In which The Gay Recluse returns to Dupont Circle.

For the past few days we’ve been staying at a hotel not far from Dupont Circle, which is the same neighborhood where we lived after college and before law school.

Mostly it makes us wonder: why did we ever move? It’s so nice around here!

It’s filled with charming rowhouses, good restaurants, cozy bars and lots of intelligent and serious gay couples! (The ones sitting outside at the sidewalk cafes intently discussing the new jobs they will soon be getting once — dare we say it? — Obama sweeps into town.)

Sigh. We’re kinda jealous! Life here seems like it would be so much less abrasive than in Washington Heights (particularly as we remember how last week some four-year kid threw a rock at us and told us to “fucking quit pushing him around” when we gently nudged him to the side so that we could walk past on the sidewalk in front of our house.)

If we lived in Dupont Circle, our life might be a dream, but it might also seem kind of unreal.

Life in Washington Heights never feels unreal. Lol.

Here in Dupont Circle, we walked by the Safeway on 17th Street, where we used to go shopping, this almost twenty years ago.

It’s been totally revamped, so that it now has gleaming piles of exotic fruit and lush bouquets instead of aisles and aisles of Wesson vegetable oil, coke and frosted flakes.

The last time we were in that Safeway, we were still young.

Now it’s probably safe to say that we’re in the middle of our life.

It makes us think about the next time we come back to Dupont Circle, and what will be here then.

And if we’ll still notice or care.