Thirty Eight

Its been a while, kids. So how about we make a deal? I'll tell you one thing for every day that I didn't blog.

1. Best friend came back to the city with me for New Years Eve and it was epic.
Rather than hobble around the city in our dresses and heels, we opted into one of those big ticket, black tie extravaganzas. Ours was James Bond themed, and though I'd heard several nasty rumors about long lines, skeezy people, and general debauchery, it really was quite a lovely experience. We met people who we'll never see again, we kissed people who we'll never see again, and we had a damn good time doing it.

2. I didn't eat a black-eyed pea on New Years Day
Oh, I hope my mama doesn't read this, she'll kill me. It is a hard-core Southern tradition to make and eat (at least one) black eyed pea on January 1st, and every-year, I've had my mom there to do it for me. Apparently, I'm not quite as self-reliant as I think, because this year, there were no peas gracing my table. Thus far, there's no sign of a black cloud, but I'm mildly terrified its going to roll in on some idle Tuesday and wreck my life. Superstitions are hard to shake.

3. Ben's Chili Bowl is ridiculously overpriced.
I don't care what Bill Cosby says, seriously people, two hot dogs, covered in chili, and fries should never cost me $17.

4. The only boy in DC who I explicitly tell best friend to stay away from happens to fall head over heels for her, naturally.
A snapshot? He is one of my two very favorite people in my office, ten years older than best friend, recently divorced, and I'm pretty sure he digs the fact that she can wear thigh-high boots and explain complex chemical make-ups at the same time (neither of which he can do). Its complicated, yeah. I've made it explicitly clear to her that if this fucks up my career, I'll never forgive her. I've (so far as I can) explained the same to him. It is a mixture of my worlds that I really really don't like, but life gave me lemons, and I count myself lucky that I have the ability to be honest with both of them. Let's call him Mr. Media.

5. Right after best friend left, I flew to Portland, OR for a four-day company retreat.
Our president is on a bit of a kick right now, yeah, that's right, the kind of kick where you budget a four-day all expenses paid trip for your entire staff to the furthest possible place in the domestic 48 states. It was a really neat experience, not only because I'd never been to the North West before, but also because it helped illuminate our larger mission. No, we didn't do trust falls or all-night gab fests, we had serious brain storming sessions and laid out attack plans for the 2012 elections. It was a very intense four-days, but the beauty of our staff is in the details. Voodoo Doughnuts were around each morning and several cases of Portland's famous microbrews showed up every day around 4pm.

6. I ate some strange shit in Portland.
Tagliolini Neri is squid ink pasta for those of you who don't know. It has a different taste and it dyes your mouth and teeth a temporary black but I suppose ink isn't that terrible. That said, had I known what the hell it was when I ordered it, there is simply no way on earth I would have tried it.

7. The very best meal of my entire life (thus far) was at Irving Street Kitchen in Portland. 
This place has wine on tap & they serve it in mason jars. Need I say more? Yes. I cannot quite explain what I had for dinner that night because their menu has already changed, but beyond that its fairly indescribable. This food was beautiful. Shame on me for not taking pictures to share.

8. The Ace Hotel is weird and wonderful.
Talk about a hipster paradise, this place is it. Mine and PS' room had a GIANT MURAL OF A TINY ASIAN CHILD surrounded by multiplication tables, but despite the creep factor, I simply couldn't help but love the place. (We stayed in the standard double for those of you wanting a picture.) Everything was adorable--right down to the cut keys and scented soaps.

9. When all else fails, the gay bar is probably still open.

10. Frontier Airlines is dead to me. 
Here is the situation: you're trying to fly twenty people from one end of the office to the other and being a fairly Libertarian organization, rather than book a sensible travel agency to put you all on planes, you let your staff go buck wild with their own reservations. End result? Thirteen people on one place. Worst case scenario? Plane gets cancelled due to terrible weather in New York. FALSE! Worst case is when on Tuesday night, Frontier Airlines tells you that your flight is cancelled and thirteen people rebook their tickets to leave anywhere from Thursday thru Sunday (missing work, mind you) only to find out the very next morning at  four-thirty am that NO your flight wasn't cancelled and now everyone gets to scramble to get back on their original plane which wasn't cancelled in the first place. Never again. Never, ever again.

11. The first few weeks of January were an absolute whirlwind.
BF to DC: December 28th - January 6th
Me to Portland: January 9th - January 12th
Ginger Beer* to DC: January 14th - January 17th
*I'm calling the boy Ginger Beer for a variety of reasons. One, he is kind of a ginger. Two, he brewed gingerbread beer for Christmas. Three, I like ginger beer and I like the boy. Four, it will tickle my audience.

12. I really like Ginger Beer. 
Yikes. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be back at the long-distance relationship thing, I may or may not have punched you in the face. But black-eye or not, you've been correct. Its a bit masochistic. I'm not going to get off on some terrible tangent on everything I learned from Govnah etc. however, things have a distinctly different feel this time around - one sometimes makes me want to run for the hills. He's sweet. He listens (Like, woah. He listens and remembers everything. Example? I hate my iPad case; its ugly and not very good at its job. So what does he do? He rolls into DC with a perfectly wrapped Vera Bradley iPad cover in a beautiful new green/white/black pattern. No, hes not gay. He made his sister [whos a friend of mine] pick out the pattern before he picked it up.) He's wonderfully kind. He loves Jesus (Catholic.) He's hilarious. All in all, I'm a pretty big fan, but nevertheless, were still in stage one of this little adventure. Of course its fun. We've briefly and very generically chatted future, which for now is an agreement that we'll do our best.

13. This is a romantic city.
If you have any doubts, take a nighttime walk around all the monuments. They're beautiful.

14. Chelsea Handler's books are nothing short of hilarious.
Okay, so they're a little dirty, sometimes raunchy even, but if you're looking for a quick and laugh-out-loud funny read, I highly recommended you give one of them a whirl.

15. My company got the exclusive rights to the Atlas Shrugged trailer
My favorite book of all time is about to become a movie. The anticipation is killer, but given what I know about the screenwriters and producers of the film, I have lots of faith that they've done right by Ayn Rand's famous economic love story. It has every element of a blockbuster film... a thick plot, a scandalous love story, intrigue, all of it. So exciting. I cannot wait to see the trailer and the first 15 mins.

Yeah yeah yeah, I didn't even hit half ... to be continued.