The Chronicles Of Jessica

So much for the holidays! Not that I want to kick of 2007 as a cranky-pants, but I always find January to be the biggest downer of all the months. It never starts out on the right foot in the first place, because I hate New Year's Eve with the white-hot fire of a thousand burning suns. Everyone is trying way too hard to have a good time, which usually translates to everyone getting way too loaded. If you're in the city, you don't want to leave the house because you'll never be able to find a cab and you'll stand around half the night freezing your ass off (in high heels, more often than not, which makes it that much worse) and if you're not in the city there's nothing to do anyway. You wind up hanging out at someone's house watching Ryan Seacrest count down to midnight and drinking tepid Asti Spumante out of a coffee mug with a faded picture of that Shoebox greeting card lady on it.

But Christmas was fun, even though Paul had to stay in town to work. Also there was no snow in Maine this year because of global warming. For most of the time I was there I didn't even need a jacket, which freaked me out. How long before I have to invest in a UV-resistant super suit? Probably a matter of months. It's scary, but at least I'll finally be able to call of the lifelong retail search for a parka that slims the hips.

There were some exciting occurrences over the holidays this year, though; for one thing, I bought a wedding dress. Wasn't expecting to buy a wedding dress; I hadn't even shaved under my arms 'cause I was thinking we were just hitting some of the after-Christmas sales. I generally don't like to try things on when I go shopping unless I've been mentally prepared in advance. And by mentally prepared, I mean zoned out on a couple of Valium.

But there was this new wedding shop in town, and my cousin Jill (who's one of my bridesmaids) was with us. She's a size four so it's fun to make her try stuff on and speculate about the origins of her freak metabolism. So we figured we could get her to model some of the bridesmaid's dresses. I wanted to make Babs try on some "mother-of-the-bride" couture, too, but she rebelled. That stuff was all a little too Golden Girls, I have to admit.

Anyway, we didn't find a bridesmaid dress that we liked, but I picked out a couple of wedding dresses to look at, really expecting to hate them, but ended up loving one of them, so there you are. I figured it would be a lot harder than that. I had picked up a few of those magazines, you know, the bridal ones, but then I didn't buy any again because they made me nuts - for one thing, none of the models smile. Who are these girls marrying that they look so depressed? And why do they have such severely crimped hair? And none of the dresses have sleeves - NONE. Since when are sleeves out of fashion? Forget long sleeves, I mean any kind of sleeve whatsoever. I guess bare arms are the new black.

No, I know that doesn't make any sense.

Even more exciting than that, I got to go see my cousin Paul play basketball! (Yes, I do think it's going to be confusing having more than one Paul in the family; one of them is almost certainly going to be forced to take a nickname, which will almost certainly be kind of dorky, because how do you shorten the name Paul? Can't do it. Of course my Paul is older but cousin Paul has been in the family his whole life, so it's not going to be an easy adjustment for anyone, right? Moving on.)

So Paul had a game against South Portland and he scored quite a few goals. Baskets. Whatever. He's athletic! Again with the mutant genes! Maybe he and Jill were adopted. Fiancee-Paul and I have already decided that we're probably going to have to hire some of athle-consultant to get our kids through gym class, since they stand no decent chance of inheriting any sort of sports ability whatsoever. Though if they take after him they'll be able to wield a Mac track pad like nobody's business.

Happy New Year, kids! One of my resolutions is to post more entries, so here's hoping that more stuff happens to me.

Stay tuned for my next post: Life in DC - We haven't been shot yet!

Turns out it was in a box marked "perishable".

Getting used to a new place is hard. Once the excitement of having our own washing machine wore off a little ("Honey, that sock looks dirty, want me to do a quick load? I can do a quick load, no problem! Look - no quarters!!!!"), then we were faced with actually having to unpack all our stuff.

Stuff is a mystery to me. We are very poor, and have been for a long time, individually and collectively (the theatre, she is a cruel bitch mistress) and yet we have a whole lot of stuff. Paul possesses a lot of your bulkier items which tend to occupy space because they're so oddly-shaped, guitars, monitors, amps, portable speakers for "gigging" ("They're so awesome, honey, these speakers were the greatest deal, the sound is incredible, I'm so glad I bought them." "That's cool, how many times have you gotten to use them?" "Once.")

