Walking Arlington

Roger and I had a romantic day together today. After finishing Good Luck Chuck (probably one of the worst movies ever) and then watching Charlie Wilson's War (very, very good), we decided to grab some food. Without any idea where we wanted to go, we just started walking. I had my camera on me, so I just took a bunch of pictures of Arlington, figuring that almost everything we were looking at was going to change soon. We also decided to eat somewhere we had never eaten before, which ended up being a very good idea. We passed by El Pollo Rico, one of the three Peruvian chicken places in Arlington, and the current favorite of both DCist and my uncle Mark. I still argue that Super Pollo is better, where you can get chicken that tastes just as good, plus yuca. Anyway. Walking around Arlington made me notice a lot of things I never do when I walk by them. Like the flower painted on the side of a building, painted after September 11th, with the date painted like one of the clouds. Or the shoe repair place that seems to advertise that its open very well, would have a real bitch of a time changing the sign at closing, and for some reason is located in the corner of a parking lot.

The first place we actually stopped at was Orpheus Records, a small record store in Arlington that is currently going out of business. The Washington Post wrote an article on the store and the issues its having, mainly not being able to make the increasing rents as business decreases. Roger and I commented that the guy behind the counter (not the owner) seemed a lot like Comic Book Guy, both in appearance and condescending demeanor. Despite this, even though I dont have a record player yet (thats a subject for future posts), I picked up two Sufjan Stevens albums, Illinois and Michigan, and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm. Thanks to Raz for getting me into vinyl, mostly because of how cool the Bloc Party records look and the extra track on the Illinois album. Plus the covers will look great if I ever put anything on my walls.

We kept walking, turning into a few more stores (there's a porn shop in Arlington! score!), and finally got hungry around the end of Clarendon. We saw a place that we have passed a million times called Earl's. Roger made a quip about it probably being named after the Earl of Sandwich, which turned out to be true, then pointed to his head and said "This thing ain't just a hat rack". What a funny guy that Rog is. Earl's bills itself as just like homemade, but with less the hassle. Earl has obviously never been to my house. Earl turns out to be Steve Dugan, former employee at Rockland's and the guy that picked out my sandwich for me. Turns out he is cool as shit, knows his menu, and makes great sandwiches. I had the Pearl, which tasted like Thanksgiving on a roll, and the Rog got the Monty, which looked awesome other than the mayo based spread that was also included. We both got the gumbo, which was more like a stew but still really good, and I got the fries when I noticed they were fresh cut before I ordered them and Earls had Old Bay to put on them. I loved it, the Rog loved it, and the Washington Post loved it too. I will be back often.

At this point its about 2 and a half hours into our walk, and the Rog and I asked each other if we should feel gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) about the whole day. Without girlfriends or even girl friends, we decided that it wasn't gay, more of just a trip together by default. Then we went and got lattes together. Shit. Oh well, the coffee was good, and from a small place near Courthouse called the Java Shack. The place is very typical small coffee house, with a bunch of hippie ideals about people bringing in their own mugs and stuff, but the prices were really good and I would choose it over Starbucks any day. I think you can also see the place upstairs in the picture - its a massage parlor. I asked if it was the kind of massage parlor that gave happy endings and found out that (unfortunately) it isn't. This led Roger and I to begin discussing massage parlors, our friend Phil's plan on experiencing one in DC which takes the term happy ending to another level, and then about two brothers who "experienced" the same girl in the same night. This made us both feel much more manly - back on the "straight talk express" if you will - as we headed into Courthouse for the turn around point in our journey.

We popped into Olsson's Books and Records, mostly because I wanted to see if they actually sold records (they do, kind of. They had three. So I guess that counts). There were a lot of different types of books, not as big as a Barnes and Nobel, but with a much more local feel. They had a good list of recommended reads, including one of the funnier reviews I have ever read. The Rog also found a book that from the outside seemed to be written about TSNIFB, but as the old saying goes, you can't judge a book from its cover (although I'm thinking about suing for false advertising, they are obviously making money off people expecting to read about Glenn). I picked up one book, signed by the author: The Redskins Encyclopedia, for EJ and Katie as an engagement present, then we started back towards Ballston.

On the way back, we almost got run over by a group of hashers, people who run a 5k to get to a keg at the end (my kind of people), and an Enviorcab, then actually did run into BRJ, looking as straight as ever. He was out with his boyfriend / roommate buying wine to celebrate Presidents Day, and to try to get a woman drunk enough to look past his flaming homosexuality and play patty cake with him. They picked up $140 worth of wine, wasting about $130 when two $5 roofies will do the trick, and posed for one picture. Surprisingly, he didn't realize that Roger was farting on him the entire time until it was too late. We passed a car getting towed, which I laughed at and snapped a picture of. What was weird, after I took the picture the two tow truck passengers took pictures of me (why the hell did they both have cameras) from the parking lot and again while they sped by us, without towing the car. Very strange. We passed the remains of another building getting torn down, hopefully for more condos, grabbed a beer, and called it a day.

Quite a Sunday.