Day 339 - October 5th

I'm going to skip straight to the fun part of the day because all I did Sunday morning was sleep, read the New Yorker and pretend to write. It feels good to be lazy for a while but eventually I have to get out and do something. I rode the metro downtown to meet up with Matthew again. He'd just finished studying with a group and we picked up a sixer of Flying Dog-Old Scratch to commemorate our days in Barcelona. We often met up in Plaça del Sol to pick up a six pack of Estrella and drink in the nighttime streets with the locals. In the most important ways it was no different here in America except it was day and we brought our beer to the plaza outside the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where Matthew attends. Enroute we managed to snag Matt's friend Dafé, a Canadian transplant from Montreal who, judging from all the anecdotes I heard, can often be found at the center of their grad school shenanigans. Dafé had been planning to re-enter the library but when he saw us approaching with beer, the perfect study of resignation crossed his features. He knew he wasn't going to get any more work done today.

As we broke into our second bottles, Chelsey walked out of the library, hungover from all the studying for midterms. She joined us and drank half of Matt's second beer. The three of us managed to convince her to abandon her studies and explore Georgetown with us. First we went to Chelsey's brownstone so she could drop off her things. The interior was classical, decorated with paintings and classical music pouring out of a speaker I couldn't locate. Before setting off, we made mimosas of stale champagne and drank them on the back porch. I think 4 people is the right group size for a chemically correct social group. This allows you to pair off in conversation , switching between the main group and the person at your side. Multiple conversations can exist this way in the context of the larger and you pick up the thread of these private duets as you weave along the streets or when you sit together on the bus. We rode the bus to Georgetown and strolled to the Potomac river, our friendship growing with every hour that passed. A bar beckoned to us and we hit the happy hour Margaritas. Our bartender was snarky and hilarious and I struck up a good rapport with her. We got chips and salsa for free and as I chatted more with her and her other bartender friend they learned about the walk. They later sent me a double shot of tequila and lime on the house.

Hunger set in as the drinks elevated us and we set out in search of sustenance. We were tipped off about a half-price pizza special tonight but it turned out to be a false lead. However, the pizza joint did have arcade games. I don't know how it was decided but we wound up playing a Big Game Hunter old-style arcade shooter which had terribad sighting so we always missed the target. We switched over to that one game where you roll the wooden balls up a slope into different holes that vary in value. This turned out to be a huge hit and we played several rounds as we sipped on whiskey-ginger ales. My ability to comprehend Time slipped up and all was liquid so I don't know exactly how long we stayed there but we realized at some point that we were all ravenous. Shake Shack, a local burger joint, was proposed and we stormed the place. I ordered whatever Dafé got and my burger was the most delicious thing in the entire world. Drunk dining is a marvelous state of being. I haven't had such a fun drunk night in a long while. It made me a bit nostalgic for college.

I made it home on the metro easily. I've a fair head for internal navigation these days.

A blurry photo of Dafé and Chelsey at the Shake Shack. Good times.

Us at the pizza place with whiskey ginger ales.