I am beginning to prefer the new scaffolded Washington Monument to its former white skinny phallic incarnation. Due to a long-term restoration project, there's a monstrous, bristling exoskeleton of metal festooning the whole obelisk, partially obscured by a decorative dark blue grid pattern that makes the whole thing look like it was constructed of Legos. I disliked it at first, but it has grown on me considerably. At night, it's a much more interesting sight than the simple gleaming middle finger of before. The blocky look created by the dark blue strips makes the thing look like some sort of hive. Where formerly a few spotlights shone on the monument, now hundreds of smaller lights illuminate it eerily from within the scaffolding itself. I'm convinced that when the scaffolding comes down and reveals the restored monument beneath, it will be a tremendous letdown. The monument is liable to look as bony and wasted as a once-broken arm when the doctor saws off the cast.

This summer they're showing classic movies on an outdoor screen at the base of the monument. Monday night was Citizen Kane, which I saw for the first time only a few months ago. Our friend Grover, video artiste and digger of massive home fish ponds, called to tell us he would pick us up for it around eight. Grover's initiative was surprising -- usually he seems content to sit back and let girlfriend Inga set the social pace. But now Inga has accepted a 4-day/week job in Philadelphia, commuting by train twice a week. Her insane travel schedule keeps her out of town least half the remaining time, and even solitudinous Grover may be discovering that depending on her for social contact may be a failing proposition.

At imprecisely eight, the car showed up with Grover, his housemate Robert, and Robert's preadolescent looking girlfriend. Things seemed off to a dubious start, as everyone was rushed and running late. In his haste, Robert blew blithely through a red light at the intersection of Rhode Island and 17th, and I caught a glimpse of terrified pedestrians poised with one foot in the street as our car whistled past them. Susan's hand was gripping my leg so tightly that I was afraid she would cut off blood flow below the knee. Having taken a wrong turn several blocks later, Robert was debating alternate routes with the other passengers when he cruised through yet another red light, this one just across the park from the White House. By now, I had mentally retreated to a place I remembered well from traveling in Senegal, where you disassociate yourself completely from the outlandish danger of your current situation by considering only what a good story it will make if you survive. From that position of acceptance, you can clearly see that the quality of the story increases in direct proportion to the craziness and danger of the current situation, so the more fucked-up the whole thing becomes, the happier you should be.

Parking was the stuff of evil dreams. When we swung by the area where the movie was being shown, there were already hoards of people converging, carrying so many chairs, blankets, and foodstuffs that they looked like Steinbeckian Okies. Traffic conditions quickly degenerated to anarchy. Competition for meager parking spots on neighboring streets was so vicious that it could easily make you rethink any notion of essential human goodness. We were all nothing more than roving packs of animals loping around the veldt, looking for the day's ration of sweet carrion and willing to fight for it. Foiled in his quest for an easy spot, Robert finally squealed to the curb to let the rest of us out while he continued the search.

The place was mobbed. Any positive civic sentiment I experienced in seeing so many people turning out for an un-colorized black-and-white movie was quickly extinguished. I'm not at all fond of such crowds, where so many people are packed into such a small meaty space that I cannot escape. It's when I feel least and most human. We chose a plot for our blankets at the edge of the seething mass of picnicking humanity, and were distressed to find that from this distance the screen was scarcely larger than the television when viewed from the bed at home. At least, I thought, our position provided me with a clear escape route from the crowd. Every time a group of people came wandering over and debating the merits of sitting in the plot next to us, I sent them intense telepathic messages that it was a bad spot and they should just move on. An old friend used to refer to this as "shooting fuckballs" at someone. I love this phrase, but seldom get to use it as much as I want, for fairly obvious reasons.

Despite a furious salvo of fuckballs, a threesome eventually plopped down next to us, sealing us into the writhing human carpet that spread out from the base of the Washington Monument. More people, insulated from my fuckballs by the trio next to me, sat on the other side of them. This only heightened my anxiety that in the event that I should become completely sick of all of these people, I would not be able to be alone as quickly as I would like.

Citizen Kane is the greatest American movie ever made and all that.

Every now and then during the movie I peered back over my right shoulder at the Washington Monument, wrapped in its cocoon of scaffold. It was one of the first cool evenings we'd seen in a few weeks, and I was enjoying the feeling of being in a sweatshirt. A plane took off from National Airport, across the Potomac behind us, and drowned out the movie's dialogue for a half minute. When it passed, the crowd seemed especially silent, concentrating. Looking up at the bright monument, I could easily forget the people around me. I wanted things to stay like that -- the monument in its new raiment, the movie carrying on far ahead, and all of us quietly focused on that one thing -- for just a little longer than the universe would allow.