parking wars

Parking is at a premium here in DC. Having lived here for nearly 10 years now I've seen all manner of parking wars from strategies designed to subvert the two-hour residential parking zone restrictions to actual fights over prime parking spaces (literally - I saw a guy trying to hold a prime parking space on Connecticut Ave in Dupont Circle - he was standing in the middle of the space - start punching the driver of an SVU who tried to pull into the space while the guy was still standing there - the incident devolved into a full on street fight). 

I myself have refused to move my car after scoring a particularly prime spot outside of my former Kalorama Heights apartment building, made wild illegal u-turns to grab a choice spot, and have even been "courtesy relocated" by the DC parking squad. I take great pride in only having received one parking ticket while in grad school at Georgetown, and I beamed with the joy only a DC-parker can when I received my first zone 2 sticker (allowing me unlimited street parking in some of the choicest neighborhoods). 

But now I live on the edge of Old Town Alexandria where parking isn't nearly as big of a deal as it is in the District proper - particularly seeing as I live in a gated complex where resident parking is abundant. Despite the prevalence of free parking (and driveway parking too) I have become an unwitting accomplish in a great parking war between my neighbors. 

The complex is mixed space - townhouses and apartments. All of the townhouses have driveways and garages, as do a number of ground-floor apartments. Our block has three townhouses and two apartments. The war has grown-up between one of the apartment parkers and well everyone else on our block. Here's the situation:

The rule is residents with a driveway and garage are supposed to park their vehicles in their driveway and garage (so you are not granted parking for more than two cars). In practicality, most residents with two cars park one in the driveway and one in one of the many open spaces that surround the townhouses and apartment buildings. This is usually not a big deal because there's lots of parking and not a lot of people with multiple vehicles. Problems arise when one resident feels entitled to claim one of these 'open' parking spots as their own (there is a reason why they are called first come, first served spaces). This problem is exacerbated when that resident is not supposed to be parking in an open space in the first place. And thus sets up our conflict...

A new neighbor just moved in to one of the apartments and his first course of business was to claim one of these open spaces for his own. He has guarded this space with such fervor and dedication to the point of obsession. He never leaves the space unguarded - he will pull the non-space vehicle up to block the spot while he pulls the other out - never leaving the space empty for more than a few seconds. The space was his for about a month, and then the unthinkable happened - he needed to move both vehicles leaving the space open for hours.

What happens when you move into a new neighborhood and your only interaction with your neighbors is to yell at them to stay away from your parking space and you leave that space unoccupied? Your neighbors rush to fill it - and coordinate amongst themselves to keep you out of that spot for as long as possible (I should confess that ours is not a normal block - 2 military officers, 1 U.S. Marshal, and 1 Capitol Police Officer - these guys don't take to spontaneous acts of authority/control lightly). 

The Marshal currently has his duty vehicle parked in the spot (could there be a more imposing don't mess with me car than the big black suburban with dashboard lights and the U.S. Marshal Service logo on the side?), and as I write this post the problem parker has decided to forgo parking in the spot next to the one he was guarding and instead has double-parked on the street in front of his driveway and partially blocking the Marshal's driveway. Somehow I think the parking cold war is about to go hot...

it's not personal...it's just business

Up until a few months ago I was working for a small consulting firm in DC. Last fall the CEO called a rare all staff meeting and told us that our firm was "taking an investment" from a private equity company (in other words the firm was being sold). This was all very exciting, he said, because it will allow us to grow and pursue a lot of the projects and business lines that had been up until that point illusory. One of my colleagues asked what this would all mean for the staff and we were told that the change in ownership would have a negligible impact on our lives. I probably don't need to tell you that that wasn't exactly the case.

Long story short there was a "reorganization" (read most of the senior staff were let go - me and 2 other VP's axed on the same day) and I found myself looking for what to do next. Luckily I figured that "taking an investment" would mean a whole-scale change in what the firm did and that probably would lead to a lot of staff turnover. I figured we had several months before the deal was finalized so I started taking some writing classes after hours and networking to try to find my next move. I haven't totally figured that out yet, but am trying to find a way to launch my own business. 

I met one of my fellow VP casualties this morning for coffee to catch up and I was struck by how much he was still reeling from our sudden unemployment. He lamented not heeding my advice back in January when the buyout was imminent about considering how we would all fit into the new firm (if at all). But mostly I was struck by how interested he was in rehashing the events of our former employment. Maybe I should be more concerned about not having a regular job in the current economy, but I really see this as a gift. I've wanted to work for myself for so long and I don't know that I would have had the guts to go for it if I wasn't given a proper push. 

I don't feel bad about not working at that firm anymore (quite honestly I wasn't having much fun at my job the last 6 months or so that I was there), and I also don't feel particularly wronged by my ousting (even though I probably should). I wonder if this is a sign of growth. Could it be that I haven't just crossed the 30-threshold, but I've also crossed some sort of maturity milestone? If this had happened five years ago I probably would have displayed a fair amount of emotion over the situation, but even as I was "being let go" I stayed totally calm. I actually felt a great sense of relief and have felt relieved ever since. 

I don't know if my new business will succeed or not. I do know that my destiny is in my hands more than ever before, and that is maybe the best feeling about my career I've ever had.

taking the plunge

For years I wrote blog-like stories and emailed them to my friends. I like to think that my emails were witty, charming, and even sometimes insightful (the recipients may have different opinions :-)), but I never considered starting a blog. I started taking a few continuing education writing classes and I realized that there was a whole online world I was ignoring. What better way to work through my thoughts, practice telling stories and figure out if they were actually interesting, and connect with a broader community on the web. So here I am ready to take the blogging plunge!

I called this blog 'my so-called 30s' because I expect to write a lot about the things going on in my life right now as an early-30-something woman. 'Thirtysomething' was the show about baby-boomers in their 30s that was on TV when I was in junior high school; 'My So-Called Life' was on the air my senior year of high school and hit my so-called generation - that tale end of Generation X.