The man cannot throw anything away. He almost broke off our engagment because I suggested that we retire a ketchup-stained t-shirt from the New Jersey state fair circa 1986. Apparently he won it spitting plastic balls through a clown's mouth, and the thrill of the victory is still with him. iPod parts, old cell phone chargers, VHS copies of Willow; Paul reasons that even if we don't want these things, we can always sell them on ebay! So there they sit in our apartment, an ominous homage to our cluttered consciousnesses.

Not that I'm so superior in this area, believe me. Right before we moved I finally gave up to Goodwill a pair of cords I've been hoping to fit into since the first Clinton administration. But I still have stacks of photos of people who I barely recognize, along with a skin-care and cosmetics collection that would put CVS to shame. But I WANT to have less stuff, I want to be more free. I'd like to be able to fit all my possessions in a little rag pouch on the end of a stick - or at the very least, the trunk of my car (the modern equivalent of the rag pouch on the stick.) Wouldn't that be something? I mean if the stick breaks or the rag gets torn then maybe you buy a new one but you don't carry the pieces of the old stick around with you, you jettison!

That's what I've decided we need, more jettison...ing.

Paul is kicking all kinds of butt in his new capacity as DC Politico Grad Student Guy. Check out his first solo contribution to the ABC News Radar.

As for me, I've had a couple of auditions since we got here, but in the meantime I'm back to the old secretarial grindstone. Got my new color headshots though and I think they look pretty sharp. Eventually I may figure out how to update my site photos and then you can see them! How exciting that will be for us all!

It's about to be our one-month anniversary of living in DC, which is pretty hard to believe. I don't feel like a whole lot has happened over the last few weeks, other than ritualistically washing every single item of clothing we have for free in our amazing new washing machine - but sadly, the bloom is starting to go off of that particular rose. Of course SOME of us are getting to hobnob with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and have our articles published on the websites of internationally recognized news organizations and....wait, what was I saying?

There are some key differences between DC and other cities that I've lived in (namely New York and Chicago) which surprise me. My first week here I observed the most obvious of these: Most people here are really friendly. Even people behind counters who make change and put things in bags are really friendly. (I started to put two 'really's in that sentence but I don't want to exaggerate; DC is still basically a city, not like Pleasantville or Staunton or something.) But people smile when you smile at them, they tell you to have a nice day and they look like they mean it, they are patient while you decide what to order. That one I really appreciate. I used to look on it as kind of kitcschy, the way counter people in New York yell at you while you're perusing the options and trying to decide what to have. You know, "Should it be egg salad or chicken salad? Which one looks like it's been sitting around the longest? Maybe I should just have a regular salad. Am I doing low-carb today or low-fat? If I'm doing low-fat then I should go for a salad-salad but if I'm doing low-carb I can have the chicken salad, as long as there's no bread crumbs in there. Should I ask if there's bread crumbs in there? No, I can't do that, look at that woman, she'd probably pull a gun out from under there and shoot me. Look at her mustache. There's just no reason for a woman to have to have a mustache in this day and age. Maybe I could recommend my waxer to her. Or I could get a pastrami...." And they're making it impossible to concentrate, going, "Come on, come on, comeon comeoncomeoncomeone, whaddya gonna have, lady, whaddya gonna have?" I think I used to justify this in my mind as something that make New York so unique, so full of personality. Now I realize that I just didn't like to acknowledge that the other members of my community could be such pains in the ass, because the truth is that nobody likes to be yelled at and bullied into rushing their lunch order. That's how you wind up eating lox and cream cheese on a day-old onion bagel with a mustache hair on it.

Then there's finding your way around. DC is nowhere near as big as New York and nowhere near as much work to navigate, but the people in the train stations here are just happy to hop in and help you. You don't even have to ask, they just come right over to you wanting to know if they can be of assistance! And then when you come out of the station, there's people in these jackets that say "Downtown DC" that are standing around, waiting to direct you to your destination! For free! That's what I'm talking about - Cur-tuh-sea.

