that time lo & i went on a long, snowy city walk & it felt like elementary school again

i'm just going to come out & say it: sometimes i really miss elementary school. (look no further than my outfit to corroborate that sentiment.) 

i remember in the second grade, my teacher telling us that there would come a day when a week would zip by. our jaws dropped. noo way, we said -- a week is soooo long. our clothes were small, our commitments smaller. i planned my mansion with paper & crayon. nay, i planned my city. i joined orchestra for no other reason than to learn the theme song from titanic. and i lost all hope when i toured the white house and saw an 8-year-old executing arco & pizzicato impeccably beside a decked-out conifer. i wanted a canopy bed so badly it ached. i once invited over the most popular girl from school and a raccoon attacked her in my backyard and i thought my life was over. and when we acted out little women at recess, i always played beth. my friends would sob, blowing their noses into their sleeves as i acted out my final scene -- so tragic, a tour de force -- beneath a tree in the schoolyard.

all of this is a roundabout way of saying to you, lo, that i really loved our long, snowy walk this week. from abandoned houses, to the cats that break into them, to dogs in camo tees, it felt like elementary school again -- wandering aimlessly, being weird, laughing about nothing.