Do I Look Like a Terrorist?!
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Butthole Surfers
I was just in DC for a conference right before President Bush's second inaugurational festivities (if they can be called that)... I was staying at the Capitol Hyatt which is right across the street from the Capitol building. In fact, my room had a ROCKING view of the Capitol...well, from about ? of the way up to the top, but still...it counts.

Anywho, the weather in DC was amazing. I go to DC a lot on business and usually it is miserable and when I say miserable, I mean truly crappy. The average is low 20s and blustery. Give me snow. Give me minus 10. Just don't give me cold combined with a bone chilling wind that cuts right through you. It makes a cold day in San Francisco feel like a summer day in Havana without the cigars...you get my point. But as usual, I digress.

So the weather is unseasonably gorgeous in the high 60s, sunny and clear. I am across the street from our nation's Capitol so I decide to take my Starbuck's Venti black iced coffee (I am just SO not the frappaccino, mochachino, latte, frothy coffee beverage kind of girl) and my Washington Post across the street to camp out on the Capitol lawn. Think about it. It's a beautiful day in our nation's capitol. I wanted to just chill and watch DC life traverse by me as I enjoyed the day.

I forgot one thing in my simple plan for the morning: DC was gearing up for an inauguration. As in security galore. As in a chick with long blonde streaked hair, wearing red, velour hip hugger sweatpants and a black Thunder Cats t-shirt wearing 4" flip flops crashed out on the Capitol lawn with a huge coffee and a paper observing the day apparently is considered a possible security concern. Maybe it was the Atomic Snowboard sweatshirt with the skulls that made them wonder if I was a terrorist (all the Shiite Methodists wear them you know). All I do know for certain was that in the 3 hours I camped out, I had numerous members of the Capitol Police come by and ask me various renditions of the same questions about how I was and what I was doing. I came close to indulging in my normal smart ass self with responses like "Just trying to figure out the best angle to fire my shoulder-launched missile from officer"...but came up short prior to doing so when, as happenstance would have it, I glimpsed sharp shooters moving about the tops of the surrounding buildings--and when I mean the surrounding buildings, I mean fricking ALL of them. Even I, the smart ass that I am, realized that an off the cuff joke might mean detention or worse, a full body cavity search, so for once I shut the hell up.

Hey dad--yes, I can stop talking...thank you very little...