the day barack obama got elected president will be one of those days that you’ll always remember where you were when it happened. unfortunately for most people my age, that puts it in the company of 9/11 (senior year, orchestra) and the first O.J. simpson verdict (6th grade math).

as for obama’s night of infamy, the party started at stoney’s. the scene: pleasant but too many women. every projection elicited cheers and clinked glasses or angry boos and loud proclamations of FAIL. (BOOOO. mississippi FAIL! … BOOOOOO. oklahoma FAIL.) plus, an obama countdown actually did happen (just like new year’s, except at 11pm, when CNN called the race). we then tried to start a “socialism” cheer, but that pretty much died on the spot.

then off to 14th and U for wholesome hipster/ghetto ruckus, and when it came time to dry off, stetsons and local 16.

anyway, a crappy slideshow. there are some redundant photos, so deal with it, and warning: maura is in a lot of these photos b/c she’s my vigilant partner in crime.

don’t have to move to canada now.

in other news, 93 percent of DC went to obama. sure glad i voted.

i just spent 1 hour and 50 minutes voting in a predominantly democratic neighborhood with half the spots uncontested. but besides the FAIL that is my willingness to spend hours voting for seats where my input has minimal importance, i would like to point out another FAIL by the DC election board that is well illustrated by the photo above.

for whatever reason, the election board assigned a disproportionate number of people with last names that begin with A-H to the ward 2, precinct 17 voting location of 1518 M street, NW (metropolitan AME church). i would estimate that 80 percent of the people voting at this location had last names beginning in the first 8 letters of the alphabet. OK. fine.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, they split up the registration books and the people working those books evenly amongst the letters. that means 80 percent of the voters here are slammed into the first three lines to get their cards, while the other 20 percent shuffle through the other FIVE lines like they’re in the express checkout lane. this also means you have five election people sitting on their ass doing absolutely nothing while dozens upon dozens of alphabet beginners wait in lines 30 people deep. those people on the left? they only represent about 1/10 of the unfortunate fools waiting in line. i couldn’t step further back b/c there was a clusterfuck of people behind me, too. bah.

this, as smart people would say, is fucking stupid.

honestly, if my voting troubles were only created by sheer number of people, i’d really be OK right now. yay for civic duty. but the fact that some asshole with the last name TUCKER voted in 30 minutes while i blasted through 6 different podcasts INFURIATES me.

lastly here are some pics from 9am when i first arrived to vote. and at 11 am when i left? looked about the same. first pic is a map showing how people (pink) were lined up to get into the church. i’d estimate the line was around .15 miles long. i also drew a stick figure that represents where i appx stood when taking the last 2 pics, which are the front and back of the line, respectively.

all that, and all i got was a lousy sticker, free starbucks coffee, and a free krispy kreme donut? we are all fools.

i’m not really into new year’s, so the headline must be true, especially in dc. i’m also not sure how things are in other parts, but dc is in a tizzy deciding where to watch election returns today. i’ve researched at least five different web sites trying to find the perfect bar. i’ve been looking for somewhere that’s mostly democrat with lots of hot boys who are in impeccable shape thanks to all that canvassing in virginia (my line: “oooooh, you’re so strong. you must be able to carry, like, 100 clipboards.”)

ideally, the scene will be very new year’s-like. if/when they call it for obama, it’ll be like when the ball drops. 3….2….1….OBAMA!
::MAKEOUT MAKEOUT MAKEOUT::

time to make the dream a reality.

tomorrow i basically only have one thing to look forward to: voting for a couple at-large DC councilmember spots. i’m predicting lines will be long anyway, which makes me wish they had those signs at cedar point or six flags or whatever that told you how long of a wait you could expect. you must be at least 4′2″ to vote!

the other plan is to gather 10 of my closest friends and play an hour’s worth of the movie game, eat dippin dots, and try not to throw up everywhere. hats off, please keep your hands in the car, and don’t get hit in the face with a bird while voting.

sometimes dc sucks. yesterday, it didn’t.

on assignment, nikki and i went to the hill for lunch to try out obama/mccain burgers at spike’s restaurant. we all chatted about food and politics, and he was fine. a gentleman, but not necessarily a scholar. i asked why he didn’t put arugula on the obama burger, but i don’t think he got the joke.

here are the fruits of our “labor,” but i would have added this line:

On the other hand, the McCain burger was indeed tasty, but the mayo and salsa mix makes the bun slide around but thanks to the mayo and salsa mix, it was a mess — kind of like McCain’s campaign. Hiyo!!

a version of that was apparently edited out. bah.

after returning to work for four more hours, me and two of the USN sorority girls headed to a DC blogger party at the park, otherwise known as the bar where beautiful and well-dressed black people stand in insanely long lines on the weekend, but ugly people are allowed in on the weekdays. more free food and “discounted” drinks eventually led us to the tattoo bar after party, where the REAL fun started.

