Walk Left, Stand Right

I have become quite adept at navigating the Washington D.C. Metro system. At least the orange and red lines. As it turns out, I have moved to MARYLAND, Silver Spring to be exact, which is a city that wants to call itself “Little District.” There are big bright buildings outside my window at night, and live music in the courtyard three blocks from my apartment on Thursdays. Silver Spring also has an affinity for penguins, which I have not yet been able to figure out, but I like it nonetheless. (Exhibit A: Weird mural outside the subway of penguins coming and going from the Silver Spring Metro stop. Exhibit B: Random penguin statue outside of an office building. E insists that this is not a penguin, but a bird.

Maryland is nothing like West Virginia, this I am glad for. On a massive road trip with B, we noted several pieces of what can only be described as crap, lying either alongside the road or somewhere in a field. We changed the state motto to “West Virginia: Leave your shit here.” If I were going to change the Maryland state motto, based solely on one city, I would change it to “Come to Maryland, we’re almost D.C.” I don’t even know what the real state motto is; I’ll have to check out a license plate later. I also don’t know anything about Maryland state history, and as soon as I find a proper library (read: NOT the Silver Spring one-room-wonder), I’m checking out several books to catch myself up.

Maryland is also not like Ohio, which was pretty much the point to begin with. I assume there are places outside of Silver Spring that resemble the corn/soy/cow fields of Ohio, and that there are just as many republicans out there, but proximity means everything in this case. If I don’t see it, it must not exist.

I have no idea what the people are like here, but I have learned that the homeless are the same everywhere (at least here in comparison to Columbus, Cleveland and Dayton). There is a man in a wheelchair that I think might be blind, but I’ve also caught him possibly following the bounce, bounce of a large woman’s behind. He holds a 2 quart size container that probably used to hold macaroni salad from his local grocer’s deli waiting for me to drop a nickel or a cheeseburger in. One day I might. There is also an old man on the other side of the street from Might-Be-Blind who is the epitome of a homeless person. He has a long gray beard, doesn’t always wear a shirt on the most humid days and keeps all his belongings (I’m assuming) in two Giant Foods grocery bags. He sits cross-legged at the corner of the Starbucks staring at the ground and hoping for something worthwhile to fall into his Styrofoam cup. Might-Be-Blind and Typical-Bum keep me sane: Don’t forget why you came here, they’re probably telling me. Peoples’ Styrofoam cups are waiting…