Cleaning Out Dellwood's Closet

10:18PM - my inauguration day

16th and H, 7 A.M. My friends and I left College Park about two hours earlier, after a near-one hour wait to enter the parking garage.

What had started out as one of the most inspiring and memorable days of my young life quickly devolved into a show of everything that's wrong with people. With little or no direction as to where we could/should go to get on the Metro and cops who had seemingly no control over the increasingly unruly crowds on the Mall and along Independence Avenue SW, our trip home from the inauguration proceedings turned into a four-and-a-half-hour ordeal.

We found ourselves literally trapped in a Safeway at the Waterside Metro station, forced to choose between waiting outside in a line that stretched for two blocks or to hole up inside a grocery store where already disgruntled people had to wait over two hours to use a bathroom and others quickly resorted to stealing food. When we finally got in the station and at a train, people were pushing so hard that a woman nearly lost her son, and I heard her screaming his name as the doors shut.

While I did see many displays of kindness and goodwill that spoke to just how much Barack Obama has brought our nation together over the past year, I will never forget the people who pushed, shoved and cussed their way through the crowds, the men who tried to pick a fight with me after I asked them to quiet down so I could hear Obama's speech. It reminds me that we have still have far to go as a people and as a nation.

(See attached photoset.)

Approaching the Washington Monument. People were cheering, holding up posters, even handing out free food. For a moment, the Mall felt like the safest, most peaceful place on Earth.

Barack Obama's swearing-in. I thought Rick Warren's invocation was kind of inspiring, despite reports that most felt otherwise and my own desire for self-preservation.

Chaos on Independence Avenue SW as police vehicles force their way through an unruly crowd struggling to reach a Metro station. As the sea of faces parts, we see people carrying a man, face bloodied, who clearly had been trampled.

The line to get in L'Enfant Plaza station, 7th and Maryland Avenue. With conflicting reports from police as to which Metro stations are open or closed, people have no idea where to go and no one to direct them.

Safeway, 3rd and D Streets SW. Twenty-three blocks from the Mall, we reach the Waterside station, which is packed, and take refuge inside the only store for blocks around.

Waterside. "Everybody's gonna get home," calls a Metro employee from the top of the escalator. For the first time all day, it looks like someone knows what to do.

12:59AM - the self-confidence song

I wish they sold self-confidence the same way you sell shoes or books or movie tickets, and it would be just as easy as flashing a brand name or spouting one-liners to make yourself a person you felt proud of in the morning. Self-confidence is waking up to your naked body in the mirror and saying “I look good,” versus getting dressed and saying “I look good.” And I’m sorry, I can’t look at myself naked. I’m too busy trying to catch up to the cool kids I went to high school with six, seven years ago, because they’re still around, giant headphones, smirks on their faces, asking “what are you listening to?” “Taking Back Sunday . . . old Taking Back Sunday.” You have to say it’s old, because it gives you a history, a credibility. Self-confidence is saying you were born yesterday because you were and you have a long way to go, versus saying you were born last week, even if you don’t have an alibi for it. I think religion is a good way out of trying to keep up with the scene, because it comes pre-made for you. I like the idea of a God that doesn’t care what records you listen to or how much your shoes cost but totally knows what records you’re going to buy next week or when your shoes will finally come apart after years of abuse and stepping in dogshit. I leave my shoes under the bed so I can soak up all the places they’ve been to when I wasn’t paying attention. I haven’t seen the movie everyone’s talking about, and I probably never will. I don’t know how to tell jokes or how to keep up in conversation between people I barely know. I don’t know why people spend two hundred dollars for things they’ll use to step in dogshit. I don’t know why I’m proud of my records from six, seven years ago, the ones I associated with those kids I hated but, eager to co-opt their tastes and personalities, adopted as my own. I don’t know why I am so tall. I don’t know why I straighten my hair. I don’t know why I’m only happy with how I look every once in a while, and only if I slept well and haven’t talked to anyone before three in the afternoon. I don’t know why I’m never happy, not in the depressed sort of way, but in a frustrated, why can’t I keep up with the scene, any scene, any group of people in any sort of way. And if I’m always behind you, I don’t know why I keep trying to trip you so you’ll walk next to me instead.

