The Banzai Chronicles

Errands yesterday took me on not one but two loops around Capitol Hill. Believe it or not, there wasn't really a more effective way for me to get everything done. This also gave me the opportunity to interact with my neighbors on Broadway.

First was the young woman staffing a table for some political cause or other. Leaflet in hand, she called out to me:

How about you? You look like you've got some fight in you, don't you?

Oh, miss. If you had any idea. Yes, yes I do. Much of my energy over the past day or two has been spent with that fight: engaging it, calming it, confessing it, diffusing it, wrestling with it, fearing it. Yes, I've got some fight in me—at least my share, if not more.

On the next go-round, God revealed His sense of humor in the midst of my struggle. There on the corner, on a couch, blowing bubbles, were mimes. Mimes, mimes, and damn mimes. If ever there were a culturally acceptable outlet to vent my aggression, it would be mimes—no court in the country would convict me. And, when I returned to that corner a scant three minutes later, they and their couch were gone. I was the victim of a run-by miming.

The potluck was good: great Mexican food, good conversation, Rebecca sharing her story. I was largely relaxed, but three hours is still my upper limit at such functions.

Today is a twelve-hour work day; not much more to say about that just now.

Since I opted not to cart my PowerBook with me through the whole day today, I'm writing longhand during a break and will enter it later. The act of writing with pen and paper, however, makes me imagine another place—the corner booth of a diner, perhaps, in a sleepy Northwest town at the foot of the mountains, with a cup of joe and a slice of apple pie next to me, scribbling in a beat-up journal with a leather cover. Things are never quite so simple, yet it's a good story nonetheless.