9:43 AM 5/2/2007

Yesterday I wrapped up work and ran off to socialize. I wasn't sure if I was on time or not - a problem on the bus can wreck your whole schedule. But despite all the uncertainty, I hit all my marks on time.

There are two buses I can take. They both go downtown from Silver Spring along 16th Street. The S4 is direct, and the S2 takes a jog around the neighborhoods between Walter Reed and Silver Spring. Notably, it travels a segment of Eastern Ave. (the MD/DC border), and Alaska Ave. (Which makes me wonder if I've been to all the State streets in DC). Well, if I'm going downtown, the Subway is the fastest - but it's also more expensive. Bus is perfect for getting to my place, and it's good for a few other places that would require a lot of walking from a subway station. So in the grand scheme of things, the S2/S4 distinction is no big deal. I wouldn't let an S2 go by in hopes of riding an S4. But yesterday they pulled a little stunt on me: I couldn't see the S4 pull up behind the S2 until I was inside the S2. Bus drivers, and the larger planning scheme in general, don't seem to understand why I ride the bus. There's this idea that I want to ride a particular bus. But, I really just want to be transported to my destination the 'best way'. Usually that's the 'fastest way'. I can't count the number of times I have resigned myself to climbing on an inferior S2, only to watch the superior S4 drive past me. I've often wanted a hand-held device that I could use to display real-time information about the buses from a few blocks away. When you plan your day, you want pertinent information, right? Well, so do I. The utter lack of pertinent information regarding the bus system has given me a kind of 'learned helplessness'. I have no faith in the schedule. Two buses that are supposed to be ten or fifteen minutes apart can show up at the same time. If they cluster like that, it means you can expect to see 20-30 minute intervals without a bus, and I find that horrifying. I am also frequently in a position to see the bus leave without me - in these cases, it is nice to know that the next one will be there in ten minutes. But if I stand at the stop waiting, it can be as much as thirty minutes - and if I go to Starbucks for a coffee, I can see the next bus drive past before I've even ordered an espresso.

When my bus reached Irving St., there was a bit of a traffic jam: I could see the police lights, but we could see through - get this - the S4 bus I just barely missed in Silver Spring (or was it an even later S4?). I was close to home, but not quite as far as I needed to go for U St. In a minute or two, I gathered that there was a protest march, and I recalled that there were supposed to be pro-immigration rallies. So I got off to take pictures. I don't know if it was worth it - I need to transfer the pictures and get a good look at them, but it felt like I mainly got shots of other photographers. The march was a bit sparse. They crossed and went up Mt. Pleasant St., and the bus was set free before I could leave the scene.

I wanted to get to L'Enfant on time, because I was expecting my friends Leah and Carolyn to show up, and they wouldn't have recognized anybody else in the group. I walked past my place and down the hill. I overtook Troy without noticing, right before we both arrived. It's a small place, and half-priced Belgian beer makes it even more popular than usual. Troy and I scanned for Valerie and Tomoko, but didn't seem them. We didn't see Stephen and Joe, who were clinging to the far end of the bar. We put our name in for a table, but it was probably going take an hour, so we stepped outside to rethink everything. As we tossed around ideas for other places to go, I was consulting my mental map, and making those mental whiteboard diagrams in my head. We were staring into space and muttering to each other when Valerie and Tomoko came walking down the hill toward us. They were waving, and I didn't see them until the last possible minute, which they seemed to think was very funny. Even one of the waitresses saw them waving. Troy was facing another direction, but I didn't have that excuse. We were looking for other friends to show up, and they were also looking for other friends to show up, so we collected our wits and made a full assault on the room. Which is how we discovered Stephen and Joe, with beers in hand. In a few minutes Leah walked in, too. Carolyn had doubts about whether she could make it, so I wasn't sure how long I could get the others to wait. We didn't have any backup plan to speak of. Everybody has a cell phone but me, so they just call each other for every minor glitch.

