Fall back

I had a strange vivid dream about being in Milwaukee. I've never actually been there, and my dream Milwaukee obviously had no resemblance to the real thing, because it was steeply, mountainously hilly. More hilly than San Francisco. Only unlike S.F. it gets snowy and icy in the winter, and I was wondering about how people handled those steep slopes in the snow. But it turned out that Milwaukee's bigger problem was that there were huge tigers wandering the streets and attacking pedestrians. I hid from a tiger in a pile of big bags of dog food. I was wedged in between 50 pound bags of dog food and feeling crushed.

A totally nonsensical dream, but when I look at it for a minute I can see meaning in it. The dog food, for example, is about feeling overwhelmed by the cost of feeding and maintaining Hank (he just had a $500 vet bill), but he does keep me protected from dangerous things in the street.

Why specifically Milwaukee? I have no idea, other than it's geographically proximate to Minneapolis, and I know Mr. M visited there with a long-ago ex-girlfriend. But still, I dunno.

However, snow and hills are relevant because I have a second interview with a small law firm in New York State, in a town on the Hudson and near the Catskills. Supposed to be very, very pretty, and less than two hours to Manhattan by train. I hit it off with the partner who interviewed me at Tulane, and the firm itself seems nearly ideal in its clients and specialties. But it's in New York, which is not in the south and which has a serious winter. So now I have to figure out whether this is really a problem, or whether it's just about assumptions that should be questioned.

I lived in NYC when I was 18-20. I was lost, clueless and formless, and the city was threatening and overwhelming. The last winter there I found particularly hard. And so I ran off to the south, which seemed like an easier place to be. At the time I had the idea that I was going south to get myself together and gain some kind of wisdom, but I was foggy about what kind of wisdom this was and how I was going to get it. But once I got it I was going to come back and take over the world. Because I assumed that to take over the world you had to be in New York or at least in the Northeast.

But in the south I gradually came to the conclusion that maybe New York wasn't really the center of the universe. And even more gradually I came to the difficult conclusion that I wasn't going to take over the world and live forever. Nevertheless, I did get myself together and now I feel ready to participate and contribute to "the human endeavor." I don't think that requires going back to the NE.

But still, when I lived in Memphis I visited New England quite a few times--Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, and I always felt bad about returning to Memphis, which seemed flat, junky and unlovely in comparison.

From the time I moved to New Orleans to the time of the Thing, I was always happy to come home to New Orleans, because I was in love with and happy in NOLA. But not so much anymore.

But winter. I've been working with the assumption that I have to avoid places with serious winters. There have been times when I've had very bad seasonal depression. Even in New Orleans. It's the dark more than the cold. But then I always liked going to Vermont in the winter, albeit for short, discreet periods of time. The hard thing about a Northeastern winter is that it gets so grey and stays that way for such a long time.

Still, the external factors that trigger my depressions only do so if there's a sort of nascent depression waiting underneath. The year that even a New Orleans winter seemed much too much to bear, and I could understand why someone might jump off a bridge, was the winter that Mr. M shut me out and disappeared.

Also, I can get horrifically depressed at that special time of the month, but only if I'm sort of depressed anyway. When I'm happy with my life, I barely notice my periods at all.

And now Katrina has introduced me to the wonders of Wellbutrin. So maybe a New York winter would be bearable. I would have engaging work. I wouldn't be broke anymore. I could buy a cute old house and hibernate inside. I'd be close to my sister and Miss S. I could go spend the holidays on a tropical island. When the weather got better, I could go hiking on the weekend, or to the shore, or to NYC.

Or maybe I'm just trying to rationalize my worries away, because I just want to get something lined up so that I won't graduate with six figures of debt and no job.

The other immediate possibility is working for a particular federal agency. Depending on who wins the next presidential election, this agency might turn out to be a worthwhile place to work. For now, though, the appeal is mostly tactical. I could live in Arlington, take the VA bar, and be in a better position to get a job in Richmond. I developed a crush on Richmond just because it has lots of pretty old neighborhoods with pretty old houses, because it's just the right size, and because it's geographically well placed. But I don't really know anything about it as a community.

Post-K, all assumptions are subject to question. But that makes things harder to figure out. When can you trust your gut and when is your gut clinging to unhelpful fears and prejudices?

Sort of ironic, I had an earlier interview for a clerkship in Puerto Rico, which I didn't end up getting. When I got the interview I sort of dreaded the idea of living in San Juan for two years, but before long I enthusiastically thought of it as an amazing, exciting, un-turn-down-able opportunity. Which I was then bummed out to lose.

My NY interview will be in the winter, so at least my gut will be able to make a more informed choice.