While I'm a great lover of animals, there is a small family of birds that live in a vent right above one of Pete's bedroom windows and they do three things that annoy me. First I do not love the way that they artistically shoot their little white bird poopies all over the fucking windows. It creates the strangest shadows in the room, and sometimes I'm overcome with the feeling that magical shit monsters are creeping up on me from behind while I'm sitting at the computer.

Second, it's currently 6:18 in the AM and they seem to be very excited by the fact that it's the morning and are trying to convey the little birdy joy via the super-sonic screams that they're tossing to one another right above my head.

Thirdly, I think that they are a growing family and I just don't like listening to squabbles going on in vents above me. It's almost like someone plastered a group of small children into the ceiling, which I think would probably be less annoying. Fucking birds.

It must be noted that myself and various bits and pieces of my extended family descended upon our nation's capital city this past weekend to whiteness the graduation of my cousin Katie from the George Washington University, and amazingly enough the whole ordeal with relatively painless. No one lost an eye or anything. No, granted, my father was not present so the trifecta of hate was not complete, but we were still dealing with a few volatile personalities nonetheless.

When talking about my family to friends of mine I'm never able to fully get them to understand my particular family dynamic. For example when I talk to Pete about psycho things that my grandmother does he tends to make some kind of cooing noise and saying something like "But she's just an old lady and she loves you" where as Justin doesn't seem to understand why telling my relatives to go fuck themselves would do much more harm than good and would resort to just more drama.

Actually...That's probably the thing right there, there are certain people in my family who dwell on drama. They thrive on drama, and when they're not having any of their own, they pick up on other people's and make it their own. And when everyone else is fine, they dredge the primordial ooze of their imaginations and flat out make it up. So, after dealing with these people for years, the few of my more rational relatives have come to the conclusion: "Contain then ignore". Giving too much attention either way by saying "Aw, you're just old and love me" or saying "FUCK YOU GRANDMA!" both do nothing but feed the fire.

But, like I said before, the weekend went surprisingly well and I think David only had to sit and listen to my Grandfather rambling about his tomatoes once. For some reason, Grandpa seems to gravitate towards David and feels the need to tell him, in great detail, about how his tomato plants are. Personally, when I look at David I don't think "Now there's a guy who likes his tomato stories" but apparently my grandfather does so David tends gets the brunt of his tomato-fury. My sister, being an old pro at steering various members of the older generations of my family through conversations least likely to involve screaming and public displays of drama, had a fairly good handle on my grandmother all weekend. I was pretty much there to dance between the two and pepper the experiences with the unexpected whimsy that I'm so known for.

But like I said, the weekend went by painlessly, and when I say painlessly, I mean that we all escaped emotionally unscathed. The blisters on the bottom of my feet are another story. I think that this has to have been the most walking and sweating that I've done in a long time, and it really wasn't all that bad.

And now for pictures, because I don't feel as though I've gotten my fill of an entry unless I've shown you something pretty. So, for those of you who are filled with jealousy that I was able to go to DC and you were now, I would like to compound that with the fact that I also discovered Northern Virginia�s best kept secret.

"Oh fuck! Now I know Northern Virginia's best kept secret! Fuuuuuck!!!!! My multicultural head now a-splodes!" What a crappy poster. That was in the Metro station by our hotel in Alexandria. Our hotel was really kinda crappy, and I liked the mini-ghetto we had to walk through to get to the Metro...it kind of reminded me of Savannah.

A lovely picture of my lovely cousin Katie with her friend Amelia. There was another girl in the picture, but I cropped her our because she had a massive head and it was all very distracting. Big heads are never the way to go.

David's younger brother commented: "Wow. They look even less amused hanging out with you than they do hanging out with me." but I'd really like to think that it was a combination of my sparkling personality, biting wit, and the fact that it was 7 AM for the reason as to why I was getting those stares for most of our train ride on Sunday morning.

This is David totally owning the World War II memorial. It was really nice, but I agree with him in thinking that it's kind of a strange choice to make the American WWII monument in a rather fascist style. ::shrug:: I'm sure there was a reason.

The Washington monument framed in some big metal frame that was out in front of the Smithsonian of American History. Why is it that when you take pictures of the Washington monument it always looks like it's tilting to one side? I hate that.

When Justin and I went to DC last month I was formally introduced to the Metro system. Justin always talked about how lovely he thought it was and while riding around on it I thought "Yeah, this is really nice like the EL in Chicago" but I have recently revised that and now think the DC metro system to be far easier to navigate than the EL. Granted the EL just goes in a giant loop, but the Metro has carpeting! and padded seats! What's with that? It's amazing! The NYC subway and the T in Boston could learn a thing or two from the Metro. Granted the Metro wouldn't last a week in either of those cities, but still, it'd be nice.

A boy can dream.