The Suit

number three

A day of ceremony, walking, and clothes that come in their own special bags. 699 words.

DC—My new suit is hanging over there in the closet, back in its plastic bag with a knot tied in the bottom. My mother and the suit and I are staying at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA, looking out over the river into DC. Three blocks from the Metro stop at Rosslyn (on the orange line) seemed like a pretty available locale on-line, but it feels longer after you factor in all of the roads that you have to cross that are sort of like highways. In the other direction, the same distance brought our troupe to Georgetown and some top notch Ethiopian. It was much easier to want to walk that way.

It has been a big week for spending money and organizing my trip to DC. I had to search all over for a room in the area, noting that I was going to be in no mood to walk too damn far through the city in my slick-soled little shiny new shoes. Plus, I had to actually buy those shoes, buy pretty much every other thing I would be wearing from there up, and have it all sized and clean and ready for departure. Departure was also a headache, even after the destination had been found and reserved. Two days before blast off and I still had no real handle on how many people I was supposed to be co-coordinating and how many destinations I was supposed to be helping direct those people to. As it turned out, I am a big whiny bastard: all was refreshingly easy and we arrived in plenty of time. Fretting makes sympathetic magic, I said to nobody at all. Whiny bastards get to talk to themselves a lot.

And while I am whining, I just spent a whole lot to look fitting for the Deputy Secretary, Sunshine’s new friends, the whole graduating class of new Junior Foreign Service Officers soon breaking for the far corners of the world, and, hopefully, the rest of my long life of non-casual functioning as arm candy. Sympathetic magic wins out, and I think that the hundreds of dollars helped you look pretty good, me.

So this was the swearing in. There were plenty of things like bag checks, metal detectors, and little stickers explaining to the security staff that I was not to be seen unescorted. Sunshine put her hand over her heart sometime after this sticker had fallen off my new suit jacket and repeated after Richard Armitage until she was duly sworn. I sat in an audience of parents and lovers and friends; most of whom, I remain convinced, wore some percentage of brand new clothing. After this blessedly neat ceremony, we were escorted, sticker or no, upstairs into an amazingly hyper-posh reception with balled melon and furniture expensive enough to have proper names. The view from the balcony was a map to all of Washington with Arlington and Pentagon City thrown in. I could see every single field trip destination I’d ever had in the nation’s capital. It was nice, the little finger desserts were quite good, and everyone had that familiar feeling of collective relief after publicly swearing an oath. We all relaxed and enjoyed ourselves until they all but kicked us out.

Of course, we immediately walked around the corner to the other State Department entrance and went through the whole metal detector thing again (this time with guest cards on neck lanyards and photos taken at the security desk), all so we could go to the last fifteen minutes of the State Department book sale. I didn’t buy anything but Sunshine’s dad bought a large decorated yak skin. Got it for a pretty decent price, too.

So after some Metro riding and highway crossing and deliberation; vegetarian nachos, bottles of champagne, and a taxi ride caught on the street at a closed Metro stop, here I am back where I started this morning (and in my framing device), one day old suit back in its bag and tied up tight. Its only got about four hours on its meter, and there’s still no way I can wear it again without cleaning it.

Except on Halloween.