DC Trip: Day 1

I touched down in Baltimore at about 1 am local time.

Before this trip, I had no idea Baltimore was so close to Washington, DC. The only thing I knew about Balimore was that its football team is purple, its baseball team is red, and they're both birds. I think, for that reason, everytime I think about Baltimore, I think about a bird; kind of as if Baltimore were an animal instead of a location.

The drive to my sister's condo, located pretty much right in the middle of DC, took fourty-some minutes.

Her place is about the size of my bedroom plus closet back at my parents' house. My folks tease her about forking out so much cheddar for so little space, but I guess there's some sense of accomplishment in just calling a little hole your own. Plus, we've been spoiled by roomy Texas space.

Personally, I don't think I've ever owned a thing in my life, and I kind of think I'm not sentimental enough to get caught up in it.

We crashed at my sister's for the night.

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We woke a little before noon the next day and took a stroll over to the local Chinatown.

The parts of DC that doesn't involve national monuments is pretty much crap. Complete with shady, brick-ladened alleyways like the kind from old DC (not the city) comic books. I feel like I could shank someone between these buildings and just walk away with it.

Had lunch at a mom-and-pop shop with an owner who spoke shoddy English at best. My parents spoke their broken English, and he spoke his broken English, and both sides were clearly frustrated with each other.

There's a scene in Spike Lee's 25th Hour where Edward Norton stares into the mirror and starts saying his fuck-yous to all the ethnic groups of New York. One of the lines he says is, "Fuck the Koreans [...] Ten years in the country, still no speaky English!?"

That's kind of how I feel sometimes, though not nearly as vulgar or spiteful. Or Korean. Seriously, you can learn a little more than "Sorry, I don't speak English" in twenty-five years.

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After Nga came home from school, we jumped in the rental and headed into Virginia, where my cousin would be getting married.

The drive was about five hours long, and scattered along the road were signs that read, "Speed limit enforced by aircraft." And I wondered to myself if there were actually planes flying overhead watching for speeders. I hope those planes are powered on the joys and laughter of children, 'cause gasoline costs a buttfuck-ninety-nine these days.

We passed by a town called Harrisonburg on our voyage through Virginia. I know a girl who went to school there. We used to spend hours on the phone idly, and then somewhere along the way, it fizzled and died.

I remember one night, she laid out her plans for me over the phone -- by some age graduate, grad school by whenever, married by whatever, first kid by this or that age, etc. -- and I responded by asking her, "What if you trip?" To be honest, I thought it was cute; at least one of us knew what they were going to be doing tomorrow.

We reached a sign with arrows pointing in the direction of Richmond, Virginia, and continued past. I imagined that, at some point, she was on this same stretch of road, talking on the phone with me while commuting to her parents' home. Last I spoke to her, she was graduating and landed a gig at a company that develops defense and aerospace systems. I wonder how that's working out for her dream to be a pediatrician.

I spent a couple of hours falling in and out of consciousness, hypnotized by miles and miles of asphalt and mack trucks.

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We arrived at our destination at around midnight, at a small town south of Roanoke. That is to say, we arrived at a small town that's south of another small town in the middle of butt-fuck.