20 Aug 2019> Back on the homefront, a return to casalingo duties—got a new fridge cuz our old 1 that came w/ the house wint south. Still trying to find sum1 to rebuild the fence in our backyard + cut a skylight hatch so we can axess our roof. Got our package of stuff we grabbed from our mom's place that we sent to ourself via Greyhound (way cheaper than UPS, FYI), but we'll save that for a later post when we get the objects placed in our house + scan our brother's notebooks + also sum of our old negatives.

On the Sound ƒuries front we got our acoustic guitar back. Had to send her back to Fender HQ in AZ for a replacement (the shipping along cost alomst ½ the value of the guitar) since the pickup wasn't working but when they received her they said she was working fine. They shipped her back + she works now, so, whatever, the Arizona sun or shipping her must of jostled sumping right.

On the Textiloma front, ain't maid much progress cuz we're still trying to catch up w/ archiving our journels. We'll regress to that next week.

24 Aug> Woke up this mourning wondering where to walk, as is our weekly ritual, or shd be as we dig walking, good exorcise for the body + mined. As w/ our prior RomeRioni + Maphattan Project, weave bin toying w/ oregonizing our DC walks somehow, systematically, or knot, by #s or letters of the district grid... then figured maybe we'd go by state names since there be dieagonyl avenues for every state in the US—a sorta microcosmic pyschogeography. Figgered maybe we'd do Oregon ave 1^st since we was just there... but Oregon ave is way up by Chevy Chase so wd be really long... ends up they moved Oregon ave almost a century ago + changed the name of the old Oregon Ave to Swann St! So we sorta live on Oregon ave, appropriate considering we was born there. Then we figgered it made more ¢ense to kick things off w/ Washington Ave, since the city we live in is also named after the 1^st president. We even strung together a mixtape for the occassion, tho can't promise wheel do this for every stately walk of our microcosmic psychogeography project.

Unlike Maphattan + RomeRioni we ain't gonna be so systematic about hitting every dam street. In fact, the onelie rule is there ain't no rules, except to walk the state-named street we choose to do that day. A lot of the state-named streets ain't more than a mile long (Washington Ave = 0.4 mi) so getting there + then after we're free to wander where the road takes us to get in our mileage + fill in the gaps inbetween. True flâneuring, tho we are out to get exorcise after all. If we did DC systematically we'd spend a lot of time waiting at lights—specially the dieagonyls are a pain for pedestrians to navigate. So this weigh if a light is red we can take it as a sine to turn in an utter direxion + perhaps come across sumping we might knot utterwise halve discovered. To take a line from Langston Hughes, we'll wonder as we wander. We even embarked on his I Wonder as I Wander: an Autobiographical Journey for inspiration (or re-embarked, as we member reading it as an undergrad). DC likes to claim Hughes as their one, naming coffeeshops (Busboys + Poets) after the year he spent here. Harlem also lays claim to Langston as the poet laureate of their renaissance. But Langston belonged to nowhere and everywhere, a true world cityzen. Seems he did time in most every state + country in el moondough. We're only ¼ the way thru, but so far he's been to Haiti, Cuba, SF, NYC, all thru the Southern U.S., Russia (by boat mind u) + presently in Turkistan where he got off the train in the middle of nowhere not knowing no body nor the landgauge.

Aug 25> Our bedder-½ tracks our walks on sum ap she's got on her phone, here's where we wandered yesterday, incorporating Wasington Ave SW:

We strolled down twards the mall to get started... figgered it appropriate to go by the natl monument which seems to D-mark the Center of DC:

But actually the origin (0, 0) of the district is demarked by a plaque in front of the capitol:

Here's the plaque in 2016 when we was living nearby in Capitol Hill:

Twister-style we stood at (0, 0) + put each of our feet + hands in a diffrent quadrant, NW, NE, SW, SE, to initiate our DC microcosm project. Then headed to the start of Washington Ave SW where it dead-ends into the mall at the botanical gardens, which we took the opportunity to wadner thru.

in the botanical gardens

Here's a description of Washington Ave SW from Wikipeida:

Street which like its counterpart, Louisiana Avenue, is near the Capitol but not in L’Enfant’s parade. The avenue was originally occupied by a canal, but now runs from Independence Avenue and E Street, and serves as a connection between Capitol Hill and Interstate 395. At one time, it was called Canal Street, while a street named Washington Drive existed along a part of the National Mall. Along with Adams Drive, it was converted to a dirt path from the Capitol to the Washington Monument.

Not a good avenue to be on in a rainstrorm, being that it used to be a canal.

The above Hubert Humphrey bldg is typical of the brutalist style of the L'Enfant plaza area south of the mall... that almost looks more like it belongs on a Soviet bloc. Ain't dat menny folks living in the SW quadrant, but a lot of folks work there... lots of governmental burrocrazy.

disabled vets memorial

Ain't much of anything along Washington Ave SW, it's more like a confluenze of axess roads for the freeways (395 + 695) that interesect there + then magically disappear beneath the Capitol.

Once Washington Ave disappeared we continued along South Capitol, which d-lineates the border b-tween the SW + SE quadrants. This is probly the fastest changing area of the city, even in the few years since we lived in the SE lots of new bldgs along South Capitol. Past the stadium + the base of the Frederic Douglass bridge that we used to run across to Anacostia, but on this walk we cut west along Potomac ave which used to be an industrial wasteland + now there's a shiny new stadium for DC United. Fort McNair blocks access to some primo real estate on Buzzard point. We re-emerged at the Titanic memorial then up the waterfront which again has changed dramatically over the past few years. Used to be a shithole, a few crab shacks at Capt White's, but now the wharf has a bunch of swanky restaurants + entertainment venues like the Grohl-christened Anthem, which we've never bin cuz we don't go to shows of such capacity, but we have been to Union Stage.

Headed back thru L'Enfant Plaza + the Smithsonian + across the mall, stopping at District Taco.

Thomas Circle (featured in House of Cards intro + before living in D.C. we stayed at hotel overlooking this statue)

+ back to our place on Oregon-cum-Swann St (about 12 miles toetill). We rcv'd a 10 lb. batch of Hatch chilis delivered to us (to christen our new fridge) from New Mexico + since they was delivered on dry ice we figgered why waist it so got sum milk + berries (if only we had them fresh berries we picked in Oregon last week) + choclit chips + maid sum dry ice i scream. We used to make i scream w/ lickwid nitrogen all the time when we was a student @ U of A (whose journels we'll be posting next) w/ unlimited access to lickwid N... but w/ dry ice it's a bit more of a challenge. 1^st off u gotta grind up the dry ice into a powder + then when u add the powder to the milky concoction it starts bubbling like loco cuz the dry ice sublimates to CO₂.

mixing up the medesin in our sole kitchin