Art Nouveau Ho

Typing this from my hotel room in Chicago.

Flying into this city, you pass over miles of industrial wasteland, then suburbia, then city. I'm reminded pointedly of how my hometown, DC, is an artificial capital, plonked down in the middle of farmland by well-meaning Founding Fathers. ("We shall found a nation! It shall be the greatest nation on earth! And its capital shall be... that swamp on the Potomac!")

But Chicago is a real city: it has industry, it has commerce, it has grit, it has grunge. Its most famous citizens have been gangsters. You know the joke about Chicago being founded by a bunch of discontented New Yorkers: "Okay, we like the crime and the traffic jams and the pollution, but it's not cold enough. Let's go west."

Being in Chicago reminds me that one of the things I like most about DC is its unreality.

speedlime and I have been having variations on this conversation for the past few days:

Me: The weather's lovely!
Speedlime: It's weird and creepy and we're all going to die.


The strangest part is the smell. The air has that warm, wet thawing smell which usually only kicks in around late March. The Forsythia in front of my parents' house is trying to bloom. Daffodil shoots are appearing. It is seriously strange.

Of course, being able to walk around in your shirtsleeves in January is great. Today, when I really should have been doing errands but instead stopped by the zoo, they were feeding the otters. It was like an explosion of cute. I think no creature can express joy physically as well as an otter. They've got that flexible spine that lets them leap and wreathe and loop themselves around.

Our DC zoo now has two species of otter: the ones I saw being fed are the Asian small-clawed otters, who number seven or so. They're very sweet and very vocal, too: they have a variety of high-pitched calls that they use among themselves. More silent, but just as playful, are the North American river otters, who are old acquaintances of mine. I've enjoyed watching them play in their pond since I was a little thing.

So at least the otters seem to be enjoying DC's own version of global warming. I guess we could all do worse than learn from them. (You don't mind if I take this raw fish into the pool with me, do you?)

"If only I could get access to a sewing machine while I'm here" I wrote the other day... well, today I found an old one in my parents' basement! (A White 1510, for those who care.) I think it's from the 1970s; it's all metal inside, which is a bonus.

I immediately bounded off to get oil, a light bulb, needles and calico. After some finagling I got it working, but I still decided to take it to the sewing machine repair shop (which MIRACULOUSLY exists at the bottom of the hill) for a service. Still, W00T!!! Sewing machine!! In a fit of joy I have spent way too much on fabrics.

NB: pvcdiva, this is all your fault

speedlime found a fabric shop near her place that she refers to as "the fabric TARDIS." I went there for the first time last week, and it is indeed bigger on the inside than the outside. Today, I found a Washington Post article about it! The Post gets everywhere.

(We bought some green sparkly PVC in a nice heavy weight for pvcdiva to make Speedy an underbust out of. They also had silver. Any requests, UK friends?)

This is my second week of not writing for blueyonder any more, and it feels weird. On the plus side: no more allnighters, no more eye strain, no more tendonitis; on the minus side: so long, steady income, it was nice knowin' ya. Oh well.

So yesterday I spent some time with my Dad. We walked through the Zoo, said hello to the panda cub, and then turned off into Rock Creek Park. We ended up on a dirt trail that runs beside the creek, marked by blue-green blazes, with frequent climbs over rocks and up and down steep slopes and over tree roots massive enough to make one feel like a Hobbit. I didn't know that this kind of hiking was possible within walking distance of my parents' house! Yet another reason to love DC.

Yesterday the temperature was in the 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius). People still have their Christmas lights up! Weird, weird, weird.

I've just changed my flight so that now I'm returning to London on the 24th of January. I'll be glad to get back, but for now I'm really enjoying DC. If only I can work out some way to get access to a sewing machine...

Special bonus link: US Army urges dead to re-enlist. Zombie soldiers? Why the hell not?

