Friday, January 18, 2008

The Slushing of DC

It doesn't snow very often in DC, but when it does the entire metro area overreacts. Schools close here based on a mere forecast of snow, people suddenly forget how to drive, and there is talk of the Snowpocalypse. All of this for a couple inches of snow.

Yesterday I enjoyed the sight of big, fluffy, sticky snow clumps falling oustide my office window. I don't have a great view, unless you're into stalking people in the next building over, in which case I have a fantastic view! But I do have a window that I cherish greatly for moments like those. Slowly but surely, there were fewer silent clumps and more invisible clicks hitting my window as the snow turned to freezing rain and then to just plain old regular rain.

This is one thing that doesn't happen in Minnesota very often, it usually just snows & snows & snows & snows there rather than suddenly turning into rain. Clearly, as the day ends, this watery snowy mix all freezes and then turns into glare ice as far as the eye can see. So my walk home from work yesterday was wet & cold and in this morning it was slippery and cold. But lo and behold, the sun is shining outside again, so maybe it won't be such a bad walk home.

Monday, January 14, 2008

A Writing Exercise

When I first moved to Washington DC, nearly a year and a half ago now, I had an unexpected urge to write. I made a couple feeble attempts to get back in touch with something that was once a passion of mine, but never really got anywhere. and when I think back, I never really liked anything that I wrote, at least not the poetry or prose. So after obsessively reading blogs for several months and thinking "damn, why don't I do this?" I am, in fact, doing it. I don't know what will become of it or what I'll write about just yet, but I'm throwing it out there in the hopes that I can write semi-regularly and semi-interestingly about the craziness in DC and whatever else catches my fancy.