I Guess A Rose Is Still a Rose?

When I had my senior high school pictures taken, I had several settings to choose from: a park to show how I was close to nature, a library to reflect that my nature was actually much more studious, or the studio to reflect that there was no “nature” to me at all. If only I had chosen Reflections Photography, I could have posed with the White House! Apparently Brian Pate is a much savvier consumer (and romantic at that!) choosing to propose to his fiancé in the Rose Garden--and show off the ring in what appears to be the White House Press Room.

Fans of Reflections' work might recall that the company has frequently functioned as an official photographer for President Bush, capturing the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign and the 2005 inauguration, and scrubbing pictures of Bush with notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But who can blame Pate? After you celebrate Christmas at the White House, maybe it just starts to feel like home. White House guests have certainly been confused about sleepovers before.

20 minutes until I leave for Columbus!

I haven't been there since late May, which is surprisingly too long. I'm also just bored beyond reason at work, I'm neck-deep in my lame duck term at my internship and I can't get excited about doing research for my thesis because I'm much more excited about Donatos, my mom's cooking, Kara, Christian, my family, and Cookie. Scott just took the briefs for the amicus brief that we (he's) writing, so all of my tasks have been literally taken off of my plate. All that's left to do is to do is to invent reasons for me to write blog entries on the POGO blog (a B-list blog, according to this.)

Being a lame duck, it turns out, is not so different from having no job/internship at all. My same wall-crawling tendencies are perking up. Thank god I'm taking a J-term class, I think I would go nuts again. My bell jar is free time, so thank god for Science writing in January!

It's funny, I'm reviewing how Trevor and I did in our fantasy Congress league (blah blah blah, yes we're huge giant nerds, last night's midterm election was our super bowl), and I'm giving myself a hard time for where we were wrong as if this was something one could reasonably be right about.

I think one of my favorite moments of the night, other than the humiliation of Mike DeWine (maybe next you should vote against multiyear procurement of the F-22 when you say you're going to--granted, I'm probably the only person who really let this shove me over the edge), was reacting to CNN's proclaimations. Trevor, using his Rhode Island conventional wisdom, assured me that Chaffee was going to win (obviously didn't, which isn't great for the Senate, but it's great for our league!), so when CNN called it for Whitehouse, I called him immediately and before I could even squeak "wait nooo!" he assured me "They're wrong. They're wrong, I don't know what they're doing."

Bu-bye Taft, bu-bye Blackwell, though who knows what the Rolling Stone political section is going to write about now.

Creative exercise:

If you're a bit twisted when it comes to your political view point and your sense of humor, read the following lyrics with the moth being politicans, the flame being lobbyists, and heat being greed. I'm positive this is not how Aimee Mann intended it, but damn if I don't love it this way.

"The moth don't care when he sees the flame
he might get burned, but he's in the game.
and once he's in he can't go back, and
beat his wings till he burns them black.

No the moth don't care when he sees the flame.
No the moth don't care when he sees the flame.

The moth don't care if the flame is real
'coz flame and moth got a sweetheart deal,
and nothing fuels a good flrtation
like need and anger and desperation.

Now the moth don't care if the flame is real.
Now the moth don't care if the flame is real.

So come on, let's go.  Ready or not.
'Coz there's a flame I know, hotter than hot
and with a fuse that's so thoroughly shot, away.

The moth don't care if the flame burns low
coz moth believes in an afterglow
and flames are never doused completely,
all you really need is the love of heat.

Now the moth don't care if the flame burns low.
Now the moth don't care if the flame burns low.

So come on, let's go.  Ready or not.
'Coz there's a flame I know, hotter than hot
and with a fuse that's so thoroughly shot, away"

I've been blogging a bunch, just not here. If you go to the Project on Government Oversight's blog you can read several bits by me, I even got picked up by someone whose list I subscribe too. When I found out I wanted to jump around the apartment, but I thought I would attempt to have slightly more decorum than that, so I had this jerky skip going on and I bumped into the counter. Still happy, though. I'd link my lovely blog entries, but I'm not sure if I want this on their radar and I REALLY don't want this to count as a track back, that's lame.

Obviously, all of this lameness is relative. I'm the girl who gets excited when a Rumsfeld article in the Post prompts new FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests.

Sometimes I really love Itunes and how it randomly lands on "That's the Way Love Goes." I love me some Janet.

Still figuring out my social scene here, though I went to an excellent party last Saturday with lots of journalists. I got a little tipsy, only to be cornered by one of my coworkers about making the most of my time here and how I need to know what I want to do. I know the big picture involves writing, but I don't know much more than that. Isn't it enough that I know I want to go to grad school, even if I don't know what kind yet? Shut up. It was a lovely party, though, I loved talking to so many interesting people and getting to know people better. I might go to an intern shindig, but I would probably have to run into people and not actually go with anyone, which is too awkward and I'm not confident enough for all of that.

Anyway, cliff notes: I love my internship.

It's good to know that there are some things you can always count on, like your cable company selling your phone number that you've only had for about 48 hours. The world can also count on me telling the Washington Times I don't care how cheap it is, I don't want a subscription, thanks.

The latest intern is a guy from Brown. Apparently, the world also depends on me keeping Brown boys in close proximity, no matter where I am.

Weekend alone, almost everyone I know is out of the city, so I've been watching a lot of movies. The definite highlight was FINALLY finding a coffee place suitable for being my regular haunt, which is appropriately named My Bakery and Cafe. It's beautiful and there aren't too many people there and the people are friendly. I felt pitiful going to Starbucks to hang out and write as frequently as I have been, I like to support the independent places as much as possible, especially for hang outs. I still miss Javanet because I'm pitiful like that.

I have mixed feelings about the Barnes & Noble in Georgetown--no Brown Journal of World Affairs but they did have a copy of Kafka short stories in German (which I promptly bought, I need to at least attempt to keep up some of my faint language skills).

I also learned that I cannot cook salmon on a gas stove. I don't know yet whether I can cook on a stove OR cook salmon on a different stove, it will remain one of life's little mysteries for a while.

I still LOVE LOVE LOVE pogo. They keep on giving me interesting things to do--except for building office chairs, which I am no good at all. If I've learned anything this week, it's that my domestic skills are significantly lacking. Trevor will either have to be good at these things or we'll have to hire help. I've already told him that if I ever become a mother, I will have help. I seriously doubt I will ever be a stay at home mother; I hit all new lows when I'm at home too much and I don't think I am the "motherhood is so fulfilling" type. I am much more the type to do what I have been the past couple of weeks--compiling Katrina contracting mistakes, figuring out how much money oil companies are cheating the government out of, and potentially figuring out a way to brief each new Congressional staffer about whistle-blowing laws.

I just need to figure out if one can have a fun D.C. nightlife without being 21. So far the answer is no. So lots of writing instead, hopefully something will be good.