I celebrated last New Year’s Eve in Minnesota and now I am ending the year as an official Texan.
2015 was wonderful, but exhausting.
James Sanna and Aaron Kraemer getting married in Boston.
A bloody Mary and the New Yorker Magazine at the Washington DC airport.
Alyssa Edwards at the Dallas Gay Pride iLume block party.
Dancers at the iLume block party.
A dramatically lit mansion in Highland Park.
February is a hard month. Like a Siberian prisoner, I accept my frozen circumstances and stop hoping for spring.
So the snow completely melted, revealing five months of filth, trash, small dead animals, and dog crap. Yes, dog crap – there’s a subset of dog owners who don’t pick up dog shit when there’s snow on the ground. I don’t get it.
Fog flowing over the Mississippi River, by the High Bridge.
A view of St. Paul in fog, with a shot of the Cathedral.
Downtown St. Paul, Minnesota in fog.
The temperatures still climb above 20 degrees at least once a week. Anything above 15 degrees means that it is warm enough for a long walk with Hugo. I’m cherishing these walks while we can still make them.
Last winter was the 9th coldest on record for the state, and we missed the global warming train:
And yet I live here on purpose…
I discovered that there is an express bus that takes me directly from downtown St. Paul to Thomson Reuters campus in the suburbs.
The cold is less bothersome now that I no longer have to sit in a frozen car twice a day. There is something strange about spending 95% of my time indoors. I hear that this is only surpassed by hoarders and the people who work in the Minneapolis skyway.
Things in my second year look dramatically different – I have a boyfriend, a new dog, and a promotion at work – the Lowertown life is great.
I also discovered that there is an express bus that is actually quicker than driving to the office, so I rarely use my gas guzzler anymore.
I couldn’t have fathomed bus commuting to work even one year ago.
The faux-car-less life is amazing.
It is going to be even better during winter because 1) driving in the suburbs with snow is terrifying, and 2) the office campus is so huge that the walk to the front of the building can take 15 minutes, which is brutal in -20 degrees.
Plus, the bus pass is only $85 for 31 days. (Way cheaper than gas.)
I’m also able to buy new passes at the office, which is insanely convenient. I’m smitten.
Transportation aside, I love living on Mears Park, the Farmers’ Market, the restaurant options, the Cathedral, and all of the gorgeous architecture:
A shot of downtown St. Paul overlooking the ghetto Walgreens and Bruegger’s Bagels. It’s a beautiful area but usually crawling with creeps.
The Green Line station in front of the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul. It is in front of the Bedlam Theater and the CoCo Coworking Space.
The Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul. It’s run by Minnesota Public Radio and hosts shows like A Prairie Home Companion.
Thankfully, I’m far more active in St. Paul during the winter than I used to live in Minneapolis, even without having to rely on a car.
Last time I was in Miami, it was February and miserably cold in Minnesota. I realized that I spent minimal time outside because being outside felt extremely weird.
The Galtier Towers and Mears Park in downtown St. Paul during winter.
It’s also open until 2 a.m., which is highly convenient for wintertime bar hopping if you don’t piss off the cops.
We are in downtown St. Paul for at least another year, and then may try something else. But for now it’s a great life choice.
It’s a few blocks from my house, and one of those buildings that has an inordinate presence on my Instagram account.
A picture of the neon sign atop the First National Bank Building in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.
The First National Bank Building as seen from the Robert Street Bridge.
A picture of the First National Bank Building from Kellogg Boulevard.
A picture of the First National Bank Building from Kellogg Boulevard.
Boaters on the Mississippi River outside of downtown St. Paul.
A close up of boaters on the Mississippi River outside of downtown St. Paul.
I’d own a boat if I wasn’t so price sensitive and grossed out by non-chlorinated fresh water.
So I wouldn’t own a boat.
There’s an episode of the Real Housewives of New Jersey where Teresa Giudice moves into a new mansion styled after a French Chateau. I remember being appalled by how large and gaudy the mansion was.
