{"id":74,"date":"2008-04-24T16:36:59","date_gmt":"2008-04-24T20:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/?p=81"},"modified":"2008-04-24T16:36:59","modified_gmt":"2008-04-24T20:36:59","slug":"no-place-like-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/no-place-like-home\/","title":{"rendered":"No place like home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite my fabulous spa vacation, and despite my <a href=\"http:\/\/washwords.wordpress.com\/snarkvlark\" target=\"_blank\">snarkery<\/a> about all things DC, in truth this is where I&#8217;m meant to be.<\/p>\n<p>I loved relaxing on the beach, getting spa treatments and I&#8217;m grateful (SO grateful) to have the resources and time to treat myself so. I do feel refreshed in a way I know I desperately needed (the first clue was when I started getting annoyed, genuinely angry, at people asking me to do, you know, like WORK, at work). But&#8230; ultimately? the relaxed lazy meandering pace? not really for me. I&#8217;m a city girl at heart, at core, specifically a DC girl.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to town, we walked straight from gate to waiting cab to a heated treatise on what&#8217;s wrong with <!--more-->the coming fare system (okay, to be fair, I initiated this, wanting to hear it from the source), families today, uneducated people and the multitude of &#8220;other topics&#8221; our cab driver had to share. Further it turned out that he had once lived in my building, many moons ago. &#8220;Rats like lions!&#8221; he says jubilantly!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thanks for telling my mom,&#8221; I say. Fortunately she&#8217;s too caught up in the romance of &#8220;what are the odds &#8211; he lived in this building!?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not surprised a bit, but equally tickled, if for opposite reasons. I&#8217;m consistently running into people from all walks of life, races, ages and philosophies who once lived in my building. It&#8217;s one of those huge old fabulous Washington places. In fact (Happy Birthday, George) a very good friend of my boyfriend once lived in the VERY SAME UNIT I temporarily stayed while my apartment turned condo turned LUXURY condo.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s one of the many things I love about DC. Among the others:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the sheer beauty. I love the architecture, the moderate yet distinct seasons, the thought and significance of each tree and shrub and neighborhood<\/li>\n<li>the self-importance, be it youthful exuberance  or deserved achievement or pure arrogance, I like cockiness and superiority and we&#8217;ve got it<\/li>\n<li>the pace &#8211; I like that people have places to go, things to see. I like wondering what convention they&#8217;re attending, or what hearing. I like that we matter.<\/li>\n<li>the way people talk about politics always, the other folks in bars at other cities discuss sports. Sure, washington&#8217;s getting some sports now, but our true sport will always be politics<\/li>\n<li>the talking period. DC likes to talk, pontificate, question, argue, protest, persuade. So do I.<\/li>\n<li>and finally, most importantly, because it&#8217;s home. Much like Goldilocks this chair (and bed and porridge) is jussssttt right, not too big (NYC) or too small (home, upstate ny) too hard ( L.A.) or too soft ( San Fran), too hot (Florida) or too cold ( Minneapolis), it&#8217;s just right, for me anyway, snarks and all<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s note: Okay, it sounds implausible but I really forgot that I had written &#8220;why I DON&#8217;T hate DC&#8221; just a few short\u00a0 weeks ago. Still, all the things in both posts are true and I guess I offer this second one up as TRUE proof!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite my fabulous spa vacation, and despite my snarkery about all things DC, in truth this is where I&#8217;m meant to be. I loved relaxing on the beach, getting spa treatments and I&#8217;m grateful (SO grateful) to have the resources and time to treat myself so. I do feel refreshed in a way I know [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766],"tags":[73,137,221,17,311,329,365,398,414,483,495,41,617],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wash","tag-arrrogance","tag-city","tag-fast","tag-home","tag-important","tag-just-right","tag-metro","tag-no-place-like-home","tag-pace","tag-relax","tag-rush","tag-thats-how-dc-rolls","tag-wmata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}