No idea.

Not much to say I suppose.

Well, that can’t be right.

Here’s something: Derek Jeter makes me very happy.

Now I’m blogging again.

“I’m so glad I’m not actual friends with all my Facebook friends.”

“We always cook with wine. Sometimes we even add it to the food.”

Luke said it, but then he said it’s really a famous quote. The Google tells me it’s from W.C. Fields and The Google is never wrong.

This makes me smile.

This makes me cry, in a happy way.

This makes me furious.

“I don’t like songs that sound like they were recorded with toys.”

In reference to the song that plays here. Scroll down.

On July 31st, 2006, Luke and I boarded a red-eye American Airlines 757 at LAX bound for Dulles, coming back from my friend Michele’s wedding in Santa Barbara. We had been home in the states for about two months…back from two years in the Peace Corps…still adjusting to life here and Thailand still at the front of our minds. We had moved to DC at the beginning of July and stayed at a friend’s wonderful 1-bedroom in Capitol Hill. But that was a short term stay–and the day before we left for Los Angeles, we moved all of our possessions–and there really wasn’t much–to our new apartment on W Street in Glover Park.

Everything was moved before we left, but we hadn’t moved in. In my logistical brilliance, I planned it so we’d move everything in before LA, then head out for the trip, then return and drive right up to our new apartment. I vividly remember Luke and I getting off the plane–bleary eyed from a red eye–not accustomed to those transforming buses that take you around Dulles–getting into our then-brand-spanking-new Kia and driving to our new apartment.

It was 7am when we got there. I couldn’t get the key to work. It was very hot. Our stuff was everywhere. We didn’t have a couch or a table or a chair or cable or a phone or silverware or a shower curtain. I didn’t know where to take the trash. Luke didn’t know how to get to work. It was really hot. I passed out on the floor (the bed was delivered later that day) and thought–”My god. Where am I?”

But that was two years ago. A lot changed in two years. Glover Park didn’t seem so far away after a while. We got a shower curtain. We realized how wonderful the porch was. I discovered a bus where I always got a seat that took me right to work. I started writing this blog. Luke became a Rock Creek Parkway master. We found a gym. I found the best way to get to the beltway (the Clara Barton!). I became obsessed with edamame. Luke took a razor and sliced through years worth of paint so we could open the windows. Friends with crock pots came over. We got a new coffee table and played trivial pursuit while eating pies. A tree fell on our Memorial Day BBQ. I stopped putting sugar in my coffee. Luke and I spent Sundays watching the McLaughlin Group and we both developed a crush on Pat Buchanan (Yeah. Weird. I know. I can’t explain it either.)

We decided to get married.

And I still spent hours on a porch, but this time, instead of water buffaloes meandering by, I watched boeings land at National.

And we got to know and love the district.

And now, of the two DC W’s we’re saying goodbye to this year, the W Street apartment is one that I’ll really miss.

Goodbye W. I’ve traded a porch for a patio, so look for more dispatches from the new haunt…The Shaw.

]]> http://thewindbeneathmychickenwings.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/goodbye-w/feed/ 1 seth http://thewindbeneathmychickenwings.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/bullets/ http://thewindbeneathmychickenwings.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/bullets/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:46:33 +0000 Seth http://thewindbeneathmychickenwings.wordpress.com/?p=137 ]]>

Every time I sit down to write this blog, I regret that I didn’t just call it “Bullets.” I always want to start this blog with bullets. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe because they

• help me organize
• save me from having to write complete sentences
• look nice

As cool as bullets are, this isn’t the Bullets Beneath my Chicken Wings–although I may check to see if that domain is taken. A bullet beneath a chicken wing is sort of a disturbing image though.

I wonder if there is someone out there using The Google to search for “As cool as bullets are.”

Boy are they on the wrong blog.

Speaking of chickens, this will make your week brighter…

Has anyone else ever thought that Luke and I are just like those two old guys? The Google has just taught me that their names are Statler and Waldorf and The You Tube has just shown me this. Watch it and tell me if you think it looks familiar:

Classic.

On Massachusetts Avenue, after hearing a bunch of police sirens…

Me: Maybe that’s Obama.

Luke: No. Obama’s motorcade runs on hope.

So winter is over and spring has come to the nation’s capital. This of course means it’s prime porching season on W Street. Last weekend we cleaned it so that now, my favorite activities can take place in earnest. Those activities include, but are not limited to, sitting, staring, sighing, and occasionally shifting.

