It’s hard to believe it’s already spring.

Of course, the weather isn’t cooperating with Mother Nature’s sense of time. It feels more like January than end of March. What happened to the gorgeous 75 degree weather we were loving two weeks ago?

One of my best friends has been moaning and groaning this last month about how bored she is… about how the days and nights are so monotonous… about how nothing interesting happens anymore.

And while my feelings aren’t as extreme as hers, I have noticed that I’ve carved out a seven block area to live my life, rarely venturing outside those borders. Not on purpose mind you, but because that’s just the way my days and nights have worked out.

So, we’re going to rediscover DC.

There are tons of free lectures scheduled every night at the various museums in town, not to mention the fabulous Embassy events, and political fundraisers, and charity benefits, and readings at bookstores and the Library of Congress, and musical performances, and live theater.

I’ve taken my fine city for granted in the latter half of the decade I’ve lived in DC. I know its museums and parks and monuments are there, whenever I choose to seek them out. Living in Dupont Circle, in a vibrant and dynamic neighborhood, I’ve fallen into a routine … rarely venturing out to Capitol Hill or the waterfront or the Brookland neighborhoods.

I’m also known to patronize certain establishments… ie. bars and restaurants where I know the bartenders and/or owners. It’s easier to walk into a place where everyone knows your name — so to speak. And where your friends are sure they’ll find you, and you them.

The Washington Post and Washingtonian and Washington Citypaper are constantly reviewing the fabulous new restaurants opening all over the city. I’ve actually written some of them down, thinking “I’ve got to go there,” only to find out a year or so later that I missed my opportunity because the Brazilian restaurant closed to be replaced by a Thai place.

So to make a long story a little shorter, I think my online identity crisis has passed. I’ll be sharing my adventures into these once familiar places. Taking photos, offering opinions on lectures or performances or on the architecture…. in other words, a mishmash.

Sorry for being absent lately. I just had a few things I needed to work out…. a spring cleaning of sorts.

It’s the Year of the Dog.

Another chance to start the year anew. Recommit to resolutions. Start fresh.

My Resolutions for 2006:

1. Love more
2. Travel more
3. Write more

January flew by like a blur. Granted I spent most of the month in bed or on the couch, medicated and lethargic.

I got out of the apartment and caught an afternoon show of The Matador in Georgetown. It was awful.

And out of the seven teasers plugging upcoming features only one belonged on the big screen. The others were barely DVD-worthy.

Hollywood keeps lamenting the slump in receipts. Maybe if they produced films worth watching in a multiplex, people would return to the theater and not wait for the movies to show up on HBO or DVD.

This last year was especially bad!

Can you recommend any films for my Netflix queue? And what were your favorite flicks from 2005? Have you made any new New Year’s resloutions?

I’ve become a believer in curses.

In November, on the flight from Providence to DC, I put my mp3 player in the pocket of the seat in front of me. I was preoccupied, because of flight delays and reading reports for work. In my hurry to leave the plane, I left the mp3 player behind.

One week later, I was on my way home from a news briefing at the National Press Club and pulled out my Samsung camera phone to call a client. Well, when I opened the flip phone, each piece fell apart in my hands. And because the phone was completely destroyed, I lost all of my contacts information.

About one week later, as I was getting ready for a meeting, I heard a strange pop come from the living area. Something was wrong with the television. The picture was in shades of pink. Alas, my tv broke.

I carry my digital camera with me everyhere. The Panasonic Lumix FX-7 is tiny and portable and takes fantastic photos. I traveled to Massachusetts for Christmas and took about 400 pictures over the holiday. After I got home, I noticed the menu pad was bent. The camera no longer works. Broken.

I take very good care of my laptop – always protecting it with padding if I carry it around, shutting down properly, constantly updating virus protection software. The laptop is less thank one year old. One week ago, I was typing away on my Dell 700m, when the screen froze. I turned the computer off and when I tried to restart nothing. Well…. nothing but a bright blue error screen and a funny clicking coming from my hard drive. Diagnosis…. the hard drive died. Out of the blue. With no warning.

Not only did it die, but no files could be retrieved. And because Mala doesn’t back up any information, she lost all the music she ripped off her CDs, all her documents, and most importantly – all of her photos. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g GONE! All the photos of Portugal I took in April, and of my gorgeous niece when she was one-week old, and of Independence Day with the baby niece, and of Thanksgiving. All gone!

These last 14 days, I’ve been sick with bronchitis. I’ve seen the doctor three times and am trying my third antibiotic – hoping this one will clear all the crap in my chest and lungs. So I’ve been stuck on the couch watching a lot of DVDs. Yesterday, I popped in National Treasure. The movie started to skip. Thinking it was the DVD, I ejected the disc, checked it for scratches, wiped it with a papertowel anyway and popped it back in. The problem wasn’t the disc, but the DVD player. Broken. No longer plays any dvds.

Since the last week of November I’ve either lost or had to replace – an mp3 player, a cellphone, a television set, a digital camera, an 80GB hard drive, and now a DVD player. All, with the exception of the television set, were less than one year old.

Not to mention that I never ever ever get sick and am stuck battling a nasty case of bronchitis.

Is this normal? Or have I been cursed? What do you think?