Update

For the two people who read this blog: I made it to work. It was harrowing, to say the least. Have you ever driven in a whiteout? I had only the vaguest notion of where the small snow drifts that made up the road ended and the bigger snow drifts that made up the rest of the world began. I don't recommend it. And an hour later, they've closed the highway I drove in on. Really glad I have that overnight bag now.

Stupid Snow

The Valley County schools are closed. They don't close schools here for a little snow, they're only closed if the roads are REALLY bad. I guess 6 inches of snow overnight and 40 mph wind gusts qualifies. And I have to go to work today. Stupid work. I like work, really I do, but I like it a lot more when the roads aren't death traps. I'm actually considering bringing a change of clothes with me today so that I can get a hotel room and not drive home tonight if the roads make me too nervous (the forecast calls for another 5-8 inches today, and 2-4 inches tonight.) That's insane right? I mean, a hotel room costs more than I make in two days of work. But . . . I have to make it in (the owners are out of town) and . . . tonight Lost comes back, and if I had a hotel room I could watch it . . . Hmmm. That is sounding like a better and better idea. Assuming, of course, I make it into McCall at all this morning and don't get stuck in a snow drift. Fingers crossed for me y'all.

Not Much to Say

I've been in hibernation mode this last week. My mom sent me a full Tivo and it's now almost empty as I've been bingeing. (Let's not talk about BarBri, shall we?)

The cats are driving me insane. Right now they're having a stareoff: Sugar is sitting in a cardboard box full of wood scraps, and Freckles has wrapped herself in the living room rug, and it's the quietest they've been since I woke up. They've been chasing each other and growling, which wouldn't be such a big deal if their well-established chasing route didn't run right over my body, wherever my body happens to be relaxing at that moment.

I'm tentatively scheduled to go to Chicago next week for a job interview. Part of me is really excited and can't stop obsessively looking at apartments on Craigslist. Part of me is very disappointed in myself and feels that at 30 years-old, I should really just settle in somewhere and not keep moving every 1-3 years. That's what this move to Idaho was supposed to be. But I'm already getting antsy.

Small Town Late Night

I went out on Friday night, and it was awesome. I was out until 3 in the morning, which I haven't done in ages, and it was fascinating and, even though it's possible no one else noticed, I had fun. It was the birthday of one of the massage therapists I work with, and the evening started with dinner at a pub at a nearby resort. Which, whatever, it was fine, but then the birthday girl wanted to spend the evening at Vigilantes, which is a bar/restaurant (one of two) in Donnelly, ID, pop. 198. The bar features a video game called Extreme Hunting (I think I've mentioned that before, but really, doesn't it deserve to be mentioned twice?) and on Friday night there was a D.J. in the corner playing techno music. In a bar with cowboy boots nailed to the wall. And most of the people were in sweaters and jeans, but there was one girl, as there always is, spilling out of a halter-top. In January. It was unfortunate on many levels.

The place was fairly crowded and most of the people seemed to know each other (hardly surprising in a town this small) and it was fun. I couldn't really drink because, well, there really aren't cabs (god I miss cabs), and because I couldn't drink, I couldn't really pull myself out of my shell enough to mingle or dance or well ... do anything but sit at a table and talk to whomoever decided to sit next to me. And because I actually know a fair number of people now, and met some more people that night, it wasn't lame, it was interesting. (Well, I'm sure it looked lame, but I was having a good time so fuck it.)

At midnight, I decided that I'd had enough fun, and got ready to take my friend L home. But as we were waiting for the car to warm up, I surprised myself. I suggested we go into McCall and see what was happening at a new bar that had opened that night. A bar that some of the birthday party attendees had defected to earlier in the evening. L called ahead to make sure there were still people out, and we learned that everyone had given up on the new place (too many kinks to be worked out) and had ended up at the Yacht Club. Yes folks, there is a Yacht Club in McCall, ID. It sits on the lake, and I'm sure in the summer the view is beautiful, but in the middle of January the windows look out on snow and ice and it's just another smoky bar with pool tables and loud music and plastic cups.

