I saw this photo on DCist this morning. Take a good close look at the layout of the Washington Monument.

Is that not the Vesica Piscis run through with the monument?

Who knew that from above we have the chalice well design right here larger than life.

ETA link to wikipedia above.

Back in DC now. I slept through most of the flight and my boss was on there, and she offered me a ride back since it was on the way.

All is well.

Except my fracking wrist. GOD. It feels like I broke it or something. I need to get a wrist support or something and fast.

We're back in DC.

It's been a wonderful and chill week. The fog in Cincinnati today and yesterday was incredible! It didn't lift until about 1:00 when we got to Columbus.

Though along the way we got to meet hawthorn_hobbit at lunch and sqrlcub at dinner. Both were great and totally needed.

Now to do taxes and read comics.

Thank goodness I've got an extra day before going back to work. This has been a crazy fast trip.

It's been raining today. And as the sun came out there was a really vibrant rainbow over Shaw. If you look carefully you might be able to see a second one off to the right.
( Cut for Kindness )

Today it is raining in DC like I have never seen since I left the midwest. Not even in Seattle did it rain like this. It has been raining non-stop since I left the house at 8:00 a.m. and it's now going on 2:30.

No doubt this will effect our number of customers at the library. This means that that casual visitor probably won't come, but we'll get every single child from Shaw and Seaton that isn't trying to swim home.

There are veritable oceans of water out there. It's pretty crazy.

Today I had the misfortune to have lunch in Chinatown. Normally this is kind of a highlight for me because I get to go to the Chipotle and have an enormous burrito and a giant coke with 5 limes in it.

However, today the streets of our fair city were mobbed with people, mostly catholic school kids and their parents and priests, from other cities. All of them carrying protest signs saying that they were pro-life. Many of them were not even old enough to vote, but they had an opinion, and their opinionated swarm was all up in Chipotle around the corner. It would have taken me an hour just to go through the line. So I went to Blimpie hoping that they wouldn't know it existed as it was down a non-major street and not very visible. But alas, they were in there too. However, there was not an enormous line, so I braved it and ate lunch with the protesting children.

I put in my headphones, closed my eyes and ate my sandwich, pretending they didn't exist. As each song ended their cacophony reminded me they were there.

After my emotionally draining lunch I went to meetings and then took the metro down to Southeast and had more meetings and then headed back.

Only to be caught in the swarm again. This time it was after five, all the Senate and House offices had closed and they were being herded out to the Capitol South station. Thankfully I ran into a friend and we talked about coat hangers, Paganism and gay sex. It helped to alleviate the tension of having to look at sidewalk trash bins filled with anti-abortion banners and placards.

This is the one major downside to living in DC. All that freedom of speech comes knocking down your door and dragging you out into the street.

You can not have an abortion all you want.
I just want a burrito.

Like trail mix. Only more snow.

And yes, it's finally decided to snow. And it's huge flakes and it's very pretty and the ground is warm and wet.

So, I'm expecting that things will be icy by the time I get out of here.

ugh.

This weekend I will be at the Sacred Space Conference. Teddy and I will be vending and hopefully making some money.

If you're coming please stop by and say hi.

* Work: Worked today, and will work again tomorrow and monday. Sometimes I'm too responsible for my own damn good.

* Japanese: I'm up to Rosetta Stone level 1 Lesson 2.5. Today I learned Big, Small, Long, Short, Shapes, Colors, Sequences, Yes and No, and the difference between animals and people. I find it unusual that the Kanji for "circle" is so non-circular. The phrase that cracked me up the most was "Chiisana tento" which means "little tent." I was saying it over and over in the shower like a crazy person.

In continuing with Japanese I nearly answered the phone Moshi Moshi tonight for fun. It was Greenpeace asking for more money and I gave it to them. I should have pretended to be Japanese, answering them only in bizarro Japanese. It could have been fun.

* Body: I shaved my head tonight, and I nicked the HELL out of my scalp. I've got a band aid on my head and I feel kind of stupid. Thank goodness I'm not going anywhere tonight. Also, my hands are UNBEARABLY dry. I have some Curel ultra healing lotion and I'm hoping that helps. It seems to be doing good so far.

* Home: jcruisedirector moved out yesterday. The room is empty and my home is amazingly quiet. Though empty boxes still remain to be broken down. It's nice to have the place to myself again, if only for a while.

* Movies: I saw Juno the other night. It made me feel loved. I need more moments like that in movies. We all need more moments like that in movies.

