NYC: We know drama

I spent most of last week in Washington DC on a trip for work, and while there was plenty of work to be done, I had enough time to enjoy what was my first extended stay in a domestic city without a permission slip and a chaperone or my immediate family. My mom with her guide books and morning coffee requirements, my dad with his alarm clock and morning paper requirements, my brother with his appetite and wireless internet requirements, they were all absent from my hotel room.

On the trip down, I drank coffee and then Diet Coke in a seat all to myself, concerned with no one’s garbage or luggage but my own. I examined a map of the city because I like looking at maps, not because I had to navigate for someone else.

I took myself to the zoo, took myself halfway to the Cathedral, took myself to a coffee shop with free wireless internet. I went to see the Edward Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery with a coworker and I went for beers with Lauren, but I went to bed every night with the TV on because it felt like an indulgence just for me.

One night, on the way back from dinner with Lauren, I was bragging to my mom about my fancy high-speed train trip over the phone. Before we hung up, she asked how far I was from my room. “Keep an eye out,” she warned when I told her I was nearly to the hotel lobby, “It’s not New York.”

Half an hour later, I was in my pj’s and in bed, watching Law and Order: SVU and I realized how much pleasure I take from watching the New York crime dramas in my New York apartment.

It’s not DC.