Borderstan, an in-between hood described here, is inching toward legitimacy here, with its own website.

My hair has gotten to that point, folks. It’s time for a haircut.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but there’s a point—an actual length—in the afterlife of my hair follicles when all hell breaks loose. In January 2007, I was so sick of it (and it was long enough, after the split ends) to donate the majority of my locks to Locks of Love. Yes, I did revert to looking like my sixth-grade self, but it was worth it just to get rid of the horrible tangles that kept me in the shower for 30-45 minutes shampooing, conditioning, pulling strands apart, and repeating.

I’m not willing to get a cut as drastic as before (I’ve realized that chin-length bobs make me look a little chunky above the neck). I just need to take a couple inches off.

Which brings me to my main problem: decision-making. Sometimes (and when it really counts), I’m able to go confidently in the direction of my dreams…ahem. But for everyday decisions, like, say, where to eat for lunch in a new area or a new place to get my hair cut, it takes me awhile.

I asked colleagues the other day and scoured Yelp! looking for a quality salon with moderate prices and near Adams Morgan. I did a new search online this morning (with, of course, the same results and reviews) and chose a couple of places to call. I thought today would be the day. Thursdays can be relatively slower in terms of content, so I figured I could leave for a long lunch, get my hair cut, and come back beautiful and ready for a date tonight. And then I came to work and promptly forgot about it until I ran my fingers through my hair.

I was thinking Trim (close but expensive), Blondie’s (a bit of a walk but moderate), Urban Escape (I could just tumble down the hill to get there), or Bang (more of a trek but moderate prices, I think). Any (helpful) suggestions?

As I mentioned before, I’m brand new to the District. In fact, this is day 8 of my new life on the East Coast. With this new transition comes adjustments to weather (How ridiculous is this weather, people? I’ll tell you. It’s ridiculous!) and discoveries of fun things to do and great places to spend money on delicious eats. Which brings me to cupcakes.

I casually mentioned to one of my co-workers yesterday that I wished there was a great cupcake place nearby. To my surprise, she told me there were actually a couple bakeries devoted to cupcakes in the city; the closest shop to the office is a mere 15-minute hop over to U Street. After a lengthy discussion about our preferences regarding the tasty treats, I decided I’d try the first bakery this morning.

Enter CakeLove.

The less-than-humble “The CakeLove Story” section of Warren Brown’s “About CakeLove” shrine to himself and the play-by-play of his creative “brilliance” was more than enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth, let alone the misspellings, punctuation errors and typos that littered his site. (Note to Mr. Brown: I would be thrilled to tidy up your site. I am a copy editor, after all.) I’m getting dizzy just trying to figure out whether the name of his creation is Cakelove, CakeLove or cakelove. Let’s just pick a way to write it and stick with it, OK?

CakeLove seems to just be a glorified Safeway bakery. For one, I couldn’t believe my eyes when the person behind the counter wrapped the first cupcake, a raspberry frosting on vanilla concoction, in wax paper. What happened to the idea of using tongs to delicately place a frosted treat into a cardboard box, preferably in little cupcake stands? The folks at this shop definitely have the right idea when it comes to the cute cardboard boxes, but Brown needs to hit up a couple other cupcakeries — yes, I’m making that word up — and see how the treats should be presented. Heck, he should use his Food Network show to pay for the trip!

First stop on the tour: Magnolia Bakery in New York City, made famous on an episode of Sex and the City. It was my first true cupcake experience, and boy was it glorious. I bought enough to take a couple home with me to Seattle, but they didn’t even make it off the plane.

Trophy Cupcakes, in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, has great presentation, in addition to amazing frosting, though the cupcakes themselves are a bit hard to stomach. I don’t know about you, but my ideal cupcake shouldn’t make me feel like I just ate a brick. Those were some dense little cakes.

More recently, I visited Cupcake Royale, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Known for its “Legalize frostitution” bumper stickers and shirts, Cupcake Royale comes in a close second in quality to Magnolia Bakery. Its recipe of just-the-right-amount-of-fluff and frosting to (almost) swoon for makes it a top dessert stop on my 2008 Sweets Tour.

CakeLove, though? I’d say skip it. The frosting looks gross (especially at room temperature), the cake is a tad too dense for my palate, and just looking at the chocolate on chocolate treat on my desk makes me want to have a burger and a milkshake to wash down the nasty, cheap Safeway/Costco-like buttercream frosting taste lingering on my tongue.

I hope the next cupcake shop suggestion is far better than this.

