fun!

Things I have learned or been reminded of tonight, in chronological order:

• My door is quite sturdy; I cannot shoulder it open, and I suspect I couldn't kick it in either if I tried. (Either that, or I am generally lacking in main force. Or, possibly, both.)
  
• My neighbor downstairs and across the hall keeps late hours, is very nice, and doesn't speak an awful lot of English.
  
• I do not know how to pick a lock with a bobby pin.
  
• Bobby pins have little rubber tips -- bobs, I suppose (aha!) -- on the ends to keep you from scratching your head.
  
• 30-odd minutes feels like an awfully long time when you don't know which direction the emergency maintenance guy is going to come from to let you back into your apartment.
  
• $35 due with the next month's rent feels like no money at all when what it's buying is not having to sleep on the landing.
  
• A spare key brought by an emergency maintenance guy at 1am will still open a door whose lock has a little rubber tip from the end of a bobby pin stuck in it.

Night, y'all.

in non-lockout news

I don't know how many of you were watching Rachel Maddow last night, and saw the interview with Thomas Tamm, who blew the whistle on the warrantless wiretapping program. It was something else, I'm going to tell you what. The guy looks just like a federal employee, dark suit, tie that must have been given to him by one or more of his kids, and every couple of minutes he'd close his eyes and visibly compose himself, usually right after he'd been ever-so-slightly struggling to keep his voice even, brave, brave man; and then toward the end Rachel asked him if he thought there should be prosecutions, and after a kind of mirthless joke about how he's a prosecutor by training although he's a defense lawyer now, he started talking about what he'd done and why he'd felt he'd had to do it and getting angrier and angrier, and my god. Here it is on youtube. When the segment was over all I could do was dry my eyes.

The website (http://rachel.msnbc.com) purports to have "more information" about Tamm's legal defense fund (and I should imagine he's got some legal expenses), but the address links back to the Newsweek article:

Bank of Georgetown
5236 44th Street
Washington, DC 20015

I am here to tell you that the number at that branch (Friendship Heights) is 202/244-1888, and the branch manager is Nicole Gilbert: kgilbert AT bankofgeorgetown DOT com . I'm about to e-mail her and ask how a person makes a donation. I'll let you know if she replies.

[update: I hear from the bank manager that persons wishing to contribute to the legal defense should make a check out to Thomas Tamm Legal Defense Trust, and mail it to Thomas Tamm Legal Defense Trust at the address above.]