* TV: Television is slowly grinding to a halt because of the damn writer's strike. I'm kind of sick of it. I just want to be entertained when I come home at night and not have to be bored by the dregs of television because of a labor dispute. All the reality TV in the world is nothing compared to shows like Journeyman, Chuck and Heroes. Thank god I have the world of anime to comfort me in my time of need.

* Books: I finished reading "The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears." It's a wonderful book about an Ethiopian immigrant in Washington DC, watching the early stage of the gentrification of Logan Circle, and just dealing with his life. It was a great book. Wonderful even. Next for the book club is Edward P. Jones's "All Aunt Hagar's Children." It's a collection of short stories, also all based in DC. Can't wait. I'm also reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It's a very eye opening book. I'm glad I got it.

* Comics: I read Monster v.2, Hellsing v.1, Parasyte v.2, the beginning of Lone Wolf and Cub, and I'm muddling through Mushishi 3 in Japanese (not doing too well). I'm getting a box shipped from my favorite comic shop in Cincinnati sometime next week. I'm REALLY looking forward to that since it's a fucking fortune in comics.

* Internet: There's been some talk on Fabulon about wanting to have some kind of DC meetup, since there's a whole bunch of us from DC. I'm thinking it should happen so I put a note out there for a Fabulon Expedition/Exhibition in DC sometime in January. Details will be forthcoming.

* DC: Titan bar is closing their doors tomorrow and I'm very sad about this. Titan was like the one bar I would go to here in town and for reasons unknown they gave notice to everyone on Wednesday and it's been all over the blogs. I hope the owners and the staff all find new directions that benefit them. It's even sadder that it's one more gay club in DC that's gone.

* Quilt: I haven't worked on the quilt, yet, but I've got to clear up my dining room so I can work at the big table. I'm planning on next weekend being a good quilting weekend.

* Book: Haven't opened up Mordred since Nanowrimo. I will work on it again. Slow and steady it will come round. I've got the outline down and ready. I just need to write. I will set aside time next week to work on this.

* Faeries: I haven't been to faeries all month. I plan on going on Monday. Hopefully there will be someone there and we can sing carols or something.

* New Years: JD and I plan on going to his friends's New Years party. It was a lovely occasion last time. I'm hoping it's just as good this time round. Probably will be. And no more splurging on fantastic dinners before hand because the food was out of control at that party. We'll bring a couple bottles of booze to add to the cause and hopefully that'll keep people going.

DCist informed me that Home and Garden Television is giving a neighborhood makeover to some lucky city. One of the contestants is Anacostia, which is a very old (and kinda sketchy) neighborhood in DC. It's unclear what the revitalization plan entails, but honestly, any outside help would be a great asset to the neighborhood.

To help cast a vote (and you can vote every day until 12/21) go to The HGTV Neighborhood Makeover Page.

Thanks!

I flew back on Wednesday and yesterday I was just kind of out of it all day. Mostly because I stayed up until 6:00 a.m. eastern time catching up with all the shows in my DVR. I met up with danverafeed, pirohifeed, faeshale and Tophu and had a grand old time. We went to the Love Cafe and had cake and then down to G Books for to look at books, and then back to my place to watch Eddie Izzard's "Dress to Kill". It was a lovely time.

Today I'm working on my Japanese again, and then working on the book. It has been sadly neglected during the last week, and I've promised myself to get back in the saddle. So the book will come after my Rosetta Stone lesson and then this evening dmlaenker and I will meet up with faeshale and Tophu for dinner and various other entertainments to follow.

In my previous post about the oddity that is the DC Flag and the Mayan number 13 I wrote that I didn't know where Pinchbeck got this information that the number 13 was a signifier of transformation. I now think I understand why he said that, though it's a bit fuzzier than that.

It all has to do with the Mayan Calendrical system known as the Tzolkin. See, the Maya used a synchronized dual calendar system. One was a 365 day solar calendar, and the other was a 260 day religious calendar (the Tzolkin). The way that the Tzolkin is constructed is in a repeating, interlocking sequence of thirteen numbers and twenty day names. These cycles are part of the calendar system that was carved onto the massive temple structures from whence the New Age movement has gotten their massive 2012 meme.