Everybody had their beer in hand for a few minutes and we had to keep dancing around to let servers go past. Conversations clustered to save space: Leah and I were talking with Valerie, and I had my back to the others. Suddenly, the others were ready to go, but the three of us were still sipping our beer. Leah, Troy and I all had Kasteel Triple, and Troy told me he didn't like it very much, but he downed it much quicker than we did. They all wanted to go across U St. to "Shi Sha" (gotta check on this - feels like I'm misspelling it - I think it had Xs - Shi Sha is a name for hookah, and there are the hookahs), the place with the couches and the hookahs. We said we'd catch up - It would only take five minutes to finish our beer - but I had a bad feeling. A group of five people is not likely to stick with a decision for that long.

Leah, Valerie and I arrived at Shi Sha and they weren't there. It's bigger that I expected - it used to be a firehouse, so it's like two big garage spaces with thick walls. The front windows are in place of the old fire house doors. My local firehouse is of a similar vintage and design, but this one went disused when they installed a hideous '70s modern replacement across the street. Next door is also an old car dealership that's been turned into a trendy gym. Leah pointedly mentioned to me that she has a membership to that gym and she gets the occasional guest pass, hint, hint. We did a walk-through, soaked up some hookah fragrance, and emerged back on the sidewalk more confused than ever. Valerie's phone suddenly had three missed calls. She rang Tomoko, who was down the block waving to get our attention.

Next stop was Local 18. It looks fancy, and a friend of a friend worked there for a while (maybe still, but I didn't recognize her). The Julia's restaurant used to be there (now they only run Empanada stands), and local lore tells of a pizza place before that. They have a big rooftop level, and it was too crowded to get a table. Downstairs was cool and dark. Tomoko's friend Nina appeared out of nowhere. She was a blonde Finn about my height. Now there were nine of us. I envied the big couch in the window, but Troy said it was as comfortable as a church pew. The table and the chairs were all built on a box - no legs, and no place to tuck my enormous feet. Another round of beers and some snacks arrived. I saw 'Wilted Spinach' on the menu, and I checked with Tomoko to see if she caught the meaning. She wasn't sure, so I said "Flowers wilt. When they're dying. It looks weird on a menu because it's the opposite of fresh." It was probably one of those things waiters really hate, but I needled him about the implications of 'Wilted'. As it turns out, it means cooked. In a particular way. Quick sautee with a sauce. It sounded good. I ordered it. It was good.

Nina explained her career as a jazz musician, and the studio booth in her apartment. Stephen talked about the time he was in Baghdad. Valerie talked about her impending move to Montreal. Troy and I compared notes on a crazy lady who would come into our store years ago, and Leah thought she knew who we were talking about. Everybody was fascinated that Leah was born and raised in DC - like they thought it didn't seem possible; Or that it was miraculous that she had turned out okay after such a harrowing experience. Just after nightfall, we paid the bill and the group started dissolving. Some voices called out for another exciting watering hole, but others wanted to call it a night. Tomoko discovered that the mountain of a man with the bouncer job knew a little Japanese, and proceeded to teach him Spanish. (Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either...)

Leah offered to lend me her copy of the British version of "The Office", so we said farewell and went back to her place. What was just a quick stop to grab a video turned into a pleasant one-hour conversation about the old gang from work, and other diverse topics. Leah moved on to another bookstore, so we don't have our afternoon walks through the park with equally rambling discussions on our way home anymore. She decorated her little apartment with masks she brought back from Mexico. She sounded a bit overwhelmed from meeting so many people at once, and I could sympathize: I met all the people we were with that night in manageable waves. Meeting a big cluster of people at a party always scrambles my brain and I mix them all up. To take advantage of my natural abilities to remember people, I need to have phased interactions in cogent circumstances: or in other words, I have to meet them one at a time. I build a mental model of a person slowly through different modes of interaction. Immediately meeting a second person seriously damages my ability to build that mental model. Writing about it helps a lot. But blogging is even better, because it doesn't sit stashed in a binding somewhere on my shelf - Valerie and Tomoko have excitedly greeted me with "We saw our name in your blog!". And, the memories last precisely because of constant refreshing. In a similar way, I'll tell a story about my sister, and she'll email me to correct my errors.

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