And we sat in the crowded and smoky McCall Yacht Club until it closed, talking and laughing and making fun of girls in halter tops, and people danced and played pool, and I saw two scary looking girls get in a fight. The lights came on and the bouncers threw them out and I was entranced by the spectacle. And the crowd was a mixture of twenty-somethings and fifty-somethings and everyone (except the fighting girls) seemed to be happy. Including me. Because I was sober and watching people I think might actually become my friends have a good time. And that always sort of surprises me, you know? I put on a damn good front, but under the poise and apparant confidence, I'm shy and insecure and people really have to work to convince me they're not just tolerating my presence. Which I'm sure gets really boring for them. But somehow, eventually, I always manage to find people willing to make the effort. And that's really nice. Anyway, at last call, I was part of a group wading out into the snow and cold, and I think I laughed out loud at . . . something. And finally, at 2 am I drove L home, and by 3 I was tucked in my own bed.

I spent Saturday on the couch watching episodes of The West Wing (I'm obssessed) and that's how I spent Sunday too, and I haven't studied for the bar in over a week, but I'm not panicked. I'm feeling good. It's 4 degrees outside, and the sun is out. There's fresh snow on the ground and Freckles is hungrily watching beautiful fluffy birds at the feeder outside my window. Life is good. My chest isn't tight, not right now anyway.

Mild Panic Creeping In

I'm still not studying. I've started feeling that little fluttery tightness in my chest that means the procrastination has gone on too long, that if I don't suit up and start working this mild panic will turn into a major freakout and I'll be mired in self-loathing and dread and completely unable to function.

And I'm really cold. When I poked my nose out of bed this morning it was to find that the indoor temperature had fallen to 38 degrees while I slept in my very warm down cocoon. I've had the fire roaring for about three hours which has gotten the temperature up to . . . 45. Not exactly balmy. Temps like these make me really miss the snow. When it's snowing, it's not this FUCKING COLD. (Have you noticed the patterns of my posts? I have: weather, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife, weather, weather, procrastination, procrastination, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife. Sorry I'm so boring. At least this post will hit the trifecta.)

I was google chatting with a friend this morning who suggested I send her my resume and she could try and get me a job with her employer in [a suburb of] Chicago. And I'm thinking about it. Yes, I said I wanted to stay in Idaho, and yes, I'm about to take the Idaho bar. But . . . I LOVE Chicago, and I love my friend who lives in Chicago, and I'm really fucking COLD and I'm weak, and I haven't gone skiing once this winter, and I went hiking about twice this summer so who the hell am I kidding with this mountain girl shit, and the thought of looking for a job sends me into a blind panic, and a year after leaving DC I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up (since lady of leisure is not looking to be a viable long-term option) so why the hell not commute from city to suburb to work in-house for a huge corporation? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to keep track of billable hours.

Second Verse, Same as the First

I think the whole BarBri iPod thing is finally straightened out (yes, I did knock on wood when I said that). Apparently in BarBri world "Civil Procedure" is the same thing as "Federal Jurisdiction" which . . . no. Not the same. Don't put "Civil Procedure" on the study schedule and then give me "Federal Jurisdiction" materials and expect me not to flip the fuck out after sending me two iPods in a row that are wrong. But whatever, it really is irrelevant since I haven't studied since Saturday. I just can't make myself. And it's not like I'm out skiing or sitting in a bar drinking or playing with my niece and nephew or doing something else fun. I read Gossip Girl (which is really horribly written and covers about the same time frame as the pilot of the television series and I couldn't put it down) and ran errands in Boise and watched Season 2 of The West Wing. It's just like I'm back in law school, or college, or at work putting off a big assignment. Life doesn't change.

Maybe this is a sign I really should give up on that whole law thing after all

I am now on my THIRD iPod of BarBri lectures (the second one they sent me, to replace a few incorrect lectures on the first iPod, was completely wrong and had lectures for like Louisiana or something) and I just discovered that the most recent iPod, the one that allegedly corrects all the errors of iPods past, doesn't contain a CivPro lecture. Why are they fucking with me? WHY!?!?!