12:02AM - spacemen come to my apartment, bearing paint

This morning, several Latino men with dubious English proficiency burst into my apartment, bearing ladders, rollers and ominous-looking paint buckets. They were dressed in white suits, like spacemen, except spacemen that did not require an oxygen tank. Perhaps they were spacemen of the future, when genetic engineering has turned our lungs into flash drives for air. I do not know what they were here for; perhaps to paint, I suppose, but I was not present for the painting, so much as I was for their entry. It was eight o' clock, a good four or five hours before my day is set to begin; and even on a day when I am to scoop ice cream on the far side of Rockville (as today was), I was not intending to awaken until at least eight-thirty or nine, when I receive the dirty wake-up calls I have set to ring my phone at that hour.

They are not necessarily dirty messages, the ones I have sent into my phone, but they are littered with swears and come-ons of a sexual nature that I believe are the only thing that will get me up before post-lunchtime.

Nonetheless, I was awoken by the sounds of ladders and rollers, a language I knew only of as a way for bored American tenth-graders to discuss the previous night's episode of Chappelle's Show in a classroom setting, and the unlocking of my apartment door, and then the room to my door. I stare out, blind without my glasses, hair all akimbo.

"I come to paint?" the spaceman asks.

"No, I live here," I reply.

"They say room is vacant," he says.

"Well, this one isn't," I say in return.

And so the spacemen went to the other rooms of the apartment to paint them, and if the doors were not locked now - rendering them inaccessible to me - I would marvel at how clean and bright they were, scrubbed clean of the smell of Boy that once had been absorbed into these walls. Of course the smell of Boy is one well-acquainted with male apartments, and I am sure when my new roommates arrive at the end of the month they will foul up the apartment again.

This is to be expected, and almost anticipated with glee. Yes. White paint is meant to be sullied like a cheap lover, not left to sit out like a pie on a windowsill.

10:18PM - as I am tall like the willows . . .

I felt the anger burbling inside me as I waited for my food to arrive at the take-out counter of P.F. Chang's China Bistro in White Flint Mall, which is in a town called Kensington, but prefers to say it is in North Bethesda, because the white women will not bring their BMWs to a mall in Kensington to nearly mow me down with, as they did today. Like the ambiguity of its postal location, the place where I stood was similarly awkward; not quite the dining room, where people dressed in their best T-shirts and sneakers chowed on Chinese fusion cooking, and not quite the bar, where young men with winning smiles attempted to pitch jokes at their female counterparts, who solidly rejected their advances. I grew quite frustrated by this arrangement, and by the entire concept of White Flint Mall, or Kensington/North Bethesda, or driving to and from such a place to feed my mother and brother all the way back home.

Yes, it is good to be back on livejournal. I am scrubbing the place (and its sister place) of its adolescent dirt and grime, preparing it for a lovely future as a home for my considerably more mature thoughts, be they about Chinese food or white women, or poops, but I refuse to elaborate on that as it is inappropriate too.

The summer is long and friendly, and I await its end patiently but reluctantly. I realize I am alone quite a lot, and a day will go by that I speak to but a few people, and not until late, late, late in the day. I have had a few exciting days this summer - driving up to Baltimore to visit friends from college who live in places flung far across this state and nation; or taking the Metro down to U Street with good friends from high school (Gili and Adrienne among them, or solely them) to see an indie band called Tilly and the Wall.

It was unclear to me whom among the seven performers on stage were Tilly, or the Wall, and I found this fact quite confounding. There was a young woman who tap-danced upon a platform with great exuberance, like Sarah Silverman - exactly like Sarah Silverman, in my mind, and nothing else - but it was unclear if she was the Tilly of the band's moniker. I soon discovered that the Wall was right in front of my nose; a large gentleman, drunk and excited to see his favorite band, he eventually explained, had elbowed his way in front of me, blocking my view. And that is a difficult thing to do, as I am tall like the willows, and my eyes are like a panopticon that can see in many of the directions at once, if not all of them.