A bit of neighborhood trivia: Residents living near 15th Street between P and T streets have taken to calling their area “Borderstan.” The not-quite-Dupont not quite-U-street-Logan hood is divided between two police districts, with the eastern side falling under the Third District and the western side going to the Second District. (Not quite Laptopia, either.) The name arose when residents in Eastern and Western Borderstan convinced police in both districts to cooperate in solving crimes centered along 15th Street. These days, residents of Borderstan and beyond are concerned about the return of Darrell Barber, a well-known local hustler suspected of knocking on doors to offer handyman services, then breaking in if no one answers. Barber was released from jail in March.

At-large council incumbent Carol Schwartz‘ campaign might just be a couple of weeks old, but she’s wasted no time finding prime office space: LL over the weekend spotted Schwartz signs above a 7-Eleven at the corner of 12th and U Streets NW.

This, of course, is rival Dee Hunter’s stomping grounds; the border of the district he represents as an advisory neighborhood commissioner starts a block up 12th Street. Hunter, natch, called up LL yesterday to point it out.

“I think it’s a smart decision on her part, because no one knows who she is the neighborhood,” he says.

Hunter continued the trash-talking, pointing out Schwartz’ plastic banners and signs recycled from her last campaign: “Her headquarters is really an eyesore. We don’t tolerate that kind of stuff hanging from buildings around here. It does not fit the neighborhood at all.”

Hunter, of course, pointed to the sharp backlighted sign on his own (empty) headquarters, a block and a half away at 1318 U St. NW, as something more in keeping with the surroundings:

Hunter had better watch it—Schwartz has clearly been eying a possible run from him for years, having been slowing inching onto the happy Hunter grounds: For her 1996 mayoral run, she had her headquarters downtown. Then, for runs in 1998 and 2000, she occupied a building at 7th Street and New York Avenue NW (now occupied by the Jack Evans campaign). The 2002 tilt took her to upper Georgia Avenue NW, and in 2004 HQ was on the 900 block of U Street, according to Schwartz aide John Abbot.

Abbot also notes that mail service has begun and the Schwartz campaign would be happy to accept any checks at 1115 U St. NW, Suite 201.

Note: LL is taking a pre-campaign-season constitutional the remainder of this week and next. He’ll see you all at the Palisades July 4 parade and back on City Desk on July 7.

Right when you thought the Lincoln Theatre was all cashed out, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced earlier today that the District plans to develop two city-owned properties behind the theater and use a portion of the funds generated by the properties to support the theater’s future operations.

Fenty says its his hope that the two properties on the 90,000-square-foot parking lot will bring in enough revenue to help keep the cash-strapped 88-year-old theater afloat.

Early last year, Lincoln officials threatened to shut down the once-popular theater due to lack of finances until the D.C. gov put up a $200,000 grant to keep the doors open. The District also spent another $1.5 million last year for capital improvements that are nearly complete.

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham and At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown also attended the announcement today outside the theaterss U Street entrance.

“We want to bring the Lincoln Theatre where it should be,” said Graham, who has been on the theater’s board for 10 years.

It was a shame the announcement did not take place in the back parking lot so everyone could see where all the action was taking place. The District is requiring that any development will provide ongoing financial support for the theater and include at least 7,500 square feet of flexible event space. Bids for the site are due by July 18 and construction is scheduled to begin by October of this year.

Opened in 1922, the Lincoln Theatre is known for hosting big-name performers, including Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Early next month, Maya Angelou is scheduled to celebrate her 80th birthday there. Maybe she can give over her birthday cash to help out?

—Whitney Boyd

Gotta love the gay folks. On the first night of the NCAA tourney, the Duplex Diner, 18th and U, was indeed packed and the TVs were indeed fired up to a competition—reruns of the previous night’s Top Chef. But that roasted chicken with raisin-dotted couscous and matchstick-cut veggies? Bravo.—Jule Banville

When Shaw resident Helena Andrews entered U Street haunt Marvin last Saturday night, she could smell that something was up. “When we walked in, you could obviously smell smoke,” says Andrews. “We said, ‘What, are they barbecuing up there or something?’”

Despite the stench, Andrews and pals decided to stick around, order drinks–“white Chimay,” says Andrews–and hang out in the packed bar. “We’re not the only people they let in after it started to smell like smoke,” says Andrews. “And it really smelled like smoke.”

Andrews estimates she was in the spot for “about fifteen minutes” before Marvin’s manager, Sheldon Scott, “came in from outside and said, ‘We need everybody to leave, we’re closing down.’” At that point, says Andrews, “Nobody took it seriously. Everyone kept drinking.”

Says Scott, “We stopped serving when we first realized there was a potential problem.” Later, when staff failed to locate the smoky source, “we decided to evacuate,” he says. “Some people left. Some had to be directed to leave . . . and some people wanted to know more about what was going on.”

