VIII. DC Livin

It's a new year, and I am well in it. I walk out on my porch every morning with a tin cup of campfire-brewed coffee and watch the blush of morning gather on the horizon. I like it when it is pink before the orange. It is the certain color I've seen on a woman's cheek when she realizes she is about to do something with me that makes her heart flutter and her conscience go dim. The trees, naked and dark, stand sentry. I have taken to sleeping in my back yard, partly because I like the communion of night noise and the hush that cold brings, and partly because I lost my key. Somewhere, off in the distance, I hear another person announce their candidacy for president. This is my DC.

For a long time, I thought DC suffered a malignancy of soul that couldn't be remitted, a lack of natural beauty, a veneer of culture, the Ghostbar. ... But now I know that DC is a decent city if you are decent in it. She'll move with you like a dancer or cup your balls like a placeholder. Just don't play her game. You'll lose. You don't have to be good-looking, rich or somebody. You just have to be soulful. If you are that, people will come.

Kierkegaard said, "Purity of heart is to will one thing." I don't know what he was talking about, so I'll try to edit out his comment, but for now, as I camp in my back yard, living simply and refusing to join the DC arms race, I know that my heart is lifted and the poor spirit of the nouveau riche will not be my DC fate. The year is mine truly, and I look forward to writing gentle verse, letting my face go leathery and raising butterflies for slaughter. All I need is a locksmith, preferably one who is good-looking and wears Hollister.