Posts Tagged Under ‘Washington, D.C.’

So Long, D.C.

What I’ll Miss Least: The transient nature of the city–at least the whitey part of the city. (NW, plus Capitol Hill SE and NE where we live.) I can’t shake the feeling that most people are here just to soon go somewhere else, and thus it’s harder to feel settled here than it has been in other mobile, creative neighborhoods of cities where I’ve lived. With NYC abuzz 24-7, settled was a relative term, but at least it makes everyone feel like one of the bees in the hive.

First runner up: The summer heat and humidity. Like swimming without a pool!

Also placed: Our old-ass apartment with its lack of air circulation and power outlets; confusing and poorly labeled road system; not enough going-out neighborhoods and the tiny size of the ones that exist; Metro delays, large areas of the city unserved by Metro trains and the lack of conductors who don’t pronounce “Judiciary Square” as “Ju-dish-u-ary”.

What I’ll Miss Most: Being in the political heart of the U.S. and everything that comes with it. In no other town in the U.S. can you to walk up to a random person in a bar and find out they work as a State Department liaison to Pakistan, or as an assistant for Ted Kennedy, or as a journalist working on an in-depth book about the failure of the Bush presidency. (And there’s never a shortage of the latter.) With the government comes the media swarm in which I work and the lobbyists, consultants and hangers-on that are part of how the country runs. Most people would probably find this group to be disgusting, and it often is. But if you want to be a part of the national conversation at the top level, this is where to bring the microphone.

First runner up: The great places to do some roadwork. My default running spot was the National Mall and surrounding area, and that was just as cool as it sounds.

Also placed: The cherry milkshake from Ben’s Chili Bowl; hot female Hill staffers walking around my hood; Eastern Market; the beautiful neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park; the fact that while it was still old-ass (see above), you could walk out the door of our building and see the Capitol dome and the Supreme Court; being only four hours from Pittsburgh; the fish-taco combo at California Tortilla; cherry blossoms and the other spring blooms; free museums.

Wish us luck on the move tomorrow; nothing cheers the soul quite like loading, driving 900 miles and unloading a UHaul 17-foot truck full of all your earthly goods.

Chicago buds, see you soon.

Quick Hits

Yo.

• Romney winning Michigan is a little surprising, but then I say that as someone who picked him to win the state a few weeks back, only to later doubt my own pick. The reports said a lot of his votes came from the affluent Michigan suburbs, which would make sense because I really don’t see him ever connecting with middle-middle-, lower-middle- and impoverished-class voters. The dude is just way too inauthentic and screams “privileged guy” too loudly. I think the rest of the Michigan GOP must have been split evenly between McCain and Huckabee and allowed Romney to hook it up.
• Opinion: Chuck Brown and Fugazi are the best musical acts to come from D.C. Your thoughts? Not that it matters, being that I’m right. I’ll make a possible exception for Minor Threat, but that was Ian MacKaye too, so in that case you’re just debating MacKaye-led bands.
• The water heater died yesterday in our apartment building, so I had to heat up a pot of water and bathe with that, a washcloth and a bar of soap. I felt and smelled just as clean as I would have been following a regular shower, and the whole thing was strangely invigorating, which is probably because I was freezing my ass off as the water cooled between rinses. Still, if we someday have to go back to nineteenth-century life, I think I could handle it in the bathing department. Although if I did have to go back to the 1800s, I’d miss cryingwhileeating.com.
• Jeremiah pointed to this a while back, but talking about D.C. made me remember that it won for coolest city flag. I happen to think Phoenix and Wichita should be ranked higher and Denver lower, and would like to ask what exactly Provo was thinking.

Out.

Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:37 pm | Link | Tags: 2008 Elections, Music, Washington, D.C. | 2 Comments »

Washington Metro

I thought I would share this Yelp.com review that I wrote for the WMATA. I was particularly inspired after calling four times today to fix a Smartcard problem and never being able to reach a human being:

“You know, when I first moved here, I looked at the concrete archway stations and green/red lights that make up the Metro platforms and thought, “Wow, this transit system looks mad cool, like an early ’80s dystopian sci-fi flick in the vein of ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Aliens’.”

But two years of Metrorail has brought the analogy full-circle: today I see the Washington Metro Transit Authority as a restrictive facehugger, wrapping its spiny appendages around the area’s commuter throat to spawn a series of acid-blooded delays, chest-burstingly high fares, and unresponsive customer service that makes you want to jump into a furnace only to be implausibly cloned 200 years later.

One extra star though for air-conditioned platforms. Those are nice.”

I Just Saw Dennis Kucinich

… while running on Capitol Hill. He looks a lot like Dennis Kucinich.