“They never shouted outright, ‘There’s a fire, get out,’” says Andrews. “We overheard management saying, ‘We don’t want to yell “Fire” because we don’t want to cause chaos,’” she recalls. “They were not effectively communicating the situation.”

Scott says that management let patrons know that the situation was “a potential threat,” but did not elaborate on the problem. “We weren’t sure what it was at that point,” he admits.

After attempting to get patrons to leave for several minutes, says Andrews, Marvin’s staff “got all crazy about it and went bipolar . . . people started scrambling to close out their tabs. Then Sheldon started shouting, ‘Stop telling people to close up their tabs!’ It was chaos.”

When the building was finally evacuated, Scott says, the fire department was able to locate the source of the smell: a few smoldering cigarettes that had accumulated between the planks of the rooftop deck.

But not before Andrews had finished her drink. “We had literally just gotten our drinks of white Chimay!” she says. “They were humongous. We were downing our glasses. They were trying to kick us out, but we had just gotten our drinks, and we were going to finish them. And we did.”

The party at Republic Gardens is over, at least for now. Whitney Restaurants Inc., the company that operated the club at 1355 U Street, was evicted Oct. 29 due to “over $200,000 [owed] in back rent [and] taxes,” landlord Henry McCall says.

U.S. Marshals carried out the eviction Monday morning. “That building has been gutted out,” McCall says. A day later, McCall changed the locks and padlocked the double doors at the club’s entrance. “I’ve never seen anybody I’ve wanted to shoot as much as him,” he says of his former tenant.

According to McCall, Whitney Restaurants Inc. stopped paying rent, water and electricity bills several years ago, prompting him to sue his tenant in July 2005. In February 2006, the two sides discussed a possible settlement of $105,029.05—less than the company actually owed, says McCall’s attorney Robert Bunn.

The settlement never came to pass. Elbert Robinson, Whitney’s president, says that’s because McCall was “unreasonable,” unwilling “even to make an agreement.” He suspects his landlord wants to redevelop the precious U Street property, with an assessed value of more than $1.6 million. But Bunn says the company never paid the settlement money, and when the lease expired in 2006, “no new lease was ever entered into.”

“We went to court and got judgment,” says McCall. “They were supposed to pay the money. When they didn’t pay the money, we got them evicted.”

McCall says he hopes to replace Republic Gardens with another nightclub. “I’d love to put a club there, because I feel they’re the ones making the money that can afford to pay,” he says.

And, according to Robinson, Republic Gardens will live on, too. He’s now “looking for a more suitable, more profitable location to go to,” he says.

That’s good news for the club’s loyal fans, who’ve swarmed the U Street institution since Marc Barnes owned the place in the ’90s. Daryl “Uncle Q” Francis, who DJ’d there a couple of times and hung out there often, says Republic Gardens “was one of the only establishments that catered to…sophisticated black folk without a too upper class attitude…It was always a nice place where you could see nice women.”

Alexis Diop, his girlfriend, was one of those women. She began bartending there soon after Barnes sold the club, in 2003, and says “the staff was like a family.”

A family with some secrets, perhaps: She said she didn’t know anything about the financial troubles the club was facing.

Francis says he’d heard rumors, but had no idea Republic Gardens was on the verge of eviction. “I was there Saturday night,” he says. “It was very much a surprise that it happened.”

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

Waiting for the 90 bus at 13th and U last Friday afternoon, 43-year-old Leon Wilkerson was jolted to attention by a bag of candy whizzing by and landing near him on the sidewalk. A young man in shorts and a black T-shirt walked over and took credit. “‘Yeah, I threw it,’” he said, in Wilkerson’s recollection. “‘What you wanna do?’”

“I just stood there looking at him,” Wilkerson says. “Then for some reason, I just started to smile.” At that, the man grabbed the candy, slapped Wilkerson across the cheek with it, then spit in his face. The man’s friends pulled him away. As Wilkerson called 911, the group hurried into the U Street Metro station. Moments later, a van containing two D.C. police officers arrived.

The officers, Wilkerson says, weren’t eager to help. One was apparently short on cash and ran over to an ATM. Both officers discouraged Wilkerson from filing a complaint and went back to sit in their van.

A few minutes later, the officers’ boss pulled up. Lt. Michael Smith ran down into the station and jumped through the closing doors of a car with the suspects inside. During the ensuing melee, Smith injured his right pinkie, and the main suspect punched out a Metro car window. Smith detained two members of the group but missed the candy-slapper. Smith says he’s identified the suspect, a juvenile whose MySpace picture is taped to the wall at the Silver Spring substation of the Montgomery County Police. His caption reads, “It’s not my fault I’m out of control.…Mess with me, get shot.”