on the road

Here's another one of those entries I began, but never finished. But it would be a shame to delete it all just because I didn't make it to day 3 =)...

It is still difficult for me to grasp the reality of the present moment. Here I am, sitting in my homey apartment in Northern Virginia, staring out my window towards Washington DC, insulated from the 100+ degree summer heat. As familiar as LA and San Diego felt when I was home two weeks ago, I can no longer consider myself a resident. For all intents and purposes, I am a full blown Washingtonian.

But not only did I get to return home and reunite with family and friends for a week, but I also managed to do something I have yearned to do ever since I discovered my love for driving: road trip across the country.

The details were hazy at first, but my school required me to have a car out here, and shipping it seemed like a waste of a perfect opportunity. I rounded up my team of tried and true travelers and plotted out our meandering course across the southern United States. We gave our self six days and six destinations before reaching DC just in time for fourth of July. Our must see cities included Santa Fe, NM, Austin, TX, New Orleans, LA, Savannah, GA, Charleston, SC, and Richmond VA. Our journey began when I picked up Naomi and Surleen from Los Angeles early Saturday morning.

Day1: We determined early on that we would rather spend more time on the road earlier on so we would have more time to enjoy the places we really wanted to see in the south. Hence, our first day was scheduled for 13 hours of driving. As it was a Sunday, we made good time leaving LA, however our first challange came soon enough. As we approached the freeway for Las Vegas, we were suddenly bombarded with blinking signs indicating a freeway closure at Victorville, CA. We didn't heed this warning too seriously, thinking that there would be straightforward detour signs to skirt around the closure and quickly return to I-15. No such luck. Instead, we were forced to exit the freeway at an exit with one road to nowhere and certainly no detour signs. Even my GPS didn't want to cooperate. We wound up taking a significantly slower and more circuitous route on surface streets, eventually meeting up with the correct highway 2 hours behind schedule. Thankfully, this occured on our first day. As much as our sidetracking frustrated me, I was still in hopeful spirits and with Naomi and Surleen beside me, we could not be brought down. The rest of the day was geographically uneventful (read: endless desert), although we were pleasantly surprised to find beautiful mountain scenery and greenery in Northern Arizona. Flagstaff made it to a growing list of cities in which I could actually see myself living... were I ever to require a new city =).

Day 2: We woke up in a modest inn in Santa Fe, filled ourselves with a modest breakfast, and headed out to downtown Santa Fe. The city center was quaint and beautiful, a grassy square surrounded by adobe style buildings containing galleries and artistic souveniers. One side of the square was lined with blankets displaying copious amounts of silver and turquoise jewelry. Natives sat patiently behind them in fold out chairs selling their craft.

luck be a lady tonight?

Was it a sheer luck, or total unluck? Was it a sixth sense or a sense of idiocy? I don't know, but the good news is, it could have been worse, and this was a good lesson and wake up call for me and hopefully for you. Be constantly aware of your surroundings.

After having dinner in the district tonight, I took the metro home and got off at the Rosslyn station. Having had a large dinner I made an effort to walk up the escalator and hoof it up the hill to my apartment. As I approached my apartment, headphones in and enjoying the evening, I though how nice it would be to continue my walk and burn off a litte more of that meal. I've recently gotten fond of walking, so I chose to walk to the bridge overlooking the highway about a hundred yards past my apartment driveway. I only got about twenty feet though before realizing that the streetlights had ended past my driveway and everything was very dark all the way to the bridge. I slowed and decided that I didn't feel comfortable walking that far alone at 10:30pm. I just couldn't justify it. I had this feeling that if anything were ever to go wrong, it would most likely go wrong in this short stretch of darkness. So I turned around and headed back toward my lit driveway. I only got a few feet before I crossed a man who had been walking behind me. He looked to be in his late 20s or 30s and was a big fit guy with a shaved head, but nothing really menacing. He stopped me and asked which direction the Rosslyn Metro was. I pointed back the way he had come from, and as I answered 'that way', he reached forward and grabbed my chest. I was stunned. Before I could register if he was going for my purse or my phone in hand, or me, he turned around and began running in the direction of the metro. I stood there dazed for a moment. Honestly, my first reaction was awe that he hadn't tried to steal my purse, but then it hit me what he had done. He grabbed my chest. I ran up the driveway to my apartment, shaking as I opened the gate and shut it behind me.

