Truxton Circles

2009-10-15T08:22:00.001-04:00

Hey all so this is Fred writing. Neither of us have updated for a few weeks so I thought I'd write a post. It's a rainy Thursday morning and it seems to be going slow at work (not really but whatever).

This Sunday we are taking the GRE at Howard University, and then we'll begin applying. Neither of us are overly worried, though we have been recluses for a while.

This past weekend we went up to New York to see Alexandra's grandmothers, who were fine. On the way up, a "shortcut" given to us was missing a key detail, so we wound up going through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan. Oh well. On the same trip we were misdirected for how to meet people at a pub, so although we had parked literally a block from where Ally's friends were, we wound up walking for blocks.

This week work has been relatively laid back for me. Last week one of my coworkers was in Taiwan, so we had to cover for him, which surprisingly did not add too much extra time.

That's about all for now.

driven home in a cop car

2009-09-24T15:48:00.003-04:00

So, activity begets activity i suppose. More to write about already!
It has been unseasonably warm the last few weeks. Today it is 87 degrees. It's fall! I have yet to retire my summer dresses, but have noticed that as I continue to wear them, I am getting more than the average number of cat calls.
About an hour ago I decided to return the empty milk bottle(previous post) to the dairy shop. I told Fred I didnt totally feel comfortable walking that route to 2nd and Rhode Island, as it's an active cat calling route (especially in the middle of the day, when all normal employed people are in their offices). But I went anyway, thinking that I can't let anonymous fears stop me from doing normal things.
As I rounded the corner of First and T, I see two men shouting at each other. One seems to be a disgruntled professional and the other is openly drinking beer on the streets and rambling. I imagine the Drunkard was bothering the Professional. Professional man slips into a store to avoid Drunkard. I hope Drunkard does not notice me, but my hopes are dashed. He walks along side me, telling me the world is crazy, and telling me i am from the 19th century, because no one has glass milk bottles anymore. Harmless chit chat, albeit obnoxious. He keeps running me off the sidewalk into the grass. As is my custom, I try to be polite but untalkative, maybe he will get bored?
By the time I reach the store all I can hope is he will not come in with me. Then I realize with dread that the dairy isn't open. It doesnt open until 4. Drunkard starts getting louder and more excited now, so I call Fred on my phone to "tell him about the milk", but really just so I have someone on the phone, as Drunkard is really starting to freak me out.
As I talk to Fred this guy starts grabbing me around the waist, so I tell him not to touch me. He grabs harder and says he can do whatever he pleases. A mailman starts looking at us oddly and I give him pleading eyes, but I guess the mailman didnt want to get involved. He probably sees this a lot during his days.
Now I am freaking, I am talking to Fred saying I am scared, Drunkard is cackling and grabbing so i start to turn away towards a main street. I guess Drunkbag realized i was going towards a known cop stop, so he walks away, screaming profanities that I can't really write down here. I managed to find a cop who took down details [I did not want to file a report] and drove me home.

I feel shaky, but more than that I feel let down.

Exciting things!

2009-09-24T13:38:00.002-04:00

It has been a very busy September. I finally got through the volunteering department at the Smithsonian. Bureaucrats sure love paperwork! On Monday I take a facility tour of the National Air and Space Museum, where I will be working in their Film Archives department for a while. I know next to nothing about planes, so this promises to be a challenging venture. Working with the Smithsonian seems natural for my career goals. I am just lucky that DC has such a large infrastructure for the arts.
Fred and I had a party at our place in Truxton Circle on Friday. It was great! None of the neighbors complained about the noise (I imagine the brick walls help with that a lot). Many people on the streets said Hi and Happy Birthday while we sat outside. Also there seems to be a non-verbal agreement forming with our upstairs neighbors regarding the garbage and recycling bins. Fred and I were both pulling them out and taking them in for a while, but the girls upstairs now pull them out for us. I make sure to bring them in the next day. It's nice to have some communal action going on.
We don't see the girls upstairs very often. Between boyfriends, strange work hours, and long happy hours none of them seem to be home much. They are all quite nice though and I look forward to a Fall BBQ for the block.
Fred and I have been spending a lot of time with a friend, L. L is much more ambitious than either of us and gets us out of the apartment, which is a good thing. This week we all went to MM's house for a vegetarian potluck, which hopefully will become a weekly, or at least biweekly thing. There are a lot of vegetarians around!
Speaking of vegetarianism, Fred was getting sick of how expensive veggie substitutes are. Instead, we have been experimenting with making our own "Chicken" wings and "meatballs" just from bricks of tofu (gloriously cheap at Trader Joes). It's fun and I think a bit healthier.

