Last updated 6-28-2022
I am tall and I am thin,
Of an enviable height,
And I've been known to be quite handsome
In a certain angle and a certain light...
Writing this on the train back from Washington, D.C. Yes, I took a more or less impromptu trip to the nation's capital. I needed to get away for a few days, and I felt like it was time to go somewhere other than my beloved Boston. Not that I don't intend to head back there sometime within the next few months...
Robert and I were at the office Thursday night into Friday morning, not leaving until 3 AM. Yes, I suppose we're insane... but there was a data conversion job that needed to be done for Friday, and we ran into some snags, and before we knew it, it was the wee hours of the morning. I got about an hour's worth of sleep, then showered and headed back to the office. Even though Robert let me leave early, I almost missed my train to Washington, but fortunately I managed to make it with about four minutes to spare. Of course, I was exhausted to the point of passing out on the train briefly, several times; to my dismay, I awoke more than once from dreams (nightmares, really) about work.
The weather turned out incredibly lovely. They'd predicted some showers and possible thundershowers for Saturday, but while the sky did darken a few times, it never did rain, and the sun was out for much of the day. It was wonderful to walk around without a jacket all day Saturday and Sunday, though I did bring it along Saturday night. I must've looked either especially good or especially bad Saturday morning, because I got more than my fair share of looks from the ladies, including several glances from a pretty young woman with a Chrissie Hynde-esque haircut at Cosí while I breakfasted. Maybe it was my Surf City T-shirt... I saw two Segways on the corner outside, pretty cool. And then I wandered, and wandered, and wandered some more. I saw the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and the little white house next door... the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin and the lovely cherry blossoms, the World War II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool... Nasty car accident downtown, too. I walked past the various museums of the Smithsonian, and the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court... I walked a lot. I walk a lot in any city, but I really walked a lot. After a few hours of this, I headed back to my hotel (in Arlington, VA) and showered and relaxed a bit, then went out again to meet my 'Net friend Lindsey, with whom I (what else?) walked some more. Heh. We met at the National Mall, and walked around downtown a bit before heading to Dupont Circle, and to Georgetown after a filling dinner at Bertucci's. She showed me the stairs that were featured in "The Exorcist," but as my legs were already starting to hurt, I decided against trying to climb them.
Actually, I walked so much that by the end of the night, my left knee was approaching screaming agony. We parted ways at the Metro, and the downhill slopes on the way back to my hotel came close to killing me. I popped some ibuprofen on arriving, then promptly went to bed. Sunday morning, I felt better, but apparently that was only because I hadn't been walking in bed. When Lindsey and I met up at the Mall again and went up the stairs to the Museum of Natural History, I felt it starting up again; down was worse than up, however. We had a nice if abbreviated tour of the museum (and got a glimpse of the Hope Diamond), then took in some sun and fresh air outside before splitting up again, and I headed to the lovely Union Station to await my train back to New Jersey. Hopefully, spending today relaxing at home will have helped my knee return to normal... :-O
It was nice to get away, even for such a short period of time. Work's been very draining lately, and I've felt for the longest time that I couldn't take time away from the office. Granted, I'm only taking one day off, but it's a start. Assuming they survive without me, I can start thinking about a summer trip, to Boston perhaps, or California. Robert's already promised to send me to Vegas for this year's MediNotes event, which will be cool, but I still want a real vacation, too.
I'm going to see Dayglow again this month. They're actually playing two shows in New York, and then they won't be back for a while, so I'm aiming to do both. The second one, at Siberia on the 20th, will hopefully be a slightly bigger event, because I'm trying to coax some friends and co-workers into joining me. Looks like I've got at least two or three definites already...
I'm going to see more rockin' ladies in the near future, too. Angella and I are supposed
to go to a Go-Go's concert in May, and Barbara and I will attend Blondie (and the New Cars) in June. We
got the beat!
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A (webmaster@andersensilva.com)
Last updated 6-28-2022