Thank God my roommate was home. By the time I told her the story I was crying, not because of what happened but because of what could have happened. A slew of other possible outcomes attacked my imagination. So many strange coincidences ran through my head. Why tonight of all nights, did I decide to pass my appartment? What would have happened had I continued on into the darkness, headphones in, oblivious to my surroundings? Why did I decide to turn around when I did? Once I got it out of my system, I took a quick shower to recompose myself and then decided to call 911 and report it. Note to self: if something like this ever happens again, call 911 immediately, not 3o minutes later. Because then there's very little they can do in terms of finding the guy, and the officer who arrived at my apartment let me know it. He took down any detail I could provide, and told me to expect a call in a few days, citing that some people recal details days later. I didn't really believe him, but nodded my head. He left.

I don't know how else to look at this experience other than as a warning. I feel like I got off easy and I need to learn from it. I will. No more headphones when I'm walking alone at night. Never again will I walk down an unlit street. Tomorrow, I will figure out where I can buy pepper spray. To anyone reading this, please be aware of your surroundings, even if it is in a relatively safe neighborhood like mine. Try to avoid walking home alone when possible, or at least take the more populated path. Don't listen to your ipod when you're alone at night. Be vigilant. Be prepared. Stay safe.

DTR

(dated 1/13/10... I just never got around to posting it til now, oops!)

Its taken six months, but I finally feel like my social life has settled into something I am comfortable and content with. At first it was hard, maybe because I was the peppy girl from Californa who didn't quite understand the East Coast conventions of how to make friends out here. I still don't think I really get how it works, but time and patient persistence has finally won out. I finally feel like I have a steady group of people from my class who I can depend upon for ordering pizza to the library at 10pm, or for going out on the occassional night when we don't have a million things to worry about for the following day, or for discussing guy issues when we've hit a DTR wall.



Last night Rupa and I decided to celebrate our friendships by throwing a potluck dinner party at our place. Once we settled on a date, it took us another week to acutally send out invites, because we had to juggle which boys (of those we'd dated or were dating) to invite to avoid the most amount of awkwardness. My biggest issue was that I wanted to invite the guy I've been dating as well as a friend who I still have a major crush on. Lets start with the basics. For the last three weeks, I've been dating this lawer who I met at New Years at his party. On each of our dates, he has been beyond chivalrous (paying for meals AND my cab) and entirely drama-less. He calls (not just texts), he brought me flowers and chocolates on the second date. Our conversation is interesting and engaging. Hes got a ridiculous knowledge of DC restaurants and bars and knows all the best places for pretty much any type of food you can think of (and is totally willing to take me to all of them). Only thing is something is missing. I hate to admit it, but part of that something is the chase. I feel like I'm being shoffered into this relationship, not walking into it on my own accord. Is it immature to still want that chase?



I hear people talk about online dating, I find the biggest underlying problem is the expectations you have are different with people you meet on the web. The most pervasive complaint is that there is no mystery or wonder when both of you have already scoured one another's profile and know that you're mutually interested with similar expectations of a fruitful and long term relationship. In that sense I feel like I'm in the same boat, except this time I fear its a little one sided. He, being much older than I (early thirties), is probably looking for something more serious than I am ready to provide. He's done all the traditional things to woo a girl, and has left nothing to doubt. Maybe in 7 years, that will be exactly what I want, but right now, it just doesn't do it for me. Theres no mystery.



Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Mr. Mystery who I've been frustratingly chasing after since I met him a few months ago. Looking back on that sentence, you'd think I'd realize my idiocy and give up already. But I can't help it. He's got the rugged charm, the cute body, and fantastic (Italian) cooking skills. Just clearly, none of the committment skills. We've hung out multiple times, though the majority of it has been under the pretext of studying, not a legitimately defined date. Yet every time we usually end up chatting and sipping our coffee instead of studying. What am I supposed to do with that? Feel free to clear up this mystery for me.

I'm stuck somewhere in the center of the frenzy that is 'dating in DC'. But hey, its fun and at least I'm putting myself out there. As for the dinner party, I took a deep breath and invited both. Don't worry, all went smoothly. If only my life could run the same way =).