DC By the Book

Excerpt: At the end of July, when New York was in its summer slowdown, I started reaching out to my Washington (DC) contacts and was told the place to be was the Capitolist. Both the fast moving website and the daily print publication were dominating the Hill, an editor friend at the Washington Post told me. As soon as her contract ended, she was applying there and I should, too. I asked her for her Capitolist contact, sent my resume to the hiring manager for a Style reporter position, and a month of interviews and writing tests later, I had an offer. The Capitolist. I considered it for about a nanosecond, and then I said yes.

Excerpt: In Washington, fall meant Congress was still in session and a horrendous number of school groups arrive with their history classes in hyperactive packs on the Mall.

Excerpt: I decided to find peace around the domed building. “What a relaxing area!” I exclaimed to no one as I walked down the Capitol’s marble steps. I smiled weakly at the stocky security guard who moved the guard rope for me and headed down the south side of the Mall toward the Washington Monument.

Excerpt: Cutting through the Smithsonian sculpture garden, I walked past a sea of illuminated bronze legs and boobs. “Rodin, Rooooodin!” I rolled the only sculptor’s name I could think of off my tongue and walked slowly through the garden of art. When I reached the end of the sculpture walk I took a deep breath and smiled.

Excerpt: Lincoln Town Car after Lincoln Town Car pulled up to the front of the hotel. Each one spat a polished and prepped celebrity out into a wave of oohs and aahs and camera bulbs. Rockers, aging rockers, starlets, cinema icons: they all walked the carpet, popping their hips for the press and blessing the rows of salivating reporters with their presence, if they felt like it.

Excerpt: I still had to cover the Vanity Fair after party at the French ambassador’s sprawling stone residence, the most exclusive soirée of the night.

Excerpt: I cut through the south terrace to the service elevator that would take me down to the back of Off the Record, the famous bar in the basement of the hotel. I wanted to avoid small talk, celebrities, any conversation at all. But when the doors of the elevator opened into the bar, which I thought would be empty given the hour, I was confronted with a packed house. There was yet another Correspondents’ weekend brunch taking place in the popular watering hole.

Excerpt: I let him take my arm and lead me up the back stairs and across the street to a bench in front of St. John’s Church. The White House was to our left, and the flow of traffic into the stone hotel in front of us was still heavy.

Excerpt: I slipped into the Kramerbooks store on the edge of the circle and sat down at a bar stool in the adjacent restaurant. I motioned to the bartender for a cup of coffee and let the steaming liquid burn every inch of the inside of my mouth.

Excerpt: The good news about the real good time was that it was always held in the Freer and Sackler Galleries, one of the most beautiful buildings in Washington. I loved the courtyard. I loved the ethereal green Thomas Dewing paintings that hung from the walls and Whistler’s famous Peacock Room.