Stuff I Like

Our short trip to Washington DC was filled with all of my favorite things. Long car rides where I don't drive, caraoke, conversation, coffee, cigarettes (indoors!), lounging around, wonderful food, and lots of board games. I'm sort of a terrible house guest because my schedule is so backwards but I find that when you go someplace for a short amount of time, people will stay up to hang out, even if they are practically dying at four in the morning.

I was not excited to enter winter weather and I kind of wussed out the whole time by staying indoors as often as possible. The few times we did go outside, I chose to bundle up with a jacket and sweater over two layers of thermals. Plus sweat pants underneath my jeans of course. I have got to get a (cool) scarf because they make you look so much more fashionable and protect your neck too. But you can't just have a nice scarf without an outfit to match, as Mike proved. I might be sort of jealous of his clothing collection. Vests, cool shoes, fun hats, deep scoop neck t-shirts, biceps...

We spent Friday night hanging out at his apartment in Chinatown and it was revealed to all how nosy I am. Usually I'm covertly studying someone's room and exploring with my eyes but I figured this was a rare opportunity to finally be in a space that was Mike's (he's always on our turf) and I had to gather up as much information as possible. I cruised through his closet, inventoried his bookshelf, lightly rummaged through any open boxes lying around, poked into his refrigerator, maybe reached into a few crevices to dig out things, and generally frightened Michelle and Helen into never leaving me alone in their apartments ever again.

I'm a curious person okay? Luckily, Dhonielle agreed with me and I didn't feel entirely alone in my desire to do an item by item accounting of someone's place. I strongly believe that you can gain irreplaceable insight on a person by carefully studying their space. Little things that might never reveal themselves in five years of friendship could come to light in three minutes of apartment exploration if done right.

We watched a video Mike made of his inauguration experience and I admired the way he used his unobtrusive Flip camera to capture some of the night's conversation. For the record, I think I could watch/listen to Dhonielle talk all day because she's animated and hilarious. It's good to have a record of these things, I wish I could tape everyone talking, but people tend to clam up when a lens is pointed at them. Let's work on that.

We stuffed ourselves with late night Chinese and then headed off to Helen's to sleep. But really we stayed up until seven watching Centerstage. I'd never seen it before (incredible, I know) and was lost within the first ten minutes and couldn't tell the dancers apart. So many blondes and they all blended together. I kept up a steady stream of stupid questions and Michelle and Helen were kind enough to only make fun of me a little. Brian had told me that Centerstage was really great years ago but I kind of didn't fully believe him because he was dating an ex-ballerina at the time. Now I know what he meant. It's a great but terrible movie, in the grand tradition of all craptastic dance movies.

Saturday night, there was more conversation and some puzzle assembling, before we pushed through Trivial Pursuit, Catchphrase, and Scattergories, even as Dhonielle and Mike were on the verge of physical collapse. I find normal Trivia Pursuit to be too staid and non-group interactive and prefer the Jeopardy version where everyone gets their own pies and just competitively buzzes in on all questions. We said that you lost a pie for each incorrect answer, which led to a lot of fear of guessing and wild swings on the leader board. I curse green (science and technology) and feel like girls are hugely disadvantaged for the oranges (sports and games). If in doubt, while playing the 20th Century edition, always answer "Ricky Henderson" for baseball questions, study up on your New England states, and don't sleep on Brunei in the Middle East.

Helen and Michelle created a Super Bowl finger and chili feast the next day but really we played Squabble and learned that Mike knows a lot of British slang. Try googling "quim" and educate yourself. By the time Arizona was threatening one of the greatest comebacks ever, we were already half an hour into the ride back to North Carolina. Michelle taught me how to stay alert for deer on the side of the road. She also said that the worst thing to do when one is in your headlights is to swerve or stop. Apparently the thing to do is to just keep going. Bigger accidents are caused by vehicles wildly careening into each other due to a driver avoiding a deer than by just ramming the damn thing. I somehow can't wrap my mind around this idea but chances are I drive so slowly that any deer in my way would have time to yawn, nap, snooze the alarm, and still stroll out of the way.

Now I'm at the Raleigh-Durham airport and wondering why this is the nicest design and architecture I've seen in a Stateside airport. Random.