Sorry my posts are turning this blog into ihatemyroommate.com, but...

... I have had such a weird morning, and it's not even 9 a.m.

As you know, I share a bathroom with a roommate I alternately call The Thing, or The Flatulent One, or That Lump of Flesh. This bathroom connects to my room through my closet, so if I leave the door between my room and closet open I can see if the light is on in the bathroom without leaving my bed. There are two downsides to this: a. I can more clearly hear the cacophony of his morning noises and b. this was how I discovered that he now chooses to shower in the dark, which totally creeps me out.

This morning I awoke at 8 a.m. and desired a trip to the W.C. But there was not only a strip of light shining beneath the bathroom door, I could hear that the fan was on. "That's odd," I thought to myself. "The Thing hasn't gotten up before 9 any day this week (aside: I think he's been laid off/fired), and he's up at 8 on a Saturday morning? Hmm." Thinking that normal humans might forget to turn off the light or the fan, but not both, when leaving the bathroom, I had little reason to believe he wasn't actually in there. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, after a half-hour I pressed my ear up to the door and, upon hearing nothing but the whir of the fan, knocked. Nada. Fearing he might be passed out on the floor in a pool of his own vomit and excrement, I hesitantly opened the door. No one in there. WTF.

After checking my email and usual news sites, I decided to take The Good Roommate up on an offer to watch his copy of Enemy of the State, which was housed in a bookshelf in the living room. As I exited my room, a larger-than-usual opening of the curtains in The Thing's room caught my eye (aside: The Thing lives in what is supposed to be a sun room, with sliding glass doors separating it from the main living area. He has long curtains up for his privacy). I could see he wasn't in his bed. "That's odd," I thought to myself. "Where could he have gone so early on a Saturday morning? Perhaps he never came home. Could he possibly be with a lady friend?" Chuckling to myself with the high unlikeliness of that being even remotely true, I walked across the living room and scanned the movie titles until I found what I was looking for.

I heard some rustling behind me. Figuring it was just the pipes creaking or the air turning on or off, I ignored it. Then I heard some distinctly human noises. I turned around and there he was, struggling to prop himself up on the couch. Not for the first time, and probably not even close to the last, a scream caught in my throat upon seeing him (aside: Sometimes I'll be watching TV, thinking I'm alone in the apartment, when I'll catch him staring at me, his face seemingly floating in a crack of the curtains of his room. Once I was straightening my hair with the bathroom door open, and I saw his face bobbing around in the mirror. When I looked back, he had already scurried back to his room).

Not knowing what to do or say, which is often the case in my encounters with It, I wordlessly returned to my room, clutching Enemy of the State in my hand and wishing I didn't have one living in such proximity.

Gettin' medieval with it

Dana Milbank, my favorite Washington Post-er, had another extremely amusing edition of his "Washington Sketch" column in today's paper about Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey's waffling on whether waterboarding counts as torture.

Here are some of my favorite snippets:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition -- and few could have predicted it would play such a prominent role in Washington in 2007. As the United States fights the first war of the 21st century and nuclear weapons spread across the map, President Bush has managed to build a bridge to the 15th century -- by picking a fight with Congress over the use of a weapon perfected by Torquemada.

And this:

Americans, many of whom get their information about medieval torture from I want to be Dana Milbank when I grow up.

A bit more than a bump in the night

My Halloween was extremely tame. For the first time in memory, I didn’t don a costume. I didn’t see anyone with one, either, unless you count the halo headband California Sen. Barbara Boxer was fiddling with at an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing yesterday. (Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who also sits on the committee, was dressed as a lecherous old man, but it’s debatable whether it was a costume.)

I returned home after work and supped in my room as the lump of flesh I live with sprawled on the couch in front of the TV, as he is wont to do. I was a bit nervous about the means I would have to use to remove him from his constant perch so I could enjoy the two hours of programming I allow myself each Wednesday—“Pushing Daises” and “Gossip Girl.”

