I say, Capital!

Hah hah hah.

So I'd never been here before. And now I have - two crazy hectic foot-achingly touristy days in near 100-degree weather with way too many interesting things. And way more yuppies with Crackberrys than I ever thought to see in one crowded Metrorail car.

We went to the Mall first, after an extended discussion of the necessary public transportation, and going two or three rounds with the Metro farecard machine. Emerging from the underground Smithsonian station via escalator involved the hot humid climate-slap in the face that hasn't been a normal occurence in my life since I was twelve. Along the Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, setup for the Folklife Festival put on by the Smithsonian had begun, so tents and brightly colored banners announced places where events will take place this weekend. The Washington Monument is amazing, awe-inspiring, imposing... a purely prideful national symbol surrounded by flags, and with great views of the Capitol, and the Lincoln Memorial.

This view made me think of Forrest Gump, I'm not going to lie.

I cried at the World War Two Memorial, and then I got angry, because at the base of one of the Pacific end, a quote was engraved from General MacArthur that ended like this: "The skies no longer rain death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace." Did he know what happened at the end of the conflict in the Pacific Theater? Gah. It made me really happy to read a sign in the Smithsonian later about how Harry Truman fired him and called him a "dumb son of a bitch."

Then we walked down the pool and up the steps to see the big guy himself.


He's large. And imposing. And not only is the Gettysburg Address there, but so is the second Inaugural speech, which I actually think I like better.

From Lincoln we went to the Vietnam Memorial, where I didn't take any pictures... not sure why. I didn't feel like it. But really, Maya Lin was a genius. That memorial is one of the most incredibly moving things I've ever seen. The contrast between the individual recognition of each person by name and the collective whumph of the tremendously long list is stunning, and amazingly emotional.

Smithsonian and more to follow, when I next can get to Internet.

Yeah, whatever, Dorothy.

I'm currently wishing I was anywhere but home. For lots of people that I know, this is a familiar feeling, but for me, not so much. I love being home. I love the family and friends that surround me there, my dog, the green and blue walls of my room, the birdcalls in the temperate rainforest outside my window, the pictures I arranged on the wall in the downstairs hallway, the old toys scattered around in cabinets and boxes... even the musty smell of the woodshed downstairs.

So right now, wishing that I wasn't here, that I was somewhere else, is distinctly uncomfortable. Last night, my mom called me by my sister's name. That's not unusual - I'm relatively used to it - and I corrected her teasingly, but what shocked me was what she said next. I was in the other room, and at first I thought she had said "Oh yeah, you're the daughter who doesn't live here anymore." What she actually said was: "Oh yeah, you're the daughter who doesn't live here all the time," and for all intents and purposes, not only are they not dissimilar, but they're neither completely untrue. (All the double negatives mean I'm uncomfortable with this subject; my strained relationship with confrontation manifests itself as grammatical complications when I'm writing.) I don't entirely belong here anymore, in the way that means that literally, for the majority of the year, I'm not here. I have other people and other places, and right now where that leaves me is in a kind of Limbo-Land (which makes me think of Bimbo Bread: a reference probably only a few people will understand) with bookshelves filled with too many books and papers and notebooks scattered without place on the floor of my room that feels like a hermit crab's shell, if I were the hermit crab that outgrew it.

I read a romance novel yesterday, some of the first reading for pleasure I've done since spring break, and it made me realize, as it often does, that I envy fictional characters their sense of their place in the world. There they are, floating beautifully through a world that was crafted around them, and for them, and I can only wish desperately that I had three best friends with whom I'd grown up and played dolls, and that now, in the prime of our lives, we ran an enjoyable, inspiring, charming, thriving small business together, and lived in different wings of a beautiful old house and told each other everything and fell in love with each other's brothers... pffft. What is it about formulaic drivel that is often so much more satisfying than reality?

So as a "cure", I proscribe myself the following: more fluffy novels, tempered with a few solid chick flicks, along with a hefty dose of knitting and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.