So our hotel was located in this very posh, upscale gay neighborhood in DC. And while the above signals would be enough to key the ordinary person in on their surroundings, I guess it wasn't blatantly obvious enough for my parents to key in.

"Hey, Mom..." I whispered under my breath. "I think we're in a gay neighborhood."

"A what?" My mother's face scrunched up quickly as she leaned back to hear me.

"A gay neighborhood," I hissed, trying not to offend the pair of speedwalkers that waddled past us.

"What?"

"A gay neighborhood, Ma. Gay, gay, gay."

"A gay--? How can you tell?"

"Mom, it's like, super gay around here. And I'm usually the last person to pick up on those things."

"Well, so am I, but don't make any assumptions. It doesn't look too bad to me."

I rolled my eyes as we rolled our suitcases past a stoop of male lovers, wearing Lucky Brand t-shirts. "I didn't say it was bad. I just said it looks like a pretty gay neighborhood. I mean, I thought I saw some guys checking Marc out when we got out of the subway."

"You're being ridiculous," my mother sighed as she crossed the streetlight dotted with triangles and John Kerry stickers. "Let's just concentrate on getting to the hotel, okay?"

So we finished walking the rest of the three blocks to the hotel, which ends up being pretty ritzy, at least for an Embassy Suites Hotel (Do the Hiltons own that chain, too? Yes? Hot damn.), I think. Mom marched on over to the front desk to check-in, where they told us that we can't dump our luggage until after 4:00. Mind you, it's only just after 11:00, I'd had nothing to eat all morning except for this crusty bagel I picked up at Union Station. What kind of ghetto hotel starts checking people in after four in the afternoon? Ridiculous.

We ended up killing time by taking the subway down to the Smithsonian, where the National Mall was packed with political protesters and people involved in some Latin American Heritage festival.

"Help us find a cage big enough to hold Dick Cheney!" an activist shouted at me as I stepped away from the subway escalator. I didn't take any of her pamphlets, but I smiled knowing that her heart was in the right place.

The rest of the vacation was spent getting lost trying to find places like Ford's Theatre and the Holocaust Museum, and evacuating the hotel during a prank fire alarm. Marc and I celebrated diversity by eating Chipotle burritos in Chinatown, and cracking up at the assortment of psychos that gathered around the subway.

"And I told that bitch, 'Fuck that, shit. Hell, bitch, I'm only forty-nine...'"

"You look like my brother's friend Jeff... Wanna buy a t-shirt?"

"Nigga, please... Can't get nowhere. I climbed up the tree and left."

One guy in particular actually stopped me in the middle of the food court and asked, "Excuse me, miss, you got any babies?"

Babies? I winced. "Errr... no."

"Oh. You gots a boyfriend?"

Oh, hell no. I wasn't interested in picking up transients in the middle of the train station, even if they sported a couple of gold tooth fillings here and there. I shook my head no and quickly walked away with my tray of French fries.

In the National Archives, where they hold the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they have this group of actors posing as some of the first Presidents. George Washington was at the head of the line, Jefferson down the middle, and John Adams and Ben Franklin a bit further down. Each of these dead White guys talked to you as you moved through the line so that you wouldn't get too bored before having your turn to stare at these ancient pieces of paper. I swear, by the time I got to the start of the Rotunda, John Adams was seriously trying to feel me up. He reached his hand across my back (which was totally soaked, since we'd been standing out in the rain for more than half and hour), and started fanangling with my bra strap. "It's so nice to see youth take an interest in history," Adams smiled at me, and patted me hard across the back. He backed away and stared at my chest like I was the grand prize winner of 1776 Wet T-Shirt Contest.

Lech. I feel so violated.

Danielle and walked through Georgetown, where I got this at Sephora (I have Cinnamon Buns in my bathroom already). It was later stolen in a handicapped bathroom stall at Pentagon City. The whole thing was so depressing, I took the Blue Line all the way back to the hotel without saying anything.

posted at 8:30 a.m.