Sorry, sorry, sorry about not writing! I get self-conscious about this thing, but apparently some of you read it, so, here we are. Life updates: I still live in Fargo. I have real friends now, it's great, we hang out and go to Winnipeg and we talk about disasters a lot. But that thing I wrote about being over DC? Hahaha, yeah, false. Fargo is, well, it's not DC. I was looking at photos of people drinking mimosas at brunch last night and it made me sad, because there are no mimosas here. There are no free museums (not that I went to the museums all that often). The public transit system is not the best (I will always love you, 96!). There is no Whole Foods. As you may have seen on Facebook, I was on the news recently complaining in the most obvious way about the shutdown. What wasn't on the news was the end of my conversation with the reporter about having worked for the federal government and feeling awful, not only for the people who need government services that they can't receive, but for all my good friends who work for the federal government and aren't getting paid right now. I feel wildly guilty about not living through that with everyone. As I spend time thinking about disasters, the shutdown feels more and more like this huge, ridiculously slow-moving storm that, in the words of probably not Mark Twain, everybody talks about but nobody does anything about. You all don't need to read all my thoughts on this stupid situation, suffice it to say, it's convinced me of my loyalties to a city I don't live in anymore.
Do you guys want to hear about Winnipeg? Winnipeg is awesome, turns out. To be fair, after three months in Fargo, every city over 500,000 people makes me so happy I could almost cry, but still. I could have spent a significantly longer time there, we didn't hit all the fun neighborhoods so there's lots to do when I go back. The people are nice, many of them aren't white, and they're Canadian, which is extremely endearing. I have never seen so many Asian restaurants in one place. We went to the planetarium and I got all excited about the northern lights. On the way there and back we ate at restaurants in Grand Forks, which is also surprisingly great.
There are a few things to look forward to that don't involve border crossings over the next few weeks. I'm headed down to Minneapolis this weekend and Northfield to see Salman Rushdie the weekend after that. I'm having a dinner party/Halloween party (maybe?) and then going to see Okkervil River (!) the weekend after that. And then it's practically Thanksgiving and I get a nice break from the Midwest for a long weekend. A hop, skip and a jump and it will be Christmas break. I don't want you all to have the idea that I hate it here, it's just... hard. It's good to have a routine, but it's frustrating to have nothing but routine. I don't know how to articulate it. Frankly, I don't like Fargo, but I like the work I'm doing, and keeping my nose to the grindstone has been and will be a great use of my time here, and it's what I'm here to do.
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