The Washington I Don't Know

I don't know how many times British actress Helen Mirren has been to Washington. She evidently has spent enough time in our fair city -- most recently for the Kennedy Center Honors -- to have formed some rather strong opinions of it.

When she was in Italy last month for the Capri-Hollywood International Film Festival, someone asked the star of "Gosford Park" and the "Prime Suspect" TV shows what Washington is like.

Washington, said Mirren, is a "very gossipy little village of people all going to the same bars . . . all watching each other having affairs with each other."

My reaction on reading this was to feel left out once again. Somewhere is a list of bars where Washingtonians are supposed to go and gossip, and my name isn't on it.

And the affairs! Not only are Washingtonians having them, they're also watching each other have them ! With each other!

And me? I'm on my couch at home, falling asleep to Channel 5's Sue Palka . (Notice that I said "to" Sue Palka, not "with" Sue Palka.)

I keep reading about a Washington I've never been to. It's in books by people such as Jessica "Washingtonienne" Cutler and Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox . It's evoked in the stump speeches of politicians who delight in saying how awful "Washington" is -- then do all they can to move here.

This "Washington" is a city of political junkies who when they're not stabbing backs are rubbing them with edible massage oil. It's an incestuous city where elite members of the media cozy up to their sources and where that breeze you feel is the whir of a gigantic revolving door, as public service metamorphoses into private gain.

It's a city that prompted this observation from Ana Marie Cox in a recent interview with U.S. News & World Report: "The most important thing for anyone in Washington is to be recognized and thought of as important."

You know how it is in other places: People hate being important. They spend their lives striving to be unimportant little slugs so vaporous that they barely register on infrared film. They grow their bangs so they won't be recognized. Not in "Washington."

"In Washington," Cox said, "people's work, personal and social lives overlap so that no social invitation should be overlooked for how it's applicable to your work life."

I think of how pathetically I've managed my own social life. Fool that I am, I've been trying to spend it with people I like.