But this gentleman was indeed the Wall, and he danced like the Wall, arms akimbo, head strutting in and out like that of a peacock, or an owl with a neck. In time, it became more of a show to watch him profess his love for Tilly through the dance than to watch the tap-dancer herself.

Oh, yes. An indie band is one that I would seldom watch, preferring instead my traditional emo bacchanals at the 9:30 Club or the Recher in Towson, with its many youthful emo children. But like all things, I must grow older and increasingly elitist about my tastes, all part of the great separation of one with the mainstream that America is built upon. In this act of seeing Tilly and the Wall, I become a part of something more than dinners at P.F. Chang's China Bistro and quabbles over where Kensington begins and North Bethesda ends. Lo, from the power I have gained from saying I went to this show alone I could smite both locations into oblivion, and the BMWs that would hit me would instead sink into an abyss not unlike that of a reservoir's outlet into a dam.

1:29AM - this year in me

A year ago I was a misunderstood filmmaker; two years ago I was such a sap I decided to start a band with my [then-six-year-old] brother; and three years ago I found out the girl I liked already had a boyfriend. It is very convenient having all of these important life milestones laid out for me - on the Internet, no less. I realize that I've been doing this for over three years now, save for the past four months, where I more or less fell off the face of the Earth.

Tonight after midnight, I walked down to CVS to buy some soap. It is exam week; a lot of people have 8 a.m. exams tomorrow morning, and College Park is dead. It is depressing, and I didn't see a single person until I left campus. Everyone seemed to be at CVS, in line for Red Bull. On the way back, I decided to walk past Allegany Hall, a dorm with these huge leafy bushes in front of it. "Hello!" said a voice from the foliage. "Uh, hey," I said, moving closer, trying to make out the figure squatting on the ground. Maybe it was somebody I knew.

I saw she was holding a phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and I figured she probably wasn't talking to me. Then I heard the trickle of water, and noticed the dark puddle on the ground between her legs. She wasn't laughing or crying; she wasn't humiliated or proud, but maybe surprised. And so it's come to this, I could see her thinking.

"I'm in front of a dorm, peeing in the bushes," she said to the person on the other end, putting a cigarette to her lips. "And some guy is walking past."

I tried to walk faster. Three years in College Park and I've never seen a girl peeing in the bushes in front of a dorm while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone. You'd think it happened every day here from the way she acted. I was horrified as a freshman, green about college and overly self-righteous about everything.

"Who's walking past?" she kept going. "Just some random-ass guy."

"Yo, tell her Dan Reed is walking by!" I yelled. She didn't hear me because she was still peeing, and I was embarrassed to have seen it.

These are the stories I will tell my kids one day, when they ask what college was like, and this mythical place called College Park, where even the night before 8 a.m. exams you can find people too drunk to enjoy God's gift of shame.

6:59PM - dan is bringin' the drugs

For quite a while this afternoon I was hopped up on a drug known to me as Percocet. Upon popping the little, bitter pill, I knew only one emotion: "useful." I did a great many efficient things in the minutes following, such as making a phone call, checking facebook, writing an e-mail, and checking facebook again soon afterward.

I have been in the house for at least two days now, having had my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday. I remember little of the surgery save for the smalltalk I made with the dentist as he shoved the IV in my arm, explaining that there was valium seeping through the little tube that went inside of me, and I thought of The Princess Bride and Prince Valium, and . . . then I was swollen, being led to the car, which was parked next to a trash can with a sticker on it for a local band called The Spotlight, and they were everywhere, I thought, even on Main Street in Laurel.

The Percocet is a glorious drug, and do I ever feel inspired as it courses through me. On occasion, I will want a cigarette to bring me down from the pillowy heights, but the doctor insists that I cannot smoke for it will loosen the stitches in my mouth.