To my delight, however, one of The Thing’s never-present friends must have tempted him into some inbibery. He got into the shower (an activity he now enjoys in the dark), made his usual gurgles, belches and snorts, and then vacated the premises just in time for my first show.

Wink joined me for the second, as is our habit, and brought me some delightful treats. We sipped a solitary glass of vino each and then she left for the Metro. That was, I thought, the extent of my holiday celebrations.

BUT I THOUGHT WRONG! (Insert witchy laugh here)

In the middle of the night, 3 a.m. specifically, my eyes snapped open. Groggily wondering why on God’s green earth my body would choose to rouse me at that specific time, I suddenly heard what I assumed to be a troupe of ghosties and ghouls tramping through my living room.

As my mind cleared, I realized that it was The Flatulent One, banging and stomping about, cursing and drunkenly slurring threats to our furniture at the top of his lungs. Now, from the safety of my office chair, it seems a bit silly that I didn’t go out and slap him upside the head for disturbing my slumber.

But, dear reader, you must understand that I have often entertained the terrifying thought that one day this oaf will barge into my room during a drunken escapade and defile me. There was no way I was about to confront an angry drunkard twice my body mass and invite an assault on my person. Plus, the lock on my double doors is rendered useless by the slightest wind, which causes the doors to fly open.

It just wasn’t the time to risk getting the wrong response to “Trick or treat?”

I've been up and down the Hill so much I feel like Jill-- sans bucket

I think my favorite part of my job is going to hearings up on the Hill. I don’t care what they’re talking about; watching people in power interact is just fascinating. I especially like going to hearings in the Capitol building, which is just beautiful—from the murals on the ceilings to the mosaic tiling on the floor.

Today I went to a hearing of the House Rules Committee, one that I had hoofed all the way to the Hill for yesterday only to find it had been postponed. Today I discovered they had once again put off discussion on the bill I was there to cover to sometime next week, but I figured I’d stick around to hear a report from the Small Business Committee since I was there already.

The atmosphere in these hearings is enough to make someone with ADD scream for mercy. You’d think there would be some sense of decorum; it is, after all, a meeting of our nation’s leaders. But there are always people coming in and out of the room, banging the doors as they go about their business. The staffers seated behind their fearless leaders are nearly always chattering with each other, if not demanding said leader’s ear while people are testifying.

And everyone, I mean EVERYONE, is constantly on their Blackberries. There’s a near-constant hum in the room as vibrations from incoming messages demand attention. It's just rude.

Anyway, I’m ever-so-glad I chose to stick around today because I was lucky enough to witness some of the worst partisan bickering I’ve seen yet. The chair of the committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) got into a tiff with ranking member Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) over deadlines to submit bill amendments. Dreier was complaining that she roundly rejects Republican amendments for being as little as five minutes late.

Apparently her leadership of this powerful committee has rankled Republicans since she took the reins this session.

While Slaughter denied that she had a partisan motivation for rejecting amendments, Dreier kept up a constant drone of requesting to speak. When he finally got his chance he refused to look at anyone in the room in the eye, instead doodling in his notebook. I think this is what he was making.

Fears of My Life

Searching for inspiration for a blog post, which I haven't had in a disgustingly long time, I turned to something I remembered hearing on This American Life this summer called "Fears of Your Life." Author Michael Bernard Loggins went through an exhaustive list of everything he was afraid of, from the funny to the creepy to the poignant.

What follows, dear readers, are the fears I have experienced already today.

