'The map is not the territory,' I tell myself, mantra-like; I certainly don't need reminding that that tangle of loops and swoops on the city map I'm studying is not the same thing as the mess in which I have repeatedly gotten lost driving. This tangle, on an overcast day, gives no hints where compass points are; and the ambiguity of the signage suggests calculated malice. Malice of whorethought. As can be the case with the Potomac-bank Federal space of naughtwest D.C. (which this is not—this city is brand new), you really need to memorize a lot of cues by rote, count exits, etc. I am counting exits on paper and trying to commit them to memory.
Once I've got through this mess and am back in familiar environs, however, the remaining question is the fastest way to get back north through the city to my own neighborhood. Jimmy and I are driving both our cars and keeping abreast each other, though we're talking quietly and casually as if sharing one car's interior. Usually I take the parkway, even though it's cumbersome to get to and curves around a lot. He recommends [Whatsit] Street, along the city's eastern corridor; it's on the city grid but the traffic lights are timed well for efficient travel. Jimmy's in the wrong lane, to my left—his lane veers off onto some ramp or other—so I tell him to cut in front of me when the light turns green. He does, and moments later for no apparent reason we are in a single car following the route he suggested.
We talk about stopping for a drink. There are numerous hole-in-the-wall bars along this corridor, and on a seize-the-day sort of whim he pulls barely to a stop in front of one and I jump out to case the joint while he parks. At least that's what I assume is happening. I go in and see what's what: Spartan would be a good word. Mostly unpopulated (zero staff in immediate evidence), *profoundly* undecorated, bright as a classroom, it reminds me of nothing so much as the raw bar at the end of the Berlin "Auction". One long tawny-stained bar with a few stools and a single beer tap: Bud Light. Ugh, I think, but I'll drink it if Jimmy will. I wait. He does not appear. Maybe I mistook his intention? Well, It's not like I'm saving a spot for us in a crowded room, so I go out into the street and look around. I look all the way around the block. Parking is plentiful but I cannot find him. I go back inside.
When he finally arrives, it turns out Jimmy is now Séain, who has stopped at home and changed into drag before joining me. It's middle-aged Tory woman drag, very Terry Jones, but it somehow works on him. We sit down and start drinking beer.
A later sequence takes place at an unnamed friend's large and gorgeous house in the woods. He is an older man and I am a younger woman. (Whatever the gender, my dream age lags a good two decades behind my actual age.) We are apparently on one day-long multi-pronged errand to make a big dinner. Probably for guests who have not yet arrived. We have been out shopping and have been conversing on the long walk home about life as we're stuck with it: the species, the biosphere; emotion and outlook. After a long stretch of such conversation I have nearly convinced myself that politics is entirely irrelevant. I am lighthearted. Politics is personal, I say, and I personally don't care!
We have gotten back to the house and at the fork in the unpaved path I veer left, to my host's surprise. It is my first visit and I'm just getting acquainted with both house and property. The path on the right heads toward the kitchen, and we have groceries in hand. It occurs to me that this is our second grocery errand of the afternoon and that we had veered right on returning from the first. I should have remembered this, but it doesn't matter. The left path takes us to the front door, and it's no long haul from there to the kitchen.
It occurs to me I am almost certainly going to end the night ahead by having sex with my host. Even though I am a woman in this scene, I worry about how Paul will feel about this. Anyway, cooking dinner is the important thing for now; it's not clear when the guests will arrive. When they do, though, they are kittens, and they wake me up.
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