Today was one of those quietly spectacular days.

You know the sort --

I got up extra early, and felt as though I had the city to myself. Stepped out into that icy, spectral hush and discovered my first CSA delivery waiting on the front porch.

Made it to the gym by 6:30 and did a really challenging spin class before work, then got in to the office 20 minutes early.

Where I was quietly, effortlessly efficient.

Went to Weight Watchers and learned that I had lost 3.6 lbs this week.

After work, took the pups for a long, meandering stroll over the public library to pick up the books I had on hold.

Came home, cooked a lovely, simple dinner with some of my fresh-from-the-farm vegetables.

So you see, really quite unremarkable, but nearly perfect from end to end. And now I leave you with a peek at my pile of delicious, now that it's all unpacked.

I am in a foul, steaming funk. My beloved little blue bike was stolen from INSIDE my garage (and yes, before you ask, it was chained and locked). I'm not even certain when it happened – I'm so discombobulated from the move and all the travel, and it still wasn't routine for me to notice it locked in place...it wasn't until I went out to hop on for a ride around the Hill this morning that I realized it was gone.

I know it's just a bike and all, and I try to stay breezy about my "stuff" (like, if I adopt a blasé easy come, easy go attitude, maybe the 'easy come part will materialize). But I'm pretty upset, dammit. I only had her for a year, almost to the day. This was the nicest bike I've ever owned, and I tricked her out with fenders and a rack and panniers and head- and taillights, the whole shebang. I'd really come to love scooting around town on two wheels. It's going to be a good long while before I can afford to replace her with anything near as nice – and should I bother? if it's just going to be stolen the moment I turn my back.

Grumble. This sucks! 

I'm such a sucker for these tests (or really anything, animate or otherwise, that takes an interest in Me). Apparently I'm a Benevolent Inventor:

Somewhere, Jack Handey is grinning a big grin.

Game on.

well-being was so
readily available:
a fucking crock pot

Whee! There is now an Apple store in the West Village - and it's just a few blocks from our summer home. There is a god!

Anyway, long time no post. Whatevs. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm actually here now to air my incredulity at how incredibly weird the interwebs can be. Argh.

So, I landed this gig (which in and of itself explains my long journal silence.) I'm, like, in charge of stuff. Queen of an infinitesimal and unimportant domain. It's the kind of post that only an uber-dork would find compelling -- but, you know, if the shoe fits... It makes me happy. It's a lot of work. It's constantly reminding me how small is this little world of ours.

{just as a few for examples, I've already come across 1) a woman who went to high school with two of my best friends, 2) a prof. who works in my field in my old city and knows all of the same people as me, 3) a bunch of other people who know this guy that knows this guys that I know, etc.}

But all of this is a big fat digression from what I really wanted to post about. Which is that one of the profs I'm currently working with at said gig sent me an email yesterday saying, "small world - I hear you know ______. She's one of my favorite students!" (He teaches at her school; he and I have never actually met.) So of course I promptly reported this exchange to our mutual acquaintance, because trust me, we all need constant validation in this strange field of ours.

But then I asked her how on earth he'd made the connection. Cuz, you know, we go to different schools in different parts of the country, and how would he guess that she's dating a friend of mine and that she and I will be working together this summer? And her response was, "You didn't tell him? I have no idea." So we puzzled this out over the past few days and realized that he must have figured it out from Facebook.

He. effing. Googled. me. No other explanation. I don't know why this strikes me as so...peculiar, and vaguely creepy. I'm damn well aware that prospective employers and dates regularly employ the google, but he's neither.

And I'm the only person with my name, or at least the only one with an internet presence, so people can learn a lot about me. Pictures of me engaged in public action from my rabble-rousing days of yore... committee notes from a governance body I sat on a million years ago in college... press releases from my first grown-up job in 2000... race results, grad school links, and on and on.

It's all fairly antiseptic. Nothing that's going to harm my future liscensure prospects or anything. I just -- well, I'm a pretty private person. The whole centerofattention thing is only half the story: I like the limelight when I like it, but then I like to go back to my corner. I'm like the toddler who covers her eyes and thinks she's become invisible. It's always unsettling when I'm fed a reminder that it ain't so. Oh me oh my, this crazy world.

Why did I wait so long to get a slow cooker?

My house smells. so. good. I have about 3 quarts of spicy marinara simmering in the slow cooker, and it's like all my worldly sorrows have evaporated. Who knew that a sense of well-being was so readily available...in a fucking crock-pot!