-Fear of sleeping through my alarm
-Fear of my gross roommate getting into the shower when I need to and making me late
-Fear of getting in the shower and realizing I'm out of shampoo
-Fear of seeing my gross roommate naked
-Fear of my gross roommate seeing me naked
-Fear of my pants being too short
-Fear of forgetting chapstick
-Fear of forgetting my keys and being locked out
-Fear of chemical-laced frozen food causing cancer
-Fear of dropping my wallet on the train tracks
-Fear of dropping my body on the train tracks
-Fear of tripping down escalators
-Fear of the heel of my shoe breaking off in the middle of the day
-Fear of birds pooping on my head
-Fear of people in my office I haven't yet met secretly despising me
-Fear of wildfires
-Fear of outer space
-Fear of my editor thinking I'm stupid
-Fear of smelling the way my kitchen does
-Fear of losing access to the Internet
-Fear of a flaw in my life plan

I'll add to this as the day continues. Fun game: leave comments about your fears.

Far, far ago, there was a meeting of the very boring people

My editor has been out of town the past two days, and the same woman who filled in for him my first two weeks and made me cry with frustration every night because my stories never seemed to get into the paper under her watch was back in control.

On Tuesday she had me go to a meeting our governor would be attending. I told her they wouldn't be talking about anything we cared about, but she wanted me to go anyway to get some quotes from the governor for another reporter's story. I sat through two and a half hours of excruciating boringness (the gov was even nodding off) and dutifully snagged an interview with him afterward. I sent his transcribed quotes back to the reporter, but in the morning I checked out his story and they were nowhere to be found.

That's Waste of Time numero uno.

Yesterday I went straight to cover a House subcommittee meeting in the morning because one of our congressmen sits on the parent committee. My fill-in editor thought they were talking about one thing, though I told her repeatedly they were talking about something entirely different. When I got back and told her that, like I thought, they didn't talk about what she wanted them to, she decided we didn't need a story about it.

That's Waste of Time numero dos.

When I returned to the office at 12:15 or so my coworker told me the powers that be wanted him to concentrate all his efforts on a story about another of our congressmen, so I was to go to a different subcommittee meeting in the afternoon he had been planning to cover. I barely had time to retrieve and eat lunch before leaving for this hearing, which started at 2. Forty-five minutes into it, before the guy I was there to cover had even testified, they took what became an hour-long break for floor votes. I didn't end up getting out of there until 4:35, landing back at the office at 5:10. I raced to file my story by 6 and was proud of myself for being successful.

This morning I searched my name on our website to read my story and see how it had been butchered. I couldn't find it. Instead I found a wire story on the hearing.

Yup. WoT #3.

So, in sum, I may as well have been dead these past two days.

Creepiest moment of my life

My roommate and I had a routine, or so I thought. He gets in the shower at 7:45, does God knows what until 8:20 (with various faucets running the whole time, mind you) and then gets to work by 8:30. Once I hear the front door slam shut, I then enter the shower, do my routine (which has never taken more than 15 minutes, even when I shave my legs and blow dry my hair) and hang around eating breakfast, reading news sites and whatever else until I must leave at 9:20.

But lately he's been throwing a wrench in that wheel. On Friday he didn't get into the shower until 8:25, meaning I didn't get in until 8:55, but by some miracle I still got to work before 10. This morning, since I didn't hear him go into the bathroom I showered at 8:15 as a precaution. Hearing no signs of life emanating from his room thereafter, I assumed he left for work before I got up or was perhaps on a business trip.

So there I was at 9:00, straightening my hair in the bathroom with the door wide open, singing a little song to myself in my blessed solidarity. But as I reached up for another hank of hair to tame, I glimpsed his face bobbing around in the mirror, staring at me.

Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.

Ode to CSPAN

Lately, the little television in the space between my desk and my boss’ has been tuned to CSPAN or one of its stepchildren (CSPAN 2 and CSPAN 3) more often than CNN. So instead of poorly produced infomercials for knives that can cut through whole buildings with a single slice and never dull, I’m treated to the theater of national politics.

And I find it highly, highly amusing.

When the sound is muted I enjoy looking at the expressions of people in the background of whatever’s being filmed. They obviously don’t know that the cameras covered in cloth so as to blend in with the wall hangings connect to a portal that broadcasts their mugging to every American astute enough to tune in to this glorious channel.

