Act Locally

Last night, my friend Emily looked up from the lamb meat she was ripping apart with her bare hands to ask, "Why no blog posts lately?" As I stared into her gristly visage, I had to acknowledge that she had a point. Sometimes I compose entire entries in my head, only to forget all about actually publishing them them. Unfortunately, that's not the case today. So you will all now be subjected to disjointed ramblings about my life. If you have a problem with that... take it up with Emily.

On Saturday, Maggie and I helped a friend move. This provided me ample opportunity to demonstrate my superior strength (at least compared to Maggie), so though I was exhausted I was well pleased with myself. Afterward we lunched at Two Amys, a Neapolitan pizzeria in my neighborhood, and had dessert at Something Sweet, an adorable little cupcakes/ cookies/ ice cream/ coffee place. After Maggie dropped me off at home, I showered and changed and headed right back out to Big Planet Comics for Free Comic Book Day with my friend Jays. I got one free comic... and dropped $75 on graphic novels. Ooops.

Though I love comic books, I much prefer owning them
in the form of trade paperbacks.

Later I met up with my friend Justin to play Rock Band and have dinner at Alero, a nearby Tex Mex restaurant that I enjoy. From this whole story you should be able to understand two things about me - the first is that I'm a big ol' nerd. The second is that I like to patronize local businesses. In fact, while Emily was cajoling me into posting more (with bits of cheese stuck to her face), we were dining at BGR - a great burger place up in Bethesda. Don't ask me why Emily's burger disintegrated into a pile of meat, bread and cheese crumbles that she was obliged to messily devour. It's part of her charm.

Anyway, what was I saying... oh yeah, supporting local businesses. It feels like a terribly hipster-ish thing to say. And I will freely admit that I'm not 100% sure why it's so important - dollars in the local economy, jobs and infrastructure, etc etc I'm sure. From a purely personal standpoint, though, local restaurants and stores are just more fun. Sure, a local bookstore doesn't have the convenience or selection of Amazon. Maybe the sandwiches at the corner deli cost a couple bucks more than Subway. But think about how boring life would be if we only had global chains. Every town would be the same, except for maybe the number of Starbucks it was able to support. Those are my two cents - and they're going to stay right here in NW DC.