‘Have A Seat’
courtesy of ‘Paul Frederiksen’

A lot happens in our great town: art shows, meetups, happy hours, plays, lectures, new exhibits opening, old exhibits closing, book signings, breakfast meetings, brunches, power lunches, fundraisers, forums, playdates, baseball games, midnight movies, networking, tweetups, talks, tours—heck, even our skeeball and kickball games are organized nearly to death. And then you’ve got e-mails, Twitter feeds, friends, half the blogs in the city, Groupon, Goldstar, the Going Out Gurus, and mailing lists from every nonprofit, theater company and neighborhood book store whose website you ever even thought about visiting, all telling you about this Great, Exciting Can’t-Miss Event! going on. So you fill your iCal, shut down your office computer at 6:00, and trudge onto a packed Metro platform, elbowing your way onto a four-car train that’s 20 minutes late and already loaded 1,000 other worker bees and 1,000 tourists and their 1,000 screaming kids, most of whom are way too big for that stroller that just ran over your toe, and you head out to that event, determined to fill your evening hours with something interesting and important. And then you do it again the next night.

DC: Stop. Take a breath. Calm. Down. Put away the smartphone. We’re here to help. Continue reading →