scarves and smiles

ladies and gentlemen i am about to proclaim something i never expected to come out of my slightly chapped lips. "it is cold. and i LOVE it." now i know what you are thinking, oh cindy, that's hilarious. you are too funny. ok be serious. but i do! the weather indicator on my computer's dashboard dutifully reports that the current temperature is 52 degrees (i'm from san diego this is the equivalent of below freezing) and i want to shout from the rooftops: it's fall! it's crisp! everyone sing with joy!

now that i have confessed my secret crush on the cold i can apologize for my irresponsibility. 2 weeks since my last update. i have been threatened with loss of friendship and visits from the west coast if i continue to show such disregard for those who consistently use my little blog to procrastinate and/or light up their lives. i promise i will be better.

these past two weeks have been...everything. i have attended oral arguments at the highest court in the land, sat attentively through 15 hours of class, celebrated my last day of teenagehood at the symphony and rung in my first hours of adulthood at a karaoke bar. i have listened to the president speak (laughing to myself all along the way), as well as the former director of the CIA and the ambassador of singapore. i have led my first conference call as i reviewed my first federal regulation, written 2 papers and progressed as a k street pro/capital hill ho. i spent yesterday touring the white house grounds and gardens then walking home barefoot in the park.

and today i wrap my scarf and smile. it's cold.

rainy saturday

i feel like i am in a movie. i am sitting at my beautiful laptop staring out the window at the pouring rain just lost in my thoughts. it is simply poetic. and i think: living in this great city is so natural. wake up, coffee, metro, cruise past the white house into work, lunch with emma, more work, gym, dinner, class, perhaps a bar or some karaoke. it is so easy to slip into this groove. adrienne said that coming here would be like trying to merge onto a busy freeway. i merge like i've been making this drive my whole life. no thought involved. no second glances over my shoulder. so as i continue to watch the rain fall, i smile. if this is it, i am happy.

omb=my life

i was worried that coming to washington would put me in the very midst of the politics that i hate. somehow i managed to end up at one of the few places in the federal government that works to keep politicians in check without ulterior motives. the staff of the omb are career civil servants who have no constituency but the american people. imagine: reviewing regulations to be sure that the benefits (economic, social and environmental) exceed the costs. correcting market failures such as natural monopolies and externalities. informing policymakers of the optimal solution, whether or not it is what they want to hear. i am in economist heaven. no wonder it is the number one federal workplace (I'm not kidding...here is the link to the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091301705.html?referrer=emailarticle). for the first time in much too long I feel like I actually have direction. It's not exactly the easiest direction or the one I expected to be going in, but it definitely feels like the right one. Last weekend, we went to a play at the arena stage; "born yesterday" did not attempt to hide government corruption, but the moral was that we can work through and overcome it. I seem to have found my way of contributing.