Washington is the kind of place where people live to work more often than they work to live. In a city where so many professionals are transplants from elsewhere — and don’t plan on staying very long — one’s work life and personal life can feel like one and the same. (Do I seem slightly bitter after three years here? Only a little! There are also great neighborhoods, farmer’s markets, and parks. But not a single decent pizza-by-the-slice place. Honestly.)
Nevertheless, I am sure Justice David Souter‘s colleagues on the Supreme Court got tired of his incessant whining about D.C. Souter infamously said that he had “the world’s best job in the world’s worst city.” He complained that doing the Court’s business was akin to undergoing an “intellectual lobotomy.” Souter, who never married, once said of dating, “I wasn’t that kind of person before I moved to Washington, and, at this age, I don’t see any reason to change.” He wants to go back to New Hampshire, in part, so he can hike. A man after my own heart…
—Dana Goldstein
