Home is a pretty subjective concept. Where you hang your hat? The place you can always go back to? Where your love lies waiting silently for you? But what about where you spend the largest part of your waking hours? We may like to keep a firm separation between office life and “home” life, but let’s look at the facts: who do you spend more hours awake and in the same room with than that annoying guy you share an office with? Whether by choice or not, you may even know more about your office-mate than someone you’ve been dating for months. If you’re a late riser, you probably have more than half your meals in or around your office. You may have changes of clothes there. A lot of poor unfortunate folks in this area find themselves in their offices far too late at night more times than they might care to admit. Yet home is still that too neglected apartment/condo/house at the other end of our commute, the one that we keep meaning to decorate properly (or clean thoroughly) once we have a free weekend. We don’t want to think we live where we work; with the office-mate, the drab beige walls, and the half-smoke vendor on the corner. If I live where I work, then that’s my life, and who wants to entertain that thought?

Quote of the Week

On the Green Line to Branch Avenue around 8:50 in the morning:

A lone middle-aged tourist in plaid and shorts and running shoes tries to make small talk with commuters:

Tourist Man sits down next to a woman in a suit: “How are you?”
Hassled Commuter Woman: “Good.”
She tries to turn away but Tourist Man is not so easily thwarted.
Tourist Man: “Do you live here?”
Hassled Commuter Woman snorts: “Nooooo. I work here.”
Tourist Man: “Ha ha. No one lives here, huh?”
Hassled Commuter Woman: “Nooooo. They just commute in… commute out.”
Tourist Man: “It’s my first time here. How long have you been here?”
Hassled Commuter Woman, very adamant: “No, no, I don’t LIVE here. I WORK here.”

After the jump, the mean streets, the confusing landmarks, and the collected knowledge of our nation’s capital.

You may find yourself listening in to someone else’s conversation. And you may ask yourself, “Well…what do I do now?” And you may tell yourself, ” Send it to overheardindc (at) gmail (dot) com.”

Photo by Flickr user JamesCalder.