Ottawa – Stories That Are All True

What do you love about where you live?

There is a very underrated quality about Washington that I’ve found to be true not only in the last eight years, but also 2001-2. Washington attracts a “type,” and they’re generally misfits in other places. That type is writer/news junkie. We come in all shapes, sizes, and professions. A lot of us are lawyers. Some of us work for the government. Some of us work at the newspaper. Some of us sit on the floor at the Spy Museum bookshop and don’t buy anything. 😉

Washington is the only city in the world I’ve found where being knowledgeable regarding American politics, intelligence, the military, and world news is seen as an asset and not a liability. The American people want “folksy” most of the time, but they’re only meeting the candidate and not the 200 people that work for them. They are not the same. We’ve got veterans who’ve been strategizing since they were in diapers, they wanted to get here so bad. In this day and age, do not ever underestimate how “The West Wing” affected this town. If you were in college when you met CJ, Sam, Toby, and Josh, then you are probably some version of one of them now. That’s not a bad thing. They all came here thinking that we were as idealistic as that show. We weren’t, but they “made it so.” With the influence of Trump, that’s changed a bit because we weren’t dealing in two different realities back then. Yes, there were Republicans, but they were more like Arnold Vinick and Ainsley Hayes than Glen Beck and Donald T****.

That’s because staffers have more in common than they don’t. According to President Clinton, it’s criminal the way candidates work interns (except he used the word “shitbox” and I thought that was particularly hilarious despite the soul-tearing irony of Bill Clinton making the right kind of sense about interns at all.

People have no idea how government works in the rest of the country (overall) and vote against their best interests all the time. The reality is that we do not have the infrastructure for any third parties. This is because ever time a third party emerges, one party splits and the other one wins. I took an entire class on political parties in college and this information stands up. We haven’t managed a third party since 1856. In Congress, voters don’t know anything about committee assignments and will screw over their state by electing a freshman over someone who’s had enough clout to move up in the system. This has had disastrous effects in recent memory as Congress has been overrun with extremists, because their rhetoric is so fascist that even though they’re the minority, there’s too many.

But this doesn’t take away anything from the beauty of the Mid-Atlantic. In terms of what people know about Washington, they see the federal government and don’t know it’s a great place to hike, bike, kayak, fish, etc. If you’re into skiing, there are easy road trips to the slopes. If you like the beach, there are plenty. I was in a sailing race in Annapolis once with my sister. She was working with a local lobbyist who took us out and didn’t tell us until we were already underway that we were in the middle of a regatta. We lost, but it was fun. The point stands, though. Both the Chesapeake and the Atlantic are extraordinarily fun.

The similarities between DC and Portland, Oregon (where I lived for 12 years) are striking. First of all, a river runs through it. The Potomac and the Willamette both run south to north, making the southern boundary for The District. However, the layout is exactly the same in terms of neighborhoods. The places that will remind you of southeast Portland and The Hawthorn are on the DC side. The places that will remind you of The Pearl District complete with Trendy Third St. are in Arlington and Alexandria. There is just as much beauty to Great Falls, VA as there is to the Columbia River Gorge.

Virginia really is God’s country when I think about the Blue Ridge mountains. I have driven through them once and it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. I felt a presence, the one we all do when presented with the absolute miracle of nature.

I haven’t explored Maryland as much as I’ve wanted to, simply because I don’t have a car. It’s not that I can’t get there, it’s that it seems like a lot of hassle. I’ve ridden the train to Baltimore a few times, and it’s great. Seriously. It’s just takes about an hour and a half each way (it’s further north than BWI). I love it when I travel sporadically. I’m not so sure I would want it as my morning commute. I would deal, though, because getting on the MARC is available in Silver Spring and I don’t have to go to Union Station first, which shaves a lot of time……. but it’s still three hours guilt free that I should be doing something else. I can read, write, listen to music, or watch TV. If you’ve ever been stuck on 95 N in rush hour trying to get to an Orioles game, you’ll know why the train is far superior.

I think of myself as having a driver. 😉

Baltimore is one of the cities I considered when moving to Washington, because to use another Pacific Northwest reference, Seattle is the Washington and Baltimore is the Portland. Not the same industries, but the same vibe. With John Waters and Divine, there could be a show every bit as outrageous as “Portlandia,” if not more so. The other thing about Baltimore is that it’s more affordable than DC. A great apartment relatively close in can be had for under $2,000 a month…….

People move away from here to the middle of the country because it’s less expensive and then figure out they have to live there. It costs real money to live on the coasts, but to me it’s worth it because I’ve gone out of my way to find the cheapest deal available and my rent hasn’t gone up in eight years. That’s because I don’t pay a rental company. I literally live with my landlords and they’ve adopted me as one of their own. It will be a huge deal when I move, so I’m not going to unless circumstances absolutely require it.

That’s because downtown Silver Spring is cool AF. We have an outdoor living room and streets that have been blocked off downtown so that you can walk around and take everything in. Lots of festivals happen in the summer, and in the winter the outdoor living room becomes a skating rink. Everything is frozen over from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

I am a huge soccer fan, and Houston didn’t have an MLS team. I’ve been rooting for DC United since my girlfriend introduce me to them in high school. I have had a DC United piece of clothing in some shape or form since 1996. My favorite player was named Raul Diaz Arce, who was young and energetic. He played like a dancer. I was in love with his movements as much as I was with Meag’s. I honestly think that my love for soccer absolutely stems from the fact that she was one of the great loves of my life. We aren’t in touch, but she’s still with me and will be for the rest of my life thanks to this passion.

Speaking of Meag, I figured out why I’ve struggled with making her accent authentic (to her. I’ve always fooled Americans joking around). It’s because words like boot and boat don’t actually sound anything like either of them. The vowels are a dipthong as big as the country. As in, they’re right in the middle and if you weren’t born there you’re always going to swing right or left. As an American, I think I’ve at least grown enough to be convincing on a recording to people who haven’t been in love with me and wouldn’t give it to me for anything in the world because it’s going to be a thing between us until you die mad or not.

I feel as if I have just performed a Canadian Public Service Announcement. You’re welcome.

It’s not just soccer. The first time I came to DC, I was eight years old. I wondered until my junior year of college what it would be like to live here. That’s when my first wife got the offer from ExxonMobil and given the choice for her to start in Houston or Fairfax, Virginia. That’s how we ended up in Alexandria for 9/11. I am so glad we did it. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that institutional memory for anything in the world. It’s just one of the things that makes me feel that DC is every bit as much a part of me as Houston.

DC is the place where, three times now, it has made me feel the entire spectrum of human emotion. I am steeped in everything it has taken to keep our country together and how it’s falling apart. We are in a crisis where we are going to have to rebuild culture from the ground up. There is no such thing as alternate facts, and people’s attitudes are just getting worse. What gives anyone that doesn’t work there the right to disagree with people paid to do what they do? Not for little things. For opinions that take years to develop. Years to become seasoned and ripened. Years of technological and scientific analysis. We are here to shape that future for the government, which locally leans liberal. People think of DC as full of conservatives, but remember the Congress just works here. Locals are truly progressive and I promise it’s as weird as the clash between places like Columbia Heights and Shaw vs. Arlington and Silver Spring.

The short answer is that the thing I love about where I live is me. It is part of my identity now. I am the Kennedy Center. I am the Lincoln Memorial. I am the reflecting pool. I am also Ben’s Chili Bowl, Madam’s Organ, SE Waterfront, Howard University. I am gogo music and mumbo sauce. I am Frederick Douglass’s house.

I am able to be it all, because I write it down. And that’s what I love about where I live.

I went to the pub earlier and stuffed myself with brunch. I got everyone sitting at the bar addicted to Crosswords With Friends™ as I gobbled up banana custard French toast, eggs, Irish bacon, coffee, and orange juice. I was pleased with myself because I just showed up and sat down, and by the end I was specifically invited back every weekend by “the brunch club.”

The way I got into the conversation is that they were having an argument over something and I asked the woman next to me what it was all about. They were arguing over the capital of Canada…. whether it was Montreal or Toronto (pregnant sigh). I said, “it’s Ottawa.” The woman next to me said, “I like how you said that without missing a beat.” I told her that I was 100% certain I was right unless they’d moved it in the last few years.

I had my Slumdog Millionaire moment of hearing the question and video of Meagan and me in the beer store buying a two four of Alexander Keith’s popping up because who can paint a living room without beer?