tattoo is the kind of place where 50yo skeezy male lobbyists bring clients and order grey goose bottle service and johnnie walker on some overmarketed industry’s dime while confused 30yo women atop faux leather bench seating dance to white snake, prince, and new edition.

this, of course, was AWESOME. because no one was actually spending their own money, i literally had top shelf liquor thrown at me from all directions. bombay and tonic? why thank you. amstel light? how declasse. also, in a city where single women outnumber single men 2 to 1, the ratio at this bar (maybe 50/50. maybe more men) was fortuitous. while nikki was charming the 401k lobby, i was being aggressively pursued by several old men. what the hell have i been doing at dc9 all these months? jesus.

let’s break down the men (and woman).
1. red shirt guy: was into corporate real estate and didn’t buy me a drink. coincidence?
2. tall black guy: called me “boss” (”girl, you know you’re the boss lady”). also had a matching tie and pocket handkerchief and an impeccably cut suit. very fabulous.
3. white shirt guy: all over the place, and his idea for how to woo me? “i know i’m really effeminate, but i’m really cool. just takes time.” he slipped me his number on a napkin at the end of the night (a first).
4. andy dick lookalike: writes snarky movie reviews and his favorite film is supposedly “rosemary’s baby.” my response: “that would be your favorite movie.” i think he fell in love w/ me right there. also, he would randomly come by and rub himself on me, which would be way weirder if i wasn’t sure he was gay.
5. defense dept contractor: he was from richmond, he was probably married and had pocketed his ring, but he was by far my favorite. he was taking out a congressional liaison, and ended up with a $450 bar tab. he paid it like it was nothing. this is how business is done, and THIS IS WHY DC IS SO F’D UP. btw, the liaison looked like eric roberts in the creepiest way possible.
6. crazy wheelchair-bound asian lesbian: this girl was nuts. she was dancing with everyone in her wheelchair, throwing back shots, screaming at entire bar. it was the sweetness. then as the party was dying down, she grabbed my wrist, rubbed my arm a little, and insisted i go back w/ her and her friends to hang out. all the while she was making a cute sniffing motion as she held her forearm to her nose. yes, she was offering me some coke.
she had this intense entourage, which made me think she was a dealer. either way, i took that as a sign to PEACE OUT.

which concludes another tuesday in dc.

dc is seriously the only city i’ve lived where a huge number of people actually get columbus day off (same goes for presidents day). i remember activists in ann arbor protesting columbus day, saying how horrible it is we celebrate a rapist and murderer w/ a federal holiday, and i always thought those people were stupid since, dude, we definitely didn’t get that day off from school. if we still have to go to class, how much are we really celebrating him anyway?

it wasn’t until last fall that i realized that columbus day was a real holiday (just another excuse for lazy gov’t folks to not go to work), and i am in fact a little offended we give columbus his own day that’s treated equivalently to memorial or labor day. is he really as honorable as all the people killed serving in the military or the people who work hard in this country? he sucked at geometry and didn’t even mean to discover those islands.

another thing i’ve discovered while in dc is how awesome holidays are in general. both the parents are docs, and since people get sick whenever they feel like it, we didn’t, as a family, have set days off we could plan around. in fact, the nontraditional schedule is why i didn’t want to be a doctor. the logical alternative choice, of course, was journalist. thank goodness news NEVER happens on the weekends or during that tricky week between christmas and new years (benazir bhutto, anyone?)

in conclusion, having columbus day off is super weird. so weird, that i haven’t figured out what to do with that extra day, which may explain why — instead of the infinite number of normal things i could have done — i went to the antietam battlefield yesterday. a regular person would go get wasted on their porch or use the long weekend to head up to new york. not me. i don’t have a proper porch and traveling sounds tiring, so i took a day trip to a civil war battlefield to learn about horrific death and carnage and talk extensively about food policy w/ two other nerds. proof i was there:

in the middle of a completely insane busy day saturday, i squeezed in a brief white house tour. the tour itself was totally lame, i suspect because the president was in town and i think someone important from ghana is around, but OMG the secret service wanted to blow up my bike.

apparently i parked it a little too close to the white house (about a half block away), and my little basket in the back was filled with dirty clothes, which understandably looked bomb-like. by the time i got back to my bike after the too-short tour, some security guard warned me that my bike was very suspicious-looking and because a bomb threat had been called into the white house (which i assume is a common occurrence), they were about to cut my lock and blow up my bike.

blow it up? that is so cool. HOW? and WHERE? i actually already accept the “why,” but i want to understand the logistics of this. and how many bikes do they blow up a year? and would you ever find out if your bike was blown up? explain!

however, if my bike had to go, it’d be pretty sweet if that’s how it went. very literally in a blaze of glory.