And I do not want those stitches loosened, for I want the healing to be quick and effective, so I can get up without feeling faint, and drive the car without going limp at an intersection, and eat foods other than the applesauce. God, I love the applesauce. I bought twenty-five dollars worth of applesauce and pudding in preparation for the surgery, but I am already tired of both.

1:42PM - i got tha hongry for illegal chicken

When I am behind the counter of the shop, or hiding from the cameras through which the corporate office is watching me, I will be stricken by the unavoidable club of Tha Hongry. I begin to savor for something more than ice cream, or even a fro yo.

The Peruvians make a chicken that I am quite enamored by. It is called Pollo a la Brasa in the Spanish, but I do not know its meaning in the English. There are a great many Pollo a la Brasa restaurants in this area, and they are not hard to find. When the smell of the rotisserie wafts into your nose holes, there is little you can do to stop yourself from swerving across several lanes of rush-hour traffic to reach the source of such a smell.

For a year, I have longed to eat a Pollo a la Brasa that was nearly the stuff of legend. The restaurant was called El Pollo Rico, and it made Wheaton a legitimate place to be in, as opposed to just that shopping mall where a fellow was stabbed two years ago. I have had serious Tha Hongry for it, despite never having eaten there.

But, alas, El Pollo Rico was raided by Immigration last week, and its owners were thrown in jail for harboring illegal aliens. I cannot help but wonder if the Immigration people are vegans, and they do not approve of chicken that falls off the bone. My heart is broken! If it is a crime to make such a spectacular Pollo a la Brasa (as I have been told it is), then perhaps I am a criminal, too, for wanting to enjoy it.

1:07AM - sometimes a frozen yogurt is called a "fro-yo"

Today was a banner day at the shop, in which a great many things were scooped. One gentleman, however, ordered a frozen yogurt. It is not scooped but rather forced through a complicated and frightening machinery, one that takes three hours to clean, as I did this morning.

The gentleman entered the shop with his nose turned up. "It smells like a sewer out there!" he exclaimed. But this is Montgomery County, I thought, we have exported all bad smells to Virginia. "It smells like ass!" the man continued.

I sprinted from behind the counter and out the door, to where the construction workers and stroller-pushing mothers were making their daily progression. As I took whiffs of the putrid air, an emo boy walked past the store. Bleached-blonde hair, studded belt, confused smile: a fine specimen, increasingly rare and rarer still on the clean streets of Rockville.

"Yes!" I yelled. "This is not a good smell!"

The emo boy stared at me, perhaps alarmed that the smell of ass would bring tears to his eyes. (Or was he comforted?) I returned to the store; as the emo boy continued to stare at me through the windows which lined every inch not already covered in ice cream, I made the gentleman a frozen yogurt, which he enjoyed thoroughly.

In time, I forgot that smell, but I remembered the look of horror on the emo boy's face, and the glint of the sun in his belt's studs, as I recalled the story to anyone there being paid an hourly wage to hear it. There are times, I realize, when God makes the street smell like ass, but only so you are impelled to go out and smell it, thus stumbling upon the other glories of His creation.

4:57PM - i have become curious about television, and baltimore

A life of scooping and blogging has proved far crueler than I originally anticipated, despite the free goodies I eat on the job and the many interesting and powerful people I meet on the blog. There has been one thing that gives me solace, at least of a momentary variety, and that is the Box.

The Box sits atop the television in our family room, and when it is not tied up by my brother or step-father, I will wander downstairs to explore the hundreds upon hundreds of magical channels. One of these channels is called The N, and in the evenings it plays a program called Degrassi, which seems to involve a number of frustrated, sexually active teenagers in Canada. I assume the Canadian accent, for all its shortcomings, must serve as something of an aphrodisiac, and I long to visit such a place where it is spoken.

But I will be missing Degrassi tonight, for I am attending one of my emo bacchanals this evening, in Baltimore. The band is called theAUDITION; they seem hostile towards spaces and Traditional Capitalization, and I find that rebellion intoxicating. The lead singer is tall for an emo boy, which is comforting after the minor crisis I had last summer upon seeing how short Chris Carrabba is.