Fred saw a cute dairy shop on Rhode Island Ave the other day, and since we were out of milk we decided to stop in. Bad Decision. one quart of milk cost us 6.75!! 2 dollars is the deposit for the glass bottle, but still!!
I like the idea of reusing glass bottles, but the idea behind it should be that it saves money, as it costs less than producing plastic, and is also better for the environment. But since only bourgeois money-makers care enough to help out, these stores can charge an arm and a leg! I will take my cheap, hormone filled milk for now, until I become fabulously wealthy.

2009-09-21T15:33:00.002-04:00

After the last post I saw someone with a really good DC flag tattoo. It's been on my mind ever since, I really like the idea of it. But on the other hand, I said I was done with tattoos. I think sometimes just being at the Black Cat makes me itch for more.
The Horrors played there on my birthday. I vaguely knew them while living in London and I am even featured in one of their videos (!) so it was cool to see them again. Quite a show. Ran into some dancey friends and had a very good time.

I also Finally got to the zoo. 5 years and I never went! Its crazy that the zoo is totally free here, when I was paying upwards of 50$ to go to the Bronx zoo [what with parking, and all].

It was a very good birthday indeed! And now, onward into my mid twenties...

Blurring the Lines

2009-09-17T11:22:00.002-04:00

I am a DC person. I gravitate towards here no matter how many times I move. I am proud that I was born at George Washington U. Hospital, where I later went to college. It excites me that my parents are willing to move back here in their old age if I want to settle down here. Even if at the moment a lot of friends have flown the coop, this city is so friendly and so magnetic that I never worry about being bored or lonely here.
Wide streets, bike friendly life [complainers, move somewhere where there isnt a bike culture and you will realize how lucky you are], free museums, good concerts, the hunt for the hidden cheap beer, i love it all.

But in realizing/deciding that DC is the place for me, I give up, in a way, the other places I have called home. It is too hard to travel to New York once a month, and even once a month isnt enough to carry on friendships and feel a part of things. Traveling to London is akin to binge drinking [and usually involves it]--I love every moment there but feel so emotionally hungover, knowing it will be another year or two before I see the familiar streets and my wonderful mates there. Also, running dry of money and vacation days to go anywhere else.

These opposing forces came to a crisis last week. I flew to London for a wedding and then immediately went to New York and experienced an impromptu reunion of many people I have missed a lot. This messed with my head more than I could have believed. I have had so many traumatic experiences in both of these cities, so many ineluctable memories. I think what really bothers me is that those people and places continue to live and change without me. Dumb eh? But I could never move back to New York. and I literally can't get a visa and move to London. I don't even want to. I just wish my life in DC intermingled a little more with everything prior. I suppose I will figure out how to make that happen at some point, now that I know it is actually important to me.

in two more years I will have lived half of my life in DC. I consider this an awesome passive accomplishment

2009-09-10T14:28:00.002-04:00

So today I got a funny little email. I decided to try out putting AdSense on here, at my mom's request. After a week Google emails me to say that as our blog is possibly offensive, it harms the ad sponsor's image to be seen on our website, so they are blocking all ads.
I didn't realize blogging about Truxton Circle could tarnish the reputations of companies!

Anyway, the weather has been getting lovely, as everyone knows. Fred had a friend from study abroad stay with us last night. Her scholarship from college required her to go to a job fair in DC, despite her already having a job and not looking to change. We walked around for a few hours and had dinner with some friends at Bangkok One [at McPherson Sq]. We were the only people in the restaurant, but the music was pretty good.
Today I got two interviews! One to volunteer at the Smithsonian and one doing graphics for a facility planning company. Hopefully one or both of them will work out. weeee

-Alex

2009-09-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

"We live such a short life and we must do our best every day to plant the seeds of a better tomorrow. The world can be a scary place. That's why we need a little mustard in our lives to brighten up our days and to spread love and a little sunshine in this world."

