I went to my erstwhile hometown of Washington, DC this past weekend to attend my friend Maggie’s wedding. It was quite fun and more than a little trippy, considering we’ve known each other since we were five years old and went all the way from Kindergarten through high school together.

Photos of the wedding and some of my wanderings around DC will be forthcoming when I stop being so goddamn lazy about getting stuff up on Flickr, but I wanted to post a few scenes that stuck out in my mind about my trip:

• I’d totally forgotten about the People Movers at Dulles. Seriously, you feel like you’re riding in a time capsule. They’re gone in a few weeks though – When I left I saw them doing test runs of the new train system that will transport everyone between terminals in a more standard fashion.

• The guy working for the woeful Nationals who was at Union Station when I went to meet Jill, practically begging people to come to some of the rest of the games. He got shooed away from the entrance by security.

• Checking out the Air and Space Museum with Jill for the first time in about 10 years, and definitely the first time since I became a major space geek. I practically had a nerdgasm over the Apollo 11 Command Module. I also could not believe how freakishly small the Mercury capsule was. It’s one thing to read about it, it’s another to look at the capsule and wonder how anyone could get in it buck naked, let alone with a spacesuit on.

• Realizing how much DC has changed. And I mean REALLY changed. I came of age at one of the city’s low points, having one of my very first political memories being the mayor getting arrested for smoking crack and then the subsequent mayor proving even more incompetent at managing the city than a convicted crackhead. The city was just beginning to pull itself out of what was basically a death spiral when I left for college in 1999.

  There’s been a great deal of “urban renewal” in the ten years since I fled, and the difference, particularly along the U Street corridor, is jaw-dropping. Areas where my parents used to freak out that I was going to get shot during broad daylight are now yuppie-filled and almost unrecognizably nice. I half-jokingly texted another friend from high school who fled that “Everything is now postmodern, gentrified, and/or unnecessarily huge.”

• Mom, who I was staying with, spent two solid days bitching at me about how I was going to be so deeply under-dressed for a wedding in a black jacket, black slacks, and a red shirt, when it turned out I was hilariously overdressed, as the groomsmen weren’t even wearing ties.

• This was the smallest wedding I’ve been to in a while, I think with about 40 people, tops. I think the only smaller one I’ve been to was my dad’s wedding to my stepmom, which was literally only family. I must say, it was nice since it meant I actually got to have a couple conversations with the bride, who I hadn’t seen in person in several years.

• Going out for drinks with Weigel after dinner Saturday and having a friend of a friend of his turn out to be one of the presenters of a BBC podcast I listen to all the time who was in DC on assignment for six months. It was hilarious, I recognized her voice immediately. She said it was the first time she’d met someone who actually listened to the podcast.

• Sunday brunch with another pair of folks who I hadn’t seen in a few years – one friend from when we were little kids and another from high school, both of whom I’d gotten back in touch with via Facebook. I suppose falling out of touch can happen when you only go to your hometown about once every four years for 2-3 days.

Anyway, overall it was a great trip, and while I was also reminded of several reasons why I don’t spend a lot of time there, I’m really glad I went. As I said, pictures to come.

And now, I’m going to San Diego, where instead of arguing with friends over the merits and possible length of the writers’ strike, I’m going to go hang out with my mother for a day.

Whee!

I’ve never watched The Sopranos. I could never get into it. My mom, however, loves it, and since she’s here helping me with my foot, I sort of half-assedly watched the finale.

As the screen went black and she realized they’d ended it where they had, she said something that I’m sure must have come out of many a Sopranos fan’s mouth:

“Oh, those fuckers!”

And now, to watch John From Cincinnati and see exactly how big a cocksucker Milch is for ditching the best show ever for this piffle.

Edited to add: So, is John supposed to be autistic? Or were they just trying so hard for “blank slate” that they wound up completely and terribly overshooting?

A few odds and ends before I disappear into Foot Surgery Land tomorrow:

- Disgusting double-entendre of the day.

- CBS resurrected Jericho, which makes me happy because I enjoyed how insanely ridiculous that show was. I was not enough of a fan to send unsolicited tons of peanuts to CBS, but still, it’s nice to know the show will live to create even more egregious plot holes.

- Mom’s here to help me out with the first couple post-surgical days when I’ll be doped to the gills, which will be helpful. However, mom snores REALLY loud. I’d forgotten about that.

- I have to be at the surgery center tomorrow at 5:45am, so I’m getting up at 5. Between mom snoring and Chaplin yowling, I don’t think they’re even going to have to give me a sedative to get me back to sleep.

So the surgery is taking place Thursday, June 7th, or 364 days after I first hurt this bad boy, or one day before my birthday.

The good news is that I will be on some very excellent drugs for my birthday. Nothing I wanted more this year than to be high as a kite! Well, perhaps that this would have gotten better months ago like it should have, but I digress.

Mom, who I’d managed to hold off from coming so far, has taken over dad’s traditional role of Helpful but Overreacting Parent, and is coming out for the surgery.

It will likely take me until she gets here to get this place clean enough to prevent her from having a heart attack at the sight of it on arrival. And she’ll still say “God, this place is filthy!” no matter how long I spend cleaning it.