Light on the Salt

Quick post from Hotel HQ in Salt Lake City, Utah...

I've been lucky enough to travel quite a bit this year as result of my current creative endeavors. As far as common courtesy goes from city to city, looking at: people that you inhabit space with, counter transactions, taxi cabs (driving+fare+personality), hotel staffs, restaurant workers, security agents, police officers, hookers (street walkers, truck stops, call-girls) drive-thrus, parking attendants, facial expressions, body language, propensity to hold-a-door open, etc--Salt Lake City, Utah won in about 5 minutes. The worst is always Washington DC. But I live there and I love it. It’s a bias that has come from being in the District too long but I am constantly reminded of it each time I leave and I don't think it is a coincidence anymore. I play a game in my building back home where I make eye contact and distinctly separate greeting from question, "Hello. How are you doing today? This sort of question throws most into a social tailspin, you can watch their expression contort as their own mental bureaucracies document and draft out an appropriate response that usually just leads to something that of a murmuring goat and then they fling themselves against a wall or down a flight of stairs in hopes to avoid anymore human interaction.
I have some other theories about DC’s overall personality that involve: having money, not having money, over-worked and underpaid, over-educated and underpaid, and over-paid and under-to-no-working at all.