I'm looking mighty white this morning. Perhaps it's just the reflection of sun on snow here (the landscape is all frozen) but regardless, I need to get my melanin count up or I'm going to start resorting to drastic steps.

Stupid pale skin. At least my face has some color.

Let's lay out a few facts: I'm ultimately transparent. Whether it's allowing my id to speak most of the time, or my unfortunate habit (currently concealed by two friends) of being quite candid while unconscious, or simply not feeling guilty about most of my actions, I tend to wear my heart, hopes and hatreds on my sleeve.

Combine the above traits with a rather inferior memory and a good eye for detail and you get an odd combination: high highs, low lows, and little recollection or appreciation of either.

The problem with manic-depressive (or as they say "bi-polar") disorders is that one is plunged into a deep sense of gloom and doom on a frequent basis. It's a never ending roller coaster where unfortunately each time one ascends a peak, the valley before you appears all too soon. Fortunately, I'm not cursed with this.

Instead, each time I feel on top of the world, I mentally note to myself that, as good as things seem to be, things could always be better. I'm often happy but rarely content, for this reason. I can't remember the last evening that has gone "perfectly" in my mind. I've had several knock-down drag-out tons-of-fun evenings over the past two weeks, but nothing that couldn't have been improved in a slight way. Of course, for every two or three ups, there's a down. Conveniently, any time I feel particularly melodramatic (which oddly enough tends to occur more on evenings that are close to perfect than those which peter out completely) I am instantly reminded that I live in the most powerful city in the most powerful country on the face of the earth in recorded history. I hit myself and think that I'm neither hot nor cold, malnourished or sleep deprived. In short, life is pretty damn close to perfect already.

It's really that search for perfection that keeps things interesting. Take a hypothetical evening: say, Friday or Saturday night. A perfect evening would combine plenty of spontaneity with an unending string of places to go and at least one incredible story to relate afterwards. Ideally, at least three different groups of friends would be involved, but each would still remain conveniently compartmentalized so that nothing gets too socially sticky. Of course, ending any evening before winning time would be a less-than-perfect way to go out.

Being sponaneous and superego-less, (who needs a conscience? or guilt?) the only thing that can really prevent an evening from standing out is the performance or lack thereof from my friends. If you're that guy who has to get up early in the morning, you're already dead to me. If you're that woman who is feeling tired and wants to go home with your boyfriend instead of living it up, get out of here. If you're super psyched to go to dinner but I didn't invite you intentionally, don't make an ass out of you and me. If you hate rice and fish, don't hit a sushi bar, you know? Yeah, most people don't measure up. It's not that I mind when people run out of energy; far from it. I just want to see people slow down before they call it quits. If you're playing the game, you don't sub out until you're dragging it or injured. Yet at many social situations people take a pass long before they grow snippy, collapse into a heap, or worse. I prefer stamina to social graces. With a long enough timeline, everyone will eventually disappoint me. (I think, at this point, only Loaf has managed to never call it quits before either I was ready or before her body shut down involuntarily. She's totally duracell, even if she is crazy. Brad has a couple of friends that are the exact opposite, who seem to bow out early every single occasion. Of course, Brad himself...)

Last Monday evening, some people I was with hit the limit. Good for them. Perhaps lines were crossed, but the next time I'm sure they'll get right up to the brink and then back off properly. That's the angle. I remember in high school my cross-country coach said that you should run every race so that at the finish, as you cross the line, you have no energy left. Running too hard early meant you'd run out of energy too soon, so the angle was to trick your body into surrendering only a second after you'd crossed the tape. Later, my cardiologist (who was checking my heart out because I kept passing out at the end of races) told me that this was the dumbest idea he'd ever heard. When it comes to the social sphere, however, I tend to agree with the XC coach: the best evening is the one where you arrive home, take out your contacts and hang up your shirt, and immediately plunge into REM. I've lost more minutes of my life through my idiotic athletic adventures than I'd care to admit right now. I'm not getting that time back to me, years later. But the angle is still the same: don't burn yourself out early, and when you pass the finish line have nothing left.

