I’ve been in D.C. for work since Monday and it’s so cold I would rather curl up under the comforter and never leave the hotel, but there is food to be eaten that requires I brave revolving doors and freezing weather.  Oh D.C., you may be rainy and replete with utterly too many modern (i.e. UGLY) furniture stores, but you are a food-lovers paradise.  All I have to do is walk out of my hotel in any direction to encounter hundreds of restaurants I want to try.

Last night I discovered Agora and immediately fell in love.  The second I sat down, a very nice gay man screamed at me from across the bar to “Stop looking so good looking!!!” I told him I’d try, but in the meantime he should shut his whore mouth.  We immediately became the best of friends and competed flirting with the bartender for free drinks.  After meeting my new BFF, I ordered the Grilled Dorade and a wood-fired flatbread stuffed with feta cheese and tomatoes that was so good I would have sold my mother into slavery for another one.

Speaking of my mother. I spent Thanksgiving with her and the rest of the family in Atlanta and was almost forced to check myself into a psychiatric unit.  I love mom very mucho, but for some reason, after three days of staying at her house I revert back to the angst-ridden, EMO-sarcastic, anti-social, ghost of teenage past. This is difficult for me.  My teenage years were painful and depressing and I would prefer to continue successfully repressing them until the day I die.

Due to my incredibly negative reaction during my last stay, I’m contemplating spending Christmas in New Orleans instead of going back to mom’s.  I casually mentioned it to her over the phone and she told me to do whatever makes me happy, but “if she dies next year,” she hopes I won’t feel really bad I didn’t spend that one last Christmas with her.

Hello, Guilt, can you hear me? I really missed you while you were gone for all of FIVE MINUTES of my life. So nice to feel you again, old friend.

I don’t think she intentionally does it.  I just think it’s inherent to being a Hispanic mom.  Kind of like being a Catholic. Except Latin moms are worse because they’re Hispanic and Catholic.  The double-whammy of betrayal and atonement.

As I try to make a decision that is right for me, I’m going to continue feeding the guilt at amazing D.C. restaurants paid for by work, something I don’t feel the least bit guilty about.