Wistfulness Writ Stupid

Every time I come back to DC, it's the same thing. I am gratified to see my mom and my friends (who despite their intelligence have not made the right choice to leave DC for less snarky pastures, but whatever) but immediately break out in hives. Even though I grew up approximately 30 miles from DC, I've never considered DC to be my home. After living here for four years, I considered DC even less my home. At no point did I ever take up the mantle of DC and parade around touting the merits of our Metro system, our timeless monuments, or our quirky traffic circles that tourists tend to be drawn to like a black hole such that they twirl around in the middle of our city like they're on a merry go round from hell.

There are very very few positive things I can say about DC. I fly back here with clenched teeth. I plan my time here meticulously to distract me from how annoying I find this place: breakfast here, lunch with this person, dinner at this time, museum rounds on this day, copious shopping the rest of the time. I don't know why that is. DC seems to make quite a few people happy. But I feel nothing but a soulless, transient world around me when I'm here. Last night, I met up with a friend and owing to the fact that nothing is freaking open in the area where we were at 10pm, we ended up spending most of our evening at the Barnes and Nobles. Could we have gone to Georgetown instead? Sure. I also could have punched myself in the face repeatedly or hurled myself down a flight of stairs--what's your point?

I spent four years in Georgetown. A good 16 hours daily were spent around M street between work and school and walking around in a daze because I couldn't see through my tears. Some people would love to trade places with me. What's not to love about Georgetown? Wisconsin Avenue? Washington Harbour? The Rhino Bar? It is my own set of personal defects that prevent me from looking at DC the way those people do.


It would be too hard, and with no payoff, to analyze why I am allergic to DC (as much as it seems to be to me). All I know is that the allergy seems to extend to the Maryland suburbs, elderly Asian ladies in outlet stores (and their sharp little elbows!), and Finger 11. Don't get me wrong, I have had a wonderful time here, so far, but I don't tend to dwell on the positive. Who here wants to read about how awesome it was to run into a friend from high school, or bonding with mom, or teaching the cats how to be less annoying, or writing part of my one-act, or taking pictures all over the place? No one. I don't even want to write about it because for some reason, overanalyzing my happier times takes all the joy out of it. I am an odd little monkey.

Anyway, the bad points. Well of course, all elderly Asian ladies aren't bad, but the ones I saw at the Coach outlet in Hagerstown had apparently sharpened their elbows and patellas on diamonds because they poked the hell out of me even when I was trying to get out of their way. It reminded me of when I went to Hanuman temple in Delhi a few years back and was just trying to get a pooja done, and standing a full head and shoulders taller than everyone else and being embarrassingly American, I tried hard to politely let the others in the temple kind of go on about their business only to have them throw arms and elbows and shoulders around me in a whirlwind of limbs, all pointy enough to take out an eye. "Go ahead!" I practically yelled as I tried to protect my vital organs from these desperate worshippers. There is absolutely nothing more terrifying than a determined lady pushing 70. I'm not even sure mace would take these lasses out.

Another annoyance: Finger 11. God, I hate you guys. I hate you so passionately that just the name is making me scratch myself violently. I know it's random in a blog about DC to just vent irrationally about this band, but I've been hearing them ALL OVER the place, aaaaargh. First, they plagiarized from Peter Gabriel's beautiful Solsbury Hill to create some toothless facsimile that warbles something idiotic like "if I traded it all for one thing, wouldn't that be something"...I mean you guys didn't bother to write the music for the song, could you guys have at least devoted more than 15 seconds to writing the lyrics at least? Or was there a tight deadline at the Intellectually Impaired Camp for the Musically Incompetent?

Then, on top of that, they have a new song (probably like a year old actually because I don't listen to the radio anymore--sorry, I tend to stick around 1997 as the pinnacle in musical achievement) whose lyrics are even more nonsensical and plagiarize from an even better song. This time, they've massacred Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" to create something that sounds like (I'm paraphrasing, so I'm guessing the lyrics are even stupider than this) "I'm not paralyzed but I seem to be struck by you/I want to make you move because you're standing still/if your body matches what your eyes can do/you'll probably move right through me on my way to you."

To me this makes about as much sense as when Bush gave us this clip where he talks about "in Texas there's a saying--fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me can't get fooled again." Well folks. Finger 11 has fooled us again. Can they be arrested? Can we quarantine them from the general public? Why do I have to listen to this? Yes, I changed the channel, only to have these guys pop up on another one. And they're on t.v. They're freaking everywhere, ready to plagiarize every decent song they've ever heard. Will they lose track of what they've plagiarized and eventually plagiarize themselves? One can only hope.

Oh wait, I just remembered something that made me blissfully happy today. I was taking Mom to the airport and while driving home, I got to hear "Personal Jesus" TWICE. To me, that's a good omen. I love that song. I love anything Depeche Mode. So thanks DC, for throwing me a bone--while I was getting lost trying to find New Hampshire Avenue amongst the crackheads and other denizens in the NE, you helped me keep my cool with one of my favorite songs of all time. Yaaay.

I sound, and am, bitter and exhausted. Chicago, I miss you. Please don't laugh at me when I reach Midway and collapse on the floor from relief and joy. Chicago, you and I have chemistry. Let's make this last.