There's only one reason to live in D.C....

According to worldtravels.com the D.C. climate is, "Highly seasonal with extreme variations between summer and winter." They helpfully added that the weather, "Has been known to be unpredictable too."

Style on the hot (unless it's really rainy and cold) streets range from J Crew, to Vineyard Vines, to Patagonia, to Lands End (but that last one is only popular for totes).

Buffeted by schizo non-native market forces and government salary expense accounts, restaurants attempt to toe the line between Applebees-like "homestyle" gluey entrees, for the transplanted midwestern palate, and completely inadequate Thai, Ethopian or Indian, for the people who want to pretend they love new cultures but really can't tell the difference. (Not one place could stay in business selling decent salt bagels?)

The admittedly large selection of museums tend toward displays meant to attract people who wish they were the kind of people who frequent the museum on weekends, but who really only like artists they've heard of before.

The natives hate the transplants. And the transplants dimly try not to be too offensive, but can't seem to help doing things like STOPPING in the middle of the metro during rush hour, apparently to ponder something which had better be damned important because it could have caused a death fourteen people behind them in the crush.

We're all here, though, hair in ponytails because of the humidity, biking through aggressively incompetent traffic and pretending the supposedly modern retreads at the Kennedy center are cutting edge opera (They very well could be, I couldn't tell the difference, I just have... suspicions...)

Why did we leave the buy-in-bulk comforts of the midwest, the glamourous weather of California, and the cozy warmth of the New England prep school where we were raised by people paid to tolerate our whims?

For bragging purposes, of course.

We're a community of more-literate-than-most and never-say-die competitors yearning to breathe more rarified air than the next guy. We let senators sexually harass us in the streets for the photo op, attempt to show off our "relevancy" by fighting over minute political points which everyone involved in the debate learned of from the same newspaper article, and crush into unimaginative events where we pay $8 for koolaid and vodka so we can later begin a story with, "That night at the Serbian Embassy..."

The natives know only a jerk or someone with an agenda would put up with a place like this. And we know it too, every time we retell the story of seeing some random CNN talking head on the train, or pay $8.50 for a sandwich on Capitol Hill. Then we shrug away the moment of clarity and call home to brag, again, that our jogging route takes us THIS close to the church J.F.K. once attended.