Jack’s Mannequin:
So Thursday night past Carrie, Aaron, Dylan and I went to the ATS to see the absolutely amazing Andrew McMahon and Jack’s Mannequin (yes I realize he’s their lead singer, but since I like Somethign Corporate better I generally refer to him separately. He writes the songs for both bands and play piano and harmonica and I imagine more. He also survived cancer. He’s this tall lanky guy with an eyebrow ring. He’s pretty much one of my favorite artists.).
So first this guy MC Lars plays (opening act obv.). He’s this white guy with his friend Rob on bass. His mac laptop plays guitar and music outside of the bass (oh my) and he used iVideo with his music. He was an english major in college. He turned Moby Dick and The Raven into rap songs. He was actually pretty good. I liked him. He was funny.
Intermissionish period. Security man asked Carrie and I if we were sisters.
So then Jack’s came on. =] We were all pumped. So they played songs. At one point one of the lights caught fire. Me and Carrie were both thinking the same thing; that light is going to fall and kill Andrew omg. Yeah. But it was okay. It went out. And so I guess Andrew (I say that like I know him… I wish.) is a friendly guy because he would like look the audience in the eyes while performing. So that was awesome. We all felt special. If you were there, don’t even pretend you didn’t. He told a story about an air port and pot cookies. Which ended something like “I had 4 pot cookies. I gave one to Jay Mac (their drummer is Jay Mc-something or other). I had 3 pot cookies left. And I ate them. This story has no relevance what-so-ever except to inform you that I may still be a little bit stoned”. It was amusing. =] So at the end guitar man, bass man, and drum man did mad solos. Andrew danced on his piano and walked on the keys and such. The end.
I absolutely loved it. They played my all time favorite SoCo song (Me and the Moon). So I was totally just like… I dunno. It was amazing.
Washington, DC “art” trip
So it was technically an art field trip… But I do believe you’ll soon find little was remembered about the art portion.
First we visited the Rock Creek Cemetary where Laura was convinced that everything was a house (the mausoleums). And she kept trying to go into them. When we left she kept seeing little houses and asking me if they were mausoleums. I gave up and told her everything was a mausoleum. So everyone, we now all live in mausoleums.
Then we went to the National Shrine, which I assume will have something to do with our country. Nope. Giant ass Catholic church. I’m not gonna lie to anyone, I have some problems with Catholicism. I mean don’t get me wrong. I don’t think like any religion is superior to it or something like that or have something against Catholics. I just am really opposed to some of what Catholics believe. And I’m entitled to that opinion. So the church was cool. There was the crypt church and the upper church. The upper church has bass reliefs of some of the saints in pillars and a large bass relief in the back symbolic of everyone’s individual journey to paradise and holiness. There were a lot of beautifully done mosaics.
But the one at the front dome (there were 5 domes) was a 42 ft angry Jesus. I hate depictions of Jesus as angry. I just do. But it was still pretty. And there was a lot of subtle symbolism in that like the eyebrow raised in disapproval of man kind and the lowered one in compassion. An arm with muscles for human-ness and a robe for mightiness or power or something. Something else for divinity. It was cool. And the alcoves around the permanent shrine representing the mysteries of the rosary (I think that’s what it’s technically called?) were cool. So there’s the sorrowful mysteries, the glorious mysteries and the joyful mysteries and there were mosaics in each of those alcoves to represent those things. (The only fun thing about this church was that I knew most of what he was talking about so I felt smart for learning and remembering so much about Catholicism in the last almost year.)
Anyways I bought these little coins with prayers on the back. The Hail Mary, St. Joan of Arc and St. Maximillian Kolbe (since those are the only two saints I know a lot about and the story behind me and the Hail Mary is long and involves my dad and me when I was younger… no, no one is my family is Catholic either. It was just a weird conversation). Now I kinda wish I had St. Patrick and St. Lucy too since I learned more about them later in the day. But c’est la vie. Mostly they’re just pretty since I don’t pray those prayers or to saints or anything.
So then we ate lunch. OMG exciting.
Then we went to the National Art Gallery. While we were outside this guy gave us stickers for something or another (they say vedabase.net on the side so go there and go crazy). So then we went in. We took the same exact tour I took when I went there with ACT in sixth grade. We had a british woman who took an hour and 40 minutes to look at probably 8-10 paintings (we all wanted her dead). Laura and I went to see the sculptures and then Nate joined us and we went to the East Building to see the modern art. The Jasper Johns prints were really cool. We went in an elevator that was bigger than my room (well not longer I guess, but if you reshaped my room I think the elevator either would have fit it or been a little bigger).
We left there and went to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery where the art teachers decided we had 3 hours of free time. That’s right; they let a group of teenagers loose in DC and expected us to stay in some museum. Ha! Fuck that. From what I hear most people just went to Starbucks though. And Mrs. Gallagher was in the museum drinking.