During the Patraeus reports, the channel was especially lively as members of antiwar group Code Pink repeatedly interrupted the proceedings to heckle senators as the committee chairman’s calls to order were fruitless. There was also that fun, 10 minute pause as the “report of the year” stalled when they tried to get Dave a microphone that worked.

The war stuff in general is just priceless because these politicians get SO worked up about it. This column in today’s Washington Post by Dana Milbank did an excellent job of painting an image of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.).

Check it:

"I am disappointed," Byrd said as if the witnesses were children. "This committee will not -- N-O-T, not! -- rubber-stamp every request." Theatrically, he drew out his words: "Trillionnnn." "Breathing roommmm."

After watching the proceedings yesterday, I think Byrd has become my favorite senator. And this information from Milbank’s column only stoked the fire for me:

In April, he had identified himself as "Popeye the Sailor Man" and delivered a 15-minute discussion of his dog at a Senate hearing. In June, he had found it necessary to deliver a speech on the Senate floor objecting to reports that "I am at death's door."

Justice!

It appears Natalie's plea was unsuccessful: the council said nay to her neigh. The townspeople rejoiced and drops of justice rained from the sky.

But Mom! I want a pony tooooooooo!

I just read THE most ridiculous article in the Star Tribune today. Poor little Natalie wants a pony. The meany City Council says she can't have one because horses, even the precious mini horse she has her eye on, are classified as farm animals and require a certain amount of space to roam.

But plucky little Natalie isn't giving up. She's going before the Council tonight to plead her case. I'd like to imagine the scene will go a little like this:

Natalie arrives in the council chambers wearing a horse suit. She gallops up to the dais, flicking her mane as she allows each councilmember to nuzzle her muzzle. She returns to the audience where her mother feeds her apples, carrots and sugar cubes from her warm palm. When it's time for public comments Natalie rushes the microphone, lets out a sustained whinny that consumes 20 seconds of her allotted three minutes and commences her plea.

"My dear local representatives, I come before you today to ask for equine equality," she said. "I consider myself to have the spirit of a horse, so if you legislate against them you are effectively denying me my human rights, by way of my horse rights.

"Please say yea to my 'neigh,'" she sobbed as she held up a sign to ensure the council was aware of her pun.

Heature of Crabit

Since starting my new job I’ve been too lazy to cook. I finally made it to the grocery store this weekend so there’s really no reason for me to continue my dinner diet of grapes and beer beyond sheer exhaustion. The ingredients for two delicious feasts are in my kitchen, withering as they wait for me to get off my tuchus. Maybe tonight will be the night.

One of the byproducts of this inertia is that, having no leftovers to schlep to work, I must continually buy my lunch. I’ve been frequenting a place across the street from my office building called the Juice Joint and purchasing a healthful, nutritious meal I hope will make up for my dastardly dinner choices.

Make that The first time I went to the Juice Joint I ordered a Granwich—a concoction of avocado, tomato, cucumber and sprouts on toasted wholegrain bread—and a small fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. It’s also what I ordered on my second, third, fourth and every visit since.

The manager there has started to recognize me and shouts out my usual order before I even have to part my lips. Today things were slower and he inquired after my marital status. I’ve seen things like that happen at coffee shops, where people like their caffeine fixes to be routine, but not at a lunch shop.

I kind of feel like a boring loser for ordering the same thing every day, but I just enjoy my choices so much: the crunch of the sesame seed crust, the crisp cucumber, the smooth avocado… the slow slurp of my grapefruit juice until the pulp wont fit up the straw…

I could write a sonnet.

Workplace Hazards

When I'm bored or just thinking really hard about something my gaze tends to unfocus and wander to my right. Unfortunately, when I'm at work a television always tuned to CNN falls directly in my line of vision, and I am thus forced to break my reverie and stare at whatever happens to be on.

