Border Disputes
(snapshot of Washington)

- Virginians stick to Virginia, District residents scorn the suburbs, and Marylanders, myself included, prefer their own fair state.

How true that was, I discovered. My soul is slowly being sucked from my body, I’d moan dramatically weaving through the tall buildings and McMansions of Reston. How can anyone live so far out? I’d wonder, making the long foray down I-95 to Manassas to visit old college friends.

Maryland was far superior, I’d assert to friends over cocktails. We had Baltimore, the rowhouses, Fourth of July fireworks over the Inner Harbor. Maryland’s scenery, crab shacks, beaches and even the distinctive accents remind me of childhood visits to my grandparents in Wilmington. I like the state because it reminds me of Delaware, I realized.

In the words of an Arlington-living friend, that was one of the saddest things she’d ever heard.

You guys have Civil War reenactments, I retorted. We have the nationally respected Silver Spring AFI theater.

“I dated a guy from Silver Spring once,” said another friend, wrinkling her nose to express just how pleasant of an experience that had been.

Majority rule meant most happy hours are in NoVA. People are very blond in NoVA, I noticed at first (because, of course, I am so very ethnic in my own appearance). But then I started to enjoy myself, despite the long Metro ride. If I can journey halfway around the world to Africa, surely hopping across the Key Bridge every once in a while is not unreasonable.