Praise Satan, It's Friday

It is Friday. Ben is up in Philly, Jenny is somewhere in the heartland, Zack and Michael are shooting craps in Sin City, and Amy is local, but buried under books and prose. She will return, or so she promises. In short, everyone is gone and I am in charge. I feel like my parents just went out of town! I am the lone guy holding down the fort. Given my track record, that is probably not a good thing. Those of you who read TNG regularly may have noticed the site was out of whack yesterday for a good two hours. Yeah, that was my fault. If something goes wrong in the next three days, I will most likely be responsible. What better to do when the big dogs are out of town? Leave work early.


Obviously TNG is not my real job and the other writers are not my bosses (well, they are, but not in the "I determine your pay and office size kinda way"). In my real job I have the luxury of coming and going as I please. I work in a regional office and my boss is three states away. There is no one monitoring our time in and out of the office. From now until about mid-September, the office starts to clear out on Friday around 1:00 in the afternoon if not earlier. Judging from the half empty cafes downtown around lunch time and the low density in the metro, this seems to be the case for many of you. With the weather warming up and spring being a showcase season here in the district, I plan on pulling the early Friday routine quite a bit. It is no doubt hard to work when the sky is just that blue and the weekend is oh so close and you are ever so hungover from Thursday night. And so, you leave work on Friday to see what you can find.

While DC can admittedly feel monotonous at times, the most fulfilling moments for me are discovering something new, or just simply being reminded of the existing elements of the city that make it so great. Last Friday, with almost DC-spring-perfect weather saturating the streets around metro center, I snuck out of the office early to run some errands and pick up some odds and ends (I mean, I was "working from home"). Along the way, my coffee addiction landed me at 14U cafe, a coffee shop at the corner of 14th and U Street (hence the name, for those of you drinking pints of water with tylenol and various hands stamps wearing off). I went a couple of times when it first opened, but hadn't been there since. To my surprise, they get their beans from Intelligentsia, which in my fair opinion is one of the best coffee roasters in the country. (Blue Bottle out of San Francisco edges Intelligentsia, but just by a wee bit.) Being a coffee geek, I became super giddy. This was a small gift from the gods, right here on 14th street. I cannot rave enough about Intelligentsia coffee.

So a coffee discovery makes for a swell spring Friday, no? For a small few of us, yes. For the rest of you booze hounds, a beverage that requires an ID would make for an even better Friday. I got one for you: Green Tea Vodka. Now admittedly, the whole flavored-vodka craze has become a bit excessive, with very few newer concoctions becoming main stays. This, however, was a surprising addition. How did this happen? Well, not shortly after my coffee-bender at 14U, I ended up at Vegetate for a belated birthday dinner. Being a herbivore, I was looking forward to trying Vegetate, the all-vegetarian restaurant on 9th street just a ways up from BeBar. I had heard mixed reviews about the food, but I was pleased all around. What left the biggest impression, however, was their "Green Tea Cool Out" made with Charbay green tea vodka, lemon juice, and agave nectar. It tasted like iced tea (made with green tea, obviously), with some crisp notes of lemon. It was clean and not tart. This is definitely is the drink of the summer. Who wants to go back with me?

Following dinner at Vegetate, I headed up north to Nellie's Sport's Bar to take in some beers on the roof deck, which just recently added lighting in the form of Christmas tree light ropes. Now, Nellie's isn't new to me, or to many of you. However, standing on their (very spacious and comfortable) roof deck under a star-lit sky with a large number of gay guys socializing and unwinding after a long week, I was reminded that we have it okay here in DC. This is a common sight in our city - groups of lesbians and gay men, comfortable being out, and enjoying the range of activities and night life offerings that cater directly to us. I think it is easy to forget how fortunate we are to have such freedom and resources at our disposal. We experience these activities with such frequency that we don't think twice about it. Generations of lesbians and gay men before us did not have it so easy, and many others living outside of ultra-blue urban locations like DC would kill to have access to a place like Nellie's on a Friday night in the middle of spring.

Now that is what I call a full Friday. Recap: perfect spring weather, leave work early, discover favorite coffee roaster has a local outpost, indulge in summer liquor, and take advantage of the well-developed gay nightlife and community. Life ain't so bad.

Now back to the matter at hand. Today is another spring Friday with blue skies and the weekend is in its infancy. What are you going to discover here in DC when you take that (early) step outside the office?