Wait, what?

I was mentioned in Washingtonian?

Isn't that, like, the magazine for snobby people trying to convince themselves they're actually important socialites from New York? Isn't there a minimum wage requirement for reading it? I don't think the postal service is even legally allowed to deliver it to my shitty apartment.

At any rate, I'm sure I'll be drifting back to why.i.hate.dc now that football is over, and also because I'm moving back to my old job, where there's apparently still no actual work for me to do. I'll be back to being a full-time blogger.

But's it's going to be hard, because I find lately that I'm happier the more ignorant I am.

In fact, I've decided that ignorance really is the driving force behind Washington. If you shield yourself enough from what really goes on in this city, you might be able to somehow tolerate it without going mad. Metro rail falling apart? Bridges about to collapse? Don't worry about that; it will fix itself. Without more money!

Crime and poverty? Not a problem in my state/county/neighborhood, thus not my problem.

Huge deficits in D.C.? Let's lay off hundreds of public school teachers and build a $600 million baseball stadium!

The problem is, if I actually keep up with local events, as I have in the past, it really starts to weigh on me. I don't even have any control or power over anything, but still this stuff just infuriates and depresses me. The less I pay attention, the less depressed and infuriated I am. This must be Congress' philosophy as well, judging from their D.C. track record.

Meanwhile, I've lamented in the past about D.C. trying to make the rest of the country like itself. And it appears to have happened. Here's what the federal debt looks like:

11/19/2004        $7,497,665,301,236.87

09/30/2004        $7,379,052,696,330.32

09/30/2003        $6,783,231,062,743.62

09/30/2002        $6,228,235,965,597.16

09/28/2001        $5,807,463,412,200.06

Now the whole country is ghetto rich, just like D.C. Why does this not bother anyone? What are we going to do, consolidate all our debts into one convenient low monthly payment? It don't work that way, people!

"But the economy is doing so well!" Yeah, if you pour $1.6 trillion of borrowed money into our economy, all of a sudden it looks like it's doing really well. It's like magic! And clearly, since that worked so well, instead of paying it back, what we need to do is increase the fucking debt ceiling. BRILLIANT. FUCKING. IDEA. It's tantamount to maxing out our credit card, and now, instead of reconsidering buying that $900 massage chair from Brookstone, we're calling the bank to ask them to raise our limit. I now refuse to have kids, just so that they don't have to be around when the economy collapses under all that debt.

But back to Washington. I know there are a lot of otherwise smart people here. People who finished near the tops of their classes at Yale and whatnot. And, after moving here, they use that clout to get into junior positions of power and influence; be it in politics, law, journalism etc. Then, once they've done that, they start to use their powers not to help others, but to lobby for themselves. They find very intelligent-sounding ways to absolve themselves of social responsibility. Translation: "I'm looking out for #1, bitches! You're not getting any fucking lunch money from me! Fuck all a y'all A-rabs."

So, when I think about who a "Washingtonian" is, this is who I picture:

A smart 31-year-old who just missed out on being a Rhodes scholar. Working for a Congressman, perhaps lately trying to backpedal for inserting Orwellian passages into the latest budget bill. (Yes, I'm talking about my old friends Istook and Micha.) Sitting in a party, wearing a sweater vest and sipping on a Smirnoff Ice. Laughing at how diners at the Cheesecake Factory are eating "mangy waste." Dreaming of the day they can make $300,000 a year lobbying for the pesticide industry or something.

But enough about Washingtonians. I'm going to try to think about them as little as possible, because they're just going to bring me down. Instead, I'm going to get the fuck outta town and enjoy Thanksgiving. The hard-core hating can wait until I get back. As a wise man once said, "All these pussy niggas putting money on my head? Go on get your refund, motherfucker. I ain't dead."