We’re in D.C. staying at the gorgeous, velvety, sunlit Hotel Monaco. The rooms come equipped with animal-print bathrobes, they’ll loan you a goldfish for the duration of your stay, and our suite has a cavernous bathtub. It’s the kind of bathtub that makes you hesitate if you don’t know how to swim, the kind of bathtub that makes you think, “We could fit, like, eleven people in here!”

And so, last night, we hosted a Champagne Bubble Bath Roaming Robe Party. Everyone donned their swimsuits and robes in their rooms, then came back to the suite for a bubble bath.

You never know how ludicrously long your friends’ toenails are until you’re in a bath with them. People, cut your toenails.

Last night, we went to Six Apart’s very first official party, where we ran into some friends we hadn’t seen in awhile. One of them said, “We should hang out more. You guys don’t annoy us.”

The bathrooms have little “security seal” stickers all over everything. I think they’re supposed to indicate that no one has placed a bomb in the paper-towel rack. By day three, all of the seals are broken. While the absence of security seals wouldn’t concern me, for some reason, the broken security seals are making me think twice about using the soap.

I’ve always known that I tear up when I hear large groups of people singing patriotic songs. So it was no surprise when I had to bust out my hanky for the “Star Spangled Banner.” “This Land is My Land”? Check. “America the Beautiful”? Check. And then “Johnny Be Good” came on.

I return a rental car about a mile from the Fleet Center, and a bomb-sniffing dog searches my car. As I walk over to the convention space, I’m struck by how many men in dark suits seem to have descended in the last twelve hours. On every street, there are packs of men having a Reservior Dogs moments.

I pass through the barbwire-encased free-speech zone on my way in. It’s the size of a football field, and it’s utterly empty except for four or five people listening to a man with an unusually loud megaphone. He screams, “THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE IN A POLICE STATE, PEOPLE!” I can hear him in my teeth.

As I wait to get in, a small group of protesters marches past. They are shirtless, even the women, and are wearing hoods over their heads to mimic the plight of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A boy in the front has a whistle that he blows at regular intervals to match their footfalls.

I go through the metal detector, give up my umbrella and my bottled water, and show my credentials to the woman at the door, and then the guy at the escalator, and then the guy at the next door. Near to the boiler room I stop to watch a class of grade-schoolers pass. The union workers offer high fives, and the kids jump to reach their hands. A volunteer pushes past with a huge taiko drum. He thumps it with his thumbs and sings, “I bang my drum for you, a rum-pum-pum-pum!” Larry King is behind him.