In DC

First, the popular and obligatory picture from the hotel window:

I can see the Washington Monument from my window, but right now the sun’s glare is keeping me from getting a good shot of it, so you’re all out of luck in terms of symbolic phallic symbols. Try to make it through the day anyway.

For those of you e-mailing me about whether I’m in town for a public appearance, the answer is no; friends of mine are getting married and I’m here for that. Also, I don’t know when I will next have a public appearance in DC; I suspect possibly the next time I publish a novel, but that won’t be this year in any event. Or I might finally get down to CapClave, which I keep intending to and keep not managing, because I suck. We’ll see. But in any event, no, nothing public scheduled at the moment. Sorry.

But it’s nice to back in DC; we lived in the area for a number of years and still have a house here, so I definitely feel a connection. Maybe I’ll just pop in on my renters and confuse the hell of out of them. That’s a day’s worth of entertainment right there!

35 Comments on “In DC”

  1. Yeah, but you’re phallic symbols only 147 feet tall, even if it has that cool shape! Ours “stands 555’ 5 1/8” tall, and offers views in excess of thirty miles”. And it even has those different colors of marble, because the civil war delayed the second half of its erection. (DC’s version of coitus interruptus).

  2. Rats (that you’re not here for a public appearance). The reading at Olsson’s a couple of years ago was fun. Have a nice time at the wedding, even if *we* (your adoring public…) don’t get to share in the fun.

  3. Hey when I think D.C. (well Arlington anyway) I think Mario’s Pizza….mmmmmmmmm

    It is always worth surprising the renters just to make sure they haven’t added a tar-paper rumpus room onto the back of the house….

  4. enjoy your stay in my home-away-from-home this weekend, phallic symbols and all.

    I’ll actually be nearby for the Jonathan Coulton show in Alexandria tonight; clearly the hot ticket in Our Nations’s Capital.

  5. You got a hotel room, when you have renters you could impose on? Next time, just show up and tell them you’ll be “inspecting” the back bedroom for three days.

  6. For those of you e-mailing me about whether I’m in town for a public appearance, the answer is no

    DAMMIT!

  7. I know that hotel! (Used to work right next door. Small world, ain’t it!)

    Anyway, if you get a hankering for Turkish food there’s a wonderful little restaurant in that triangular building down the street. There’s also good Thai, Indian, and Italian up the street. E-mail me if you want other suggestions in the area.

  8. Welcome to our fair city. Try to ignore the smell; that’s just politics, the funk settles into your clothes eventually and you don’t even notice it.

    Of course I have Awesome Plans for tonight, and that awesomeness is marred by a friend cancelling on it leaving me with a spare ticket… not that I would bribe you do ditch on the bachelor party or anything…

    http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2009/02/20/alexandria-va-022009/

  9. If you do pop in on your renters, take a chalk line and one of those measuring wheels and walk around the house with them a couple times. Then stand in the front yard and act like you’re taking notes. Periodically squat to look at the foundation and cock your head to one side. Then leave.

  10. Why are you here in DC? I checked the appearance page to see if you are making an appearance and I don’t see one.

  11. I’ve been reading your blog for over a year and just now found out you’re a DC slumlord?

    It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.

    (PG County resident.)

  12. Recall the explicit use of Phallic spaceships in Adolf Hitler’s Hugo-winning novel of 1954, Lord of the Swastika, presented by Norman Spinrad as The Iron Dream (Avon 1972).

  13. marriage, schmarriage. We know you’re really in DC to chat with the White House about being Obama’s CTO.

  14. The best pizza in the area is up Wisconsin Avenue at 2 Amys, but the two Pizzeria Paradiso locations (one on P Street, one on M in Georgetown) are nearly as good, and the M Street one has 12 different draft beers and at least 80 bottled ones.

  15. Here’s one vote for CapClave 2009. Harry Turtledove, Sheila Williams, John Scalzi… Sounds great already.

  16. @Scalzi: If you get tired of the DC ratrace, pop up to Fredneck and I’ll buy the beer (in fact, I’ve got 5 gal. of a sort of dark pislner fermenting right now).

    @MasterThief: Tell me more about the Turkish place. Fell in love with Turkish food whilst living in Germany and haven’t found a decent bite of it around here.

  17. I am Scalzi, your landlord, who brought you out of the streets, out of homelessness; you shall have no other landlords before me.

  18. If I was renting from you, I’d be sure to pay attention to your whereabouts here. You should pay them a visit just to see if they’re paying attention.

    And if you really want to scare them, tell them the bank just told you they’re foreclosing.

  19. On second thought, that would probably be too cruel in the current conditions. There’s a small possibility you could drive your tenants to do something irrevocable.

%d bloggers like this: