Business As Usual? A Blurry Entrance to DC

From a rooftop bar in Manhattan to the building in Philadelphia where the Constitution was penned to the city where the Constitution will eventually end- in 48 sleepless hours.

The rain followed me here. Or maybe it beat me. I don't know right now. I'm dead on my feet. Sucking coffee and cursing my inability to care about money until I can check into my hostel and sleep.

This town feels like a big, slimy glob of upper management painted with diluted watercolors. It is running in the rain. You see signs like 'Let's put America Back to Work!' and you know that whoever wrote that wasn't talking about themselves. The people that make the rules that govern small, poor lives do not know what they do. Just like a new floor plan handed down to a retail store from corporate: "What? Right in the power aisle? Who the fuck came up with this? This will never work! I guess I have to do it though, because the person who came up with this work for me to do has a college degree and makes 10 times what I do. Even though they've never been in a store before, they must know best. And who am I? I should be grateful to have the work."

There are tons of free things to do here, which fits my budget. Being a faithful pilgrim sometimes works out. But it feels like a touristy, photo-op distraction from what is going on behind closed doors. This is the place where the country is run. They make and break the rules here, and it's getting worse.

Everyone here is living in a state of terrified confusion. They smile like their lips are being pulled apart with hooks, and they never make eye contact. There are bright, marble, beautiful monuments to the success of capitalism in the world and it makes you feel good.

But there are also dark rooms here. They are filled with white men in suits writing papers that will strangle this country; and Joe-Average doesn't feel like he can do anything about it. Maybe he's right. Maybe the machine has gotten so big and complex that there is no way to throw a wrench in it anymore. Another wheel will just pick up the slack. Perhaps a (metaphorical) stick of dynamite?

I am going to stow the pack soon, sleep soon. Then I will go look at art and beauty and architecture. I will ask people what we are going to do. Hopefully the rain will let up before the day is over.

I have a naturally bad attitude, and monuments that glorify authority and power make it worse.