Laura, Nate and I spent 20ish minutes in the museum. We saw some pictures and paintings of famous people. Then we saw some sculptures and medal and glass work. Then we tricked Nate into leaving with us.
Because Laura and I decided we had to ride the subway (aka the Metro aka the train because I keep calling it a train). We went down to the station Gallery Place-Chinatown. We asked a nice man what the best way was to go to get to the White House and how to get our fare cards. So we did that and took the Shady Grove train to Farragut station. We got off and walked two blocks to the White House! Yay! We took pictures. We saw a guy who was doing something with signs related to religion and the constitution and a guy with a box on his head talking about being president. And we met a woman who’s been living in front of the White House for 26 years holding an “Anti-nuclear peace vigil” 24 hours a day.
Nate was all “you look like tourists” but we didn’t give a damn. We were afterall. So whatev.
We got back on the metro… at Farragut West instead of Farragut (aka the wrong station) and rode the metro to McPhearsn square where we concluded we had gone the wrong way. We went up and over and onto the train travelling the opposite direction. That took us back to Farragut West. We looked at a map and realized that metro was headed to Farragut North which was in the opposite direction of where we were trying to get back to (Gallery Place). So we switched and got on the train we were on in the first place. We rode it back to McPhearson Square and on to Metro Center. There we got off. We saw this black guy who was kinda cute and wanted a picture of/with Laura and me. We giggled and walked away. (Laura said later “We rode the DC subway and only got hit on by one black guy!” because she’s blond.) We spent a silly amount of time realizing we shouldn’t get on Shady Grove even though it was how we got to Farragut because it was going the wrong way. We got on the Silver Springs train (I think) which went back to Gallery Place.
So we got off safe and sound. And kinda cheated the DC metro system by never repunching our cards till the end when the machine took them from us (sorry DC!).
Nate went back in the museum (lame). Laura and I went to the store for the International Spy Museum and bought bracelets and she got a sweatshirt. Then we left and met up with Amber and Ashley. We walked for a bit and Ashley and I picked up a copy of the Lation Times (in Spanish and published by the Washington Post). Amber and Ashley went into Starbucks.
Meanwhile, Laura and I turned a corner and…………………………………………………………………….. found Chinatown! Omg we were excited. There was Chinese Starbucks and Subway and all such things. We walked up two blocks (keep in mind 1 DC block = 2-3 Carlisle blocks). Then we turned and went back into this little shop. We went upstairs because Laura wanted to get her palm read.
The woman told Laura she wasn’t easily influenced by other’s opinions, would be engaged twice and married once, meet her soul mate at 24, have 3 kids, be known for her writing. The thing about this woman was that she wasn’t vague in the way she said things. It’s hard to describe but the feeling was so eery because she was so right about the things she said and specific in a way.
So after the Laura thing I gave in and decided to get my palm read too. The woman told me that I was passionate, cared a lot about love, would be married once and have two children, that I wanted to make a change in the world but hadn’t yet, that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life yet, that I might be good as an actress or some sort of performer, that I should decide by the end of this year, and that in life prosperity would surround me. Not too bad.
We both bought little multi-colored Buddhas and left back the museum. Right before the bus came, a man set up some traffic cones and buckets and a shopping cart and used them as percussive instruments. He was really good!
So then we got on the bus… and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for a girl named Sabba. So this poor girl ended up being lost. We spent 50 minutes extra in DC driving this huge ass bus around (and our driver was kinda bad…) trying to find her. Turns out she was at E 7 and 600 SW and we were at E & and 600 NW. -.- I know right. Street signs suck. It was all nice and orderly but in a vaguely confusing manner…
We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home and got back about 10:45.
The not stories that simply cover the past few days
I’m mad at two people. One for lying. And one for… well I guess I’m not so much mas as I just have some thinking to do about whether I feel like this person really even considers me a fellow human being anymore.
Long couple of nights. ‘Bout 4 hours of sleep before DC. Ugh. And stuff.
Sleeping over at Chelsea March’s tonight. =] This means creek adventures, going for walks, movie making and food. Yay that! And no icky boys. I’m sick of penises.
I still have to write a concluding paragraph for my english research paper and reformat and revise my work’s cited page. I need to finish reading the first act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and do the study guide (wait… I don’t know if I even got that…. oh well). And I need to make that brochure for Roper’s class. And I need to look over vocab words, Act I, and Roper stuff for tests/quizzes Monday.
Then TGISB (Thank God it’s spring break!).
Pcitures
Andrew McMahon at his piano Thursday night.
Andrew dancing on the piano.
Laura and me in front of the White House. [me on the left, Laura on the right... duh]
Mausoleum in church form.
Ghetto drums on the corner man in DC.
Stupid not Jamaican…