Public toilets, part ew ...

In the Starbuck’s bathroom, where I was (sadly) inspired to write this blog, I came upon a distressing attachment to the paper-towel dispenser.

There was a sticker placed just below the “All employees must wash their hands before returning to work” sign (see earlier blog for my thoughts haha). The sticker showed frame-by-frame directions on how one goes about washing their hands.

You start with water, add soap (for 20 seconds), rinse, possibly repeat, and dry.

Any Starbuck’s employee who needs to have this spelled out so carefully should not be in charge of legalized drugs and calorie-induced syrups. Not only are they forced to incorrectly pronounce words like “grande” and “macchiato”, but the management of Starbucks adds insult to injury by assuming that their employees do not have the mental capacity to understand how to clean their own skankified hands.

Next thing you know there will be signs instructing people how to use a toilet.

Where has our education system failed us? Maybe it should be NCLDB (No Child Left a Dirty Behind) …

The Vortex

The vortex is the cafeteria on campus - the epicenter of Gallaudet University's social life.

It is interesting to see how the groups divide: the undergraduate students take the tables near the entrance (and divide into subgroups of residential and mainstream students), the international students occupy about 2 or 3 tables near the center of the room, the post-20s students are often near the TVs, and the hearing student groups are usually on the second floor.

On a campus of 2,000 (or less) students, we still find ways to segregate ourselves. Even under the banner of deafness (or at least an interest in deafness), the hunt for division and inclusion is obvious.

It is natural and usually healthy to try and find those who are similar to you; with an identity comes stability and a sense of significance. Being aware of this tendency does not mean you won't fall prey to it, sadly.

Last Friday I broke the vortex longest-chat record. I sat with friends for over 4 hours. We were all white, all in our mid-20s, and all hearing.

I'm so predictable. I even sat on the second floor.

Murky's Coffee

Murky's (7th and Pennsylvania SE) is the quiet alternative to Starbucks. It has all that you would expect from a coffee shop: well-dressed professional men who make it a point to lay out all of their technological gadgets, office-type ladies who insist on wearing skirts in 35 mph winds, and backpacking college students like me who are eager for their legal drug of choice.

Murky's has a simple sign on its patio: "Serving the people of Washington with the best damn cup of coffee possible". I was pleased to find that an expletive had found its way into their marketing campaign.

What was even more pleasing was ordering my cup of java. Instead of saying "tall" (and receiving something that is anything but tall), I could get by with an easy "small coffee, please".

If you're ever up for a good time, ask one of the employees at Starbucks what "venti" means. It's like handing them a Rubik's cube. I once suggested to my coffee artiste that venti might mean 20 ounces, especially since venti is Italian for twenty.

He scoffed and informed me that it actually meant extra-large.

So what the hell do I know?

Sad shades of purple

There’s nothing more terrible than getting lost. What’s even worse is getting lost when you are the lead car of a caravan.

I was walking down Florida Avenue this weekend when I noticed a long string of cars ignore the red light and plow through a busy intersection. The front car had a flashing purple light attached to the hood, and for a moment I thought it was a gay right’s parade gone lazy (hey, heels are tough after a mile!).

Instead it was a colorful funeral en route to the cemetery or funeral home.

Naturally I felt sad for the person that had passed and his or her family. However, this period of reflection and pensiveness was soon replaced by mild amusement when the entire caravan made a big U-turn and headed back down Florida.

The driver of the lead car eventually pulled over, got out of his flashy fairy-mobile, and began to say one or two unpleasant words to some poor sap on his cell phone. I had a feeling they were not arguing about the hearse’s décor.

How humiliating … especially since lavender isn’t even a winter color …

HairCuttery

The name HairCuttery alone should send any 25-year-old gay man screaming and running in the opposite direction (desperately crying out Salon! Salon!), yet unfortunately we are operating on a students budget which means no-flair-hair-care. The lovely ladies and gentlemen of the HC will get the job done for a mere $16 plus tip.

