09.21.2003
As our neighborhood gets more and more popular, it’s becoming nearly impossible to want to keep living here. After last call, around 2 am here, when the bars spill out the hordes who’ve come from fifty miles to drink themselves blind on 18th street, our small, tree-lined street, which runs for a block between two of DC’s craziest, busiest strips of nightspots, becomes jammed with taxis, SUVs, and stereo-blasting hooptys trying to inch by one another on the too-narrow street, and every ten minutes or so it seems there’s a shouting match, a bunch of mooks jumping out of their cars to fight, a couple cars smacking into each other, or all of the above, and then an immediate and savage chorus of honking and screaming from all the others stuck behind them in the street. It wasn’t like this when we moved in, but it’s descended into greater chaos with every new influx of the young, the underpaid, and the underemployed the past three years. I never had so much time to party when I was here for college in ‘92 to ‘96, and working here in the years following, but then, I also had plenty of work to do, and opportunities everywhere. I can’t help but think that the hopeless state of things, in a town where people actually want to work, is making the drinking and the fighting you see on the streets below more desperate.
We sometimes console ourselves by saying that our block’s one of the only ones in DC where you can live a bit like you would in Manhattan - dozens of good bars, restaurants, groceries, and stores within two blocks’ walk, easy access to bus and metro, that sort of thing - but unlike New York, we don’t have a mayor, or residents, who have started to fight back against the insane noise at night. Maybe I’m getting older (I’m definitely getting older - my back gave out two weeks ago - my back, I can’t believe it), but I just want to get some sleep. I don’t want to be leaning out the window at 3 am, going, what the f%$k! when I hear thirty horns go off at once, or a piece of crap motorbike backfire six times under my window, making me jump up thinking someone just got shot on the sidewalk. And I certainly don’t want to turn into a maniac shouting back down at the street, or fantasizing about buying an air rifle to shoot out car windows, which I’ve already caught myself doing. I hate to say it, but I think I’ve given up. Nights like this, I’m ready to move, even if it’s to one of Washington’s countless duller neighborhoods. I can’t take this much excitement.
more shey.net
09.04.2003: september
there is a reason for the hiatus. partly work, and partly new distractions. shey.net will be back bigger and better…
09.21.2003: lost in translation: the translation
I wouldn’t recommend this article if you haven’t seen Lost in Translation yet, but the NY Times published a translation…