In the Mayan calendar the day of creation was a day where everything was set on the number 13. As the cosmos goes clicking on through time these wind around like an odometer and the numbers change, the names change. On certain dates throughout history the cycles roll over, and December 21 (or 23rd depending on who you read) 2012 is one of those odometer moments when a thirteen rolls over to a zero. (See Maya Cosmos, Freidel 61-65).

Interestingly also, the 260 day cycle of the Tzolkin is tied to the movement of the planet Venus.

While writing this I remembered the Aztecs as well, and that they used the 260 day calendar called the Tonalpohualli, and a 360 day calendar as well. This line from Wikipedia is quite interesting.

"The xiuhpohualli [the solar calendar] and the tonalpohualli would coincide every 52 years. The 'year' 1 Reed was the 13th in that 52 year cycle."

The year 1 Reed is the year that Quetzalcoatl is said to return.

I'm sorry that this is all so complex and jumbled. I feel like I'm just disgorging information without really assembling it.

Suffice it to say that 13 plays an ENORMOUS role in the Mayan calendar. Thirten was their starting point and that the transition from 13 to 0 marks the end of an era. The numbers in these pyramids go on and on, far beyond 2012. No one in the Mayan culture thought that 2012 would be the end of anything (much less everything). Rather it was a demarcation of a vast achievement in the development of the universe. One inscription goes on so far as to calculate dates 41 Octillion years out when the cycles progress from 0 to 1 in the count. Theoretically it could go on infinitely. Of course once our planet dies out, whenever that happens this construction would be somewhat meaningless unless all human life at that time migrates to a planetary system with the exact same rotations, cycles, distance from the sun, etc.

What does this mean about DC? I still don't know for sure. If anything it means that there's a deeper subconscious level to the city that is harmonized with forces greater than we can even comprehend.

This morning during my commute I continued to read Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl." I ended on the following passage and had to put the book down because I was just overcome with a feeling of synchronicity.

Meditating inside [a crop circle], he asked for some guidance to the meaning of the formations. He received a strong image of three dots hovering over two solid bars. "In my mind, I kept trying to change the image and move it around, but it wouldn't change," he said. He didn't recognize it--but I did. I told him it was the number thirteen, integer of transformation, written in Mayan characters.

Those of you who live in DC will recognize that pattern as being very familiar as well. It's the pattern of the DC flag.



Because I was dumstruck with the fact that the DC flag and this weird Mayan numeral share this striking resemblance I had to go and look up the meaning of the flag. What was the symbolism? Did it have something to do with the branches of government or something?

No, actually. The wikipedia entry on the DC flag says that the three stars, two bars motif is actually carried over from the coat of arms of the Washington family.

From what source Pinchbeck claims that this number represents transformation I can't say, but it certainly was an interesting tidbit, and one that seemed important for me to remember.

A charcoal sketch artist drew this picture of me on the metro this evening.



One of the more realistic likenesses of me that I've had done. The bad thing was that I didn't have ANYTHING to pay him for it. I would have gladly paid him. I had a penny and I gave him a handpainted button of a goldfish that I bought at Otakon. He gave me his contact information and I plan on sending him something next week when I get paid.

Beautiful.

In an attempt to restore some kind of calm to my life and because I've been reading WAY the hell too much manga, I'm going to try drawing some things. I may or may not post them, because, well, I'm not terribly good at drawing, so there's some embarrassment there. I've got an idea though.

We have loads of books on how to draw manga style, so I'm going to start reading a few of them and trying their techniques. For my subject matter I'm not going to try and tell a story or anything, because that's way too much for me to deal with right now. But what I can probably do is just make little scenes. I'm thinking I could just do some silent scenes of life, nature and work in D.C. I'm going to keep a little sketchbook in my bag and call it "Sakura D.C." which is a fairly manga type name, but there's a lot more to it.

Sakura, as you may know, is the Japanese Cherry tree, and D.C. is loaded with them. Every spring they bloom these beautiful bright pink blossoms, and within days these blossoms litter the streets. The Sakura is a symbol of the ephemeral nature of life, the certainty of death, and the priceless beauty of both. So my little scenes will hope to capture some of that priceless beauty in a single scene. I don't know how well I will do, but I will try.

This morning I attended the GLBT Round Table Stonewall Book Awards Brunch. This event happens every year and each year they award two awards, one for glbt fiction the other for glbt non-fiction.

The winner of the Barbara Gittings award for best GLBT fiction was Andrew Holleran for his book "Grief." Grief is a compelling short novel revolving around a man who upon the death of his mother travels to D.C. and becomes engrossed in the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln. Deeply moving, Grief was the unanimous choice for the fiction book of the year. Unfortunately Andrew was away in Europe on a book tour and couldn't recieve his award, but he shared his thanks in a letter that was read before the crowd.

