Everything is frozen.

I'm starting to think that Wisconsin isn't playing around. The lake finally froze. I say finally because December and early January were unseasonably warm, so the freezing process was late in the year (avg. freeze date Dec. 20), not because it took a long time. Once it got going, it only took about 4 days. That's fast. And it's a big lake (almost 10,000 acres). Big up to Wikipedia for the factoids. One morning in December I rode past the lake on the bus and saw this low layer of mist rising up from the middle of the lake and rolling quickly out to the shores in waves. Two different people told me it was the lake "giving up its heat." The next day it was partially frozen. I imagine, if not for the following warm spell, it would have gone through that whole process in a couple of days. Like a big yawn and then it closes its mouth. But it took a month-long hiatus and was nice enough to wait for my return to this tundra wasteland.

Which brings me to the 10-day forecast. The average high over the next ten days is 18; the average low is 4. (This blog entry is full of data; it's so official-like.) There's a light snowfall every couple of days. The big snow from last week is still here. Everywhere. Deep. I've never lived someplace where it snows and then the snow... doesn't melt. It hasn't been above freezing in weeks. It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. I feel like I live inside of a giant freezer. You know that lumpy, white build-up of ice you get inside of freezers? That's what Wisconsin looks like right now.

Erinn's 25th birthday was Thursday, and I made a lot of fun of her for being old, rounding up to 30, being a quarter-century...however you want to look at it, she's ancient. To celebrate the occasion, we went bowling, ate cake, and almost died. That's right. Kevin almost got us hit by a train. I'm not talking about cutting across the tracks a few seconds before the barrier goes down, while the train is still a ways off. I'm talking about not realizing we were sitting in the middle of an intersection through which a train passes and trying to figure out which way to turn. He chose a right turn (thanks to the urging of our own Backseat Angry Dad, Eric) and four seconds later, in the rear-view, a thundering train passed a few feet from the spot we had just been occupying. A left turn would ACTUALLY HAVE KILLED US. But my point here is not that this was Kevin's fault. For all that Eric and Andy maintain there was ample warning, I only heard bells. Which are loud and can be heard from some ways off an actual train crossing. It was dark. I never saw tracks. If you're not familiar with the local streets, what's to tell you that the train is coming through your intersection and is about to murder you? Where's the little white mechanical barrier, Wisconsin? They're not expensive, and you know what? I OBEY THEM. Happy birthday, Erinn. I hope you like the near-death experience we got you. You can't exchange it.

Belly-up to the lazy buffet.

Snow. I'm officially calling this my first real Madison snowfall. We had a dusting right before my birthday (much too soon for a snowfall in my opinion) and a couple of two-inchers at the end of the semester. Then it got fucking cold and the lake began to freeze. But then it got all 40-degrees and dry for weeks on end. My return to the midwest has been hailed with real snow.

It's currently still snowing, though I can't really believe that the small blowing flakes are contributing any more to the accumulation, which seems to be about 5 inches. When I decided that I was moving to Wisconsin, I used this new-fangled internet thing--which I hear is full of all kinds of facts--to look up Madison's annual snowfall totals. When I found the answer to be 5 inches, I was doubtful. The midwest is supposed to be full of snow! But how could the internet lie to me?? Since it's now January 15th and our total for the winter thus far is about 7 inches, I feel a.) relieved that the midwest will live up to its white reputation (and oh, how that applies in more than one way) and also b.) disappointed that the internet is not, in fact, a digital Delphi.

Snow is sweet.

So, yes, I'm back in Madison. I won't say much about my vacation. Except that I was surprised by own capacity for regression into the state of a sullen, angsty, family-hating fifteen-year-old. And that it's a good thing it took me most of my time at home to figure out how to connect my laptop to the internet, for this saved me from posting a ridiculous blog rant about hating my life. All I will now say in retrospect is that going home for the holidays at this age is hard. And that growing up has done a lot to contribute to a changed perspective on my family. And that I wish I had brothers and sisters. It's strange to spend the holidays with just my mother, as much as I love her.

I've done jack shit with my vacation. I need to learn to be okay with that. I always schedule myself more things than I can reasonably do, which leads to the ridiculous practice of making to-do lists months in advance. During the semester, while I'm buried under academic readings, I begin to wish I were making more progress on other, less soul-sucking projects. There's not enough of a sense of completion involved in academic work. It's cyclical. So I make fantastical, optimistic lists of all the things I will actually "take care of" when I have my time to myself. Things like, finishing the blanket I started crocheting two years ago. Building my website. Reading books for fun. Scrapbooking. Then vacation comes around, I look at that list, and think, ".............no?"

This particular to-do list has looked much the same for YEARS. These projects are all unfortunate enough to fall in the interstices between semester busy-ness and post-semester laziness. I will never do them.

So I have spent three weeks watching television. I feel a bit bad about myself at the moment, actually. I have read .5 books. I think I will go home right now and read. Or maybe watch a movie...

I keep telling myself I need this. That I must build up a good store of waste-of-life-ness to counterbalance the draining level of productivity I must sustain for the next four months. But I think I'm lying to myself. Because I kind of feel like shit. I'm not usually like this. All my life I have denied myself vacation time, and now I'm freaking gorging at the all-you-can-eat lazy buffet. And I can't stop. Someone please call for help.