The show is in a part of Baltimore that I am not familiar with. That part is called "Everything That Is Not The Inner Harbor." I am scared about the neighborhood, in a suburban sort of way, but I remind myself how afraid I was to visit the 9:30 Club for the first time, and how it was actually in nice Towson that my car was nearly broken into, and I do not feel so bad about Not Inner Harbor Baltimore.

After all, Not Inner Harbor Baltimore is north of here, which means it is closer to Canada, and whatever makes the teens of Degrassi so horny. Yes. Perhaps love can be found in Baltimore tonight.

11:50PM - perhaps too much ice cream can give you nightmares

I had much difficulty sleeping last night. I tossed and turned for hours, and perhaps at three or four in the morning, I heard a creaking under my bed. Anxious and sweatlogged, I leaned over the side to see what was wrong. I tried to stifle the screams as I realized there was a Dave under my bed. My worst fears come to life! I jumped under the covers and cowered, praying it would be gone before morning. And then it was.

There has been nothing quite so gratifying in recent days as my brother's face when I came home with a severely melted pint of ice cream, and one I had hand-packed myself at that. I have a new job now in the ice cream business, as a scooper. I will not name the place where I scoop now, but anyone with a Facebook account and or - I fear - eyes could figure it out themselves.

The shop is in Rockville, which is a place I am very familiar with, but one that is nonetheless far away from my home, and not easily accessible by the bus I had grown to love working in Bethesda last summer. I am enjoying, though, the ability to show up at work in shorts and a T-shirt, albeit one that bears the name of the company on it. There is also a hat, and I have found I am falling victim to Hat Head.

Tomorrow is opening day, which coincides with a great number of festivities in the Town Square. Augustana, a band whose songs I have heard on the Grey's Anatomy or some similarly-minded show, will be playing. I have been promised that a great many people will come to the shop and demand a variety of desserts that I may have to assemble and serve. It will be a test of fortitude, I think, if I can successfully provide for all of these people without my spirit withering away like kindling in a woodstove.

We are a small army, the fifteen or so fifteen-year-olds I am working with at the ice cream shop, and I think we will conquer the masses of Rockville with ease, or at least the ones from Richard Montgomery High School, since my co-workers all seem to go there anyway.

1:24AM - when drowning, always look behind you

I was right, for I have come home to Silver Spring and discovered that there were, in fact, no Daves. I checked under the bed, behind the shower curtain, and in the garage, but there were no Daves in any of these places. Due to the fact I have no eyes in the back of my head, I am forever fearful that there is a Dave behind me, but it is something I may just have to deal with.

There has been very little leaving the house, and I have been thinking about many things, such as Harford County, and cleaning my room, which is a process not unlike cleaning the Great Wall of China, except that the Great Wall has been filled with old copies of the Blake Beat, and every five minutes, I stop to read one, or to check Facebook, or to look at maps of Harford County on the Google. All of these things are very engrossing and bring back the memories, some of which are exciting, many of which are sad.

I did leave the house on Friday, when I read poems with Terpoets at Artomatic, which is a sort of a month-long art festival that takes over two floors of a very swanky office building in Crystal City. The office building reminded me of what I would have liked to do when I was young with my step-father's office building downtown - to run with a marker, scribbling across the walls while screaming "FUCK!" at the top of my lungs as all of the secretaries ran after me, unable to keep up.

I was drowning in a sea of cooler-than-thou as I saw the art and the live bands and the films and listened to the poetry, so much so that I had to leave. There was too much of everything to handle, and I longed for the safety of my Great Wall of Room, despite the fact I am drowning in it as well.

5:04PM - marley station has an great glass elevator like in that roald dahl book

Yesterday, I went on an exciting Mall Tour in Anne Arundel County with old Andy, who is from such a place. We visited a great many malls, including Harundale, which is no longer a mall but a ceremonial rock in a square, and Marley Station Mall, which reminded me of old Lakeforest back home in Montgomery County.