Other finalists for best literature were:

The Manny Files / Christian Burch
The Night Watch / Sarah Waters
Rose of No Man's Land / Michelle Tea
A Scarecrow's Bible / Martin Hyatt

The winner of the Israel Fishman award for best GLBT non-fiction was Alison Bechdel for her graphic novel memoir "Fun Home." Fun Home tells the story of Alison and her family. Through the process of coming out to her father and sharing her experiences her father begins coming to terms with own sexuality. Alison Bechdel spoke this morning at the brunch and she shared her own story of coming out through literature, and the ping-pong process of reading about sex and actually having it and how sometimes the twain did not meet. It was really quite funny and I look forward to reading her book. Oh, and by the way, it's also nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award for best non-fiction book of the year and it's already won loads of awards. The full list is available at: http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/reviews-and-interviews

The other finalists for non-fiction were:

Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights / Kenji Yoshino
Gay Power: An American Revolution / David Eisenbach
Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships / William Benemann
Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir / Kevin Jennings

After the brunch I attended a few other lectures on library stuff, and spoke to a few people about books, bought a few books from the trade show floor reps and then headed up to the Public Library Association keynote speech by Armistead Maupin. Originally Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, was slated to speak to the ALA, but unfortunately she couldn't make it. As Maupin noted to the attendees there was an irony in that Elizabeth Edwards was in San Francisco speaking at gay pride, when one of the most noted gay authors was in Washington DC speaking to a bunch of librarians. We laughed. Oh, his speech was fantastic. It was about the common questions he gets asked, about his inspiration, his life, and his new book "Michael Tolliver Lives." I won't go into all the details as it's late, but suffice it to say that some of the story in MTL is based exactly on his life, specifically the opening sequence where Michael finds the love of his life at 55 on the internet, and that's not giving anything away as it happens in the first chapter.

I ended the day by walking another gay colleague back to Lambda Rising to go to the Alison Bechdel signing and having a couple bits of kissy time. It was lovely.

And I got LOADS of books.

And I'll be blogging them. Just you watch. ;)

DC, MD and VA residents

If you've ever thought about wanting to show the world your favorite movies, now you can. The AFI Silver Theater is having a contest, and one lucky winner will get to be the program director for a night.

Just go to Silver Sweepstakes to register and submit your entries.

It would be superfun to win!

My selections are: ( under this cut )

My lovely boyfriend and another of his friends have plotted out an enhanced metro map

Check it out!

They announced on the radio this morning that Gerald Ford had died. More than likely that means that the feds will give us off for a day or two for state funerary observance. They did with Reagan, don't see why they wouldn't with Ford. We'll see what happens. Don't know if I'll go and live the history again by watching the procession and going to the rotunda, but I might.

In listening to NPR about Ford this morning and hearing him talk about the Nixon pardon it made me think. You know, that was the most controversial thing, but it put a stop to all of the maneuvering and partisan stuff and people were able to get on with life. It was scary because there was no retribution for it, but he felt like there were more important things to do. And honestly, there were more important things to deal with. So, I started thinking about the Clinton impeachment, and how the Republican Congress orchestrated that to get him out of office and how that put the whole country in a total tailspin all because of a sex scandal.... It all just seems so petty. And now, when the President has committed so many grievous errors and honestly done some things that warrant impeachment, the Democratic Congress is saying no, we're not going to do that, because there are more important things to do. Politics is a complex system, but more often than not it makes better sense to actually get to work and not to drag the country down into these judicial matters. So, let's get to work already.

This morning I had a wonderful ride into work by taxi driver Eulice Tibbs (what a great old school name!). He remembered me vaguely from last week because I had to stop at the GPO ATM, just like last time, in order to pay the fare.

So we were talking about how he's retired but he likes driving the taxi. It gives him something to do, and he likes it. I told him about how my grandparents worked in a factory for about 30 years or so and they retired and they're so bored they started an office cleaning company. They go and clean banks for a living.

And he started talking to me about how much he loves the cab. Seeing all the people, and getting out and driving around. And how if he didn't love it he'd just be sitting at home watching tv wasting away with boredom.

He told me it's better for you to have a job you love than to not.

Don't I know it.

I've got more to write about but I'll get to that later.