The setup is simple: you walk in, tell them your name, and wait to be called on. It is a lot like the DMV everyones there for the same reason but you all pretend you got there by accident, there are about 20 different languages being spoken by about 8 people, and although you know its something you have to do you would much rather be sipping tea at the gay Starbucks just down the road.

HC is the McDonalds of the beauty industry. It is easy in, easy out. There are about 20 stylists on staff, mostly women, with swivel chairs packed tightly into 2 rooms on Connecticut Avenue. Their business is to cut, shave, and sweep. I asked my stylist, Mesi, if fries came with my stop-and-chop; I dont think she understood me.

There is a certain thrill that accompanies explaining how you would like your hair to be cut to someone holding a large pair of scissors and an uncomfortable control of the English language. I have to get my kicks somewhere

After much confusing debate, Mesi and I agreed upon the number 3 for the sides of my head, and she went about shaving me with the delicacy of a sheep shearer. I dont think I will ever look at cotton the same way again.

Chevy's

Chevys is a nice Mexican restaurant just across the street from the Pentagon City Mall (or Fashion Centre, whichever you prefer). Its fairly cheap, open, colorfully designed, and has what you would expect on the menu from a chips-and-salsa joint.

I do not consider myself a high-maintenance restaurant diner; however, if menu items are to come with so many fancy frills and decorations then I will exercise my right to make sure these options are to my liking. I was not trying to be difficult

I love cheese. The saturated fat content of cheese does not like me. Therefore, I ordered my Fresh Market Quesadillas without cheese, to counterbalance the enormous amount of fat I plugged into my thighs with an entire basket of canola-fried tortilla chips.

What I did not realize was that the queso of quesadilla is Spanish for cheese, and is basically the glue that holds the tortilla and et cetera together.

The waiter was puzzled but compliant.

Upon realizing my mistake (and enduring the ridicule of my friends who had not elected to take French in highschool), I asked my patient waiter if we could put the queso back in quesadilla.

Apparently I had caused some confusion in the kitchen and I was too late (I imagined the chef standing wide-eyed with two tortillas in his open hands while he wondered Just what the hell do I do now?!). My only option at this stage was to have a side of cheese, meaning a dilla with a side of queso. So, I made my cama and laid in it.

It would be like ordering a cheesecake without the cheese

Public toilets

“May I use your restroom please?”

“Certainly – it’s just down the hall on your left.”

I have noticed a recent trend, or requirement by law, that bars, restaurants, and even MRI testing facilities must post signs in their bathrooms to inform their patrons of how clean a joint they operate.

You know the sign: “Employees must wash hands before returning to work.”

So … where is the sign that says: “EVERYONE must wash their friggin’ hands before returning to anywhere!”

Not so much for the ladies, but come on guys … would you shake hands with your own mother after shaking hands with the mayor?

I certainly hope not … do us all a favor and clean up after your business.

MRI.2

There are a lot of Freudian-like comments I can make about having an MRI, but I will leave all of that to your own imagination.

This experience was very different from the first; I was inserted head-first after the technician put a grated mask around my face.

“It’s like Silence of the Lambs,” I said.

“Yeah, I haven’t heard that one before,” he curtly replied.

And so he left me for about 30 minutes in the tube to think about how unoriginal I was. I had been told it would take 45 minutes for a complete head scan. When challenged, my new technician friend told me that he had “cut it short”. What?!

However, the worst enemy of the day was not the technician or my lack of creative humor. It was, in fact, my own body. Broccoli, my post-digestion nemesis, made a surprise sneak-attack while I was strapped down and instructed not to move a muscle. Mind you, I was in a poorly ventilated tube with the diameter of about 2 feet.

If my humor didn’t knock ‘em dead, asphyxiation sure would.

Brickskellar's

Brickseller’s is a sweet little pub/bar on 22nd near Dupont Circle. What really sells this bag of bricks is its enormous offering of beer from all over the world.