I was not invited to Ottawa just to paint Meagan’s living room. I was invited for Thanksgiving, and like the wingnut I am, didn’t look up the date for Canadian Thanksgiving because I thought I knew it.

I didn’t.

CDN Thanksgiving revolves. Who knew?

It ended up being a better trip that way, though, because I got Meag, her then-wife Deah, and her daughter to myself instead of having to share them with all their other friends and relatives.

When Meag and I were actually together, I thought seriously for a few months about immigrating to Canada, but I didn’t really get the concept of what an enormous change it would be until over a decade after we broke up, because believe it or not, I never made it there while we were dating…. and not because we only knew each other online. We were high school sweethearts and when Meagan graduated from high school, she went back to her home country while her parents stayed in Texas.

Seeing Canada for real was learning how European it is compared to the United States, and while I picked up the English dialect quickly having heard Meagan use Canadian slang “my whole life,” there was still a feeling of dissonance.

After a few days, though, I could totally see myself living there. Ottawa felt strikingly similar to DC and Portland, Oregon…. or rather, if the two cities got together and had a baby.

When I was looking for a change of scenery in 2015, Ottawa would have been a good choice for me if it hadn’t meant immigration and losing my US Citizenship (I would have wanted to be able to vote). Ultimately, I made the right choice. I’ve been in love with DC since I was eight. I feel the magic of Washington like most people feel the romance of Paris- it vibrates inside me.

Things happen here that would never happen anywhere else. For instance, I got to hear Jonna Mendez, former Chief of Disguise at CIA, talk about her latest (and her husband Tony‘s last) book. That was on 31 May, and this weekend I finally found a way to send her the blog entry I wrote after I came home that night. She told me it was wonderful and Tony would have loved it as well. It was a huge moment in my life, as it is for all authors when their favorite authors pay them a compliment.

Ok, I am being tame. It was hug from Jesus level awesome and my skin is still buzzing. I feel so good about it that my energy could jump start a car battery.

If I could, I would bottle that feeling and use it as hair product.

Being so high on a compliment is tempered by my anger at unfixable situations.

On September 10, I will be 42 years old. I will always remember 41 as The Year of Acceptance™ (pregnant sigh).

Because of medical malpractice in the delivery room, I have cerebral palsy. It’s a mild case, and my parents never agreed on how much to tell me about what happened. My mother didn’t want me to know anything at all, to pretend that my mental and physical health were just like everyone else’s. My dad was always on the side of truth, but as soon as he would start talking about it, my mother would either A) disagree loudly II) change the subject.

My mother always said that my dad’s memory was wrong or that he was just making a big deal out of nothing.

My sister found the report in which I was diagnosed, and for the first time, I saw my pediatric neurologist’s impressions of me. I was a little over a year old, and presented like I was only six months. I didn’t have the physical reactions of someone my age, and my muscles couldn’t support me. I have never caught up to my peers.

So basically I’ve just been living life thinking that I was perfectly able-bodied, to not so great results. I’ve done a lot of research, and CP doesn’t get worse as you age. It is what it is. However, its implications are bigger. For instance, I don’t fall more than I did when I was younger, but I do fall harder. And with monocular vision, it doesn’t matter how careful I think I’m being. There’s always something I’m not going to see and either I run into it or it runs into me. I spend a lot of time accidentally apologizing to inanimate objects.

Some of my muscles are way more developed than others, so while doing one physical thing I may look completely normal, and then during a different activity, you can immediately tell I’m struggling.

This year was about accepting why as fact. I stopped beating myself up that I wasn’t faster in the kitchen. I was never built for it in the first place.

You don’t come to acceptance of something as big as CP in one moment or even in one day. It’s too big, too complicated. It took me a long time to stop beating myself up that there was no such thing as being born with floppy muscles and being miraculously cured of it while still being more of a klutz than all of my friends put together.

It’s also confusing because my symptoms are so mild, because it’s taken a long time to figure out where I excel and where I, in a word, don’t. It’s a long haul from thinking that you can do anything you want to taking your physical limitations seriously…. that they aren’t a series of unfortunate events but consecutive verses to the same song.

I’m just trying to figure out where I excel so that I stop beating myself up. It’s not that I got a bad hand, I’ve just been playing blackjack while the rest of the world plays poker.

At the very least, I know the capital of Canada.