fish and wigs on h street

A few weeks ago, I visited my friend Brian in DC. The ostensible purpose of the trip was to help Brian, his brother Duncan, and his mom Rosie to move from an apartment in Germantown, Maryland (DC metro area's hinterlands, or affordable housing located at the city's fringe) to a slick, brand spankin' new condo in the up-and-coming H Street neighborhood.

And move we did. A group of us that included family friends from Cincinatti, New York City, DC, Boston and Cleveland (myself) slogged through a 10-hour day of schlepping, schlepping and more schlepping. It ended up being quite fun, though. After a few adventures getting the U-Haul truck (can anyone say, 'the evils of corporate monopoly'?) we managed to get most of their worldly possessions (including Brian and Duncan's high school yearbooks .... mmm, on second thought, maybe we should have left those behind) from G-town to H Street in 2 trips.

H Street is a fascinating neighborhood. Apparently the city has put quite a bit of effort into redeveloping this area, which is adjacent to the fancier (and more expensive) Capitol Hill community. Rosie calls it the "fish and wig district" because it's just that: a place where fish and wig shops abound. Somehow, they now coexist alongside hip and too-trendy-to-have-a-sign-that-stands-out locales such as the Argonaut (a restaurant) and the Rock and Roll Hotel (a club with an unbelievably talented DJ spinning danceable grooves on Saturday night).

Here is a link to the wikipedia article about H Street:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_Street_(Washington,_D.C.)

And here is a link to the website for one of the gems of Washington DC that lies adjacent to the H Street neighborhood, the Eastern Market:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_Street_(Washington,_D.C.)

so what do you do again?

"You know those people who you know have jobs, but you're not exactly sure what they do?"

That's how a radio essay on NPR's Marketplace opened last week. The essay, by university professor Dan Drezner, recounts a conversation with his brother in which he tries to explain why he's not teaching classes in the summer. Drezner is doing research and writing then, but his brother, a hedge fund manager, doesn't seem to believe him.

My jobs - one part real estate professional, one part freelance writer - are also not exactly easy to explain at a cocktail party. Maybe it would be easier if my job were more boring ("I'm an accountant"), brilliant yet technical ("brain surgeon"), or if I were forbidden to discuss it ("child psychologist", something like that).

A part of the challenge of explaining my job to other people, at least with the writing part, is justifying to people that I'm not simply hanging out at the park or the bar all day. I actually do work. And every so often, something that I write gets published. Really.

The writing job sounds like fun to most people. "So you just hang out and talk to people all day?" Writing can be fun, but it can also be really difficult. Just ask my wife, Katherine; she has to put up with my moodiness when I'm stuck or frustrated with a story.

Katherine once heard Anthony Bourdain, the host of the travel show "No Reservations," speak at a conference for the organization "Iconoculture". Bourdain, who travels all over the world searching for authentic culture in places that most people wouldn't think to go to (like Cleveland, for instance), gave the keynote address.

He opened with these simple lines: "My job doesn't suck ... "

I suppose, when asked what I do for a living, that's one answer that I hope I could give.

Here's the link to the Marketplace story:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/07/24/summer_job/

turning to t-shirts

The NY times recently ran a story called "Turning to T-Shirts to Spiff Up Downtrodden Cities". The article chronicled the efforts of t-shirt makers in cities such as Youngstown and St. Louis to create and sell apparel that "rehabilitates [the city's] image from the inside out and makes people want to stay".

Among the companies cited is Rusty Waters Apparel, based in Youngstown. The article also quotes Abby Wilson of the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE), a group focused on bringing together Great Lakes cities to focus on common solutions to urban problems. "It's reframing the identity of those places that have been misrepresented," Wilson is quoted as saying.

T-shirts have long held a certain power in American culture. Advertisers use them to sell their product; people wear them to express themselves. For those of us living in the city, our t-shirts are something of a brand for ourselves - the images represent our city-loving hipster culture.

Right now, I'm wearing a t-shirt that reads, "Cleveland - West Side." It has this kitsch image of a skull sprouting wings - kind of a skull and crossbones thing. It's kind of a pseudo-Harley t-shirt for the intellectual urban planning nerd. I love it. I bought the t-shirt at Room Service, a boutique in the Gordon Square Arts District within the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.

I'm sure you'll want to run right out and join the t-shirt brigade. Room Service can be found online at http://www.roomservicecleveland.com/ or visit their shop at 6505 Detroit Ave. (at the intersection of Detroit and W. 65th).