usernamenumber
Mar. 1st, 2004 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberWritten yesterday:
I'm writing from a couch in the west wing of the Smithsonian National Gallery in DC. Directly across from me is a wall of Monets. It's breathtaking. Not two weeks ago Lizbeth and I were planning to move here, but then we haggled the landlords into helping us make San Diego affordable again and changed our minds.
By then, though, Red Hat had scheduled me to work a week out here and so here I am. The original plan was for this week in DC to give Lizbeth a chance to fly up (at our expense since we weren't committing yet) and see the place. But having made up our minds (more-or-less) to go to San Diego, it seemed wiser to save the ~$400 that flight and food would have cost and put it toward the move instead. When I booked my tickets, all the flights leaving on Sunday were booked and so I had to take a flight leaving Saturday instead. As a result, I've had the first opportunity in three visits to actually spend a day exploring and enjoying DC. But for all that today has brought me, it still feels empty somewhere deep inside because she was supposed to be here too. Sometimes I think money is dumb. Then the rent comes due.
I'm sure my enjoyment of this visit (barely half a day so far) shouldn't be considered indicative of what it would be like to live here. Nonetheless, the more time I spend here, the more I think I could grow to appreciate it. Walking down Pennsylvania Ave, flanked by the Smithsonian and the National Archives with the Capital dome looming a block away one gets a sense of being in the midst of something huge. Not nescessarily good or bad, but thrilling in its complexity and importance. In time these things may just blend into so much background scenery, but maybe even that is an experience worth having in one's life.
Then again (there's always a "then again...") while there's no Capitol, no White House and no Smithsonian in San Diego there is still Balboa Park with its own contingent of galleries and museums, a healthy arts culture and this fantastic taqueria staffed entirely by twentysomething punks.
I have a feeling that, were we to move here, everything that any of our friends have said about DC would prove to be true. I have seen many of the dark sides of the city that ciole wrote about. I've passed more homeless people camped out overnight on doorsteps or just sleeping on the sidewalk-- more than I think I've seen in any other city. The hostel I'm staying at is flanked by vacant lots and run down buildings within sight of the Washington Monument. It's not all rosy, but it's not all bad either.
For some reason I feel safer walking the streets than I have in other cities, but that might just be the result of me getting used to cities. Downtown DC is surprisingly well lit at night (much to my chagrin as I try to sleep in a room with broken window blinds) and there is traffic, hustle and bustle 24 hours a day (much to my chagrin as I try to sleep in a room with no soundproofing). There are little parks every few blocks and because of the height limit on buildings it feels more open than other cities. There is one point I must disagree with Ciole about: I've already found two good Mexican places: A Chipotle (a chain, yes, but a very good chain IMO) and the Austin Grill, where I had migas for the first time-- I don't think I've had a more satisfying meal in ages. But why, oh why can't I find a taqueria outside of CA that actually has horchata??
It's time for me to get up and explore the gallery some more. On the way down here I passed "The Shakespeare Theater", where Henry IV, Part I (which I've never seen) is playing. Sometime this week, I think I will have to do something about that.
Addendum -- sitting in an indoor garden, still at the Smithsonian.
How to describe what's around me? A large, arched cieling overhead. The ceiling, supported by tall, unadorned columns, is made of plastic translucent enough to let in daylight while retaining a milky consistency.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's plastic. It looks like plastic with sun on the other side. We've all seen it. It's even cracked in several places. And yet here, blanketing the long, arched roof of this room, returning the echoes of people shuffling from place to place, it detracts no less from the overall feel of the place than the marble statues down the hall.
In front of me is a small fountain. Two cherubs dance in a clammshell bowl from which water flows in a pair of tiny, almost pathetic streams into a basin. The trickles of water remind me of one of those stupborn bathroom faucets that has two settings: "on" and "mostly off". The bottom of the basin is lined with the coins of wishmakers the world over and around its circumference lays a thick wreath of beautiful white flowers. The fountain isn't much, but the flowers, the simplicity of their beauty take my breath away. At each of the fountain courtyard's four corners is a planter with tropical trees reaching up to the cieling. Each tree provides shade for a grove of ferns and easter lillies at its base.
When I feel that I've lost touch with my spiritual side, my trans-rational side, whatever you care to call it, it warms my heart to be reminded that a place devoted to beauty has such an effect on me. I have been on the virge of tears off and on all day as I walk along marble floors flanked by sculpture, portrait and God's own living art. It's made me realize just how much I needed a vacation, as opposed to just a day off. A "day off" for me means a day when I get to pick the projects I'm working on instead of having an agenda dictated by my employer. Today had no projects (well, a few, but they were all in the morning =;). Today I did something else that was worth my while. Today was good.
