on my way into work on this morning’s second-to-last 3Y metrobus. (i originally wrote “penultimate,” but that just sounded pretentious even though it’s correct.) on E street, a woman in a black coupe pulls into the bus stop as we’re approaching, and opens the driver’s side door… right into the front of our bus. my quick view of the scene suggested no major damage to either her car or the bus. IMO, however, she was at fault.

i was so engrossed in my current reading (straub’s if you could see me now) i barely noticed the lurch as the bus driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a collision, and when i did look up from my last-row seat, the bus was echoingly empty. we all transferred to a 16Y that was right behind us. i don’t envy what the 3Y driver’s day is going to be like.

and i’m still glad i don’t drive in the district.

this is what came to mind, resurfacing from the dregs of browsing the stacks in 11th grade, looking for interesting poetry that would sufficiently shock an english teacher i detested in a school that was tolerant in some ways, and oddly provincial in others. in retrospect, probably the only shock value to the teacher was the fact that someone had located the one volume of e e cummings in the library.

the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever’s on their mind
they do whatever’s in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

(background on the poetry reading here.)

thunderstorms. early fall heat. the national book festival. and gaiman in his biker jacket.

he did take the jacket off for the book signing, though.

it always amazes me how good-natured he is. this is a man who can sign for hours – this time with a broken finger – and still have a smile for his fans.

neil will be answering questions in the wapo online discussion at noon today; on saturday he’ll be in town for the national book festival.

i shall take my new enormous zoom lens to the mall to better stalk photograph him.

huzzah!

(previous stalkings of the author here, here, here, and here. oh, my. that’s quite a bit, isn’t it?)

first, the food, because that’s what i said i’d post. i started off with the chilies and yak cheese served with bhutanese rice. the red rice is the bhutanese rice; i gathered from other sources that the white rice was added as filler. all in all, it was pretty good – a bit like queso dip, actually. only somewhat runnier. i ate almost all of it, and was still hungry.

so then i meandered down to the viet-tex fusion tent (“texas noodles,” i think is the name of the place) and ordered some steamed pork buns. they were the spitting image of dim sum pork buns, but the filling was a bit more western barbecue-like. also yummy.

but what was really neat to see at the folklife festival was the buddhist monk working on a sand mandala:

so if you’re in dc, go check it out the festival. it’s pretty cool.

today’s the first day of the smithsonian folklife festival, so i headed down to the mall (america’s front yard, apparently) for a sampling of bhutanese cuisine. and i have one thing to say: yak dri¹ cheese – pretty good.

photos to follow.
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¹ i have been informed by a highschool classmate that you can’t get cheese from a yak, b/c yaks are male. the female of the species is apparently a “dri” or a “nak.” why he knows this, i have no idea.

as a condition of recovering custody of their kids – taken from their homes without regard for due process or less-hostile alternatives, judge barbara walther is requiring that the yearning for zion flds parents

… be photographed, take parenting classes, submit to in-home inspections and remain in Texas during a continuing investigation by state child welfare authorities.

excuse me? i’m confused as to what gives walther the authority to require the parents submit to any of those things – as far as i know, they haven’t been charged with any crimes; does the investigatory power of the texas department of family & protective services extend that far?

i’d read the actual order, but walther’s court doesn’t seem to have an online presence.

(other information in the article disturbs me as well: the department and the judge seem to want to make it as difficult as possible for families to reunite, requiring that parents travel to where their children are, rather than returning the children to them. according to the article, the children are scattered around the state – and texas isn’t small. a comment by the spokeswoman for the department, marleigh meisner, also raises red flags: she mentions “where the children are being held.” held? does the department think they, too, have committed some crime?)

does anyone remember the back room of sin-o-matic at club 7969¹ err, peanuts? grandville? i was there once, back in ‘94 or ‘95, and it popped into my head this morning after googling sexbat (which i do every few years, just to see if he’s still alive and kicking) which proceeded from feeding a 30-second rhps (with bunnies).

because wednesdays always start with bunnies.
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¹ the site for the club “reopening in spring 2008″ looks cheeze-whizzy. “This site will become a favorite amongst the entertainment industry for celebrations and location shoots.” yuck. not that i plan to visit the left coast any time soon, but with a description like that, you can bet i won’t be going there.

your boys lost last night. and it’s all my fault. you see, the last time i paid any attention to the pats was super bowl xxxi, when they fell to brett favre. then i actively ignored football for several years, and the pats won back-to-back superbowls.

you guessed it. i watched the game last night. but in my defense, it was for the commercials. and when i realized late in the 3rd quarter that the pats were going to lose (c’mon, even i realize the quarterback can only get sacked so many times before everything falls apart), i went and folded laundry. alas, it was too late. the damage had been done.

so there ya go. straight from the clydesdale’s mouth. the giants won last night because a somewhat bored thirtysomething hausfrau made dinner for her husband and then sat down in front of the telly to watch some good consumer propaganda.

and i am so, so very sorry.