So I got pissed off at a fellow blogger this week. It was my first outrage at another member of this insatiable online writing community. Shame on me to attack a resident of not only my neighborhood which would be the lovely and historic and imposing District of Columbia but someone who is also a compadre of the shared blogosphere filled with worthy satirists and intellectuals and brilliant journalists and don't forget the deeply disturbed minds.
Up until now the comments shared by yours truly have been all puppies and you're so smart, no you're so smart, no you're the best writer, Noooo you are sooo the best writer... and so on. Then--I told someone who had the slightest complaint (and there really isn't anything more Washingtonian than complaining, let's be honest) to get the eff out of my fair city. I mean, what can I say? My bad? But, don't hate. Rule #1: No haters allowed in this club house.
To be fair, he did diss my hometown. Arguably the greatest place on earth. And if you disagree, then you too can get the eff out. JK. Lol. LMAO. Sort of.
So okay, not to be fair in fact, but to make excuses instead, I did happen to be at work. (A stone cold feels like your in a morgue on a grey steel slab of a law office, yes I'm a cliche awful self-important lawyer, a dime a dozen as they say and I have no delusions about this depressing state of affairs). It was 7:30a.m. on Monday morning and I was drearily attempting my newest confidential project which I'd tell you about but it'd make you fall asleep like opera or Garrison Keeler and oh yeah...I'd lose my law license. Bummer. Truthfully, I wanted to stab my eye out with a fork I was so uninspired at how trite my life had become.
But of course my mind kept wandering back to something. The Redskins season opener, at-home, division-game, miracle of a win, against the no-good, dirty, rotten, despicable, over-rated, have-been-dead-to-me-since-I-was-8, Dallas. Cowboys. UGH. Deangelo Hall's fumble recovery for a touchdown replayed over and over again in my head till I forgot about a sharp utensil piercing my hazel iris and started pondering a blog post about how being a Burgundy and Gold devotee was a bit like having voluntary Tourette syndrome. (stayed tuned, its on its way). And instead of feeling tired and downtrodden, I sat in my cubicle with a goofy grin on my woefully under-make-uped face. It occurred to me: I was dressed in black. I was a lawyer. I was in DC. I was working too hard. I was under appreciated. And the Redskins actually beat the Cowboys. All was right with the world.
The moment I started pussy footing around at work and started reading blogs and found an entry even slightly attacking President Obama's lair and the locale of the many free Smithsonian museums, rage filled inside of me and I had to defend this once upon a time swampland.
In a blog entitled: "Why I Hate DC: Reason #101" Giant Butters expressed distaste at the lack of concern and attention he received from passersby when he fell on his bike in a populated area of downtown. I told him, that this capital's residents may not be all everything nice, sugar and spice, yuppie jerks even, every man out for himself, yet we did have an awesome transportation system (albeit subject to technical difficulties, it does exist and far extending at that) and had milder weather than some (hey we aren't northern Iowa for Christ's sake). And we had lots of other advantages as well...
#26: I love my locals. I love the love, man. Dude. To have grown up in this city for 25 years, only leaving temporarily for school, it's the most amazing feeling to belong to a place. And to belove it. To feel like you know it. And it gets you. You don't get lost on the Beltway. You prefer not to party in Clarendon or Arlington or Alexandria. Why did you move to a city to slum it in the suburbs? You don't wind up in Anacostia by accident. You know that paper metro cards are for schmucks and oh so 2008. You know Dupont is for yuppies, but you also know that you are a yuppie so you keep going there anyways by default. You actually know what the appropriate tip is for a taxi driver and you don't let them boss you around. DC Restaurant Week is your last supper. Redskins football is your communion. And politics are your religion. And if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, has shit about shit to say about our district of Columbia, our blood will boil, we'll bring on the pain, and we'll set you straight. Through monotonous legalise and rhetoric.
#142: The people you are surrounded by. Which is everyone. Black, white, hispanic, male, female, poor, rich, Republican, Democrat, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Islamic, Independent, hippies, hipsters, politicos, lawyers, chefs, teachers, lobbyists, bike messengers, the President of the United States, retards, geniuses, chubby, burnt tourists completely lost, Minnesotans, Turks, Japs and Aussies. And not to mention the bloggers of our word deliciously and temporarily anonymous. I was walking to the metro at the end of this long and empassioned D.C. Day and I saw a grew up sorority girls all dressed in bright pink and blue and yellow gowns on their way to something ridiculously lame no doubt-- happy and chatty, a gaggle of geese. And I saw my crowd- the black suits and blue and white button-downed shirts tied to their phones. And I saw a nurse getting on or off a shift in hospital scrubs that looked like those paper towel rolls that are white with the inane patterns on them. I saw a cab driver who'd been in an accident and a jaywalker honked by oncoming traffic. It was perfect.
#1003: This may be completely sterotypical, un-PC, profiling and douchey but the #1003 reason I love DC is that even our homeless people kick more ass than other cities' homeless people. Outside Metro Center Monday there was a homeless guy with few teeth, many raspy weathered blankets and a battered cane. Despite all evidence to the contrary and against all odds, he was sitting cross-legged reading the newspaper actually seeming to understand it. Holy mother of Abraham Lincoln. Yes. I thought. Yes.
#6: There comes a day in every September. Around the 13th. When you get out of work and walk down the arguably oober clean city streets, finding your way to the metro and eventually home, but first realize that out of nowhere, the kind of hot and humid wasteland that used to make you drip slow drops of sweat down your legs in an endless Sandlot montage FOR-EVER, FOR-EVER while standing on the train car and hoping that cute guy sitting across from you wouldn't notice has inexplicably transformed out of nowhere into the calm and cool light and tepid blue. You could soak in this weather like a bubble bath, lingering in it, with your eyes closed, your mind in a rare moment of quiet. It's the kind of day and the kind of atmosphere that makes you think...
D.C. is my home.
And there's no place quite like home...
(Disagree? Then click your red heels and get your hick ass back to Kansas. The sooner the better... And besides, you don't wanna live here under a Republican Congress come November anyhow. Word.)