The subway thing is really different. They don't call it the subway here, though, they call it the Metro. For one thing, it is really super clean. I mean really clean, I have not seen even one rat, and believe me, I'm looking. I want to make sure that this city comparison, however casual, is Fair and Balanced(tm.) Also, I'm pretty sure that I haven't waited for a train for more than five minutes so far. Then when I'm actually riding the train, the ride is blissfully lunatic-free. No one screaming about Jesus, or panhandling, or staggering around in a pool of their own vomit. I mean there must be people like that around here, but I haven't seen any. Maybe they have their own cars?

But then this morning I was trying to get on this train to go to work. Work is only two stops from the apartment, and involves a transfer, and it's an easy walk so I always just hoof it rather than bother paying the fare. But it is freezing out today, around 20 degrees or so, and I just couldn't handle it, so I got on the train. Well, I tried to. The first train that came along was pretty crowded, and instead of pushing their way on and forcing people to the center of the train (the method I'm used to), people were just sort of stepping up to the doors and when there appeared to be no more room, they just kind of stepped back to wait for the next one. No, no, no, people. This is where we need to take a leaf from the book of the Big Apple. Places to go, people to see! During rush hour you cram into that car like a sardine and if that means having someone's armpit an inch from your face for the commute then you take it like a man!

This courtesy thing need only go so far.

P.S. - Right now the contest between Bloomberg and our new guy, Adrian Fenty, is a landslide for Fenty as far as I'm concerned. I say this is the kind of thing that, while small, makes a real difference.

Poor Cat Stevens. That song was written well before he converted to Islam and became all devout and stuff, and I'm sure every time he hears it he has a little stab of irritation in his colon. I know, because I feel that same stab any time I see an old picture of myself in stirrup pants.

Anyway, I was in the peace march Saturday! I've alternately heard it called the march against the war, the demonstration against the war, the rally against the war, etc. but I prefer peace march. It has a nice groovy feel to it, I think. There were supposed to be about 100,000 people there but then later I heard it was more like half a million; I've been trying to find some aerial photos of it but not having any luck so far. It sure was a lot of people from where I stood, which was somewhere right in the middle. With Paul, and his parents, Cynthia and Richard, who were the ones who invited us to go in the first place. They came all the way from New Jersey to participate; in fact, most of the people I met there were not from DC but had travelled some distance to be a part of it.(I'll try to put some of the photos online so I can link to them, if you're interested. I know I'm always saying things like that but it could happen. Stop laughing.)

It was really pretty inspiring to see so many people show up to try and make a difference. Obviously the majority of Americans are against our involvement there but unfortunately for us (and them) the administration is going full-speed ahead with this troop surge and the Congress is essentially laying down for it - so much for "by the people, for the people". Personally I feel like Bush should have at least been required to watch some of the news coverage; if I were president and thousands of people were gathering in fervent protest outside my workplace I would probably be inclined to listen and, you know, respond.

But I'm forgetting, he's an idiot. Never mind.

You know what I've actually been thinking, though: there is a way that Bush could redeem himself in my eyes. What if he just got on t.v. and said, "America - I fucked up. I fucked up big. I had no idea what I was doing and some of you tried to stop me and I wouldn't pay attention and therefore, I fucked up. But give me the chance to try and correct my fuck-up so that the Iraqi people don't pay the price for me....being a fuck-up. Thank you - and God Bless America."

I think I would have respect for that kind of a concession! You know?! Just a little honesty, just a little humility in the face of all that he's put us through. But I know it's never going to happen. Paul says that politically speaking, it's always considered hugely risky to ever admit to making a mistake and also, politicians don't use the F word so much in public. Except Dick Cheney who, my sources tell me, is a potty-mouth.

A LIST OF FIVE PEOPLE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LESS (OF)

1. Jared. He lost weight, he stood in one leg of his old huge pants, I'm happy for him. His fifteen minutes are up.

2. Tara Reid. The magazines keep referring to her as an actress. She's not an actress, she's a professional party-goer and she needs to keep her boob in her dress.

3. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Why is he so angry? He really harshes my mellow, you know?

4. Ryan Seacrest. I resent that I even have to know who Ryan Seacrest is. And why does he get to take over for Dick Clark on New Year's Rockin' Eve? I never voted on that initiative! I would've picked Lou Dobbs, it would be fun to watch him trying to pick out illegal immigrants from such a huge crowd. And if he's not available - the Geico lizard.

5. Clint Eastwood. He knows why.