Mmm yes nervous about the first day of my internship tomorrow, trying to distract myself by watching Sex and the City: The True Hollywood Story. So far there hasn't been much that I don't already know. Except for SJP's dating life, the cast's pre-SATC time is quite boring. I want to hear more about the cast tension, even though that's probably predictable--Kim got too much attention blah blah blah. Can you imagine dating both Robert Downey Jr. and JFK Jr.? I actually think Downey's sexier, even with the coke problem. Downey's such a talented actor that I think it's ok if he breaks a few silly drug laws ;).

While the John Kerry biography I'm reading is entertaining, the writing blows, and I realized I needed to read something better. Ta da, Joan Didion's White Album, which has some great entertaining bits criticizing feminism in the essay "The Women's Movement":

"The idea that fiction has certain irreducible ambiguities seemed never to occur to these women, nor should it have, for ficion is in most ways hostile to ideology...They purged and regrouped and purged again, worried out one another's errors and deviations, the 'elitism' here, the 'careerism' there. It would have been merely sententious to call some of their thinking Stalinist: of course it was. It would have been pointless even to speak of whether one considered these women 'right' or 'wrong,' meaningless to dwell upon the obvious, upon the coarsening of moral imagination to which such social idealism so often leads. To beliee in 'the greater good' is to operate, necessarily, in a certain ethical suspension. Ask anyone commited to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to nevermind the angels, tell me who controls the production of the pins."

I am a feminist, but I find a lot of the feminist rhetoric problematic, especially a lot of the sexual harassment stuff and just about everything that seems to imply that women are victims; even if it's true, I think that mentality is ultimately self-defeating, be aware and then try to overcome it.

I've decided our political system might be fundamentally flawed due to its lack of pockets for artsy communities. Every city needs a section where everyone who lives there is not a waitress, etc, but an artiste and/or gay/bisexual. I wrote something artsy in my journal about this, but I'll spare others.

Ahhh I'm going to be a D.C. intern. Crazy!

So I've been in D.C. for a few days, but I needed to settle in, more emotionally than physically. I unpacked faster than I ever have in my life without my mom doing it while my dad and I finished bringing things in from the car. Usually I happily leap around suitcases until it annoys me enough to actually unpack things or someone shoots me a dirty look; on several occasions, though, i haven't unpacked until I needed to use the suitcase again. I lose a lot of good clothes that way.

Mostly I've been watching too much TV. I've tried to design at least one "adventure" for each day until my internship begins. I think the quotation marks make it desperately clear that the adventures aren't really exciting at all. Yesterday's was buying a shower curtain. My apartment came furnished, but no shower curtain, so I've been taking baths. At Smith I always missed being able to take baths--I was never so desperate to venture into the tub in Capen's handy crapper, there didn't seem to be enough bubble bath in the world to coat that tub sufficiently to reassure me--so at home, I took a bath almost every day, usually in addition to a shower, thinking I will just jam-pack my days with luxury. That luxury should be in quotation marks too, I don't think it's really luxury in capitalism, it doesn't cost enough, but it is my designer-free luxury (what luxury is that?). Enough rambling, turns out baths aren't so luxurious when they aren't chosen because you don't want to cause ceiling damage to your neighbors underneath you.

I have not met any of my neighbors yet, and generally my building is just too quiet. I think it's karma, showing me that "Ohh you think you were pissed when people were loud in the kitchen next door? How about absolute silence, bitch?" God, I'm really not funny today. So I've been watching TV too much just so there's sound. Music isn't enough, I need voices talking, even if they're talking about Teri Hatcher's cheerleading career. This is obviously a new low.

So far I've only had one social "adventure." That was today, in Georgetown, which included the most bazaar political discussion with Omar, the guy who works at the hookah bar who is from a Middle Eastern country that I am far too ignorant to remember the name of, though he assures me that he has a very good dictator (I kept on thinking of a weird Chaplin-esque film called "The Friendly Dictator"). He also promised me that he would rather have all of the economic security, health care, etc, etc, that he had in his old country with the condition that he never question the government rather than the false sense of freedom we have here. On those occasions, I usually find it best to shut the fuck up, only occasionally inserting a line or two. I hate to talk to people who aren't really listening to me, which was the impression I kind of got. On the other side, Julie was arguing communism v. capitalism, sort of, against Rob. I've decided that in general, political conversations are much better if they are lubricated by alcohol; I don't tend to get as pissed off by people not listening to me then. Or I just keep on talking anyway, some kind of lack of inhibitions and I get to ramble enough that I no longer care about what kind of reactions I'm getting. Probably not the most healthy way to discuss politics, but I think it's the closest one will ever come to making politics polite. Of course polite politics (if there is such thing, I suspect it's an intriguing oxymoron) is boring as all hell, so if I can somehow be manipulated so that I'm not so pissed off, that's really ideal. I hate to sit out on the conversation altogether.

I also enjoyed Julie making Rob accidentally defend the Iraq war, which he did not believe was right. Oh arguments. He also ended up somewhat arguing in favor of cocaine for a moment. I find it so interesting to see what topics conversation swirl around--politics and drugs. Maybe not much has changed since Hunter S. Thompson first started covering government life.

I leave for D.C. in about a week and I need a haircut. Admittedly, the nation's capital is not known for excellent fashion sense, but then again, neither is Columbus. Still, I like to rise above the rest and look cute no matter where I am. I am perfectly comfortable with being better dressed than most of the people I meet; in that area, at least, I am relatively well-adjusted. I figure the superficial level of confidence is as good of a place to start as any, no point in developing some kind of inner fortitude only to have it destroyed by politics.

Several people have expressed worries that D.C. will change me. If so, maybe this blog will catalogue that chance, maybe even in an entertaining way.