D. C. World Bank/IMF talks

5:00am my cell phone alarm goes off only to be shut off for the next half hour as I attempt to find my limbs and lift my heavy eye lids. The light hesitates to flash on, but prevails letting me read a couple pages of Kerovac's Darma Bums, then pass out again till six, when the beaten red phone rings transphering Amber's sleepy voice saying she missed her train in-she wouldn't get in until 8. I yell to my mother, who's driving the crew down, and throwing her goosedown pillow over her head, yells "GOOD!".

I stumble up shower, pack, and gather important phone numbers and addresses for our venture. My mother made her way down the stairs, and came across a map of D.C, which was of course forgetfully left on the kitchen table in the scramble out the door to the 8:00 train.

Amber and I have known each other for a year or so through the SDS crew in Lancaster City, a small progressive island in the middle of amishland, PA. I've only seen her once since I went gallivanting to California for utopia hippie school, then bummed around looking for something real. I have been hiding in New Hampshire ever since, in a place far too real and far too cold. So it was really nice to see a familar face on the foggy Friday, way too early, morning, jumping in the back of my mother's muddy farm ford Explorer complete with a canoe rack.

Making small talk, we drove far to pick up Anthony, a good friend and strange character who survived public school homeroom with me. I had called him up the night before, and with no idea of any details of the journey jumped in the car up for adventure. His mother, Meg, my old teacher and now a politician (like the rest of the family), exploded with an uncomprehendable enthusiasm so early in the morning, glad to see us again, and sent her son off with many hugs.

Excitement overwhelmed me as we neared the city, for one to tell off the International Montetary Fuckers, and two, to eat the savory Ethiopian food that D.C. has to offer. I was drooling the whole car ride just thinking about spongy injura with Watwat on it... and putting up with jokes of the starving country's food not existing.

We landed on street with two Ethiopian places, and examined both of them before gorging on the exquisite cuisine. Then napped in parks, swam in fountains, and created a series of epic haikus before running into a big band festival and decided I needed thai food for sanity.