It's the little things

So, I'm on the road again, this time in D.C., which feels closer to home in many ways than the other places I've been traveling during the last month and a half.

I'm right off of Dupont Circle, which is an area I know fairly well, so I made a beeline for the nearest Cosi during the lunch break, and enjoyed it enormously. I can't articulate why I love that place so dearly, but it's heaven to me. And I kind of think that Jai from Queer Eye was there at a table outside, asking his lunch companion about his interest in architecture. I have no idea why Jai would be in D.C., and there weren't any cameras around, but if anybody still watches that show and sees that they're on location in D.C., let me know!

Anyway, also during lunch, I stopped into this fabulous bookstore, Kramerbooks, where I spent hours with Jenny when she lived in D.C. for a summer in college. I didn't buy anything, but I just loved paging through all of the books, and I love that the attached cafe is called Afterwords. It made me so happy to stroll through the familiar streets in this part of D.C., even though there was a little bit of a rain and it was a little crowded with lunchtime traffic.

Most surprising of all was that the hotel I'm in has no gift shop and has one ancient soda machine that sells $1.25 cans, so I headed to the CVS a few blocks away for my morning fix of Diet Coke. And BOTH of the bottles won me a free liter, which has happened like once in the many moons they've been doing this promotion. One in 12 wins, my ass, but today I was a winner. I do think that they don't spread the winners out; when they did this game in 1996, the bagel shop around the corner from the bank where I worked almost always produced a winning cap. Truly -- make me a winner, and I'm loyal as a puppy (hi, Tucker! Miss you!).

My meeting itself is "eh" at best, but I'm all about the positive attitude, which does seem to be helping. My first-year seminar in college was called "The Self and Other Fictions" and every paper I wrote began with some version of the thesis that one's self can't exist except in relation to others. And every time, the professor somehow thought it was genius, every time. Anyway. I've been thinking a lot about the various personas (personae?) I take on according to my environment. I think there was a point in my life when I'd have found this chameleonesque behavior reprehensible, that I was being a poser or selling out. But sometimes, I think it makes life much easier to adopt a different persona (I actually heard something the other day about Beyonce doing the same thing on stage -- I think she calls her hot-mama alter-ego Sasha).

Speaking of celebs, I am inexplicably fascinated by Katie Holmes's pregnancy -- a big shout-out to Shari to breaking the news to me yesterday. I wonder what her peeps in Toledo think of all this, really. And I wonder whether she and Tom visit the Scientology Center near Dupont if they're ever in D.C., marching on the Mall to protest anti-depressants.

And I kind of do want to get to the bottom of what really happened with Lindsay Lohan's car crash, but not enough to lose sleep over it.

I think it's time for another visit to the CVS -- I may already be a winner.