North Maple Rag

It's been snowing in South Dakota. My mom didn't have school today and South Dakota Magazine reports that cancelations were happening all over the state. Lately, I've found myself answering a lot of question about the severity of South Dakota's winters. It's pretty bad, but it's not unbearable, and I like to think living through 22 of them made me a little tougher than average. So, I'd be lying if said I wasn't looking forward to New York's first snow.*

Now that I've accepted a summer job offer in Southern California, I've started to question whether I could really give up seasons. Autumn's my favorite and from what I can tell, LA never gets sufficiently chilly or leafy. Also, call me crazy, but I think you need to experience some cold weather before you can truly appreciate a sunny summer day. Apparently, I'm not the only one who's questioned whether California lives up to its hype. South Dakota Magazine also reports that more and more Californians are looking to move away from the Golden State. If California does manage to suck me in this summer, it'll be interesting to see how long I last there. I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance I'll eventually find my way back to the upper midwest.


* Although, I'm completely okay with NY skipping the blizzard thing for a while. My hometown was hit with freezing rain, snow, icy roads, and heavy winds today. For a visual, check out The Public Opinion and The Argus Leader.

I'll be having a quiet holiday here in New York, which is fine. School's been hectic and it will be that way for the next month, so it'll be nice to have a quiet day featuring a good meal. I'm already looking forward to going home for Christmas and like every year, I'm excited simply because I like "the holidays." That's actually one of the things I'm most thankful for this year. A lot of people don't love the holidays and often for good reasons. This season, unfortunately, reminds too many people of loved ones they lost and troubled times. It also has a knack for illuminating the flaws in relationships, especially familial ones. I'm lucky that I still feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I'm lucky that despite having lost people that I love, Christmas reminds me more of how much I appreciate my family. And, I'm lucky that no life-altering trauma has ruined this time of year.

All that's what I'm thankful for right now, but I'm also really quite shallow, so I'm thankful for a number of things, too. Here's a few of them:

• Grey's Anatomy
• cupcakes
• my new pajama pants
• my iPod
• Fresh Direct
• pad thai
• hooded sweatshirts
• good beer
  

I've finally figured out my summer job plans. Last night I accepted an offer to spend eight weeks of my summer in LA and this morning I accepted an offer to spend the rest of the summer in DC. Yay! There are some important differences between the firms, so I'm hoping the comparison will help me clarify my future plans rather than confuse me more.

I'm so glad this is done. It's going to be a crazy summer, but it should be pretty fun.

and watch this commerical. It's awesome and it was done without computer graphics.

Ahh, the magic of shuffle play. I have a feeling this won't be the first time a forgotten song jogs a memory.

The song: Beer for My Horses -- Willie Nelson and Toby Keith (yeah, I know, it's an eclectic collection).

The memory: July 2003. I was working absolutely crazy hours at work and I'd just finished moving to a new apartment. Despite the hellish work hours, I decided it would be a good idea to row crew at 5:25 am 3-5 times a week. E and I had to leave the apartment by 5 to get there on time. She had this nas-asty vanilla flavored coffee that she'd bring in the car every morning and the smell of it made me sick. For some reason, this song was on the radio almost every morning. Despite the craziness and the sleep deprivation, that was one of the rare times when I felt like I was in control of my life. I'd just started to figure out my job, I knew my way around DC, I had friends, and it was too early for me to be worried about law school applications. Life wasn't perfect, but it was better than anything I'd expected.

Well, I've finally joined the rest of the world and purchased an iPod. I love it. I've always thought my life was exciting enough to merit it's own soundtrack, and now I've got one.

Actually, I'm a little worried about taking the soundtrack thing a bit too far. Nearly every big event of my life has a song. My eighth grade class trip to DC? Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign." The national high school debate tournament? Semisonic's "Closing Time." My first roadtrip involving the Jersey Pike? Springsteen's "Born to Run." What's more, once a song is connected to a moment, I can't hear it without the memory ever again.

