DC: stomping grounds

Used to be a time when if you called me up and said “Feel like walking around the city today?” I’d be hard-pressed to say yes unless it was a date, or there was the promise of booze or sex at the end of it. My how times have changed, especially with me getting more used to DC’s vaguely winter-styled weather. James arranged a little DC walkabout with me and Michael and it was quite a nice day out on Saturday. It was good for me too, since I had just started to grab a copy of Dr. Who Confidential during which they announced the actor who’ll be playing the Eleventh Doctor, so all I would have done was camp out around my MacBook waiting. James frequently maps out his walks using GPS so I know that we did roughly a 7 mile walk around. Starting at L’Enfant Plaza, over to Eastern Market, passing a few parks including Lincoln Park, making a pit stop at Jacob’s Coffee House and heading over towards Union Station before walking over to Gallery Place where Michael and I hit the metro home.

I clearly don’t walk around DC as much as I should, because I always see something new, or something that I’ve never really paid that much attention to until stumbling across it again. It’s neat to see how some places are a little extra gussied up for the impending Inauga-crowds. The Eastern Market Flea Market has a new sign out and I swear I don’t recall every single booth mounting an American flag before. My old office on D Street hasn’t changed in the nearly 12 years since I worked there. We passed by the place an old friend used to live and I felt a little nostalgia akin to what I originally thought the BNL song “The Old Apartment” was about. It wasn’t a “friend breakup” so much as a gradual drift apart, but it’s hard to walk by places you used to have fun and laughs with people and not feel a bit sad that those days are in the past.

My feet were a bit sore when I got home that night, but it was worth it. I’m happy to snag these “40s & dry” days to get outside while we still have them. And now I have one more reason to be jealous of GPS-enabled phones! I keep eyeing an upgrade to my iPhone more for the increased storage space, but I have to admit I am really jonesing for the little blue dot in my maps application. After I take care of the items on my financial to-do list, I’ll see if there’s money left over to get myself a shiny new iPhone. Of course I’ll have to start leaving the house more often. Kinda pointless asking the phone where you are if you never leave the one spot.

Monday, Monday… and it actually feels like a real one this time. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this full week after the past two short ones, but we’ll all muddle through I suppose.