What does Baltimore’s only still extant communist bookstore have to do with Christmas? Nothing.  I think it is a nice photo, so if I my blog faithful wish to print it out for their own use, they can!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Don’t ask me, I won’t go, no matter how good your sign is:

This is my ultimate fantasy.  Have your picture plastered on every magazine cover, being able to call up Uncle Karl for a dress you wear for three hours.  And the Blackberry tossing possibilities are absolutely endless.  Marriage to any host of business leader, hot football player (egg shaped and regular round) and of course, having Grace Coddington feed you pie while you wear the world’s tightest corsets, all sounds too good to be true.  Yeah, I watched the September Issue 850 times.

This entry however is about another, yet more glamorous type of model.  Get ready, get ready…:

Sorry.  Baptiste Giabiconi doesn’t work for remuneration that would surely come in the form of microwavable macaroni and cheese dinners from Trader Joes, so this is what we’ve got.  But come on, is this not kitschy-retro-cool?:

A Mel’s diner.  I knew a guy named Mel and he was such a Mel that if his name would have been John, he’d have eventually become a Mel regardless.  Just like this diner.  Mel’s just fits so well it hurts.

 

In the spirit of Christmas, I have decided to give my faithful blog readers a self portrait.  I’ve been told in the past that it is mysterious that I never appear on this blog, because I do sometimes reveal things about myself up here.  If you know me, then you might already know them.  If you don’t know, I either reveal more or get yet more mysterious.

Well, without further ado, here I am*:

*after being awoken from a deep slumber by all manner of car alarm, noise, change in room temperature or the world’s worst sound — my alarm.

 

And its a long, long way to the top of… the wait, is that some kind of winged horse?:

Don’t worry Bill, you’ll make it to the top of the Hill.

There has a real shot of showing up on one of my t-shirts very very very very soon:

They will be surprising:

See, unexpected.

No, not the TV show, but about an actual Hill.  Actually, it is called “the Hill” by the locals.  Anyway, we’ve already visited this location:

And another view for those of you who LOVE flags:

Totally American.  These colors don’t run, yo.  Anyway, let’s get back to the Hill.  I was on and off the Hill for almost five years.  I watched it change.  I watched it in its good moments and its bad moments.  It was my work place for many years and where I lived.  I know the Capitol extremely well and I was happy to be able to visit it again.  I saw it with a friend who had never been there.  I remember being able to wonder hither and thither, but alas those days are over.  But it is still really interesting on the inside:

The rotunda is lovely and looking it close up you really get the details:

Our motto, out of many, one.  Also, there is this thing on the outer ring of the rotunda:

I know this gent is mining for gold, but he really looks like he is just swinging a golf club.  Appropriate for our golf loving congress persons.  The Capitol is fully of funny things, like the fact that a lot of the rotunda painting are wrong and feature drag queens and George Washingtons (plural).  The Capitol is also a place of passageways and the past.  Check this out:

This is the old Supreme Court chamber.  Before Diana and the girls met across the street, they met here.

Pink skies, just like in the Bahamas:

And finally, this is my favorite item in the Capitol:

Crystals, lovely, lovely and and and…  it is a chandelier the Architect of the Capitol bought from an exclusive crystal maker in Austria.  No, no.  It is from a movie theater in Baltimore!  Movie theater.  I bet it still smells like popcorn.  USA!  USA!  USA!

And someone else does too: