Citycat's Prowlings

Oatmeal of Biblical Proportions

2009-11-01T20:46:00.003-05:00

It's apparently November, which I think is a giant cosmic lie, because as far as I am concerned it is still March and therefore I posted just last month so I don't have to feel guilty and that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

Work has gotten comfortably busy, which is good, but also means that I don't do things like go to the gym or cook anymore. Which seriously sucks, especially since my ass is now expanding at a higher rate of speed than I can buy new pants. I also have a gorgeous backyard for wine drinking and an unhealthy obsession with true crime television, so I tend to stay up late first drinking wine and then watching Tru T.V., activities which do not in any way contribute to a smaller ass, so much.

That is not to say that I have not noticed this problem before. Almost every week I make brilliant plans for the healthy eating and the working out and the less wine and the more sleep. And then sometime around Tuesday I walk into work and there are cookies or cake or breakfast tacos and I get home late and the Joker suggests ordering in and finally I just say screw it and pour myself a zinfandel entree followed by a zinfandel dessert. Then I snuggle with my dog in bed and let the TV instruct me on how to commit the perfect crime.

However, I generally go the grocery store with the best of the intentions, and then the Joker will go to the grocery store and I will instruct him with the best of intentions, and this has led to the somewhat unexpected result of our house being innundated with oatmeal.

No, seriously. The other day in a fit of cooking I was looking in the pantry for something, and found a box of oatmeal. On top of a box of oatmeal. And on the next shelf? Two more boxes of oatmeal. And then another box.

Y'all? That is 5 boxes of oatmeal. 40 packets of oatmeal. I could outlast Noah's damn flood on oatmeal alone. Apparently there was a sale on oatmeal. And Joker and I both bought the oatmeal, and then apparently I hid all the oatmeal so we bought more.

So now I am eating oatmeal every morning for breakfast, and giving oatmeal away to co-workers, and oatmeal has generally become a far bigger part of my life than I had any intention of it becoming. But I guess if it leads to ass shrinkage, I can't complain.

Sisyphus

2009-02-01T01:08:00.002-05:00

Today, I was asked to go into work to update a document that didn't exist.

So that was fun.

Once all necessary parties got on board with me that, no, the document didn't actually exist, I got to spend three hours creating it.

So that was more fun.

THEN, because there had already been so much fun, the document got corrupted, went poof!gonebye, and returned to it's previous state of non-existence.

Thank god for 24 hour tech support.

Hee!

2009-01-28T22:21:00.002-05:00

I just checked my stats and someone found this blog searching Google for "city cat blog falling down."

Hello random searcher! If you don't know me, you have no idea how right you were.

In other news, we are officially on contract for a house! We meet with the broker tomorrow to disseminate paperwork and I have to schedule inspections, and we have to pay a lot of people who we didn't even know two weeks ago many thousands of dollars, but we found a perfect house below our budget and are SO EXCITED about these developments.

In other news, the Joker's review of the exercise DVD's has boiled down to "Fuck Pilates."

Look at me with the updating! Hopefully, more soon!

Why We Are Watching Entirely Too Much HGTV.

2009-01-24T20:59:00.003-05:00

Happy 2009! Now that it is almost February! It seems like every post I am all "I have been gone, but now I will be talky!" Y'all? I think it is time to just realize- I lie. I mean well, but things get busy and I don't like posting at work. But I will try, with the posting.

ANYWAY, things have been going well in the new year for our household, despite the fact that the economy is nosediving, and some guy committed suicide by jumping off the parking garage next to my office the other day, and really? A bunch of transactional lawyers probably don't need to feel like we are in the great stockmarket crash that started the Great Depression right now. But everyone at work seems optimistic enough that we'll all continue to be gainfully employed for the foreseeable future, which yay, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the Joker and I decided to buy a house.

This... this was maybe somewhat of a snap decision on our parts. As in, I thought you needed to have 20% down to buy a house, which we do not. So initially I was all "We will renew our lease and save money and then when I get my bonus in 2010 (ha! with the bonuses! we were all so optimistic 6 months ago) we will buy a house. The first problem with that plan came when our Pupster, who the shelter promised us would be "50, 55 lbs max" passed 60 pounds at 10 months old. The Pupster limit at this apartment? 50 lbs. Now, the fact that we have had said Pupster for almost 6 months now and the apartment people don't actually even know about her yet means we are likely to get away with this for a few more months (lease up in May), but she's going to keep growing and at some point you can't hide a 70 or 80 pound dog. (Also? Dogs are not so much like drivers license pictures where you can totally lie about 20 pounds. She is not going to look remotely like a 50 pound dog. Period.)

So we began the search for apartments that accept big dogs, and that search is hard, especially when some of the brain trusts here define "large dog" as "35 pounds." 35 pounds?? That is a large CAT, people, not DOG. But anyway.

Then we had a realization the night of the BCS Championship game, where he roots for Texas and I have always been an OSU girl, and there are 4 minutes left in a close game we both care about and the dog is all but crossing her legs crying to go out. We realized that a backyard would be awesome. And then we thought that we could even work it out so she could have a room where there wasn't a lot of stuff to chew, so she wouldn't need to be crated when we left anymore, since the Joker is starting school in the Fall and won't be around all day anymore. And THEN I discovered that thanks to the FHA and the VA Loan, that Joker qualifies for, we don't need 20% down at ALL. So I made a crazy budget and we called a realtor and applied for a loan and we think we've even found the house we want.

So, um, yeah. If you read the above paragraph, you may come to a conclusion. And that conclusion would be correct.

The Joker and I are buying a house mainly so our dog can have her own room.

Somehow I went and became one of those urban working women with no children cliches when I wasn't looking.

But that's fine, because we are both turning thirty in a few months and that seems as good a time as any to own real estate. Happy Birthday to us! Have a mortgage.

Other than that, both the Joker and I are trying to eat better and lose some weight. I have done this by replacing my usual breakfast taco from the chinese guy in the tunnel with one I make myself and buying a fitness ball to sit on instead of the couch. The Joker, on the other hand, has done a complete 180 and is drinking smoothies filled with flax seeds and he just bought 11 different exercise DVDs, one of which is the 30 Day Shred, and I am afraid.

Hope everything is going well, I will update soon!

(Remember, that is very probably a lie).

PHOTO ESSAY TIME!!

2008-12-17T20:03:00.010-05:00

Ok, it is time for a VERY FIRST on Citycat's Prowlings! The Joker was super successful and got a camera that is easy, good, and ALSO stylish. And I now (finally) have pictures of the Pupster! And the Jakester, just because I still love him.

So here we go.

Hello. I am adorable.

Also, a little unsure about that beepy flashy thing. I will go low, and bark.

Barking FAIL. No, really. What is that thing? I will hide behind mom.

The HELL? WARN a cat before you point that thing at him!!

Also? I hate you. So very, very much.

I see her. And I also hate her.

And here are a series of pictures showing our Pupster playing with her VERY FAVORITE BALL EVER. The one she just managed to eat a chunk of. Sigh.

So that is our baby, and our other, grumpier baby. And I am completely obsessed with the camera and posting pictures and iPhoto, so I promise more to come!!

Welcome Back, Stupid!

2008-12-17T15:44:00.001-05:00

Hello! And Merry Christmas! Very soon! And we are all going to pretend that the last time I posted was not BEFORE THANKSGIVING, ok? Good.

Also, that whole "maybe I update once a month" thing should be rectified soon, because right now the Joker is out at Best Buy procuring us a digital camera, so I can take pictures of the Pupster and other Houston related things and post them here. With commentary! (Come on, you all know you love commentary).

Anyway, before the arrival of My New Toy (I asked Joker for shiny. And pink. But I do not think he is going to comply) I wanted to comment a little on something I have not talked a lot about lately. And that something is the Stupid. As y'all know, there is a lot of Stupid, and I have written about the Stupid, excessively. But just in case any of you were wondering if maybe the Stupid was a DC thing, and maybe the Stupid did not follow me to Houston? No. Sigh. The Stupid is here, in force.

Example Number One: Office Stupid

Ok, I as per always will not write much about my job here, on account of I like my job and has anyone SEEN the economy lately? Yeah. So no juicy job gossip. However, some things need to be said. I would like to copy an actual email I received one of my first weeks here. See, we are in a new space, with all new furniture. And upon entering my office, I noticed that my closet lacked a bar from which to hang things from, effectively rendering it useless. So I asked the very nice front desk lady if perhaps I could get a bar. For the closet. So I could, you know, hang things in it. Which... is the entire thing a closet is for. This was the response:

"[Redacted] relayed your request to me. A bar is not available for your closet because it is not deep enough to hang a coat hanger (all of the furniture designed like yours have the same issue, including most of the partner offices). For all of these closets we are working on getting a coat hook that hangs from the ceiling, then you will be able to hang a coat hanger crosswise. Hope this helps."

I will give you a second. Read that again.

The CLOSET is DESIGNED to NOT HANG THINGS. But no fear, I will get a hook, for the ceiling, thus permitting a single diagonal hanger.

Hello, Stupid! I missed you.

(To make matters worse, we instituted a new recycling program here. Which is awesome, and Al Gore loves us. And Al Gore has won an Oscar AND the Nobel Prize, making him officially Cooler than Almost Everyone. HOWEVER. The way the recycling plan works is, our trashcans in our office now only take recyclables. This has been defined, literally, as "almost anything that tears." (again with the helpy emails here). SO, not only does my closet not function, my trashcan cannot handle... trash. This job is forcing me to change my basic worldview here, people.)

Example Two: Parking Garage Stupid

So, you may think that with my closet basically operating as "large box" and my trashcan opting for an alternative lifestyle, I have enough problems. You would be wrong. Because I have also had several (several!) incident involving Parking Garages.

Example 2.A. (also? Drafting too many contracts.) I Lost My Car.

Ok, honestly? Who loses their car? I, apparently, lose my car. I should not be given expensive, dangerous things, because I am not capable of dealing with them. So here is what happened. As anyone who has ever met me or read this knows, I am not so much a Driver. I hate driving. My general theme my first few weeks here was "I drived. I did not died." Driving causes all use of correct tense to leave my brain. So anyway, I know one route to work. And one day I was driving it, lalala, and I needed to turn right, and then the road was blocked because of the hurricane, and I had to keep driving, and I did not know where I was, and I panicked. And then I thought, in the midst of freaking the hell out, that this street looks familiar, I will turn down it! Yay! And then, OH SHIT, because I had turned the WRONG WAY down a one way street and was staring down FIVE LANES of oncoming traffic.

Eep.

So, I did what anyone would do, and pulled directly into the nearest parking garage, which was not my garage, nor attached to my building, and parked there. Then hiked across downtown to my actual building, which I found because it is tall.

Know what I did not do? Write down, take note of, or in any way determine where I parked the car.

So 5 o'clock comes, and my boss is all, "let's have a welcome you happy hour!" and I think this is great, and then I start walking, and realize I have no idea where in the Hell my car is. And I am missing the party, that is being thrown at the bar by my house, for me. AND I have forgotten my cell phone, so I can't call the Joker and yell at him. (Hi Honey!). I am in the middle of downtown Houston, which is not SMALL, people, and has approximately ninety billion parking garages, and all I remember about the place where my car is is that it was maybe "shiny".

So what did I do? Well, what would YOU do if you lost your car in this manner? ("but we would never..." "Shut up."). Whatever it is, it is probably not what I did, which is walk into a random building, go to the security desk, and ask a perfect stranger if they knew where I parked my car.

Yes. Yes I did.

Luckily, by talking through this with the nice, nice (so nice!) lady, I eventually figured out if I retraced the steps that I had taken while driving around lost, I should be able to figure out where I had taken the wrong turn, and find the nearest garage. It worked.

Attorney Citycat: No less stupid than Bureaucrat Citycat. Only less rhymey.

Example 2.B. Parking Garage Gnomes.

One night myself and my new friend, K (I am SO OUT of cute nicknames right now) went to a bar, near my house. And I generally walk to this bar and then have someone drive me home, because it is both 1. Close enough that driving and paying six dollars for parking is ridiculous, and 2. Far enough that late at night it is not safe to walk back alone. So K was driving me home, and we were going to her car, which was also Parked In A Wrong Garage. Because she had met a friend for drinks first, but failed to park in the garage he told her too park in, opting instead for one across the street. (See above re: Parking Garages, Number Of). So once we finally found the garage, after walking merrily right past in and continuing in this manner for several blocks, and then resorting to the GPS function in her Blackberry, even though it was ONE STREET and NO TURNS, we had a problem. Namely:

The garage closed at 8.

It was 11:30.

No one was there.

So now we are deeply screwed, because as I mentioned, not the safest area on earth, and the car is locked in the empty garage. We push the call button. We wait. We try to ignore the man who comes up to us telling us we are beautiful. We push the button. We call her friend, who we wake up, and who is not happy. We wait. And then... Then the garage door opens. Magically. No one is there still. But the door is open. And at least there are no scary men on the inside of the garage, so we went there. The door closed.

Now we have our second problem, because again, no one is there, and the "After Hours" exit is... Blocked. With cones.

Being delusional, and also having no real choice, we get the car and drive down to the exit area. Where K determines that she has lost her ticket.

So to sum up: Garage locked, and empty, no ticket. K is frantically tearing her purse apart and I am trying to figure out how to call the Joker and explain to him that I will not be coming home on account of being locked in a parking garage, (I also forgot my cell phone this night. Maybe it's a pattern), when... The door opens. Magically. Again. And we leave, having no ticket and having not in any way paid for parking.

This was exciting.

And weird, because seriously, WHAT THE HELL?? I have no explanation. Even now. Gnomes. That is the best I have.

Example 3: Everything Else.

Ok, this is getting excruciatingly long and I have a conference call in 19 minutes. But there is a long, long list, including things like:

- Falling down in public after lunch for no reason,
- Being on my THIRD computer in 10 weeks for work because I KILL THEM DEAD, and
- Purchasing Office for a Mac, being sent Office for a PC, because they don't SELL Office for Mac under the special I was using, despite it being a CHOICE.

Anyway, stay tuned for pictures, and more updates soon!

Welcome November.

2008-11-10T21:49:00.002-05:00

Hello! No, I did not die from being alone with the Pupster. Nor from the Hurricane. Nor from the Bar. In fact, things have all been going really well here in general, except for the unfortunate number of funerals that have happened. But Anyway. Quick Update:

1. I PASSED THE BAR. Yay.

2. Hurricane: It happened, it sucked. We were lucky, no real damage and power back fairly quickly.

3. Pupster: Oh how far we have come. As an example, as I write this, Joker has been out of town since Wednesday, which is almost SIX DAYS people, and I have been alone with the Pupster balancing work and dog and bar victory celebrations and have not yet lost my mind.

(Well. There was the moment Saturday night when Jake jumped up to the super-high cabinets, which I didn't even know he knew existed, and where we happen to store lots of expensive glasses and vases. And while I balanced precariously on the edge of the counter and tried to coax him down, and he... resisted, I turned around and found my dog ON TOP of my guest, on top the chair.)

She is still a good girl, but there have been moments. For example, here is the List of Things That Pupster Has Eaten:

Dog Beds (2)
Apple Mac Cord
Ipod USB Cord
Towel (mine)
Towel (my mothers)
Shoes (mine, 3 pair)
Boots (Jokers)
Joker's Wallet
Half Pan of Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Brownies
Box of Tissues
Bag of Potato Chips
Rug

Overall though, the dog is going well, work is going well, the bar is passed, the hurricane is over, and I am looking forward to having my husband back tonight!

Only Halfway Through Day Two

2008-08-23T14:25:00.002-04:00

You Might Be Watching Too Much Animal Planet and Cesar Milan If:

You are making a sandwich, and the container holding the tomatoes gets stuck, and you find yourself giving it a low growl to show that it cannot establish dominance over you.

Day One

2008-08-23T02:19:00.003-04:00

So, the Joker had to leave on entirely bad and unfortunate circumstances. Everyone: Good thoughts for the Joker's family. And now I am alone with the dog and the cat.

Now, our dog is actually an extremely good dog, as far as big puppies from shelters go. She is not at all aggressive. I can reach into her mouth and take out whatever she decided to eat. She never attacks my cat. She doesn't bite. She doesn't jump.

However.

Two words. Separation. Anxiety.

Dog cannot be in a different room. Dog cannot be anywhere that she can't see us. And also, dog is a little worried about the crate. This is a problem when I am alone, because I like to do things like shower.

So, there is adjustment. However, my dog just proved why she is kind of awesome. Now note, that when Joker fell in love with the word "housebroken", apparently the person who wrote that was also a blogger because it was followed by: "almost." And it's true. In 9 days, there have been about 4 accidents, at least 2 of which were our fault. So earlier tonight, I took pup out, and it went like this:

Pup: By door.

Me: Let's go out!

Pup: Goes bathroom.

Me: YAY!

Pup: Sleeping. For hours.

Me: Let's go out!

Pup: But... Maybe I would like to sleep, but OH MY GOD YOU ARE LEAVING! I WILL GO TOO!

Pup: Goes bathroom.

Me: YAY! Have figured out secret pup speak!

We come in.

Pup: By door.

Me: Really? But we just... ok.

Pup: I am OUT! There is a frog! And a dog! YAY! (does not go.)

Me: Drats. Foiled again.

Two hours later.

Pup: By door.

Me: OOOh, no, Sneaky Pup. Do you have to go?

Pup: By door.

Me: NO. Am smart.

Time passes. Pup by door.

Me: Ok. Let's go.

Pup: Goes. Then again.

Me: Wow. Good pup, with the waiting.

Sprinklers: Go on, seconds after pup goes.

Me: Thank god.

We live in an incredibly dog friendly complex. There are several green areas, and all of them are equipped with doggie bags. But our dog? Likes to go in one particular place, that is not "open", and is more "landscaping". Which is fine, because I clean up, but also, I think that if she had gone 5 minutes later, and there had been sprinklers, things would have gotten Ugly.

(By the way? My dog? With "not aggressive" also goes "afraid of things", and so far that includes things like "potatoes" (don't ask), so sprinklers could have been the end.)

We have four days to go.

And Then There Were Four. Or, Welcome Piper!

2008-08-21T21:24:00.004-04:00

So. The post about the Exciting Thing has been somewhat delayed, mostly due to the fact that the Exciting Thing broke the camera, so there are no pictures. This is unfortunate, but the only picture I have right now is on my phone and I have no idea how to make it go from there to the computer. We even went and bought a disposable camera, and have some great pictures, but they will not be developed for awhile. So here is the post, and the story, pictures later.

BUT! Y'all, the Exciting Thing is SO. EXCITING. that I am totally not even over it yet. Because right now, napping at my feet, is Piper, our very own puppy.

Y'ALL I HAVE A PUPPY. OF MY OWN. THAT LIVES HERE. WITH ME.

Ok, you have to understand, I have wanted a dog for literally two decades. But most of those decades were spent in my parents house, and their answer to the constant litany of "Can I have a dog" was always, simply, NO. Then I went to college, and although one couple on our floor managed to sneak a puppy in for awhile (also on our floor: Guy who turned the study lounge into a hotel room, raves, and attack roaches), I really didn't think it was overall a good plan. Then, for years, I was running around in high heels and causing trouble and maybe not often sleeping at my own house. So I did what any red blooded girl who desperately wants a puppy but can't commit, and got a cat.

Then law school happened and I lived with the fabulous Canadian family and they? Tolerated Jake fabulously but somehow turned into my parents when the subject of a dog came up. (Read: NO). But then I got together with the Joker and we had many conversations that went like this:

Me: Can I have a puppy?

Joker: Yes, once we move.

(we moved).

Me: Can I have a puppy?

Joker: Yes, after the bar and California.

(takes bar, returns from California).

Me: Can I have a puppy?

Joker: Sure, lets get one! TODAY.

And my parents, who apparently have no aversion to dogs belonging to other people, got very excited and we all trooped down to the local shelter.

Which proceeded to BREAK MY HEART, Y'ALL, SERIOUSLY. Too many puppies and kitties and older dogs. Pets are family. They are not expendable. You don't get to just get rid of them when they become an inconvenience. But anyway.

We walked through a couple rooms, and then came to one cage where there were two puppies and the word that made the Joker fall in love, "housebroken". Somehow, we ended up with one of them on a leash, and then the next Wednesday we took her home.

Piper is a 30 pound, 5 month old black lab mix. There is some question as to what she is mixed with, possibly border collie. She has giant ears and usually one is up and one flops down. She is darling and precious and I am so in love with this dog.

We have had her just over a week and she is starting to relax and feel at home. (Read: Be BAD). We have her trained to sit (usually), lay down (usually), stay (for awhile), and fetch (when she wants to). She is a little too attached to us right now (read: Me) and we have to work on leaving her alone in her crate longer so she doesn't get stressed out.

Jakers is doing ok with the whole thing. Do not get me wrong. He hates the dog. He might slightly hate us for getting the dog. Sometimes when she is walking by he swipes at her for no reason at all. He growls and hisses and puffs up. He wants attention from me constantly. He lives on the counter now. He drinks her water. He climbs up on her crate at night and taunts her. I am still completely in love with my cat.

But life will never be the same. The Joker has a family emergency and has to leave, so for the next few days it is me, alone in the house with a dog and a cat who hate each other. Plus I have to ease her separation anxiety and I probably will never sleep.

But y'all.

I HAVE A DOG!!!

That's Why It Is Spelled With All The "Y"s

2008-08-13T12:26:00.004-04:00

Hello! Welcome to the Post-Bar life. The Post-Bar life is wonderful and snuggly and drinky, especially when compared to the Pre-Bar life, which was studyful and whimpery and Y'ALL IT REALLY, REALLY SUCKED, AND I COMPLAIN IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I AM CLEARLY THE ONLY PERSON WHO EVER HAD TO TAKE IT, EVER.

But anyway, it is over, and my little Bar Clan all seems to feel relatively positive about the whole thing, mostly positive that it is over and we can drink again. And since the bar I have done awesome things, including:

1. Going to a beach house in California with the Joker's family. (Who are technically also my family, with the whole marriage thing, which is neat, because they are generally awesome people who do things like vacation in beach houses in California and invite the Joker and self to come vacation with them, for free. Yay for family!)

2. Going kayaking near Monteray with otters, seals, and seal lions. (Also a state judge, but he was in a kayak, not the water.)

3. Fail to convince the Joker that because we have a giant, separate bathtub, I should be able to take an otter home to live in said bathtub.

4. Joker is MEAN.

5. Went to Carmel and found the Coach outlet. 'Nuff said.

6. Also did a bit of shopping in the mall, because after the bar exam and the 36 hours of drinking that followed, I forgot to pack any pants. And I could not live for a full week with one pair of jeans worn on plane and one skirt.

7. Went wine tasting, joined a wine club, and have several metric tons of wine being delivered.

But the last thing that I did that was cool (and that does not involve the thing that is happening today, which is the exciting thing, which is why I have to type this now, so I can type later about today's super exciting thing) also involves Me Being a Moron.

Oh y'all. I am not a stupid girl, overall. (See above, re: Bar, taking of). But there are things I simply do not know. And I do not like to not know things. Have you ever seen that trick of the eye thing where there is the paragraph written with no vowels or whatever and they say that most people can read it because their brain just fills in the missing information? Well see, sometimes my brain does this and fills in information and I feel much better about life. Unfortunately, the blanks that my mind "fills in"? Not always with even remotely correct information. And this can be... problematic.

Another perk of this new family thing happened last Saturday, when the Joker was all, "My Uncle drives for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and they are playing a concert in Houston by where your parents live, and we all have free tickets and maybe you can meet the band." And I am like, Whoo! Because, that is AWESOME. Except, when we get to the concert, I am also all, "Um, what does Lynyrd Skynyrd sing again?"

Because I do not know who sings songs. Ever. I will know all of the words and if you steal a riff from one song I will be able to tell you it is stolen. But I will not know who sang it. Ever.

So Joker is all, "Sweet Home Alabama? Freebird??"

And I am all, "OH! I KNOW THOSE SONGS!" (Note: I know Freebird because when I was in school and my friend the Musician would play and sing, everyone would yell "Freebird!" ironically. So I determined that that was 1. A song, and 2. downloaded it, and therefore knew what the hell people were talking about.)

Self: "Wait! So people will be yelling Freebird here, unironically!"

Parents and Joker: "..."

So I was excited, but also confused, because Joker kept saying things like, "Johnny", and I was trying to figure out who "Lynyrd" was.

No, really.

Really.

I have honestly thought my whole life that Lynyrd Skynyrd? Was a man named Leonard.

So later on, the screen behind the band began to show all these names, who turned out to be members of the band, because the band has been around for eleventy million years and it is a BAND, and not a PERSON. So I am watching the screen, and I am waiting, because I am pretty sure that after all these names, the name LEONARD will go up in lights, and everyone will scream, and I want to be on top of this, because I am good at screaming. But... No Leonard.

This is where I begin to think I have misunderstood things, and I realize this is a particularly bad misunderstanding, because when the concert is over I may be MEETING these people, and I should probably figure out who Leonard is BEFORE THAT.

Self: "Um, who is that lead singer?"

Joker: "That's Johnny."

Self: "Johnny?"

Joker: "Yes."

Self: "But.. ok, who is Leonard?"

Joker: "Wait. Seriously? WE JUST WENT OVER THIS. No one on that stage is named Leonard."

Self: "But.... I don't... Huh?" (I was flummoxed. This was honestly a giant revelation for me).

Self: (to mother) "Did you know no one on that stage is named Leonard??"

Mother: "Yes, because the band has been around for eleventy billion years and I did not, as you apparently did, spend the majority of them UNDER A ROCK."

Joker: (sighs. A lot.) "Don't you see how it is spelled? It is Lynyrd, not Leonard."

Self: (Just thought that was a stage spelling? Of "Leonard"? Sigh.)

So anyway, the concert blew me away both because of its general awesomeness and also because of my entirely stupid misconceptions. Then Kid Rock came on, and even though HIS name is actually "Bob" (the HELL??) he also did a whole thing where he's all, "What's my name?" and the whole audience says, "Kid Rock Rock", and I felt very confident announcing to my poor suffering mother, who clearly wished she were sitting on the other side of my father,

"That guy? Is ACTUALLY called Kid Rock. It's not like where there is no Leonard."

Anyway, we DID meet Johnny Van Zant, and he is totally nice and awesome and I did not call him Leonard, much to the relief of the Joker.

And that is the Post-Bar life so far, except for the major thing about today, which I will talk about later.

Is THIS What We Signed Up For??

2008-06-08T01:00:00.004-04:00

Hello! So, funny thing. When you are trying to graduate law school, plan a wedding, apply for the bar, and move to a new city all at the same damn time, you don't have a lot of time to actually write about it all. Go figure.

SO. Am graduated! Am married! Have moved! And am studying for the bar, which... really? THIS SUCKS.

I know that like a million people do this all the time, and likely with far less whining, but I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that I am not the only person in the WHOLE WORLD who has to do this and it is HARD and also? I AM GOING TO FAIL.

Seriously, studying for the bar has made me effectively bi-polar. One minute I am all, "Look, I can do this, I have two months, everyone goes through it, I'll be fine." And the next I am all, "I don't know any law, I will NEVER know any law, and frankly, I am not sure I even want to! (sob)". No really, this actually happens every half hour or so. My poor husband.

But I am not alone. Here is a conversation I overheard a few days ago at a "Commercial Paper" class.

Guy 1: "I just... don't want to do this anymore. I just want to have fun."

Guy 2: "I don't think we're ever going to have any fun ever again."

Guy 1: "I am beginning to think you are right."

Guy 2: "I don't even think I want to be a lawyer."

Guy 1: "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Guy 2: "No, really, I am deeply regretting every decision I have made in my life for the last 5 years."

Welcome to the legal profession.

Sigh.

I Found My Widgets!!

2008-02-26T23:23:00.003-05:00

I found them!! YAY!!

Um.

Ok, I realize it isn't exactly normal for people to lose their widgets. For those of you who do not know, widgets are little clicky things on your computer (yes, this is the highly technical definition of widgets. Deal.) that give you fun things like a calculator and post it notes and everything. When I got my Mac, I had widgets. And they were great, right there down on the little menu strip all bouncy when you clicked on them.

Then they disappeared.

I don't know, y'all. I didn't DO anything with them. One day, they just weren't there. Poof. Gone. Bye! I had no idea what had happened. I searched my computer, and found where they were supposed to be, and I clicked there, and... no. No widgets. Then I looked online, and found a couple of things that may be a problem, but... No. Not my problem. Then I even asked S, because he's the smartest computer person I know, and even he didn't know. And 1. When S doesn't know, you really have yourself in a mess, and 2. Do you know the reaction you get when you tell someone you lost your widgets? That something that comes standard on your computer, that you really shouldn't be able to mess up, you somehow misplaced? Yeah.

So anyway, I have just been going along, widgetless, because I still have just enough self dignity to not be able to face the guys at the genius desk, because no matter how much I realize that "genius" may be a euphamism, I cannot face making an appointment, walking to the desk, and informing them that I lost my widgets.

Anyway, tonight I was doing something entirely different, and Firefox froze. And since I have no idea how to "ctrl alt del" on a mac (oh, to be honest after over two years a good 90% of the damn mac is a mystery to me) I was randomly searching through applications, and there they were.

My Widgets!

All back on the bouncy bar.

I Am Not Helping Myself, Here

2008-02-26T17:06:00.003-05:00

So given the head exploding levels of Shit to Do that I described in my last post, I obviously need to do something about it. Be proactive! Have a plan! Accomplish things! And I am very, very Type A, meaning that in order to sleep at night I need to have a list. In fact, I have several! Several lists, each with a topic like "wedding", "Bar application" and "work", (also "law school" and "General life") and these lists have things on them to do, and in this way I can keep track of what has to be done and what has been done and then I don't wake up screaming. (In theory, because the other night Tom Cullen, from The Stand, he was in my dream and he tried to thwart an evil DJ and then there was a monster and... oh, nevermind.)

To make things worse, I have finally internalized the fact that Friday is the last day of February, and that means that THIS WEEK is March, and oh that is not good. Waaay back when I was Stupid I remember thinking things like, "Yes, and spring break is 6 weeks before the wedding, and that is a perfect time to finish things up because I won't have school." And then, when classes started, thinking, "Well this stuff isn't due till March, so there is lots of time!" And see, y'all, that was a lie, because it is March in a matter of hours and not one damn thing is done.

So this leads me to my current problem. See, making the lists makes me feel better, because then things feel more under control. Then I can relax, and watch TV, and read a book not for school.

But you know what? "Making a List" is not at all the same as "Actually Doing Stuff on a List."

Oops.

So like today, where I have finally figured out how to accomplish everything I need to accomplish, provided I stick to the schedule and work every free minute, I am here at school....

Blogging.

That is not even ON the list.

Hanging In There

2008-02-24T16:13:00.002-05:00

Back several months ago, when I would explain my "plan" for the early part of 2008 to people, the conversation would go something like this:

Well Meaning and Apparently, Quite Bright Person: "So, you're getting married in April."

Me, Stupid, and Also In Denial: "Yep!"

WMAQBP: "And finishing law school, right about the same time as the wedding?"

Me: "Yep!"

WMAQBP: "So then you are also moving to Texas, like, right in that time frame of just a few weeks, where you have to pack up all of your stuff and then unpack it all 3,000 miles away and deal with all the BS that comes from moving and also apply for the bar and start taking Bar classes?"

Me: "Yep!"

WMAQBP: "And you also are working, again? At a job that takes up even more time?"

Me: "Yes, and I really don't see where you are going with this."

Oh, y'all. I see where they were going with this. In theory, this did not all seem like such a bad, bad idea. Lots of things work in theory. It's like that crashing elevator jumping thing, where when the elevator is crashing all you have to do is jump in the air right before impact, and will be perfectly fine? In theory, that makes sense to me. In reality, I saw on TV the egg or whatever else get the everloving shit smashed out of it regardless of jumping or not, because "theory" and "reality" are not so much synonymous. Damn.

Really, things are going... ok. I mean, it's not like I haven't been perpetually stressed out from the moment I went to law school. It's just that now I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is really emphasizing how dark and frustrating the tunnel actually is, and I don't want to be in it anymore. At ALL. In 3 months, I will be done with law school, living back in Texas, with only bar classes to go to, and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be there.

Also, Guitar Hero. More on that in a minute.

But I have to make it through the tunnel first, so here is where I am with that:

Law School: Almost there. Almost. There. Almostthere. I have three major research assignments due this semester and I am not liking it at all. The good part is, the professors are all forcing us to turn in reserach, outlines, etc. early, so by the end of the semester I will have made at least "progress", which is more than I usually make during the semester.

Work: Hahaha. Don't ask. Work is hysterical and also? Annoying. I like the part-timeness and the temporaryness and the money. That's.... about it.

Moving: The Joker found a phenomenal location that we really want to live in, now we just have to wait until mid-March to see what they have open. This is really the first tangible thing that I have focused on and gotten really excited about. More news on it if we can secure a place there.

Life: Bar application: not yet done, driving me nuts. Taxes: Done, hate my county and state and cannot wait for the living in a state with no state taxes. Student loans: In far better shape than initially thought, found "missing" 30,000 dollars. (um, hee?). Discovered magical mystery benefactor who paid off all loans for masters degree. Then discovered that magical benefactor was actually self, and self's loan company, which paid old loans off when I consolidated a few years ago. Which was not nearly as exciting as magical benefactor, but also nice that I figured out where the money went.

Wedding: Oh my god y'all, I'm getting married. Like, REALLY REALLY REALLY SOON. We've gotten enough accomplished that the wedding has become less of a stressful "to do" list and is now an actual reality, and I am getting married, like soon. I'm excited. More specific wedding posts later.

Guitar Hero: My new obsession, this game has not helped so much with the time management but does wonders for the stress management. This makes me happy on the same level that American Idol and LOLcats do, so that's saying something. I am a Rock God. Srsly.

Ok, I have to stop procrastinating and get back to work, but I want to start actually blogging again so we'll see where this goes.

Again With the Plock-Plock

2007-12-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

I just took the "What Podcast are You" quiz, and this was my result:

"Hilarious but random, you captivate all of those who spendtime with you. While you think a fair bit of yourself, others seem to thinkeven more of you, though you personally find this baffling. Flightless birdsplay a major role in your life, though no one can really figure out why. You manage to pull everything together in the end despite your penchant for discussing literally everything at once. You honestly believe you can savethe world with Tonka trucks." (emphasis mine.)

Regardless of anything else relevant or not, did I mention that the dodo's that I referred to in my earlier post were very rare early versions that did not have wings?

Welcome to the Madhouse

2007-12-06T14:47:00.000-05:00

Yes, look! I remembered how to type! It's been awhile, so long that I kind of expect Blogger to be all passive-aggressive and, "well, it's nice of you to come round, of course, SOME bloggers don't just run away for months at at time and leave me to languish, I mean sure, it's TOTALLY FINE if you just breeze by your blog once a day to check your links to other blogs, if that is all I am good for..." etc etc.

I have been gone for good reasons, however. Or at least, reasons other than laying on the couch watching Dr. Phil, which some people have informed me is not really a "good" reason for anything, except maybe "seeking help". Because I have done things! Things like volunteer and get a job and discover the brain game on the Wii that resides in my living room! Also things like go to classes and work on planning the wedding and travel to be in someone else's wedding and watching lots and lots of football. So see, very busy person, me.

So I can't possibly begin to catch up on all that has occurred. Highlights, however, involve:

Volunteering: When El Capitan asked if anyone would "ride shotgun with her brother in a truck" the day of the charity walk, I totally agreed, because I am nice. What El Capitan failed to mention, however, because she is sneaky, is that the "riding" part was for roughly 1.2 miles, and then there was PARKING and UNLOADING and RELOADING of THINGS THAT WERE HEAVY. In the rain. Over and over again. And I had to wake up at 3am, which is not a waking up time, it is a going to bed time. Next time I think I will volunteer for something like phone answering, which at least is not heavy.

Job: Yes, I am back in the land of the employed, kind of by accident. Once, many months ago, in a spurt of motivation, (and, ok, motivated by the feeling that I should at least pretend to be looking for a job while watching Dr. Phil), I applied for a nice little legal assistant position close to home. And heard nothing, until a month later, when suddenly I had an interview and then the job within a week. Right before finals, because I am stupid and timing hates me. So now I spend a few days a week doing legal stuff. And drinking Einsteins winter brew, because as par for the course, although I have many, many dollars in Starbucks giftcards, I am addicted Einsteins, which I have to pay for.

Clever Planning Turning Around and Biting Me In The Ass: The professor said we'd be having a party on the last day of class. Yay parties! So I assumed that there would be food, and I didn't want to be rude, so I did not eat any breakfast. Funny thing, though, is that when he said "party", he actually meant "roughly nine million bottles of wine." On an empty stomach. The notes from the class after that? Don't make much sense.

Anyway, that is roughly the highlights. That, and the fact that I am reading a fabulous new series of books, involving Thursday Next, and in her world everyone has a pet dodo. And they make a "plock plock" noise. Which I have taken to repeating and adding on to almost every sentence I say to the Joker, as in, "Are you hungry? Plock plock" or, "Time for bed! Plock plock". Which rather irritates him, but there isn't much to say, because where do you even start?

I'll try to be better with the posting. Plock plock.

I'm Back!

2007-08-23T17:25:00.000-04:00

I realize it's been forever since I posted, but due to a totally made up time-stapling theory I just invented, I am pretending that all the time I was in Texas didn't actually occur in DC, so when I talk to K and E and I say "last week", I am actually referring to the second week of May, which is apparently rather confusing as I invented the time stapling theory, but did not share it.

And anyway, I'm back in Texas, so... ok. I just confused myself.

Yes, I am in Texas, which is GREAT! for me and my parents but maybe more than a little disconcerting for people in DC who spent 12 weeks this summer waiting for me to come back, only to have me leave again less than two weeks later. (Hi Joker! Hi Peanut! Love you!) The good news is, I came back down initially for my offer dinner at the firm I accepted an offer from, so... Yay! I have a job (come September. Of next year). Then I was here, and since school hasn't started yet I have nothing to do, and there was potentially a hurricane coming, and... Yeah. Three days turned into roughly 10. And I haven't actually physically gotten on a plane yet, so there is no telling when I will actually go home.

Because.... Y'all, seriously- NOTHING. TO. DO. I have no job currently. I have no school currently. So pretty much I sit around and watch the food channel, wondering things like, "Why is she baking a stew? No, really, I thought stew was more of an on the stove thing" and making vague threats, like "If Rachel Ray continues to talk, I will spend my remaining weeks of freedom tracking her ass down and will shove a bottle of 'EVOO" down her throat. Yum-o!"

Sometimes the food channel makes me cranky.

So hopefully, with the nothing to do and the free time and all, I will be able to post again more frequently, which is probably exciting only to me, because then I feel like I have been totally useful even though "writing in a personal blog that is not at all a source of income" and "being productive" are not actually as similar as I want them to be.

Mmmm, mango ginger martini.

Anyway, just checking in, that's all for now!

I Bet You Missed the Entries About Nature, Right??

2007-05-26T14:10:00.000-04:00

Many things are going on, and many things went on, and it got hard to figure out what to write about and what not to write about and how to write about stuff, without it sounding all journally and ridiculous. So I stopped writing, and kept trying to figure out how to write about it all, and finally I just decided I am not going to write about any of it and just stick to complaining about Nature again.

No, really.

So a Brief Update On My Life, before I get to Citycat v. Nature: 2007.

1. Wedding planning going well, hall is booked, date is set, dress is bought, men are all wearing kilts, the usual.

2. I am now living in Houston, working for my first of two law firms, and I absolutely love everything about it except the overwhelming and crushing terror that comes with not having a guaranteed permanent job. And of course missing the Joker and Wonderful Kate and E and Peanut and even the Devil Cat. I haven't been bitten in weeks.

But enough about all of that stuff, because I don't like to talk about it and it's my job, damn it. Onto:

Citycat v. Nature: 2007

Fucking nature.

About this time last year, the Peanut and I had our Grand Adventure in Yardwork involving: A. Giant Spiders, B. Wasps, C. Demon Vines, and D. Poison Sumac. Later I was attacked by hail and then there was the incident with the roach in the shower and I am STILL trying to reanimate my soul from that experience. But then winter happened, and the glorious thing about winter in DC is that when it is cold, there is nominally less nature to attack me.

Y'all? It's summer.

This weekend my firm took us all out to the country where we stayed in adorable little cabin type houses and went tubing and Texas country dancing and spent inordinate amounts of time hanging out on the front porch. The girl I was rooming with and I (I'm calling her the Editor) stayed in a room called "The Back Porch" on the back side of the big house we all hung out in. To get to our room we walked in back of the house up a little ramp. The room was awesome, the porch was awesome, the beer was awesome.

The Nature? Not. Awesome.

We arrived early Friday evening and everyone congregated on the porch. As we sat there, we became aware of unwelcome guests: bees. I do not like bees, and that isn't even irrational because they sting. Anyway, the conversation tended to go something like this:

Me: "AAAHH! Bee!" (flails arms wildly, hides head in shoulder of guy next to me.)

Every Guy, Ever, Because They Are All Just Too Macho For Words: "If you leave them alone, they will not bother you."

Me: "That is a lie, because they are bothering me right now, just by existing in my presence with the potential to sting."

Two or three guys: "Ok fine, we'll kill it." (Stomp around ineffectively, because they have had several beverages of the adult genre and bees are quick like bunnies as they fly around.)

Other guys: (nervously, because they aren't quite as macho as they thought they were): "Um, don't make it mad!"

Anyway, this went on for awhile, and eventually we all went to dinner and dancing and then hung out and had additional beverages until bees were no longer merely hard to stomp, they were hard to see, and also they probably all went to bed because really, we were up far past any other rational beings.

So the next morning the Editor and I are walking to our room, when OW. There was PAIN, of the STINGING VARIETY, on the back of my leg. And I didn't even SEE the fucking bee, so I was totally leaving it alone and it TOTALLY HURT ME. And y'all, it sucked. And then we were walking back to the porch and the Editor got stung, and now we were both pretty irritated and we chose to aim that irritation at the Smug Macho Guys who promised us that leaving them alone was the key.

Me: "SEE. I LEFT IT ALONE. IT STUNG ME OW!"

Guys: "You clearly pissed it off."

Me: "Did not! Also stung Editor."

Guys: "She pissed it off too."

Clearly we got nowhere with that line of conversation, but the next move was to go to the river where thankfully the only nature were some really cool turtles.

Anyway, once we got back I investigated and discovered not bees, but a wasps nest in the railing on our ramp. And that shut everyone up, because no one, even the Machoist Guy, claims that wasps won't attack if you leave them alone. Wasps are evil, sting-y creatures who need to die.

Which they did, after the NOT AT ALL HELPFUL girl at the front desk provided the Editor and I with a can of spray and told us to just, "Go ahead and spray them, you can stand like, 15 0r 20 feet away and they'll just fall down." Ahem. Given the fact that my last method of killing wasps involved a hose, Target bag, and Mexican Hat Dance, I was not convinced by the spray can.

But the good thing about the Macho Guys that are summering with me is that they also feel kind of bad when they lie and tell you you won't be stung and then a wasp stings you, and WaspKiller gallantly took the can of spray and eradicated the problem.

So my leg is all swollen and hot and itchy, but at least I know that the one that stung me is dead with his family.

I'm back, y'all.

In Which A Simple Question is the Most Important One of All

2007-04-19T11:43:00.000-04:00

He said, "Marry me."

I said, "Yes."

In Which A Simple Question Gets Entirely Out of Hand

2007-03-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

Me: (to S) “Are pistachios like mussels, in that you should only eat the open ones?”

S: “I have one sitting on my desk at this moment that has been here for a week as I contemplate that very question.”

Me: “Seems like a lot of effort for one pistachio. I have a giant bag of them, I’ve just been throwing the closed ones away.”

S: “Hmm.. Well, says here that they split because they are ripe. And… huh. And also… “"Large quantities of pistachio nuts are self-heating, and prone to spontaneous combustion."

Me: “….”

S: “Which, to be honest, seems really weird.”

Me: “Seems really weird?? My snack food is going to EXPLODE and you think it SEEMS WEIRD??”

S: “Combust, Citycat, not explode. A subtle difference.”

Peanut: (another gchat window.) “I am going to type you because I have no idea you have already quite lost your mind.”

Me: (to Peanut): “Did you know "Large quantities of pistachio nuts are self-heating, and prone to spontaneous combustion."”???

Peanut: “I… no. No, I did not know that? What?? What is a ‘large quantity’”??

Me: “I don’t know. THEY FAILED TO IMPART THAT KNOWLEDGE.”

S: “Apparently, walnuts do this too. Do you think people in Alaska can use large quantities of nuts to heat their homes?”

Me: (to Peanut): “Walnuts do it too.”

Peanut: “Great. JUST GREAT. I am afraid of nuts now. HAPPY?”

Me: “Um.”

Peanut: “I don’t want to go into the city for this meeting. Can I tell my boss I’m sick?”

Me: “Tell him your nuts exploded.”

Yeah, that’s how things have been going, the above conversation also occurred on a day when I had a conversation about Jesus bread and the proper pairing of alcohol with illegal narcotics. (Heroin and red wine, cocaine with a nice white wine spritzer…)

Work has lost its mind, yet again, but this time in even more creative ways. Classes are going pretty well, except earlier this week we were discussing a negligent homicide case where a small child died, and my professor stated the following: “Babies are scary. I almost lost one once. Just luck that it lived.” Really?? My professor almost KILLED his CHILD? Good to know, Dr. Creepy.

Provided everything continue to stay on course, the Joker and I embark on a cross country drive tomorrow to transport my car down to Texas. Stories to come! Happy weekend!

Friends Are There To Bitch With You...

2007-03-21T10:31:00.000-04:00

But It's Maybe Not Such A Good Idea To Bitch During Class

Tuesdays are my interminable days, I have a full day's work and four hours of classes and people wonder why I can't show up to baseball games. Anyway, last night Peanut FINALLY signed on, after having been MIA for days, which is simply not fair, especially when I have things to complain about. Which... Hi, have we met?

Anyway, again gchat is the devil and we all need more sleep, as evidenced by the following:

Citycat: "Hi! You are back!"

Peanut: "Yes. But I am grumpy and hate all life."

Citycat: "Oh, I hate it when that happens. Um, would wine help? (I find wine helps.)"

Peanut: "NO."

"Sorry, am a bitch today."

Citycat: "No problem, I get it. Also..." (proceeds to complain about various complainy type things.)

Peanut: "Bitch."

"I'll kick her ass."

"Mainly because I just need an ass to kick."

Citycat: "Fair enough."

Peanut: (continues to complain about work, e-mails, life.)

Peanut: "Ok, seriously. Give me somebody's ass to dick."

............ "Kick!"

Citycat: "Ahem."

Peanut: "That was a bad bad slip. Ok, so now I am laughing. Hard. (No pun intended)."

Citycat: "So am I. And that is a bad thing, because we are talking about the death penalty and that's not funny."

Peanut: "HA HA HA. Am crying now."

Citycat: "Me too, which... maybe professor thinks tears are sadness over death penalty?"

Peanut: "Probably not."

Citycat: "No. But "give me somebody's ass to dick" needs to be your little myspace thing."

Peanut: "I don't know how I feel about that."

Citycat: "You know I'm blogging this, right?"

Peanut: "I hate you."

Yeah, It's Pretty Much Like That

2007-03-14T18:24:00.000-04:00

I'm not so angry anymore, which is nice, and even nicer for those around me, as the Joker has lost that haunted look he was starting to get around the eyes. Unfortunately, I have apparently replaced the Angry with the Crazy, because I have lost my mind entirely. In the past weeks I have:

- Cut myself relatively severely with A. Scissors, and B. Paper.

- Missed my stop on the last metro and wandered drunkenly around suburban MD at three in the morning until I literally coerced a non-working cab into driving me home.

- Was in the same actual physical room as Kiefer Sutherland.

- Did not die of heart attack while in the same physical room as Kiefer Sutherland.

- Decided, once again, that it was a good idea to trim my own bangs.

- Reaffirmed that it is, in fact, NOT a good idea to trim ones own bangs.

- Did not make an appointment to get my hair done for fear that she will yell at me about aforesaid trimming.

Are you getting the drift here? I AM NOT WELL, PEOPLE.

But at least I am not alone. I go crazy, I bring the troops with me. I will leave you with an actual, barely edited conversation between myself and S today:

What Aurochs Have to Do With Law School, Or, A Defense of Kosher Pork

Citycat: Sigh. I canNOT believe I am about to seriously ask this question, but what was the name of the giant wild cow that the Russian "made up”?

I actually need it to make a point in animal law.

S: You're kidding. Okay, I'm trying to remember the cow. Do you have any more context?

Citycat: It was his going away party, we were sitting around your living room before we ate and he brought up this giant cow thing, and we laughed, and he wikipediaed it, and we accused him of making that up, too. And then the Brit said something insane and we all believed him because he's British and we determined that American’s believe anything said with a British accent.

S: An auroch!

Citycat: YES!

S: You're referencing aurochs in animal rights law?

Citycat: Thanks, how on EARTH did you come up with that?

S: Because I know about them. I was big into ancient animals for a while when I was a kid. Particularly big versions of current mammals.

Citycat: No, not aurochs per se. We are looking at the Japanese and Norwegian arguments towards whaling.

S: The name's about all I remember now.

Citycat: And I wanted aurochs as an example of a wild animal species going extinct because we ate it.

S: Gotcha

Citycat: And that sentence seems funny to me, even though it's actually sad.

S: "Because we ate it" just sounds like it should be a punchline.

Citycat: I know. (Continues reading). Miso soup is whale? Ew.

S: Wait, what? I always thought it was vegetarian.

That would be a particularly cruel joke.

Citycat: (Reads more carefully). Apparently it has varieties.

But yes, that would be a special kind of evil

S: Ha! When I said soybeans, I actually meant whale!

You are now cast out from the ranks of vegans.

Citycat: That is just mean. I eat meat happily, and wouldn't eat whale.

S: Yeah. I eat stupid animals.

Citycat: Or dolphin. Or veal or lamb, because I pick and choose my ethical stance on meat based entirely on friendliness and cuteness.

S: (grin).

Citycat: So many sentences in this conversation are striking me as hilarious.

S: Hey, I'm completely behind basing your value system on aesthetics.

Citycat: That is true, you have an uncanny ability to base ethics on aesthetics instead of anything remotely moral.

S: :)

Citycat: I mean, who can really get worked up about a chicken?

S: I was thinking, that may in effect mean that my entire system of morals is itself amoral.

Citycat: But I have to add taste I guess, because I do feel bad about pigs, because they are smart, social animals and what happens to them is terrible.

....But bacon is sooo delicious.

S: Yeah. Pigs are where my statement about stupid animals falls into hypocrisy.

Citycat: Yeah. I should stop eating pig

Or, only eat humanely slaughtered pig

S: Kosher pork.

Someone should sell it.

Anyway, I have to run

We'll continue this absurdity later.

As will I, y'all.

I Am Not So Much Filled With Sunshine And Light, These Days

2007-02-26T11:50:00.000-05:00

I am officially Unamused. Not so much by any one particular thing, but by life in general which has apparently conspired to make me angry and hate-filled. I… don’t know people. It’s just how it is. I think I terrified Peanut the other night when I very calmly explained my personal policy regarding what is basically my two current positions on life: either I can like and respect something, or I need to make you bleed. I don’t know where the polarity comes from, but, hi! I am all of a sudden angry and bloodthirsty! I am fun to be around! I swear!

Although I do have some ideas of where the anger comes from. (“Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear…”) (Sigh. Am crazy. But bonus points if you know where that quote is from.) For example, lets look at the fun in my life these days.

Law School: So I have a class with a professor who is absolutely batshit crazy in the good way. I’m not sure if I can explain what that means exactly, but he is tough and funny and pushes you and all in all it turns out enjoyable. And since most professors have pretty much realized that the Socratic method is stupid for night students (“Why didn’t you do the reading?”- “I was on-call at the hospital.”, or “I’m sorry, my doctoral thesis was due”, or, “My wife gave birth.” Seriously people, I am not one of these amazingly over-achievey type people, but they are out there, and in my classes.) we are usually “on call” for a day, wherein we are totally grilled about every little thing that day but then it is over and we can go back to surfing the internet. … Not that I do that, of course.

So I am on call tonight, and I spent all weekend doing reading and notetaking, and it appears that in my seemingly infinite stupidity I managed to pick the most complex, difficult, stupid subject in the world to be on call for. I knew I was in trouble when last class we hit a particularly complex issue and the professor said, “Yeah, this is almost as bad as what we are doing next week”. Then I opened the book and the first paragraph basically said, “We like to encourage law students to attempt to find a cohesive theory which makes sense of this, but we’re telling you upfront that one doesn’t actually exist. So really, just bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.” (I may be paraphrasing there.) So I am not looking forward to tonight even a little, tiny amount.

Work.

Oh, god.

Ok, first of all, I am really glad that my particular office is not engaged in something critical, like disaster response or keeping track of nuclear weapons or something, because that would require someone other than me to actually show up. Which… no one did. Because yesterday water fell from the sky, and we must all stay home and pay homage to the weather god so he doesn’t drop rocks on us or something next time. I don’t know, but it’s 36 degrees and hasn’t snowed in almost 24 hours, and I am just not feeling your “snow day”, people.

(See how empathetic and loving I am feeling towards my fellow man these days? Shut up. I hate everything.)

My boss is here for relatively few hours, and I have something that absolutely has to be done because it is a requirement from outside the agency. This report is my actual responsibility, and getting it done has been compromised by the following:

I don’t have access to the system I need access to,
Which is broken, anyway.

See how good my day has been?

So I am trying to get this thing accomplished, which is also problematic because then it needs approval, and everyone who needs to approve it is very important and they must spend much time analyzing every detail, no matter how many times I try to explain to them that the sum total of the changes I made amounts to: The Date. It says 2007 now, ok? No, I am not entirely 100% sure that the Roman Calendar was correct, and no, the fact that it is now the Year of the Pig does not need to be reflected in this, and could you PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SIGN IT, because it needs to be in the system by Friday and the system apparently only works .3% of the time. Sob.

This is made even worse by the fact that I hit print, and went to the printer, and the printer freaked right the fuck out, and every possible light was blinking and I swear to god it said: “EMO. Bad Communication.”

Y’all? My office equipment just went emo on me. You know what? I don’t like emo people, let alone office equipment, and to be honest there just aren’t enough people here for me to send my printer to therapy. Office equipment should not need interventions, is all I am saying.

Then I have this incredibly enlightening conversation with my boss:

Boss: "Put this on the website where the other one is."

Me: "The other one is not there."

Boss: "Is."

Me: "Isn't."

Boss: "IS."

Me: "Isn't. Look, I BUILT THE GODDAMN SITE. Is NOT. But, I could put it in HR's section."

Boss: "Wait! I have an idea! Put it in HR's section! Then we don't have to worry about whether it was there before."

Me: "Once again, your brilliance and independent thinking disarms me. Now resend it to me because the first version was all twisty."

(resends)

Me: "This version is all twisty too."

Boss: (exasperated). "How twisty is it?"

(Proceed to all hang out over Boss’s computer and discuss relative "twistyness" of said document.)

So to sum up:

Tonight: On call for subject that by its own admission defies sense.
Report: Finally put together, being nitpicked by office.
Office Equipment: Cutting so it can feel.
Document: Posted. (Is still twisty.)

I need wine. And maybe a sledgehammer.

Still Not a Grown Up!

2007-02-14T15:14:00.000-05:00

You know, one would think that the whole, “changing careers and moving to Texas” thing might indicate some movement towards, I don’t know, maturity? I mean, I will now have to wear suits and heeled shoes to work, and am probably going to have to actually drive myself to work every day. Which I have avoided for years, not just because I hate to drive but also because that makes it extremely difficult to go to happy hour after work and drink until you forget your name. But I digress.

The point is, career change, move, serious relationship, and y’all? I am digressing.

I am thrilled that we have had Weather, and that Weather has caused the cancellation of things work and school related, mainly because I have all sorts of things that need to get done in order for myself to function in the world. Unfortunately, the juxtaposition of work and school means that basic, simple necessities do not ever get done because all day long I am trapped in buildings where all I can do is surf the internet.

Take clothing, for example. All week I have looked like a model for a losing designer on Project Runway because the dry cleaner is holding all of my clothing hostage. (Well, perhaps they have a reason to, seeing as how I have neither gone to pick up the laundry nor paid them for the laundry.) But see, here is the problem. As I grow older and (in theory) more mature, I have bought clothing that reflects a capable, professional attitude. Unfortunately, that clothing cannot be washed by me. So finally, by taking a day off of work two weeks ago, I managed to do laundry, and fill a basket with roughly 90% of what I own to be taken to the cleaners around the corner. This clothing would probably have sat in the basket, mocking me, for weeks had I not had a fortuitous bout with stupidity, in which I brought the wrong textbooks to the Jokers and rather than go home at lunch to get the right books (it was SEVEN DEGREES, PEOPLE) I just skipped class altogether. However, it was not a total loss, in that I did force myself to carry the armful of laundry across the apartment complex IN the seven degree weather and give it to the nice cleaner. (Also, the dry cleaner is next to the store that sells wine.)

That was over a week ago.

Of course, Joker and I forgot to get the clothing on Saturday, so I have been forced to wear… interesting outfits all week. For example, in the last three days I have sported:

Pants with a high waist and front pleats. (No, I do not have even the faintest idea why I own these).

Pants that are 6 sizes too big and make me appear to be playing dress up in my mothers pajamas,

and, my personal favorite,

Pants that I thought were JUST FINE, thanks, until I looked down at work and saw the GIANT HOLE IN THE CROTCH.

Classy, I know.

Or take yesterday. Again, we got out of work early, so having some time on my hands, I decided to stop at the store to procure some food. Lately the Joker and I have been trying that a little, making dinner instead of eating things with names like “popcorn chicken” and “cheesy bites.” See? Adult! However, I was having trouble putting together meal options, and then it occurred to me- most adults do not do the bulk of their food shopping at Rite Aid.

Sigh.

However, the other thing that I did manage to do yesterday is finally clean the bathroom. Now, I am maybe a little anal when it comes to the bathroom, in that I am very big on the disinfectant. I mean, my room? I hardly eat in there, so I am not worried about disinfecting it, although I do like to vacuum it once in awhile. But the bathroom? Things happen in there, things which are by nature… icky. So I try to make sure that pretty much every square inch of my bathroom is covered in bleach at least every few weeks (with spot cleaning in between.) To the extent that in the 4 or so months I have been living there, I have actually bleached out the toilet seat. But, hey, clean!

So the other day I was thinking about Thursday, and how I have no class and the Joker is not coming over and my paper will finally be finished. And I thought, self, that sounds like a great night for a relaxing bubble bath with some nice champagne and a girly novel. And then I looked at the bathroom and thought, GAH! Because there was no way in hell I could relax in a room in that state of… well, it wasn’t a pretty state. So when I came home yesterday I changed into clothes I could not ruin with bleach and about 30 minutes, one rag, one new toilet scrubber, one knocked off sink bottom (oops), and about half a bottle of cleaner later, my bathroom was bubble bath worthy.

So I may be a fashion reject with no who grocery shops at a drug store, but at least I have a clean bathroom.

Addendum.

Ok. So it’s Valentine’s Day. This is a sore subject for a lot of people, everything from the rejection of a corporate consumerist holiday to feelings of inadequacy or sadness if you do not have a partner. I don’t know about any of that. I have never really cared one way or another about Valentine’s Day, except that there is chocolate and- single or in pairs- it’s a damn good excuse to drink champagne. And I am always a fan of a damn good excuse to drink champagne.

However, I do have to say that I very much look forward to getting dressed up and eating out with the Joker at our favorite restaurant tonight, and coming home to curl up in bed to our favorite TV shows. And I will enjoy my presents, because, well, first of all, who doesn’t like presents? (I, for one? Like presents). But not because it’s Valentine’s Day and I have gifts and plans to prove to everyone that I am worth something. Instead, because every gift the Joker gives me is something that reaffirms that he is listening, that he knows me, that he thinks about me and cares. It’s not a “Valentine’s” day gift, or even a Christmas gift or anniversary gift, it is a gift from him to me, that reflects both our personalities and just happens to be exchanged on a given day.

Further proof that while the day doesn’t matter, the guy sure does.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It's Another Saturday Night...

2007-02-10T20:55:00.000-05:00

And I don't give a damn if I got money or not, because there is work. However, there is something to be said for many of your friends being in grad school at once.

Joker: "Work on your paper."

Me: "Yeah, I know, blah blah direct action, blah blah unrecognized tribes... I think I'll gchat Wave. Hi, Wave!" (Note, Kate and I are now official bridesmaids in Wave's wedding. There is taffeta involved. Kate, Wave, and I? Probably going to cause trouble But good trouble.)

Wave: "Hello!"

Me: "I am grumpy and feeling bitchy and want to be needlessly snarky."

Wave: "Awesome, oh Friend Who Is Wearing Taffeta. Who do you want me to cattily snark on?"

Wave and I: (catty snarking.)

Me: "I feel better. Also, kind of "Mean Girls." But I have to work on a paper."

Wave: "Me too."

Joker: "Are you working on your paper?"

Me: "What? Paper? Yes, yes am working on paper!"

WitchHunter: "Can you do me a huge favor and proofread my paper that I am also working on for grad school?"

Me: (Work! That is not mine! That I can do instead of mine without feeling like big procrastinating failure! YAY!) "Of course."

Me: (reads paper, discusses paper.).

Joker: "Um, maybe you should.... paper?"

Me: "Yeah, yeah." (typey typey typey.)

PC's Glurb: "It is Saturday night. I am in law school. I'm working."

Me: "I hear you, pal."

Phone: "Ring!"

Me: (yay! The PHONE! Anything is better than me, my computer, and my research all alone on Joker's bed."

S: "Hi! You know that paper I am working on? I have some questions."

Me: (Yes! More work that is not my work that I get to do, which is awesome because this paper has been assigned since last semster and I have been thinking about it for six months and frankly I am bored to tears with it.) "Yes! Ask away!"

S and I: "Babble babble, informed consent, babble babble coersion, babble babble true material fact."

WitchHunter: (Comes in paper in hand.) (Listens to S's and my conversation for a second.) "I'll be back." (leaves.)

S and I: (Finally agree on various things that are 'Outside the scope of this paper.')

Me: (Go to WitchHunter's room.)

WitchHunter and I: (Discuss proper AP citation method. Play on internet. Discover Dirty Ren Faire.)

WitchHunter and I: "WHY ARE WE NOT AT DIRTY REN FAIRE?"

WitchHunter and I to Joker: "Ha! We are giving up on our papers and going to Dirty Ren Faire in Jersey. See you tomorrow."

Joker: "You can't go see (apparently incredibly hot girl that I don't know) without me!"

WitchHunter: "Wait... You KNEW about this???"

Joker: "Um... yeah?"

WitchHunter and I: (defeated). (Hating Joker a little bit.") "Fine."

Me: "Sigh." (typey typey typey.)

So, yeah. I have been working on a paper all night, and somehow that has turned into the most social evening I've had in awhile.

Viva la grad school!

"Cheddar Bay Biscuits?" "Endless Shrimps!"

2007-02-06T10:49:00.000-05:00

So there are a variety of things that I probably should write about, including a diatribe on the fact that it was 7 degrees here yesterday, and “7” is not an appropriate number of degrees, ever. But first I have to talk about last Thursday and the joy that is Red Lobster.

Now, there are two kinds of people in this world. Take this mini quiz to determine what kind of person you are:

You just read the sentence above. Did you:

A. Think to yourself, or maybe actually yell out loud, “Red Lobster! I LOVE Red Lobster!” Or,

B. Think, “Seriously? Red Lobster? Isn’t she in Washington DC, a city in which actual seafood restaurants exist?”

Because these are the two kinds of people in this world- those with an unrelenting and utterly nonsensical love for Red Lobster, and… well, everyone else. It’s actually a strange cultural phenomenon. It’s one of things that no one really talks about and rarely comes up into conversation, but as soon as it does inevitably one person in the room will look at you with this gleam in their eye and go, “Cheddar bay biscuits?” and you will answer, “Endless shrimp!” and I am telling you, a lifelong friendship will be born. Two summers ago at the beach house I ended up permanent beer pong partner and sleep arrangement sharer (we slept, on average, 5 to a bed, not because there weren’t enough beds, but clearly because we didn’t have enough brain cells) with a guy based solely on our mutual love of the Lobster. This Christmas, Wonderful Kate brought E and I along to her work Christmas party, and somehow Red Lobster came into conversation and while the rest of the table engaged in a perfectly legitimate conversation about where people were from and where they went to school, the girl next to me and I had a 25 minute conversation about shrimp that ended in hugging. Hugging, y’all. And I bet that there are at least a few of you who are reading this entry while surreptitiously googling the nearest Red Lobster and discretely calling others like us. As for the rest of you? Sigh. You’re missing out.

A is a Red Lobster person, just like I am. And even with the startling number of things we have in common, it still took us over two years to discover this shared passion and even then we were a little incredulous. “Really? You like Red Lobster? I mean, like it, or LIKE like it??” (Yes, we treat the Lobster much like a fifth grade crush.) “No, I LIKE like it. I love it!” “Cheddar Bay biscuits?” “Endless Shrimps!” And a new tradition began.

Given the fact that I live within walking distance of a Red Lobster, and go out to eat all the time, the sheer amount of ceremony that goes into a Red Lobster night with me and A is astonishing, (unless, of course, you are a Red Lobster person, and then you understand.) It starts a week in advance, someone saying, “We need to hang out. I think shrimps are in order.” “Endless shrimps??” “….Of course! Are there any other kind?” And we pick a date usually about a week in advance.

But oh, it doesn’t stop there. The entire week leading up to the Red Lobster night is a flurry of shrimp related activity. There are “number of hours until shrimps” countdowns. We go online and peruse the menu and discuss our options. We debate the merits of seafood fondue over king crab legs. We accuse everyone and every thing of stealing our shrimps. (“But that’s ok, because they are ENDLESS!”) Each day is a little sadder because it is not Shrimp Day. Seriously, y’all. We try to do this once a month, most likely because we would not be able to handle any more than that.

Last Thursday was a scheduled Shrimps Night, and the Peanut was having a bad day, and the Peanut? Also TOTALLY a Red Lobster person. So the three of us met for endless shrimps and a nice dose of alcohol.

And… ok. It’s the Red Lobster. If we want fine dining, we go to restaurant week. Part of the love of the Lobster has to do with its kitsch, we are aware of that. We don’t expect world class service.

However.

I would suggest to Red Lobster that even it might do a little better if it refrained from throwing food onto its customers, a situation we observed not once, but twice, before we got our salads. Which is also a tad deceptive, because it took a good 30 minutes before we got our salads, a situation that would not have been nearly so bad if our alcohol had at least arrived. But no, it was a good thirty minutes of sitting at a table, with nothing at ALL, including cheddar bay biscuits, just watching the slapstick comedy routine of the waiters throwing food on the customers. Honestly? It was fabulous.

Our waitress was actually very sweet, and once we got our food everything was fine. We drank and ate ourselves stupid, which is totally the point of Red Lobster.

I can’t wait until next month.

Letting the Days Go By

2007-01-25T12:33:00.000-05:00

“And you may ask yourself. Well… How did I get here?”

I read a lot of people’s personal blogs. It’s my hobby, like some people read about politics or sports or whatever. After the New Year a lot of people posted things looking back on 2006, reviewing how their resolutions had turned out, making plans for the future. And as I vaguely contemplated doing the same thing, I looked back over last year, and…

Holy Shit, y’all.

2006 was not supposed to be a big year for me. I didn’t start the year out with big plans. I had one modest resolution I’ll get into in a minute. I had no intention of changing my life.

My entire life changed in 2006. And I think it all began in Texas.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack.
And you may find yourself in another part of the world.”

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I went to Texas in September of 2005 with the Red Cross to help with Hurricane Rita. I spent three weeks there, just over two of them in a small church building with no screens sleeping on the floor with 20 some odd other people in an area with no electricity or potable water. We fed people.

I don’t know how to explain what I started to figure out there except that it started with SD. By the time I went to Texas, I had been living in DC almost ten years. I had cultivated a personality over that time, figured out who I was and what I wanted. I had a life, and with that life came certain parameters, and I lived within those parameters. The life I had was a really good life, and I had no reason to question those parameters. SD made me question those parameters.

“And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?”

I don’t think it was so much about SD as a person. He’s fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but it isn’t like he did anything outrageous to suddenly make me question myself. He was just him. And he didn’t fit into any of the parameters of my life. Yet… he made me happy. Not in a, “I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you” kind of way, but in a, “I haven’t laughed this hard or felt so calm and happy in a really long time” kind of way. And maybe once or twice I stopped for a second and thought something along the lines of, “You would have missed this. If you were home, in your comfort zone with all of your shields, you would never have even thought about this. You would have walked right on by it.” I knew that somehow I was uncomfortable with that thought. It buzzed in the back of my head, a little noise.

“Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...”

But I didn’t really delve into it, because I came home, and I was three weeks behind in law school and I was three weeks behind at work and then it was the holidays and finals and my general November-to-December freak out. Except during this time SD called me. And I was sitting on the balcony, smoking and drinking wine and talking to him, and complaining about work, and he said to me, “You don’t like your job. You don’t want to be a bureaucrat. But you’re comfortable making a lot of money and not having to worry, so you go home every night and you drink your wine and you pretend to be happy.”

What?

Oh.

I have no idea how SD knew that. He swears he was kidding at the time, but it hit me between the eyes like a ton of bricks. That little noise? Got a lot louder.

“And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!”

In January, I joined a gym. In Texas I had met another guy who was simply in phenomenal physical shape. Again, with the comfort zone entirely stripped away I could see myself more clearly and realized that my lack of physical conditioning was appalling. So I joined the gym, and I started working with a personal trainer, for the first time to get strong, not merely to lose weight.

My life was very quiet for a few months. That was good, because there was so much noise in my head. The gym became my safe place, a place I went to get on an elliptical and run and run and let my thoughts go until they made sense. I realized some things. My best friend and I weren’t friends anymore. Somehow, over the last year I had completely stopped talking to a person who had been my other half and a huge part of my identity, and I had barely even noticed. I had quit a lot of the activities I used to do because I didn’t have the time and they just weren’t fun anymore. I didn’t have the emotional energy for relationships or people. I went to the gym. I watched a LOT of TV. American Idol made me happy. 24 and Supernatural drew more emotion from me than real life had for a long time. And for awhile I went to the gym and I watched TV and I read funny recaps of the TV that I watched and I listened to the noise in my head. For awhile, that was enough.

About March I decided it was time to reach out a little. By then I had realized a few things, namely that who I had been, a lot of those parameters, were simply not who I was anymore. I had some new friends, I had some old friends, and I needed to cultivate relationships with the ones I really valued that were not based on the person I had developed while I was in college but the person I was now. So I called El Capitan. And she was fabulous and dragged me out of the house and made me social. But not just to bars where we got drunk and sang off key to Journey. To dinner parties. To BBQ’s. To long talks on the balcony with a bottle of wine and contraband cigarettes. It was wonderful.

Peanut joined my gym, and we spent long, long hours sitting outside after a workout drinking protein shakes and talking. Kate and Top Model and I ate sushi and hummus and watched ANTM. A and I had hysterical gchat conversations. The noise had quieted down some. I could look, really look, at the life I had.

I had a fabulous life.

And I didn’t want it.

“Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!”

One of my good friends from law school left for Iraq in the spring. It had happened kind of suddenly, so he had already gone through the summer interview process for associateships. We went out for drinks to say goodbye to him, and he started talking about the jobs he had had lined up. He was planning on moving to Texas after graduation. Texas was a great place to practice law. Texas paid associates a ton of money. Texas was more laid back than the DC/New York area.

My mind started again.

My parents live in Texas.

I LOVE Texas.

But… I have a job. And a life. And there are RULES, and the rules say that you don’t quit a great job and move thousands of miles away. By yourself. You just don’t.

But then I read some blogs, and read about people who had. Who had done just that. And I got excited, like I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

So I researched firms and entered the on campus interview lottery. And I took a week off of work and did the on campus interviews. And suddenly I was being taken out to fabulous restaurants and being flown to Texas every 36 hours and there were interviews and insanity and I liked the firms and they liked me and I had offers and I accepted them.

I… accepted them.

So even though work didn’t yet know and life had not changed one bit in the present, I had committed to changing my entire life. My city. My career. My fabulous Canadian family who refuses to move with me. Peanut, who I am still deluding myself I can talk into moving with me.

Yesterday I told my bosses, which is why I am able to finally post some of this stuff here. In three months I will no longer be a “mid-twentysomething beaurocrat/law student living in the Nation's Capital and trying not to fall down to often”. (Well, except the falling down part, that will never change.) I’m not exactly sure how all this is going to work out.

And I’ve obviously left out a big part of all of this, which was meeting the Joker. By the time I met him I had already made most of the big decisions, it was just the specifics left. That voice from Texas came back into my head, except this time it was saying, “Thank god I didn’t miss this.” Whatever path I had moved to, whatever changes I had made, had worked at least in part. Because I didn’t miss this.

And sometimes it’s hard. I look back on 2006 and think about when it was quiet and sometimes I miss that. Because it’s hard to feel emotions based on real life instead of reality TV. And it’s hard to love real people and have real relationships instead of imaginary ones with people on the internet. And it’s a lot more tiring to actually implement big life changing plans than to dream about them. But that’s life, and that’s ok.

“And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done.”

I don’t know exactly what I’ve done. But 2007 is here, and I’m going to find out.

2007? The HELL??

2007-01-08T12:19:00.000-05:00

Hey, y'all!

Ok, so I survived Christmas with the Family That is Not My Own, quite well, actually. In fact, the Joker probably should have informed me that his family is genetically predisposed to awesomeness, because seriously? These are potentially the nicest people in the world. So clearly, I went in worrying about all the wrong stuff. I worried about mean sisters or possesive mothers, all of which was clearly insane. I did not, however, worry about the following:

1. Missing Luggage
2. Projectile Vomiting.

Both of which graced my holiday.

The first mild calamity was that our luggage decided that it wanted to stay in Texas, where our layover was. I can't say I BLAME the luggage, because if given a choice I too, generally want to stay in Texas. In fact, I have the sort of East Coast bias where Texas actually is kind of "West" to me, and I have a vague distrust of the actual "western" states, because... what? I don't know. I don't even necessarily LIKE it, but I get the East Coast thing. And I seriously thought (think? still?) that the Seattle Seahawks were (are) a hockey team. So I couldn't really blame the luggage, at least my luggage, for assuming Texas was the end game.

However, it added just slightly to the awkwardness of meeting the SO's parents when I had to borrow his mom's pajama's the first night. Again, thank god the whole family just rocks, because that's the type of thing that can scar.

Anyway, it got far worse Friday night, when I thought that I was worried about meeting a bunch of people. I had spent the day baking cookies with the Joker's mom (ok, ok, I know, the whole experience was a little Hallmarky, and I loved it), and life was great, until about an hour before the people were scheduled to arrive.

I got nauseated.
I got shakey.
I got cold chills.
I became violently ill.

But y'all. seriously, one would think I am Southern sometimes, because I manage to pull off the entire party, meeting all of the Joker's family friends and the like, being violently ill every twenty minutes, and no one noticed. I occaisionally rock.

So that night was No. Fun., as I got up every hour on the hour to be ill, and finally at 3 am realized the following:

1. We had a 6 hour drive into the mountains the next morning.
2. If I couldn't keep water down, I was going to get seriously dehydrated and may need medical attention.
3. I was not, under any circumstances, ruining these nice people's Christmas.

So I grabbed a bottle of water and a pillow and relocated to the bathroom floor until by sheer force of will I kept water down. By the morning I was shakey, but travel ready.

Then the Joker got sick.

We all made it to Grandma's and had a lovely Christmas, but I seriously do not recommend the flu upon meeting your SO's family for the first time. Especially since his whole family got sick after we left, and now I just keep picturing his family commenting on me:

"Yep, met the Joker's girlfriend. She makes us sick."

Sigh.

Anyway, it's the New Year, and looking back over last year I was kind of like, Holy Shit! How did all THAT happen? And the more I think about it, the more it began back in Texas in '05, and there's a lot there I never wrote about, and I think it might be time. So I'll be working on those posts for awhile.

Happy New Years!

Tis the Season To... Pass the Xanax.

2006-12-15T16:03:00.000-05:00

Hi, it’s December! Pretty late in December, too. And the last time I wrote, was… Oh. Back before Thanksgiving, huh? Sorry about that.

But of course with the finals and the Christmas shopping and the parties at work for various people who left my agency, I pretty much wouldn’t know if it was December or January or 2008.

(It’s not 2008, right? Because I am supposed to graduate from law school then and I think there’s probably a form I need to fill out.) Anyway, here’s a quick nonsensical update because it is Friday and that is just how I roll, people.

Law School:

Paper from Hell for Class from Hell?? Complete. 34 fucking pages long with 84 footnotes. At one point, I tried to footnote a footnote. Microsoft Word? Does not allow this particular function. Do you know why? Because only crazy people try to footnote footnotes, that’s why.

Con Law II: Glad to report to y’all that law school professors? STILL ALL LIE. I don’t care how much I enjoyed your class, if you TELL us we will have a three question, 3 hour exam, and we show up to a four question, three and a half hour exam, that is a lie. If you tell us that the questions will be equally weighted, then weigh them 35, 30, 20, and 15 points, that is a lie. I do not know why you are always with the lying, but I would like very much for you to stop.

Indian Law: Well, kind of good news here. This class had a test/paper option, and since day one I was all, “I am SO taking the test”, and I laughed and snorted in the face of the paper, and I planned on the test, and then… And then one day in class my mind disconnected from my mouth and I just kept talking, on and on about things I was actually kind of making up entirely, and my Professor was deeply intrigued by all of the things that I was saying, despite the fact that I had no actual facts or anything to back them up. So he asked me to write a paper about my utterly unfounded theory, and I really LIKE this professor, so I agreed. Well y’all? Turns out I was right. Everything I made up I found actual research to back up! It was very exciting! And now the professor has a rough draft and almost all is done. Of course, this paper is 19 pages and has 86 footnotes, but…

Human Rights: 60 Day extension, bitches.

(Sorry about the ‘bitches’ thing, I am sure you are all quite lovely and not at all bitchy, unless of course you are certain people, and you know who you are. Everyone else, I’m just punchy.)

Random Stuff

S got a Wii, and after much discussion on the impossibility of actually saying that without snickering like ten year olds, a big group of us got together and played the Wii, and I laughed so hard I fell down. Because besides the fact that it is a lewd joke waiting to happen, there is also a game involving rhythm, and bunnies, and I have none. (Rhythm that is.) (Well, actually, also bunnies.) But when a whole bunch of slap happy tired people get together and try to dance hip hop with a bunch of bunnies, and all of these people are capable professional people and many are also graduate students, and when these people then proceed to completely and utterly fail, all you can do is laugh.

Comment of the Week: (on the characters on the Wii) “Who is that Asian girl?” “Michael Jackson.”

Joker and the Upcoming Holiday Season

The Joker is fabulous, y’all, having put up marvelously with my finals schizophrenia, where I am all, “I want a hug don’t touch me!” and “Go away where are you GOING?!?”. He also put up with me the night before my con law exam when I kept having nightmares in which seminal cases on equal protection became murder scenes and I was chased around by angry footnotes. This is particularly notable because I felt the need to wake him up each time this occurred, and he did not once attempt to smother me with the pillow.

Thanksgiving went very well, by the way, and my parents and the Joker got along well and yay things are just wonderful.

Except. I am not sure if I mentioned it here yet, but I am now going to California for Christmas to meet the Joker’s family. This is bad enough, but allow me to explain the evolution of what is happening when I am there:

Beginning, Many Months Ago, When I Clearly Wasn’t Thinking Straight:
Joker: “Do you want to spend Christmas with my family in CA? I have 2 parents and a brother and a sister and a brother in law.”

Me: “Whoa, I am an only child and that is a lot of people, but yes, I would like to do that.”

About a Month Later:
Joker: “Oh yeah… we are also driving 5 hours on Christmas Eve to my grandparents house, where you will meet many more members of my family but I can’t actually tell you who.”

Me: “Oh, really? This is… this is getting scarier.”

About a Month Ago:
Joker: “Oh, um yeah. Plans totally changed because my parents friends and everyone they’ve ever known want to meet you, so now there is a big party Friday night before we go to grandma’s.”

Me: “Your best friend has Xanax, right?”

Last Week:
Joker: “I don’t know if I should tell you this. But turns out… All my sister’s friends want to meet you, so they will also be there.”

Me: “There really is a fine line between love and hate, isn’t there?”

Yesterday:
Joker: “Did I mention that all my brother’s friends will be there too?”

Me: “Of COURSE they will! The whole WEST GODDAMN COAST is going to be there, and I am meeting ELEVENTY BILLION PEOPLE, and one of them is a Judge, and that is already enough to give me anxiety attacks, and maybe you should KILL ME NOW.

Now really, to be fair, I am excited about meeting the Joker’s family, but when did my life become a Ben Stiller movie? And I am of course a little worried, especially because 6 days is a long time to be with a strange family, and I am afraid they are eventually going to come to the realization that I am not “quirky and charming” so much as “batshit crazy”. (See above re: mouth disconnecting from brain.)

So I have less than a week until CA, and a week until this party, and tonight I am SO going shoe shopping.

Happy Holidays!

I Am Thankful They Have Not Yet Committed Me to the Psycho Ward

2006-11-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, ok. So I realize that I totally decided to do this whole work full time and go to law school thing, so it is totally my fault, and every single year at this time it is the same goddamn thing with the whining and the bitching and the stress and the GOING TO FAIL LAW SCHOOL and the HATING THE HOLIDAYS and the vague feeling that if anyone really loved me they would just shoot me and put me out of my damn misery.

Hi, November! Missed you! Care to fuck around with me anymore? Because that would be awesome.

Things are just entirely out of hand at this point, and I’m not entirely sure I have the ability or even the energy to reign them back in. At the moment, I have three papers due and a final to study for. My room is covered in various piles of case law and journal articles, Christmas gifts, and a combination of the Joker’s and my clothing. My parents are coming into town on Thursday, to have dinner, meet the Joker, and see the apartment. The apartment? Not entirely unpacked. The painting? Not so much on the wall. And the kitchen? Oh, currently the kitchen is in the living room.

Yes. The kitchen is in the living room.

Because, see, the Brain Trust that runs my apartment building decided that two days before Thanksgiving was really the best and most convenient time to bring in the exterminator, so could we please just remove all of the items from our cabinets and drawers and countertops? So yes, instead of cleaning and finishing the unpacking and doing things in the manner of sane people hosting holiday dinners, last night my roommates and I artfully arranged the entire contents of the kitchen throughout the rest of the apartment. “Kate? Where is the garlic powder?” “On the bookshelf.” “…Of course it is.” Mom? Dad? Hope you weren’t planning on eating at the table, because that is where the dishes and glassware live.

Which, let’s be honest, is actually fine, because the sum total of things that I have actually purchased for dinner is as follows:

1 Turkey (frozen)
1 can pumpkin pie filling.

Yep, that, so far, constitutes what I am planning to provide to those who gave me life for what is traditionally one of the biggest feasts of the year.

“Yeah, mom and dad, just sit on the couch, or maybe on the floor near the couch, and grab a spoon for the pie filling. If… if you can find a spoon. I think they are in the drawer on the floor next to the bookshelf.”

SIGH.

Of course, things are going to magically work out just FINE, because the nice exterminators will of COURSE stay on schedule and come today, and Kate and E and I will rebuild the kitchen tonight, and the Joker and I will shop on Wednesday and I will make a lovely dinner that does not poison the ones I love with roach killer.

Aim high, y’all.

Do we remember the fact that I still have a broken foot? Because oh yes, I still have a broken foot. And I decided sometime last week that I would forgo the crutches, because crutches are DAMN annoying, people, and I am stubborn. Also, stupid. So I am hobbling around and it is hurty and I tripped on Saturday and there was a lot of pain and can you tell that right now in my life is maybe not the best time for restricted mobility?

Yeah.

And last weekend was equally insane, starting on Saturday with the make up show. Now, I love the make up show, and not just for the mimosas. (But the mimosas help.) And this time Peanut and I dragged Kate and Peanut’s mother along for the insanity. But last year I went to the make-up show, and it was fun, and I am pretty sure nothing tried to kill me. This year? Not so much.

So they are talking and they are pushing this new lip gloss, which contains approximately 47 adjectives in its name and also, apparently, collagen. Collagen, which will plump your lips up and last for 12-24 hours. And this adjective friendly lip pumping gloss is apparently 38 fucking dollars a tube, which for that price I expect it to do my taxes, but I actually won a free one by knowing Felicity Huffman’s last name. So I am now several mimosas in and in possession of Scary Lip Gloss, which we all try.

Me: “Huh. There is… tingling.”
Peanut: “And maybe burning.”
Me: “I… I can’t feel my lips.”
Peanut: “I still can, and that is rather unfortunate, actually.”

So then later in the day, having regained some feeling in my lips, I go to get my makeover, and she begins with a “peel”. “Peel” is cosmetic lingo for “acid that eats off your face”, which she failed to make clear until after the “peel” was on my face. And then she thought it was very funny as during the makeover layers of my face kept sloughing off.

Kate: “You got resurfaced?!”
Me: “My pores are apparently pothole-esque.”

But we survived, and I spent a fortune, and all was good.

Sunday we began “celebrating the holidays”, which I am beginning to think is actually a code word for “justification to begin drinking at noon.” El Capitan and her boyfriend hosted a “Thanksgiving day with friends,” where we all drank wine and ate lovely food and watched football and thought about the things we were thankful for, namely that there was a store downstairs where we could purchase more wine.

So things are insane and crazy and not exactly running smoothly, and all I can do is hope that it all manages to come together in the next few weeks or that someone decides to shoot me.

Until then, eat food, drink wine, and be with those you love.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Why Be Broken in Just A Metaphysical Sense?

2006-11-07T13:27:00.000-05:00

So. I was going to write about so many things. I was going to write about the move, and how the cat freaked right the fuck out and it was seriously amusing and also kind of sad. I was going to write about how in the upcoming days to the move I had a bloody nose problem, and the morning of the move my nose got all “pay attention to ME” and started just sort of gushing, prompting the following conversation with E:

E: (banging, crashing, swearing under his breath) “I locked my keys in my car.” (the morning of the move, people, and also blocking the loading dock.) “How are you?”

Me: (Holding roughly an entire roll of paper towels to my face). “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

E: “Oh, it’s going to be a great day.”

And then I was going to write about how we were all unpacked! Sort of, unless you went near the third bedroom, and how we had taken to not mentioning the third bedroom and not going back there and pretending we were unpacked.

But I am not going to write about any of that, because I actually topped my general level of idiocy Thursday afternoon, and figure I might as well let the internet join my friends, co-workers, fellow apartment dwellers, cab drivers, people at Au Bon Pain, and perfect strangers in laughing at me.

See, Thursday, I stayed home from work because I was ill. Not dying ill, but exhausted and I can’t afford to get sick with finals coming up. So I was home, and I was watching our dvr’d Top Model, and the cat was digging his claws into me, and I realized that I might have remembered where we packed the clippers, so when there was a commercial I ran towards the third bedroom (which had since been much unpacked.)

(Yes. It has already been pointed out to me, (thanks, S, love you!) that this is even stupider because I ran during a commercial of something I taped, instead of pausing it. Sigh.)

Anyway, I am running down the hall, and apparently our new carpet? Is slippery. And just as I approached my room my feet simultaneously lost traction and went flying into the air, and gravity took over and I fell spectacularly to the floor. Which would have been funny, except for the fact that with the falling came the manic splaying of the legs, and my foot slammed against the corner of the wall.

And broke.

Oh yes, y’all, I broke my foot. Falling. On carpet. In my own apartment.

So there was a hospital trip, and Kate driving up on the sidewalk of our building, and me in a wheelchair, and a brand new x-ray technician who at least had “cute” going for him, but not so much “medical ability”, and finally me, a couch, and vicodin.

Ahh, vicodin.

Anyway, I am now hobbling around for a few weeks on crutches, and am Not Amused. Thank god for Kate and E and the Joker, who have helped me get to work and the like. And especially Kate, who has been forced to wait on me FAR too much, while I lay on the couch and make pathetic hurty noises.

In other news- E passed the bar! So that was much revelry.

Hope y’all are happy and unbroken!

And S Once Again Gets Roped Into My Insanity

2006-10-25T16:49:00.000-04:00

So the other day S came over to pick up varying bits of detritus that still live at my apartment, even though S himself has not lived in my apartment for like four years, and it was totally a different apartment anyway. So along with the computer that we built that never actually worked (sometimes I wonder if that was actually the goal- they break anyway, why not just build one that doesn’t work in the first place), I was finally able to give him the scary box. The scary box is where I put everything technology related when I moved apartments, because until then it had all just sat around the non-working computer like little computer orphans. I, of course, knew the real story, which is that it was not sitting there all sad and “We only want to help”, it was actually plotting, because technology is cunning and evil and a tad bit the drama queen. So I took everything and put it in a box and hid the box behind other boxes on the top shelf of my closet where the only way it could get revenge was by kamikaze-ing down onto my head. Which it did approximately once a month. For two years.

I’m not even kidding.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the house, technology was plotting and apparently breeding. As part of my “I am going to make this the most organized move in the history of moves so that unpacking actually takes negative time”, I decided to clean out my nightstand. The top drawer was pretty much normal, but I hadn’t really opened the bottom drawer in awhile. When I did, I found:

2 Skeins Yarn
2 Cheap Ashtrays
Approximately 7 cell phone headsets for phones I do not own any longer
4 pairs non-working headphones.
GIANT PILE OF WIRES.

Y’all? I have no idea where these wires are from. I have no idea what these wires do. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that I initially only had 2 wires and they have been having their fun in the drawer for the past 18 months. So what did I do with the wires? Seeing as I have no idea what they do, I probably should have gotten rid of them, but they are technology, and along with being scary, technology has a way of being important. (Not until the day after you throw it out, but I am hedging my bets here). So I did with it what I do with all technology, as evidenced above: neatly folded the wires and put them in a box.

So S is getting the computer and he has Box Of Technology #1, and he asks me if I still have the mouse I bought. Which I did! But… I didn’t know where. And then it hit me…

Yes, the mouse was in Box Of Technology #3, which was also filled with renegade wires and things, and was on the top shelf of a different closet. Y’all, seriously, technology scares the shit out of me. But technology? So does not scare the shit out of S. S has technology’s number, he does. So I instantly drafted S to play a fun game with me entitled: Look at the Boxes of Technology and Tell Me What Things Do. That went something like this:

Me: “Look! Technology! What does it do?”

S: “Well, ok, this is a USB cable. So is this. So is… ok, you have a lot of these.”

Me: “But those are occasionally useful! And sneaky. Because I have so many because I keep buying new ones because they hide.”

S: “Ok, I can go with anthropomorphizing the technology.”

Me: “What does this do?”

S: “That’s a midi cable.”

Me: (blank stare).

S: “This… I think this is mine, actually.”

Me: “Take it! Take whatever you want! Ooh, I recognize that! I have more of those!”

S: “You have… more of these?”

Me: “Yes! In the other Box of Technology!”

S: “You…. You have another box???”

Me: “Yes! I will get it.” (gets box). “Here! All technology! Except the handcuffs.”

S: “I.. ok.”

Me: “So what do these do?”

S: “They make stuff talk to your TV.” (He knows how to talk to me.)

Me: “Are they useful?”

S: “Well, they can be…”

Me: “Good. I have seven.”

S: “You have… seven. Good lord. Ok.”

Me: (holds up strange foreign cable.) “What’s this?”

S: “I have no idea. I not only do not know what this is, I can’t even fathom a guess as to why something like this would ever exist.”

Me: “Genetic mutation.”

So we went through all my technology, and now I am down to one box, and S asked if he could have the other box to take stuff home in, and I said sure, because I am cool like that. And then I looked at the box.

Me: “S? You want to know what is really funny?”

S: “That’s my box, isn’t it?”

Yep. So see, even subconsciously I know that all things Technology belong with S, and far, far the Hell away from me.

But if anyone wants to come over, I still have one box and a mystery cord!

It Is Probably Never a Good Idea to Tell Your Professor: “Bite Me”

2006-10-23T14:43:00.000-04:00

… but it’s becoming more and more tempting by the day.

This semester actually should be going well for me. I have three classes that I really, really like. In Con Law II, the professor is mildly insane, but in the way that leads to interesting conversations, at least for people like me, who like stuff like gender studies and critical race theory. The neat part is, there are actually other people in the class who have like those things too, or at least are willing to talk about them, and the conversations are a blast. We are slowly all becoming all bond-y and friend-y and talk outside of class and grab a cup of coffee-like and that? Is kind of fun.

Especially fun is when one guy in particular talks, because he always starts with a very intelligent, rational comment, and then at some point he goes somewhere so insane and absurd everyone just does a double take. It’s like, “Yes, in Brown v. Board, the progressives were making a radical movement towards judicial activism through a divergence from traditional jurisprudence, much like when the Kool Aid man leapt through walls in the 80’s, except now children eat too much sugar.” And everyone is like, yeah, yeah, …. The FUCK?!?

I also enjoy Indian Law (except y’all? We totally screwed the Native Americans. I mean, I always had a vague understanding that we screwed the Native Americans, but seriously? We totally screwed the Native Americans.). My human rights advocacy class is cool too, if for no other reason than it got last years’ memo, and totally from day one has not even pretended to be a law class (Professor: “I am not teaching a law class.”), making it a refreshing change.

But y’all? The year is not going well for me. It is not going well for me at all, because of my fourth class, which is the class from Hell. I knew this class would be bad when we got like a seven page e-mail assigning us things that were due before class even started. Worse, this e-mail looked like it was written by a troll on a mommy blog, with the amount of exclamation points and bolds and ALL CAPS throughout. The class got worse though, as the two professors, (yes, there are two) seem hell bent on wasting all of our time. We have to write papers, and the class is set up so that people are presenting papers. This means that for the first couple classes, we had very little to do. Did this stop Professors Talky and Gabby? Oh, hell no. They kept us around, for entire class periods, either re-discussing class rules or going over things like, “a paragraph has a topic sentence.” I am not kidding.

So as I wrote about in my last entry, we have to write these papers. And we are supposed to post a draft the week before we present, and then we present the draft, and they give us comments, and we rewrite. Ok… fine. So I killed myself a few weeks ago, including taking a day off of work, to get a draft done so I could post it. And I did, and (limericks aside), I was ready to go last Tuesday, but… Mssrs. Talky and Gabby wouldn’t SHUT UP, and they ran out of time. But they were all, “You… need to write a new paper.” So, ok. I could improve on what I wrote. Not that they helped me so much, more like giving me widely vague ideas that I should “consider”.

Anyway, so I went home and I did a bunch of research and I stumbled on a topic. That I liked! And I e-mailed the profs and took Friday off and did a ton of research. Friday night, my prof e-mails me back, (AFTER I had done all the research, mind you), and is like, “Eh, you can cover that topic, but you have to bring up other issues. And take into account our conversation on Tuesday.” *

* Note: Our conversation on Tuesday? Basically boils down to: pick a topic, which I thought I did, as evidenced by… my topic.

But anyway, I freaked, but didn’t have much of a choice, since I ALREADY took the day off work to research. Again. So I wrote him back and pointed out ways that my new paper did what he had asked, all nice like, and then spent most of the weekend writing what I honestly think is a pretty good paper.

This morning (this morning, people. THIS MORNING. My paper needs to be posted later this week, and he gives me feedback NOW? I WORK, asshole. My life? Is NOT your class). Anyway, his brilliant feedback today?

“Can we meet after class? I am afraid your topic is too broad.”

….Too broad? Too broad??? You mean, the topic that you told me FRIDAY I needed to add to and not just focus on??? THAT TOPIC???

So I wrote him back an e-mail, establishing that:

1. I work full time.
2. I have an appointment Tuesday night after class.
3. The paper? Is already written.

And somehow, I managed to NOT sign it: bite me.

Y’all? I need a break.

We're At The Point Where I Just Bitch. A Lot.

2006-10-12T12:41:00.000-04:00

Oh, y’all. The traveling is over and the waiting is over, and everything has worked out fabulously, and I still can’t give any details yet. But then I sort of woke up and was like, “Oh, right, I work and I go to school and I totally have a paper due and Oh yeah! This is why I hate my life.”

I mean, seriously. I spent the majority of the holiday weekend working on this damn paper. Of course, by “working on a paper” I mean a very specific ritual that also involves smoking cigarettes, doing millions of loads of laundry, and finding every single goddamn piece of dry cleaning I had and delivering it downstairs. (And yeah, that was fun when I went to pick it up and the lovely woman in the convenience store informed me and my friend, who I had happened to run into, that I had spent “Much money! Hundred dollars!” Yeah. Well, she was close.)

And it was even more fabulous on Monday night, when Kate and E came home while I was working on my paper, and I continued to work on my paper all the while thinking, “They are having more fun than me. I KNOW they are having more fun than me. Maybe I should go out there and have fun, too.” Luckily, E was able to provide an emergency back-up printer (oh, don’t even ask), so I was able to get something done.

Of course, that something may have been a limerick.

Yes, y’all, I have a 25 page paper on federal reporters’ privilege due, at that point I had maybe 7-8 pages written, I didn’t even really know what my thesis was, and I produced: A limerick. Which I will reproduce here for you in full, because it’s maybe the only thing I can be proud of accomplishing lately:

Federal Reporters’ Privilege: An Utterly Irrelevant Limerick

There once was an agent named Plame.
Who came by some accidental fame.
And then by court order,
They jailed the reporter,
For not revealing a name.

See how brilliant I am? Brilliant! Hear that noise? Yes, that is me slamming my head against my desk. God I hate this time of year.

And unfortunately, it is simply not getting any better any time soon. Because in two weeks- I move! And I move on a weekend where there also happen to be 47 social events that of course I need to be at, except… wait. I ALSO have the final version of the paper I have been working on due a week after that (and believe me, that involves some serious editing) and did I mention I have to end the plight of Romanian orphans? (Oh, and that so sounds like a nice hyperbole thrown in there for good joke-y measure, but I am actually not so much kidding. Because in Human Rights Law (yes, I take MANY classes) we have to take a major human rights issue and put together a proposal to FIX. IT. As E said, “Bonus points to those who actually start up their own non-profit!”) So yeah, Romanian orphans and two other classes, neither of which I have even been to with any regularity. And my boss has decided we have “stagnated” for too long, and wants to “kick things up.” So boxes and unfamiliarity and a new commute?

Bring it.

See? See how much fun my life is?

Sigh. Send wine.

Traveling Has Turned My Cold Cold Heart to Mush

2006-10-04T13:01:00.000-04:00

So, I haven’t written much. Maybe that is because for the last ten days I have flown to Texas every thirty-six hours. I am not kidding. In ten days I made three round trip trips to Texas, and I am exhausted and really, really glad to be home.

Part of my problem with all of this is my general feelings about flying, which can pretty much be summed up in a conversation I had with The Joker, which I will post below. This was directly prior to my second trip, so the gloss had worn off, but I was not yet to “curled up on the couch crying”. (more on that, later).

The Joker: “Excited yet?”

Me: “Eh, it’s more…

Run to metro.
Travel to airport.
Hate airport.
Hurry to get through security.
Get through inexplicably empty security in record time.
Sit and wait. And wait.
Get on plane. Yay plane!
5 minutes later: Hate plane.
Takeoff- convince myself am going to die.
Do not die.
Fly, fly, bored.
Try to sleep.
Get crick in neck.
Contemplate coke or coffee.
Get coffee.
Instantly hit Murphy’s Law of Turbulence.
Spill hot coffee on self.
Hate plane, turbulence, pilot, guy next to me for good measure.
Land. Convince self am going to die.
Look out window to determine when close enough to ground to survive crash.
Do not crash.
Find cab.
Ride uncomfortably to hotel.
Check in hotel.
Yay hotel!
Excited.”

Annnd… that pretty much sums up the last ten days or so. I have not been to work. I have not been to class. Instead, I have been staying at a gorgeous hotel with a Jacuzzi bathtub and have been taken out to fabulous lunches and dinners and basically have been treated like a rock star.

You know what I realized? I don’t so much want to be a rock star. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And while traveling is a lot of fun, I have had the best times lately at home. And a Jacuzzi and great hotel room just aren’t as much fun if you don’t have someone to share them with.

Which… isn’t like me to say, so much. When I planned this whole thing, (because yes, there was some planning involved in this insanity), my life was different. Mainly, I had not met The Joker and was making plans as I always did- on my own, and for me. There’s nothing wrong with this. But since I’ve been with him, I’ve been remembering things- or maybe learning them for the first time. I’m realizing just how much more things can mean if you have someone to share them with. I’m seeing that “home” can be more than a city, “life” can be more than a job, and “future” can be more than a five year plan. All of those things can also be a person, and when they are things are different. Things are, actually, better, even though it’s scary as hell sometimes.

Y’all, I am one big ball of exhausted stress, so forgive me my sappy rambling. I intended for there to be some major changes in my life. I just didn’t intend on having someone at my side while they happened. But every day I realize more and more that having that person may be the best change I never even hoped for.

I’ll be back soon with your regularly scheduled snarking.

All the More Reason to Hate the Patriarchy

2006-09-18T11:40:00.000-04:00

This weekend was fabulous, except for the one giant problem of being way too short. It was the kind of weekend that makes Monday suck that much more, because the contrast is so damn stark. Sigh.

Friday night I bolted out of class on an adrenaline high, came home, picked up Kate, and we headed out to meet the Joker at a party. Lot of drinking, some dancing, and possibly falling down ensued, and this time I was SO not the person that fell down. Really. No, really.

Saturday morning I headed to the gym. My wonderful personal trainer moved to Hawaii, so I have a new trainer now. This trainer? Is so not kidding around. I am in as much pain from my workouts now as I was when I started. Back in January. And he is also an evil ab man. Luckily, he was right and working out my abs on Saturday relieved some of the excruciating pain they had been in since my work out on Tuesday. Remind me again why I ever thought this was a good idea?

Anyway, Saturday afternoon Kate and I went looking for places to live, and promptly entered into the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first house was too big. The second condo was too small. But eventually we ended up at an apartment complex that seems entirely doable, and the price is definitely just right. So we’ll put in our applications and hope for the best. Saturday night we cooked dinner and then the Joker and I watched more Buffy. Not any less addicted to that, by the way.

Sunday I headed out with the Joker and his roommate WitchHunter to the Ren Faire. I love stuff like this, and the two of them are really into it. So of course the first thing I wanted to do when I got there was buy myself a costume. So WitchHunter helped me find some corsets, and we found a nice woman to help me try them on.

Except, by “nice woman” I kind of mean “extremely loud and grabby woman who made many comments about my chest and then proceeded to try to cut me in half with the corset.” I, apparently, know nothing about corsets. Because I had grabbed a size 12, and she put it on, and I thought it felt fine, and she is like, “Way too big.” Um, ok. So I had also grabbed a really pretty green one I loved, but that was an 8, and when she put it on me I kind of giggled because- seriously? No way in hell. So then we grabbed a 10, and that felt kind of tight, so when she said, “Oh, you’re between sizes, we should go with the other size”, I assumed she meant the 12. She meant the 8.

Come again?

Oh yes, people, the 8, which apparently fits JUST FINE if you introduce my ribcage to my spine. Now look, I never took anatomy, but I am pretty sure those bones? Should not ever touch. And the lady and WitchHunter are all like, “Oh, breathing? Haha. You’ll get used to it. You just breathe lower, is all.”

Breathe lower? I assume by this you mean, “Somehow learn to breathe through your pancreas, because your lungs are completely deflated between your ribcage and your spine”. So yes, here I am laced up in a pretty green corset with a skirt and a pretty gold scarf and everything is fine, except for the fact that the world was sort of graying out around the edges.

And now I actually owe men in general a little apology. A few weeks ago A and I were having a talk about how he feels that there is not enough swooning anymore. Just to clarify, I asked him what he meant by swooning, and it was what I thought, in the “My hero (swoon)” sense. My argument at the time for lack of swooning was that men today are all too busy buying product to be heroic. I now know that I was wrong. Not that men aren’t buying far too much product, but that actually has nothing to do with swooning. In fact the heroics of the man have absolutely nothing to do with swooning. The reason women no longer swoon is because we no longer wear corsets and can actually BREATHE. Trust me, there were a few moments in the beginning there where I was seconds from swooning into the Jokers arms, and he was just standing there.

So we wandered around the faire a bit and then I discovered that although I could not eat or breathe, I could drink, and there was mead, and after a few glasses of that, breathing began to seem highly overrated. So I am finally feeling fairly comfortable and very, very in love with mead, and we are all sitting on a bench and listening to a very nice Irish band, and I am singing and clapping and life is good, when a pirate walks by.

(Oh, y’all. Just the fact that I get to type that sentence would have made the weekend worth it by itself).

Anyway, due to a combination of: A. friendliness, B: Mead, and C: Lack of oxygen, I forgot my cardinal rule of “never make eye contact” and smiled at the pirate. Who almost turned away, got an evil grin on his face, came back over, and announced to me that he just knew I would like to help him and his band up onstage.

Come again?

Of course, at this moment I was promptly thrown under the bus by the Joker, WitchHunter, and every single perfect stranger around me, who loudly and enthusiastically agreed that yes, that was a fabulous idea, and nothing would make me happier than going up on stage.

In a corset.

With a band of pirates.

By the time my oxygen starved brain had processed what was happening, it was far too late. I just tried to concentrate on my mead, but it was a lost cause, and before I knew it I was up onstage being asked to “shake” things with the pirates.

I am still not sure sometimes how my life happens.

Anyway, apparently the corset does do good things, however, because I did get lots of compliments. Many people actually came up to me and opened with, “Do you work here?”, which… lame, because although I was becorseted, I was also wearing designer flipflops and carrying around my replica of Jack Bauer’s man purse. (… Of course I have one of those). This was inevitably followed by, “Do you come here often”, which… For real? I mean, that line doesn’t even work in bars, why would people think it would work at a Ren Faire? Anyway, my response was as to the point as I could make it, namely, “No, but my boyfriend does, and I’m just his doll for the day letting him and his roommate dress me up.”

(Sidebar: Y’all, there is not a single word in that conversation above that I could have even contemplated saying, let alone saying with a straight face, a month ago. I choose to call this “progress”.)

So anyway we finally left after the big group singalong, and I got home and was able to unlace the corset. I spent the rest of the evening feeling my internal organs slowly returning to their normal places in my body, (although I think there is a chance that one of my kidneys and my liver are now having an affair) and finishing season three of Buffy.

And on this Buffy thing? Yeah, I definitely dreamed last night that I was Buffy and I was with the gang and it was one of the oh so common apocalypses that occur, and we had like 4 levels of demons to fight. (Maybe in my head “Buffy” has a lot in common with “Super Mario Brothers”.) Anyway, we got through the first two or three levels fine, but then there were spiders. Large, scary spiders. And as you all know, I do not do spiders. So what did I do in my dream? I burned the house they were in down. With the rest of the gang still inside it.

I think I eventually dreamed most of them out of danger, but I remember thinking even in my dream that that had been a bit extreme. But of course, my dream came complete with a cliffhanger, and evil has not been entirely vanquished, because some of it survived in the water we used to put the house out, and that kid on the bike fell in it.

Y’all? I need to stop watching so much TV.

Anyway, that was my weekend, hope yours was just as great!

I Have Apparently Set My Internal Controls To “Self Destruct”

2006-09-07T12:56:00.000-04:00

Oh Lord. On one hand, I should be happy because two whole entries in two days! On the other hand, the only reason for this particular entry is that I am so profoundly stupid and have had such a disheartening morning my choices are to blog or weep. And while I am still not entirely counting out the crying thing, it is also extremely out of character for me, (unless I am watching Little House on the Prairie), so I’m going to go with blogging.

The first bad decision came into play last night. I am exhausted, I am sick, and I had to get up at an insane hour this morning to go to the doctor. So… perfect night to get drunk and stay up until after 3 am, right? Needless to say, morning came far too quickly and I slumped out the door and headed for the doctor. Which, seriously, is never a pleasant experience. No matter how great my doctor is or how many times I talk to myself about prevention and tests and how this is good for me, I can’t help but feel more like it is punishment. Anyway, everything went fine and I had at least achieved the main goal of the entire morning, which was to get a prescription. That taken care of, feeling a little vulnerable and out of it, I grabbed my iPod and headed for the metro.

I was happily bopping along at the metro stop, and then the train came, and I was walking onto the train, and then… and then, for absolutely no discernable reason, I felt a tug at my side, and the music cut off, and I looked down…

And my iPod was gone.

My iPod had somehow managed to leap off of my body, where moments before it had been firmly attached, and fall in the ITTY BITTY gap between the train and the platform. I just stood there, stunned, with several other commuters all looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and disbelief, as the doors closed.

I got to work, and immediately called the metro people, where the lady at lost and found managed to tell me that I had to actually physically talk to the station manager in a way that was completely polite on the surface while also conveying the exact level of moron that she thought I was. Unfortunately, I could not go at lunch, because I have another appointment booked for then. (I hate my life. Really.) Luckily, yesterday my office was In Crisis, and I was feeling Unusually Helpful, so I had build up a lot of cred with my boss. This, coupled with the fact that he has known me for years and is used to my occasional, if spectacular moments of idiocy, meant that he had no problem with me going to retrieve my iPod.

So I head back to the metro, and I am reading my book, and as I am getting on the train I hear a very nice British voice saying, “Excuse me, excuse me”. I turn around to see who was ignoring the nice British lady, and realize… me. I am ignoring the nice British lady, who is trying to give me back something that I dropped, and that something happens to be…. My prescription.

Y’all? I cannot even tell you what would have happened if I had gone through everything this morning only to lose the prescription. Instead of retrieving my iPod, I would have been joining it, it is safe to say, only much closer to the third rail.

So I get off the metro and look down, and sure enough- there is my iPod. Encouraged, I went to the station manager, who was very, very nice to me and promised he would get someone to jump down there and get my iPod. So I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally, I looked up on the floor above me, and the Station Manager was talking to a Nice Man With A Stick. “Yay!”, I thought, “What a brilliant idea! A STICK! Maybe the stick is grabby, or sticky, or something, but the nice station manager is pointing me out and in just a few minutes I will have my iPod back!” Not so much, people, because Nice Man With A Stick… never came down. He wandered the floor above me for awhile, then he just sort of… stood there. Not looking at me. He was not so much nice, as Useless Man With A Stick. So I continued to wait, and trains continued to come, and the small amount of self control I had began to fray, and I began to think Very Bad Thoughts in the general direction of Useless Man With A Stick while trying not to cry. At this point, I was probably lucky that my cell phone doesn’t work in the metro, because I was THIS close to calling A and asking him if I could come over to his office and cry for a bit. Which would have scared the everloving shit out of him, because in two plus years, I don’t think he has ever actually SEEN me cry, except that one time he made me watch Nip/Tuck, and that doesn’t count, because EW.

Anyway, I am standing there, beginning to despair of ever getting my iPod back, when I look up and notice… Useless Man With A Stick, now has… two sticks. Well then. He wanders around awhile longer, and then, to my utmost joy, actually came over to me! And I realized that the two sticks were actually a broom and a dustpan. And I sort of saw the problem, because the dustpan was actually on the end of a very broken stick, and it appeared to have been scotch taped together, which… Come on, Metro. Couldn’t you at least spring for the duct tape? Anyway, scotch tape notwithstanding, the Now Very Useful Man With Two Sticks, One Of Which Is Barely Functional swept up my iPod, and I recanted every bad thought I had had about him.

The iPod works, which is very good. And I am not even going into detail about how I went to get coffee and left my card at the register. Or about how I am wearing a favorite new shirt, which is white, and how I maybe spilled coffee all over it. Or about how when I went to dab the coffee with cold water, I grabbed a Subway napkin, which has red ink on it, so now I have coffee AND red ink on my new shirt. No, I can’t think about all of that, because it is only 12:30 and that is just too much, people.

I am clearly not ok. Send chocolate. And wine.

Don't You Hate It When People Hint At Big News and Don't Tell It?

2006-09-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

Hi, y’all! I have not written in ages! Sorry about that!

This time, it is not even that nothing has been going on. Because, y’all, so much has been going on. But I still can’t write about most of it, because there are secrets and careers involved. Well, my career. But that tends to be the one I care most about.

And it’s not like I have forgotten about you. Because I totally have not forgotten about you. In fact, I have Post-It notes all over my desk with things like, “How Products Mystify Me”, “Ways I Could Totally Make My Life Easier But Do Not”, and “Making Up With Nature” written all over them. I have an entire diatribe in one of my work notebooks regarding how Crest WhiteStrips do not so much make my teeth white as make them shiny, and how I am not sure shiny is what I was going for here. And also, really really smooth, which causes me to lick them in a vampirish manner, which finally caused Kate to threaten to move out if I continued to do so. The WhiteStrips live under the sink now.

Anyway, other than the Insanity of Last Week That I Can’t Write About Yet, there is… more insanity! Beginning, of course, with Law School. Because… Hi! I’m back in law school, which we all know signifies the slow degeneration of myself until by Christmas all of my entries will begin with the words “lalala” and chronicle exactly how I lost various pieces of my mind that particular week. And from the looks of the class I have been to and the e-mails with assignments that were due before class even started, I have a really bad feeling that law school isn’t fucking around this semester. And A and I have already had the conversation in which we commiserated over the fact that “sovereignty” clearly stole an e from “judgment”, which should TOTALLY be “judgement”, and how we are still very angry over that fact. And if that isn’t crazy, then I want to meet YOUR friends.

To add to the insanity… I’m moving! Because mid-semester moving is always the best way to add stress, you know. I don’t actually want to move. I love my building, I love my area, and I love the fact that my gym is so damn close that I actually go. But what I love MORE than all of those things is my roommates, and THEY have to move. So originally, I was all brave and “I will find a new roommate”, but then they left for 12 days and all hell broke loose and we realized that all of us together is a pretty good combination. So if anyone knows of a reasonably priced, walking distance to the metro house for rent in Silver Spring, let me know!

And finally, just to throw my work-life balance off a little further, I have been spending a lot of time with a new person, whom I will call The Joker, because that is easy and he already came up with it. (Ok, y’all. With the pseudonyms. I am the worst one with this, because I refuse to use people’s actual names anymore and the letter thing doesn’t always work and I demand that I never be mentioned by actual name either, but really? Who does this? This is so a People of Our Generation Who Blog thing. I mean, short of college fraternity guys (whom I have absolutely nothing against, being a sorority girl myself) who walk around all “Soup” and “Blumpy” and the like, most people have dropped the twee nicknames by the onset of adulthood. I totally understand why we do this, I just feel like it is incongruous that someone who does their own taxes has a life that sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon show.) Anyway, The Joker is great, and I guess if you’re going to screw up my work-life balance you ‘d better be pretty fantastic, and he basically fits the bill. Also, I have now finally accomplished my longterm goal of seeing Twin Peaks, and he’s even gotten me addicted to Buffy.

I’m not entirely sure this last one is a good thing.

Anyway, that is as much of an update as I can give currently. I will try to post more frequently, if not coherently.

The Ministry of Space and Fortified Wine

2006-08-17T15:21:00.000-04:00

Let me just give you an example of how my life has been going lately:

In my office, there is a crash:

Supervisor: (running out of her office). “What was that? Did someone fall over?”

Me: (struck by hilarious implications of that reaction) “Wait. What does it say about our office that the first thought you had when you heard a crash was “Did someone fall over? Is this… is this a frequent occurrence?”

My Boss: (from inside his office) “It says that the average age of this office is 110.” (loud, pregnant pause). “Or, drunk.”

So, there you have it y’all, the average age of my office is “drunk”.

(Do I have to elaborate on how happy that makes me?)

Anyway, Kate and E are finally home, (because they LEFT ME, ALL ALONE for many, many days, and they are just damn lucky I didn’t have another cockroach situation, because I would have simply left the apartment and not returned. Or, maybe I am the lucky one in that situation? Dunno.) Anyway, the night they came home there was much rejoicing and shrieking and hugging (ok, that was mainly me) along with copious drinking and breaking of glassware, which, stunningly, was not me at all.

But I think it’s entirely possible that everyone has lost their minds this week, or at least MY friends, as is evidenced by the following gmail conversation with A:

A: “Oh cool, there’s a new planet?”

Me: “No. There are THREE new planets.”

A: “There are three… The HELL?”

Me: “I know. It’s like, how the Hell did we miss them for so long?”

A: “Our Ministry of Space and Fortified Wine would not have missed them.”

Me: “Right! Our… What? We have a Ministry of Space and Fortified Wine???”

A: “Of course. Why would we not?”

Just in case you were wondering, A’s and my Government of Made Up Ministries also includes the Ministry of Censorship and Brewing.

But I blame the insanity on one thing, and one thing only.

Snakes. On a PLANE.

Which totally opens tonight, and people are going to come to my house and drink beverages and then we are all going, en masse, to the midnight showing.

I suggest you all do the same.

Things I Have Been Doing Instead of Blogging

2006-08-04T12:17:00.000-04:00

Hi! Ok, so yeah, not so much with the writing lately. This entry is my sad attempt to prove that the reason I have not updated since the Clinton administration (sigh… moment of silence for the Clinton- or as we like to refer to it- when the President was not batshit crazy Tom Cruise level insane- administration) is because I am leading such an incredibly busy and varied life I could not possibly have the time. And not because, you know, I am sad and boring and kind of lazy. So.

Things I Have Been Doing Instead of Blogging

1. Fixing My Car

Heh. My car. See, people, I do not like to drive. At ALL. It scares me kind of a lot. And even though I have a car, it seldom gets used. I mean it, y’all- I have had the car for 3 years now. It has 5,600 miles on it. Yeah.

Anyway, I don’t drive it much, and at one point when I went to start it (ok, that’s a lie. I did not in any way go to start it. That would be scary. Kate went to borrow it is more like the truth), it would not start. I wasn’t sure if I had left a light on the last time I had driven it, (ok, here I go again with the lying. I had not driven it last. S had. People, I Do. Not. Drive.) or if it just died of loneliness, but the car? It was dead.

Now, logic would dictate that I simply jump the damn car, but I was busy, and also? When you jump a car, don’t you need to like, drive it around for a bit to charge the battery? (Scary). So I put it out of my mind.

For months.

Maybe, like, 10 of them.

Finally, I decided that I really HAD to get the car fixed. But at this point, I was afraid to just jump it, because it had kind of been sitting filled with explosive fluids for a long time, and people who actually know things about cars other than what color they are would hear about my situation and give me that look of DOOM. So I was freaked out.

Luckily, my car is somehow still under warranty and VW is wonderful and came out to tow it (for free) and take it to the dealership where they fixed it (for free). But of course, I cannot simply behave like a normal human being and had to make a complete ass out of myself. This is the conversation I had with the very nice mechanic at VW.

Me: "My car is getting towed in, do I have to come with it?"

Mechanic: "Nope! So, what is wrong? Is it the battery?"

Me: "Well, yes. But see, the thing is that the car hasn't been driven in a long time, and I need to make sure everything still works."

Mechanic: "No problem, we do a free check for you when you bring it in."

Me: "NO. Really. It hasn't been driven in a long time. I do not want it to explode."

Mechanic. "..." (laughter).

So, yes. I just informed the mechanic, a man who fixes cars as a professional career, that I would really appreciate it if he did not MAKE MY CAR EXPLODE.

(The good news is, the car was fine.)

2. (Bet you forgot there was a list here, huh?) Coming Up With Brilliant Reality TV Show Ideas

So, E and I are maybe completely and totally and also utterly addicted to reality TV. Like, we watch Hells Kitchen and So You Think You Can Dance and Project Runway AND America’s Got Talent AND Rockstar: Supernova. And Supernanny. And Wife Swap. And… and you get the picture.

Everyone says that reality TV has pretty much done it all. Exploited all they can exploit, broken down all social barriers of decency and basic humanity. But they are wrong. E and I have come up with the World’s Next Reality TV Sensation:

Stockholm Syndrome:

“These people thought they were just running to the bank. Little did they know their lives were about to change. (show clip of bank being held up by 5 men in masks). Now these 5 hostage takers need to make as many of the hostages fall for them as possible. The winner gets One Million Dollars.

The security cameras are really our cameras. The challenge for these 5 men is high. No one is in actual danger, but they don’t know that.

And don’t feel left out America! Each week, YOU will vote on your favorite hostage/bankrobber couple. The couple who ends up as America’s favorite will win a very special surprise.

Tune in to Stockholm Syndrome- Tuesdays at 9.”

(Ok, yeah. Maybe E and I need to get out more.)

3. Um. That’s… that’s all I can think of right now.

Seriously y’all, a LOT has been going on here, but it all has to remain kind of secret and not posted online right now. Hopefully in awhile (maybe a few months) there will be a big huge entry that will explain everything. For now, I am just going to continue to insult professionals with insane requests involving them blowing up my car and watch reality TV.

Cheers!

A Series of Conversations Proving A and I Have Lost Our Minds

2006-07-18T15:30:00.000-04:00

(Or, why gmail chat is maybe not such a great thing for us.)

(Monday)

10:00 am.

Citycat: This? Fantastic. http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/features/armaged.htm

A: HAHA "antichrist is small tin of pickled herring." --> "antichrist is eaten by cat."

Citycat: Grin.
"Four horsemen firmly advised to stop dicking around."

A: Haha
This person must be British right?

Citycat: I am assuming, what with the pickled herring and dicking around and all.

A: Haha exactly.
The herring was an early indicator.

Citycat: Ok, that? Is a FANTASTIC sentence.

12:30 pm

A: God im hungry

Citycat: Go to lunch, silly.

A: I did its in front of me :).

Citycat: Potbellys?
Chicken noodle soup?

A: Well clearly Potbelly.
But HAVE YOU SEEN HOW HOT IT IS??

Citycat: How hot… Potbelly's is?

A: No soup today...instead a cool refreshing milkshake :)

A: No, outside.

Citycat: OH, outside.
Yes, it was damn hot. I had salad-
and could only eat 1/2

A: I’m working on fattening myself up for winter

Citycat: Ha
A milkshake and what else?);

A: a sandwich
and some chips
...and a giant cookie
.........and a second sandwich

Citycat: ??

A: No, I’m kidding

Citycat: What kind of sandwich?

A: Roast beef and provolone
with smashed up chips
(sour cream n onion)

Citycat: yum

A: I wish I could puke it up and eat it all over again.
That... sounded better in my head.

Citycat: yeah…
Kind of nasty in actual print

A: Totally...but you see my point about enjoying the taste so much id like to eat the meal again
Although i am too full to do

Citycat: Hee, you're being all Roman

A: Haha
Totally
Except with unfortunately fewer orgies

4:43 pm

A: There is this church bell that chimes.
But its always 3 minutes behind.
Don’t you figure they’d fix that?

Citycat: Haha.
Maybe it's some secret cult thing-
The Davinci Bell!

A: Haha
I’m going to write that book.
I'll be the handsome hero.

Citycat: Can I be the smart and witty female?

A: But of course.
And we solve the mystery via Google chats and searches.

Citycat: Hey, Google is a powerful crimefighter.

A: And also there are cats dressed as historical figures.

Citycat: And also? Still manage to make all our...
What?

A: You know, like in costume.
CATherin the Great.
Sir Meowsalot.

Citycat: And... and what would the cats in costume do, pray tell?

A: Also, probably they dance

Citycat: Oh. ...Dance.
…

Well, when they make the movie based on the book, we can make it one of our Very
Special Musicals.

A: Exactly.

Citycat: Can we title the book, "The herring was an early indicator"?

A: Absolutely.
It’s perfect.
Oooo that can be the secondary title or whatever they call the thing after the colon.
Hahaha.
The thing after the colon...the asshole.
Hahaha.
Sorry.
But you know what I mean.

Citycat: Totally. The DaVinci Bell: The Herring Was An Earlier Indicator.

A: Exactly

Citycat: A musical novel (with Dancing Cats)
Starring A and Citycat.

A: (and Dancing Cats)
(Historically Attired)

Citycat: Do they get "star" billing?
Clearly, they are linked to the herring...

5:00 pm

A: How funny was that Bush-Blair conversation?

Citycat: That was awesome
Of course, Bush has about as firm a grasp of the definition of "irony" as Alanis
Morrisette.

A: Ooo, the bell was FOUR minutes late this time

Citycat: It knows we are onto it.

A: The conspiracy grows deeper.

5:30 pm

A: Ok bell is back to 3 mins.
All is right again in thew rold.

Citycat: Ahh, good old Thew. :)

A: Thew Rold, the mystical plane on which The Davinci Bell exists.

Citycat: Oh, this is just getting better and better.

(Tuesday)

11:00 am

A: Why am i so hungry so early today?

Citycat: I... don't know?

A: Yes you do, stop keeping things from me.

Citycat: Maybe because lunch was SO good yesterday that you just cannot wait to have it
again?

A: hm this is possible.
I forget if tues or thurs is corn chowder day.

Citycat: Because you couldn't eat it again yesterday, subconsciously you have been thinking
about it for almost 24 hours.
And now you just want it

A: Yes, and now i get it without the vomiting

Citycat: See?
The brilliance of the human body: every day, we get to eat again.
O metabolism, my metabolism.

A: AND my pulse rate, low pulse rate.

Citycat: Why is it that we talk sense for about 20 minutes but eventually always descend
into madness?

If something were to happen and someone subpoenaed our gmail chats?
We'd be wearing white coats WAY after labor day, if you know what I mean.
(Dancing cats. In historical costumes.)

A: Haha
That’s so true
Cause its like, oh, this legal thing, blah blah,
work work,
Oh! that reminds me of a song!
(madness, strange words)
Back to normal

Citycat: And the thing is, we speak the exact same language of crazy.

A: Yes. British.

Citycat: Pickled herring.

A: Stop dicking around.

I Am No Longer Amused By This Whole Nature Thing

2006-07-14T14:46:00.000-04:00

(This entry contains a lot of bad words. This is because a Very Bad Thing happened to me).

Ok. So I did yardwork. And we killed creatures and it was funny. And then Peanut and I got poison sumac, and that was less funny, but still kind of amusing in the “poison sumac? Who the hell gets poison sumac?” kind of way. And then the hail happened, and that was a LOT less funny, and far more on the ouchy scary side of things. But now? Now nature has gone too far. Nature needs to give it a fucking rest already, because I live in a highrise apartment in a city and there is no reason for my summer to involve this level of battle with something that I by all rights should never encounter.

Wednesday night I went to the gym, and when I came home my apartment was filled with people, wine, and sushi. (Which seriously, is possibly one of the best ways to come home ever. I highly recommend all of you go out and get a roommate who fills the house with people, wine, and sushi, so all you have to do is show up for Instant Party.) And everyone was there for the debut of Project Runway, of course, because my apartment is the gathering point for all things reality TV related. So we were up kind of late, having the normal Project Runway debates, (Keith: Hot or kind of looks like a weasel? Could Tim Gunn BE any more awesome?), and finally everyone left and Kate and E went to bed.

And I went to shower. Like any normal human being.

So I am in the shower, and I am shampooing and lalala everything is fine, everything is just awesome and wonderful and the water is warm and relaxing and life is good and I turn around and look up and

HOLY SHIT, EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE, EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE AT ALL, BECAUSE THERE IS A GIANT MOTHERFUCKING COCKROACH IN THE SHOWER WITH ME.

Cockroach.

In the shower.

WITH ME.

Oh, y’all. This is just so not ok on SO. MANY. LEVELS. The shower? My private time. No one and nothing gets to come into the shower with me without express permission, which I assure you, the roach did not have. And did I mention he was a giant motherfucker? Because, yeah.

So you all know my reaction to cockroaches in general, when I am not naked and extremely vulnerable, so you can just imagine what ensued next. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to wrap a towel around myself, but if a towel hadn’t been handy, I seriously think I would have just gone naked. Into the hallway. Dripping. And shrieking.

Kate and E: (in bed, like any sane human.)

Me: (in hallway. Dripping. In a towel.) “KATE? KATE!”

Kate: (flying out of bedroom in fear that I might be dying.) “What???”

Me: (having “creature seizure”, in which all parts of my body were moving involuntarily and with absolutely no relation to each other.) “There (shake) there is, is… a cockroach… in the shower. With me. IT WAS WITH ME.”

E: (turns on light in bedroom.)

Kate: (calmingly. Also? Laughing.) “Ok, ok. I need a shoe.”

E: (blearily.) “Kate needs her shoes?”

Kate: “No. I need I your shoes.”

E: “Kate needs… my shoes?”

Me: (still shaking) “Cockroach! Shower! There!”

