Capitol punishment

I know it’s Summer when the outdoor club near me wakes me up in the morning. Not sure if Spring exists anymore, but I hope it’s been nicely hot where you are. I have spent my week walking and frolicking in the warmth, but now it’s truly heat.

Last year, I went on my first-ever work trip. I went to D.C. for a gala hosted by one of the magazines I work for. It was my first time meeting my D.C. colleagues IRL and seeing if they looked like their Slack profiles. I had a ball being back in a newsroom and pretending that I’m less of a cog in the machine. I worked through questions like What stuff do I expense? and What do I do all alone in a hotel room?

This past week was my second-ever work trip, almost a year later for the same event. Subscriber Geoff said he liked my recent-ish Florida trip recap, so I’ll take you through my three days in our nation’s capital.

I prepared myself for greatness. I chose a morning train that was early enough to start before work but late enough that I got enough sleep and wasn’t rushing to Penn Station. One of the worst feelings in the world is taking public transportation to any airport or station that’s taking you out of New York. The city makes it hard for you to leave. You think you’re leaving with enough time to calmly get through your commute, but I’m always deciding which stop to get off at, which transfer will get me there fastest. Especially when you have that early-morning stomachache. Other people are around, but I always feel alone.

I arrive at Penn with time to spare, so I begin the exercise of How often would you eat if you ran on hunger rather than money? I roamed the Moynihan Train Hall, the new part of Penn Station that’s pretty and pretty terrible, getting a matcha latte from one spot and a chocolate croissant from another. I feel like I only get croissants as a treat in transit. This one was mediocre. This renovated part of the station is atrocious because the designers hate homeless people so much that there are no chairs to sit in, aside from a corner of seats you show your ticket to enter.

Before I someday take a long, scenic Amtrak voyage through the American West, I revel over the speed and serenity of the Northeast corridor’s Acela train. If I make an album someday, look out for the muted bong-BONG-bong Amtrak announcement sound. Something about its terrible sound quality brings a nostalgia and coziness that harkens back to a childhood I didn’t have, considering the first time I took an Amtrak was in college.

My workday technically started 30 minutes after our train left the station, so I took that time to contemplate and scroll through social media. The darkness and loss of signal for the first few minutes of your Penn Station journey (whether entering or exiting) is the train’s way of telling you to shut New York mode on or off. I shift into a different gear…neither work or vacation mode, but somewhere in the middle.

My day was shaping up to be blissful despite it being a Tuesday as a working person. My boss has been off all week, and I had no meetings that morning. I did some reading of my first Joan Didion book, The White Album, which is taking me forever to read. I do not really care about the 60s and hoped her writing would bring me there, but I just don’t. I like how she fixates on things and appears in random places, but I’m having trouble loving it. She seems like the beginning of a feminist style of writing that broke ground at the time but has since been diluted over and over through female writers in the decades after her trying to break glass ceilings and now having trouble finding its footing post-Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

I couldn’t stop staring at the man in the row in front and across the aisle from me. From the back, I assumed he was a mid-30s gay due to having gaudy rings on almost all fingers, wearing one of those big Mormon lady hats, and editing wedding photography on his laptop. Why I noticed him at first was because he was banging his head around to whatever was in his earbuds. He kept switching up the style and intensity. I would love to know what was in his ears. At one point, he lets out the strangest CHOO! of a sneeze — uncovered — that was neither deep nor high-pitched.

If I wasn’t looking at him (or my own activities), I was trying to understand the software the early-30s woman next to was using. I surmised that she was recruiting for a senior level position at her company. Before I could learn more, she left once we got to Philadelphia. In her place, a delightful older woman sat next to me. We briefly chatted throughout the ride and looked like parallels as we read our books with our left legs crossed over our rights. The one crappy part of sitting with her is that she smelled like poop, which is not a simile. I wondered if I was going crazy, but the poo stench left during her interlude in the food car.

As I wonder if she pooped her pants, the assumably gay man with the hat (I’ll just call him Hat) turns to the polished, average-looking man with white hair next to him (I’ll call him Brit) and asks a question. These men clearly do not know each other. Instead of striking up a train convo with something innocuous, Hat asks How do you find your life? What an odd question to ask someone without knowing them. I’m locked into this conversation and wondering if he’s European instead of gay with that kind of sentence structure. Brit is not as loud as Hat so I can’t hear much of answer aside from saying it’s nice. Brit volleys back with Why do you ask? I could not prepare myself for Hat’s response: Because I can tell you do not enjoy your life.