Usually it's Calamity TV at its best: a fire at an oil company here, some cops in Florida being shot there, a few consumer crises regarding lead paint and the like and a feel-good story about a foreign kid blasted by an American bomb coming to this country to get pro bono plastic surgery.

But their audience must age drastically in the early afternoon, because the commercials switch from being aimed at middle-aged professionals to stay-at-home old farts. This means infomercials galore, and I often find myself staring with awe and desire at these trinkets that could be mine with a quick call to a 800 number and 14 easy payments.

I've fixated on two products in particular, and will stop whatever I'm doing (unless I'm on the phone with, you know, a senator) to gawk when they appear with frightening regularity between the hours of noon and four.

The first is a neon green, motorized duster that makes dusting faster, easier and more fun than ever to get the very best clean. Cleaning it is a cinch: just run it under water! The ad shows an ecstatic housewife running this technological marvel through her drapes and along a row of porcelain Virgin Marys with the speed, joy and ease of a cokehead chopping the next line.

The second is a walk-in bathtub meant for arthritic senior citizens who have trouble getting in and out of the tub. Last year, when I had a princely salary and was living in a palatial apartment with my own bathroom, one of my favorite pastimes was soaking in a nice hot bubble bath to relax the day away. Now I have a tin can shower I share with a flatulent male roommate. Thus my desire for this tub might just be a projection of longing for my long-lost bathing days of yore, but the fogeys in the commercial look just blissful when they lower themselves into the Chester.

That bliss could be mine.

The Salon In My Office Building is Advertising a $400 John Edwards Presidential Special

I think I'm going to have to deem DC the soggiest place on Earth. Everyone says the weather we've been having is great, that it is such a relief from the hellish humidity of the summer. Coming from the cool ocean breezes of SoCal, though, my body has forgotten how to self-regulate in high temperatures. I thus can't seem to make it through the day without my face sweating so much that I fantasize about Neutrogena.

On my second day on the job, I had to book it to the Hill to cover a hearing one of our senators would be present at. I clopped into the room, sure I was going to be late, and was about to set up my laptop at the press table when one of the senator's staffers saw me and approached me for an introduction. It was then that I realized my skirt had shifted to being completely sideways. This might not have been an issue had the hem been straight, but it looked more like this, with a longer hem in back than in front and pockets sticking out my rear and front ends. I surreptitiously tried to shift it back to its original position while talking with this lad, but it stuck fast, glued by my sweat.

The next day I was trying to locate the room of our other senator's press conference when I discovered I was in the wrong building. Already late and fearing I'd missed the whole thing, I scrambled to the Capitol with images of having to tell my boss of my incompetence dancing in my head. Thankfully I was only a few minutes late, but beads of sweat dripped from my forehead and smudged the notes I was furiously scribbling. By the way, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller is a giant of a man.

In closing, I will give you a story of what occurred when I rode the metro last night, in keeping with my obsession with the friends I make on public transportation.

It was dusk on a Saturday night and I descended into the metro station amongst hordes of revelers to go to a friend's to eat Chinese food and "watch" (read: sleep through) two movies. I was sitting in an aisle seat, conspicuous of my revealing clothing (a tank top and skirt are not the most desirable choices when one is a woman of virtue traveling alone, but it was hot as the blazes), reading a novel about Queen Elizabeth I.

Two burly, beefy dudes boarded the train a few stops down the line, and one proceeded to do pull-ups on the overhead rail, his crotch swinging dangerously toward my face. The man in the window seat left and I dutifully scootched over to his spot. Crotch Man swooped in next to me, putting his arm on the back of my seat. My muscles tensed as my body went into fear mode, and I tried to reason with myself that he could not easily rape me on a train full of people. He leaned over me as if to sneak a peek down my shirt and said, "Sorry to disturb you, but isn't that an oxymoron?" in reference to my book's title.

"It's about Queen Elizabeth," I said severely, simpering at his crudeness as I stood to exit the train. And that, my friends, was that.

