To the dear sir or madam who found my page by searching on Yahoo for "things to do besides having sex"

Good luck to you!

This is something I can actually help you with (as a girl whose frequent dry spells are not, like my friend Waveline's, superstitiously self-imposed in the hopes of sending my favorite basketball team to victory). And you know, you'll be following in the grand tradition of humankind, repressing your sexual desire and channeling it into an obsessive pursuit. When I'm in a nice relationship with someone that I'm attracted to, I usually have sex about five times a day, and if I'm not actually having it, I'm thinking about the next time I'm going to. Add in massages and snuggling, and you're left with little time for creatively productive activities. Do you think that Christopher Columbus had a honey at home when he set off for his voyage out to sea to ravage an alien continent with his Western diseases? OK, maybe that was a bad example. But take Shakespeare. It's commonly agreed by scholars that he was married to a sour older woman who trapped him with her pregnancy - and his immortal love sonnets are fueled by frustrated desire for the mysterious Dark Lady. Do you think he would have had the energy for all those coruscating plays (and the production, and the promotion, and the endless travel) if he was worried about keeping the wife he loved happy? Dante's Divine Comedy is haunted by the unattainable Beatrice, and Yeats' love Maud Gonne (of whom he wrote "Was there a second Troy for her to burn?") spurned him and married another man. On a slightly different note, I've got to doubt that the man who built a model of the Lusitania out of 2,500,000 toothpicks in Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum was gettin' any regular action. In short, dear sir or Madam, by finding bizarre substitute activities for your sexual urges (none of which will truly sate your genetic drive for propagation) you'll be following in the footsteps of generations of geniuses and obsessive cranks. I wish you the best!

I have also noticed an increasing number of readers coming to my site by searching for "fun things to do in dc." And although my own strange viewpoint colours everything, I hope I really have provided some good ideas for activities in this city. So, for a summary...

Beautiful nature
Wander the gardens of Dumbarton Oaks, hang out in the Meridian Hill Park and watch the drum circle there, or go for a walk at the National Arboretum. You could also play tennis in the Georgetown park, and the nearby cemetary actually has lovely gardens.

Cults and religions
Tour the church of Scientology, learn all about the Scottish Rite Freemason World Headquarters, or check out a local faith healing.

Music
Go to a Phillips Collection Sunday concert,, a World Premiere at DC9, a Dresden Dolls show at Iota or the 9:30 club, or check out that Meridian Hill Park drum circle. The best thing about all these musical activities is that they leave you with less time to listen to Enya.

Art
Ah, the National Gallery and its ice rink, the Phillips Collection, the Hirshhorn sculpture garden, the local festival the Art-o-matic, the Jules Feiffer gallery reception. Then there's the stuff you do yourself, whether it be painting the milk crate on your bike, chipping in for a figure model, sketching strangers at Tryst, making exquisite corpses at a poetry reading, or making angry posters to protest the Inauguration.

Exercise
Ride your bike with no hands through traffic, take a yoga class, dance at Meridian Hill Park, ice skate, play tennis, walk in the National Arboretum.

Books
Ponder sociology at the computer kiosk in Kramerbooks, study at the Library of Congress, shop at the Idle Times $1 cart.

Nightlife
Swing on the pole at a Scantily Clad Party, go to the Native American museum, go to an S&M Masquerade Ball, watch monsters stumble home from Adams Morgan (but be very careful when you're walking home)

Any suggestions? Please do write me, dear reader, at funthingstodoindc@gmail.com. I love getting mail from you guys!