Say all you want about the post office

but sometimes it's just amazing. Today I got a belated holiday card (in my P.O. box) mailed from Central America and addressed as follows:

[My Name]
[Road That Intersects with the Road I Actually Live On, To Neither of Which Roads Is Mail Delivered]
Donnelly, Idaho [Wrong Zip Code]

Something you don't want to hear while studying for the bar:

"During the process of specially formatting the Idaho iPods there was a glitch in the system, causing the wrong lectures to be downloaded onto your iPod."

1984

This fall, my mom did a little excavating in her storage unit and gave me some of her old winter gear. I've been wearing her wonderfully warm down jacket for months as my designated wood gathering wear, but hadn't really looked at the rest until today. Today I put on the full kit and spent half an hour shoveling snow and bringing in wood. Picture it, me in a scene from 1984:

Coat: imagine a simple western-wear shirt (gray and blue and complete with mother of pearl snaps) in hip-length down jacket form.

Pants: Skin tight (on me, because I'm larger than my mother was at my age. sigh.) navy blue bib overalls with suede patches on the inside cuffs.

Accessories: These were partly my own, a rainbow striped beanie, black snow boots, and my mother's old thick fingered grey leather gloves.

I remember my mother here, doing these things, wearing these clothes, and now I'm here, doing these things, wearing these clothes. It sort of befuddled me a little. But I liked it. A lot. I think my mom is amazing, has done amazing things, and I like walking in her overalls for awhile.

(As a side note, is it strange that I actually looked forward to shoveling snow as a study break? That's strange right?)

Stormy

I jumped ship early at the spa yesterday. It started snowing and blowing around noon, and I kept hearing sirens all afternoon. In a town as small as McCall, that spells really bad roads. So I closed up shop a little after 4 so I could get home before dark. It was really warm (in the low 30s), which made the roads even worse, a slushy slippery mess. I had a death grip on the wheel until I pulled safely into my carport a little over an hour later.

I had trouble sleeping last night, the wind howling around the house and the hail on the tin roof sounded lovely and dramatic, but was not soothing.

I have no plans to leave the house (well, no plans to go farther from my door than the wood shed at any rate) for the next few days. In case you were wondering, I've already fallen a little behind in the BarBri study schedule. I've been distracted by my DVDs of The West Wing's third season. That ends today.

Happy New Year!

I was chatting with Another DC Lawyer briefly yesterday, and she asked how I felt about my year off, because in my last reflective post I seemed a little torn. And that's just poor writing on my part because I have LOVED my year off. Yes, I wish I'd had an epiphany about what I want to do with my life, and yes I wish I'd changed a little more than perhaps I have, and yes I wish I'd done more, but those are thoughts I have every year at this time. There is no doubt in my mind that this was the right decision for me, and that if I'd stayed where I was, I would have had a year of different pleasures, but the same regrets and more besides. Hell, I haven't once in the last 12 months felt the need for SSRIs or seriously considered spending $500 and four hours a week to have a professional examine my neuroses, so from that one objective standard, I did a hell of a lot better in 2007 than I did in 2006.

I don't make New Year's resolutions, because I'm just not very resolute, and I've found that January 1st doesn't change that. But, I've decided that 2008 will be the year of 12 aspirations. I'm not going to make any big grand pronouncements. 2008 is not going to be the year I "eat fewer cookies" or "get in shape" or "figure out my goddamned future already." Well, I might do any or all of those things, but I'm sure as hell not going to set my self up for failure by resolving to attempt them. Instead, I aspire, on the first day of each month of 2008, to choose one discrete, easily identifiable, objectively certifiable, goal to aspire to for that month and that month only. I hereby tell the world (or the 5 people who read this blog, hi guys, thanks for sticking with me!) that my January aspiration is to actually follow the BarBri study schedule. Because I haven't been. At all. And it would be horrifyingly embarassing to fail the Idaho bar exam. That would not be an ideal beginning to 2008.

Well. I guess I should go read a little Convisor Mini Review then shouldn't I?

Current Temperature: -11. (My fingers and nose are actually numb. The temperature IN THE HOUSE is only 49. Gah. Thank god this is supposed to be a snowy winter and not a cold one. "Cold" in this part of the world being -20 or lower.)