"Stumped" and "Other Tales"

I was at a party on Sunday where one of the attendees suggested we play a card game. There was much discussion among veteran card players of which would be at the apex of where the pastime meets fun. (Fornicate with) the Dealer was tossed out, as was perennial favorite Circle of Death.

One lass from Virginia suggested we play a drinking game called Stump instead. All players gather around a stump with nails embedded in it and take turns swinging a hammer at them.

“What if you hit someone else’s nail?” an imbiber wondered aloud.

“What if you hit someone else’s face?” I muttered.

***

Seen on the metro: Two slim, good-looking men flamboyantly practicing their runway walks along the platform.

***

I made dinner for a Long Lost Friend on Saturday and was having a pleasant conversation with him when my roommate wandered in. He immediately headed for the cordless phone stationed on the dining room table, ripped the battery pack out and threw it to the ground. He told me the phone didn’t work and since our third roommate works at the Department of Defense, the only natural conclusion is that…

“It has a microphone in it,” he said without a trace of irony.

***

Seen in my kitchen: A note stuck under an empty Vitamin Water bottle reading, "Whoever drank this needs to replace it. It is mine." The flavor? B Relaxed.

***

I started my new internship today. Several people, including a predecessor in this very post, gave me the same dire warnings: do not attempt heels. And don’t wear anything long. DC is a hot, murky swamp.

But, obviously thinking I had a superhuman body equipped with both blisterless feet and a superior cooling system, I paid no heed and wore heeled boots and long black pants. How was I supposed to know that a trek to the Capitol to get a press pass involved 40 sweaty minutes of walking around in the blazing sun? Did I mention my photo graces this press pass? My soggy, wilted photo overlayed with holographic images strategically placed to make me appear to have a gap-toothed grin?

You better believe that tomorrow I’m hoofing it in a skirt and flip-flips, which I will switch to heels only upon entering a building.

The Cloak of Darkness

Nugget here, reporting to you live from the East Coast.

One of the unhappy consequences of living here is the time zone works against me. I tend to be an early riser, so when I was in California I could wake up at 8:00 on a Saturday (as I am wont to do) and be assured that at least some of my compatriots in Central Standard Time and a good number of those in the east would have arisen, ready to amuse me.

So that is how I came to be coming atcha at what is 6:48 a.m. for a good portion of our readership, 5:48 for Wink.

I arrived in Our Nation's Capitol (or wherever Dulles is) last night after the smoothest flight experience I have ever... er... experienced. Fly Sun Country!* After being haunted by dreams that my new living quarters would be host to mold and various fungi, that I would have to share a room and that a hated childhood acquaintance would be my new roommate, I was more than relieved to find my new room spacious, bright and lovely. It has a walk-in closet. And the bathroom's connected. Um, score.

One of my new roommates was kind enough to help me move all my boxes, which barely survived this move, from my buddy's apartment. (Two picture frames and one mirror broke in transit. How many years of bad luck is that?) He warned me that our other roommate, who I won't be able to make the acquaintance of and judge for myself till Monday, is a bit odd. His quintessential memory of him is when he skulked through the apartment muttering, "Thanks for stealing my Cloak of Darkness..." to the lad from whom I'm subletting. I'm inclined to believe this is a reference to a computer game.

The aforementioned fellow from whom I'm subletting, who is currently in China, left all manner of goodies in his room, one being the computer I'm typing on. He left bedding and towels, which I will not be partaking of, thank you very much. He left a cooler, which I might partake of should I be invited to a pick-a-nick.

He also left a locked trunk in the corner. It's locked with a padlock. I would like to invite our readers to hazard guesses as to what could be contained in this mystery wrapped in an enigma. My hunch was dead bodies, but that seems unlikely since it doesn't emit an odor.

*I was not paid to say this. But after a flight that included a complimentary hot sandwich and cookie, a row of leather seats to myself and an early arrival, how could I not? Did I mention it was only $99???