OK, so I love DCist. It's a favorite blog of mine. And I love leaving excessively negative comments on their posts. They seem to like DC. A lot. I have no idea why. I'm trying to learn.
So, I leave these comments. It's a bad habit that I'm sure they don't appreciate. I keep it inoffensive and snarky. Nothing that would make them hate me...I hope.
Anyhoo, anytime I leave a comment, I get an inevitable backlash from people who don't like me very much. Which, I guess is fair. But I would like to offer a response to the most common criticism I get:
I live in Bethesda. I'm sorry, but that's where I live. Of course, I've only lived here for literally 29 days after over four years in DC, but it still seems to bother a lot of you. What can I say? I live here. It's cheap, the bussing is great, and the bars are good. Yeah, the early last call sucks, but whatcha gonna do?
To be honest, if I had a choice, I would live in DC-proper. I would be closer to the one thing that DC has provided me that doesn't suck: my friends. But, I didn't have a choice. Well, I guess I did. I chose Bethesda over homelessness. DC has enough homeless people, thank you very much.
You are, of course, fooling yourself if you don't see Bethesda as a natural extension of Washington. As a city, Bethesda is bigger than Van Ness, Tenleytown, Cleveland Park, Adams Morgan, U Street, Columbia Heights, etc. Like DC, it uses the Metro. Like DC, many people commute to work here. Like DC, it attracts a lot of people that I can't stand.
And the argument is especially craptastic when one considers the fact that my predecessor, the much better writer, James F., lived in Virginia. Virginia! And, if you're wondering, I consider Arlington and even Alexandria a natural extension of DC as well.
Saying that Bethesda is not DC is like saying that Cambridge is not part of Boston. Technically you'd be right. But in terms of reality, you should know better.
So, from now on, I will not respond to remarks about where I live. I'm sorry, but they're lame and obnoxious. All other attacks, especially ones using something I call "reason," are more than welcome. You can mock me for being young, for living in upper-NW when I did live in Washington, for being a shitty writer, or for going to a second-tier university. If you know me, you can even make your attacks personal. But no more Bethesda talk. For the love of God, no more Bethesda talk.
3.01.2006
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I mock you for being young, for living in upper-NW when you did live in Washington, for being a shitty writer, and for going to a second-tier university. If I knew you, I would even make personal attacks. However, I think it's fine that you live in Bethesda. Well, fine for the blog. I'm not so sure how fine it is in an objective sense.
ReplyDeleteHey, I paid a lot of money for a grad. degree from that second-tier shitty university. Breaking my balls, son.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you care what little yuppies who write for DCist think of you? Although I don't share their love of D.C., they do run an ok website about (the few) interesting things going on in town. But, seriously, who cares what these D.C. lovers think of you. Basically, I have found that most people who love D.C. are from some shitty suburb of some bland midwestern town and knew they couldn't hack it in New York or Chicago, but they were too snooty to go back to their little shitty suburb. Well, bitches, I can't afford to live in an overpriced 400,000 condo located next to some check cashing place on the "new U". I challenge any D.C. lover to come live in my neighborhood and see if they love dc as much.
ReplyDeleteTo my discredit, I am a yuppie. Just a very negative one.
ReplyDeletenothing wrong with being a yuppie, rusty, just don't be a bland yuppie.
ReplyDeleteI concur. Let's face it, anyone with an education or any taste about anything these days is dubbed a yuppie. The term is used so frequently that it's now devoid of meaning, like "fascist," "asshole," and "Christian."
ReplyDeleteI want to get in on the mocking too! Unfortunately, I'm too busy mocking myself for being the Georgetown Girl who occasionally succumbs to peer-pressure and pops her collar. But as soon as I'm finished my self-mocking, you're next on my list.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I love DC and I think your blog is great.
If you pop your collar due to peer pressure, than you are nothing by a gigantic tool. Seriously. You're lame, GU Girl.
ReplyDeleteBen, of course she pops her collar because of peer pressure. Is there any other reason to pop your collar?
ReplyDeleteGU Girl is not lame, just misguided (in terms of collar etiquette, not in terms of her liking this blog).
Well Rusty, I guess I won't debate the city vs. suburbs issue with you...if you don't want to acknowledge the not-so-subtle cultural differences, I can't make you.
