Day 152: Heartbreak Hotel

I will admit that I have had this weird fascination with the whole Eliot Spitzer call girl scandal.

First, it's Spitzer, and I had such high hopes for him.

Second, I just can't get over this $4300 an hour thing. I really can't.

And finally, the hotel that the dalliance allegedly happened in, is right here in my own city!

I love the monuments and memorials and museums, but I also love the tacky and tawdry. So tonite, on our way to what would become Sunday's new thing, my dear friend Karey took us by the Mayflower Hotel, so I could see it, and take pictures outside of it.
Emboldened by desert and drinks at Kramer's, another new thing, I posed with Karey, fiercely a la America's Next Top Model, outside the latest in a line of D.C. hotels to bring down a top political player.
I played serious Tourist for the night, only way geekier and without a fanny pack, and LOVED it. I have no shame. (But Spitzer sure does.)

Day 151: "See? Drama!" (Harry, SATC: The Movie)

After what feels like an interminable wait, tonite we finally saw Sex and the City on the big screen. And as I didn't start watching the series until it was over, it meant I got to see Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte, new - no reruns.
To me this show is senior year, late nights drinking, talking, and laughing with my friends. It's referencing ridiculous situations of theirs and ours in emails and conversations. It's saying "oh I had a Miranda moment" and knowing exactly what the other is talking about. It's fitting our respective characters eerily well a lot of the time. It's someone making me laugh when I need to, listening to me cry when I need to, making me not feel so crazy, and not so alone. It's not just a show. Or it was, but at some point, it got bigger, and meant so much more.

Day 150: Jan in DC!

When it comes to my friends, I am pretty much the luckiest person in the world. Really. And today one of my best friends, who sadly lives way on the other coast, came to D.C. for the weekend. Thus I had dinner with Jan in D.C., and got to see the city with her (or at least the H&M, sight-seeing starts tomorrow) for the first time.

I am happy, that's pretty much all to be said.

Me, Jan, and Karey, at the Washington Monument the next day. (I didn't take pictures on Thursday. Oops.)

Day 149: Always shopping or food

In a desperate search tonite for a necklace to wear with my dress for Friday night's SATC outing, I went into nearly every accessory story in the Pentagon City mall. (And King Street shops and Target and Ballston and a few others too this past week.) I finally found what I didn't know I wanted at Aldo Accessories, a store I had never previously heard of and obviously not shopped at. I came away the first time with five rings (not golden) and then went back again for the much needed necklace. Ready for Friday now!

Day 148: Money, money, money...money!

The bitterness I still feel about my taxes this year, was slightly alleviated today when I got my first ever economic stimulus check. It still doesn't cancel out the amount I had to pay to the government, but it's money, so I'm not complaining. And as perhaps my last defiant act to the current administration, I am not using it to stimulate the economy, but instead letting it revitalize my savings account.

It may be petty, but it's hard to be a rebel, and a law-abiding citizen.

Day 147: Where Valor Proudly Sleeps

Though I worked today, I felt I needed to do something to honor the holiday. It was the perfect day, warm, breezy, and perfect to finally make a trek to Arlington National Cemetery. I pass by the Metro stop twice a day on my commute, and finally righted the wrong of never having actually stopped.

It was beautiful, humbling, and befitting of its inhabitants.

Day 146: "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage." (Indiana Jones)

Absolutely NO spoilers ahead.
When I was in the sixth grade, as part of a creative writing assignment, I wrote my own Indiana Jones sequel, where, exhausted after his journey to recover the Holy Grail, he went on vacation in Hawaii. Riveting, I know. (To be fair, I think I was probably influenced by the "Full House" in Hawaii episodes. Uncle Jesse and the Beach Boys have a lot of sway with me.)

Thankfully, Jr.'s latest adventure was far more exciting, and allowed me to see Indiana Jones on the big screen, for the first time. Exciting and funny, it was good, not great, yet.

Though the first one was released before I was born, and the last when I was just five, I have seen them all enough to last several people's lifetimes. Thanks in large part to my Dad, but Mom too, I don't think the channel has ever been changed in our house when Indy is on.

And I still cringe when they open the Ark of the Covenant, and still hold my breath as he decides which Grail to drink from. And despite a perpetually weak stomach, the scene where the heart is ripped from the guy's chest, is still one of my all time favorites, of any movie. I'm thinking another dozen or so viewings of this one will have me cringing and gasping too, in the good way. Nineteen years, and definitely worth the wait.

Day 145: Vacation all I ever wanted

Growing up two minutes from a pool, and two hours from the beach, I am no stranger to beach balls. In fact, they are the only athletic spherical object I tolerate, as they are very unlikely to cause a black eye, broken nose, or other painful ailment. But today, I bought a beach ball, for the first time with the knowledge it will likely never see water. Its sole purpose being to make it feel a little bit more like summer, in the midst of the concrete jungle, I don't get summers off world I inhabit.
I settled in to read a typically trashy beach book on my sand-like bed, using it as a pillow, only to have it shoot out from under me. (Good thing I had the bed to bounce off.) Thus I settled for it as a chin pillow, much easier to control.

I can almost feel the beach breeze in my hair or the sound of the pool filter in the background. Or maybe that's just the whirr of my air conditioner and the nightly news from the TV. Just let a girl pretend for a bit.

Day 144: Seriously, Tar Heel through and through

My family likes to keep a running list of the myriad ways people are able to murder our last name. Churchill, the most common, is only the beginning. It ranges from Upchurch to Churchbell to Caldwell to my personal favorite, until today, Churchhell. How did my lovely last name get mutilated today? ChurchHEEL. That's right, as in Tar Heel. As in nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina as a TAR HEEL. I've never been Churchheeled before, but I like it.

Forget changing my last name if I get married. I'm going to make my husband change it to Churchheel. (Not really, I quite like my last name. And I am on a mission, for the sake of future Churchwells, to make sure everyone I meet can spell it.)

Day 143: Cheap shot

I have been very exhausted this week, and for the first time since I started this project, I did not remember to do a new thing until the next morning. But, I have not failed. I have not betrayed the new thing a day endeavor. After searching my brain, I thought of something new. I hang my head in shame only because it's so lame, not because I have to abandon the project and move on with my life. We have a shared fileserver at work, and while working on a project, I went to open up a file, only to discover that it, and what turned out to be many others, suddenly disappeared. Thus, clearly, I was the victim of magic, and cruel Slytherin type magic, to have files disappear into the ether. Luckily, to be recovered by our resident Hermione, one of our tech people, later. (They still are not sure what happened. Only I know it was magic.)