E: (catching on.) “Oh. Ok.”

So Kate and E arm themselves with a tennis shoe and paper towels, and march into my bathroom all brave and hero-like, (where yes, the shower? Totally still running.) I am following nervously behind, less “brave and hero-like” and more along the lines of “ineffectual pansy”.

Me: (totally still in my bedroom, refusing to even cross the threshold of the bathroom.) “It was on the curtain. Up to the right."

Kate and E: “We don’t see it.”

Me: (terrible, terrible thought occurs. Could roach be on me? Soul begins to die.)

Kate: “Whoa, there he is!”

Me: (Soul perks to life.)

Eric: “My god, he is HUGE!”

Me: (soul dies again.)

E: (Thwack.) “Oh. Hmm. He’s not going to fit down the drain, is he?”

Me: (contemplating life without soul.)

E: “Um… Kate? You deal with disposal. That is not in my job description.”

Me: (wait… there’s protocol now?) (Protocol! Drink!)

Toilet: (flush).

Kate: “You are safe now.”

So yes, I did actually return to the shower and finish, although I am still not completely comfortable. And if I highly recommend roommates who provide sushi, I really highly recommend roommates who will wake up in the middle of the night and kill creatures for you.

E mentioned that the roach probably crawled through the drain, which makes sense. (except for the part where he didn’t fit down it, but I am assuming he can squeeze his way into things). Especially since our building recently flooded. (A flooding that, unlike all the other flooding, was not caused by nature, but “sprinklers”, which to me means someone kicked a soccer ball at it. But maybe that’s just the college talking.) So in theory, my bathroom (which is clean! I swear! Clean and in no way attractive to dirty roaches!) is not actually infested with roaches, and he was just a one time thing. Just in case, however, I intend to spend some quality time this weekend in my bathroom introducing every available surface to its new best friend: bleach.

And nature? Can seriously go fuck itself.

This Entry Contains the Word "Balls" A Lot

2006-07-11T13:02:00.000-04:00

I LOVE bowling. In fact, it seems like a secret underground thing where everyone loves bowling, but for some reason this never comes up in the exhaustive “what do you want to do this weekend?”, “I don’t know, what do you want to do this weekend?” conversations, maybe because somehow there is some stigma surrounding bowling where you assume that you are isolated in the universe in your enjoyment of it and no one will ever speak to you again if you allow the others to find out your secret.

Then, inevitably, someone suggests bowling, and everyone you know comes out to bowl, and you have an absolute blast and find out the real truth about your friends. Because y’all, nothing brings out an inner evil competitive spirit like bowling.

Anyway, Peanut and I decided to go bowling Friday night. So we found a place with open bowling, got our lane and shoes, and began the first ritual of the bowling alley.

The Search For The Ball.

Because, as everybody knows, the key to great bowling has nothing to do with the skill of the bowler. At All. The key to great bowling is finding the right bowling ball. You know this is true. Someone throws a bad frame or two, what is the first thing they do? Go get another ball. I have actually seen fights among people where person A started using person B’s ball, and bowled better with it, sending person B into a riotous snit fit because that was their ball, and all of the magical good luck that went with the ball was discovered by them and the person A was stealing it, and that is cheating, and who wants to bowl with a cheater?

My hypothesis was proven by a quick glance around the lanes. Peanut and I were bowling on one lane, with another couple on the attached lane. Four people bowling. Nine bowling balls. The group to the left of us? Six people. Twelve balls.

My amusement was only heightened when The Great Ball Swap occurred. Peanut and I had not started out exactly on fire, and so of course we were looking for new balls. However, as I explained, given the ratio of bowlers to balls, we weren’t having much luck. Then we noticed that that couple? On the attached lane? Had a very nice green ball. It was like the Platonic Ideal of bowling balls, and the Peanut and I very much coveted it, sure that if we could just get our hands on that ball, all of our woes would be over. (Actually, the couple had two green balls, but again, see above re: number of balls). We, however, did not have the green ball. At that point we had a light blue ball, a dark blue ball, and orange ball, and a marbled blue ball.

But then… the woman next to us picked up the orange ball. Which was clearly our ball, but we weren’t going to complain, because then we could steal the green one! And we sort of made this swap without actually saying anything, but we all bowled better, and everyone was happy.

Except, just to recap: after spending an inordinate amount of time trying out and collecting balls, Peanut and I ended up using the same one, that we didn’t even find.

Of course, the ball really is the critical part of the game, because the ball is psychically connected to you. You know this. This is why it is impossible to just throw the ball down the lane, turn around, and go back to your seat. How will the ball know where to go? It is scientifically required to stand in front of the lane, talking to the ball, and if possible moving your body in the way you want the ball to go.

There are many methods of doing this, including:

The Bowler Lean: Planting one foot on the floor, lift up the other foot and lean the entire body in the direction you want the ball to veer in. Bonus points if you actually fall over.

The Hop: As the ball goes down the lane, make very teeny tiny hops in the direction you need the ball to veer. Challenge: Get as many hops in as possible without crossing into the next lane. (Note: This requires very tiny hops).

The Fake Out: Before bowling, whisper to the ball what you want it to do. Throw it, and then turn around and pretend to nonchalantly return to your seat. At the last possible moment, turn back around, and in movement as reminiscent of an epileptic seizure as possible remind the ball where you wanted it to go, with arm motions and jumping.

General Rule: The psychic connection between bowler and ball increases proportionally with the amount of beer consumed.

Unfortunately, Peanut and I did not consume a lot of beer, as it was Friday, and we were tired, and really, the beer would not have helped so much with the already excruciatingly bad bowling we were doing.

However, we intend to go bowling again very soon. And this time? I will not rest until I find the perfect ball.

Time Flies. So Does HAIL.

2006-07-05T13:17:00.000-04:00

It’s July 5. Good lord. How does that happen? I am all, “I will be more write-y and talk-y” and I post a bunch and then it’s July and I haven’t posted in weeks. But lots has been happening! So I’m going to pretend it’s Friday and do a random collection of thoughts, and sorry, but this is going to be all over the place.

1. Rocking the Suburbs: An Addendum, Part 2:

Remember how Peanut got poison sumac? And we took her to the emergency room and she was on steroids and pain medication and I felt bad but was so happy that I, at least, did not have poison sumac?

I have poison sumac.

And apparently I am one of the “very rare” cases (according to the internet, which we all know is the best place ever to look up health related information, especially if you want to be told that you are, in all likelihood, dying right now) where the poison does not show up for several weeks. So now it’s July, and I did yardwork a freaking month ago, and about a week or two ago my body suddenly just freaked the fuck out and I’m itchy and disgusting, and I am also on steroids and the like. Nature is trying to kill me.

2. No, Really. Nature is Trying To Kill Me.

The other day I was walking home and I decided to go to the further stop on the metro, because when I walk home from that one I pass my bank, and I needed to make a deposit. I knew that there was a storm in the area, but when I got off the metro it was not raining, and so I thought I was fine.

Until I got around the corner, where luckily there is an overpass, because no sooner did I get under that then the sky opened up. And basically just started dumping water. Which, fine, I’m under the overpass. Then the thunder and lightning started, and it was loud and really, really scary, but… I’m dry, or at least, dry-ish. Then the wind starts, and it starts blowing the rain completely sideways, so I run all the way to the far end of the overpass and turn my back, but it doesn’t matter, because the rain gets me anyway, and I am now completely soaked, and it is no longer warm, it is cold, and I am not happy, at all. Then the wind changed.

And it started to hail.

Like, for real, large chunks of ice not so much falling out of the sky but being propelled downward by remarkable force, and hitting me directly in the face. At this point I sort of just crouched down and covered my head, and it was ouchy and scary and I DID NOT LIKE IT.

Eventually I hid with random biker guy between two tour buses, and called Kate, who rescued me.

3. Actually, Nature is Trying to Kill Everyone, and is Seriously? Kind of a Bitch.

The rain? There has been a lot of it, and there has been bad flooding here, and I have spent the last several days working with the Red Cross a few miles away from where I live, which is an actual disaster zone. Which has been awesome, and insane, and I am exhausted, but again I totally love the Red Cross and working with them is awesome.

(Also awesome? Firemen who have to unload a truck full of relief supplies just as it starts to pour, so they end up soaking wet. And hot. I’m just saying.)

4. Happy Birthday

To the blog site that did not crash and eat all my writing. This blog is now officially one year old. And while the last weekend was far tamer than last years fourth, (Wave is in Europe, for one thing, and the whole disaster thing, for another), we did manage to drink beer and margaritas and this year I even saw the fireworks.

Now lets see if I can keep to my goal of actually writing more this year.

You Don't Look A Day Over Adolescent

2006-06-20T16:55:00.000-04:00

So… last weekend. Peanut, Kate, E, and I went to a fair. Because, in case you haven’t picked up on this, Peanut and I LOVE fairs. (What’s not to love?) So we went down to the Waterfront in Old Town Alexandria for the Red Cross Fair.

Unlike the last fair, this was not brought to us entirely by monkeys. In fact, I think it was brought to us entirely by clinically insane people. (Which is kind of ok, because the minute I walk into a fair I lose my mind anyway, with the walking around demanding everything I see like a four year old child.) But anyway.

The thing is, the fair? Had a pirate ship. And I don’t mean a ride. I mean an actual floating in the water pirate ship. And we wanted to go SEE the pirate ship, because pirate ships are inherently awesome and you automatically turn into a superhero when you board one. (You do.) (Seriously.) So our goal was to go board the pirate ship and be superheroes. This made perfect sense in my Fair-induced mindset. I even had plans to go buy one of the sparkly light up swords, because… pirate ship. It was totally swords and superheroes all the way for me! Except…

We couldn’t find the pirate ship.

I mean, we could SEE the pirate ship. It was right over there! Across the water! But no matter how many ways we tried to get there, short of actually swimming across the inlet, we simply could not get to the ship. And as we were walking for roughly the 42nd time in exactly the same wrong direction, we maybe got a little distracted.

By the fudge sauce guy. And by that I mean the guy, who had like 40 different kinds of fudge sauce, who was giving away said fudge sauce by the spoonful. Yep! Spoonfuls! All flavors! Every kind! And the thoughts of the pirate ship and the swords and the booty and the “Arrrrrgh!” completely left our minds as we devoured spoonful after spoonful of delicious fudge sauce. Which we then bought insane amounts of.

Y’all? We are the Worst. Superheroes. Ever.

Then things just got stupid.

One of the things that this fair had a lot of was give-aways. Many places to put your name in a hat and possibly win stuff. (Or, more likely, commit yourself to marketing lists for the rest of your life). One of these was a kind of place that apparently everyone has heard of except me, where they put in windows or give you sunrooms.

(Note. I have no idea. I just don’t get this at all? Who… who lives in a house with no windows? How are there enough of these people to warrant whole companies who just… add windows? And the sun room thing? Like… you win! A… room. A whole room. They just come and drop off a room? How does this work? Who DOES THIS???)

Anyway, having a house, and far more of a clue as to what was going on with the window/room place than I, Peanut led us all into the Sunroom they had on display. (The room. On display. So like, if you won, you… took the room?? Seriously, people, I do not get this.) But we were only in the room a second when the woman (see above re: clinically insane) came running over, shooing us out.

Woman: “Out, out! You can’t be in here!”

Us: “Um. Ok?”

Woman: (snottily, at Peanut.) “What, are you entering the contest? Are you the homeowner?”

Peanut: “Um… Yes, I… have a home.”

Woman: (looks a little closer at all of us) “Wait. Are you all teenagers?”

Us: (Very amused and also? Confused). “Um, no. We are adults? All of us?

Woman: “Are, like, two of you the parents?”

And, ok people, this is definitely the most insanely ridiculous thing that has happened to me in a long time. First off, we do not look like teenagers. We are all in our mid twenties. E has actual gray hair. And why would the woman first assume that all of us were a bunch of kids, and then flip to assuming that two of us were actually the parents of the kids? None of this made any sense at all, and Kate about summed up the situation with the following answer:

Kate: (deadpan, looking the woman full in the face.) “No. If that were true, this whole thing would be a little creepy.”

The woman apologized, sort of, but also looked like she absolutely did not believe us. At all. Even as we left, I am sure she believed that we were secret teenagers trying to pretend to be older. Either that, or that we were the most screwed up family on the planet.

So none of us entered the window/room contest, we never made it to the pirate ship, and I did not buy a light up sword.

But I have five jars of chocolate fudge sauce.

Dance Your Cares Away (clap, clap)

2006-06-19T14:29:00.000-04:00

We really are a special breed. Last night I got a phone call from SecretAgent, inviting me over for steaks on the grill. Since this sounded like the perfect end to the weekend, (a weekend in which, might I add, I simultaneously was confused for a 13 year old and failed to be a superhero due to chocolate fudge sauce- details in a minute), I jumped on the metro and headed to his house.

S met us there, and we made steaks and veggies and grabbed beers and then sat down to watch… Fraggle Rock. Yes. Fraggle Rock. These are my friends: three adults, a steak dinner, and muppets.

But the story actually gets worse. Because just last week A and I had the following Gmail chat:

A: “ I’m just mopey.”

Me: "That's ok, you're allowed to be mopey -who, by the way, is totally a second cousin of the seven dwarves. And also... wasn't it a Fraggle?"

A: “I think it was only Dopey.”

Me: “Dopey was NOT a Fraggle.”

A: “Right, I’m saying he was a dwarf.”

M: “Oh, and the Fraggle was Mokey, not Mopey.” (I looked it up). “I think Mopey was the missing link between the dwarves and the fraggles- the bastard love child of Dopey and Mokey.”

A: “Totally.”

(A and I both totally have careers, I swear.)

Anyway, I repeated the above conversation to S and SecretAgent, who also totally agreed with the speculation regarding Mopey parentage, when we noticed something. Mokey wears a ring around her neck. A diamond ring. And… do you know who has unlimited access to jewels?

That’s right. Dwarves.

Which means, Mopey might actually be totally legitimate, but no one knows about him.

Of course, since Snow White came out in 1937, and Fraggle Rock in 1983, (and did Dopey and Mokey maybe have kind of a May/December romance there? Or, as conversation last night wondered over, is Mokey just ancient?) Mopey is probably, like retired by now. So breaking the news of his parentage isn’t anything as awesome as getting the scoop on, say, Suri or Shiloh.

However, I just wanted to make public exactly what four adults, all four of whom have careers, and three of whom are in graduate programs, could accomplish if they put their heads together.

(And then, most likely, slammed them against each other, killing their braincells).

More on last weekend later!

This Fair Brought To You Entirely By Monkeys

2006-06-12T11:46:00.000-04:00

But First: Rocking the Suburbs, an Addendum:

Remember how I mentioned that Peanut had called with poison ivy? Heh. Yeah, since Peanut and I both can never do anything in even a remotely easy way, and we both have a tendency to end up in hospitals, I should have known this would not end well. Turns out she actually has poison sumac, and it is over most of her person, and a large patch of it on her arm managed to get infected, so we spent five hours in the emergency room yesterday while they pumped her full of steroids and antibiotics and painkillers. She will be fine, but this has proven two things to me:

1. My Demon Vine was by far NOT the deadliest thing in the yard, and perhaps did not deserve all of my contempt, and

2. I think I win this round of “suburbs v. the city”, because nothing on my balcony ever tries to kill me.

Now, back to the monkeys.

A few weeks ago, Peanut and I were talking about how much we liked fairs. Then at work, my supervisor mentioned that there was a fair only about 20 minutes from my house, so I e-mailed Peanut about going. Peanut’s e-mail was down, however, so I never heard back. Instead, I focused Saturday on trying out new recipes from E’s indoor grilling cookbook.

(See, when I woke up on Saturday, um… afternoon, Kate was helping E study for the Bar, and no one was paying any attention to me at all. So I needed an outlet, and that became focusing on dinner. Which was really really good, and I love the lovely indoor grilling cookbook.)

Anyway, Saturday night Peanut came over for dinner, and I mentioned the Fair. Paying absolutely no attention to the fact that yes, I HAD told her about the Fair, Peanut demanded we go to the Fair. Now.

Which was fine, except: I had a massive, giant, nauseating headache.

I almost never get headaches. In fact, I only get headaches for one reason (ok, two reasons, but drunkenly smacking my head against hard things just doesn’t count), and that is a stupid reason, which is that I get myself highly addicted to caffeine and then if I do not have any my head explodes. Which is exactly what happened on Saturday.

But it was my own stupid fault, and I refuse to welcome my caffeine overlords, so we got in Peanuts car to head to the Fair. Which, remember, was 20 minutes or so away. However, Peanut’s car, which is generally wonderful because it will tell you where to go, sometimes likes to fuck with us. There was one week where no matter where we went; the car would not let us make right turns. I mean, we could see on the little map thing that we were driving in circles because it refused to give us directions with a right turn in them. Saturday? The car told us to drive in precisely the wrong direction for 10 miles before turning us around and getting us to the Fair.

We finally made it to the Fair, where I promptly turned four years old. People were walking by with giant monkeys (I swear, 90% of the prizes were monkeys. GIANT monkeys), and I am instantly like, “I want one of those.” Y’all? I don’t even like monkeys. But I wanted one. Luckily, Peanut introduced me to Whack-a-mole, which I won, and got myself a large, (if not giant) white monkey to carry around the Fair. We named him Gilbert. (Kate and E seem to think he is an abominable snowman, and not a monkey. However, having seen the Fair, and the unnatural amount of monkeys at the Fair, I am secure in my knowledge that Gilbert is a monkey.)

Then we decided to ride the Gravitron. We had discussed the Gravitron in detail, as it was both of our favorite rides from childhood. However, there were two problems with the Gravitron:

1. This Gravitron was NOTHING AT ALL like the one I had grown up with, and
2. Did I mention my crippling headache?

So the Gravitron I know and love involves leaning against a wall. Then the room spins fast enough that centrifugal force pins you to the wall, and then the floor drops out from under you. You then spend the rest of the ride desperately trying to make sure every available atom of your surface area is pressed up against said wall, looking in disbelief at the morons who are actually trying to pull away from said wall, and calculating the potential injuries if you were to fall off said wall (and trust me, y’all, if anyone could fall off a wall, even against all the laws of physics, it’s me). Or at least… that’s what I do. But it is fun, and your confidence grows until if you ride it enough times you may actually try to remove a hand from the wall.

The other thing? It is a calm ride. You don’t even really notice the spinning.

This Gravitron? This was nothing like above. Oh, there is still a wall, but the wall has these… padded areas. And the guy was like, “Do not put your arms between the padded areas”. Which… huh? Because, don’t you want to have as much of your body against the wall when the floor drops? And… what about my monkey? No one else had a monkey, and I didn’t know what to do with the monkey. But I just sort of went along with it. So, at the start of the ride, I am:

- Backed up against a padded wall.
- Expecting the floor to drop.
- Holding a monkey.

Apparently, however, in THIS Gravitron, the floor does not drop out. OH NO. That padded thing I was leaning against? Is on a track. And as we speed up and slow down, the pad either flies upwards, crashing at the top of the room, or flies downwards, smashing into the floor. And we begin spinning and I watching the floor waiting for it to slowly start to drop and then all of a sudden “WHOMP” I go flying upwards and then Peanut comes flying up at me and I have no idea what is going on, and there is loud music and then the evil ride man turns off the lights, which seriously in retrospect I don’t know why it bothered me so much because it just meant that I couldn’t see the floor as “WHOMP” I came crashing back down. This happened several more times and Peanut just continued to laugh at me as I begged her between shrieks of utter terror to explain to me what the hell was happening.

Finally, as the ride was ending, I got the hang of it, and it was fun. However, I learned something very, very valuable, namely:

Things That Do Not, In Any Way, Help A Headache:

- Zero gravity.
- Loud music.
- Flashing lights.
- Screaming.
- Flying upwards and smashing into ceiling.
- Falling downwards and crashing into floor.

However, I also discovered Things That Are Surprisingly Comforting When You Have A Headache You Have Just Made Horribly Worse Through The Exercise Of Stunningly Bad Judgment:

- Monkeys.

Anyway, I ended up getting a cup of coffee before bed, and Peanut and I enjoyed the rest of the Fair. There is a large one in her hometown soon, and we are planning on going to that one, too.

And this time, I am SO ready for the Gravitron.

Demon Vine

2006-06-06T17:08:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Part III of Peanut’s and my weekend of yard work, in which we spent many hours enjoying the fresh air and communing with nature. That is, until nature actually showed up, then we pretty much switched from Gentle Communing With Nature to Murdering Nature In Creative Ways. Of course, by “Nature” I mean “things with more than four legs”, which are, of course, completely expendable. Part I covers my historical fear of all things creepy crawly, and Part II illustrates what happens on the Scary Side of the House and how Peanut and I did NOT set the giant spider on fire.

We spent the rest of Saturday beginning to clean the backyard, then we went to dinner at a fabulous little Italian restaurant and saw a movie, returning to Peanut’s to sleep because I was going to get up in the morning and continue to aid her with the yard work, because my will to live had been effectively sapped by the Giant Spiders. (Yes, that is plural, and no, I am NOT going to talk about it.)

Sunday dawned and we began to continue our work in the backyard, which at this point consisted mainly of 5 things: 1. Raking leaves and other debris, 2. Bagging leaves and other debris, 3. Breaking down large sticks, 4. Cutting down a large dead bush, and 5. Freaking out and creatively killing Creatures. I pretty much took care of number 1, while Peanut worked on 3 and 4, and we would come together every half hour or so for number 2. (Number 5 is a whole other issue, explained below.)

So I am raking, and raking, and raking, and things are pretty ok. For some reason I was far more afraid of the side of the house than I was the backyard, and so if I just didn’t look very closely as I raked I pretty much did fine with any Creatures. However, after only a few minutes of raking, I realized that I had a problem. Throughout the backyard, woven insidiously through all of the bushes and shrubs and trees and whatnot, was a vine. But not your average, everyday vine. This vine had an agenda. This vine had an evil and vile purpose.

This was a Demon Vine.

And as I continued to try to rake around it, stopping roughly every three seconds to fight my rake free, bend over, and YANK on the vine, only to either be completely defeated by the vine NOT MOVING, AT ALL, or to barely stop myself from toppling over backwards as the vine sneakily snapped off in my hand right as I put my whole body into pulling on it, my battle with the vine became personal. And I mean, deeply personal.

So basically, poor Peanut is happily working her way through the yard, destroying sticks and trimming bushes, having no idea that I am now enacting a personal vendetta against a plant that I have personified to the point of evil in my head. Therefore, she had no idea what she had done wrong when she casually mentioned to me, “Oh, don’t bother pulling the vines in that corner, I am going to leave them there.”

What?!

Now, was I grateful that there was a whole corner of the yard in which I would no longer have to battle the vines? Was I accommodating because, after all, it is HER backyard and she pretty much has a right to tell me what she wants done to it? No, no I was not. In fact, I was hurt. Hurt and a little pissed, that after NINE YEARS of friendship, she had the NERVE to choose the DEMON PLANT over me. Like, this was some sort of personal attack or test of our friendship. (I had completely and totally gone batshit crazy, in case you hadn’t noticed.)

What I did do, however, is hand Peanut the rake, explaining that I would probably be less careful around the vines than she would (less careful? Hello, Gross Understatement. I wanted those vines dead. Brutally, violently dead), so she should probably do that area. And I tasted the sweet, sweet taste of victory and vindication when after a few minutes of close, personal acquaintance with the Demon Vine Peanut threw down her rake, declaring, “SCREW IT. FUCK THE VINES.”

Delighted, I responded by asking, “So… I can destroy them?”

Peanut: “Yes, fine. I don’t care. Stupid vines.”

And yes, now, days later and in the air-conditioned comfort of my office, I feel a little embarrassed about what occurred next. Because I didn’t just kill the vines, I gloated at the vines while I killed them. Because I had won.

However, in addition to Demon Vines, we also had to battle the Wasp and His Nest. Funny thing? You know my whole pathology in re: Spiders, where I freeze and shriek and move faster than the speed of sound and Peanut laughs at me? Yeah, turns out she has the exact same reaction to wasps. Which basically meant two things, 1. The wasp HAD to go, and 2. I had to be the brave one. Yeah, I know, I know, I don’t exactly inspire confidence. But I was still giddy off my defeat of the Demon Vines, and trust me, what I make up in bravery I gain in sheer creativity. So Peanut and I managed to kill the wasp and nest, using the following tools:

1. Plastic Bag from Target.
2. Garden Hose.
3. Mexican Hat Dance.

See, the nest was in the candle holder part of an outdoor lantern-on-a-stick type candle. So first we got the plastic Target bag and tied it around the end of the lantern. Therefore, we could no longer see the wasp, and he could no longer see us. However, he also could no longer fly out of the lantern and attack us, so we were a step ahead. Then we removed the stick part from the ground, and carried it to the now clean Scary Side of the House, where the hose lives. We then proceeded to fill the Target bag with water.

Now, this was the scary part, because even though I was being all brave and “aren’t we clever” in front of Peanut, I knew that this had a roughly zero percent chance of working. Simply, wasps don’t drown. Growing up, I had an in ground pool, and one year for biology we had to do a “Bug Project”, which- much like spider crickets- I believe was invented purely to fuck with me. But my friend and I tried to be brave during the part where we had to gather and identify and pin insects, and we discovered several nice specimens, including a giant wasp, in the water below a layer of ice in the cover of my pool. Got that?

Under water.
LAYER OF ICE.

About 20 minutes after we brought it inside, the wasp started buzzing around. My friend and I locked ourselves in my bedroom, which was on a different floor, and stuffed a towel under the door, and waited in terror until her father got there.

Point being? Wasps don’t drown. However, I was hoping the water would at least stun it. Which it seemed to, enough for us to get the bottom off of the lantern and shake the wasp out, into the Target bag.

Which we then did the Mexican Hat Dance on, until the wasp and the nest were sort of a Creature Sludge.

Eventually, Peanut and I did clear the whole backyard. There are only 2 things that are worrying me now.

1. Rumor has it, next weekend there will be mulching.
2. Peanut just e-mailed me, and she has POISON IVY.

I’ll keep y’all posted.

The Scary Side of the House

2006-06-06T12:46:00.000-04:00

This is the second installment of the “Rocking the Suburbs” series, in which Citycat and Peanut do yard work for an entire weekend and battle all sorts of evil and otherworldly creatures commonly referred to as “nature”. The first installment is here.

Ok. So Peanut and I view the backyard, which is seriously frightening looking. I started to lose hope quickly as we tried to plan strategy.

Me: “We should move that extra grill”.

Peanut: “That grill is holding up the fence.”

Me: “…Oh. Um, and the pole over there?”

Peanut: “The fence is somewhat lacking in structural integrity.”

Me: “Hrm. Yeah. Ok, what about the broken swing?”

Peanut: “We can move that to the side of the house.”

Me: “Great! Let’s move it!”

Peanut: “Heh. Have you seen the side of the house?”

Ok, so there we go. In order to clean up the backyard, we had to move the broken furniture to the side of the house, and in order to do that, we had to clean up the side of the house. So we walk over to the side of the house. This did not look good. It looked, in fact, like the perfect incubation area for giant alien-type spiders. Sometimes, I hate it when I am right.

We had been raking and clearing up the area for about an hour or so when Peanut made that noise. You know what noise I am talking about. It is the noise that says, “Oh, shit. I have just discovered something utterly and completely terrifying, yet I am doing everything in my power to keep my shit together and not freak out the other person near me, because that would not be good at ALL”. Y’all? I hate that noise. With a passion. Of course, I instantly freaked out, freezing, holding my rake as a weapon, and demanding, “WHAT. WHAT IS IT? YOU MUST TELL ME OR I WILL KILL YOU WITH THE RAKE.” (I am so, SO not rational under these circumstances). Peanut responded, clearly barely holding it together but doing an admirable job of faking it, that I was fine, just don’t move.

Now, here is the thing. In a circumstance like this, where someone has made that noise, and I know there is a scary/creepy/awful thing in question, and I don’t know exactly what that thing is, but I know that things in general have an ability to fly/jump/skitter, I do not want to be told that I am fine. And I especially don’t want to be told that I am fine if I do not move. I will decide if I am fine. Preferably from a position SEVERAL HUNDRED FEET AWAY from the source of that noise. And I cannot GET several hundred feet away without moving, so this whole conversation was going nowhere fast for me.

“It’s ok.” Peanut said, edging away slowly. “Just wait here and don’t move.” And she disappeared to the front of the house.

She disappeared to… Oh, HELL NO. There was not a snowballs chance in hell that I was “Waiting here” and “not moving”. SHE LEFT ME ALONE WITH THE CREATURE. I think I broke land speed records and possibly the sound barrier leaping past the general area where the Creature was and joining her at the front of the house, which she emerged triumphantly from carrying a large can of bug spray.

She proceeded back to the side of the house, where I heard the sounds of spraying and screaming. I do not know exactly what happened here, because I was clearly not returning to the side of the house any time soon. The Creature could have stolen the bug spray from Peanut and have been spraying her. It could have been beating her to death with a rake, for all I knew. I am maybe not the best person to take with you on a trip to the rainforest, is all I am saying.

Eventually, she came back around, declaring proudly that it was dead. “Do you want to see it?” she asked. Now, clearly, NO, I did NOT want to see it. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t actually exist, so seeing it was contrary to my denial. However, I know a little something about Creatures like this. I know their sneaky, revenge thirsty ways. So I snuck up slowly behind Peanut, to where she was pointing at a foam covered blob. “See?” she said. “It’s dead.”

But I knew better, and I was right. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than it moved. “NO IT’S NOT” I managed to shriek, on my way back to the front of the house. Then Peanut started shrieking, and then, swear to god, she said to me: “Go through the house, on the back deck is the lighter for the grill.” I was halfway back into the house when my brain, thank GOD, kicked in. I was able to process the entire scene somewhat rationally in my head, and it went like this: Pile of wood, dry leaves, almost entire can of flammable bug spray, giant Undead spider, get the... lighter for the grill? I saw where this was going, and it was nowhere good.

I went back near the side of the house and announced to Peanut that she was NOT setting the spider on fire. “Why not?” she asked. “Too Arachnophobia? Having absolutely nothing to say to that, I simply handed her a shovel, which she bravely used to hack the thing to pieces.

Then her neighbor came over to see if she should call the rescue squad, because we apparently sounded like we were being murdered.

The funniest part was that Peanut could barely speak to her neighbor at all, because she was laughing far too hard at me, whom she had never seen move so fast. “You were next to me, and then you were gone.”

I explained to Peanut that she was lucky I had stopped in the front yard, that there was a good chance that I would have simply kept going, and been halfway through DC by the time she noticed I was gone. And then she clearly would have set her house on fire.

Stay tuned for part three: Demon Vine.

Rocking the Suburbs

2006-06-06T12:11:00.000-04:00

Or, in my case, raking the suburbs. Potentially, ALL of the suburbs. Which would be why currently? My hands no longer work.

I spent all weekend doing yard work. Yes. YARD work. The funny thing is the reaction when I tell people this, because there is generally a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then they say to me very gently, as though talking to a crazy person who could go off the deep end at any moment, “But Citycat… you don’t HAVE a yard.”

Yes, I know this. I live in a high-rise for a reason, actually, several reasons, one of which is yard work. It’s not that I mind yard work per se, exactly, in theory it’s great. You are outdoors, communing with nature, there is instant gratification in seeing the yard improve, it’s good exercise- all of which I am totally a fan of. However, there are a few things about the actual practice of yard work that I have issues with, namely:

There Are Creatures.

Y’all. I do not do nature, and this is entirely the fault of things with more than 4 legs. Anything four legged, I can handle. In fact, anything NO legged I can handle as well, including things that make others twitch, like snakes and Jurassic-sized earthworms. But more than 4 legs? No. Just, no. Case in point: A few months ago Kate, E, and I had a cockroach in the apartment. This occasionally happens, especially in spring, but usually I don’t even know about it until I find its Jake-battered corpse (good kitty!), or I make E or Kate take care of it. This time was different, for three reasons:

1. It touched me.
2. Jake did not see it.
3. Kate and E were not home.

So what did I do? Did I kill the cockroach as it sat on the chair? Did I trap the cockroach as it sat on the chair? HELL NO. That would mean approaching the cockroach, and I do not do that. Instead, I grabbed a book and wine and sat on the balcony, door firmly between me and the roach, for an hour and a half until Kate and E came home.

Clearly, I am not so much brave when it comes to creatures.

