Just got back from taking a friend on a say-goodbye-to-D.C. tour. She's moving to Indiana to go to law school, and has had to leave suddenly because she needs to take a summer class. S., although not one of the only friends who's taking part in the annual summer exodus from D.C. and will be sorely missed, is one of the only people I know here who feels very affectionate toward (parts of) the city the way I sometimes do. She's been here a few years too, a long time by D.C. standards, and was feeling nostalgic tonight -- egged on by yours truly, who never passes up a chance to be nostalgic -- so we went for a little drive down Mass. Ave. to Pennsylvania to 15th Street to Constitution Ave.

It's so foggy and rainy outside that it felt like the inside a snow globe of D.C., with the Washington Monument illuminated and towering in the mist, the Vietnam Memorial lurking invisibly in the darkness, the Lincoln Memorial's pillars glowing from within. "Home in the rearview mirror," she says, halfway joking, halfway serious, already halfway in the next place, already halfway gone from this one.