-Fred

Spot Light

2009-09-01T22:30:00.002-04:00

Hey, so this is Fred writing, making my blogging debut in DC. I've been working reading American news, for broadcast into China and translating our Chinese broadcasts back to English. It sounds strange, but I can explain the reasoning to you in person if you want. Anyhow, the work is good and I can use some Chinese. If I see any especially good quotes, maybe I'll post them here. My favorite so far is a call-in comment from a Mr. He in Hebei who says "I have a definite plan for world peace. Do you or do you not like world peace?"

Anyhow, things are happening in Truxton Circle. Following our friendly neighborhood mugger's emergence in the ally behind our home, the police have shown up with massive spot lights at the intersection of First and Bates, across the street from our house. It's roughly bright enough to grow geraniums. Perhaps this will scatter the vermin back to their holes. It is nice to know that the police are somewhat responsive to events. In Providence the police gave up coming after 2 shootings, while here they seemed to have set up shop. Vive l'etat!

Biking around

2009-08-31T22:27:00.003-04:00

It seems every DC blog has at least one post about biking in the city, and I love myself some conformity, so here we go...
Fred bikes to work each day, and I usually bike every day to meet him for lunch at the Botanical Garden across from his office. The ride is about 2 miles each way and we generally take First St NW most of the way. There is no bike lane but the streets are refreshingly wide here. After going to Paris and Bucharest in March [Bucharest is known as the Paris of the east due to its similar planning] we can definitely see the benefit of planned roads and low buildings. The breezes are refreshing and you can see around the corners for oncoming traffic! What a nice change from New England.

While I appreciate the bike lanes that have been put on Q and R streets, it doesn't seem like many people pay attention to them. Particularly taxis and people looking for parking. Germany definitely did it better, bike lanes next to pedestrians, and car parking in a separate lane. Damn those Germans! It's like the sham-wow commercials say... "It was made in Germany, so you know it's got to be good"

So far I haven't found it to be as harrowing as some die-hards say. We know some bike courriers and I would never be willing to risk my lives with their crazy moves, but I make it downtown in 10 minutes and don't really need to go much faster than that! If only my thighs could handle that hill on 18th... or hell, even the hill on Georgia.

Well, that was eventful.

2009-08-31T10:15:00.000-04:00

While starting the blog yesterday I thought that perhaps there wouldnt be as much to write about as there was in Providence. We have lived here almost a month and hadn't felt the need to write yet, so what were we going to go on about?
Thankfully, the blog-gods realized that I would need some fodder, and soon. So yesterday Fred and I had our personal introduction into what actually gentrifying means.

In Providence Apt A, people always talked about how the neighborhood will start gentrifying "any year now" [not true-bangbang-etc] and Providence Apt B was in the Prov equivalent of Georgetown, so we haven't had much experience with a place that is actively getting better.

Yesterday during a precious moment of cloud cover we went out to weed our flower beds [thanks mom for planting them, they look great!] when our neighbor next door popped out to come talk to us. She and her boyfriend wanted to know if we and the girls above us would like to have a cookout with them and a few other houses in the area. She said we were all twenty somethings and she wanted to get everyone to meet. Exciting! Knowing our neighbors would be great!! I came in the house feeling warm and fuzzy and really happy that we chose Truxton Circle over some other apartment contenders.

About an hour later one of the girls from upstairs knocks. I assume she is here to talk about the BBQ but it turns out that she was held at gunpoint and robbed last night, in our own backyard. The cops think the suspect is probably a local person and the landlord is now installing super bright lights in the back alley, but Fred and I moved our bikes inside and have decided to take only the front door from now on anyway. I then spent the entire night watching feet go by our bedroom window [English Basement] and wondering how safe we were.

Every place has its downsides, right? At least there's a sweet farmer's market a block away [at BigBear] where I can wind down and get pretty sunflowers.

-Alexandra

Starting Anew!

2009-08-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

Keeping in tradition with our somewhat successful ProvBlog, Fred and I have decided to keep a blog about our living in Truxton Circle, Washington DC.

So here are some fun facts for the first post!

The actual Truxton Circle was dismantled over 50 years ago due to too many traffic accidents. Pieces of the construction can be seen in overgrown parts of DC [link to come]
Truxton circle is a very very small place, only about 3x4 blocks. It borders NE, Shaw, Mount Vernon Square and Bloomingdale.
There is a gardening competition here every year! Fred and I spruced up our garden so maybe we can participate next year.