Not everyone can be settled in one city, or stay in one place for longer than a few years. Some of the people that I've met through work here, especially members of the active-duty military, have mentioned to me that they move around so much that they actually look forward to it. "I get nervous when I'm in a place more than a year and a half. I start looking for my next deployment," said an Air Force pilot I know. For me, I'd much rather live in one place and be a part of a stable community. I've lived in different places, and moved around a little bit, and while it's an exciting, interesting experience, ultimately it leaves me feeling unsatisfied and looking for relationships that are more profound.
I've been here for one week now, and I'm starting to get used to being in the District. I'm even trying to recreate some of the stability that I have back in Chicago: work friendships, regular places for services (groceries, haircuts, cigarettes). The people that know and see you everyday, who, by the very fact that you drop in to buy a cup of coffee most mornings, or you say hi to them at the bus stop when you're on time, or you drop by their desk once in a while to talk shop at work, know and care for you in a broader communal sense.
Call it the "unintentional community", a situation that looks like all the other lives you see in popular culture, except without the luxury of excising the rough edges that people can brush away in the intentional community. And, after only a week in the Capital City, I'm finding communities here nicely. Work is pleasant, and I've made friends with some of the people there, both among my peers an among some of the management. And, speaking of rough edges, I've been able to work around some of the more awkward and standoffish people in my office, by simply being professional and confident with them while making friends around them. (That's a little trick a learned a while back, and I've yet to not have it work!)
As for the social side of DC, well, I've found Yelp to be especially useful. I don't really like the notion of the online community. I have my own real-time community that I fit into and don't need to send out emails and write reviews as part of some "social networking" scheme to be a part of something. But. Knowing that there's a website written by lots of locals makes it really easy to find a decent coffee shop in a part of town you want to go check out, or a bar with outdoor seating. And, in spite of the East Coast reputation for being cool and detached, I've found it really easy to meet people to hang around with in most of the places I've gone to. That may have something to do with the fact that must of the professional class in this city is from somewhere else, but I think ultimately people are, deep down, genuinely interested in meeting others.
I don't really have a conclusion for this post, other than it's a lovely day in the District, and I've got a three-day weekend ahead of me. I suspect that I'll be meeting lots more Washingtonians soon.
Photo by NCinDC
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Four Months of Solitude?
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Debate Night in America and the Brand of the District
Tonight was Debate Night in America, CNN's attempt to make the presidential political process as appealing as Monday Night Football. And as much as I love the idea of fathers and sons sitting around watching the debates like they watch the Bears, I also have some reservations about commodifying American Democracy. For all of its faults, the notion that some 300 million heterogeneous people have a referendum every four years on the state of the republic is a pretty remarkable thing, even when it goes horribly, cynically awry.
But as I was watching one of George W. Bush's former speech writers analyze tonight's debate (sharply dressed like most of the career climbers I see walking around DuPont Circle before and after work most weekdays), I got to thinking about one of the differences I've noticed between DC and Chicago. It took me lots of visits to many other cities in North America before I discovered that you can't go downtown to find out what's going on in a city. (I think you can only get away with this in Chicago and New York.) The District is, by far, much smaller than Chicago, both in size and population. Population particularly is a significant difference between DC and Chicago; with only about a half million residents within the District compared to Chicago's nearly three million, you can feel the difference just walking around. According to the Lonely Planet that I checked out from the library, DC's population doubles every workday when professionals that work for, in and around the government come in from Maryland and Virginia.
As I was watching these two speechwriters from the Bush and Clinton administrations try to convince Jim Lehrer that their guy had won the debate, I got to thinking about the symbolism of campaigns, and of the modern political process. While the right-wing, especially the neoconservative movement, is on the retreat this election cycle, they're still using the old political short-hand for patriotism and identity politics of the past. And it occurred to me that the District itself is marked by symbolism much in the way that modern politics is marked by symbolism. DuPont Circle, Admas Morgan, The New U, Anacostia, Bethesda, Arlington, Crystal City, Franconia, Alexandria. Each of these places (along with the phrase The District) is short hand for what it says about you and your lifestyle. White, professional and government. Poor, black and violent. Middle class, on the GS and suburban. Military or intelligence.
As I was watching these former speechwriters argue over who could best the other with symbolism, I couldn't help but think about who I see walking around in front of my apartment when I go out to smoke. And while those symbols are different from the ones I see walk around my neighborhood in Chicago, I wonder if stereotypes here are really any different from stereotypes back in the City of Big Shoulders.
Monday, October 6, 2008
You Won't Find Homeland Security Like This in Chicago
Walking down Pennsylvania Ave is pretty anticlimactic. DC is pretty anticlimactic. You look out the window of the jet as you land at National, and you see the capital, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial on the Potomac's Tidal Basin. You walk through the airport and catch a cab, which drives you to a quiet apartment in the Old City of the District. It all really feels very much like you're some hotshot diplomat coming to town to cut a deal. It's a neat feeling, and you expect to have that feeling all the way through.
So when I went to go check out the White House over the weekend, I was hit with the reality of one of our national monuments, something that at least most Americans think of as their own, is very much real. The White House, up close and sans zoom lens and dramatic lighting is pretty impressive. But it isn't ABC Nightly News impressive.
The White House is an impressive building, but it's still very much real. Aside from the random protesters parked in front of the presidential mansion, the gawking tourists and the uniformed Secret Service police, there's also a sizable contingent of service workers. Gardeners, custodial staff and building engineers walk the grounds, doing mundane daily maintenance tasks. And you get the sense that it's an incredibly secure building. Except. Except that you can see behind the curtain, so to speak. As we walked around the building, there were gates that police officers were walking through, building staff moved freely. And on the East side of the grounds, we came across a gate that was closed with a simple lock, held in place with a bike lock cable. Walking around DC, I see lots and lots of buildings with wrought iron bars on the windows. And in Chicago, I usually see buildings with wrought iron gates around them. The lock sets are surrounded with high-gauge steel mesh, so you can't just reach through the bars and open the lock. But here's the White House, locked up with cable, like a bicycle in some small town.
In Chicago, that bike would be gone in less than an hour.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
And we're back!
At least for a while. City of Progress has had a busy summer, and an exciting fall is off to a great start. I moved from Liquor Park to Bridgeport - mainly due to the negligence of my landlord. Long story short: $675 a month is a great deal on an apartment as long as nothing breaks.
In the meantime, I've put most of my stuff into storage and am living out of laundry baskets and a duffel bag at my girlfriend's place on the Southside.
In other news, I'm not in school this year! Huzzah! This has given me such a glorious sense of freedom and relaxation, I can't even begin to describe it. Also, I'm traveling to Washington, DC for four months for work, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to document some of the experiences I have living in another American urban city.