ReplyDeleteBut if you want to incorporate all the near burbs as one big extension of DC, then I'll just say this:
Bethesda sucks even more than upper NW. Maybe its because every time I go there it's one ginormous high school reunion featuring all the same MoCo kids I knew as a teenager, who moved down to the big bustling metropolis on Wisconsin Ave but refused to cross over the line into the city where all the black people are and they don't have Golden T in the bars or have awesome cover bands who do play Brown Eyed Girl on the hour.
But, at the end of the day, that's my issue.
Tommy
At the risk of waxing philosophical about minor fashion choices, the distinction of a popped v. unpopped collar is socially constructed. To you it may represent a girl who rejected you in college, while for me it reminds me of a particular group of friends.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that popping my collar due to peer pressure is both somewhat lame and misguided, as long as I recognize that and keep a sense of humor, I think I'll manage to occasionally pop my collar without allowing it to define me. If you choose to define me by the turn of my collar, that's your problem.
Tommy,
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate. Oh, and god forbid you live in say Howard or PG Cnty. For some reason MoCo is like some secret heaven you need a special ticket to get into or something. I could care less though, but it's just the attitude these people come off with. And sometimes it's just hard to be friends with them.
-D
GU Girl, I was joking. I would not judge someone by their collar. I merely use collar poppage as a tie-breaker.
ReplyDeleteTommy and D, the Bethesda I live in is not a whites-only zone. My block is half-white and half-Hispanic. It's certainly more diverse than most of DC.
And of course there are cultural differences between Bethesda and Eastern DC. But Bethesda is an extension of NW DC much like PG is an extension of SE DC. NW and SE are worlds apart. Betehsda and NW are the same. Don't let arbitrary borders define where you live.
Rusty, I gotta disagree with you. PG has a bad, bad rap. Some of it is deserved, and much of it is not.
ReplyDeleteAt one time (not sure if its still true, but it was within the past few years) it had one of the highest income African Amercian populations in the nation. Calling it an extension of SE doesn't seem very fair to me.
All the same, yeah -- Montgomery Country does sort of seem like Eden when you're trapped on Route 1 in Laurel.
Tommy
I'm a Silver Spring native, and I proudly and correctly tell people I'm from DC. For all those who disagree, think about it: you can live in the Bronx, a 45 min train ride to downtown Manhattan, and tell people you live in NYC, or you can live in Albany Park/Roseland/Uptown or wherever in outlying parts of Chicago and take a 45+ min train ride to get to the Loop, yet if you live in Silver Spring, a <20 min train ride to Metro Center, people think they can tell you you're not from DC. As for San Francisco, it's such a small land area that most people can't live there, and live in surrounding areas, but they are from SF. You're pretty much from DC if a good deal of the people in your community commute to work in DC. So yes, Germantown, Reston, and Woodbridge all count. Bethesda definitely counts. Cheers. -Kate
ReplyDeleteI don't know...the big difference for me, and what makes places like Bethesda NOT part of "DC," is that when I graduated from college, and moved to (Northeast) DC, I gave up congressional representation. All of a sudden, people like Sam fucking Brownback of Kansas got to decide what was best for me. In Bethesda or Arlington you've still got full voting rights...that said, Can someone who lives in Bethesda, Maryland claim to be from DC? Sure. (they usually don't, btw, the people who are actually FROM Bethesda will tell people all over the world that they're from Bethesda, Maryland and, only when pressed, say that it's "near DC.") Anyway...i think what pisses people off is the idea that somebody who doesn't actually live in DC, and who doesn't actually experience "taxation without representation" everyday, can have a site called "why I hate dc." Granted, it doesn't really matter, you lived in DC for four years, you're on your way back, whatever, there's a big difference between living in the DC metropolitan area and living in the district itself, with all the fucking bullshit that goes along with the government situation. Part of actually hating DC - really fucking loathing it - comes from trying to get your car properly licensed and registered, getting the right sticker so you can actually park your car on the street, paying DC taxes. My impression has always been basically, how could this asshole in VA ever "really" understand what it's like to hate DC. But, like I said, it doesn't really apply to you - more to your predecessor.
ReplyDeleteWoodbridge counts?!? Christ, I broke up with a guy once because he lived 'all the way out in Ballston'...
ReplyDelete