Imagine a random person not only thinks, but tells you how miserable you seem. Just off of sitting on the train minding your own business. I would be so offended and taken aback with a comment like that. Also, how could you not examine what about you evokes dissatisfaction? Brit is a better man than I, for he lightly giggled and talked it out with Hat. Brit thinks Hat is seeing sacrifice in him, the long hours he puts in for work so he can take care of his family, which is all that really matters to him. Hat is intrigued by the answer and they continue chatting, primarily about soccer. Hat moved to the U.S. as a teenager from El Salvador (I was kind of right), while Brit immigrated from the U.K. as an adult (that’s why I'm calling him Brit).

Brit works in financial services and lives more of a conventional life. Hat is a videographer and “producer” for places “like HBO.” A name-dropping freelancer on our hands! He also declared, I’m gonna be the best. I’m gonna be a big producer, as well. They continue chatting for the next fifteen or twenty minutes before Brit’s Baltimore departure. Hat keeps telling Brit how happy he is to have met him and chatted then asks for Brit’s number and gives him a handshake upon his departure. This was both the straightest and gayest conversation I’ve ever seen. I was giving a play-by-play to my friend Allie and she said I don’t think there’s anything I hate more than straight guy-flirting. Fellas, is it gay to get to know strangers on the train? Maybe!

I thought I was fed. I love eavesdropping, but Hat is too iconic to not give us any other morsels before we arrive in D.C. He gets on the phone with a friend listed in his contacts as Bryan. He loudly tells Bryan (who I figure out is another photographer) I am figuring out that I am the best at what I do. And he says this twice! What a fascinating person, and I was clearly wrong to assume he was gay. I whispered to the old lady next to me and asked if she was listening in. She wasn’t but joined in. Hat started giving Bryan lots of advice. Although we couldn’t hear what Bryan was saying, the lady next to me said, He sounds like he’s giving a sermon. He goes on to say how Some people are 100% there for you one day and 0% there the next 30. Yeah, sounds like he’s talking about all of our landlords!

Wait, what is that? Is that a tear plopping past his face? Hat wipes his eyes as he says, Only keep people in your life that add to it. He’s not wrong about that. Imagine getting so choked up on the train like him. Hat tells Bryan how much he loves him and how proud he is to know him. He ends with I’m very proud of you, just keep everything I said in mind. They bid each other farewell, and Hat headbanged until our train arrived in sunny Union Station. What a strange cat. I wonder how he finds his life.

Now that I’ve done enough train observing, I wheel my new carry-on suitcase through  D.C.’s flagship train station. I haven’t been to enough big American train stations, but I like this one better than other cities. There are a lot of nooks, food options, and great architecture. I go to the basement, eat Raising Cane’s for lunch, and take a fabulous bathroom break. I hope the lady sitting next to me on the train did the same.

My D.C. colleagues technically work in Arlington, VA because that’s where their WeWork is. If you’re unfamiliar with Arlington or NoVa, think of what a default corporate template of a city would be. New buildings, ample parking, clean restaurants that may or may not be yummy, and lots of ways to be a great employee. It’s kind of like a less severe version of FiDi. I Ubered to the WeWork, and saw an insignia that evoked Nazism on the front-passenger door. I sent a pic of it to my colleague/resident military history expert Claire, and she confirmed my suspicions — it was an Iron Cross. I got out of the car in one piece.

I haven’t been in a WeWork in a few months, and it was nice to return to one and be with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Getting to exchange the daily little stories along with larger life updates while sort of being productive was lovely. I missed these peeps! I got some work done, but I was also (easily) coaxed into getting cookies.

After a nice afternoon of socializing while working (a dying art), I went back to D.C. to check into my hotel. I was excited to be staying at a hotel in Georgetown, aptly called the Georgetown Inn. It’s right on one of the main streets, nestled amongst luxury boutiques and beloved clothing chains. I dropped off my stuff in my pretty big room. I could not believe they let a little girl like me have a whole king bed. Aside from the location, the hotel thinks it’s nicer than it is. Why didn’t my room have a minifridge, and why was the gym room open, only to find lots of construction equipment instead of workout equipment? That’s diva stuff, though; I was still very excited.

As if I wasn’t faking being a journalist enough, I made dinner plans with my friend Katie, who I used to work with in New Hampshire. She was a college student that I gave tasks to when she was bored, and we had a ball. Now, she’s moved to D.C. and is slaying at a sexy national news job. She picked a Mexican restaurant close to my hotel that had a happy hour and Taco Tuesday deal. We last saw each other during Winter 2022, so it was nice to see her in springtime glory. I loved catching up with her, and I had two main takeaways from our early dinner (her job starts extra early).

