Looking for excitement? Philosophical conversation? A free beer or six? Grab a good book, hoist a travel mug full of coffee, don a ruggedly handsome face and a thick pair of legs, and saunter on over to Dupont circle when the weather's fair and the breeze is fresh.
I was sitting on a bench when a fellow approached and sat down. Moments later, he apologized for blowing smoke in my face--I hadn't even noticed, due to the cleansing wind--and stood up. Shortly after, he engaged me in conversation--small talk. Sports, girls, marriage, my open book, anything that came to mind.
I was just beginning to lose interest and yearning to get back to my reading when he offered to buy me a beer. I didn't need to look at my watch to know it was hardly beer-thirty, but I acquiesced anyway, despite the warning klaxons screaming in my head.
Shut up, I scolded, there's no way this guy can do anything to you against your will. Better watch out for roofies though, my afterthought added.
I figured I'd go to a bar, sip a drink, and leave to scoop my lovely lady from work. No harm, no foul.
The first bar we entered was an Irish pub where, to my embarrassment (and moderate relief) I discovered I had exchanged my ID for my visitor's pass, and I was without age-verification.
Undeterred, Chuck led the way to the next bar. Same story: No ID, no drink.
Instead, we went to a liquor store, where I picked out an IPA. No sense in wasting a perfectly good opportunity. After all, Chuck instructed me to pick Whatever I Wanted. (In the bar, my first instinct had been to go for Chivas. Chuck had opted for vodka/cranberry--yet another dead giveaway.)
Sixpack in hand, I accompanied Chuck back to the grassy traffic circle where I poured a bottle into my emptied coffee mug and proceeded to drink in public. He told me about his musical career. The conversation was wholesomely bro-ish, and I felt in no way threatened. I guess he just liked to hear philosophy and bullshit from a strapping young straight guy.
As we parted ways--I toward a pair of beautiful bouncy breasts and flowing, herbal-scented hair, and he toward whatever he had planned for the rest of the day--Chuck got a phone call. He said it was a Marine whose Marine wife had just been sent to Iraq. The guy wanted Chuck to pick up some weed and join him for a sordid sodomitic romp in the Pentagon...

Now and then there comes a time in everyone's life when he finds himself in a position in which he would never wish to be.
Just this weekend, I was in a Metro station when all of a sudden I had an urgent need to unload. Struggling through the turnstile with my bulky bags, I asked the location of the nearest restroom. Perhaps sensing my urgency, the guard slowly responded, "Sure, right there at the end of the hall."
Expecting a run-of-the-mill public facility, I hurried toward what looked like a cross between a '50s concept mobile home and a space shuttle. After I lurched inside, the door hissed shut once I located and thumbed the heat-seeking button.
Convenient metal hooks accepted my luggage, and a sign suggested I press another heat button to access the toilet seat. It slid out from the wall dripping water and smelling faintly of industrial cleanser. At least I would be spared the hassle of wrestling with one of those paper seat covers which invariably stick embarrassingly to ones cheeks. I dropped my shorts and sat.
Across the room, a sign proclaimed, "Time limit: 10 mins. If amber light begins to flash, exit immediately." Below the unlit warning light were the words, "Wash Cycle."
I finished my business and turned to the toilet paper dispenser. It too featured a heat-sensing button, which I pushed. Expecting a quick whir and the appearance of several sheets of toilet tissue, imagine my dismay when nothing happened. I thumbed the button again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
Fighting panic, I glanced at the amber warning light which remained mercifully dark. How much time had elapsed? How many minutes had I left?
Fortunately, being a writer in perpetual possession of paper afforded me an uncomfortable and somewhat chafed out. Scrambling to tear sheets from my notebook, cursing colorfully all the while, I wondered what would happen if I were still seated when the Wash Cycle began. Would I drown? Would I be clean?
Finally I finished and washed my hands several times, lurching out of the box in the nick of time.
For all its technological wonder, the space-age shitter had one fatal flaw: it required a human to refill the toilet paper.

What is it with girls? What goes on in those pretty heads of theirs? It really bothers me that their insanity affects me so deeply. I can't quite figure out just why I'm so interested that I'm willing to deal with such back and forth, up and down, twisting spiraling impossible-to-figure-out madness. It seems to me that it should be easy enough to just let go and move on, but I'm somehow stuck.

Women wield a kind of weird power, and it really gives me an appreciation for priests and monks and hermits. Now that I think about it, uninterrupted solitude and disinterest in women might not be a bad way to be.

Egad, has it come to this? Lipstick? Puhleez. I think we've had enough of this smear campaign shit--and I do not mean that as another goddamn lipstick pun. Why can't they just play straight? Why does it have to come down to playground tactics?
Come on! We're gonna go squeeze glue on his seat--want to come along?
Right. Count me out.

I can't sleep. There's been a lot on my mind today, right from the moment I awoke. The rest of the day passed paradoxically in a stand-still sort of way. It seemed I could no longer convince myself that time existed. I was entirely too aware of the instant and the fact that any sense of time we have is merely a construct of memory, a chain of instants strung together to give a semblance of continuity.
I wonder what causes such days. There are a couple issues I can think of that might have led to the odd feeling of today. But it couldn't be any one thing, right? Or maybe my mind is just too focused on what I'm missing that it suddenly became aware of its fleeting existence and overwhelming insignificance.
Today I floated through the universe, stuck in the instant, and the whole day had a nightmarish quality. Usually I enjoy my awareness of How Things Are, but today, it just seemed downright wrong.
However, I did enjoy myself with a book and a good cigar, so I wasn't unhappy. I just don't have to words to accurately or adequately describe the day. I just hope tomorrow isn't the same. I need a rest from it.
I also feel much farther than normal from the one I love, and I'm wondering if it's already starting to crumble...