The restaurant and the congressman

Last night I was at the kind of D.C. restaurant I can only afford to go to when someone else is paying.

A horrific politician who enabled some of Donald Trump’s worst abuses of power was also dining there.

It was a rare cold night for the mild winter we’ve been having. There were small, irritating gusts of wind and snow turned to ice underfoot. I’d been stomping around in my old timbs all day, but changed into more feminine boots for the outing, which means I nearly face-planted more times than I’d like to admit.

By the time I came face-to-face with the odious politician, I was already pretty pissed off. It had been a day. I was embroiled in a Twitter war with a Stalinist heiress from Russia. A man I adored was liking my tweets and not responding to my very sincere and heartfelt text about how his recent actions had hurt me. My stupid blood disease was acting up and I felt dizzy from my medication.

In person, the despicable politician was reminiscent of a life-sized rabbit’s paw — all softness and little substance. I tried to pretend I hadn’t recognized him, though I’d done a poor job of it as our eyes locked very briefly. I was extremely tired. The new friend I was out with didn’t want to ruin our night by confronting the jackass congressman, then decided that the night was ruined either way. You confront — it sucks. You don’t confront — it somehow sucks even more.

I was prepared to be sad about it all evening — I’ve had some practice in sadness lately — but then I realized something important as we finally got to the car afterwards, the wind growing more voracious now, me skidding down the sidewalk as I attempted to keep my balance on the ice: the evening was actually a moment of normalcy in a city that’s felt under siege as of late. Everyone simply ate their dinner. No one yelled, or was arrested. Life in perpetually besieged D.C., as strange and hypocritical as it can be, was finding a way.

One of the things I’ve always loved about D.C. since I came here was the proximity of the politicians, both the ones you liked and the ones you disliked. It’s not like Moscow, where I used to work, and where the entire restaurant would’ve been shut down and the sidewalk blocked off for some asshole member of Putin’s court. Our elite is still the elite, there’s no sense in pretending otherwise, or basking in illusions of a false meritocracy, but we do still live side by side in the capital. We argue. Or leave each other alone.

A society paralyzed by fear is one where these random encounters, ships passing in the night, simply don’t happen. And as awful as the last months have been in the United States, we still have a lot to lose. And much to gain, if we get our shit together.

I tried to explain that to my friend as he buckled under his disappointment of not having said anything. He, too, is extremely well-traveled, and he knew exactly what I meant. Still, he was upset. And the fact that he was — well, it was another good sign. It means apathy hadn’t swallowed him whole.

Life is made up of contradictions, and life in this country especially. We’re more keen to notice these contradictions as Americans because of how young this country is, I think. We struggle with ourselves, more openly and publicly than many other societies. We face hope and doom. We go on.

Image credit: PixelAnarchy