So I had it all worked out. I even had it written down on my calendar for weeks. I was going to a book signing at Politics and Prose to see this joker, Peter Mayle. I have to say, I really enjoy reading Peter Mayle. Especially in the summer. A Year in Provence made me…

What is it about working in an office that inevitably (and usually pretty quickly) makes even the most creative and vibrant of us into Dilbertesque clock-watchers? Is it that “the man” really is beating us down? Is it that everyone else has already succumbed, so why shouldn’t we? Or do we try not to recognize…

I love the rain. Maybe I’m enough of an adult now to know that rain now equals green grass and cooler temperatures later. Or maybe I like the way the thunder reminds me of being frightened as a child and that I’m not scared now (score!). I also enjoy the fact that, no matter what…

Have you ever noticed that what annoys or irks you about someone else is something that (ack! deep down) is one of your own precious personality quirks? Egad, what could that mean? Is it that opposites attract? We are looking for someone else to balance us out, create some kind of equilbriulm? Perhaps. My Spanish…

Live concerts are the best thing. THE best thing. I went to (or rather, participated in) a concert at the 9:30 Club this weekend. It is the best venue around–so clean, so open, so many places in which to stand with arms loosely crossed and nod slightly in time to the music. Delta Spirit blew…

Because by being friends with a creative person, I myself become more creative. Think about it. In an office where someone tells me her favorite book is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, a part of my creativity and sense of wonder dies. Dies a wrenching and painful death. But by being around creative people, that part…

I can’t help but enjoy Politics and Prose. It seems like it would annoy me as an obvious yuppie haven of self-satisfaction. But maybe, deep down, I AM that self-satisfied yuppie. Maybe a hippie-yuppie. But every time I go, I have the feeling that I’ve stepped out of “ordinary life” (in which people ask one…

Even if you are not a Hill staffer, a lobbyist, or a person who voted in the last election (in which case, who are you!?!), it is pretty much impossible to turn off the constant barrage of politics in the capital. Even if you refuse to read the newspaper “because it’s depressing” you know more…

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Red Line metro crash, which brought me a bevy of texts this time last year. I felt so loved, but also so uncannily fortunate not to have been on that train. After the crash last June, several metro workers were killed or injured in other incidents, and…