W a-s-h i-n-g t-o-n, Baby, D.C.!

Let me talk about my City.

That “thing” I’ve always had for this place is still here, even after a busy few months that featured way too many frustrating, inexplicable Red Line Metrorail delays and one too many occasions on which a gun-wielding maniac wished me a good morning.

I absolutely love the people from Jersey that are down here. From the guys down the hall to the morons from our high school class that wear predictably topical Halloween costumes to the cute little sisters. It’s a great group, but it’s not what got me down here. My new (and last) school really isn’t what got me down here either. Rather, it was this:

“Early last Sunday morning (1:00am, Jan. 14, 2007), I found myself sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a 60 degree January night, surrounded not by the requisite homeless guys and yakking GDub coeds, but by a smattering of people from pretty much all walks of life doing so many different things -- Be it cuddling and sharing grease truck food at the end of a date, photographing the Mall, staring up at Honest Abe, joggers catching their breath before heading back up to Capitol Hill, foreign tourists fumbling over upside down maps, etc. And it was still so quiet you could literally hear planes not taking off or landing, but taxiing over at Reagan. So much of Washington’s uniqueness always seemed to stem from its edginess – Drunken faux-preppies 'rumbling' on the streets of Georgetown and desperate poverty mixed in with the whole politics scene which I’ve heard resembles the pathetic posturing of young Wall Street. I honestly didn’t know the City was capable of producing moments like that, especially that late at night.”

Listen, I know D.C. isn’t what it was for Frank Capra or your high school’s idealistic Model Congressmen… Locals refuse to watch the local news. And the reason you eventually run into so many people from your hometown that also happen to be down here is because the 20-somethings are generally smart enough to stick to the same four or five neighborhoods when they go out every weekend.

But at the same time, it’s not the cesspool outsiders often think it is when the sun goes down, and it’s definitely not unhip, mostly because it knows how unique it is -- Where else is it a big deal to be able to tell people you ran into George Muresan at the bar or spotted the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Affairs?

Whereas L.A. has “The Biz” and New York is the capital of commerce, D.C. seems to have crafted an identity that capitalizes on its relative diversity. Whereas more and more, gentrification has turned Manhattan into a giant playground for hedge fund douchery, after the crime wave that plagued the City in the early 1990s leveled off, D.C. finally started to develop its own identity independent of whatever Administration happens to occupy that big, white house at 1600 Penn. Ave NW. A lot of it has to do with its diversity; the college kids, the politicians, and the minorities struggling to make ends meet. Other contributors range from the Nats to Mayor Fenty to the resurgence of Amtrak’s Boston to D.C. route and the restoration of Union Station.

Obviously D.C. will always have a transient air about it. But it’s clear, even to someone who has only lived here for a few months, that people are finally starting to realize they don’t have to neglect the place in the meantime. It can be “home.” And, again with apologies to a certain Muppet, it’s beautiful and I think it’s where I want to be.