Last Night In Alexandria
I had planned to go to the Takoma Park Street Festival yesterday. I knew about it at least a week in advance - which can be a long time for my planning apparatus. Too long, even. I was getting ready to go over there when I had a writing idea. “This should only take a minute.” Ha. It was 3:30 when I was satisfied with my rough drafts. Much of the work went into the extended rant on Wall Street. For some reason those ideas were in my head Saturday night during the movie, but I couldn’t express myself. Part of the problem is an issue I’ve talked about before: Commercials can be a boon. WETA has no commercial breaks at all during movies. And “Wall Street” was two hours long. So I can’t run to the kitchen for a snack without missing something, or reflect on what I’ve watched. After not producing anything the night of the movie, I was predictably unsatisfied - So, when the ideas did start to flow, I wasn’t going to stop for anything. And I was too late to catch much of the street festival.
But that’s all right… Because it was on to the next thing. Yet another get-together with the brokenhearted of Olsson’s. This time it was very Alexandria-centric - they held it at the Union Street Pub, across the street from the old “Book Annex”, or as I sometimes liked to call it: “Store 4” - Or - the one voted most likely to flood.
I took advantage of the new Yellow line Metro service. The trains that used to turn around at Mt. Vernon Square (don’t you just love telling tourists that the Mount Vernon they’re looking for is twenty miles due south of where they’re standing?) now turn around at Fort Totten. Although, I think that’s only true during non-rush hour. With that new service, I can ride non-stop from Columbia Heights to Alexandria - which helps me rest up for the long walk from the train station to the waterfront.
I was running a little early, so I stopped in at Hard Times Cafe for a bowl of chili. Dry Texas with chopped tomato and onion on top. The service was crappy and the food was excellent. Actually, the cornbread could have been fresher, but since it took so long to get it - deja-vu! - I included it in the service category. I’m easy to please, so screwing it up is an impressive feat.
King Street in Alexandria is a template of memory. I never hung out there much, but most of that was more than ten years ago. The place haunts me - just to walk down that street today is an exercise, physical and mental: Many businesses have been replaced over the years, but I never pinned down where everything was anyway. More than once, I thought something was gone when I got to the corner I remembered it on, only to discover it still there, further on. It is just not a route that I can play back in my imagination and get right. One segment near the courthouse is clogged with the chains - Starbucks and Gap and Austin Grill to name a few. Starbucks is starting to feel old to me, though. One year around ‘93 or ‘94 we had Liz Phair play at the store, and when they ran late arriving from Philadelphia, I remember going up to Starbucks for a cafe mocha with orange colored whipped cream on top. It must’ve been a Halloween theme. Since then, another outlet has opened at Union, so there would be no need to walk all that way.
I took a minute to look in the window of Olsson’s - a place I haven’t been since who knows when… Was it an overnight inventory four years ago? The PC screen-saver was still going on the ticket sales computer. It looked ready to open in the morning. Part of me was hoping to be seen by a stranger, looking forlornly into the closed store for unknown reasons. And if they were a thoughtful stranger, they might wonder at the nature of my relationship with that place - the worlds of unknowing in a chance encounter.
A big group had assembled by the time I got there, but I think I arrived at the half way point. (I suppose in any normal distribution or arrival times, most people would appear to have arrived “in the middle”, though). There were book sales reps, the long silent former employees, friends who hadn’t drifted too far away, the veterans and the recently hired. People who seem like surrogate parents to me, and people who were only names on my computer. The drinks were flowing, and I didn’t have to pay.
Posted by Evan Bittner Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:46:00 GMT
