Weekend update

Matt and Jeff were in town, and on Saturday night Thom and I met up with them at Dupont Circle. We all headed to Levante’s, on 19th Street, for a tasty Mediterranean dinner. Ah, great food and great company. (And great weather, too; there was a forecast of rain, but our table on the patio got nothing more than a strong breeze.) Among other things, we traded vacation stories: they told us about how their D.C. trip was going—Thom and I agreed the boys had quite an impressive sightseeing itinerary, covering several museums and monuments in just a few days—and we told them about our trip last month to New York (hey, I never did get around to writing about that, did I?).

After we parted ways, Thom and I walked up to Lambda Rising, where I picked up a couple of books from the sale racks: Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood (published together in one volume), and Fraud by David Rakoff, which I’ve been meaning to get for a while. That man has a big (wait for it…) vocabulary; the new word I learned today is “samizdat.”

Yesterday I went to the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. That night’s performance, held in the Concert Hall (usually these free concerts are in the foyer, so I especially like to go to the occasional ones held in the center’s other larger venues), was by the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute, a program for youth ages 14-21. It’s always exciting to see such talented young musicians. They played a program of Glinka, Sarasate (featuring a fantastic solo violinist), and Schumann. By the way, a couple weeks ago I went to the Millennium Stage to see the London Gay Men’s Chorus, which was a fun and moving performance. Two of the songs, “Seasons of Love” and “Come What May” brought a few tears to my eyes, and I thought to myself that had Thom been there too, we both would’ve been bawling. (We’re such criers.)