A black man and a rabbi

For years, whenever envisioning an idyllic city scene, I have pictured a black man playing chess with a rabbi. To me, it symbolizes the most powerful and uplifting vision of what our cities can be: metropolitan utopias, where individuals from totally different walks of life can come together and connect socially in a fun and challenging intellectual pursuit.

When I visited New York, I saw people doing battle with large plastic pieces at outdoor cafe tables. Here in Washington, I have seen strangers dueling over unrolled chess boards in Dupont Circle. But I, myself, have never before had the opportunity to participate.

That is, until today. You see, today... I was the rabbi.


Details to come

Starting the day in confusion

I smoked pot last week.

In my dream.

I never have before -- I tell people I want to run for president someday, but frankly the real reason is I simply have no desire to. I had no particular desire to in the dream, but my peers were pressuring me. Suddenly marijuana was everywhere. All the trees were made up of it, all the grass on the ground was pot, and everyone walking down the street had weed in their hands. The sky was a deep blue. Everything was peaceful.

Fine. I turned to my acquaintance, Jordan, who was with his two friends who I didn't know. "I want to do the marijuana cigarette," I said. They laughed and laughed. Had I said something wrong? I searched my brain for the appropriate terminology. Then I said, hestitantly, "I want to smoke a dooby?" They looked at each other, silently deciding whether my words were too outdated. They smiled -- they nodded -- I passed!

Jordan and I started walking alone across a large field. In real life, Jordan was acquaintance from high school, part of the jock crowd. I had had little experience with him. We both tried out for the Junior Varsity tennis team at the same time. He got accepted, I didn't. (In fact, of the 14 people to try out, only two were rejected.) Having received confirmation that my tennis game was, shall we say, subpar, I moved on to newspaper and drama and choir, and I lost track of Jordan. I ran into him again six years after high school, at the gym. He was still jocklike, and I was still goolike.

I quickly forgot the experience, and did not think about him again -- at all -- until he unexpectedly appeared in the dream about pot. As Jordan and I walked along the grass, he handed me the cigarette. I looked down at it in my hand. It was lit. Well, here goes nothing, I thought, as I brought the end up to my lips. In contrast to #42, I inhaled. Hmm. kind of a smoky taste, nothing too unbearable.

Then, suddenly, I started to get dizzy. Jordean looked at me in concern. I stumbled to the ground, and when I awoke, I was laying in my twin-sized bed, ten stories up. I was back in Washington. I was awake, and I felt like I had been laying bed for a long time -- too long, it seemed. The sky outside felt lighter than it should be. My alarm clock was nowhere to be heard. Could I have missed my 8:40 a.m. wake-up? Could I have slept through my 11:10 class?

Still laying down, I reached over to my watch, resting gingerly on the nightstand. I glanced at it. It told me the time was 10:10 a.m.

Excuse me?

I sat up and wiped sleep out of my eyes. Ten what now? I looked at it again. 10:10. Because I have been known to totally fail an analog reading now and again, I stared hard. I concentrated. Little hand is on the ten, big hand on the two. That means 10:10, doesn't it? I turned the watch upside down and now the time was twenty to four. That couldn't be right.

Twenty to four? 20:4? 4:20. The pot smoker's favorite number.

It can't be 4:20 because it's light out. It can't be 10:10 because I don't feel that well rested, and my alarm never went off. Slowly, I got out of bed and walked across the room to find my alarm clock, which was buried under a pile of clothes. Typical. I peeled the layers of clothes away, garment by garment, until the numbers were visible.

Eight o'clock.

Okay. My watch had stopped. It was eight. I hadn't missed my class -- I hadn't missed anything. But I had learned a valuable lesson, which I will sum up and share for you here:

Don't smoke pot in your dreams. It will mess you up. Watches will stop. Daylight will taunt you. Time will lose all meaning. And you might not be able to run for president.

Polyester?

It's been getting colder lately, and as I walk to Union Station, more "homeless" people have been asking me for money. (Many of them look far too well fed to be homeless.) Tonight within the span of six minutes, three bums asked me for my cash. And I realized, the colder it gets, the more beggars there are. Then I realized that I can probably write an equation to figure out the exact temperature by noting how many times per minute a bum asks me for money -- just like you can determine the temperature by counting how many times a cricket chirps!

Temperature = 80 - 80X, where X = the number of bums asking one for money per minute

Tonight I went out to a dance club. Yes, I, Matthew S. Schwartz, spent three hours shaking his groove-thang at Polly Esther's on 12th and F. I must admit, it was not the kind of place I have ever spent time at before, but after a while, I actually got into it. If it weren't for my splendid company, whose enthusiasm was contagious, I never would have started tapping my feet, let alone spent the $10 cover to get in. (The two Long Islands helped as well!)

So tonight, after YEARS of staying away from these places, I finally have come to actually appreciate a dance club. Dare I say there may be more in my future?