There were a great many "adjacencies" in this Marley Station Mall, which, in mall terms, refer to similar stores being placed next to each other. The Hot Topic was across from the Spencer Gifts, and the American Eagle was next to the Aeropostale, and I derived great joy in watching the pre-pubescent-girls-with-dumpy-moms-in-tow dart from one store to the adjacent like honey bees.

 Andy suggested that the people in all the malls are all the same, and I wondered if at Lakeforest there was another pre- pubescent girl with a dumpy mom going from the American Eagle to the Aeropostale, and maybe in Wheaton Plaza an aspiring emo boy with platinum-blonde hair and an Every Time I Die shirt was crossing the corridor between Hot Topic and Pac Sun, or perhaps in Tysons Corner an eighteen-year-old sorority girl-in-training was working off the previous night's hang over with a sprint from Ruehl to Hollister.

It was then that I felt my mind become blown, and I was not just in this mall in Glen Burnie but in every mall, everywhere, but then I remembered I had first consumed a milkshake from the Ann's Dari-Creme, which so far as I know is only in Glen Burnie next to Marley Station Mall, and I am left wondering if this is the only place in the world worth saving when the cockroaches come back to eat us all.

I know you are feeling the same thing I am, and you are getting into your car, thinking about that chocolate milkshake, and wondering if the B-W Parkway or I-95 will take you to Anne Arundel County faster. 

1:01AM - a man on the street called me michael jackson

Last week, I stood in the Great Line of Housing Priority Numbers and, when my name was called, I was able to select a room to live in next year. (It is pictured above.) The room is in an on-campus apartment complex called South Campus Commons. The apartments are very new, and very clean, and are filled with single rooms with locking doors. I do not know my new roommates, but I was assured they are good people and, more importantly, they go to bed after eleven.

I am in the study lounge currently, which is a lonely place, far lonelier than fair Manhattan Island, which is a place I have just returned from. Five years ago, Adrienne and I had met on a school trip in this Island City, and we had come on another school trip to commemorate the occasion. I offered her a watch for sale in Filene's Basement; she told me it looked like a dashboard, and I concurred.

Over the weekend, I ate a great variety of exciting new foods, such as Pancakes With Fried Onion Rings, which I believe is a staple of New York foods, and saw a great many exciting musicals. One of the musicals we watched was called Avenue Q, after a street, but not one I could find on a map. There were a great many foul-mouthed puppets on this street, and I knew it was better that people could not actually visit this place.

As Eileen had promised so many years ago, there were a great many "scene kids" in New York, but unlike her prophecy, I could not make out with them, particularly not in Greenwich Village, where a great many of them had congregated, but dispersed at the sight of me and my giant "I Am A Tourist" New York Map.

If it were not for my new apartment, which is across the hall from Adrienne's new aparment, I would have gladly moved to Manhattan to eat pancakes with the puppets and the scene kids. Individually, none of these things are good, but together, they are unstoppable.

11:56PM - did you know that montgomery county is considering the implementation of form-based zoning

The first three days of Spring Break were at first frustrating for the lack of distractions, but I have embraced the  opportunities that arise from having nothing better to do. While I have been visiting Facebook with an unhealthy frequency, I enjoy being able to sleep late in a bed that is not six feet above the ground, not having to say "Good Morning" to my roommate the moment he realizes I am awake, and taking showers without using flip-flops as a protective measure against the dangers of Other People's Germs.

But when I am finished with Facebook and misanthropy, I realize I have to leave the house and actually Do Things, for I am consumed with great feelings of inadequacy if I do not leave the house in a given day, even if only to go to Popeyes. Yesterday, or I suppose I mean today (whichever applies to "Monday") I drove to Rockville, our glorious County Seat, to interview Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Potomac) for Just Up The Pike, only to find out he had to attend a committee hearing, and that I was free to stay and watch if I liked. Realizing that I had nothing better to do than to sit and watch the Montgomery County Council discuss zoning laws, I decided to stay.

