That Just Happened...

You know how you constantly promise yourself that you will honor your commitments and sit down to write every single day? Well, that hasn’t happened. The last time I wrote, I was sitting on a porch in Utila thinking “How in the hell am I going to get out of here?” A trip that was so fantastic from the start went from great to horrible in 2.5 seconds. It’s always fun to wake up to someone trying to break into your room in a building that you are staying in alone. The cinder blocks stacked up outside my room in the mornings were icing on the cake. With a little movement of plane tickets and schedules, I was on my way back home. Two weeks away, are you kidding me? Am.a.teur. Looking back, I probably should have sucked it up, but I am easily swayed by the hint of danger in foreign countries. I am reevaluating that decision to leave from my office chair, but hey, I did what I thought was the right thing to do. If I hadn’t left, then I wouldn’t have stayed the night at a sweet place in La Ceiba and eaten the best fish of my life there. In between now and then, I spent some time in Fayetteville and Hot Springs with friends and family, and am now city slickin in Washington D.C. I took an internship with Ducks Unlimited, and that is where I currently sit. As I age, I feel like complaining has become more of a habit than it used to be, and I just don’t like it. This internship, not the best – the days crawl, and I mean crawl by, because there is nothing for us to do. There are too many interns in a place with not enough to do, so we try to engage each other by having mini debates and making fun of Michael’s Justin Bieber hair. Hey, it could be much much worse as far as internships go, but seriously, I’m 23 and a damn intern. Not. Okay. I came here to find a job. “Don’t come home without a job” was Nick’s little catchphrase. Welp everyone, I still don’t have a job.

Finding a job here in D.C. has been something I eat, sleep, and breathe. I am a cover letter writing machine and I pump those resumes out like a mad person. I had one job interview, and it went really well. Well enough that I didn’t get the job. However, I did get the “we LOVEDDD you so much, if ANYTHING else comes open would you consider it?” speech. Apparently that is the customary, you suck, try again speech and I just don’t realize it.

Crazy things happen in this town. Every. Single. Day. Today for example some crazy woman starts screaming in my ear while I am trying to enjoy my mediocre sandwich. She says “Obama deserves to die! He is the reason that I am a prostitute on 4th and L. He is black just like the pimp I work for. Fuck Obama!” Alright, sorry about your luck, could you not scream in my face? Thanks you crazy bitch.

Ashton tells me this story the other day – so she’s walking down the street and gets hassled by some man in a wheelchair for money. She says hey so sorry, I don’t have any cash. He says oh no problem, have a nice day, enjoy your legs. He has none. How in the world do you respond to that?

During my housing search I go check out a place in Logan Circle and make a silly comment about how the house looks exactly like a house from a scary movie with it’s “old charm.” The owner looks at me and says “well, my boys have told me that they have seen, um, little ghost children.” Me: “Uh, are you serious?” Owner: “Yes, but I’ve never seen them, so don’t worry about it.” I’ll pass, thanks.
This story is my favorite, the icing on the cake if you will. My DC roommate, Ashton and I have run into a sort of unfortunate situation here in D.C. We had a place for a month and then had to move out suddenly. We thought hey, no worries, we’ll live in a hotel for a bit until we find a place. That was in June. It is now July 22 and we are still in a hotel. We have lived in 3 different rooms in 2 different hotels. En route to our current hotel room, Ashton and I are moving our own luggage from the lobby to the 8th floor. We have a large amount of stuff, including our house stuff from the last place. The cart is big and heavy and the elevator is not so big. We get the cart jammed in the door and spaghetti noodles and a bottle of oil spill out. There are two girls, probably a few years younger than us, sharing the elevator with us. They are quiet at first and just observe mine and Ashton’s … outburst if you will. We are tired, frustrated, and sick to death of being in a hotel, so the string of obscenities that came out when our groceries hit the floor and the cart got stuck weren’t pretty. The two girls offer their assistance and follow us out onto our floor. They look at each other and say…”Can we join hands?”
Um, what? Yes, join hands. I needed a prayer, so hey, let’s do this. This so called prayer turned into a two to three minute long crazy speech with one girl speaking and the other girl moaning “oh lord” porn star style. Imagine the most awkward situation possible and you can understand how hard I was trying not to laugh. My lip had blood on it from biting it so hard. True story. After the prayer, one girl tries to force Ashton and I to take clothes from her. She pulls an H&M bag out from her purse and says “While we were praying, God told me to give you these clothes. I don’t want to, but he said I have to.” This turned into a five minute barter session of..here’s why I don’t want your clothes you random crazy girl. As Ashton and I are carting our luggage to our room, one yells down the hall at us – “Pay attention to your dreams tonight!” Scary.