i am swimming in nostalgia this week. some things in dc have changed dramatically-- like the development that's swept the various neighborhoods where i lived and near where i lived. many of these we didn't travel through ever, let alone at night. now they're the hip, swinging yuppie places where condos are unaffordable and regular people are priced out and moving. my neighborhood is hardly gay anymore, as the gay world has moved further from one circle to another (dupont to logan). i barely even knew where logan circle was back when, and i certainly rarely went there. now it would probably be more of my hood, i guess. although it seemed rather straight to me there too. ugh, why are straight people always in love with our neighborhoods? bleh.

anyway, i digress

some things don't change at all. my coffeehouse, soho, is amazingly the same as it ever was. which brings out so much nostalgia in my mind. the only difference from then and now is that everyone has laptops (with free wifi and plug-ins) and i actually drink coffee while here. i never drank coffee until i moved to san francisco; i just loved to hang out at coffeehouses back when, as i do now. and soho was the place for me. night and day. night time it was open til very late and i would often close the place after the nightclubs and bar-hopping. daytime i would hang out, read books, chat with friends, make dates, have dates, discuss politics, all the good stuff. what's striking about soho is how it seems lost in the 90's, as they continually have on rotation music from the 90's. it's fantastic! i feel transported back to my life in many ways here. i probably will be here at soho everyday that i can until i leave dc this saturday. it's my home. much like cupajoe is in sf. it's just where i live and feel at home.

another amazing nostalgic thing happened yesterday while i was hanging out at soho. Jasa and Scott walked through the door. they didn't know i was here and i didn't know they were in the neighborhood. it was random. and just a perfect sense of a time-warp. seeing Jasa walk through the door took me back to days past when he would meet me here and we would hang for hours, or get a drink before clubbing, or whatever we might do together. i miss Jasa so much and it was just wonderful seeing him walk through that door.

one more item i want to mention. i've never cried at a wedding before. i cried at jasa and scott's ceremony. i couldn't help it. it was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. they had a rather unconventional ceremony where they did a short piece with each other, and then everyone in the audience got up, one by one, and spoke. there were about 25 of us, almost all family members of theirs, with a few friends. i was the only Gay person there other than Jasa and Scott. the rest were straight people and they each said the most amazing, beautiful things about how much they love them and how they can see how beautiful their love is. each of their parents said the most beautiful, emotional, tear-inducing items about how proud they were of their son and new son-in-law. everybody cried and hugged and it was a gorgeous amazing beautiful day i'll never forget.