When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me “government stories” before bed. A government story was a bedtime story, only one that played out against the backdrop of Washington, D.C: “Once upon a time, there was Watergate…” That kind of thing. Mom occasionally tried to branch out to other topics, but, at my insistence, government stories were the staple of her rotation. I was about six years old when I first learned about the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and maybe three when she first told me about Vietnam.

Not every story was so serious, of course. Some nights, she would tell me about the year she worked as a secretary for the Department of Agriculture (she quit because she couldn’t stand waking up so early.) Other times, she’d tell me about the year my grandfather was appointed Chief Economist at the Department of Commerce. (Per her retelling, he was slightly disappointed by the title, as he felt the previously used “Under Secretary” sounded more prestigious.)

More than once, she told me about how Jake Tapper once went on a date with Monica Lewinsky.

As a wide-eyed girl coming of age in Northern Virginia, shopping at Limited Too in the same Pentagon City mall where Lewinsky was once held at the Ritz Carlton against her will, I daydreamed fairly often about what my own future in this city might have in store. I imagined myself surrounded by lawyers and journalists and bureaucrat friends, never wanting for an outfit that would take me from day to night. My classmates and I would build our careers in a recession-proof economy; my future husband would look great in a suit and tie, and I’d likely meet him in a bar on M Street, or perhaps in a bookstore on Connecticut Avenue, or even at All Souls Church in Columbia Heights, where, just a few decades earlier, my grandparents were married in a ceremony officiated by the great A. Powell Davies.

Some of those prophecies have turned out to be true?

I consider it my greatest wealth that, as I enter my early 40s, I’m surrounded by truly irreplaceable friends, many of whom have indeed made their way in journalism, and law, and … bureaucracy.

In other ways, though, there’s a significant gap between the life my childhood brain envisioned and the reality I’m living in now — private equity has long since decimated The Limited Too, and the man who founded the brand has been implicated in the Epstein files to boot. Whereas I grew up being quizzed on the definition of Gross Domestic Product and took pride in always giving an accurate answer, now I spend a not-insignificant number of my mornings crying over late-stage capitalism and driving past young National Guardsmen outfitted head to toe in combat gear.

Our commander in chief’s portrait seems to be everywhere; meanwhile, men in business suits are in increasingly short supply.

All that to say: this Substack is inspired by my mother’s government stories. It’s an attempt to capture glimpses of day-to-day life here in this town where local news is national news is international news, and yet where the local news is rapidly disappearing. Where the bronze equestrian statues on Memorial Bridge are set to be repainted in 23.75 gold and the EOB in blinding white.

It’s where I reserve the right both to opine about The Big News Story of the Day and to ask if you knew Monica Lewinsky once went on a date with Jake Tapper?

If you’re up for the ride, I’d love to have you.

With love,

From Washington,

Alicia