We killed Comcast. They were useless. 10 days without internet. How did I survive? How did you, my loyal readers, survive? If you want to organize some kind of class-action suit, be my guests... but you gotta find the lawyer. It'll be like "The Sweet Hereafter" only with no incest (or so we can hope.)

Some kind of biting insect has found its way into my basement. I am itchy in many places and it doth suck.

Today (Sunday... yesterday really) was a day off for me. I spent it as I usually do these things: sleeping through most of it, watching some TV, a DVD, surfing the 'net, and not leaving the house. I have reached the conclusion that 14th St is the very armpit of DC, and so refuse to go there except when I have to (one good example of such being going to work).

{Have I mentioned my new commute on here yet? It starts out with two blocks up a pretty steep hill, deadending on Lincoln Ave. I take a left on Lincoln, which is another block or so uphill, past the Discalced Carmelite Monastery then between two different cemetaries. After that it's pretty much downhill, hanging a right on Rhode Island, straight down for a block to get over North Capitol (this is nigh Joycean in its sense of place-- scholars and stalkers will now be able to pinpoint my location to within a block. Stalkers will then have the advantage of being able to ask anybody in the neighborhood which house has the white people). Once I'm over N. Capitol I jump a curb and end up in my old neighborhood, still going downhill. It's all pretty flat from there, except for the one block after Anna J. Cooper Circle. From there, the commute is exactly the same as before. However, I have discovered a brand new bike lane on R Street and I go the extra block out of my way so as not to have yahoos honk and bitch at me instead of just passing me as would be sensible.

The way home is reversed, and if you noted the amount of time spent going downhill on the way there you will quickly realize that I get a workout. The hill is not as steep on the way home, but it is much more sustained. As I reach the very top, I see the cemetary gates looming right in front of me and am seldom able to resist a triumphant (if short on breath) "NOT DEAD YET!" The last two or three blocks are straight downhill with a sharp right turn-- a turn I've been taking a little faster each night until Friday, which resulted in an inner elbow scraped on rainslick pavement. The other downhill bit, right before Anna Cooper Circle, lets me get up a good bit of speed and coast around the half-loop without turning the handlebars, just leaning right, left, right. That's my favorite bit of the whole commute right there.}

Anyway, I do not go to work early and I do not stop anywhere for drinks afterwards. Just there, shift, back. I'm even more of a shutin than ever.

My conversations today were mostly limited to M. coming through my room to do some laundry and taking Megan on an extended walk at 1AM. Megan and I have long one-sided chats on her walks that occasionally aspire to the Wildean.

#1:

"Is it OK if I come through?"
"Sure."
"Oh you're up, I was expecting half-naked curled-up-in-bed mode."
*rummaging*
"Did you take the lint trap out of the dryer?"
"Did I what?"
"It's missing."
"Really."
"Have you been doing more lint experiments?"
"You got me, I've been cramming it all into my own belly button. My navel is defective and doesn't produce any lint of its own..."

#2:

"Let's go for a long walk! I actually left the house for the first time today! Let's go up over the hill and back! ... OK, turn around now. We're turning around! HEEL! Why are you so insane? Oh, you want to walk through the cemetary now? Sure why not... but if we see any Goth Kids fucking we leave without saying anything. The Goth Kid population is dwindling and we all know they refuse to mate in captivity... What are you doing? Get back here! It's just a bush. That's just a tree! Why are you just sitting there looking at me like that? Are you looking at a zombie over my shoulder? Are you communing with the dead? I don't want to know if my dog's a medium... you're really more a small, though, aren't you? BACK on the road! I won't have you defiling anybody's eternal resting place..."

And so it goes. Next weekend promises to be a bit more interesting, what with high explosives on the docket and all.
- posted by Bob @ 3:31 AM