Los de Minneapolis

Continuing my theme of falling in love with politically defined spaces of earth, I hereby declare my love for Minneapolis, Minnesota. I will have to give serious thought to raising my children here, however far away that notion is. I have been thinking about that a lot lately (whether outright or subliminally), especially since everyone that I am working with here possesses the marital status engaged or married, and all of them possess 1.3 children.

While I've been here, I've done my best to put as much stress on my ankles as possible, walking in concentric circles, losing myself in the metropolitan maze that is the grid of a city. The activity of the Minneapolis scene is simply contagious. I've been feeling pangs of guilt with regard to Washington D.C., most of the guilt is wondering if D.C. is as magnificent as Minneapolis/St. Paul, and I simply ignore it because it is not a foreign entity to me. I'm making a promise to myself to exhaust any D.C. novelties that I have failed to exhaust. Here, I'll even list three things that I would like to do before October, when I'll feel especially weighed down with my 7th semester of college.

1. Visit the Roberts Supreme Court.
2. Visit the Capitol.
3. The Lincoln Memorial too.

I've done 2 and 3, just when I was too young to truly appreciate it. Right now what I am appreciating is the bizarre thought of planning things to do in D.C. while I am still elsewhere -- the city of my dreams. Part of the non-nostalgia guilt is also being disconnected from the klitsch of the politics world. Minnesota is political, but it feels like the president is more of a mythical force, instead of someone being close enough for you to go outside of his nice house in an okay neighboorhood, and scream obscenities at him. He can't hear you, but the feeling that he can is unbelievably real.

Oh, and the first beer that I have legally consumed in the United States was a Modelo, purchased today at Panchero's Mexican Grill in a downtown Minneapolis mall. He asked for my identification, and with two parts joy and one part consternation I ripped that baby out. The joy came from officially being a 95% free adult, and the consternation came from looking over to my left and seeing a father (not much older than me) and his son (probably born in 2003). Un abrazo.