It is time for a new name or format...as DC sets in. In the mean time my notes on first days of school.

1. Suicide training (it seemed surprising, but I guess it shouldn't be. teens are at high risk for suicide, people in jail are also at high risk, people with aids are also at high risk=my kids)

2. I joined the union. i hate not trusting the union, so far they seem like oil.

3. I love my co-workers, there are only 24 of us in the entire school.

Summer has caught me unaware and unprepared.

Food fashion has suddenly changed. Yes! I work in the food fashion industry as a barista.

While espresso used to say it all, it's hot now and water is all that really matters.

Water?!

Who sells water or makes fashion from water...as sexy as the white t-shirt...Southerners who know.

Versions of water I think will make my life better, elegant and this headache go away (perpetually de-hydrated).

-Water left in the fridge in a glass bottle (it looks better than a plastic pitcher, easy to grab and the cold glass feels good on yr mouth when you sneak gulps from the common bottle).

-cucumber slices in water

-lemon slices in water (not personally a fan of lime)

-lemon cucumber in water

-lemon cucumber mint in water

-ice tea

-mint ice tea

-lemon ice tea

-lavender soda (diy)

-ginger mint soda

Nick and I are going to bottle soda...should be ready in 2 weeks! We'll let ya know how it goes.

sardines

"GOOD NEWS: you can get 40% of your daily vitamin D by eating an entire can of sardines."

--bon appetite magazine

1. who eats an entire can of sardines in a sitting?

2.40%?!? that's literally not even half of anything.

3. they're staring at me.

4. When I think of Vitamin D fans I think of the doctor with orange skin who gets shots of 2,000% of your daily vitamin d in his ass everyday. Will a can of

sardines bring me closer or further away from this media maven?

5. love how we forget that 15 min of sunshine gets us our vitaminD. It's like forgetting that kids with ADD don't have to take Eli Lily Drugs if they just run around everyday.

ear nose and throat

Spring is here. Forsythia goldenrods and magnolia trees are overwhelming the southside, the fancy side of DC. A capitol hill garden tour is robust this time of year. The cherry blossoms aren't out, but they are tough, dark pink nodes in preparation.

All this Spring also means allergies. As a kid growing up in the swampy dc suburbs, I can barely remember a change of season that didn't incapacitate my lungs. The mucus and whezzing was all I really thought of when I saw the coming of flowering trees and new grass. I was proud of how well I could blow my nose and dreaded the times when my asthma attacks would force me to flee the classroom with violent and untamable coughs. Like kids in the inner city who tell grownups they want to be a cop because that's the professional they see the most...I wanted to be an Ear, Nose+Throat Doctor because that's who I saw all the time as a 5-17 year old.

When I moved to the midwest it was amazing. My asthma and allergies disappeared. I could breath in the spring & fall. I figured it was part of becoming a lady, at 18 I grew out of childish things, like allergies and baby fat?!

Now that I look back I realize I lost weight because I lived in a vegan house of poor cooks and walking was my only form of transportation. The allergies, while I thought I'd grown out of them, I now realize I had just hidden from. As soon as I moved back to DC my seasonal fight to breath began again. I sleep on the couch because my coughing wakes everyone on the second floor, and I hang out with my mouth open all the time, nose full of perpetual junk.

Antihistamine drugs do odd things and now my ears are blocked in weird ways making hearing hard.

Is it those stately gardens I should curse? The mysterious oak pollen, southern swampy atmosphere, or the fact that allergies are my birthright?

Why DC'ers Don't Eat Meat...or much of anything

" 'I don't eat meat.I don't eat anything that comes from the sea:moral reasons.

I don't eat tree nuts; peanuts are fine, coconut isn't.I don't think my body likes white flour, I mean gluten.No Dairy, Please. ' "

Everyone in DC is full of Dietary restrictions, most mildly passing picky comments that leave a woman who likes to host dinner parties in a cold sweat. I've live for years in a vegan co-op, worked in vegetarian restaurants etc. But for the life of me I only have 2 good vegan gluten free main dish recipes in my repertoire. I have tons of vegetarian + gluten free side dishes I can make...but you can't really make a dinner party event out of a salad or a vegetarian pizza without dough or cheese.

There's something about the cooking and sharing of a GIANT piece of meat with a crowd that I MISS from the Mid-west. A roasted chicken or brisket is a testimony from the cook to the crowd...it means you worked for hours to share...and it requires a commitment from the crowd, none of the baked body can go to waste! Everyone must pitch in at the meat themed dinner party. Unlike the salad party, where the biggest marvel is the freshness or the localness...we can pretend to be connected to the farmers...but for most of us it's just the money that connects us to the farmer and their product (we do little but rinse and chop).

Why is everyone so ready to give up the meat merriment/sharing tradition in DC? I think it's because all my new friends are either young, 'type A', or both. DC is inhabited by recent college graduates (22yrs old no older) and then there's a jump to the 35 year olds who moved here after working their asses off in some far off realm of the country and then get promoted to the top: the National Offices in THE District. Why the extreme dietarty restrictions for these odd populations: 1. it's mildly hip to be picky, makes you seem cool 2. The Youth and the Type A achievers suffer from the desire/belief that they can control their destiny. They can choose exactly what they're made of, every aspect of their personal composition and eating.

HA! No one in Chicago thinks that way! Chicagoans take what we can get on the plate and elsewhere. Any chance of protein is taken, not questioned. In DC people only move for recreation (not a big physical labor job market) so they don't actually NEED food. they like to place food in the same catagory as a fashonista places her daily attire: it's an art form. You don't just wear what ever is lying around at the Gap, you hunt and prep and compare with others your garment/food-statement/choice.

Emoticon Mirages :\

My ability to communicate seems to have disappeared. Without having to write more than short txts and chat with customers while they wait for skim lattes I have devolved into a puddle-blob of walking adjectives/emotion. My frilling poet ways seems to have grown stronger, I can muse and rift on any topic, the more inconsequential the more color I can add to it.

The ability to pinpoint and be precise, to divinate meaning from overwhelming environment is gone. If I uploaded pictures I couldn't pen a caption. The concept of limit and focus eludes me. I have several amazing projects started, and none finished. Clarity seems to come only through dreams of not doing things and moments jogging at 5 in the morning. where is it going? how will it end?

A strict regiment of lazering my brain? bringing it into focus pretending things and projecting definitives into space that isn't there. I have a strong reluctance to label or firmly direct anything which makes this blur and lack of ability to write a convincing essay so nebulously strong.

Intelligentsia in DC

Just walked to my local coffee shop, an espresso wine bar I was actually too afraid to go in for quite a while it looked so swank. Walked in, waited in line and then got a cup of intelligencia coffee. So good, the mystery insta-cold I'd gotten the day before seemed bearable. How did Intelligencia make it all the way to DC? Is there really such a lack of good coffee in the country? Is the Mid-West the place for good roasters? Farmer Dan, revolution brewing, ancora, metropolis? All of them kick more dark roast ass than Intelligencia in my opinion. Proof marketing an chutzpah goes a long way in $ market.

I am infinitely glad there's a wonderful coffee shop near my house. To me it is a sign of good living like clean sheets or a good hair cut, something with infinite value that you generally appreciate only in its absence.