But if you think I am bad with roaches, you should SEE me with spiders. Because I am not simply afraid of spiders. I don’t simply think they are gross or icky. What I have is an actual pathological fear of them, where even small ones make me freeze entirely unable to do much more than shriek and shake. I am not proud of this, but this is true. I have even passed out at the sight of an infestation of spider crickets once, which are not even actual spiders, they just imitate them for the sole purpose of fucking with me.

Yard work implies creatures. Hundreds and hundreds of creatures. This does not bode well for me.

However, the Peanut needed help with yard work, and I volunteered because I am a good friend with severe mental issues. So for 2 days last week, I faced my fears (sort of), rakes thousands of leaves, and battled the most Evil Vine on Earth (more on that later.) I am going to break this post up, because it is long, and the next one will be a summary of Day 1: The Scary Side of The House. (aka: Where the Wild and Disgusting Things Are.)

Self Defense Is Ouchy

2006-05-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

(Or, how I ended up covered in bruises that in no way involved alcohol).

Yes. Self defense. This, unlike just about everything else in my life, is not a gym thing, but a work thing. And through a strange combination of our new EEO Director and her neighbors and their friends, I am now engaged in a 10 week self defense course taught by an awesome crazy man.

No, for real. I LOVE this man. He is like the actual living, breathing, STANDING RIGHT THERE personification of Jack Bauer. I really don’t know how else to describe him. He has done all sorts of scary undercover work in other countries and has defended himself against attacks by entire gangs at Union Station. Plus he carries a gun, which to me is kind of awesome.

So this class is not so much the litany of “Don’t wear headphones, keep your keys in your hands” that women are generally taught. This is far more, “It takes only 8 pounds of pressure to break the top of a foot, and it really, really hurts if you hyper extend an elbow, and now grab your co-worker and twist their wrist around until they corkscrew around the floor whimpering.”

Y’all, I’m not even kidding. So yesterday he used me as an example, which on the one hand is awesome, because he is awesome, and it’s even better to learn it from him. But on the other hand, it is not so awesome, because OUCH, jackass! My entire right arm is bruised all along the nerves (because when someone chokes you, you need to apply pressure to the nerve centers in their arms to get them to let go.) This is basically how yesterday went for me:

Instructor: “Lay on.” (this means to “attack” him).

Me: (Lays on. I am an idiot.)

Instructor: (Grabs wrist, jerks, bends, and twists wrist.)

Me: (whimpers, twists body into unnatural position to relieve excruciating wrist pain.)

Instructor: “Do you feel that?”

Me: (Glares as angrily as possible under the circumstance.)

Instructor: “Ok, now, if someone tries to choke you, turn your head and dig into the nerve.” (Chokes me from behind).

Me: (twists head, gets nerve.)

Instructor: “Good! Now, you’re actually kind of screwed if they do this.” (I… I don’t know what he did. I just know I actually could not breathe.)

Me: “Squawk!”

Co-Worker: “Wait, where exactly is the nerve in the arm?”

Instructor: “I’ll show you.” (looks at me.)

Me: (hating co-worker. Gives instructor my arm).

Instructor: “Ok, HERE HERE HERE HERE.” (Each here punctuated by sharp pain as he digs into my nerves. Man does not know his own strength.) “Feel that?”

Me: “Yes. YES I FEEL THAT. THAT’S ACTUALLY QUITE ENOUGH, THANKS.”

Instructor: “Well, also, look at someone’s pants.” (To me: “Do you mind?”)

Me: (sighing, because still hero worship man and also do not want to look like wimp.) “Nope.”

Instructor: “Well, see, right where the pocket forms a point… Hmm, you don’t have that, so I’ll have to sort of guess, but there is a nerve center right about…” (Makes fist, hits me in hip.)

Me: (Falls over, hits table.)

Instructor: “Did you feel that?”

Me: (Hating instructor.)

So that is pretty much how that went. My wrist is sore, my hip is bruised, my arm is bruised, and… I LOVE it. The class is SO. MUCH. FUN., even with the pain.

The only problem is that some of the other students think that we really ought to practice more. And by that, they mean we should sneak up on each other at work and attack. Yes. My office is now a bunch of Stealth Ninja Attackers. I just can’t wait to see the look on a Commissioners face the first time they turn a corner and watch two normally well mannered attorneys throwing down.

Turns out kicking ass? Is kind of fun.

I Am Not So Much "Enlightened"

2006-05-17T15:55:00.000-04:00

I want to update more frequently now, especially since I am DONE WITH THE SEMESTER (that still needs to be typed in all caps, I am sorry) and have time on my hands. Problem is, I couldn’t think of anything to write about, since my conversations with Peanut lately have tended to start with “Ow” and end with “Don’t you DARE blog that.”

The “ow” comes from the fact that Peanut and I now belong to the same gym, which we actually frequent, and we do things to ourselves that hurt a lot so we can justify the sauna. It’s actually very sad. A few days last week we did yoga. Now, I really like yoga. I need to increase my flexibility and I think that’s a great way to do it. The thing is… I am kind of really bad at yoga.

And not the physical part of yoga. I mean, I am not great, but I can hold my own with the balance-y stretchy part of the class. I even managed to balance all of my bodyweight on my wrists for a few second as I let my knees rest on my elbows. (Don’t ask. Just… don’t ask). (And maybe a few seconds after the balancing there was embarrassing falling down. But whatever). The point is, I can do the parts of yoga that are physical. The mental stuff? I have a really, REALLY hard time with.

I just cannot relax and meditate and take it seriously. And I DO take it seriously. Or at least, I want to. I believe in the whole thing- the relaxation and the meditation and the increasing your health and all of that. But… I can’t do it. I just cannot do it. We start the meditation stuff, and here is me:

Yoga Guy: “Ok, just relax. Let your mind clear. Focus on breathing.”

Me: (Ok, inhale, exhale… hey. Am I the only one facing to the right? Hmm, maybe if I just turn a little… oh, wait, breathing, focus on breathing)

YG: “Feel all your tension drain out of you, empty your mind…”

Me: (Empty my… empty your mind? Oh, so the woman who totally held up the metro for like TWENTY MINUTES this afternoon because she couldn’t figure out how to WORK a TURNSTILE, which for the love of GOD people, is not THAT HARD, and even if it is that hard, OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES and OBSERVE for a minute, because there are SEVEN HUNDRED OTHER PEOPLE going through them and you can FIGURE IT OUT, that one, she was simply doing yoga? Is that it? Because…”

YG: “You are very calm now.”

Me: (Shit. Focus. Breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale… I feel like a complete and utter moron.)

YG: “Ok, now you will learn what surrender means. It is not just physical surrender, but emotional and spiritual surrender as well.”

Me: (That sounds kind of nice. Maybe I really should put an effort into trying that. Just… let it all go. Don’t try too hard to force life to go my way. Just… surrender. Except… Well, what if I do that, then anyone I meet won’t actually be meeting the real me, and if I ever want to be myself again there will be this whole thing about how I’ve “changed” or wasn’t “real” and that is just something I don’t want to deal with.)

YG: “Just feel yourself let go…”

Me: (did I actually just… Good Lord. I allowed myself a second, while doing yoga, to consider this “surrendering” thing, and I rationalized myself out of it. I can’t even pretend that I am going to be able to do this while I am actually doing it. Christ.)

YG: “Ok, now just lie down now. Lie on your back and let your whole body relax, getting in touch with the one spirit that unites us all…”

Me: (Oh, right. I can’t even fake an understanding of surrender, now I need to get in touch with the one unifying spirit? We don’t even have a unifying theory of physics, for Christ sake. And the only way I feel united to all of these people is that we use these same relatively disgusting mats every class, and the Plague was a relatively uniting thing, just ask Poe. And as long as I am thinking about physics and dark literature and all, that pipe on the ceiling looks awfully heavy, and if it fell down, it would shatter my pelvis. I wonder how badly that would hurt….”

YG: “Just spend a few seconds enjoying this glorious feeling of peace and one-ness.”

Me: (Dude, every second brings me closer to Pelvis Shattering.)

So as you can see, my one person monologue during the relaxation period in yoga is less “enlightenment” and more “garbled nonsense that leads to no good.”

Sigh.

But I am improving my plow position!!

Summertime!

2006-05-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

I don’t even know where to begin.

Last week was a bad, bad, week, so we are going to ignore it and pretend it didn’t actually happen. Because I am a HUGE fan of denial when necessary.

This weekend, however? Totally happened. And now ALL weekends can be like this weekend, because I am TOTALLY DONE WITH ANOTHER YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL. YAY.

I am really excited about this summer. The other weekend Kate and E and I set up the new Forman grill on the balcony, and I had gotten up and gone to the gym and I came home and made myself some food and we all just sort of sat in the sun and ate and laughed and joked, and I looked at Kate and I was like, “This is what this summer is going to be, isn’t it?” And she was like, “Yes, and it’s going to be awesome.” This was followed by drinking phenomenal mint juleps prepared by PC and watching the Kentucky Derby, (which was very cool, and I would love to see a triple crown winner, but I am still cheering for “Showing Up”, because that name is a philosophy I can get behind), seeing American Dreamz (“Dreamz with a Z”), having dinner, and drinking wine. Seriously? Best. Day. Ever. And now I can have days like that without feeling guilty for not studying!

Which brings us to this weekend, where the Peanut and I lost our minds. Friday night we went out, despite the torrential downpour, and discovered where all of the attractive people in DC apparently hang out. We didn’t drink a lot, but we didn’t get home until almost 3. Which would have been fine, except that we were getting up at 8:30 in the morning for yoga. Yeah. We went to yoga. On a Saturday morning. The plan was simple: yoga, showering, DSW (I wanted a new pair of athletic shoes), Ann Taylor (Peanut had to return a suit), and the back up to MD to go to Peanut’s salon for manicures. Simple, right?

Wrong.

We didn’t leave the mall for nine hours. Do you know how much damage to a credit card I can do in nine hours??? Well, I do. I can do a LOT of damage. An INCREDIBLE amount of damage. A… well, you get the point.

In all fairness, I have not shopped like that in almost two years, right when I started law school and K and I had that massive shopping spree, where I bought 2 jackets and three pairs of boots and skirts and pants. And I would totally link to that entry, but that entry is gone.*

Anyway, Peanut and I blew an incredible amount of money. And I got great stuff, but… still. And I was exhausted, and it was eight o’clock at night and we had never left the mall since yoga at nine in the morning, so we decided it was time to go home. And what did I do when I went home?

A. Relax and watch all the TV I Tivo’d during finals?
B. Cook food for the week so I wouldn’t have to eat out?
C. Clean the apartment, which was looking a little post-apocalyptic?
D. Decide that NOW would be a good time to COMPLETELY REARRANGE MY CLOSET?

Yeah. So I walk exhausted into my already messy bedroom, throw all my shopping bags on the bed, and then just take every other piece of clothing I own and throw it on the floor. It took me hours to get everything organized. HOURS. At one point I called my mother in a panic because I had just yelled at a hanger and accused it of being a drama queen. (Seriously? The hanger was SO being a drama queen.) But still. One should not yell at hangers. In fact, one should not socially interact with hangers in any meaningful way.

Summer? Thank god you’re here.

And one final note- Congratulations to E for graduating law school!

* For those of you that haven’t figured it out yet, all of the old entries are gone. I was on Diary-X, and Diary-X died. I did not back up the majority of my entries, which is all my fault and there is nothing I can do about it. I actually try not to think about the three years of writing that I lost, and just thank god that I moved here when I did.

Screw the Sex and Videotapes, ALL WE HAVE ARE THE LIES.

2006-04-27T16:49:00.000-04:00

I'm not even going to apologize for not writing. Because it's finals. And, due to an extraordinarily ill timed and evil e-mail this afternoon, I am a bloody wreck.

Things That Are Just True:

1. You know how on the show House, his theme is that everybody lies? All the patients? Could be cured in like 10 minutes but they all lie? Well.

Law school professors lie.

They ALL LIE.

And they don't lie about irrelevant things, like whether or not they agree with Scalia. They don't even lie about relevant but not panic-attack inducing things, like length of reading assignments or classes that will run late. Oh no.

THEY LIE ABOUT THE FUCKING FORMAT OF THE FINAL EXAM UNTIL IT IS ACTUALLY FINALS PERIOD.

Then they sneakily lie about what a certain class will cover, and just happen to mention that, Oh, everything I said about the exam? That has dictated the way you read and took notes and prepared all semester? HAHAHA. Just kidding. Y'all? I am so fucked.

2. The amount you have to do at work is directly proportional to the amount of studying you have to do for exams, and is statistically related to the extent that Professors LIE about said exams, causing panic.

3. The day you miss class, because it was SUPPOSED to be a movie which you rented and watched on your own time, will be the day the Professor's GIANT LIES are revealed, and you will only find out about them at work the next day by e-mail, sparking a full blown panic attack and a complete inability to focus on the budget spreadsheets.

4. Shrieking, then walking into your bosses office and announcing, "I will be back. I need to be smoking right now" will freak your boss right the hell out.

5. Someone needs to inform the Bush administration that the Doctrine of Constitutional Avoidance does not mean, "Whenever possible, avoid the Constitution."

Gah.

The American Life, The American Life, The American Life...

2006-04-20T16:30:00.000-04:00

Fuck it.

(This title only makes sense if you are familiar with Dean Gray and his cut of Boulevard of Broken Songs, which I get to at the end of the post.)

Oh, y’all. The birthdays, they were fun. They were LOTs of fun, actually. Saturday night we had a party, and it was awesome, and completely and totally taken over by the Game That Has No Actual Name But I Swear I Didn’t Just Make It Up Right Now. See, we were all out on the balcony (in our house, the party doesn’t gather in the kitchen, it gathers on the balcony, where 15 people sit actually on top of each other) and one of our friends brought up playing this movie game, wherein someone named an actor, and then someone else had to name a movie they were in, and then someone else had to name another actor from that movie, etc. etc. One would not think that this would be overly taxing.

Y’all? It was overly taxing. It taxed us right to death. I think we actually broke new ground in the concept of sucking. We… we not only didn’t get all the way around the circle, we never got past one person. We do not so much know movies. Or actors. At all.

So I remembered a game I had once played, that was surprisingly entertaining. This is where you name a movie star, say, “Harrison Ford”, and then the next person has to name one whose first name starts with the first letter of the last name, so, “Frank Sinatra” would work. And it goes around, unless someone pulls a double, say, “Farrah Fawcett”, which flips it back the other way.

The game got off to a rough start, but we changed a few rules, namely:

“Ok, forget movie stars. Any famous person.”

“Ok, famous people includes politicians.”

“Ok, “famous people” includes made up famous people. Bring on Mickey Mouse.”

“Ok, you know what? ANY NAME. ANY NAME AT ALL that SOMEONE else recognizes will count.” (Because we still really, really don’t know movie stars.)

So we started, and the game is honestly more fun than it sounds like it would be, as evidenced by the fact that… it never ended. All night, from like 8-1, we played this game. People arrived, people left, we ate food, went out and bought more wine… the game just kept on going. It was fantastic. People were getting into spirited debates about whether “Puff Daddy”, “P Diddy”, and “Diddy”, were different names. (E’s theory: anything with the P is the same name. The removal of the P however, fundamentally changed it all. E had been drinking.) And seriously, when you’ve been drinking wine for 5 hours, that kind of debate is awesome and completely appropriate.

The other best part of my birthday is the fact that S managed to make Dean Gray’s American Edit album appear on my iPod. (There are a lot of semi-working computers in my life, but somehow S made this work). This album has thrown me into a downward spiral of complete and utter obsession. Y’all? I love this album. LOVE. Love to the extent that it affects my health. Sunday night? I did not sleep. I mean, my insomnia generally kicks up on Sundays, but I mean, I Did. Not. Sleep. I stayed up, all night, and listened to this album, dancing like a complete idiot throughout my apartment. Then I went to work. (as the strands of American Idiot ring in my head…)

Also? Last night, I took it to work out with. Now, I have been working with my trainer, but I am bad at cardio. Bad, bad. I look at the clock and count down the minutes I have to keep doing this and invent insane medical problems to justify not doing it and develop philosophical theories about the universe hating me and actually slowing down time when I am on the elliptical. So… not good. Last night? I ran for 15 minutes after what I normally do and didn’t really want to stop.

This album is magical. It is a magical, wonderful album, and I am bat shit crazy obsessed with it. To the point of titling posts with non-sensical lyrics from it. To the point where, since my office is currently empty, I am going to listen to it Right Now.

Peanut and Citycat Apparently Have A Lot To Write About

2006-04-13T15:26:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I have to write this entry now, and it will be long and nonsensical because, well, hi!, have you read this blog? But also because I have tons of stuff to post about and have been a Lazy Poster (and also, busy) all week, and I have to post them all NOW because this weekend is my birthday and Kate’s birthday and you do the math- it should be an interesting weekend.

Not that last weekend wasn’t an interesting weekend. Because it… was. So let’s just begin, shall we?

Peanut and Citycat: A Nordstom’s Make-up Adventure

Peanut called me one day last week and asked if I wanted to accompany her to a make up show at Nordstrom’s Saturday morning. You paid $15, they closed the store, and you drank mimosas and watched a “fashion” show where they showed off “new make-up looks”, and then got a free make-over at a make up counter. Which, of course I wanted to do that, because it is insane, and I like doing insane things.

So, at roughly 9 am on Saturday morning Peanut and I are drunk on mimosas. This may have aided in the fact that after being made over by Stila, I proceeded to spend approximately seven thousand dollars on make-up. Well, ok, maybe not seven thousand, but… hundreds. Hundreds of dollars. On make up. Which… I don’t wear. And even after spending all that money, I was STILL talked into buying over priced eye cream, because the man selling it was so entirely awesome that after 20 seconds of talking to him all I wanted was to have him come to my house to sit on the couch and watch bad TV and braid my hair and talk about boys on a Saturday afternoon and really, the least I could do was buy the eye cream.

Peanut and Citycat: A Soundtrack

So, maybe it is because Peanut and I are in the car a lot lately, but we have been ipod-ing (I verbed “ipod”! And… “verb”) it up like crazy. And I guess music was always pretty big for us when we lived together, and for more than just challenging our dorm neighbor who once woke us up by playing the trumpet. (Peanut: (incensed) “Ok, that’s IT. I handled the stereo. I handled the violin. I handled the bongo drums. But I DRAW THE LINE at the trumpet!”). Anyway, a lot of time has been spent lately listening to everything from the Killers (“this song makes everything ok in my life”) to a folder called “College” and having conversations like this:

Me: “Blue! I LOVE that song!”

Peanut: “I am so glad you mentioned that song, because I don’t know anyone else who would admit to actually liking it.”

Me: “But… I really love it.”

Peanut: “But you’re kind of embarrassed about that, right?”

Me: “Sure, this from the girl who just played the Venga Boys. Twice.”

But seriously, there is some crazy bad music out there, and it is wonderful. Go download Tupthumping by Chumbawumba, and you will see what I mean.

Peanut and Citycat: The Issue With The Horoscopes:

Peanut has somehow found a horoscope writer who is actually on crack, and thus has been amusing us for a week. It began when she called me at work on Monday to read me her horoscope. (This is not a usual occurrence, I swear). But… her horoscope had to do with maybe her having some great idea, which she… held and incubated in her chest (?) like a little chick (??) and today was the day it would poke it’s little beak out of it’s little shell and… show its wings (???). Which, A. Is a metaphor that has been taken far too far, and B. Is actually a pretty terrible metaphor. At least, if it is trying to say what I think it is trying to say, which is: you have a good idea, you have been waiting for the right time for this idea, and the time is here, so the idea should spring forth and take flight and soar to new heights, bringing you and your reputation with it. Which, all metaphors for success, right? Except…

Chickens? Don’t fly.

So what this metaphor is actually saying, (if you are the kind of person who spends this much time analyzing crack head horoscopes, that is) is that you had one idea once, and you didn’t say anything, and it… became a chicken. And when you DO finally make it public, it will show that it has wings but they are useless, and it will just run around and squawk. And that? Is NOT a metaphor for success, so much.

Mine? Another overblown metaphor, this one involving, of all things, donuts, which I do not even like. It starts out basically throwing out there the fact that I am… inventing a donut. (Like, a new donut? Because donuts are already kind of invented…) But anyway, I am not supposed to invent a whole new donut anyway, because my “batter is fine” (…thanks?) and the baking is all ok (…good?) and in fact, I should be concentrating on “pink sprinkles and coconut shavings” (oh… really?). I mean, seriously people, I couldn’t even make this up.

In today’s horoscopes? I am going to meet the man of my dreams and be in a different emotional space than I am in now. Since currently my emotional space consists of fighting with a computer program that is not working, and my emotional space tonight involves champagne and the pretty, pretty Supernatural boys, I have to say it might be right.

Peanut? Should go save woodland creatures. I swear to you. Here it is:

"Maybe you want to save the endangered oak trees in the neighborhood park. Maybe it's a certain kind of bird whose habitat is threatened that's gotten hold of your heart and your energies. Or it could be a species of wild mouse, or bunny rabbit, or frog. You're absolutely right: Something has to be done for these little creatures that can't speak up for themselves. Go to it!”

Hee, I think I like mine better.

When I write again, there will be a new number next to the “2” in my age.

Do NOT Anger Crazy Waitress

2006-04-03T13:29:00.000-04:00

Ok, so maybe there was a reason that I don’t go out much anymore. And maybe that reason involves the fact that the Stupid and the Scary and the Criminally Insane seem very, very drawn to me.

Saturday I was supposed to do work, and did… not. Peanut called and wanted to know if I wanted to go out, and my brain short circuited and I decided that yes, going out? Brilliant plan! Fuck International Law, anyway! But I didn’t want to go out as early as they were talking, (8), so I said I would meet them later, giving me ample hours to do work.

Roughly .003 nanoseconds later, I get an IM from SecretAgent. Now, SecretAgent is also in night school to get a graduate degree, and as such is one of the only people around who really, truly connects with what my life is like. Which unfortunately means we never see each other. But he was totally stir crazy, and a new movie was out, so I jumped on the chance to see him and we made plans to meet for dinner and a movie.

Fun Fact #1: Yes. I did arrange with Peanut to go out later, because 8:00 was “too early”, only to make new plans for 6:00 approximately 2 minutes later.

So SecretAgent and I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. We wanted to go to the bar and grill type place, but there was a 45 minute wait so we decided we’d be faster at the only 10 minute wait place across the street.

Note: we were wrong about that.

Fun Fact #2: Number of chicken quesadillas delivered to our table by deeply confused waitstaff? 2. Number of chicken quesadillas actually ordered by our table? 0.

So this is pretty much my experience with SecretAgent at the restaurant:

Kitchen Person: “You ordered a chicken quesadilla?”

SecretAgent and I: (Look at menus that are still in our hands. Note that we have not even yet spoken to a waitress, let alone ordered any food). “Um, no?”

(Kitchen person leaves, confused, SecretAgent and I are bemused.)

Waitress: (comes over, smiling… kind of a lot… talking… kind of a lot. But not just talking a lot, but talking in that slightly disassociative way? You know?)

SecretAgent: (minute waitress is out of earshot). “Um, is it just me, or is she a little….”

Me: “Insane?”

SecretAgent: “Thank god. I didn’t want to say it out loud. But yeah.”

Me: “And not a little. That is 100% Crazy right there.”

SecretAgent: “And… I think she’s flirting with me. Which is odd, and also somewhat terrifying. Let’s not anger Crazy Waitress.”

Me: “I agree.”

Time passes. Time passes. We eat chips and salsa. Time passes.

Kitchen Person: “You ordered a chicken quesadilla?”

SecretAgent and I: “No. STILL NO.” (At this point we break down hysterically laughing, wondering if somehow Crazy Waitress is behind what is now getting to be an inordinately long wait for our actual food, although again, the kitchen staff seems quite willing to feed us. Just not anything we, you know, ordered.)

Crazy Waitress: (comes over, bringing SecretAgent’s beer). “What’s so funny? Did I miss a joke?”

SecretAgent and I: (kind of terrified). “Um… no?”

Crazy Waitress: (Gazing at SecretAgent. Seriously. Gazing.) “Oh. I thought maybe HE did something funny.”

Me: “Um, nope!”

Crazy Waitress: (Glaring at me). “Oh. Fine then. Your food should be here soon.” (Flounces off).

Me: “’Did I miss a joke?” What ARE you, our friend now??”

SecretAgent: “No joke, just Crazy Waitress.”

Time passes. Time passes. Time passes.

Me: “Ok, this is ridiculous. We should have food. I think we should say something to Crazy Waitress.”

SecretAgent: “Citycat, WHAT did we decide about angering Crazy Waitress???”

Anyway, we did end up getting our food. And I will continue recapping the night in a later entry, because this is long and I have work to do. But I promise it includes:

- The Worst. Movie. Ever.
- With squid references.
- Being invited to tour the city on a short bus.
- Being hugged by random men.
- Ending up actually physically in the middle of a bachelor party.

Till later!

Spring Fever

2006-03-31T12:05:00.000-05:00

Hi! It’s Friday! And I have lost my mind! I have completely fallen victim to spring fever, because it’s sunny and it’s warm, y’all, and that is AWESOME. And it is not only Friday, but it is the Friday after the Worst. Week. Ever, and the last Friday in March, and for some reason I am all sunshine and flowers and rainbows and kittens today. Maybe the excessive amount of coffee has something to do with it? Nah.

Point being that a co-worker just came into the office to find me giggling helplessly at the e-mail I had just received. See, we get these nice little newsletters about health stuff, and the title of this one is, “Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Eat Better.” Hee! Thanks, Uncle Sam!

Anyway, I am also entirely mentally unhinged because computers will drive you straight to the mental ward. I had to do a posting today, and it took well over an hour, which is about and hour and a half longer than it should take me. It’s like the computer and the document were in a conspiracy to make things as goddamn difficult as possible. Seriously. Change one thing, something else gets screwed up. It was like a game. Ok, if I fix the date, good, then… oh, the spacing is now off, so I’ll fix that and… Damn, the table is off now, ok, fix the table, fix the spacing, date is right, now…. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE FONT?!?!? And of course as soon as I got it perfectly formatted I noticed that I had the opening date as March 33, which… doesn’t actually exist, and changing that sparked a whole new round of edits. I hate computer gnomes.

Anyway, last weekend SuperGirl and my apartment finally got our acts together and went to Costco, where we promptly became terrible influences on each other and I think I need to mortgage the apartment to pay for everything we bought. But our barren cupboards now have food in them again, which is so lovely. Also, shopping cart races on the way home. (Because we sort of stole shopping carts from the shopping cart graveyard outside our apartment, brought them to Costco, and then just brought them back home). Shopping cart races that E and I won, thanks to what was actually a pretty sneaky move by E. Yay, E! Also, we finally cleaned the kitchen. Now, we clean the kitchen all the time. But I mean CLEANED the kitchen, to the point where at one point Kate, E, and I were all on our hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. This was kind of hilarious, and kind of awful, because the kitchen floor turned out to be unbelievably dirty. Like, scary dirty. But it’s clean now, so yay.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time this week laughing hysterically at Snakes on a Plane. Seriously, people. Snakes. On a Plane. E and I spent part of Sunday laughing so hard at Snakes on a Plane that Kate heard us in the shower. I then told Jimbo about it, and at one point in class on Tuesday both of us were in tears trying to hold back laughter. This may not be the best idea in the world, but meh. Long week. So check out Snakes on a Plane.

That is pretty much all that is new right now, have a great weekend, and I hope Spring has sprung wherever you are!

And NEXT Week Will be Worse

2006-03-24T15:00:00.000-05:00

So much is going on. So. Much. And most of it is not good, people, not good at ALL.

This week was a mess. Not as much of a mess as NEXT week is going to be, thanks to a LOVELY bit of information that was recently e-mailed to me, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First of all, this week.

Monday wasn’t too terrible, except for the following:
1. Tony actually IS dead on 24, and that is just unacceptable in So. Many. Ways.

2. Turns out that nuclear non-proliferation? Slightly, but only slightly less depressing a topic than Rwanda. Especially given the comments of the Russian Prime Minister.

3. A and I? Continue to be exactly the same kind of stupid. To wit: sitting in class on Monday, discussing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Me: “What is an “MPT”? I did not do the reading.” A: “I don’t know! I didn’t either.” Me: “Google it!” A: “I did”. Approximately ten minutes later, A and I both gasp with realization and at the exact same moment look at each other, all: “OH! NPT.” Seriously, y’all.

Tuesday:

Tuesday generally sucked because it was A. the longest day ever, and B. Consisted of many icky things. For example, I started the day off with a final visit to my oral surgeon, with whom I am now on hugging terms. I read the pathology report, saw many, many big words, comforted myself with “benign” once more, and left literally about 5 minutes after we had gotten there. Seriously, y’all, I was done with my appointment before it was supposed to have started. This was followed by….

The Dentist.

Oh y’all, I hate the dentist. Not my dentist per se, but the whole idea of the dentist. The Platonic Ideal of Dentist, this is whom I hate. Honestly, is there ANYTHING else in the world that assaults ALL of your senses at the same time in such an unpleasant way? The screech of the drill, the smell of your teeth as they grind away, staring at a giant light into your dentist’s scary goggles, the GIANT FUCKING NEEDLES, which, OW, and of course the tastes of blood and tooth and stainless steel. Yum!

So I go, and he has several teeth to fill, because I inherited extraordinarily crappy teeth from my father. He needs to do both the left and the right side, and I am actually kind of grateful, because the left side has been bothering me for an unreasonable amount of time now, and he keeps putting it off. And this time was no exception. He started on the right hand side, and things went fairly normally. By “normally”, I mean, “I sat there completely tense and in a complete panic because it doesn’t matter how much Novocain you give me, I still feel phantom pain while you are drilling and it HURTS.” The came the “polishing down” section, at which point he developed OCD and spent approximate 427 hours grinding down the filling he had just put in. I was ok at first, and then I tolerated it, and finally I got to a point where I feel I was exercising remarkable restraint by not grabbing the fucking polisher and jamming up his nostrils, when he finished. I relaxed, ready for him to fix the other side. And this is what the man says to me.

“Ok. Well, I can do the other side, but it will have to be without anesthesia.”

…

I have to say that I actually don’t remember that moment very clearly, because my head was busy exploding while my body was producing fight or flight chemicals at a remarkable rate, but I honestly think the words, “Oh, HELL no” actually left my mouth. I mean, people. I AM NOT JAMES FREY. I mean, ok, I realize that even James Frey was not so much James Frey, but that just strengthens my point.

Apparently, one cannot numb the bottom of both sides of ones mouth, or one may choke to death. Which, fine, I get your logic, but couldn’t you have, maybe, mentioned it before we began this little journey????

So anyway, it wasn’t even one in the afternoon and I was already sort of a disaster. I then went to work, and then class, and THEN Kate drove me to Baltimore, where we went to trivia and a friend’s house and THEN to the hotel at which I would be staying until Thursday, for computer training.

Computer Training.

This was not too bad. However, several member of the class just…. Lost their toolbars. I… I don’t know either. I know at one point I had to hide my face behind my monitor because I was laughing so hard. Because seriously? How do you lose. a toolbar?

The Evil That Has No Soul

The worst part, however, was Wednesday night, when I received an e-mail from Jimbo which basically said the following:

“Here are the notes from Crim. Oh, by the way. We have three hour classes all next week and all the reading for the rest of the semester is due. Have a good night!”

Um. The HELL? I tried for clarification, but really, there is none. As Jimbo noted, we have apparently “taken our sweet ass time” going over the material, and the Prof wants to step it up. And has done so by dictating three hours of class a night and extensive reading. And… he can just do this. This is apparently A-OK.

(There may have been weeping).

Luckily, the rest of the week picked up, except last night when stupid Kari lost me approximately SEVEN MILLION POINTS in our ANTM fantasy game. Kari? Try WALKING. Without FALLING. It’s not that hard, GOD.

Anyway, that is that. Next week is going to clearly suck, with the millions of hours of classes and the millions of pages of reading and KILL ME NOW.

But have a good weekend!

In Which Law School Needs Paxil

2006-03-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

This week law school has utterly and completely KILLED MY WILL TO LIVE. Now, law school does this on a fairly regular basis, I understand. The heavy books to schlep, the never going out or having a life, the exams, the nonsensical cases, the exams, the EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH tuition bills, and, of course, the exams. (In case I hadn’t mentioned that). In fact, I wonder if I have had an actual will to live since August of 2004.

