Necrus 10, 28.

DIARY

- IF OUR COUNTRY WERE MANY COUNTRIES - Or distinct regions...curious how they'd rank in population? I split the nation into eight division (not as a proposal, just for fun). Here they are:

#1. THE SOUTH - 69.26 million - 24.6%
[inc. Upper South (VA, NC, SC, GA - 27.45), Inner South (TN, KY, WV - 11.54), Deep South (AL, MS, LA, AR - 14.29), Florida (FL - 15.98)]

#2. THE MIDWEST - 67.86 million - 24.1%
[inc. Great Lakes Region (OH, MI, IN, IL, WI - 45.17), Plains States (MN, IA, MA - 13.45), Frontier Strip (ND, SD, NE, KS, OK - 9.24)]

#3. THE EAST COAST - 60.44 million - 21.5%
[inc. New England (ME, VT, NH, MA, RI, CT - 13.93), Middle Atlantic (NY, NJ, DE, MD, DC - 46.51)]

#4. THE WEST COAST - 43.21 million - 15.3%
[inc. California (CA - 33.90), Pacific Northwest (OR, WA - 9.31)]

#5. TEXAS - 20.86 million - 7.4%
[inc. Texas (TX - 20.86)]

#6. ROCKIES - 18.16 million - 6.4%
[inc. Southwest (NM, AZ - 6.95), West (NV, UT, CO - 8.53), Northwest (WY, MT, ID - 2.68)]

#7. HAWAII - 1.21 million - .4%
[inc. Hawaii (HI - 1.21)]

#8. ALASKA - .63 - .2%
[inc. Alaska (AK - .63)]

I was essentially aiming for regional self-identity... the reason that Texas is distinct from the South, as well as why Kansas is in the same grouping as Ohio. For the most part, this seemed to work, although there were a couple problematic cases. In particular, West Virginia (which I placed in the South, but which could gone to the Midwest or the East Coast), Oklahoma (which I placed in the Midwest, but which could have gone with Texas), and Missouri (which I placed in the Midwest, but which could have gone with the South).

- BLEAK - I'm going to wallow in self-pity for a few moments. I've been feeling down ever since Thanksgiving. Part of it is politics on several fronts. Part of it is my inability to keep up with these readings. Part of it is how needed, and then how fleeting, those two days off were. A lot of it is still feeling unsettled, feeling like I've left a life behind that was actually quite good, close friends, a whole world. Not for marriage. Not even for New York. For a future that in some ways seems less promising and exciting and so much more inertia filled than the past. There's something purgatorial about these two years, in a literal sense, not figurative... I'm in the waiting room of life, and I worry that by the time time resumes (at which point I'll be pushing thirty) all of my friends and family who are, at this moment, for the most part still clustered in three close states, will have scattered. The rest of life, then, will be sending emails, waiting for phone calls, maybe writing letters. Maybe occasional visits. I'll have to find "new" people. But I don't want new people necessarily. In twenty-seven years, I've known hundreds, and at the risk of sounding defeatest, I'm perfectly happy with the several dozen people I have in my life right now.

- WEATHER - I haven't had to wear my coat in three days. What the Hell. We're on the edge of December!

PICTURE OF THE WEEK
University of Minnesota, Morris. The Physics and Engineering Club. Somewhere in Nebraska.

QUESTION OF THE DAY
What's your favorite thing that starts with the letter 'q?'

END OF POST.