Ahh. Today was fun. I got up early for the seminar at WashPost and found that they did not have cream cheese danishes at breakfast there. I was a bit disappointed, but the coffee cake made up for it. Then they paired us up with reporters who had evaluated our articles on a fake press conference held by the (real) head of the NAACP in Washington, Hilary Shelton. And you guessed it, the reporter was (drum roll please) Indian. Fantastic. He was good and everything though. There was only one real thing wrong with my paper and that was that my lede wasn't much of a hook, but that's okay. My first stab at a news writing.
Then, Alex O and I went to the National Gallery for no particular reason. On the way there, we were discussing very loudly about how the National Archives doesn't display the real Constitution and how that kind of makes it a waste. Then a photographer-man behind us says "Well its there, but they have it locked up in a vault." We laughed and labelled him as Number 1. The first random person of the day.
There was a Cezanne exhibit, but the line was really wrong. We skipped that and had way too much fun analyzing the other exhibits. We saw what I would describe as an 18th century depiction of the pilot show of LOST. . You know, with the blazing inferno and the chaos and except with a ship instead of a plane....and without the hot people. We made fun of the Napoleon Bonaparte painting and then came across the bust of a elated old, bald man. I decided that I wanted to take the man home and fashion clown wigs for him. Then of course, we realized it was Voltaire. Then we walked into what I can only describe as the Hail Mary room; the room was filled with sculptures of Jesus and Mary. We decided that we couldn't make fun of anything in there because we would go to some kind of hell for it. So while we were taking a breather on the sofa outside the room, I explained to Alex the premise of a book that was featured on Jon Stewart a little while back called "Quoting Jesus" or something along those lines, and how the monks who copied and recopied (and added their own stuff in between) the Bible probably eroded the word of God over the two centuries after Jesus's death. She agreed that the Bible is a good guide to morals but shouldn't be followed literally. Then I said "Jesus seems like he was a good guy. I would have been friends with him." And to that she said "You would probably be the only one he'd HATE." Then we ran out of there before God could smite us, or some Evangelist could come and take things into his own hands.
I was determined to find the Vermeer, especially after reading "Girl with a Pearl Earring," so we embarked on that little journey. So we asked a security guard for directions, and he told us that the Vermeer wasn't close to here. "Dang it," I said and he goes "Why don't you hang on a second, you're like my daughter, talking before I'm done what I'm sayin" Then he directed us to the obscure Room 13 on the lower level. Random Person Number 3.
Then I wanted to throw a penny into the wishing well and use it to wish for world peace. I missed.
When that was over, we went to Au Bon Pain after shedding silent tears in seeing Cosi was closed. Au Bon Pain was closing too in about 30min but I wasn't about to leave, not when I saw that they were selling Macaroni and Cheese. Except they had run out, and so I shed a very loud tear and the manager agreed to make some for me specially. Random Person Number 7 So while I was having my Mac and Cheese and Alex was having her Chicken Salad Wrap, we wondered what they do with the delicious pastries when they close. We knew from previous meddling experience that Starbucks throws their stuff away. Could ABP do the same? We Rock Paper Scissored, I lost and asked the lady at the counter. "We throw them away on weekends and sell them for half price on weekdays." Aha, it's a weekend. So I convinced her that our tummies were a good enough cause to let us have some. Thats when we met Random Person Number 9.
He is an ABP employee, himself mooching off the danishes and a conversation somehow struck up between the three of us. He speaks French (as I sort of do) and Spanish (as Alex sort of, but better than me, does). He's seeking political asylum from the Cameroon(ian?) government that sort of kicked him out because he was a Philosophy teacher back home. He was really cool and Alex liked him because she likes Philosophy herself. So although our conversation was cut short because they were closing soon, Alex and I decided to come back and visit again because it's great to meet random people because it makes everything interesting. She agreed that we would have never met so many random people if it wasn't for me and my loudmouth. Why thank you.
Current Mood: 
chipper
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crushed
grumpy
indifferent