GREETINGS FROM OUR NATION'S CAPITAL. Just a short note from a hotel computer to apologize for my AWOL status. My testing has been rigorous this time out, and I am short of free time as well as funds, so I spend my downtime drinking cheap grocery beer, obsessively flipping through the free cable*, and reading the local papers. The WashTimes is still a Republican president's best friend, and has picked up its blogbrethren's trick of defending Bush by finding a wacko webpost from the Left and waving it like Exhibit A. My few cursory scans of the newish DC Examiner have been inconclusive; other people have had trouble with them, and I was kind of puzzled by this softball article on Scientology in the Faith section of today's paper (do they maintain this same politely-nodding tone when they describe voodoo rituals and Black Masses?), but the makeup's good and it's free, so what the hell.

I'm staying in Georgetown, which is getting on my nerves more than usual. Maybe the more gentrified my own hometown gets, the greater is my tendency to look at überYups like the G-town crew as the responsible plague carriers. Or maybe I'm just sick of pastels. The last time I saw this much pink, violet, and pearls was at a Douglas Sirk film festival. Of course, I'm walking around this Arcadia in a filthy t-shirt and jeans with visible needle marks on my arms, and that tends to raise my alienation levels somewhat.

* I finally saw an episode of Rome. Are the main characters always this unpleasant? Were I blessed with cable at home, I don't know how often I would be compelled to return to watch scumbags duke it out for the title of chief scumbag. Maybe it'll wind up as a saga, and we can watch Christianity fatally weaken the empire. Of course, if I wanted to see that, I could just watch the news.

OH YEAH: I finally got a good review. I knew they'd come around if I just sulked long enough. That's how Monty Clift did it.

DOUBLE OH YEAH: Do you think Volokh or somebody bet him that he couldn't work "poor people are fat" into a Katrina post?

AND ANOTHER THING: I did get to a few museums -- the ones that are free, anyway. Where has William Beckman's Diana IV been all my life? (At the Hirschorn, it seems.) It's one of the best nudes I've ever seen, as strong and supple as a tree. The Hirschorn also has some DeKooning women, and I was surprised to notice that the more I see of these, the more I like them. The little gates of teeth he throws in used to creep me out, but now I think of them as a recurring joke: here, I'll get you started -- this is where the mouth is; now put whatever other distinguishing characteristics you like on this great splash of pink. And that'll be your "woman." Also: first time at the Renwick -- very lovely, but if that's really how they used to hang salon shows, no wonder painters drank.