I haven't been big on the New Year's resolution thing for a while, probably for a whole bunch of deep dark reasons that I don't need to get into now. But I am big on milestones and symbols and celebrating new beginnings, and now seems as good a time as any to pause and take note.

A few things that I've been mulling over:

1) My resolutions will not be about weight loss (or 'gettingbackinshape', weight loss' kissing cousin.) If anything, I resolve that 2008 will be the year when I stop using my weight as a proxy for everything in my life that I'm dissatisfied with. I'll find someone to fall in love with when I'm thin, I'll go out more when I'm thin, I'll start going to the gym again when I'm thin (one of my favorites!) After all, I was almost as self-conscious and hung up about my fat when I was comfortably wearing a size 4 and running marathons. No, instead I resolve to be a little less critical about my body, whatever it may look like.

2) I resolve that this year I will honor my love for good food and good health and sustainable living. I want to engage more with what goes into my body, learn more about the kind of cooking that I like to do, and stop eating the processed crap that's gotten me halfway through law school.

3) On a similar note, I resolve to make physical activity a priority again. I miss feeling strong and healthy. I would like to run another marathon this year.

More to come on this front later. In the meantime, I'm gonna go run some errands.

And then the snow
And then the snow came
We were always out shoveling
and we'd drop to sleep exhausted
and we'd wake up
and it's snowing.
--Dar Williams

Yup, that pretty much sums it up. I returned to Michigan about four days ago, and all of the pre-holiday stuff had melted, leaving the obligatory mud and ice. But yo ho, has the tide turned. It started coming down on Sunday, and AA's been a veritable snow globe ever since. It's an embarrassment of riches in the snow department. Freaking feast or famine! The surfeit of white stuff since is pretty absurd, if you ask me, particularly since I'm the only one here to serve on snow removal duty. At least my arms are getting toned again, and I haven't even rejoined the YMCA or anything.

It's tough to be too cynical about it, though. Today's one of those disarmingly lovely winter days when you're able to forget that this will be our lot for the next four months or so. Mediterranean sky, crisp clean air, every branch sugarcoated crystalline and bowing low under the weight. The whole landscape still has that pristine look of freshly-fallen snow, probably because there's new shit falling as fast as we can get out there to mar it.

Okay, it just keeps getting better. I just wikipedia'd "legal skepticism" and learned that there was no matching entry, but rest easy, young scholars! Apparently "Legally Blonde" is a 96.6% match.

I would just like to take a moment to reflect upon the fact that I've wrestled with the legal formalists, positivists and realists for five hours and here's what I've learned:

The text that reads "No vehicles in the park" means that there are to be no vehicles in the park.

Who needs a drink?

Does anyone else out there kinda hate this time of year?

I always feel a bit of a Sarah Bernhardt when I express any kind of negativity associated with the season, but between me and thee: the doldrums are here. Holidays are tough in my family, and the solstice ushers in the bleakest, blackest, most dolorous couple of months. I need to just focus on the spirituality of it all, the sense of renewal and the celebration of the year we've just completed, the anticipation of the rebirth that's just over the next hill. And so on and so on.

But in my little heart of hearts, I'm going to enjoy being a grim bitch for the next four weeks or so.

Tonight's favorite television happening:


(shh. yes, I know that I should be studying instead of watching tv. and that I'm supposed to be the non-television girl and all that. fuck off - wednesday is ANTM/Gossip Girl/Project Runway. law students get to kick back sometimes too.)

So anywho. Back to black.

The single best moment on cable television all night:

"I mean, these trends are all so...EXTREME."

Thanks, Christian.

So it turns out that I'm really, unexpectedly (and inexplicably) excited about this new venture. I can almost promise that it's not going to last - which is what we call a self-fulfilling prophesy. Feh. No matter, it's making me chipper now.

In other news, I'm continuing to sit in anticipation of my motivation kicking in. I figured that eventually one of two things would happen: a) my own internal, self-driven sense of responsibility would spur me to action, or b) failing that, exam panic would inspire me. Now I'm starting to sense that neither will occur. This should be interesting.

I've tried blogging before.  Never too successfully (assuming you measure success by such tangibles as, say, regular posting.  Which seems reasonable.)  I'm not sure why I think that this time will be any different.  In fact, I can report with all sincerity that I'm still not totally committed to this venture.  I guess I just sense that I should be journaling more than I have been, and I do spend an awful lot of time with my computer.  So here goes something.