arrrrggggggggg

DC is a temporary city. No one actually lives here. However, if you don't actually live here, and you park on the street, which sometimes you have to do, you get parking tickets. You'd think this would be enforced more, and I wouldn't have gotten my first parking ticket (at least for that) this morning. For $100.

Fine, I guess I finally have to get one of those reciprocity stickers explaining why I don't have DC plates. If allllll the temporary residents of DC have one, I guess I should too.

But does anyone else find it puzzling that students, whose income is -$40,000 a year, have to pay $330.....

.....while members of Congress, whose income is $150,000 to $160,000 a year, have to pay.....

....$15.

One. Five. Fifteen.

!?

Normally I don't complain about Congressional perks; for a poli sci major I'm comparatively content with the state of our government. I'm not happy about it, but hell if I'm going to do anything to change it right now, so I make no fuss.

But that. Is. Ridiculous.

That's all.

yeah yeah

toothpastefordinner.com

willpower.

When I was little people used checks, like, all the time. Or maybe my view of the world was skewed by my fascination with checks. So I'd watch, intently, as my mother filled out a check at the grocery store, as my friend's moms paid their cable bills. When advertisements for check styles would come in the mail, I'd study them closely to pick out which design I would get when I was a grown up, always disappointed that you had to have a checking account to order them. In elementary school, all the 5th graders at Central Park got a pack of fake checks and learned how to write them out and balance checkbooks. We earned "money" by getting good grades, holding the door open, answering questions correctly in music class. We used our "money" by buying tickets to participate in kickball games, raffles, and the like. This was an extremely exciting four weeks for me.

My fascination with that has since died, and since so has the practice of checks, I end up using a whopping total of 12 checks a year. So I've just almost depleted the starter pack Wachovia set me up with in August when I opened my new account, and I thought I'd go ahead and spend the $15 bucks to get some real ones so I can, you know, pay rent. I called the 800 number and Wachovia's automated system sent me to their check supplier, whose representative was a very perky guy named Dan or Brian or something nonthreatening. And he asked if I'd had a chance to look at the catalog, and I stammered something incomprehensible. And he asked if I'd like him to help me pick out something, and I figured I'd let him. First, he suggested something collegiate. I explained that not only were my schools uninteresting and unfamous, but that I didn't have that much school spirit anyway. For a second the thought crossed my mind that it might be amusing just to get some random school's checks (Go Vols!), but quickly realized how annoyed I'd be with myself in a few weeks when the checks arrived.

Listen, there was pressure to choose something cute. Dan or Patrick or whatever his name was wanted me to be happy with my selection. He told me about the "one liner" on his checks that says, "My reality check just bounced." Isn't that a gas! He talked me into the free upgrade of bubbly lettering or whatever, but I turned down the leather case and the address labels. Look, the checks I picked were only $6 more than the base checks, so why not? WHY NOT?!

Um, because they have lady bugs on them.

Under pressure,

I chose checks

With lady bugs.

Bumblebees.

And butter and dragon flies a plenty.

Ten-year-old me would be jumping for joy right now.

here's what i've been doing instead of blogging.

• Starting a new job
• Watching college basketball, for reasons still unknown to me
• Going to friends' art shows, wishing I'd brought my checkbook
• Spending a memorable/unmemorable weekend in New York
• Beginning a collection of empty Cherry Coke Zero cans on my coffee table
• Throwing dinner parties
  
• Writing a novel, I think
• Not showering
• Trying to go to poetry slams, but failing and getting tapas and half-priced wine instead
• Having non-fiction related panic attacks
• Learning how to drive in snow, learning when to not drive in snow
  
• Calling 55 degrees "a beautiful, warm day"
• Leaving my gloves at work
• Leaving my sunglasses at work
• Leaving my hat at work
• Leaving my homework at work
• Leaving my keys on my desk, in my locked office, at work
• Leaving the district, at most, once a month
• Thinking about how to maintain relationships
• Thinking about how to start relationships
• Thinking
• Not thinking
• Reading (gasp!)
• Never leaving the Battelle-Thompkins building at American University
• Except right now, sitting in my messy apartment, celebrating the start of spring break with Jack Johnson and an 11 AM blog, since I went to sleep at 10 PM
• Missing you.
  

'burbs.

I'm sitting in the Mary Graydon center, and as it happens, two girls sitting on the other side of the room are from Miami, and talking very loudly about it to another friend.

Girl 1: I hate people who say they're from Miami when they're not from Miami.
Friend: Where would they be from?
Girl 1: Like (with disgust) Fort Lauderdale.
Girl 2: Yeah, (more disgust) Broward.

I glared at them and they didn't know why. I don't like cursing on this thing but...bitches. I would never say I'm from Miami.

Saying you're from Miami kind of makes you lose some of your identity. There are so many different aspects of Miami that you can't be defined by just saying the metro-area name, which is the opposite of how I see New York. People from New York are from New York, and they're proud to say it, but people from South Beach, Kendall, Hialeah, Coral Gables, and Homestead are all from Miami, and saying Miami says nothing about you, not in the way that saying you're from Fort Lauderdale does. It says more about me to say I'm from Plantation, but in general, there's not much of a difference between Plantation, Davie, Sunrise, et cetera. There is a difference for Coral Springs and Weston, but if I learned anything it's that at UCF, when someone asked where I was from, I'd say Fort Lauderdale, then when they asked what part, I said Plantation. The same with people from Tamarac and Wilton Manors and Hollywood. But people from Coral Springs and Weston - they said they were from Coral Springs and Weston, and then got offended when people asked where those places were.

Though this reminds me of a funny story from winter break. I was riding in Dana's car on I-Drive when someone cut her off, and she yelled, "Don't mess with me; I'm from Miami!" I reminded her that she is from Tamarac. She informed me that she was born in Miami. Knowing this would end funnily, I asked how long she lived in Miami. She sheepishly replied that she was just born in the hospital there, even though her parents lived in Broward at the time, but she thinks that saying she's from Miami makes her sound tough. So maybe these bitchy girls are on to something.

FORT LAUDERDALE IS NOT A SUBURB OF MIAMI.

But that's really all I have to say about that.