The James J. Hill House is one of the mansions that I routinely pass during my dog walks by the Cathedral of St. Paul. This Gilded Age mansion was built by railroad magnate James Hill and features 36,000 square feet of livable space.
I’m not sure why I consider Teresa Guidice’s mansion tacky but remain impressed by the mansions on Summit Avenue.
The James J. Hill House in Cathedral Hill neighborhood of St. Paul.
Not all of the mansions are old, or architecturally noteworthy. For example, there’s a fairly new mansion near the James J. Hill House which looks just like a medical office building.
This house has more in common with a medical office than a mansion.
The Summit Hill mansions are part of a fairly densely-packed community, which is probably why they don’t seem as tacky as the Guidice mansion (or Minnesota’s other BFE palaces).
I doubt that I’ll ever be able to afford a house on Summit Hill, and even if I could, I think a Horst condo is more my style.
Shepard Road completely flooded near my apartment. Raspberry Island was close to disappearing too.
Wabasha and Robert Street bridges were covered with photographers and onlookers.
The pictures livened up my dull Instagram account, but downtown St. Paul is situated on a bluff, so the only things that actually got flooded by were a bunch of parks, surface lots, and the street by the river.
I had the horrible experience of being stuck in one of the storms during a dog walk – Gunter and I were halfway across the High Bridge when we saw a huge wall of rain rush down the river valley. We ran to a wooded area for cover, but eventually got so soaked that we had to start walking home.
I haven’t been soaked to my underbritches since leaving Miami, and I don’t miss that gross feeling at all.
This blog is about to have its nine year anniversary, so I figured I should dust it off and say hello.
I started blogging as a middle school student on Diaryland and Livejournal. I moved to WordPress sometime during college and never looked back.
I wrote longer posts during my freshman year that eventually tapered off into picture posts with vague captions. My junior and senior year were all about applying to grad school, then law school.
My blog really took off during law school and received a couple thousand hits a day. As with many law school blogs, things slowed down significantly after I started working in the real world.
Part of the silence around here is laziness. There’s also some paranoia from the lack of anonymity that my social networks afford.
Maybe I’m just too old to gush about my date-of-the-moment or lack thereof online.
That seemed okay during college, but it feels a little sad now that everyone’s getting married…
I left the keys with my neighbors and I’m officially a St. Paul boy now.
As a kid, I was really into John Grisham. I wanted to be the power-lawyers in his books – working long hours in big cities.
The law degree happened (at a decent school), and so did the long hours (albeit in advertising.) And so did the yuppie lifestyle…
It’s nice to be here, but I decided tonight that this is just another step (rather than an end-point.)
My friend Tyler came over and we rehashed my crazy apartments and exes. We both decided that I’ve come a long way, but I still got some work left to do.
What I didn’t expect is that this ambition thing comes with a permanent sense of unrest. I can barely enjoy achieving goals because I’m already working on the next big thing.
Minneapolis was fun, but I’m too busy in St. Paul to reminiscence properly. These are my first world problems.
We tried a new Vietnamese restaurant by the Townhouse recently. The best part of the trip was the coconut drink which was served in an actual coconut.
Tader and I decided to order the “seven courses of beef” dish which was way more food than we needed.
One of the things I love about the Cathedral of St. Paul is that it is very quiet, aside from the shuffling and coughing tourists.
At $1,460, the Stone Arch unit is a little spendy, but the next cheapest place in the building is at $1,700 so we to check it out.
The management office at the building didn’t get back to Tader all week, so the plan is to show up and see if we can look at the apartment. The office manager calls as we pull into the parking lot – they leased the $1,460 and the $1,700 unit this morning. Sorry.
We spent the weekend apartment hunting in St. Paul. We even became regulars at Salut Bar Americain, which is a super cute place by Grand.
What a bizarre two weeks.
I had my normal schedule of work, class, lake trips, Jeset Bar dance-offs, and adventures around the metro:
