Ben Folds was awesome, as expected. I’d never been to Wolf Trap before, and as a venue with an “under the stars” option, it’s definitely my favorite. Not that I’d planned on it, but I’ll never go to Nissan Pavilion again unless the tickets are free and box seats and come with helicopter transportation. Since the response of most people where “who?” when I told them who was playing, I just grabbed Justin. We had a quick meal at Tysons Corner before heading over to Wolf Trap with plenty of time before the opening act. Since we had my company’s box seats, we had access to a special lounge with snacks and drinks so we were a few glasses of wine in before the show started.

Much as I love his music, I’d never seen him live and it was a real treat. He draws the type of crowd that shouts out requests and knows the audience participation parts to certain songs. He played right on through, nearly 2 hours with only the standard “encore” break. He got the crowd to do three-part harmony, he played a few tracks that will appear on his next album, and only screwed up once. He says it happens about once every 2 months, which is still a pretty high rate for a professional musician.

Other memorable moments were when he sang a song about falling off the stage in concert in Hiroshima and continuing to play even though he was bleeding all over the place. He writes songs about stuff that really happened “because it’s easier.” And he loves playing at Wolf Trap because you get to learn the signs (ASL) for “fuck.” After that statement, he improvised a song to “test the interpreters” that contained the word “shit” then for a different sign, “poop” as well a few other swear words and some complicated (long) medical terms. The woman handled it all like a pro though and as much of the applause afterwards was for her as him. Overall it was a really good time, not quite on par with the energy built up during Jamie Cullum’s 930 Club concert, but I’d see him again at Wolf Trap or a more local venue.

Having my cousin here isn’t nearly the imposition I thought it might be, but it does make me realize that my apartment is not user friendly. I’ve left her notes about the quirks of this or that (especially the shower that will scald you without a second thought), gave her a mini-tutorial on how to use my universal remote. I can see myself turning into the type of person that might do an apartment exchange with someone, but leave post-it notes all over the place with advice and directions.

Heck of a weekend… for other people, I’m sure. Mine was spent cleaning the heck up out of my place. My cousin accepted a job in DC at a veterinary hospital and is coming up this week on a “find housing” trip. I am very glad that she didn’t ask for my help in finding a place since I have no connections, but she did ask for crash space. This is something, barring emergencies, I’m not good at providing. My place isn’t large, and since our storage area’s been off-limits to residents for nearly the past year, all of my stuff is in my place. With the lights off, for most people my place is a deathtrap.

They just allowed us to move stuff back into storage a few weeks ago, but they made the new rule that we can’t store anything in cardboard boxes. Well guess what everything I had was in? So a quick trip to Target and recommendations from Michael netted me a few Rubbermaid tubs and I managed to clear out some of the stuff, even overcoming my pack-rat tendencies and throwing some stuff out. Even so, there are some things I want to keep that I don’t necessarily have space for, so they’re just going to be “things in storage” until I have a larger place. Some fun during my trips downstairs to take more stuff out, was seeing a resident who’d been dumpster diving carting some of my stuff back upstairs. I’m glad since I did put some items in the unofficial “please take” spot of our trash area out back, it’s good to see some things being reused by someone… just not me.

I also did my usual “6 loads of built up laundry” chore. I always promise I won’t let it get to that point since it only takes 60 mins total to wash and dry, but still when I get in from work, laundry is the last thing on my mind. And while I could have used every machine available to do these, I knew that if I had 6 loads of clean laundry upstairs all at once, they’d never get folded right away, not when I have MarioKart calling my name. So I used 2 machines and 1 dryer (which can handle 2-3 loads of wash) and kept rotating out. On one of my trips down there, I saw that clearly I didn’t understand the concept of “the building shares a laundry room” because a woman was not only using every single available machine, she was also about to take out my wet clothes and those of someone else. I said, cheerfully but loudly, “I’m here, those are mine!” and she responded with a heavily accented, “Oh is yours?” Now I appreciate the stupid gringo routine as much as anyone, but don’t use it on me when 1: you’ve seen me doing laundry that day and 2: I’ve seen you speaking perfect English around the building before.

So my place is firming up. I still have some cleaning to do, and I need to get a key copy made and juggle her visit with a concert tomorrow night and another friend in town, so it’ll be a busy week. My inner introvert may well be curled up in the corner and crying by the weekend, but I’ll drown it with a few gin & tonics and all will be right with the world.

What a perfect way to start the day. With a good ol’, “What’s that smell?” when you step off the elevators. Our building’s trash chutes are still off-limits to us, so we’re still carting our trash and recyclables down behind the basement entrance. Makes Spring Cleaning oh so much fun, lemme tell ya. But some people see fit to leave their bags outside overnight, perhaps as a reminder to grab them in the morning and take them out. And this could be from an older resident since the board was kind enough to say that they don’t expect them to make that trip all the time, but still not what I want to run into on my way out to work.

