Some thoughts on living in Wisconsin:
- I’m starting to wonder if my years watching Northern Exposure was actually a prep course.
- I try not to be an asshole NYer who is always trying to find the NYC cognate for everything I experience. Also, I try to keep discussions of said cognates to conversations with other people who have also lived in NYC.
- I am regularly amazed at how self-deprecating WI people are about living in WI.
- I am surprised when I am homesick and surprised when I am not.
- It doesn’t take long before you find yourself looking at a 19 degree temp and thinking, “it’s only 19” instead of “that’s fucking cold.” Because “only 19” means no long johns; you reserve those for the temps that hover just over or just under 0.
- I regularly feed wild rabbits that live in the lawn next to my house. We buy carrots for them. We probably shouldn’t.
- I read an essay by Daniel Nester about leaving NYC and wonder exactly why I stayed in NY for so long except for the obvious reason that I couldn’t conceive of living anywhere else.
- Every once in a while, we realize that all of our new friends are incredibly smart, mostly geeky, & definitely bookish, and we are very happy about that.
- I’m not sure you’ve ever really been drunk until you’re drunk in a blizzard at a friend’s wedding in an Irish bar in Wisconsin. (Though I’m not sure you’ve ever really been drunk until you’re drunk in a ladies’ room full of drag queens and burlesque stars, either.)