Today I have:

--Walked through DC from Cleveland Park to DuPont Circle. It was sunny today. As always, I love my town, and it was good to soak up the Christmas Eve atmosphere. Noticed along the way: The Zoo has a little arrangement of topiary animals out in front, which look sort of like oversize ChiaPets. The Mounted Police have built themselves a new riding school, with a roof. When I reached DuPont Circle, I felt a wave of nostalgia for the great times pvcdiva, orkamedies and I had in that neighbourhood this summer. Cheers, guys!

--Petted a hairless cat named Lord Cameron, who lives in a consignment shop around the corner from me. It's very different from petting an ordinary cat-- there's no fur for your hand to slide along, so it's more like sort of giving them a massage. Still, I must have done something right, because he jumped up on my shoulder and rubbed his head on my cheek, purring thunderously.

--Stopped by speedlime's workplace to pick up some lovely drawings that she did to illustrate a poem that I'm sending to my family. Speedy is just way too talented.

Now I'm going to change into my glad-rags and head over to the MASSIVE Christmas Eve party that Speedy and her parents hold every year. They're German by descent, so there will be flaming Glühwein and heaps of cookies, including the perennial meringue mushrooms. JOY!

So all in all, this has been a very happy birthday. Being 34 is not all that bad, so far. Thanks to everyone who posted lovely thoughts on my last post-- you rule! Happy National Liza Day, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I am in DC!

Tonight speedlime and I have been to see Gogol Bordello!

All is well with the world.

So I'm in DC now, and it's marvellous. It's still summer here, and the heat is jungle-like. How I've missed the wet green tropical smell of the DC summer, and the nights filled with the music of crickets and cicadas. Thunderstorms are forecast for this week; DC storms are another thing I miss when I'm away. British thunderstorms are restrained and gentlemanly; DC storms have a proper sense of drama. After they've passed, the Wet Green Smell is increased tenfold. speedlime is as much a force of nature as they, and even more of a joy to see.

Today I go to the airport to pick up pvcdiva and orkamedies. Thanks to a timely warning from the resourceful psychonomy, I know their plane's a bit late. Keep the faith, guys-- I promise you relaxation and cups of tea once you make it here!

One of the main reasons why I love the internet is that it's a great arena for monomaniacs: people who are obsessed with one thing and one thing only. The rest of us then get to enjoy the fruits of their obsession without having to do the work. Take this guy, for example: He has a collection of vintage cameras. He puts the cameras out in his yard and waits for the local squirrels to investigate them. Then he uses a digital camera to take pictures of the squirrels with the vintage cameras. Check it out.

This guy's squirrels are fox squirrels, an American species. I'm looking forward to showing pvcdiva our colony of DC black squirrels. We have ordinary greys too-- the black's a colour mutation. Apparently DC's black squirrels are mostly descended from a group introduced by nature-loving President Theodore Roosevelt (he of the Teddy bear.)

Best sentence in that linked article: Flyger devoted himself to studying squirrels... He used to smear a tree behind his Silver Spring home with a mixture of peanut butter and Valium and then tattoo the squirrels that he found passed out below.

Oh yes. Our squirrels are not only wearing black, they're ODing on drugs and getting tattoos. You can imagine their thoughts on waking up. "Aw, shit, my head feels weird... and my ear's all sore... A TATTOO??? How'd that happen? Where the fuck was I last night?? Oh man, the wife's gonna kill me! I am never touching peanut butter again, so help me God"

(speedlime will not thank me for the squirrel discussion, since she had squirrels living in the walls of her house for months and they kept her up all night having loud squirrel parties. When she thumped on the walls they sent her insulting text messages. DC squirrels have attitude.)

Special bonus link: little baby red squirrel, asleep

Yesterday was definitely Red Skirt Day. I finished putting together two (one for myself and one for a friend, both dance skirts in poly-chiffon) and hung up one that I'd bought a few days earlier in the sales. Added to the one I've already got, that's a lot of red skirts. Can one have too many? Discuss... ( further ramblings... )