One thing I’ve learned while living in the District is that Washingtonians take their free time almost as seriously as their work days. There’s no wasting time in the pursuit of low-brow pleasure. No hour is simply a happy one. No gathering is just social. No stone is turned unless an opportunity is to be had beneath the granite.  And sometimes I can’t help but wonder what would happen if all those tightly clenched cheeks loosened up for a night and let their internal winds blow with free will and no preconceived ambition.

Districters take Israeli combat fighting classes and creative writing seminars. They travel to places like South East Asia and spend summers on aid missions and at unpaid internships. They get master’s degrees, launch lucrative contracting businesses, and run the marine marathon. They raise money for squalor survivors in third world countries and build art collections. They shadow brilliance and soak up prestige, all the while adding things to a mental check list that can be recited at salon dinners and networking cocktail parties.

I tend to approach my free time a bit differently.

Here are a few examples/suggestions I thought I’d throw out to all those who call our nation’s capital home who just may need a break from all the pretense and bullshit:

Respectable Pursuit: Studying the culinary arts for a summer at the Sorbonne
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Eating Raisin Bran while watching Top Chef reruns in my Grand Marnier t-shirt I won at the bar last Thursday night.

Respectable Pursuit: Taking a wine tasting course on Thursday nights with your better-half
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Getting drunk with random acquaintances and working from home the following Friday with a hangover and a distant memory of the guy you let feel you up on the walk home.

Respectable Pursuit: Studying ancient Egyptian pottery
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Smoking a bowl out of the ceramic bong your buddy made in his 11th grade shop class while listening to the Bangles and experimenting with green eyeliner

Respectable Pursuit: Listening to live jazz in the Sculpture Garden
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Lying on your couch listening to Hendrix while watching the chronic masturbator who lives across the courtyard

Respectable Pursuit: Attending the Russian ballet at the Kennedy Center
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Dancing in your underpants while drunk on Stoli

Respectable Pursuit: Doing the crossword in the Sunday NYT and celebrating with a caramel macchiato at the Firehook
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Scooping the pot after throwing the boys on tilt by telling the dirtiest snatch joke of the evening

Respectable Pursuit: Pilates class at Washington Sports Club
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Giving head to a redhead on an inflatable air mattress

Respectable Pursuit: Brunching at the Tabbard Inn
Damsel’s Suggested Alternative: Drinking V-8 Bloody Marys and Minute Maid mimosas while eating Egg Beaters and corned beef hash out of the can

Respectable Pursuit: Dating an older Scottish man who works for the World Bank
Damsel’s Alternative: Masturbating with an eco-friendly purple vibrator while listening to The Proclaimers

Respectable Pursuit: Pondering romanticism while reading William Blake
Damsel’s Alternative: Sending dirty text messages to a BBC producer working the night shift