain in the ass, and then you have to transfer to the metro anyways. I would say just get back to Foggy Bottom-- it's not that far away-- and then you can just stay on the metro instead of using two types of transportation."
They smiled, and Popped Collar said, "Okay, cool. We know how to get back to Foggy Bottom from here. Thanks!" The couple turned and walked away.
I found my car about 10 minutes later, right where it should have been. My bumper stickers were all in tact (do people in Georgetown know what those are?) and my iPod was still in my center console. I put the key in the ignition, turned on Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe", thinking about a fantastic date I had on Friday, and drove home.
Devouring D.C., alone, in the land of popped--well, you get it-- never felt so perfect.
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