Mostly Semantics

So while everyone else was out at a concert on Saturday night (MBG, The Maestro, MS), or being a good person (Vermonstrous), I was left alone at the Castle, exhausted after a long day of football and chili. Thus, I decided to relax on the couch, cover myself with blankets and pillows and watch football while trying to get some sleep. This was only somewhat successful, despite all my practice at my own apartment, due to the existence of Artemisia, who just wanted to join me under the blankets, and when that failed, stepped on my head to get off the couch, before trying again and again to get under the blanket. As I know I missed at least a couple of scores in the Boston College-Florida State game (take that Boston sports teams!), I had to have gotten some sleep. So take that Artie: your attempt to keep me awake failed.

After being awoken by Vermonstrous coming back (bringing the rest of my costume: a vampire phlebotomist), I decided I was tired and going to go back to my place, and subsequently left to catch a bus. And I had just gotten down to the street before I saw the bus leave, and said, “Balls.” Incidentally, my favorite curse words: balls, bugger, fudge, Fallschirmjäger (because in the Spaceballs novelization, the curse words were made into these absurdly long words that were just random collections of letters, at least one of which may actually have been Fallschirmjäger, and that’s how I remember it), pants, bollocks, and of course, the more profane, used when the fake profane just isn’t profane enough.

So I left to check the other bus stop there, realized it was also going to be a while before the bus made it there, and got a phone call that the residents had returned from the Thermals (I turned down a concert with a hot female bassist? What am I turning into?). I stayed for a while, saw the costumes, and ended up waiting for about ten minutes for a bus along Mt. Pleasant St.

I gave up around 1:15am, and decided to walk back to Dupont, something I’d done multiple times from Cleveland Park (about the same distance) late when I didn’t want to wait for the metro, and it was nice and I wanted the exercise. Walking back, I made it a couple of blocks onto Columbia before I saw the bus going in the other direction that I had been waiting for, meaning that it was about fifteen minutes late. And by the time I had made it to 18th and Columbia, the bus hadn’t passed me. So screw you, Metrobus system, for not being on time.

As I walked back though, I saw a drunk couple crossing the little right turn lane at the heart of Adams Morgan. They were both quite wasted, and when the female half of the couple went down face first and lost a shoe on the flat part of the street and then didn’t get up for a while, I almost started to run to help her, and then I realized she was just so drunk she couldn’t get up. Her boyfriend didn’t even notice for a few steps, then turned around and stared at her trying to get up. Not responding at all to his girlfriend sprawled on the street. When I finally passed her, she wasn’t even asking for help, just yelling at her boyfriend. And blocking traffic.

Speaking of blocking traffic, my next almost interaction with people at 1:30 in the morning came as I walked down 18th past all the bars and clubs. I was listening to my iPod, wearing my black coat and blue knit scarf, and carrying my Soviet paratrooper shoulderbag (second reference to paratroopers in this post), trying to wind my way through the huge crowds. When I got down to near Meskerem, a large group was lined up for a club, and was blocking most of the street. The person I had been walking behind stopped short, and I hesitated a second before starting to try to find a way around this new obstacle, when as I tried to move around, I got jostled back into place by this small person, and then another, and I finally looked to see a third small black woman walking down the street holding hands to make it through the crowd. And the last one gave me a nasty look as I moved in behind her using their ability to part the crowd as a wedge to make it through.

I returned to my apartment by 1:55, not too bad for what probably would have taken about as long waiting for the bus or the metro. Plus, I got the exercise, got to listen to a lot more music (thanks, iPod!), and, thanks to the stupidity of daylight savings time (screw you farmers!), I got to sleep only a little after leaving the Castle.

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