But this week is different. This week law school sucks in a whole new way. Law school is being creative! Law school is Thinking Outside Of The Box. Law school is depressing the ever loving shit out of me. Allow me to recap my week:

Monday: Three hour discussion on the Rwandan genocide. With a man who has spent a great deal of time working on the ICTR in Rwanda. Y’all? There is no way on this earth to talk about that situation and not want to come home, curl up in a ball, and cry.

Tuesday: Civil Rights, And How The Courts Ignore Them. Seriously, people. This class is about statutory interpretation, it’s not even about substantive law, does he HAVE to pick the most depressing cases on earth to showcase for us??

Wednesday: Racial Profiling! Yay! Now with guest speakers! Who tell us all about how THEY were profiled and humiliated on the side of the road. Also- articles from a charter school in the area about how black teens are treated by the cops. Honestly, nothing is more fun than reading about innocent teenaged kids, taking a break from school, on SCHOOL GROUNDS, with SCHOOL PERMISSION, getting frisked, beaten up, and arrested for no reason. Thank God our professor decided at the last moment NOT to show the movie clip he was going to show, because he physically wasn't able to sit through it, it was so upsetting.

Tonight: Homophobics! More racists! Kicking people out on the street when their same-sex partners die! Not allowing discrimination protection to gays! (Although I have to say that case turned out better than I thought it would. Thanks to… Scalia. Great. Now my head just exploded.)

Tomorrow: Police power- stops and frisks.

I mean, ok. I get it. We suck. But… do we all have to suck all at once? I mean, couldn’t their just be ONE happy case or SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, before I SLIT MY WRISTS?

So I e-mailed this to A, and he responded as follows:

“Does GULC offer the Law of Puppies and Kittens and Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks? Or what about Rainbow Property Rights where we learn that EVERYONE owns the rainbow because it is made of joy and love and there is plenty for everyone!”

Not only did I suspect he was making fun of me (lighting quick there, ain’t I?), I also am so far gone that this was my response:

"Rainbow Property Rights" would probably turn into a litany of the ways that homosexuals are denied rights. (Note: I care about this. But it defeats the purpose).

The Law of Puppies and Kittens and Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks would begin with a lovely story on a small child getting mauled by a pit bull. (note to readers: actual case we read yesterday). Then we would discuss the illegal fight scene and how the dogs are tortured to make them mean. The kittens portion would most likely cover the following: drowning unwanted ones, legal implications of the lonely, crazy old woman down the street who has 437 of them, and maybe how Kittens Make Good Snake Food (note to readers: not an actual case we read, but I am not optimistic).

Then we get to the meat (heh) of the course. Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks. Where do I begin? First off, I think there is a significant racial issue in the fact that only yellow chicks are chosen over white ones. Now, I know there is some question as to whether civil rights legislation includes or excludes "whites", and I think we need to discuss. Second: Easter. I believe that we have stated ourselves to be a secular society and it is Not Fair to take innocent chicks who cannot speak up for themselves and force them to be a symbol of Christian hegemony. How do you think the Muslim, Jewish, and atheist chicks feel? This is not right.

Finally we need to look ahead to the true fact of Easter Chicks- it's only a matter of time before they become Easter Dinner. And that is after we have harvested their eggs, denying them procreation which they have a right to. We at the very least should have informed consent before we eat our feathered brethren.

So there.

Thank god for reality television. It sounds so sad, but when everything is totally depressing? Snarking on Tyra is a surefire boost. Which is why last night, which involved me, Kate, Top Model, Gleb, Mexican food, wine, and the first round of the ANTM Fantasy game, was perfect.

Cheers!

Quick Update

2006-03-15T15:24:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update, because I am busy and also not very coherent. (Right, like that’s… news). Anyway, things are all lovely and fun, as long as they don’t involve my body turning on me and all forms of nourishment.

Last week I went to Texas, and S came, and it was fun and we drank wine and played pool and then my stomach waged war on the rest of my body. Stomach flu: Not A Fan.

But I survived that and was keeping solid food down just in time to… go back to work and school. Yippee. However there is plenty of fun going around, too. Right now I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of the draft for my fantasy game for America’s Next Top Model. Yes. YES. Stop laughing. This is awesome. I mean, I am a huge fan of sports fantasy games and all that. But a game in which there are three different point levels for three different variations of “getting naked”? (the models, people, the models). And also for various permutations of crying and having sex? Y’all, this is gold. And Kate and I and, fittingly, Top Model now have such a good reason to kick back with some nice wine and bad reality TV on Wednesday nights. Not that we needed a reason, but…. Still.

And I NEED to kick back and relax on Wednesdays, because Mondays are KILLING. ME. Writers of 24? You had BEST sleep with one eye open. That is all I have to say. I don’t want to write any spoilers here for those people I know wait for the whole season or have Tivo or whatever, but. Writers. That trick you pulled? At the end of the last episode? WHEN I WAS ALREADY CRYING? That was NOT OK. And I HATE YOU.

So the rest of this week is shaping up to be pretty good, what with ANTM tonight, and then Thursday will be nice because our professor bought the entire class beer. This seems to happen about once a year and I am a huge fan. Somehow it makes life suck a lot less to be in class when there is a beer. I feel far more like I am a part of the 1900’s French intellectual society and far less like a person with no life stuck in law school. Aaaannd… I’m a dork. Moving on.

Friday is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day, which shall be celebrated in a haze of Guinness and actual authentic Irish food cooked by Supergirl and Jimbo. What started out as a small gathering has quickly grown to epic (at least in our small apartments) proportions and promises to be a great time. Best part? They live IN MY BUILDING. This makes stumbling home so much more convenient.

I haven’t worked up my next major question yet, but I will leave you with this small observation:

Do you think anyone at Dell Computers has noticed, and subsequently cared, that for all intents and purposes they basically have a big Enron “E” right in the middle of their logo?

I’m just saying.

The Whole is More Evil Than the Sum of Its Parts

2006-03-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

Ok. So I know no man is an island and all (tm Donne), and generally people come together to accomplish things. It's teamwork, it's networking, it's alliances. It's reaching out and touching someone, people who need people being the luckiest people and blah blah blah humanity cakes. But sometimes... Sometimes the alliances are not so helpful. Sometimes, maybe, they are downright scary. Sometimes you may be sitting in class and notice that on a few frightening occaisions, things are happening in the high court that just don't... make sense. And then you might be walking down the street and see an ad for something that just scares the HELL out of you, because again- this type of alliance is downright creepy.

And if you are me, you will force your roommates and others into elaborate conversations about this and force them to help you answer the question:

Which is the most evil unholy alliance: Justice Stevens and Justice Scalia, or Dr. Phil and Match.com?

This is a highly difficult question, because they both have the potential to wreak havoc on society as we know it. On first thought, Dr. Phil and Match.com are clearly better known and will have a more direct effect on the viewing society. However, on second thought, the power of the Supreme Court (whether or not you believe in activist judges) is pretty grave- especially now that they are electing presidents (rimshot). Kate and I have been pondering this question for quite some time, and we think we have come up with the answer.

Analysis: Scalia and Stevens

On its face, having both the Conservative and Liberal powerhouses on the same side of a Supreme Court battle seems unstoppable. After all, most decisions are decided along party lines, and now that we have lost the On The Line vote of O’Connor and replaced it with the I Am Not So A Rabid Conservative (Except, I Totally Am) Alito, actually bringing both sides together would appear to be quite a coup.

However, potential just doesn’t cut it. You have to look at when these unholy alliances actually happen. I can think of two, and both were dissents, and frankly, both were completely batshit crazy. Because you know how the political spectrum is kind of a circle, and Scalia and Stevens are at like 180 degrees apart? Well, the only time the two of them actually agree on anything tends to be when something happens that so throws them off that they run screaming blindly into the night in their respective party directions so far and so fast that they actually smack into each other on the other side of the ideological circle. And then they write completely inane and irrelevant dissents, like in Hamdi, when they completely ignored the War Powers Act, or in Smith, where they both fervently argued that selling a gun for drugs did not constitute “using” it. Yeah.

So basically, while it is always nice to see insane ideological rhetoric meet in the middle, I feel an overall analysis of Scalia and Stevens is amusing, but irrelevant.

Analysis: Dr. Phil and Match.com

Ok guys, I have to admit, I kind of like Dr. Phil. Of course, E and I also search for the world’s worst reality TV, so maybe this does not so much come as a shock to any of you. There’s just something really refreshing about the way he can deliver a smackdown on some poor, pathetic soul that makes me want to yell “Oh, snap!” and buy him a tequila shooter. However, the one area where he generally never amuses me is on his advice to single women. Namely, don’t be one. I mean, he is quick to say a woman doesn’t need a man, but… it’s disingenuous, somehow. And it isn’t just disingenuous in the normal, ‘Hell yeah a woman needs a man’ kind of way, but in a more insidious way. Because the message is kind of… “By all means, if you are completely fucked up in your own life, the LAST thing you should do is involve a man, because you already ruin our lives with all your whining and crying and passive aggressiveness and periods and hormones and other things that terrify Manly Men, and that’s when you’re healthy. So please. Fix yourself before you bring a good man down with you.” And that shit ain’t right, folks.

I am also terrified of Match.com. That site is NOT kidding around, people. My co-worker dated around for years, then one day she was like, “That’s it. I want to be married”, and she joined match.com and was engaged 9 months later. Match.com is for people who are very, very serious and committed to being very, very seriously committed.

So… these two together? Having Dr. Phil break down the individuality and confidence of a bunch of people who then all find each other? And then procreate? This is not just an unholy alliance, people- this is the Anti-Darwin. It’s like a friend of mine and I were discussing about two people the other day: Alone, they are stupid. Together? They’re a Darwin Award.

I mean, really people. All of these people who actually believe in what Dr. Phil says, instead of watching it subversively to snark on it, are going to meet each other and get married. Whole neighborhoods will start springing up of Stepford-like households with just a hint of kicky attitude. The holier-than-thou condescention of man down to women that he exudes will spread. More women will start to believe that their role in life is to silently cheer on their man, stand behind him as a backdrop to his career, and provide lip service to his life. What's worse, they may start to believe that a few offhanded comments about how the women secretly "rule the roost" is the same as actually having power in a relationship. And they will raise children while enforcing traditional sexual and gender stereotypes.

And there aren’t enough Brokeback Mountains in the world to stop that shit.

In Conclusion:

The most evil unholy alliance is: Dr. Phil and Match.com

"Benign" is a Four Letter Word

2006-03-01T13:04:00.000-05:00

Hello! I was clicking around today and I suddenly realized that my last post was February 8, and now it’s… It’s March? The Hell? When did THAT happen?

Anyway, I have not posted much this month, but there was a very good reason for that. Which I will now explain. Because you care.

About three years ago, I suddenly had PAIN in the roof of my mouth. I even skipped my very first kickball game ever and went to the emergency room. Of course, they couldn’t really do jack except give me percocet, (which, woo!) and tell me to go to a dentist, but still. Kickball-missing type pain here, people.

(Of course, this was also the evening that my kickball team figured out where I was and showed up en masse in the emergency room, with purple pom poms. Y’all, I used to have such a fun life).

Anyway, turns out there was an impacted wisdom tooth and a cyst and an oral surgeon got involved. And there was cutting and knives (surgeon), and demanding of anesthesia (me), and then I began my lifelong friendship with vicodin and life resumed.

So a few weeks ago when I began having similar pain, I didn’t think twice. I simply went to my dentist who sent me again to my surgeon. And although he wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong, and it was not the same thing, there was cutting and knives and I walked out desperately clutching my prescription for vicodin and everything was fine. Except, of course, that the highlight of my Valentines Day was ‘federally regulated narcotics’, which either makes me the saddest person ever or the most awesome. I choose not to delve too deeply into that question.

Anyway, a week later I went back for what I thought was a routine visit to get the stitches out. It… wasn’t. I mean, the stitches came out, but then the Doctor sat down with me. With a pathology report. Me, my doctor, and the pathology report.

Since I had thought that I had had a harmless cyst, I was not at all prepared for words like, “rare condition”, “tumor”, “most likely benign”, “top rate cancer research center”, and “more surgery”. I just… wasn’t prepared for that at all. So I kind of smiled, and nodded, and picked myself off the floor. Then Kate took me to work, and I called all my wonderful friends who made me laugh even though they INSISTED on googling me. Which seriously? Just… don’t, people. All roads lead to cancer there. 20 minutes on the phone with Peanut I went from “benign tumor” to “lymphoma”. Anyway, I got through the day, but.

Y’all? I was freaked the fuck OUT.

And I remained so for basically the rest of the month. Because even with words like “benign”, it’s hard to stop your head from going places like, “if they were so damn sure it was benign, why the ten minute lecture on the virtues of the cancer center we are now working with?” So I didn’t write, because I didn’t know what to write.

The good news is, the Top Notch Cancer Research Center agreed with the original pathology report, and even said I don’t need further treatment. Scare over, I can breath and sleep and possibly stop having panic attacks now. (Because y’all? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, triggers panic attacks like the words “cancer research center”). So now we’re back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

And to everyone? Who helped with the last few weeks? Thanks.

Three Kinds of Stupid

2006-02-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

Oh, y’all. There is so much Stupid in my life. So much that it merits an entry. So much that I can actually divide it into three whole categories when I write about it. So much that… that I haven’t even the foggiest idea how to finish that sentence or finish this intro, so I am just going to commence writing about the Stupid.

Stupid That Is In No Way My Fault

Kate discovered this bit of Stupid and kindly shared it with me last night. She does a lot of shipping through UPS for work. And when you do a lot of shipping, the amount of times that the shipping gets fucked up rises proportionately. (Unless you have angered the shipping gods. Or are mailing magic pants, apparently. Because has anyone else seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? And if so, has anyone else noticed that the pants seemed to fail at the “traveling” part of the equation with alarming frequency? I don’t know, maybe they were just trying to add drama with the whole utterly inexplicable package continually being lost in the mail thing, but all it did was divert my attention from the Teens In Crisis over to, “Holy Crap. I am never mailing anything EVER AGAIN. But I digress. A lot.)

Now one would expect that UPS, being a shipping dynasty, for the love of God, would be aware that shipping problems cause anxiety, and- not wanting to cause anxiety in their customers (...Comcast), would have developed an advanced, efficient way of handling said shipping problems. One would be sad and naive, however, if one expected that. Instead, UPS has a policy that works in the way to cause the shipper the maximum stress possible.

UPS refuses to ship for you unless you give them a phone number. Again. You HAVE to give them a PHONE NUMBER. So… they have a phone number. And when a package gets lost and sent back to them, they… call you? Right? At the phone number? That they demanded?

No.

They send a postcard. Back to the wrong address. Telling the people at the wrong address who already sent the package back that… that the package was delivered to the wrong address.

Why, people? Why?

Stupid That Is Only Partially My Fault

Scene from last night’s work out with my personal trainer:

Me: (Lying on my back, draped over a large bouncy ball.)

PT: “Ok, now walk out a bit until only your head and neck are on the ball.”

Me: “Um. Ok.”

PT: “Good! Now raise your butt up higher than your knees.”

Me: “I… ow. This isn’t real, is it. You are just seeing exactly how far I will go.”

PT: “Nope! This is real! And fun! Although, maybe my idea of fun is different than yours.

Me: “In that mine tends to NOT involve myself looking like a drunken, upside down crab in public? Yeah.”

PT: (Hands me 2 ten pound barbells.) “Now. Hold these in your hands and straighten your arms, then bend your elbows, bringing them back towards your head for triceps work.”

Me: (To reprise. On my back, on a ball, supported only by my neck and shoulders, ass in the air, and pretty sure my triceps? Stopped working sometime around the 3rd set of lifty things I did with a bar while balanced on the squishy half ball about a half hour ago.) “Um… I am going to hit myself in the head.”

PT: “No you’re not!”

Me: “Um… Look, I’m telling you…”

PT: “Come on! Ten! Nine! Eight! Get your butt up!”

Me: (on the inside) “This is a baaad idea.”

PT: “Seve-“

Weight: “Thunk.”

PT: “OH MY GOD. Are you ok??? I could totally HEAR THAT WEIGHT HIT YOU IN THE HEAD.”

Me: (Butt totally not up.) “Funny, I never could have seen THAT one coming.”

Stupid That is Totally, Entirely My Fault

So, I never got to go see my favorite co-worker yesterday to discuss 24. And… there may be a different show, that even while it is completely awful is also filled with Pretty, and she may have watched it last night and sent me a few e-mails about it. And… maybe I was reading those e-mails while pretending to talk to my boss about work and maybe I sort of busted out laughing mid-conversation. But anyway, even if all of this stuff happened, the point is I was very excited to go talk to her. So excited that I sort of neglected my morning routine. Including the part where I attach my ID to my pants. So I ran to talk to her, and…

Yep. Locked myself in the stairway. Again.

And this time? No one rescued me. I had to sneak down to the eighth floor, where I hid in a Secret Agent Crouch until the hallway was empty, and then ran to the elevator, trying to look all nonchalantly at the guard and pretend that, yes, Mr. Guard, I TOTALLY BELONG HERE, and I was so busy looking nonchalantly at the guard that I failed to notice that the elevator doors had CLOSED, until I nonchalantly walked right into them. And then I still had to call my co-worker to let me out of the elevator bank.

Sigh.

Aaaannd, the Weekend Ends

2006-02-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

With the following conversation:

E: (brings a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream into the living room, where we are watching TV).

Kate: "Why are you eating that without chocolate sauce?"

E: "There is no chocolate sauce."

Kate: "There is chocolate sauce."

E: "I looked. No chocolate sauce."

Kate: "It's a can."

E: "Nope."

Citycat: "Yes, I absolutely guarentee to you that there IS chocolate sauce. In the fridge."

E: (minorly affronted). "Where?"

Citycat: "Top shelf. In a can, behind a few of the things in front."

E: (with a put out sigh of self rightiousness) "Fine." (stomps into kitchen).

From Kitchen: (Fridge opens. Bangs, bang bang. Crash. Bang. Fridge shuts.)

Citycat: (under her breath to Kate) "Whatever you do, E, don't use your eyes. Just don't LOOK, with your EYES, or anything."

E: (Tromps back into living room with plain ice cream.) "There is no chocolate sauce."

Citycat: "OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST." (Stomps into kitchen opens fridge, reaches in, grabs the chocolate sauce from it's place in PLAIN SIGHT, exactly where we had said it was, returns triumphantly into living room."

E: "Where? Where WAS IT?"

E and Citycat go into kitchen. Citycat returns chocolate sauce to the same spot.

Kate: "I WANT TO SEE THIS." (tromps into kitchen. Sees sauce. Bursts out laughing.)

E: "IT was NOT there. I moved stuff! It wasn't there a minute ago! I swear!"

Kate: (Takes ice cream from E. Picks up chocolate and pours it on ice cream. Takes spoon from E. Leaves room with E's ice cream.).

E: "Wait... but? That's my ice cream?"

Kate: "YOU ARE TOO BLIND TO EAT."

Citycat: "But Kate, it is mean to steal treats from blind people."

E: (on floor, laughing.)

Oh, y'all.

Go Steelers!!!

Insanity Reigns

2006-02-04T22:48:00.000-05:00

So, it would be nice to sit here and post a nice, coherent entry about my life. But that? Is SO not going happen, because I don't think my apartment as a collective whole has had a coherent thought all weekend. And that is definitely fun, and makes me want to post, but if you expect me to make any sense, you are simply out of luck.

Last night E and I read what honestly amounts to an entirely unhealthy amount of Random Funny Things On The Internet, causing the development of nonsensical inside jokes. (ie: After a bumpy landing, the stewardess came on the mic and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to know that that landing was not the pilot's fault. It was not the co-pilot's fault. It was the asphalt.")

Ok, you know what that is? That is Not. Funny. But E and I? Oh, E and I thought it was funny, in fact, we thought it was hilarious, and now everything that goes wrong in our apartment is promptly blamed on the asphalt. Of course, Kate fell right into this too, because she lives here, and that doesn't leave you much of a choice.

Maybe the problem was the fact that somehow we ended up not eating dinner until insanely late, and low blood sugar makes you stupid. But Kate and Top Model came home from Trader Joe's with food and many, many bottles of wine from around the world. Which we drank while playing a new game Top Model taught us, called the Bowl Game, which yes, is as much fun as it sounds, but no, not for the reasons it sounds like it should be fun. Anyway, this game begins by everyone writing down hundreds of random names, and I am proud to say that Kiefer/Jack Bauer ended up in the bowl five times. Um, y'all? There were only four of us. Anyway, you then divide into teams and proceed to try to guess names, and Top Model and I lost, because of a combination of several factors, first being that E and Kate have been dating since the Clinton administration and it simply wasn't fair, since they can totally read each others minds. But it was actually even worse than that, because I am totally predictable, and it led to many conversations that went like this:
"The one Citycat is in love with."
"No, the other one."
"No, the other one."
"KIEFER",

while I promptly lost my mind and when trying to get Top Model to guess "Thomas Jefferson", literally, ALL I COULD COME UP WITH WAS: "Um. He was a president. Um... he was a good president?" And she might have hated me a little bit. But that was ok because we then watched Daniel and Nick make out on Project Runway in slow motion (oh, YES they DID), and re-wrote Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart" for recently eliminated Andre to "Unsell My Shop".

Yeah.

And while I am just stream of consciousness typing, I would like to mention that it is probably a good thing that I am in love with fictional characters, because again? Me and dating? No. Just.... no. I realized this a few weeks ago at work, when I was eating some chili I had made for lunch and a co-worker mentioned that it smelled good. I mentioned that I use a lot of garlic, and she sort of paused, and said... "Oh. Well. So if you meet a vampire, you are all set."

And I started thinking about that, because Peanut and I had recently had a conversation and she had mentioned eschewing spinach dip at a party because she might run into a guy and didn't want to get spinach on her teeth.

So let's review.

Normal, healthy single girl automatically adjust lifestyle in case she meets: A guy.
I? Unconsciously adjust my lifestyle in case I meet: A Vampire.

But this is probably a good thing, because today a guy I met a few weeks ago called to chat, and proceeded to get into a car accident while on the phone with me.

Universe? I get it. And I will stick to vampires. And Kiefer.

And Oh. My. God. Lost Boys. That JUST occurred to me. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't going to die a little happier because of it.

Anyway, today Kate, E, and I got up, then proceeded to do NOTHING, until Dragonheart came on. Oh yes, Dragonheart. Which is a far, far better movie than it has any right to be, because Sean Connery just acts the SHIT out of the animated Dragon part, and Dennis Quaid just goes through the whole movie with this look on his face, like he can't possibly be taking this shit seriously, but it's fucking Sean Connery, and he is taking it seriously, so he just goes with it.

So we went and had lunch, and then came back and watched Kate get into no fewer than four battles with her keys, all in the space of like 10 minutes and all of which she lost, rather spectacularly. And hilariously, as far as E and I were concerned. And although Kate pointed out that I really should probably have gone out tonight, I chose instead to stay in and watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, eat pizza, and read a new book.

And post, obviously. Because the whole point of a blog is the place you can bringthe Crazy.

Updates

2006-01-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

So busy! With so much going on! And it is in the 60's and I feel like it is spring and it is wonderful. Highlights from the past few weeks include:

-Buying a new computer!! And going Mac. Which, seriously? WHY DID I NOT DO THIS BEFORE??? I mean, I realize that at this point anything with a working space bar would be an improvement, but seriously, it's little and it's cute and totally functional and there are widgets and widgets? Are AWESOME. So I am blogging from home now, something I haven't been able to do in months. Happy mac. His name is Fred.

-Totally renewing my obsession with 24, getting my roommate obsessed with 24, perfecting a new 24 drinking game, and setting up a 24 Club at work. Actually, my boss told me to start the 24 Club. I know he adores 24 as much as I do, but I have a sneaking suspicion he feels that getting all of us together at once will actually consolidate the amount of time I spend traipsing from desk to desk talking about 24, which would free me up to do occaisional actual work on Tuesdays.

-Remembering the downside of 24, in that I hate every single other TV show on the air now, even the ones I used to like. Even, and I hate to admit this, Supernatural. Which... I loved. But then they broke for Christmas, and "Season Two" didn't start for 2 months, so there was a lot of free time. And it was annoying, because they ended on this great note with all this unresolved stuff. And lots of the fans on blogs and such had all these great theories and ideas, and then it came back! And I was sooo excited to see how they would handle all the angst and drama and craziness and Sam fucking shooting Dean four times in the head, but.... All those unresolved things? Just... gone. It's like, THAT boat sailed a LONG, LONG time ago with all the posters and fanfic writers and the like, and the actual WB writers were all on the shore going, "Hey... where... where are you guys going?", and we're all yelling, "OVER HERE, THIS WAY LIES PLOT CONTINUITY", and they just ignored us. But it was still ok, because it was still a decent show, and the boys are So. Pretty. But then 24 started, and I realized it was all over 2 weeks ago when I was watching the new episode and woke Kate out by shrieking at the TV, "Oh for the LOVE of CHRIST guys, Jack would take care of that SO MUCH BETTER!!!", (and as added proof of Kate's wonderfulness, she responded by shouting back, "In the first five minutes of the episode!! Citycat? By the way, you're done."). So, yeah. I may still watch, but my heart belongs only to Kiefer.

-Purchasing a new cell phone, because I have secretly always hated my old one, and then it decided to die New Years day. And picked a ring out, which is a BIG deal for me because I am crazy neurotic about ring tones. And I decided on one and now it tells me every time it rings that "destiny is calling me", which amuses me to no end.

- Joining a gym, hiring a personal trainer, and actually working out, which... OW. I mean, OW. My workouts now contain more props than a damn broadway musical, and there is pain, but that is ok, because it is also kind of awesome.

- Going out more in the last few weeks than I was in the entirety of last semester, and making new friends and doing new and totally different things and seeing sides of DC which I would never normally see, and loving each and every second.

- Going to the ballet and seeing Swan Lake, falling in love with the Swan King, and contemplating a Nietzschian analysis of said Swan King to determine exactly what type of evil he was. Because S and I? Cannot go anywhere without a Nietzschian analysis.

-Figuring out what I want to do with my law degree, and thus, the rest of my life.

These are just a few highlights, because Kate is almost home and we will watch 24 and there will be shrieking.

But I leave y'all with a question, which I cannot figure out. I'm in international law now, and we keep having these discussions, and I just need to know: Is it possible to Godwin a conversation that is actually about the Nuremberg trials?

In Which Law School Has An Identity Crisis

2006-01-25T15:49:00.000-05:00

Um… ok. So, it’s January, and after a glorious 5 weeks of no classes, in which I traveled and celebrated holidays and saw friends and generally had a lovely time, it was time to go back to school. LAW school, because that is the school I am in. I did not opt to go to grad school. I did not opt to get an MFA. I opted to go to law school, for a variety of reasons.

These reasons have been well borne out by actual attendance of law school. As I’ve said before, night school is great, and it’s certainly not the Paper Chase, but law school definitely has its own way of doing things. I mean, I have a Masters degree. I know how grad school works. Law school is different.

However, this semester? Law school entirely failed to get the message about itself. Law school alternately thinks it is an International Relations Theory school or maybe an MFA program. At least according to my schedule.

Crim? Crim is… crim is fine, very “law school-y”, at least. However, the class itself seems to be having an identity crisis, because most law schools have “criminal procedure” and “criminal law”, as two different classes, one being more “here are your 4th and 5th amendment rights (at least currently, until our esteemed President gets involved), and one being a little more macro, as in the concept of criminal law. My class? Criminal Justice, which is already funny, in that it doesn’t exist. And my Professor, the first day, is all “this is criminal procedure”, which, fine, that’s totally reasonable. But then the next time class met… well, someone asked a question regarding indigent defense, and it turns out he was a Public Defender, and things got weird, and then they got… dramatic, and the next thing we knew he was on a soapbox giving what was actually a very moving speech, just somewhat… unexpected. And I leaned over to A and mentioned that I kind of felt like there should be music playing in the background, and maybe someone should jump up on a chair and recite, “O Captain, My Captain,” but no one did and the speech went on and on and now I sort of feel like I have experienced this massive call to action, except…. I’m not sure what that action involves, because… well, the speech had nothing to do actually with criminal procedure, which the class purports to teach.

But honestly, so far crim has been the ONLY bastion of sanity in this semester, as things got stranger as time went on. Because Monday I had International Law, and THAT class clearly thinks it is a grad school class. THAT class involved a couple hundred pages of reading a week, which first of all- not normal for law school, since we tend to need to read things rather in depth. Secondly, the Prof is sweet, and no doubt qualified, but she appears to have gotten a degree in Saying Things With A Plethora Of Unnecessary Words and a minor in Repeating Oneself, which… heh. And then her review of the class, which was fine, but… “So, I found out today that you all need a password to get into the computer system, so I am guessing you didn’t do the reading.” Which, no, we did not, seeing as how we had no idea what the assignment was, but it just got worse, because…

“Oh, well do all 400 pages for next week, then.”
“Oh wait? Is that a lot of reading??”
“I’m sorry. Just skim the reading. Get a general idea of the topic. We’ll discuss details in class.”
“Cases? Oh NO, don’t be silly. I won’t ask you to know holdings of cases or anything.”

Followed by a rousing discussion of the Theory of International Law.

So… Skim a fair amount of material on a certain subject to ascertain the key areas of contention, and then discuss in general the overarching theories? Ignore cases and holdings? Hi, Grad School! I… missed you? Um, have you seen Law School anywhere, because I could have sworn I was with him now…

Which would have been ok, since my con law class started out kind of like that and turned out pretty great, except last night convinced me that no, I actually had lost my damn mind, and was not so much in law school AT ALL, because last night I spent an hour and a half in class analyzing poetry.

…..

Analyzing. Poetry.

Y’all? I love poetry. And I love Robert Frost, and I love Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Miles to go before I sleep? Hell yeah. But… I spent a class period discussing things like meter, and rhyme scheme, and choice of words, and how do you feel about the poem, and….

And I am Confused.

Of course, I shouldn’t let any class where the professor both staunchly declares “Now I don’t want you to let anything substantive distract you from this class”, and ALSO brings his wire hair daschund to class surprise me.

So that is my semester of law school, and I am sort of just going to hang on for the ride and hope I learn something law related, because in the last two days I have been asked to Play Lawyer twice, and I really sort of need Law School to get over its bad breakup/midlife crisis/lithium imbalance issues and do its damn job.

More soon, especially because I am anticipating a Friday purchase that is long in coming and will totally make my life a TON easier.

Back, Briefly

2006-01-19T11:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry! It has been a long time since I have written, or at least since I have written anything publicly, and honestly, it has nothing to do with me suddenly disliking my internet friends. Love you, Internet Friends! See, I even capitalized you! No, there has just been so much going on and work has been crazy and my computer at home is still broken and I started law school again and all of a sudden my boss took an unusual interest in blogs. He’s all, “Do you know about blogging? Do you have a blog? So I could search for your blog?” And while I think he generally means well, (and most likely could not search and find my blog, since I have definitely never said “Citycat”), and even if he did would probably just be amused, but it still made me a bit nervous updating at work.

Anyway.

Things are great and I still have absolutely no mind, as evidenced by the following conversation I had with Peanut last weekend.

Phone: “Ring!”

Me: “Hello? Peanut? Why are you not here yet?”

Peanut: “I am stopped. On the GW Parkway. There is no movement, no movement at ALL.

Me: “Ok. I should just warn you… My hair and I are….”

Peanut: “Fighting?”

Me: “Well, it hasn’t escalated into an all out fight yet… it’s more like artistic differences.”

Peanut: “Artistic… differences?”

Me: “Yes. See, I thought that maybe tonight I would wear my hair curly. Which I interpret as being kind of spirally loose curls. You know.”

Peanut: “Yeah.”

Me: “My hair… My hair seems to want to interpret “curly” more as… “fluffy.”

Peanut: “Hee!”

Me: “Shut up. I think it is tamed, but… remember, my hair tonight is in more of an “experimental” stage.

Peanut: “Well, ok. But… Hey! I see the problem!”

Me: “What? An accident?”

Peanut: “Nope. A tree.”

Me: “A tree?”

Peanut: “Yep. Driving under a tree now. All is better. Be there soon.”

Me: “Good. Because this hair situation… It could get ugly. And I need a martini.”

