Yesterday's accomplishments:

Read p. 32->end of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Composed two diaryland entries
Showered
Ate, although not well
Sent another email to the chyk from the personals ad, possibly setting up a datelet for Monday night
Received no confirmation from same

Today's accomplishments:

Walked to Adams Morgan, ostensibly for coffee and breakfast
Gave up on that idea when Tryst was crowded, bought a paper, walked back home
Read part of paper
Talked to Rob
Talked to rents
Watched some basketball
Got the wireless network up, finally
Watched Sunday night's offerings from FOX

I have now screwed around with the kernel on that linux gateway more than I ever would have cared to, but the wireless works, the wireless and wired subnets talk to each other, and I can get onto the net from anywhere in the house now without stringing any more Cat V. Yay. Now I just need to get the cables that are already there minimized and things will be relatively stable.

Until I move.

Today was apparently Hispanic Loitering Day in Adams Morgan, an ethnic culture thing I just can't get. There were just all these people standing along Columbia Road. Not talking, not participating in anything, just standing. Add those to the other groups of people (also hispanic, as it happens) who were strolling in that slow manner had by people who don't really have any concern for time, either theirs or anybody else's.

Now. One large problem in the DC area, and in the District in particular, is this particular demographic, which is not limited to any particular ethnicity it would seem but crosses all barriers except that of income. This demographic, due to the economic divide often caused by a lack of skills (communication and otherwise), is the one that ends up filling all the "service" jobs around here, because anybody who is capable of getting a better job already has. So I have to walk around the loitering or strolling people on the sidewalk along Columbia Road, and while it's annoying it's not a major complaint. They're entitled to spend their Sunday afternoon in whatever fashion they choose, and they're not doing anything wrong.

The problem, however, and it is indeed a problem (let me tell you), is that they're the same people who work behind the counter at the CVS, or who take too long and do a sloppy job changing the oil in your car, or or or. Now, service industry jobs like that mostly suck. I always make an effort not to be an asshole to those people since I know they probably have to put up with long hours of self-righteous boomer fucks yelling at them for the slowness of the line or the fact that they used the wrong oil despite the presence of four quarts of oil in the passenger seat and notes both printed on the work order and written on it beneath the printed one, saying "USE CUSTOMER OIL." And in the case of stuff like CVS part of the reason the line's so damned long isn't that the person behind the counter is particularly incompetent, it's because the design of CVS is hideously poor and doesn't take into account the way people shop in drug stores, and the management of CVS doesn't see fit to have more than one person on duty behind the counter at any given time, and since CVS sort of owns the market in most neighborhoods they're in people can't quite vote against their poor management with their feet. But I digress.

This demographic, the group of people for whom time is not important, make it very difficult to keep living in the District. There is a belief (or at least a willingness to believe) that things would be better out in the suburbs. Of course I've been to CVS in the suburbs and the lines aren't any shorter, it's just that there's no bulletproof window between you and the cashier so the experience is slightly less unpleasant. Safeway in Reston or Bailey's X-Roads is every bit as miserable as Safeway in Adams Morgan. You still can't take your cart to your car (which is why I drive to Harris Teeter for groceries). And out there in the burbs, you get to be that much closer to the self-righteous boomer fucks.

So it's a tradeoff. I can stay where I am, where the neighborhood is funkier, where the houses are more interesting, where there are bars I can walk to, but where the people drive me insane because they don't know how time works (to reference Kids in the Hall). Or I could move out closer to work, where the houses are made of cardboard, all look alike, and can only be painted one of seven colors (probably only one of two colors depending on what colors the neighbors' houses are), but where the people would also drive me insane because instead of not knowing how time works, they don't know how to take time off, and they're so wrapped up in themselves and how much of a hurry they're in that they forget how to be nice people.

Ehh.

I'm afraid if I move out there I'll turn into one of them. It would appear I've started to already, judging by the rant above.

Oh, and a coda on this morning's entry:

I woke up from that dream feeling desperately like I needed to call a person I haven't seen in a year (and who wasn't one of the women in the dream) to apologize for something I did the last time I saw her a year ago. I didn't remember anything from the dream that would have made me think of her or that I needed to apologize to her, but there could have been something else there that I forgot before I was fully lucid. Weird.

(2000-03-19)