I’m still not entirely sure how many they boast (anything over 5 is impressive to me), but the menu goes on for a good dozen pages with tasty brews from Algeria to Zulu. There’s also a decent list of pub foods, although I can only comment on the spinach-artichoke dip (their bread is de-lovely).

The atmosphere is perfect for either a quick burger or an after-dinner chat with friends (cozy, quiet music, not too much smoke yay!). Every crook and cranny is decorated with international beer cans and advertisements, a reassuring affirmation that the joys of beer have reached even the farthest corners of the globe.

Hooray beer !!!

MRI

So having an MRI done is like being born again (one might question the acronym as really meaning Mother Rejects Infant). There I was, laid out on my back, being injected and rejected into this not-so-massive tube (someone find the tongs!). I half expected the technician to pull me up by my legs and give me a swift smack on my buttocks. I asked her if that was a perk of my co-pay, and she was not amused.

I asked the woman what they did if they had grossly overweight people in the MRI chamber. She explained that the hoisting table could lift a 350-pound person, although the distribution of their girth may affect their ability to be inserted into the tube. Holy crap!

Luckily, though, there is an MRI somewhere in the DC Metro area that can lift up to a 500-pound person. I assume that this MRI station is also used when Barnum and Bailey come to town.

a lady just for me ...

“This is my nephew, David. He’s a student at Gallaudet University and a real great guy!”

“Well! I wish we had a nice young lady here for you, son. Hardy-har-har …”

I attended my first church choir practice in about 8 years last night with my aunt in Delaware. Delaware equals a lot of really old white people who pronounce their “o” a little funny, and who “ooh” and “aah” over anything that comes through the door that was born after Vietnam.

The choir director’s remark (above) was ironic considering how flaming he was himself. But it really stuck with me that people make immediate judgments on who and what you are and, more importantly, who and what you like.

I’m a white middle-class 25-year-old man, so I must be just finishing school and looking for a noble yet boring career while modestly cruising the dating scene looking for a wife to support my 2.3 children, a golden retriever, and a white picket fence. Right?

I remember a friend of mine saying something similar to a 7-year-old boy at a Christmas party recently. She said, “Well, girls are only impressed if boys have their rooms cleaned you know.” The comment was innocent enough, but think of all the socialized information packed into that sentence. At 7 that boy is conditioned to think that normalcy means liking girls, whether his body is telling him that or not.

Greyhound

Yesterday I took the Greyhound for the first time. My friend Nate insists that it is actually two separate words, “Grey” and “Hound”, “grey” to mean slow and dim-witted and “hound” to mean a dopey mutt … I think we’ve hit on an appropriate definition.

Actually it wasn’t bad at all. For $20 you can get from DC to Wilmington (10 points to anyone who knows why this city is of worth), about 111 miles, and 2.5 hours of cellphone yapping and wondering why the driver is incased in a bulletproof all-glass enclosure.

For an additional $25 you can take a taxi ride through downtown Wilmington for approximately 4 miles for 10 minutes while listening to the lifestory of a man from Connecticut. Somehow the math just doesn’t add up.

So are taxi drivers really narcissistic? Do they like to hear themselves chatter? Do they have their entire speech laid out and ready for each rider? Do they condense/expand their story depending on the length of the client’s ride?

And how do you respond to a complete stranger telling you about how he buried his brother 3 weeks ago in Florida? Where did I put my counseling hat???

Halo

So despite its seemingly snobby facade, Halo on P Street is actually quite nice. I spent the last bit of Saturday night getting fairly tipsy (this is my polite way of saying totally smashed) off of mudslides (shutup - they taste good, what can I say).

Halo is SMOKE FREE and so my clothes don't smell like a camel this morning (5 bucks to anyone who gets it). I deem Halo my bar of choice for a decent night out, plenty of tasty boys, oh and free Lifesaver mints on your way out. Seems that place is all about fresh breath on so many levels ...