Hiding in Cupboards

It's been a couple of weeks. Saw off Lindsay not too long after the last entry. First, though, took her, Matt B., Sterling, and Vi on a brief tour of the steam tunnels. Was a little hesitant letting Matt B. come along, seeing as we ran into him in the street while he was drunk. Since they'd replaced the Maryland door, we had to use the entrance Miguel, Steffi and I used on the first incursion--that is, the manhole cover near the clump of trees out by the Barn with practically no cover. I learned the lesson that unless the situation is explained very explicitly, many people can't really imagine what the trip entails--namely, a descent down a hole lined with steam pipes (read: will scald you), followed by narrow corridors that are much hotter than even the apex of a Baltimore summer. Lindsay asked if she could invite her friends from 310, and I really hated to turn her down, but I had to, because I knew we could never have fit all of them in there at the same time. Then I ran into Vijay at One World, and had to turn him down, even though he would've come alone, because I didn't want Lindsay to think I was excluding her friends while including mine.

Anyway, it was fine, as far as "Virgil duty" goes. Lindsay (who was not quite sober) and Matt B. left the tour early in Maryland; Matt B.'s complaining about wanting to leave started to make me nervous after a while. We headed straight to Maryland to find one of the wall-mounted maps; unfortunately, sometime during the year between this incursion and my previous one, all of the maps had been removed. This left my memory (bad) and Sterling's reasoning (good) as the only means of orientation underground. Fortunately, we were able to navigate to the AMR I exit after visiting the Gilman dual-levels and the Levering exit, and make our escape after an hour and a half.

A few days after the trip, I saw Lindsay off. The night before I met up with her at CVP. Matt B., Nik K. and a girl I didn't know were there. They were all fairly drunk; Lindsay wasn't quite able to sit up by the time I got there, and kept leaning against me. She cried when we parted ways with Matt B. on our way back. Took her back to her place where I held her and let her lay her head on my shoulder (sometimes it's a wonder she actually has a boyfriend, and that man is not me), and over a bowl of popcorn (which I attempted to make, fearing she'd burn herself out of drunkeness) I tried to tell her that this was not the end, that times and places pass by but people still have the ability to hold on to each other--or at least try. All of a sudden she said she was pissed off that there weren't more good people around, and that there should be more of them, if only so I could have them around me, and that someone so "perfect" deserved that. I was somewhat shocked, and told her I wasn't perfect, not at all, to which she responded, at least I tried to be. Sometimes I do. She was drunk, but it's still the most flattering thing I've ever heard said about me--well, ever, I suppose. It's pretty hard to top that.

Next morning I went to the bookstore before work. I wanted to get Lindsay a card. The first one I saw was a thank you card with the quote--I can't remember it right now, but it went something like: "For what reason are we here but to make life more bearable for each other?" Serendipity does strike once in a while, I suppose. I quickly scrawled a message ("For permanence's sake, here is a pen and paper card...to shared futures," etc.) and delivered it to her, one last hug before heading out, or make that two, actually, or three.

Been to a couple of shows in this time: Thrushes in a 3rd-story warehouse/studio across from the Greenmount Cemetary. Bloc Party with Granger this past Sunday night. Walking in, I saw all these kids who couldn't have been more than 15 or 16, and quite a few of them were coupled up; I felt like I was too old to like this band. (I'm probably only allowed to listen to indifferent, calculated, glitchy electronica at this point.) They played a lot of singles, both from Silent Alarm and A Weekend in the City. Was somewhat disappointed at the lack of EP tracks and B-sides, but I couldn't complain, as they brought out all the hard-hitters, Gordon played a second set of drums on "Sunday," and Kele ran halfway across the floor of the DAR Constitution Hall on "She's Hearing Voices." Kele mentioned playing the Black Cat a couple of a years back: I was there, up front and center too, and I sort of missed when they were playing small venues like that. I remember that Kele had said, two years ago, after playing a song: "That's a good song," to which I replied, "Yeah, it's cool," and to which he answered, "It's alright." This time it was three thousand people and goddamn seats. Those guys blew up way too fast; I think the world deserved a couple more small-venue tours out of them, at least. They played "Blue Light"; I've always had a soft spot for that song. It's one of those songs, along with GBV's "Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" that's just got too much sentimentality and nostalgia riding upon it. I don't think I need to mention what that sentimentality is, but it's from 2005.

Then crashed at Granger place in Wheaton until the following morning, when I got up at 6 to catch the MARC back into Baltimore. I'm not built for this commuting shit.

Saw Jessica and Thom Sunday afternoon before the show. Jessica's new hairstyle is amazing. When I saw them walking into Union Station I was struck by how European Jessica looked in tight black jacket and tight black jeans, and how, well, Thom-like Thom looked. It's a good thing he and I agree most of the time, because he'd probably be a really stubborn bastard (like myself) if I ever tried to argue with him. We got snacks at the American Indian Museum, passed briefly through the Air and Space Museum (first thing I said: "Rutan Voyager! Nonstop flight around the Earth!" holdover knowledge from a prior life as an aviation geek), and tried frustratingly to find dinner before the show. DC is dead on the weekends. All the clothing boutiques, banks, and coffeeshops, all fucking useless when every single food place closes at 6PM--the one bar we found to be open had closed its kitchen. It's like the most polished, jetset, yuppie ghost town you've ever seen. No business when everyone in the city only works 9-5 weekdays, I suppose. At last we found a Burger King (possibly the only circumstance under which I'd ever eat at Burger King), and even then, it was some surreal, Samuel Beckett version of BK. The two people behind the counter were an old guy who couldn't understand us too well and a younger man who grew increasingly frustrated with him. There was a guy sitting in the corner, facing out the window, in a NYPD sweatshirt who talked to either himself, or nobody in particular, or both; when I listened and picked through his thick-tongued drawl, I realized he was narrating some bizarre dreamscape in which there were doctors, nurses, and a "big red button" beside his bed. Jessica scratched a square on her drink cup and won an apple pie. "It tastes like apple pie," I said, because under the absurd circumstances, the statement seemed significant instead of banal. I reflected on how the events of the past hour--wandering around DC on a weekend trying in vain to find food--would make a nice short story, as a comment on the state of the modern human condition. Jessica went to the old guy at the counter for the keys to the ladies' room. Thom and I didn't know what she was doing. I thought she was becoming assimilated into the disjointed, nonexistant plot of the place. I wanted to yell at her, "you are being drawn into a a prescribed role with no rhyme or reason to justify it!"

Even then, the food still sucked, and I felt a little queasy throughout the concert.