Sunday Evening Coming Down

Today I went for a walk without any destination. I just up and left the apartment and journeyed out into the world neither knowing nor caring where I might end up.

Before I left, I went up to the girls' apartment to say hello and check on Kate as she's been sick lately. I stayed a moment, and as I left I somewhat explained what I was going to do; that I was going out for no real reason at all.

And as I walked out the door, with a tone of voice that held both confusion and clarity, Kate says "I hope you find what you're looking for."

I hopped on the Red line and took it to Maryland, where I stayed on the platform in Silver Spring and took the first train back to D.C. That way, I can at least say I was in more than one state today, and feel artificially special about it. Yay for me.

I left the subway at Union Station, which is the best stop to use if you want to go into the Senate office buildings or the Senate side of the capitol because it's pretty much straight north of the Capitol.

I walked south, onto the mall right in front of the Capitol. Tourists of every sort were everywhere. A few Veterans on vacation, a nice amount of regular familes, and giant swarming hordes of junior-high school kids being partially controlled by the poor aides that they outnumbered 20 to 1, at best.

I grew bored with the Capitol and decided to check out the Executive Branch. I boarded the Orange line south of the Capitol and took it to McPherson Square, which is a block north of Lafeyette Park and two blocks north of the White House.

I learned something new there at the White House today: people play roller hockey on Pennslyvannia Avenue, right there, less than a football field from the highest office in the country. It was fun to watch as the players, who I think might have been off-duty Secret Service Agents or Capitol Police Officers, wheeled around on this somewhat hallowed ground.

Then I saw an anti-Bush display on the sidewalk with a woman sitting in it that seemed eerily familar. Then it hit me.

At one point in the film "Farenheit 9/11" (a personal favorite of mine, seriously) Michael Moore is talking to a mother of a U.S. soldier who had died in Iraq, and they happen upon a person manning a yellow anti-Bush mini-booth near the White House.

It was her, and she looked asleep. People stopped by and read the signs, then continued on their way. As far as I can tell, they remained uninspired by the words "Live by the bomb, die by the bomb."

Maybe I should've kicked her awake and asked her for her autograph.

I left the White House's amazing presence and walked north on 16th street, and took a left on K, a street that an upcoming show on HBO is supposed to be named for, or so I hear.

I got back on the Red line and took her home.

As I stepped out of the station, my thoughts returned to what Kate had said before I left, and I smiled.

I had left the apartment looking for nothing in particular, hell, nothing at all.

And gosh darn it all, I found somthing out there today.

I found peace.

And a sports arena at 1600 Pennslyvannia Avenue.