4:40 am and why I am still up, I don't know. I was struck with a sudden need to organize my files after coming home from midnight scootering. Midnight scootering? That's when the Ringleted One borrows her friend's scooter and loans you hers and you zip around the monuments and critique the new WWII memorial, have a chat with Mr. Lincoln, take a look at the new National Museum of the American Indian (which you worked on eons ago as part of that exhibit design firm), listen to Ringleted One be told by a bored young officious cop stationed in front of the Supreme Court that she has "a smart mouth" for telling him that scooters don't need registration papers and that it is totally legal to scooter up on the sidewalk, and then zoom around an empty Nation's Capital at 35 miles an hour.

Scooters are so damn fun!

I went to a Korean restaurant tonight with three friends and even ordered in Korean, which I was always afraid to do before. Yeah, living in a foreign country will give you the courage to do things you never dreamed of doing, big, amazing things that make muscley men want to hide under their stern, masculine comforters.

My emotions are still all squashed under a big rug in my head, a defense mechanism in times of stress and change that works really well -- until it doesn't. Oh, when will the random crying and weeping suddenly and embarrassingly pop out? Who knows? It might be fun to pull that in my Contracts class if I get called upon (Socratic method, doncherknow) on Thursday. Yup, classes officially start on the day after Labor Day, but for some reason my section leader will be lecturing on Thursday and Friday mornings. Huh.

Anyway, like I was saying, I'm not excited or scared or anything except numb and working on autopilot. Can't feel a thing. And when a random emotion or memory that should elicit some reaction comes up, I firmly push it under the rug again. Later, I say, and tuck the edges of the rug under the couch leg nearby, to make sure that pesky thought stays hidden.

This past month has been a slow step-by-step advance toward law school, and the next stage of my life, and I'm nearing the end of the transition period. I board a train tomorrow and seven hours later I'll be in the city where I'll learn to think like a lawyer. (By the way, checking baggage with Amtrak is so cool! Just like the airport, with Skycaps that are called Redcaps, and a baggage weight limit of up to 300 pounds! (The last 150 pounds are $10 per 50 pounds but the first 150 are free.))

It's really late, and I'm so not coherent. Just wanted to put something down on my last night in DC.