oh, january

 Oh, these lovely first weeks. I'm still learning names; they're still learning protocol. Meanwhile, out our classroom window, the streetlights come on and the snow piles up.

Oh, the snow. I have lived on this street for nearly three years and still I can only half-figure out the alternate parking. In my defense, the restrictions are posted from the hours of 1 am to 6 pm. Ludicrous. In Rochester, it was from 12 am to 12 am. In Madison, they just plowed us in. I'd gun the engine and blast over the snow bumps.

Oh, the suitcases. Lots of travel on the horizon: Florida this weekend, D.C. in another few, Minneapolis at the beginning of March.

Oh, the grammar: that list is not parallel.

Oh, the uploading. I completed the first project of 2011: uploading, once and for all, every compact disc that I own. It was a fun rocket-trip ride back through the years 1995 to 2004. Here is the "American Graffiti" soundtrack, here is the first burned CD anyone ever gave me (oh, 1999! oh, Ben Folds Five!), here is the first album I ever purchased for getting good grades in 8th grade. But it has been years since I've bought an actual CD. It was easy to pack up a few for nostalgia's sake and pack the rest off to Goodwill. Or the trash.

Oh, how I love Adam Schiff: the fake one. The B and I have a theory that in any episode of L&O filmed after 1995, Steven Hill didn't know he was acting. Instead, dementia set in, and he just wandered around the set spouting off non sequiturs, and they just filmed the whole thing and rolled with it. Like Fred Dalton Thompson, only less hokey and home-spun and irritating.

Oh, the ick factor. I got my stitches out yesterday and the nurse entertained me with a very detailed story of her first grade years, in which she fell on concrete and ripped off her whole chin. I made polite noises and tried not to  throw up.

Oh, the irony. The dog just sat down next to me, wagged his tail, and then threw up.

If that's not January, what is.