here are the ways i've been spending my free time in DC:

-bike rides into downtown on the capitol crescent trail, which is about 20 kms each way

-visit to some of the european embassies when they all were having their open house day

-airshow! a few weekends ago, the nearby air force base put on an airshow, and i went both days. and it was so awesome. i love airshows. fighter jets (when they're not actually fighting anything) and magic shows are the two things that make me instantly giddy. i know it's trashy. the people narrating the performances made a TON of super pro-american, pro-military, crazy statements (like a pilot, saying over the radio from his cockpit as he spun through the air, "i'm about to say the three best words in the english language: god bless america!" and the woman narrating a helicopter demonstration saying (in a thick southern accent), "these, folks, are the people who protect our great american way of life"). good lord. i think there needs to be some deep, critical thought about whether the "american way of life" is even worth protecting. but i've got to admit, the rhetoric was almost convincing when it was coupled with the awesomeness of some of those jets and little planes. have you ever seen or heard about a harrier jet? it can STOP in the air, BACK UP, turn 360 degrees while hovering in one spot, and glide from side to side. i know it's MOSTLY just a useless trick (unless, of course, they have to take off and land somewhere that there is no runway... and a helicopter isn't around to do the same job...) and a huge waste of fuel, but... it was totally awesome. i went by myself the first day, and i met up with my new friend bryson there the second day. i ate hamburgers and drank coke and got a sunburn and just had a good time being a little more irresponsible (health-wise and intellectually) than normal.

-film festival! there's a place in arlington (just across the river from DC, and still easily accessible by metro or bike) that is showing 90s movies for free on an inflatable screen in a park on friday nights. i've gone once so far--to see "wayne's world," which i had never seen before--and i've been meaning to go since then but it keeps getting rained out. i'm hoping the next few fridays will be sunny so that the movies can be shown.

-new york trip! there are a couple bus companies that sell $1, one-way bus tickets between DC and new york. i went two weekends ago to hang out with my friend robin, who was leading RDC students on an art tour there. i mostly hung out in chelsea, but i did manage to sneak in a bike ride around central park. i'm going back to the city again this weekend, so hopefully i'll be able to spend a bike more time biking around manhattan. oh, and i also watched exit through the gift shop. it was really good, but also sort of

made me feel yucky in my stomach. you should watch it.

-tours of the capitol building and library of congress! at the latter, i saw one of the only three remaining full copies of the gutenberg bible printed on vellum (there are a number of other ones that are printed on paper). at the capitol building, the tour guide talked about how the painter of one of the murals on the inside of the dome (just under the windows in this picture) slipped while he was painting, and managed to grab onto something as he slipped, but had to just dangle in the air for 15 minutes until somebody saved him. yikes. he quit after that, and somebody else had to finish the mural. that day made me feel kind of strange, though. it's funny (in a strange way, not a hilarious way) to hear perspectives on "freedom"/democracy/history from some of these "official" institutions. the more i think about it, the formation of governments in "the new world" was just so ill-conceived. i mean, i don't necessarily think people had bad intentions (although some did). it just blows my mind that a bunch of men, with not much of a common background or a ton of knowledge/experience with how people work, just got together and decided how things would be run. someone has recommended that i read eric wolf's "europe and the people without history." i haven't read it yet, but i'm going to go ahead and recommend it to everyone else anyway. i think the western world's lack of a common history is probably what has created many of our biggest problems. ugh, that's so vague. let's talk about this in person instead. but on a similar, mind-blowing note, it was interesting to be in the library of congress and be re-immersed in a place that had such reverence for the written word. my native studies degree, and the work i've been involved/interested in regarding indigenous languages, sometimes really questions and even criticizes the value of the written word. my two degrees - english and native studies - sometimes feel conflicting. it was just nice to be back in the mindframe i was in when i did my english degree, i guess. i don't read a ton of books, mostly because i am too restless and because i just read so much academic lit. that i don't have the mental energy for more reading, but i miss talking/thinking about how wonderful literature is. hmm. i might edit this post later, because i am tired and this is not expressing exactly what i mean for it to say. but i thought i should post anyway, because i haven't for a while.