I'm writing from a couch in the west wing of the Smithsonian National Gallery in DC. Directly across from me is a wall of Monets. It's breathtaking. Not two weeks ago Lizbeth and I were planning to move here, but then we haggled the landlords into helping us make San Diego affordable again and changed our minds.
By then, though, Red Hat had scheduled me to work a week out here and so here I am. The original plan was for this week in DC to give Lizbeth a chance to fly up (at our expense since we weren't committing yet) and see the place. But having made up our minds (more-or-less) to go to San Diego, it seemed wiser to save the ~$400 that flight and food would have cost and put it toward the move instead. When I booked my tickets, all the flights leaving on Sunday were booked and so I had to take a flight leaving Saturday instead. As a result, I've had the first opportunity in three visits to actually spend a day exploring and enjoying DC. But for all that today has brought me, it still feels empty somewhere deep inside because she was supposed to be here too. Sometimes I think money is dumb. Then the rent comes due.
I'm sure my enjoyment of this visit (barely half a day so far) shouldn't be considered indicative of what it would be like to live here. Nonetheless, the more time I spend here, the more I think I could grow to appreciate it. Walking down Pennsylvania Ave, flanked by the Smithsonian and the National Archives with the Capital dome looming a block away one gets a sense of being in the midst of something huge. Not nescessarily good or bad, but thrilling in its complexity and importance. In time these things may just blend into so much background scenery, but maybe even that is an experience worth having in one's life.
Then again (there's always a "then again...") while there's no Capitol, no White House and no Smithsonian in San Diego there is still Balboa Park with its own contingent of galleries and museums, a healthy arts culture and this fantastic taqueria staffed entirely by twentysomething punks.
I have a feeling that, were we to move here, everything that any of our friends have said about DC would prove to be true. I have seen many of the dark sides of the city that ciole wrote about. I've passed more homeless people camped out overnight on doorsteps or just sleeping on the sidewalk-- more than I think I've seen in any other city. The hostel I'm staying at is flanked by vacant lots and run down buildings within sight of the Washington Monument. It's not all rosy, but it's not all bad either.
For some reason I feel safer walking the streets than I have in other cities, but that might just be the result of me getting used to cities. Downtown DC is surprisingly well lit at night (much to my chagrin as I try to sleep in a room with broken window blinds) and there is traffic, hustle and bustle 24 hours a day (much to my chagrin as I try to sleep in a room with no soundproofing). There are little parks every few blocks and because of the height limit on buildings it feels more open than other cities. There is one point I must disagree with Ciole about: I've already found two good Mexican places: A Chipotle (a chain, yes, but a very good chain IMO) and the Austin Grill, where I had migas for the first time-- I don't think I've had a more satisfying meal in ages. But why, oh why can't I find a taqueria outside of CA that actually has horchata??
It's time for me to get up and explore the gallery some more. On the way down here I passed "The Shakespeare Theater", where Henry IV, Part I (which I've never seen) is playing. Sometime this week, I think I will have to do something about that.
Addendum -- sitting in an indoor garden, still at the Smithsonian.
How to describe what's around me? A large, arched cieling overhead. The ceiling, supported by tall, unadorned columns, is made of plastic translucent enough to let in daylight while retaining a milky consistency.
Oh, who am I kidding? It's plastic. It looks like plastic with sun on the other side. We've all seen it. It's even cracked in several places. And yet here, blanketing the long, arched roof of this room, returning the echoes of people shuffling from place to place, it detracts no less from the overall feel of the place than the marble statues down the hall.
In front of me is a small fountain. Two cherubs dance in a clammshell bowl from which water flows in a pair of tiny, almost pathetic streams into a basin. The trickles of water remind me of one of those stupborn bathroom faucets that has two settings: "on" and "mostly off". The bottom of the basin is lined with the coins of wishmakers the world over and around its circumference lays a thick wreath of beautiful white flowers. The fountain isn't much, but the flowers, the simplicity of their beauty take my breath away. At each of the fountain courtyard's four corners is a planter with tropical trees reaching up to the cieling. Each tree provides shade for a grove of ferns and easter lillies at its base.
When I feel that I've lost touch with my spiritual side, my trans-rational side, whatever you care to call it, it warms my heart to be reminded that a place devoted to beauty has such an effect on me. I have been on the virge of tears off and on all day as I walk along marble floors flanked by sculpture, portrait and God's own living art. It's made me realize just how much I needed a vacation, as opposed to just a day off. A "day off" for me means a day when I get to pick the projects I'm working on instead of having an agenda dictated by my employer. Today had no projects (well, a few, but they were all in the morning =;). Today I did something else that was worth my while. Today was good.
