the thin line between optimism and delusion…

I came to the conclusion today that I don’t write much about my only other hobby besides this journal. And that hobby is running at the botanical gardens. The State Botanical Gardens of Georgia are in Athens, and are one of my favorite places in the world. I really love them. A lot. And I really like to run there. Even though it is really hilly, I love it. Because I love running hills. I don’t know if this makes me a masochist or something, but I love running up and down hills. If you want to know something else disturbing, I also love to run steps. We used to run the steps in high school at basketball practice for punishment. I thought this was great because I enjoyed it. This probably means I have problems, but if anyone wants to go run the bleachers at the track with me, let me know.

But back to the botanical gardens. There are miles and miles of trails. Some are overgrown, but most are kept clear, either due simply to the foot traffic or because the caretakers of the gardens care enough to cut down the trees that fall in the trails. And these trees are huge. There is a large portion of the trail that runs along the middle occonee river, and the trees along the river have a tendency to be consumed and eaten by the river. Because of all the hurricanes that have been swirling around lately, heavy rain has caused the river trail to flood. I was hoping it would be all dried up today in order to get a good run in before hurricane Ivan blows into town, and it was for the most part, but there was a substantial section of straight mud. Between picking my way through the mud and dodging the high school cross country team I felt lucky and thankful to escape without injury.

Normally the mud isn’t that much of a problem, although the gardens do get a lot of rain. I think my favorite thing about the gardens is that they remind me of so many things I love about Georgia, especially North Georgia. The gardens take me back to the summers I spent in Rabun county and the intoxicated smell of white pine trees in the sun after a rain (this is most definitely my favorite smell in the world, sweet and fresh and clean). I love the gravel roads that run through the garden, I don’t know why but a winding gravel road in the afternoon is strangely comforting and gives me a great deal of peace.

I have so many feelings about the gardens, and Georgia in general that I don’t think I can tell them all tonight (my run there today was long, and I am tired), but the one thing I do know is that when I am in the gardens, back in the trails or on the gravel roads, I am convinced that I will never be happy anywhere too far away from here. It is so nice to go far away and find such beauty and to come home and discover comparable beauty in your own backyard.

I had an on campus interview today, and I hope it went pretty well. It was definitely more fun than the other interview I have been on this year. All we did was chat about people we used to know in college, Irish travelers in North Augusta, and how lower Alabama and the coast of Mississippi is going to get wiped out this weekend by Ivan. Hurricane season is a very interesting time, it is stressful, but a strangely fascinating topic. I like to watch the weather, and hurricanes make this more fun. I can’t give you a good reason why I like the weather so much, but I think it is my mom’s fault, my brother and his friends call her ache-Kate. But hurricane season also makes me scared and worried and sad, because I don’t like all the destruction. I mean most people don’t enjoy natural disasters, but I guess being in Georgia we are just close enough to the destruction of hurricanes for it to be really personal, I mean we get the evacuated people and most people have family members on the coast and in Florida, but it isn’t close enough to seriously disrupt our lives. Other notes on the weather, Athens is having some wonderful temperatures these days. It makes me really happy. What doesn’t make me happy is that I have a migraine today. I am hoping it is going to go away, but I am worried I am getting sick. Katie was sick all of last week and I am hoping to not be coming down with anything. I can deal with a migraine, I’m used to it, but a full-blown cold is more than I can deal with, except it will give me the chance to watch Miracle and Tombstone, two movies that Nick and Christian lent me. I really want to watch these two movies, and if sick, I will have the time. But I think I might can find time without being sick.

I am happily piled up in my own bed, and after sleeping on a good old friends sofa last night, it is nice to be in the bed. I got to hang out with my high school favorite friends Leigh and Jennifer yesterday and it was so good to see them and just remember the dumb things we used to do. Here are some of the things we came up with:

1. Since we were all cheerleaders (Jennifer and I were both captain, she is a year older than me and leigh), at the basketball games we would commentate. Leigh and I sat next to each other the whole season one year and had imaginary headphones and microphones that we would talk into. This was amazingly enough a constant source of amusement, and a very fond memory. We felt the need to do a little commentating last night when we watched Ga Tech win the football lottery against Clemson.