I spent last week in Vegas which is about as anti-porch a city as you could find (not anti actual porches..I’m talking about a lifestyle here. If Vegas had a porch, you’d have to walk through 10 rows of slot machines to get there!) No offense, but the Vegas strip is clearly one of the last circles of hell. A small tube of toothpaste at our hotel was $4.70. On principle I couldn’t buy it and on principle I had to complain about it incessantly for the next 3 days. I also made Emily walk with me to a Walgreens down a road which in Vegas means 20 minutes away down a sidewalk where we were the only pedestrians. Vegas is about as real as Disney Land and it makes me question my faith in humanity and the future of our country.

On a positive, I left up $45 which I won at blackjack from a Thai dealer.

Back in the capital, Luke and I joined a food co-op (for DCers, check it out here) where they deliver a box of fresh fruits and vegetables every week. Our first delivery Thursday was a box of mushrooms, oranges, green peppers, arugula, kiwis, corn and lots more. This is going to help me atone for my last breakfast in Vegas on Thursday where Emily and I went to an all-you-can-devour buffet. I had fresh fruit, an egg-white spinach omelette, a salad, a piece of sausage, fried chicken with gravy, french fries, beef chili, a slice of ham, and an entire pig stuffed with a turkey stuffed with fish. Maybe slighly exaggerating, but I am definitely going to hell for that meal.

I also got the MLB package from my cable company so now I can watch every single Yankee game… a fact that brings me unending joy and makes Luke go into a seizure. Other things that make Luke go into a seizure these days are the following:

• DC Drivers
• Robitussin
• MTV reality shows
• Having to do errands
• Having to be somewhere at a certain time
• When I can’t remember the name of a plant
• Me asking ten times if he’s excited about the brisket I’m making

Things that make me go into histrionics these days are as follows:

• DC Drivers
• My insatiable jealousy of other people’s cars
• Airline consolidation
• Paying $4.70 for toothpaste (also, when my electric toothbrush is low on batteries)

Happy Spring and Passover and Administrative Professions Day to everyone!

Lately I’ve been thinking less about “what should I eat?” and more about “what am I eating?” I’m thinking these things (and stealing that line) because I’ve read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and because I’m currently in the middle of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and because I’m one of those people who reads a book and is all “blah blah did you read blah blah did you know blah blah.”

What I love about his books is that he isn’t pushing a fad diet or a way to lose weight in just a few weeks. Rather he’s advocating a common-sense, surprisingly easy concept on how to live:

Eat food.

Don’t eat not-food.

Who knew how much Not-food I was eating! Who knew that modified, engineered, man-made food product–like the kind found in delicious bacon bits that I’ve eaten just about every day since I can remember–might not be as good for you as, say, a mango. Apparently lots of people. I’m a little late for this party.

Anyway, once you start thinking about these things, it sort of becomes an obsession. Yesterday at Safeway, I discovered that BBQ sauce without high fructose corn syrup is basically impossible to find. And that saddens me… I had many many happy memories of single life in Brooklyn, a bottle of wine, a Yankee game, my studio on Adams Street, and a rotisserie chicken from Gristedes smothered in Open Pit BBQ sauce. How can something feel so right but be so wrong…so unhealthy…so high fructose-y.

So I’ve stopped looking for low-fat this and that and started making sure nothing is partially hydrogenated. From now on, it needs to be fully hydrogenated or not hydrogenated at all or I won’t touch it. None of this half-ass hydrogenation nonsense.

Otherwise, life is rolling along. Nothing too crazy that can’t be summarized in bullets:

• Cherry Blossoms are out. DC is getting gorgeous.
• My friend Courtney uses the word”hypotenuse” when giving directions. As in, “When you get to the park, take the hypotenuse.” I love it! I’m trying to use it daily.
• I love the NPR morning edition duo Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne. And by the way, what’s with all the NPR hosts and their totally awesome names?? I’m talking about you Lakshmi Singh!
• There needs to be a word for when someone Facebook friends you, and then you look through all their friends and pick out who you know and then friend those people. Or when someone friends you, and then you notice they looked through all your friends and friended some of them. Something like “Facefriend Trolling” or “Face Finding ” or “High Fructose Facebook Friend Stealing.” Whatever you call it, there needs to be attribution.
• I had a stellar weekend in Chicago with my Peace Corps family. My friend Julie got married and we all got together to celebrate and drink in hotel rooms. Some images:
  
• Can’t stop listening to and watching this video of Fleetwood Mac from The Dance. It freaks me out the way Stevie Nicks sings “You’ll never get away from the sound of a woman who loves you” right to Lindsay Buckingham. I know Stevie Nicks is a witch, but I’m convinced she’s a good witch. I’m still more scared of her than I am of partially hydrogenated soybean oil.