Looks like more wibbly-wobbly weather with rain on the way… maybe. I’ll just keep popping my pills for the time being. I’m hoping for some good weather this weekend though so I can head outside and build up a tolerance. My co-worker mentioned that today feels like Friday for her, but I feel a day behind and thought it was Hump Day when I woke up. Regardless, bring on the weekend already! The office definitely has a vibe of weariness to it today and people are ready for a break.

No disrespect to anyone affected by last night’s devastating fire, I still can’t believe that I slept through it all. I suppose the happy hour drinks contributed to that. The pictures I saw online were just amazing, I can’t possibly know what it felt like to watch your home completely destroyed by fire. A friend called me last night, co-workers called and texted me this morning, and all the while I was totally unaware of anything happening. I feel pretty stupid for grousing about having no water pressure in the shower this morning.

All day at work I was reading up on the story as any new information came in, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could tell, the investigation is still ongoing. I’m sure there are many likely candidates for blame, but most likely the building was old and in need of major repair that for whatever reason hadn’t been done.

I got home from work today and I was doing some chatting online and looking up info on clothing donations when the fire alarm goes off. Normally, I have to admit, my building residents ignore the alarm. It’s gone off so many time as a false alarm that it’s habit. Not a good habit, I know, but what can you do? Well today you could hear doors slamming and people talking in the stairwell. I grabbed my coat, bag and phone and headed outside praying that it was a prank or something. All the residents were sort of milling around in the driveway and the emergency personnel were doing their jobs and didn’t have a lot of info for us at first. We didn’t see any smoke from the building and our elderly residents were making it out ok, so it seemed like everything was ok. Still, you never know.

I started taking pictures because it was easier than thinking about the “what if?” What if it’s for real? What if we’re about to lose our property or our home? What if the clothes on my back are all I’ve got now? I feel a bit foolish and guilty for thinking of myself in that situation when a block north of us all those residents really do have nothing. I guess you never can be prepared for something like that, but it’s not like you can pack your whole apartment on your back and take it out with you. Most of us didn’t even think, we just walked out with our keys and phones. I mentioned how polite but aloof some residents are, but we were all bonding this afternoon. Once it was over, we all sorta broke the virtual group hug and returned to our apartments. We’re lucky, but what if…?

Neighbors’ Consejo, a NPO in Mount Pleasant, is accepting food and clothing for the victims of the fire. The agency is located at 3118 16th St. NW, (202) 234-6855. It will be open and accepting donations until midnight. Items requested include nonperishable food; clothing and shoes for men and women; baby and toddler clothes and shoes; toys; and items for babies, such as formula, strollers and cribs.

I meant for it to look this way, honest! How could I sleep on a bed full of dirty clothes?! The times I have done that in college notwithstanding, it’s laundry day! I woke up feeling like my stomach was auditioning for a scene in Alien, so I called off work and got a bit more sleep. Then like a fool I remote’d into the office machine just to check things and started some work. After looking around the apartment, I realized that I really needed to get a few loads in the wash. Totally loving the IKEA big blue bag for that, I wish I had a way to give it a sturdy stand so that it could truly act as a laundry basket.

I sorted everything out to about 5 categories, the usual amount when I’m not washing sheets and decided 2 or 3 loads at a time would be best. The bag can’t really hold much more. So I get to the laundry room thinking that maybe one or two other building residents might be in there and there is one woman. I’ve seen her around before, but mostly for holding doors or elevators. I smile and say good morning and she says nothing (I know she can hear and speak English from previous encounters). So I get started and realize that it’s good I only have 3 loads to wash as she’s got all but 3 washers occupied and every single dryer taken! It’s not really a huge deal since I won’t need a dryer for at least 30 minutes, but it’s the complete lack of acknowledgment that gets to me. Even if we’re not next-door, we are neighbors that have never had cause for bad vibes. And if you don’t want to say hi, that’s cool, but don’t also give me the look like I’ve invaded your territory.

For the most part, I’m very friendly with my fellow building dwellers, giving the standard smile or greeting when you see them in passing, or maybe chatting on the elevator. I know that some people don’t want to be bothered by that, but even they will give the eye-contact & smile maneuver that indicates no ill-will but also does not invite further pleasantries. Of course there are other gays in the building and many of them are friendly, but there is a bear couple here that I know other DC people know, even if only virtually. While one of them gives at least the minimum required or sometimes actual conversation, the other refuses to acknowledge my (or possibly anyone’s) presence. Really it’s no big deal except that for some reason we wind up in the same areas in the building a lot of the time. I guess I can chalk it up to a good dose of misanthropy, still it kinda bugs ya when you feel like we ought to stick together. I don’t mean have each other over for dinner just because there are other queers in the vicinity, but at least acknowledge each others’ existence.

It looks lovely outside. I will make it out and about and have more entries about the outside world soon enough, we just need some consistently nice weather!