My heart is glad. I don't think that I have quite wrapped my brain around the fact that I now have 3 1/2 weeks – 25 blessed days – to do with as I please. And for once it's a gift that our profs take so long in grading our exams. I want no ugly news to dilute the pure joy I'm feeling right now.

It's true that I am pretty sure I did not distinguish myself this semester. At least not in the ways one hopes to. It may be grim indeed when those grades get reported. What I should remember, though, is that in 4 months I: weathered a VERY difficult 15 credit courseload, applied for (and made the shortlist for) my long-shot dream job, ran a journal with a staff of 90 and increased its output by 33%, attacked my longtime companion depression head on, and survived a bout of pneumonia. Small wonder that I'm fucking tired!

I hope to spend this time relaxing, catching up with friends, resuming my running and yoga practices, indulging my dogs, reading and writing purely for my own pleasure, drinking, cooking, cleaning my car (not that that'll take me 25 days, but it IS pretty dire. It looks like a homeless person's been living out of it), and so on. O, happy decadence!

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.