My worry with the iPod is that I'll start allocating song memories haphazardly. Suddenly, I'll have "got offered drugs in Washington Square Park" and "got stuck behind a group of slow walkers on the sidewalk" songs. I've got to be careful. This thing should come with a warning.

Well look at that, it's been exactly one year since I started this blog. I don't think I expected to last this long when I started and even though my overall interest in this blog has dwindled a bit, I think I'll keep posting for a while. It's great to have a record and I get the impression that a few people out there enjoy the updates.

Cheers!

I have a daily news regimen that involves starting with my hometown newspaper (The Public Opinion), followed by the biggest newspaper in SoDak, the Washington Post, the NY Times, and the finally, BBC News. To be honest, I usually breeze through The P.O. website. They really don't post much and it's an excuse to see pictures from home. Anyway, today's featured photo is was taken on I-29, north of town and when I saw, I felt a sharp stab of homesickness.

In college, my drive home was a straight shot on I-29. Nowadays, it's often still the last leg of my treks back to Watertown since I frequently fly to Sioux Falls. On all of my long road trips, the last stretch has been the 90 miles of I-29 north of I-90. I know this road. I know the exits and towns. I know the rest stops and gas stations. I can tell you how far it is from Brookings to the next exit in case you ever foolishly pass up stopping for gas there when you're running low. I can also show you where the scariest moment of my life occurred (blizzard, icy roads, my car spinning into the median).

Anyway, it's definitely that time of the semester where home seems like the greatest place in the world. Thanksgiving is approaching and no matter how many times I spend it away from home, not being there always feels a little wrong. I miss my family. And, probably more than either of those things, I have a truckload of work here that needs to be done before I can go anywhere. I have just under six weeks to go and even though they're going to be tough, it's nice to have something to look forward to.

I probably have some opinions about Samuel Alito, but I'm not going to bore you with them. Instead, I'll just say that I'm glad the Washington Post has dug into his feelings about South Dakota. Also, the same article provides a particularly apt description of DC people:

Washington is a town of geeks and misfits who, for the most part, suppress their inner dorks much of the time.

Since I returned from New Hampshire on Monday, I've been pretty immersed in the note I'm writing for my journal. It's been frustrating, but oddly fun. I like research generally and I love it when I care about the topic. So, writing the first draft of my note has been exhausting, but fine.

Monday night, I caught a little bit of the Halloween parade here in the Village this year. I'm glad I went, if only because it means I don't ever have to go again. The big skeletons and spiders and whatnot are amusing and creative but, the paradegoers, I could do without. The man standing on my left was sweating through his cow costume and face paint. The woman beside me was drunk and felt compelled to scream all the time. The man behind me was dressed in jeans and, um, his body hair. All in all, it was a group I was happy to leave. Oh, and I may not have mentioned it before, but I hate face paint. Loathe it. My dad used to become ill everytime he saw wallpaper paste. I never really understood his reaction until I discovered my aversion to face paint. Even the thought of it now, days later, makes me want to vomit.

Otherwise, things are good here in law school land. I'm very close to making my law firm choice official. I'm just waiting to get a few final questions answered, but I'm pretty sure I already know the answers. So, barring any surprises, I think I'm nearly done with the firm craziness for a while.

In a broader sense, however, I've been giving a lot of thought to my career generally. There are some political jobs that I thought I didn't want anymore, but now I'm just not sure. That's okay, though. I think it's good to have a small amount of angst in my life. Otherwise, things get to comfortable.

I haven't really had an urge to post on this blog for a while, so my posts keep getting more and more sporadic. I'll keep posting only because I like to have record of what's happening. I reread some of my posts from this summer and was relieved that I'd recorded what I did -- it's amazing how much I'm capable of forgetting.

Anyway, this post is rambly, I'm tired, and I've got a nice bit of reading to get through before I can sleep.