The Last Word On Nothing

The first I knew of it was about 11:00 Monday night. The Capital Weather Gang, a brilliant blog that was snapped up by the Washington Post a few years ago, posted on Facebook: “Have seen some reports of a fireball (large meteor) in DC area around 8:25 pm. Anyone see it?”

Comments came in. A friend saw it while driving home after a rehearsal with her teenaged daughter. “Very cool!” she wrote. Other people spoke up, reporting seeing it in Herndon, Va., and Baltimore, Md. The meteor, it turned out, entered the atmosphere over southern New Jersey and headed northwest into Pennsylvania. Its flame was visible from Virginia all the way up into New York and Connecticut.

Here in Washington, D.C., surrounded by the lights of the city, it’s rare to see much of anything in the sky. Venus is there, hanging near the horizon in the evening these days, and sometimes I can pick out a few stars from my window. Most of what I see, though, is the lights that burn all night at the construction company next door, deterring any thieves that might be looking to steal their equipment by jumping from the back of my apartment building.

On nights when we hear the aurora is likely to be visible this far south, we know there’s no point in looking; the ghostly greens of magnetic reconnection have no hope against the dull, groggy yellows of a modern city.

Things have been strange here the last two weeks. Most of the time, the D.C. I live in has nothing to do with the Washington of the talk shows. We don’t have representatives or senators; the people who speak for us on the Hill are very committed, I’m sure, but nobody has to listen to them. Members of Congress and Senators fly in for a few days a week, then go back home to raise money talking about the cesspool where they are so desperate to spend their time. Their offices are staffed by youngsters who move into town for a few years, then move on to other things, never crossing my path.

But this month it’s different. A lot of people around here work for the government. My boyfriend’s been at home—he’s not a government employee, so he did some work, but there’s only so much you can do when you can’t go to the office, check your e-mail, or talk to your colleagues. A contractor friend drove up to Vermont to visit her parents, then came back home and adopted a dog. Tuesday at lunch, a friend who works in communications at a government agency admitted that it was a relief to be legally barred from looking at her Blackberry. Another friend is worried about how she’s going to make the next tuition payment to her daughter’s college.

All of these people wanted to work, but they couldn’t. Projects languished. Proposals went unread. E-mail piled up. Most of my friends will get back pay, or can get by on savings for the moment, but that’s not true for everyone who’s been out of work. The people who sell sandwiches and shine shoes around government buildings haven’t had business since September.

The first week was all about helpless outrage. Later I learned not to pay attention to the news. It was just too infuriating, and there was nothing I could do to make those idiots–who the rest of the country elected–do their jobs.

In the midst of this strange, suspended time, the fireball came. I missed it myself. I was underground, riding the subway home from drinks with colleagues, one furloughed and one in the private sector.

When a rock hits the atmosphere and burns up in seconds, it’s a reminder of what a thin blanket of gases separates us from space. Imagining myself out in space with that rock, the insanity seems smaller. Everything will blow up again in the new year or not. The global economy will collapse or not. The people who stockpile canned food and guns will turn out to be right or not. But the Earth will keep on going, traveling in elliptical loops around the sun, bumping into rocks, as whatever creatures are left prowl its surface and fight their fights.

Here in Washington, there’s nothing to do but get back to work…and wait for next time.

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