One: D.C. makes you want power. She’s more of a type to work in politics than me, but Katie elaborated on how living in D.C. gives you all of this access that encourages you to grind it out. New York feels similar, but the culture is a different version of Having It All than D.C. New Yorkers work, party, eat, romp, and go crazy. D.C. seems to me like a kinder, more adult version of being unhinged that prioritizes work in a different way. New Yorkers want jobs that sound cool but require little legwork, while D.C. peeps seem to relish in the effort even while they bemoan it. I felt this walking around, mostly because I think I’m better than everyone!

Two: My world is beyond small. I figured out that one of her coworkers who she sees all the time was a year younger than me in high school and worked with me a lot on the school paper. This same girl and I connected awhile ago because she realized she worked with another girl I did college TV news with. All three are people I didn’t just vaguely know, but real friends of mine I used to see constantly in different phases of life. Why am I winning the smallest world contest? Maybe I just like to talk. I also do love to connect people, and I think that tightens my world. It’s more convenient when everyone likes each other or shares similar interests.

Katie said goodbye, and I walked back to my hotel. Those two margaritas were stronger than I thought, but I still had many hours left of my night. What was I to do? Pop a teeny bit of an edible and go get ice cream. In this process as I transferred from buzzed to high, I took a series of voice memos to gather my thoughts. At a party this weekend, I was told during a rant that I sounded like Hannah Horvath from Girls. She kept apologizing after saying that, but I think it’s hilarious and true. After all, these voice memos sounded very Hannah.

I volleyed between feeling better than everyone and deeply insecure. No one in D.C. knows how to dress, and while I am a New York 6 (this is not me trying to demean myself), I am most certainly a D.C. 10. This town reminds me I’m below the Mason-Dixon line because of the fashion. No one knows how to dress. A lot of bad florals or the wrong part of your mom’s early 2000s workwear in her closet. I see them and wonder if they’ve ever truly been in love or would know what that feels like.

At the same time, I, for the first time in a long time, was envious of the young, straight couples I saw around town. To see a douchey-looking one-percenter gaze lovingly at his seemingly new girlfriend struck a weird sadness in me that I would never have a love that conventional (I say this even though my girlfriend and I are both fake tech job people in Brooklyn). D.C. looks like a great place to be in a relationship because you work so hard that you don’t have time for crazy friends or want to stay up at the bars near you without the security blanket of a partner asking you to leave for cozy home time. Watching couples getting ice cream together and giggling in that falling-in-love tone made me feel nostalgic and old.

I called Meera to tell her about my day as I waited for my ice cream (mint Oreo). I went home and ate while watching what was on TV, which was Watch What Happens Live on Bravo. I had this realization that felt sad that I will be watching this show forever. I used to watch it late at home with my mom while she fell asleep and I laughed at the housewives and B-list celebs that appeared on the show. I will watch it when I’m dozing off and my hypothetical daughter still has that awake energy to enjoy the show. Am I just a cliche? Probably. The ice cream was delicious. I set early alarms in the morning so I could go walk and find a purpose in the world.

It’s 7 a.m. and easy to rise. I pack my backpack with enough work stuff to duck into a cafe if needed but not enough to dampen my journey. Today was the day of the gala, and I wasn’t planning on getting much done before then. I left the hotel in search of morning meaning.

The Georgetown waterfront is so pretty in the morning…runners in front of you, rowers on the Potomac, the Rosslyn, VA skyline looking simultaneously soulless and toy-like. I can’t stop listening to “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter. I decided to walk along the water and around Georgetown for a while. This was my second trip seeing the neighborhood, but I’ve never seen the campus. I walked up the Exorcist stairs to the quiet campus, too early for the true buzz of a college morning.

I grabbed a bagel at local chain Call Your Mother, which I was told made a great bagel, at least for being outside of New York. I waited for my sandwich in the colorful, homey building then went across the street for another cozy coffee. I watched an older straight couple interact with much older ladies, where the man was being silly and the woman (rightfully) rolled her eyes at him. I don’t think I’ve ever rolled my eyes at Meera interacting with someone.

I sat on Georgetown’s main lawn and devoured my sandwich (avocado, egg, cheese, and LATKE on an everything bagel), which was delicious, especially for D.C. I wandered around for awhile seeing students and nuns milling about. I made a plan to meet a friend for lunch in another part of town, and saw I needed to walk through a park to get there.