I remember vividly a race at the rival high school back in the day. I was annoyed that there weren't any runners around me to pace off of. Instead, I was by myself, which made me feel much more tired than normal. As I ran into the football stadium near the finish, someone in the crowd yelled "He's right behind you!" I never looked back. I began kicking way too early, and kept it up all the way to the finish line. Crossing the mark and looking back, I realized that there was no one near me. The next thing I knew I was staring up at the blue sky. Fifteen minutes were lost. I needed some water, but all I could think about was that guy I thought was right behind me. He's never going to catch me. No matter how much time I lose.

The next week should be fairly slow. Holidays, at least in my mind, seem to involve less melodrama and more laissez faire. In such an environment, in the past, I would lessen the amount of my blog posts to a bare minimum, consistent with the lack of incoming news I was receiving. This time, however, I'm going to strive to be a bit different.

Instead of the "not much new has happened" school of thought, I feel this downtime should provide me with a perfect opportunity to clear up some points briefly touched on in the past. The common thread, at least in my mind, will be hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy? Yeah. Why, you may ask? Put simply, I've always claimed to be a hypocrite. I simply don't follow the logical implications of many of my positions. This enables me to hold views that are often diametrically opposed, or at least appear to be.

In the spirit, then, of exposing these twists to the wind, I hope to lay out a series of positions and follow them, step by step, to their natural conclusions. I'm not renouncing hypocrisy in general, but I am interested to see where the path leads. And so it begins.

Plenty of stories from this evening and last. Too many to tell tonight. I'll try to explicate all the various angles, nicknames and madcap mayhem tomorrow.

The one anecdote that sums it all up in the meantime is this: I roll into Ben's after having partied for most of the evening. I know I can only be there for a few minutes before I have to leave to keep the party going. I sit down and start doing some political scut work. Two seconds later one of the Ben's guys rolls by my chair, looks at me and says "Hey, you want some chili cheese fries, right?" I reply in the affirmative. He brings them out. Perfect as usual.

Skip the line. Skip the process. I'm getting service without even asking. Nice. No effort required other than the word "yes".

More on this evening tomorrow. Time to hit some bebop action. Life is perfect, stars be damned.

These holiday affairs are starting to come too close together for comfort. The real trick, of course, is to successfully compartmentalize all of them so that you aren't seeing the same friends at each event. So far, so good. Another one this evening should include more people from a as-yet-unopened box, although some were connected with last night's ahem festivities.

I managed to almost get in an argument (it was more of a heated discussion) last evening with a guy who was vehemently against race-based affirmative action. Don't get me wrong: I think class-based affirmative action is better than race-based, but I don't think we can say that race-based affirmative action is bad yet. But think about it: we're two white guys at a tony bar in DC discussing affirmative action. Kind of sickens you, doesn't it? When sir-speaksalot took a break from his vitriol, the other guy there pointed out that in DC, it was all about nepotism anyway so affirmative action was a moot point. I agreed.

Stupid rich kids.

Into the valley of death, right? Skip that. I'm too perturbed to continue. From an inappropriate insinuation to a friend selling me out, I'm not a happy camper. Behind blue eyes, no one can appreciate my situation. I am so angry right now I have to remember Bad Day at Black Rock.

You know who you are. I will right things.

The rain has changed to snow here in the district in the past hour.

There are few things more captivating than falling snow. People stand in the street, smile for no reason and seem amazed each time. It never gets old. Snow on the ground, dirty, ugly snow, gets old quickly, but falling flakes never cease to light up people around town.

And speaking of the town, the District of Columbia blanketed in snow is a sight everyone should have to see. From the mall to U St., the Morg to Georgetown, Haynes Point to the Anacostia, DC looks its best at night, with glittering crystals on the air and ground. All the momunments looks older and wiser, with the little ones (like the DC momunment to those district residents who died in war without any representation in Congress) acquiring subtle gravity in a way they don't have during the humid summer months. The capitol is more imposing, Union Station brighter and TJ's visage clearer as the snow falls. Even the ugly old Watergate is delightful in the snow. Pennsylvania Avenue looks as if it were ripped from a Frank Capra film. You stop hating the unlected guy in the White House and instead envying the Secret Service guards who are warm in their little pillboxes, emerging only occasionally to wave away any stray crazies who harangue the tourists.

