Springtime in Washington DC

With first real spring-like weather, this city is exploding with activity and I’m not ready for the consequences. Last weekend, I walked to Adams-Morgan, my old ‘hood here, and was shocked when the quaint little running store I remembered was twice the size of before and packed with yuppies preparing for spring. I guess I can’t get too mad with the self-indulgent crowd; their tax dollars in one way or another funded my 3.5-year hiatus from this country.

Speaking of funding, I’m finally back in the workforce. After four months and two countries, I now have a job, not with the union or focused on Russia, but as a project manager for an Internet company. Yes, Belly Button Window got me out of accounting, what I’ve been trying to escape for the last five years, though still not out of the back office. Instead of bean-counting, I’m now managing the development of seven product lines that my company is designing to please its powerful investors.

These investors, heavyweights in retail sales from food to clothes, are funding this gallant foray into the treacherous B2B-exchange territory and made us a dot.org, not a dot.com. You can check out our website at http://www.wwre.org, just don’t expect to see any finished products since I’m still in the mix trying to make all these dreams a reality!

Luckily, the pay is real, and decent at that, so I’m happy with the high workload if not the hour-long commute each way. Even though I work in Alexandria, a suburb of DC, there is no way I would live there. I’m too much of a city kid by now, and to my benefit, I have a cool apartment in the trendy Dupont Circle area of DC.

Thankfully, no more couch living for me! Woops, actually, I am still, technically, living on a couch since I don’t have a bed yet and the last roommate left her futon in the room. Instead of opening it up into a bed like she did, I’ve made it a couch since I need the extra floor space more than the bed space.

I’m here alone, for Jingmei is still studying back in Oxford. Yes, it is tough living so far apart for so long (she doesn’t graduate until October), but we’re taking the short-term pain for long-term gain. I had fun yesterday trying to mitigate that pain in the most American way possible: shopping.

American retail therapy is great when you’ve been subjected to Eastern, or even worse, British customer service, and those helpful people at Macys and Best Buy were smiling from ear to ear when they saw my shopping list. With my first paycheck burning a hole in my pocket, I snapped up a TV, a stereo, a bunch of work clothes, and even a new computer game. Luckily, my new friend Mike was kind enough to drive my loot back into DC for me, since I’m still anti-car as ever.

Okay, enough of my rambling. It’s a Monday, so get back to slacking off at work!