This was slightly more hike-y than walk-y, scaling down the side of Georgetown’s hilliness (maybe the Jesuits like it because it’s closer to heaven) and walking through the woods. I took a ton of pictures. It was such a relief to be back in true urban nature, one that’s milder than real woods and unrulier than New York’s parks. I thought about how much my mom and dog would like walking through here, since it reminded me a bit of Pittsburgh’s Frick Park. I walked along creeks, under bridges, and next to dogwalkers.

The park opened up to more of a clearing that included that outdoor exercise equipment. I did a few crunches to feel crazier and was very early for lunch. I bought some boob pasties at CVS for my outfit that night before seeing Polina, who I haven’t seen since college. I see her life on Instagram and think it would be similar to the kinds of things I’d do if I lived here, full lots of music, climbing, and gayness (both meanings of the word). It was nice learning about how she’s built her life here and exchanging thoughts on movies since those are now things I watch. I really messed up on eating that bagel, though, because I barely ate my lunch.

I’ve hit that early afternoon sleepiness, so I Ubered back to the hotel. Since this is a work trip, I Ubered almost everywhere. This was fun at first but eventually made me feel less grounded in reality. I did some crumbs of work and got ready for my night. I must say, I looked great. I got a new dress and shoes, which looked great. I’m in a peculiar point of my fashion journey (like always), but this was one of the first outfits I’ve put together in a while that made me feel ultra-confident.

I was a bit nervous for my night. This year, the reporters were disinvited to the event after being told it was at capacity. I can handle myself in most social situations, but I wanted to make everything work for a fun night. I met my friends at a Mexican restaurant early in the evening to have a margarita and catch up, which was exactly what I needed before the literal main event.

I immediately went to the open bar, a watering hole that brought enough social interactions with people I know to get me through to dinner. There were a few speeches, including videos from George Bush and Prince Harry (bizarre and hilarious). I gabbed with the editors around me, with both seats next to me taken by dudes I work with but met in person for the first time. One of them Irish exited near the end (coolest move), the other went with me and another editor to a bar after.

Last year we stayed out super late with a large group. This year was a smaller, sweeter outing in Old Town Alexandria, VA (which is actually really pretty!) at a few Irish pubs. My heels had destroyed me, and I was walking around with just socks on like a heathen. When all the adults wanted to go to bed, I knew one would be a child with me. Zamone and I tried going to two different IHOPs. I was drunk and in need of some carbs. Both of us almost cried at our meals. I have the funniest pic of Z reacting to finally having food in front of him, the euphoria of 3 a.m. breakfast food surging through both of us. He’s not a New York boy, but I really want to scurry him around different late-night spots in Brooklyn. All cities should have more.

The morning is a hungover one. It was not particularly painful, but I had zero desire to leave bed. I do have a checkout time to adhere to, so I blasted music to get me moving. I left the hotel and drank another iced coffee. Unmoored and with a suitcase, I went back to the WeWork. Most of my friends weren’t coming that day, so I found myself alone come lunchtime when the editors left.

Hungry and working through my hangover, I chose Nando’s, a chain I adored during my London study abroad and craved since. It happens to exist in Chicago and the DMV. Either I was delusional or it’s worse here. I still had a great, chicken-y meal, but it wasn’t revolutionary. Both of my meetings that day got canceled. Score. I grabbed yet another coffee and did some work. I still felt unmoored and weird. It was time to go home.

Oddly enough, I ran into a guy I went to high school with on the street in front of his apartment, proving once again how small my world is. I don’t think I’d want to live in Arlington, but he has a balcony, a pool, and a train station a block away. Before my trip home, I stopped at yet another Irish pub near Union Station to see my college friend Alaina. She is so great at bringing me into her world with her storytelling. I tried convincing her to come visit this Summer while she walked me to the station. This was a nice farewell to the city.

It’s early evening, and I needed to be home. I didn’t do anything except listen to music and stare out the window. I felt an odd sense of pride staring out at Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvanias towns, woods, and bodies of water.

It felt like such an exhale to be out of New York in a place that felt more familiar, or closer to Pittsburgh. I haven’t been in the Burgh since Thanksgiving and keep finding ways to see my mom that don’t involve being there. D.C. reminded me of that Pittsburgh both in its comfort and dread, the idea of being home cozy late at night but lacking in options to fully roam. Everywhere lacks compared to New York, though. My trip last year was the first time I felt like an annoying New Yorker, scoffing at their bagels. In those minutes pulling back into Penn Station, I turned back onto New York mode, glad my switch isn’t broken in either direction.