I remember the blizzards of last year, running around through the closed streets, hoping it'd never let up. Every single person I met was having the time of their life. I hope this year will be the same.

So some people have cat fridays and others have science fridays but I think, in the spirit of 'werkz days gone by, that I'm going to introduce fast food wednesdays.

As regular readers know, I've a vast supply of hugely inane and lengthy stories revolving around me purchasing fast food. (Yes, they tend to be longer and more idiotic than even my regular narratives, which says a great deal about how boring they are.) But hey, I've got the talking stick...er...keyboard so that's all that matters.

Today, around lunch time, I drop my coat off at the tailor's (an unexpected windfall combined with the shoddiness of my seamstress abilities led me to this path; my last sewing job lasted a mere day before it came apart!) and roll over to popeye's to get some spicy chicken. Even from the outside, it appeared to have all the earmarks of a run on the bank. Once inside, I discovered an angry mob of dc denizens had developed, all annoyed that enough chicken had not been properly prepared by the lunch hour.

It turned out that every other person in line had come in with a "Christmas Order" which involved them snagging about 40 pieces of chicken each. This slowed down the lines to a crawl and depleted the supply of chicken to almost nil every few minutes, which meant an angry exchange between the cashier people, the mananger and the fry guys in back. On the plus side, the customers were almost all united in our annoyance that our chicken was taking so long. But it's DC, it's pouring rain, and where else are you going to go? Popeye's has a virtual monopoly on the fried chicken market in DC, which is good because they earned it through a superior product but bad because in DC, cornering the market on fried chicken means everyone and their cousin is going to be hitting your store up at lunchtime.

After about 30 minutes, I got my food. Yeah. Crazy, eh? But it was damn tasty in the end, so all's well that ends well. I'll try to keep these sorts of stories to a once-a-week maximum.

I haven't let up since I arrived home. The door lock has been fixed, various areas cleaned in a foundation manner (more for tomorrow) and kipple attacked on all fronts. Man, I'm tired. I think I'll catch a bebop episode and then collapse for my two hours of sleep. Oh, well.

I misled Deborah.

She made me a hat.

I wasted several hours.

24 was surprisingly good this week...almost all the 'what the hell is going on' plot lines were saved neatly.

Deborah drove me home.

Now I get to clean the house. Yeah, right. I've already blown 1/2 an hour disassembling a lock. I wonder what I'll "work" on next?

The bebop love is safe and sound. It had simply been borrowed (which I, truthfully, had suggested) and last evening's festivities left me arriving home late enough to not only engage in some atrocious spelling, but also to be flummoxed as to said dvd's location. It's now back where it should be.

In political news, Thune just announced he's not running for his old seat meaning that both Herseth (who looks 12) is setup for victory and Daschle may be safe as well. Nice. Go Dems!

So I roll downstairs to catch some bebop love but my dvd is missing. Missing! I was all set to stew about it until later this morning but fortunate for me, a partciularly good "family guy" episode was on adult swim.

Adult Swim rocks. If you've never seen it you've missed out.

Later I fell, dropped my cell phone down a flight of stairs and banged up my hand. But overall, a good evening.

Setting aside my internal debates between empiricism and free will, there are a few key moments in anyone's life that determine future directions. Looking back, I can point to a few days/hours/minutes that helped shape my life more than the regular tedium.

Likewise, in any month, there are a few days/hours/minutes that stand out about all others. They impact certain evening in a distinct way. Tonight was one of those nights. I can remember the exact moment at which things went from really bad to quite intersting in a single instant. All's well that ends well.

Um, yeah. Turns out that Halliburton is also serving dirty food to our soldiers in Iraq. Way to go, guys!

Friday night took me out of commission for the weekend. That and my body just wasn't feeling good. Yeah. I should be back to all cylinders tomorrow.

There's a girl twirling two spinning balls of fire outside my house right now. Damn.