going home

I was able to read this Sunday’s New York Times on the train back from New York to DC. It was a trip I was happy to make. I’m a horrible homebody and I was struggling with the four nights I had spent sleeping in a bed that was not my own. It was also a trip in which I finally and definitively came to terms with the fact that I am not all that crazy about New York. It makes me tired, it makes me tense. It makes me wish I dressed better.

Who needs that?

Anyway, my friend Walt once made a list of reasons why he should continue to live in Los Angeles (he is still there) and one of the items on his list was KCRW, the Santa Monica-based public radio station that really is the best radio station in the country. So, if I was to follow suit, I would obviously be slightly more compelled to live in New York if it meant that I could get the Times delivered to my door every morning and still afford my rent. But you can get KCRW on the Internet and you can get the Times delivered to your front door in DC and so I am staying put.

ANYWAY, this Sunday’s Times has a piece in its “Week in Review” section by Anne E. Kornblut that helped to validate my newfound love affair with DC.

‘While three East Coast cities (Boston, New York and DC – my parentheses) have jockeyed for prominence, a perceptible southward tilt is continuing, as Boston has evolved from its liberal arts and political origins, and Washington has, in a sense, matured. In a highly charged political environment, there has been a move away from academic ideas toward ones generated in the real world, or at least real government.”

I am not sure I consider much of what happens in DC to have anything to do with the real world, but it’s good to think I might be in the right place at the right time, even if my sister is appalled that I am willing to live in the same town as HIM (George W).

“Week in Review” also has a piece from David Brooks about the recent report from The Journal of the American Medical Association that overweight people actually live longer than normal weight people. This has apparently inspired glee in Mr. Brooks.

“I’ve been happy because now there will inevitably be a shift in the fashion winds, favoring members of the Zaftig Corps. Sports enjoyed by people with Rubenesque proportions, like floating, will come into vogue. More people will appreciate the thigh-rubbing musical rhythms you hear when overweight people wear corduroys. More people will realize we should all be patterning our lifestyle decisions on those made by Christopher Hitchens.”

Christopher Hitchens lives around the corner in a beautiful building in my neighborhood – in DC.

I’m staying put.