The actual topic of discussion went largely over my head, as interesting as zoning is to me, but I became very engrossed with the various facial expressions and chin-holding positions that the councilmembers made. When I am attending my normal emo bacchanals at venues such as my beloved Recher Theatre, I do not tend to notice such chin-holding positions, largely because the musicians are not sitting at conference tables but rather swinging a microphone or guitar or drum set.

I have no emo bacchanals planned for the Spring Break, but I am returning to Rockville on Wednesday, so perhaps I can see more of our Local Government in action. And on "Monday" I noticed a model house on New Hampshire Avenue that I have never seen before, so on today [which is Tuesday] I will make that my reason to leave the house and, as a result, feel like a legitimate person once again.

4:42PM - i wish i could hear you sad

I am forced to consider getting earplugs now, as it has occurred to me that my hearing is getting worse. Over the past week and a half, I have been to three shows - Straylight Run a week and a half ago on-campus; Jack's Mannequin at the 9:30 Club the following Monday; and last Friday, The Rocket Summer and The Early November at the Recher Theatre in Towson. Towson is at least an hour away by car, and requires traveling on a great many highways that lead to spectacular places I have never heard of. I have decided that Towson is a very magical place, even though the people who are from there do not feel the same way, but perhaps when they visit Silver Spring they can see a magical quality that I as a native have missed.

At 11:30 Friday night Laura and I stormed out of the theatre, angry that the lead singer of The Early November, whose name is Ace, could not pronounce the name of Towson, taking to calling it "Towzzzon" or "Townsend," and the Towsonians in the audience were all frothing at the mouth with disgust. Thrown back into the springtime bustle of York Road, I realized that I could not hear anything. A stock androgynous emo boy stood at the entrance of the theatre, handing out many a flyer for future shows at this venue and others. My first thought upon seeing the androgyne was to say "You're pretty," but then I realized I could not hear what he was saying to me.

"I'm sorry," I said, "Can you repeat what you said?"

"Can you really not hear anything?" the androgyne's friend asked, approaching me. The friend was not androgynous; rather, he looked very much like a boy, and not pretty in any sense of the word.

"No, no I can't," I said, explaining that I had been to three concerts in eight days.

"Dude, you should get earplugs," the friend said. The androgyne agreed in his prettiness, but had to turn away to hand a flyer to someone else, and Laura and I walked away. I shouted like a drunkard for the great many blocks back to the car, which I feared had been stolen, but it was not.

If I can find a re-usable pair of earplugs, I will have to purchase them, but if I have less than fifteen dollars, I will simply buy an Early November album and say "to hell with the rest." I can forgive Ace so long as he does not refer to my hometown as "Silver Springs."

2:08PM - the best story ever

I went for dinner last night with Adrienne, Spencer and Merianne at the Asian Grill on College Avenue. Adrienne asked if I wanted to eat at the Asian Grill, and I said "what's that!?" and she responded, "the place you've been telling me about for weeks," which, in fact, I had. The last time I had been there (last Friday, as a matter of fact), the tapioca in my bubble tea had been very hard, and I refused to stop talking about the hardship I had gone through in chewing them.

The four of us were seated at a table by the window overlooking the Book Exchange and Fraternity Row, and I made googly eyes at the people who walked past. Merianne was talking about her sister, who is still at Blake, and I was reminded of all the people from high school that I was trying to forget. "Tell me how Alex is doing," I asked. "I am in the mood to hear a yarn."

"So, he came over last week," Merianne began.

"Yes, and then what happened?" I asked.

"Well, he dropped off some Inuyasha," she continued.

"And then what happened?"

"Then, we gave him back some Inuyasha."

"And then what happened?"

"Then he started becoming annoying." Merianne digressed into a long bit about how Alex still flirts with her sister, despite the fact he has been dating someone for a year and says inappropriate things about what they do together. I was quite surprised to find out who he had been dating, and there was much argument over who she really was. Then I ordered Merianne to get back to the story at hand, as I was quite engrossed.

"And then what happened?"

"After he flirted with my sister?"

"Yes."