2. Jennifer had a travel game of connect four, and she and I could play connect four for hours. For some reason our basketball coach wouldn’t let the players talk on the bus on the way to the games, and since we played lots of teams 2 hours away from augusta (not that augusta doesn’t have enough high schools within the county (I think there are 12), but maybe the georgia high school association though it would be fun to waste gas having us drive to Statesboro, Dublin, and Swainsboro; more understandable were Thomson and Burke County, but still), and Jennifer and I decided that we could play connect four in silence. This was only the beginning of course because we kept playing connnect four, through a couple more football (where the cheerleaders got their own bus) and a few more basketball seasons. I promise anyone that doesn’t think connect four is a fun game is an idiot and hasn’t played it enough. It takes pure skill.

3. We discussed how fun it was to go to school all day long and not learn a thing except how to survive in the halls without getting hurt. We decided that this made us much more well rounded individuals.

4. We decided that it was gross that there were only about 4 places we would eat, and we ate at these places numerous times a week. The places consisted of Teresa’s (the best mexican restauraunt in America and one of my favorite places in the world), Bojangles (Biscuits all day!), Dairy Queen (we used to hang out at dairy queen on the weekends. come to think about it, we also used to hang out at Bojangles, until they started arresting people for loitering, you had to buy something, but they would let you smoke inside, how gross is that?), and Zaxby’s (anyone that knows me understands).

on the subject of gross things we used to do with food, we would go to tennis practice from 2:45-3:30 (the tennis team wasn’t real serious), go to Dairy Queen and pick up a blizzard, eat it real fast, change shoes, and go to soccer practice from 4-6. How gross is that? But we ate so many blizzards that we had built up a tolerance. Like those people who drink alcohol first thing in the morning (you know, lawyers), they have the tolerance. Or you might say they have a problem. Well, I used to be addicted to Dairy Queen Blizzards. Either reeses peanut butter cup or snickers, sometimes oreo, and I did go through a reeses pieces phase. I love chocolate basically. I can’t imagine how much money I spent on blizzards. I could have probably been a smoker for cheaper. Okay, I could tell you stories about my Dairy Queen for hours, but I will stop now because it could be its own entry.

Oh, and like everyone in high school, we used to do drive-bys. If you don’t know what they are, you were never in high school. Okay, enough reminiscing. Kisses.

Really Important
Antoine de St. Exupery

I woke up this morning to the most beautiful day ever, and it was a couple of hours into my day before I realized why I loved this day so much. It is September 9th. Now, some people might see no reason why September 9th should be exciting, but it is 9/9. And I love all dates that are the same number twice. My birthday is 10/10, my mom’s birthday is 5/5, Emily’s birthday is 8/8, I know there are lots of other people whose birthdays are also double digits, I just can’t remember them now. As a child I had a really hard time remembering which came first, the date or the month when you wrote a date with the slashes (/), because as far as my birthday was concerned, it didn’t matter. Maybe I just always wanted to be European and couldn’t make up my mind. I think I have it under control now, but I still have slip ups, I think it is a mental block. So everyone should be super excited about the fact that it is 9/9, go outside, and enjoy this wonderful weather (unless of course you live somewhere that it is raining, sorry Libby).

Appel is being really nice today and just lecturing and not calling on anyone. I really hope he doesn’t start calling on me, because I am totally lost, but I am interested in CERCLA and superfund, I am just behind in my reading and don’t know what is going on. I love Tuesdays and Thursdays, because Environmental law and Trust and Estates are my favorite classes. Really, I am in quite a gushing mood, I might have to keep going with the happiness for a while and tell you some more things that I love.

I love getting clean towels out of the dryer, it makes me think of when I was little and my mom would throw clean hot towels on me when I was sitting on the sofa. The warmth, the smell, the great feeling of clean towels. I love this.

I love laying in the grass in my backyard with my dogs on a warm day while they run around and step on me. Bo and Bella both like to roll in the grass and jump up and rush at me and jump in my lap. When the wind is blowing and the sunshine coming through the trees is shifting in the breeze and the air smells like grass and black dirt and acorns and pine straw, I don’t want for anything.

Okay, class is over and I am finished with gushing for right now, I’m sure it might happen again because it such a wonderful day and I am such a fantabulous mood. kisses.

I just wanted to give a shoutout to Brandon Ansley, he is awesome and reads my journal, which means a great deal to me. So everyone, today is Brandon Ansley Day, tell him hello and make sure he knows the we at the UGA law school are lucky to have him around all the time. Without him, law school would suck.