From my roost in Logan Circle, I’m privy to the neighborhood’s massive revival, for better or worse (yes, gentrification*, I’m looking at you). Over the past year or so of calling Logan Circle home, I’ve grown seriously loyal to this sliver of an area wedged between Dupont and Shaw in northwest Washington (after all, it was originally called Iowa Circle. And have you seen its sweet Victorians?).
For this first post, I thought I’d share one of my favorite conversations about Logan Circle I’ve had since arriving, which was with, of all people, my dentist. As he dug deeper into my tiny, increasingly raw mouth, he struck up small talk, as all dentists do in the sick and ironic way at which they’re masters.
Between painful swipes of his handy dentist tool, he learned that I had recently gotten married in Iowa, where I grew up, and then moved to Logan Circle with my new husband, also from Iowa. (He also learned that it had been a while since my last dentist visit, while I learned that my threshold for pain is, ahem, impressively high.)
As a D.C. veteran, he obligatorily started waxing nostalgic about the way Logan Circle has changed over the past decade (for the uninformed: fewer hookers and coke deals, more tapas and wine bars). A pause to ponder, and then my dentist quipped a revelation: “I bet you can’t even buy your drugs there anymore, huh?”
We giggled about how that had, in fact, been the toughest part of the transition to D.C., and that was that. But the conversation stuck with me. Because in addition to its unexpected humor, I gleaned something else from the encounter: When an awkward middle-age man is joking about your neighborhood’s lack of smack, its edginess quotient has officially exited the scene.
*Full disclaimer: Since I’ve only lived in the area for a year-and-some-odd-months, I’m hardly a veteran offering perspective—or even deep-rooted opinions. Rather, I’m just another transient D.C. resident who likes to explore my new community. And as a young urban professional who moved to the area within the past five years, I’m totally a gentrifier, whether I like it or not.
“lack of smack.” that’s great.