"He grew his hair out now. It's very long, like a girl's."

"The End," I said, concluding the story. Everyone at the table sighed with satisfaction from hearing such a good yarn. It was a story that Adrienne and I repeated over and over again that evening with great happiness, and one I will tell my children one day.

1:06AM - silly analogy man

I don't think about Valentine's Day except to be aware that it's coming, and that today is Valentine's Day, and that I don't really care. There's nothing to it. I don't have a Valentine, so today is simply Wednesday. If I have someone next year, the meaning of the day changes. It's like being Jewish on Christmas. I will go to the movies and eat Chinese food and not wish I were Christian.

Yesterday I braved the freezing rain to have shrimp dumpling soup with Hans Riemer at a Chinese restaurant in Wheaton. He told the server I was a "very influential writer in Montgomery County" and, if I reviewed their restaurant for Just Up The Pike, it would be "very good" for them. "Okay," the server said flippantly, and then she set down our bill and went away. When she came back for the bill, she looked at me and said "You are a writer? Good! But you still look like teenager."

Can I be a "scene kid" in the Montgomery County political scene? I doubt the scene uniform involves Vans and skinny pants, but I must earn a lot of cred for interviewing County Executive Ike Leggett for my 'blog. The analogy works, right?

For the first time in my life I feel like I have a real purpose, even if I don't know what I'm doing. It kind of takes away the sting of my family life and social life and school, which are all a mess, but everyone has to deal with those things.

11:32PM - wrapped in the blanket of knowledge

The song "The Only Black Guy At The Indie-Rock Show" by the Cocker Spaniels makes me happy. I felt bad when I was walking to the 9:30 Club last year next to this white kid and he ran across the street upon seeing me. But I like the fact I could've scared somebody, especially in a rough neighborhood like that area.

Walking from class today I realized that there are no such thing as awkward pauses or awkward conversations or awkward anything unless you make it that way. Awkward is a difficult word to say or spell, and even harder to merely drop into a situation.

And anything is possible when I'm not worried what other people are thinking of me. I can't help but worry about it, but it should be enough knowing that I myself am not as awkward as I give myself credit for.

9:54PM - if you have not realized this is tongue-in-cheek than something is very wrong

Adam is throwing a Cake Party tomorrow night, and while there was some discussion over whether there would actually be cake, as opposed to booze or weed, I agreed to bring a cake. Adrienne was asked what music she would like to hear.

"Is Adam looking for more playlist suggestions?" I asked her.

"I don't want to hear any Fall Out Boy, Dan," she spat.

I have a confession to make: I illegally downloaded the new Fall Out Boy album, Infinity On High, last night. No, that it is not the confession. The confession is this: I liked it. Perhaps it was the stress of finishing my portfolio in order to stay in the architecture school, but I finished it to Fall Out Boy. When I drove up to Rockville to speak with County Councilwoman Nancy Floreen, I listened to Fall Out Boy, and I cut off many an eighteen-wheeler on the Beltway. I was feeling adventurous.

I am overwhelmed with a fear and shame greater than that which I experienced when I wondered if I might be gay. Sadly, despite all tries to keep my ears out of the mainstream and mainstream tastes (and, sadder still, that I saw this as a way of bettering myself in the eyes of others) I cannot help but succumb to Fall Out Boy.

Damn you, Pete Wentz. Damn you to hell.

And I will find out if I am still an architect at the end of March. My, what a two months this will be.

2:05PM - IT IS NOW WINTER

As of 1:42 pm EST, Just Up The Pike is proud to be the first to announce the Official Start of Winter 2007 in East County, as can be seen in this view from the Official Just Up The Pike Weather Cul-De-Sac located in snowy Silver Spring, Maryland.

Note the accumulation on the car, the island, and the roof - and also the possibility we'll see two more inches of the stuff before the day is out. Finally, we can quell all fears of Global Warming and stifle the guilt we felt after weeks of unseasonably pleasant temperatures.

Hooray! I am going to build a snowman. Eventually.

Crossposted at Just Up The Pike.