So yes, I went out with experimental fluffy hair, which actually kind of worked for me, not that I’ll be doing THAT again anytime soon. But it was a fun night, except for the part where for no apparent reason the tall people swarmed Peanut. Now, Peanut is not a tall girl. Even in really high heels, Peanut is not tall. I’m not sure what it was, but suddenly and without warning the 4 or 5 tallest people in the bar just… closed in on her. You couldn’t see her AT ALL. Which I found hysterical, and simply leaned up against the bar and laughed at her, instead of, you know, helping or anything. But we survived.

Anyway, I will write more soon (promise) on the newest installation of Law School, which already includes a Professor that looks exactly like the monopoly man, a class from hell, and many, many references to “getting the band back together”. Plus, this weekend is somehow a mess of stuff to do, so there should be fun stories from that.

Later!

Holidays of All Kinds

2005-12-30T14:02:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year!

Christmas is always an interesting time for me, because while I absolutely LOVE it, it is also the time when all of my 9,000 commitments come crashing together in a sea of Drive Me Insane and it is finals and work goes crazy and there are too many parties and I am traveling and there is much shopping and wrapping and ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, I HAVE FINALS.

So yeah, it’s like that.

And the fact that I end up so stressed out in mid-December makes it hard to actually enjoy the season all that much. I just have a hard time getting into it, even though Christmas threw up all over my apartment not once, but twice, and now every single goddamn surface is either wrapped, draped, or otherwise adorned in garland. (Christmas only gets tea and toast from now on). And my parents live in warm weather areas, and no matter how many lights someone has in their yard, I’ve never really gotten used to 80 degree Christmases. So while Christmas was very nice, and I went to Texas and drank wine and played pool, and opened gifts and gave gifts and yay, I really hadn’t gotten entirely into the holiday scene.

Until last night.

Because now, now I have time. I am not in school for awhile. I am caught up (sorta) at work. I don’t have to do mad shopping. Everyone is home and everyone is relaxed and Jenny is visiting and that? That is AWESOME. Because I realized last night that my friends and I speak our own language. (Sometimes quite literally, when we make up words, (hui!) but also, figuratively). And when we are all relaxed and hanging out we can totally entertain ourselves for hours and it works in a really phenomenal way. Everyone is different, and I’m sure that not everyone would enjoy mocking an hour of Joan Rivers on QVC, or understand the hilarity of confusing “Salsa Verde Doritos” with “Salsa Doritos of Truth”, or continue to search unending for the absolute worst reality TV program, but it works for us.

So tonight I will stop by the liquor store on the way to the mall and pick up tequila, and then I will meet the girls and we will shop for New Years Eve dresses. And then we will go back to the apartment and drink and be stupid and fun because we almost never all get to hang out together anymore and all of us are, in effect, on vacation. And then I will go to a fabulous New Years party with some of my favorite people, and then spend Sunday hanging out and watching movies and cooking, and then Monday the whole crowd will get together for “Fun day off activities”. No, we don’t know what those are yet. And No, it doesn’t matter.

So even though Christmas is, technically, over, I’m going to celebrate my holidays now, when I can fully enjoy them, and the people around me.

And to all who will get this: Oprah ROCKS, and so do you!

I Know I Brought This On Myself.

2005-12-19T14:37:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, it is better to just keep your mouth shut. Because when you mock, you open yourself up to karma. And karma is a bitch.

That said, Kate, E and I had a totally hilarious moment at the holiday party that we didn’t actually realize we were throwing Saturday night.

This adventure begins Friday night, with this conversation:

Kate: “I’ve gotten three RSVP’s for tomorrow night.”

Me: “Oh. Cool! Um…. Did we…. Did we send out an invitation for tomorrow night??”
Kate: “Nope.”

Me: “Ah.”

Kate: “Costco?”

Me: “Yep”.

Honestly y’all, we have this impromptu party throwing thing down to a science. Aaaand… here’s where the second tangent to this story comes in. Have you all seen the commercials for Baileys Irish Crème? With the young professionals having a party? Now. We have lots of parties. We go to lots of parties. We ARE young professionals who party. NO ONE PARTIES LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS COMMERCIAL.

This commercial is on a lot around the holiday season, and it always sparks a conversation among the three of us that goes something like this:

Me: “Oh for the love of god, it’s the Bailey’s commercial. Again. And I will say, AGAIN, that it is a Stupid. Commercial.

Kate: “Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of unrealistic. But…”

Me: “NO BUTS. Seriously, who sits around at a party and drinks glasses of Bailey’s Irish Cream?? HONESTLY. DRINK A BEER. OR WINE. NO ONE DOES THIS. DRINKING A CLOYINGLY SWEET CREAMY BEVERAGE DOES NOT MAKE YOU SEXY EVEN THOUGH THE COMMERCIAL PRETENDS IT DOES.”

E: “I just hate this part where the woman, for some obscure reason, eye fucks the guy until he drips the last drop down her throat, but then it is intercepted by the other guy. I mean, huh?”

Kate: “Yes. That is really stupid. But honestly, maybe if we had a pretentious party, then people would drink Bailey’s.”

Me: “Never. Going. To. Happen.”

So this commercial is on often, and we have had this conversation dozens of times. It’s a big running joke in my apartment.

(You all see where this is going, right?)

So anyway, we were planning our party, and we decided to make it very holiday-ish, with mulled wine and champagne and fancy coffee drinks. And here is where I stop with a public service announcement, which is: People. All of you. Go mull some wine. This shit is fantastic. We went through 5 bottles and no one wanted to stop drinking it. It’s THAT good.

Kate, Citycat, and E’s (but really the Internet’s) Mulled Wine Recipe:

Bring 2/3 cup white sugar, 2/3 cup water, and one cinnamon stick to a boil.
Add juice of ½ an orange, the ½ orange peel, and 10 cloves.
Lower heat, simmer for ½ an hour until mixture is syrupy.
Stir in one bottle red wine (we highly suggest Pinot Noir, possibly Kendall Jackson.)
Allow to warm throughout, serve in mugs.

It is lovely Christmassy goodness.

Anyway, so everyone shows up and we have mulled wine and a friend of ours brought over… you guessed it… Baileys, to add to coffee and make nutty Irishmen and the like. And to make matters worse, it was cheaper to buy the little bottles of Baileys, instead of a big one. So anyway, we are all hanging out and eating cheeses and drinking wine and life is really good. But the mulled wine was going quickly, and as you can see, it takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to make a new batch. So there was a period of time where we were in drink limbo and were discussing options with our friend, and the conversation went like:

Me: “There is coffee and whiskey and Bailey’s if you just want Irish coffee, or champagne, or…”

Him: “Honestly, I’ll just have a Bailey’s on the rocks.”

Me: “Sure. Let me just get my rocks glasses and…… Oh. Oh, no.”

Him: “Is something wrong?”

Me: “KATE.”

Kate: “What?”

Me: “He wants a Bailey’s. On the rocks.”

Kate: “Ok, just get the rocks glasses and… Oh.”

Kate and I then had to leave the room and sit down we were laughing so hard. Kate called E into the room then, and he took one look at his friend and the Bailey’s and he needed to sit down. I felt bad for our poor friend, who felt slightly uncomfortable as the hosts of the party laughed hysterically at him.

And later in the evening, when the mulled wine was well and truly gone, ALL of the guests had rocks glasses of Bailey’s, JUST LIKE the damn commercial, and Kate even dripped the last drop into my mouth.

Sigh.

"...in bed."

2005-12-16T12:11:00.000-05:00

Ok, so the time since my last final has been filled with a lot of nonsensical giggling, and then last night E came into town, bringing the number of people in my apartment who just finished law school finals up to two, while the number of people who are thanking the lord that we are done, already, so they don’t have to listen to our insufferable whining anymore holds steady at 1. (Thanks, Kate!). E and I had a rousing bitchfest last night, basically revolving around:

E: “No, seriously. The Professor LIED about the NUMBER OF QUESTIONS and the TIME LIMIT of the TEST. THAT IS JUST NOT RIGHT.

Me: “Yes. And in evidence?? They asked about the FUCKING RESIDUAL RULE. They haven’t asked about that in FIVE GODDAMN YEARS."

E: “Oh, and my First Amendment Class? Closed book, and the man asks for the holding in a bunch of cases. One of them? SMITH. The hell? I looked, there are SIX SMITH CASES in that book alone. How am I supposed to know what Smith he is talking about? I figure I pretty much could have written anything AT ALL, and banked on the fact that somewhere there was a Smith case to back me up!”

Me: “Yes, like my evil LRW professor, who asked us the holding of a case in which she SPELLED THE GODDAMN PARTY NAME WRONG, like, THE CASE DOESN’T EXIST.”

This went on for quite some time, as we were het up, and annoyed, and actually awfully loud, so, Hi tenth floor of my apartment- E and I hate exams, and now you know exactly why.

Anyway though, things have just been relatively stupid and fun. Take last night, which started with me watching all the TV that I DvR’d during finals, including the ANTM reunion show. And it was all fine, until the end, where Tyra Banks informed the models that she had chosen them all, and they all had a future, and it was up to them to “Make their destiny great”. Which… what? Isn’t the whole concept of destiny that you… don’t have control? Like, either you believe in free will, so… go be great, or you believe in destiny, so you’re pretty much stuck with it? I got rather irritated with that, and then E decided the only possible answer was that one of them was a Fate, and seriously? I just can’t see one of the ANTM models as Clotho or Lachesis, so… just no.

But even MORE fun was the Apprentice finale (until the end, which don’t get me started, because ASSHOLE, and I could be referring to so many people there, but Rebecca- I love you! Also, Alla? Can I be your evil sidekick? Just for like a week? Because you’re evil, but also kind of awesome). Anyway, before the horror and betrayal and emergence of The Giant Fucking Ego of last night, there were cute little moments where Randal and Rebecca were all adorable with each other, prompting those of us in my apartment (because we are seriously all 10 and bad people) to speculate on the fact that they totally could have slept together the last night. And THAT prompted a rousing round of the Chinese Fortune Cookie Game, where we added “in bed” to everything Randal and Rebecca said about each other. If you have Tivo’d this, I highly suggest trying this game at home- it was hilarious.

Kate’s co-worker also came over, and we completely degenerated into making No. Sense. At ALL, when we went out on the balcony and discussed 5 year plans… in which Kate will attempt to grow the worlds longest dreadlocks while eating “fa-gita” salads. I… I don’t know. Still sleepy. Finals.

Have a great weekend, y’all!

And There Was Much Rejoicing

2005-12-15T15:57:00.000-05:00

Hi. HI!!! LALALALALALA! HIHIHI!

Oh, yes. I am DONE. WITH. FINALS.

Let the celebration begin.

Except, well, it really began last night, which is, I am sure, no surprise to any of you. But when I finally finished my exam last night (which, to be honest, was easy. And short. Yet still a Giant Pain In My Ass) I felt really, really crappy. Like, I was just beaten with a 2 by 4 and then someone came by with a big stick crappy. Because I had been going into work every morning at 7, and was completely exhausted and stressed and Fucking Evidence had basically killed my will to live.

(Note on this work thing. Please do not assume that I was going in early to, you know, do anything that had any connection to my job. That would be a silly, silly assumption. No. See, every year my agency has a holiday door decorating contest. And last year, on a whim, I re-wrote Twas The Night Before Christmas to be all parody like and my office won. And the other offices were pissed. So this year I had a reputation to uphold. And because I am clearly fucking neurotic, and cannot let anything just be fun or easy, I spent the last week coordinating 4 offices in an interactive multi-holiday industry-centered 6 door decorating extravaganza. Set to verse. All of it. In verse.)

(And oh yes, we won).

Anyway, last night I was not so much in the going out mode, but everyone was going, because we had all finished our exams at some point that day, and everyone just happened to be going to the bar that D1 was playing at (remember him? From my old life, when I used to run around in high heels and cause trouble?). So I went out and had a few beers and it was awesome, because sometimes in the stress of school and work and studying and notes and finals I forget how much I actually like these people, and how much better everything is because I have them to go through all the hell with. So… thanks, law school friends!

Now, of course, I get to lose my mind in true holiday fashion, because I FINALLY get to leave “Exam Season” and join the rest of the freaking world (except not, because I know that not everyone celebrates this time of year, and maybe I shouldn’t say “holiday” instead of “Christmas”, because clearly, we are attacking the Christians people, just attacking them, and I try so hard not to be overly political on this blog but seriously? Christians? Just stop whining. No one. Is. Attacking. You.) in celebrating “Holiday Season”. And I love the holidays, with the bright lights and things that are shiny and presents and food that is so bad for me but also- so good. And I got a present today! From the wonderful woman I work with, who is slowly but surely transforming every square inch of my office into a LOTR shine, and maybe moreso just Legolas. But I got a pretty calendar with pictures of the pretty, pretty heroes of middle earth, and I am just settled enough in my job and sense of self that I have no shame in using it, on my wall, in my office.

I know this entry makes no sense, but I no longer HAVE to make sense, because the finals? They are done.

And soon I will go to Texas, and then Jen is coming for a week, and trouble will SO be found!

Exam Update, and Looking Back...

2005-12-09T09:45:00.000-05:00

Well. One down, two to go, and tomorrow is going to KILL me. Dead. Death, with the Failing. The good news is, Corporations was completely reasonable. I can’t think of any other word to describe it, and I also realized that I had had yet to take an exam that qualified for that term in law school. Torts was damn hard, when I read people my first question from the Con Law exam they actually burst out laughing, Contracts was ridiculous, Civ Pro… hah!. and Property? FUCK question 4. But Corporations was reasonable.

So as I fight desperately to get through 6 more days of finals and not get sick, (oh Airborne, my Airborne- seriously people, this is my new Crack, and the new crack is good), I am forgoing an actual post in lieu of a fun meme from WaveUnfurled. My year in review. Interesting how some things change, some things stay the same, and you never can predict which will be which.

A Meme:
Instructions: take the first sentence (or 2) from the first post of each month of 2005. That's your year in review.

January: Well, as anyone would expect, K and I had an absolutely crazy wonderful New Years filled with champagne, Bar We Always Go To, free alcohol, Favorite Boys From College That We Have Not Seen In Years, Really, And Did Not Expect To See, falling down, a sprinkling of drama, and all that good stuff. Right now my stomach is aching from the CONSTANT LAUGHTER of New Years Day, as four hungover girls cooked the traditional New Years Day meal, watched movies, recapped the night, then went and saw a movie and ended up at the 24 hour diner of our college days at 2 in the morning.

February: So, remember how I was really stressed out? And work was crazy and law school was busy and I was having blood pressure higher than anyone my age should ever have?

March: So I had not hung out with S in a long time. And this was sad, (and also? Not My Fault. Because work, and law school, and tired, and whhiiinnne), and we decided we needed to remedy this.

April: Ok, so I KNOW it's been forever since I updated. And I know you are probably all thinking that I am running around and drinking wine and playing kickball with my friends and just didn't feel like updating. But that is SO not true, y'all. That is not what has happened at all.

May: I am down to one final. One. Last. Final. Of my ENTIRE FIRST YEAR OF LAW SCHOOL. I have to go lie down now.

June: Dear Gravity, You win.

July: It is time. I have finally joined the Big Girl Blog World and now have moved my site to Blogger.

August: Ok, so I have always had a problem with sleeping. Namely, I've never really done it.

September: Wow. Last year it took until October for law school to make me stupid. This year? Three days, people. Three days.

October: Well, I'm back. For the last three weeks I have been in Texas, helping the Red Cross with disaster relief after the dual tragedies of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

November: So. Everything in my life is going ok. Work is ok. School is pretty ok. Money is ok. Family is ok. Friends are ok. I? I am… not.

December: Gah! I know it has been forever with the not updating. And… sorry? But this time, I am honestly just Out Of My Damn Mind busy, what with the starting the new job and the flying to Texas and the FINALS IN ONE GODDAMN WEEK.

Well, it was one hell of a year. Can't wait to see what comes next!

Finals: When CityCat and WaveUnfurled Procrastinate Themselves Straight Into Depression

2005-12-06T15:03:00.000-05:00

Citycat: Shit.

WaveUnfurled? ?

Citycat: Huge mistake. Was procrastinating studying and googled Him. Got myself all worked up.

WaveUnfurled: Oh, no. No no no. That’s not a good plan at ALL.

Citycat: I know. I mean, honestly, it was Many Years Ago. Why is it so damn frustrating still?

WaveUnfurled: Why… Why are you thinking about this now?

Citycat: Finals.

WaveUnfurled: Ah.

Citycat: You know, it’s both of their faults. Him and the Other One. I never would have gotten involved with Him if it weren’t for the Other One, you know. But… the Other One and I stayed friends, so somehow that’s just easier.

WaveUnfurled: Of course. Plus? The Other One? Is just kind of funny to watch. He is like his very own Reality TV Trainwreck. Each week his own personal Trump just comes out and cobras him.

Citycat: True. But Him? Him sucks. He… I mean, the Fuck??? How do people just??? God.

WaveUnfurled: Yes. I know. See? Anger is good. Trust me, I know. I have Mine. And believe me, I guarantee you that if I ever ran into him, only one of us would make it out alive.

Citycat: Yeah. And god, the holidays are coming up, increasing the chances of geographical proximity. And you’re visiting. Christ, they should just hang out together. But then, knowing us, we would run into them.

WaveUnfurled: Can one conversation survive that much pretentiousness?

Citycat: Hee. True. They eventually won’t even be able to speak anymore, they will just be staring at each other trying to be all condescending and evil and one up each other with their eyes.

WaveUnfurled: Causing everyone around them to think that they are completely in love, because that will be one HELL of an intense gaze, there.

Citycat: Yeah, honestly? They probably should just date each other. I mean, obviously, they are the only two perfect people in the world. I mean, you know this right? Because Yours told you so. And so did Mine. And they? They were always right.

WaveUnfurled: Exactly. So, now what am I supposed to do about my latest situation? I feel like the biggest butthead.

Citycat: No, Wave. HE is the biggest butthead. You are not at all a butthead. I mean, seriously. Ok, fine. So maybe our previous choices of pretentious, philosophy reading, self centered, ego driven, women fearing men were not so great. But how can you even tell anymore? Butthead seemed so normal!

WaveUnfurled: I KNOW. It’s just so frustrating.

Citycat: I know, I know. In fact, it’s pretty much identical to that other situation I had…

For the LOVE of GOD, could ONE of us PLEASE have a healthy relationship so we could end this cycle?!?

WaveUnfurled: Not only are we in a cycle of bad relationships, we keep having the same one.

Citycat: You are so right. I just want someone to suck in a new way. This mid-twenties to mid-thirties young professional angst just isn’t cutting it. It’s not even any fun anymore.

WaveUnfurled: I know. You start watching movies and TV and thinking, “Hey. Sure he’s a vampire, but God, is he hot. And at least our break up will be based on something I can fully comprehend, not being a Creature of the Night and all.”

CityCat: Right. I mean, last summer I tried for the whole, “I might as well just date the ones I know I don’t like” thing, and I definitely got good stories out of it. Now I am looking for the “people who are so desperately unsuitable that there is no way of falling into the trap of thinking that this one is different, because this one is NOT different, unless you count the fact that the reasons for the break up have never been quite so blatantly obvious before”.

WaveUnfurled: You mean, like, “21 years old, lives all the way across the country with his mother” type blatantly obvious?

Citycat: Shut. Up.

WaveUnfurled: I’m just saying. It seemed to work out well enough for you.

Citycat: Well, better than the guy who thought the mere fact that he owned a guitar made him an actual tortured musician.

WaveUnfurled: I have a pot. I AM A CHEF! Hee, and better than my, “It was bad enough that I flew through the air, off the bed, and into your closet door; but when you whipped out the cowboy hat in the middle THAT WAS JUST TOO DAMN MUCH” incident.

Citycat: And remember MY favorite relationship? He forces me to have the “relationship” talk on the third date, recants it with the “we need to slow things down” talk two days later, then proceeds to cook me dinner and give me a toothbrush, then breaks up with me after I cook him dinner. What relationship was he IN??? Because… I wasn’t really a part of it.

WaveUnfurled: I KNOW. And that cooking dinner thing? It’s the kiss of death! Fastest way to a breakup ever- just make dinner.

Citycat: No kidding, and I refuse to believe that that is mere corollary. That is causation, damn it.

WaveUnfurled: Yeah. Sigh.

Citycat: Sigh. We used to be fun.

WaveUnfurled: Grad school was a bad idea.

Citycat: WHY are we doing this again???

WaveUnfurled: Citycat, can’t you see? There is a trend to this entire conversation: Masochism.

Citycat: Ahh, yes. When you come visit for Christmas we HAVE to have fun.

WaveUnfurled: Definitely.

Citycat: Yay!

WaveUnfurled: Yay!

Citycat: CRAP! Finals. I have to go study.

WaveUnfurled: I have to write papers.

Citycat: We suck.

WaveUnfurled: Yes.

At Least I Don't Have Shoulder Pads

2005-12-05T15:20:00.000-05:00

Hi! In case y’all were wondering, I have been studying for finals and planning office door decorating coups and have basically fully lost my damn mind. I am completely and totally Batshit Crazy. I mean, we’re talking Tom Cruise level crazy here. I want to jump on a couch and “celebrate” the “magnificence” of everything!

No, not really.

But I am sort of losing it, in that I-haven’t-slept-brain-fried-from-studying-have-eaten-nothing-but-pizza-for-days kind of way. In the kind of way that made me show up for work today- an hour late- dressed kind of like an 80’s punk rocker.

See, it all began with the pants. My favorite winter pants, because they are soft and stretchy and warm but still look fairly professional. These are my go to winter pants. Except one night a few weeks ago, when it started to get cold, I realized my pants were gone. They were just… not there. At ALL. Not in any drawers. Not in closet. Not under the bed. And this was highly disturbing because… who loses a pair of pants? I mean, really. It’s not like it would have been impossible in my past, but since the whole law school thing I definitely haven’t been doing anything nearly fun enough to result in the loss of a pair of pants. I was bereft. And a little freaked out, because where the fuck were my pants??

I decided that clearly I must have left them in Vancouver last Christmas, and when I got to my parents new house in Texas I would simply request them back, from where they would be hanging, freshly washed, in a closet. This was a good idea in theory- such a good idea that I truly believed this to be the case, until I went home and my mother didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was talking about. No matter how many times I drunkenly alternately accused my mother of stealing my pants or begged her to give me back my pants, she was adamant that not only did she not have my pants, but she didn’t even know what pants I was talking about, and she was a little worried about the fact that someone who purports to be a professional adult cannot even keep track of what is, honestly, a pretty essential piece of clothing. I mean, hoodie- easy to lose. But pants??

Anyway, (GOD this is taking a really, really long time to tell what is, in essence, a pretty short and dull story) I solved the Mystery of The Missing Pants (was that an Encyclopedia Brown book?) Saturday night. You know how your mind will struggle to resist things you are trying to teach it? So you can remember every single damn word to the toothpaste jingle from 1987 but still don’t know what the capital of Arizona is? Well this happened to me, as I was desperately trying to get corporate federal and state claims straight (14a! 10b5! Auer v. Dressler!) my mind was running away, blithely frolicking in pretty fields and thinking, “Citycat, don’t you remember, in the scary messy closet, in the suitcase you don’t use, inside the other suitcase you don’t use, where you packed up winter clothes last spring? Lalalala.”

Oh.

This caused a mad rush to the closet, hopelessly confusing the cat, and I found the suitcase, and the pants! And other pants! So yay!

So today. Pile of clothing still in middle of room, but is ok because another aspect of these pants is that they don’t ever wrinkle. And they are brown, so I throw on this brown and white sweater, except… the sweater maybe has a really large neckline? And it is really cold? So I grab one of my wifebeaters and throw that on underneath.**

(** Note on wifebeaters. This happened in Texas. I have no other excuse. They are lovely, they are cheap, and I wore them nearly every single day. Grey Goose and I both wore them, causing most people to think we were sisters, possibly twins, and one guy to actually think we were the same person, with some sort of superpowers to be everywhere at once, until SD explained that, “No, there are two of them”. So I have a huge pile of wifebeaters in my closet and I wear them and it is love.)

Anyway, I ran to the bathroom a few minutes ago, and… Well see, Kate was driving in from home last night, and I can’t sleep Sundays anyway, so we watched Desperate Housewives kinda late, and there may have been wine, and I got to bed at about three, so I was tired this morning, and there are no mirrors IN my office, so I see myself in the bathroom mirror, and…

Hair is in a disturbingly high and also slightly off center ponytail, and I have bangs that are not so much “behaving” or “looking cool and polished” and are more so “Being spikey and going quite well with the SIDE PONYTAIL you are rocking there”, and the Sweater Of The Giant Neckline has settled off one shoulder, totally showing the wifebeater underneath, and I love the pants but I kinda have a square toed platform shoe on, and all and all I could never forgive myself if it wasn’t finals and I wasn’t Batshit Crazy.

If anyone wants to send me a big clunky charm bracelet, I’ll be all set.

A Meme is a Wish Your Heart Makes

2005-12-02T12:39:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the title- I plead finals insanity.

I generally stay away from these memes, but I am in a write-y mood and I don’t want to work, and yet have nothing creative or interesting to say. So meme time!!

TEN random things you might not know about me.
1. I am completely obsessed with all manner of sea monsters, but especially real ones like giant squid. I once dragged K to the Museum of Natural History for the Giant Squid Exhibit, and I’ve been there at least four times since.

2. My grandfather was taken as a POW during the D-day invasion. He was the only survivor when his plane crashed. Last summer the town in France where his plane went down invited my family to come be a part of a ceremony honoring him and the others on his plane. We stayed in an actual castle with an actual moat and I had actual gorgeous Scottish boys row me around in it.

3. I have the worlds’ worst sense of direction. I get lost in buildings.

4. Bookstores make me nervous. I love to read, but walking into a bookstore is overwhelming and I can wander for hours from fiction to romance to horror to newly published and end up going home and reading something I’ve read a hundred times before.

5. I do not want children. I never have. When I was young and my cousin and I played house, I played the aunt. Also, when I was young my parents bought me one of those dolls that talks and interacts with you. I hated it, because it told me what to do.

6. I had my heart broken twice in fairly quick succession several years ago. Sometimes I’m not sure if I am over it yet.

7. I have had terrible luck with dogs. When I was born my parents already had a dog. And my parents loved that dog, and all I hear about is how damn wonderful that dog was, but y’all? That dog hated me. I was the newcomer and she did NOT like being usurped. When she died my parents got me a gorgeous white puppy I named Lady. I had her awhile, but then we discovered she was deaf. Since even the most gentle tempered dogs can startle easily when deaf, and my parents wanted me to keep my hands, I had to get rid of her. The breeder we had gotten her from (my Aunt bred and showed dogs for a long time, this was one of her friends) felt so badly she gave me one of her top show dogs- Shailey. This dog? This dog was pure evil. I can’t even recount everything this dog did, but my parents gave her back. On my birthday. And it didn’t even bother me so much, because “sane parents” was a pretty good trade off. Then I got my first cat, and have had one ever since.

8. I talk to myself. Constantly. I try to pretend that I am actually talking to the objects around me… until I realize that “Talks to Self” and “Talks to Inanimate Objects” are about equal on the Scale of Crazy.

9. I have a HUGE weakness for reality TV.

10. I have a Black Thumb. A horrible, horrible black thumb. One time someone suggested me getting a plant and a friend of mine who knew me better was like, “Oh, no. That’s just cruel.”

NINE places I’ve visited
1. Orange, Texas, with the Red Cross.
2. The Beaches at Normandy.
3. Auschwitz
4. The Louvre.
5. Vancouver, BC
6. Most of Eastern Europe
7. New Orleans, pre- Katrina
8. South Beach
9. New York

EIGHT ways to win my heart
1. Be nice to my cat.
2. Love cheesy horror movies.
3. Own a dog.
4. Hugs. I love hugs.
5. Be able to snark.
6. Make me laugh.
7. Backrubs.
8. (For cats only)- Fall off the couch, then proceed to glare at me like I did something wrong.

SEVEN things I want to do before I die
1. See a show on Broadway.
2. Own a huge dog.
3. Finish the Wheel of Time series. (Of course, that’s contingent on Jordan finishing the series, but…).
4. Visit Greece
5. Write a meaningful academic work. (WaveUnfurled? Collaboration?)
6. Be able to drive without being terrified.
7. Live by the water.

SIX things I’m afraid of
1: Spiders.
2: Marionettes. (Don’t even ask).
3: Take-offs during flights.
4: Driving
5. Werewolves.
6. Computers.

FIVE things I don't like
1. Cold weather.
2. Mornings.
3. Lamb.
4. The Patriarchy. (That one’s for you, Wave).
5. George Bush

FOUR ways to turn me off
1. Be mean to my cat.
2. Be homophobic.
3. Be a bad tipper, or don’t chip in quite enough at group outings.
4. Ask me if I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

THREE Things I do everyday
1. Feed the cat. TRUST ME, I have to do this every day. Usually several times a day, because the cat doesn’t like when he has even a millimeter sized bare spot in his bowl, because then he is clearly Starving Cat, and he will make life miserable for everyone in the apartment until this is rectified.
2. Read.
3. Consider exercising. Note: I do not do the exercising, but I consider it. Every single day.

TWO things that make me happy
1. Night thunderstorms.
2. Cooking a really great meal.

ONE thing on my mind right now
1.FUCKING FINALS.

Good Lord, that took forever. I also feel like I just filled out the Longest. Personal Ad. Ever. So, like, if you like long walks on the beach and want someone to share wine and conversation with- Call me! Seriously, I am only tagging WaveUnfurled with this, because she always tags me. But I would love any other bloggers who read this to do it too!

For The Rest Of You, It's The "Holidays". For Me? EXAMS.

2005-12-01T15:30:00.000-05:00

Gah! I know it has been forever with the not updating. And… sorry? But this time, I am honestly just Out Of My Damn Mind busy, what with the starting the new job and the flying to Texas and the FINALS IN ONE GODDAMN WEEK. (Note: Am a little stressed.) So updating has been difficult. But here’s a quick rundown on all.

New Job: New job is wonderful, except for the fact that I began as we went whole hog right into the Evil Project From Hell, which is making everyone, and I mean everyone, in two offices run around and threaten retirement. This is something that happens occasionally, and unfortunately things involving District Courts tend to be Pains in the Ass, so I can’t blame anyone in the office. In fact, my boss bought us all pizza yesterday, so that was cool. But less time with the internet surfing. And my home computer still doesn’t have a space bar, so what do you people want from me?? :).

Texas: Love Texas, LOVE my parents’ new house, LOVE my parents’ new game room with pool table. Do NOT love my seeming complete inability to actually get the balls to go into the pockets, but this only means that I have to go there and practice much, much more. We spent a lot of time in the game room drinking and playing pool, while my father tried to convince us he was playing pool the “English” way, which appears to consist of hitting the cue ball in such a way that it leaps over the other balls and off the table, coming to an abrupt halt in carpet several feet from the table and scaring the hell out of the cats. Somehow, I think he was making this up.

Seriously, y’all? My parents bought this gorgeous house which is huge and kind of castle-y and hunting lodge-y, and it has a little lake in the backyard and this copse of pine trees and a giant screened-in porch and is awesome. And the trees are not grown in enough for werewolves to live there yet, so I am not afraid of them. And all my friends have to come to Texas with me on vacation because we could have WAY too much fun in that house.

Finals. Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHA. That? That is the sound of me completely losing my shit. Y’all, I am not ready for finals. I am not even remotely in the same zip code as ready for finals. It’s going to be an ugly two weeks.

But then… Freedom! For a month! A month that definitely involves Texas and might, if everything works out right, also involve New Orleans, which I still feel compelled to help in any way possible. And Christmas and holiday music and WaveUnfurled coming to visit and Kate and E and I planning for the Awesomest. Party. Ever. Which we will be throwing in about 4 months, and which we are planning this far in advance because honestly? You have no idea how awesome this party is or how long we have to plan for it. I promise a photo essay.

But… seriously. It was just Thanksgiving, and I avoided doing a general Thanksgiving entry. Well, ok. Maybe that’s because I was playing pool and drinking wine, but… I just have to say, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Last years’ Thanksgiving marked the true beginning of a downward spiral that ended with me in the emergency room of another country, and I have been working to pull myself out of that for a long time. It has been an interesting road. This year, however, I am far better. I finally feel back in control, of all manner of things I had lost control over. So I am thankful for that. And for the people around me who have always been there- I am so lucky to have such great friends. And even though some of them are far- WaveUnfurled, and soon-to-be Peanut, it’s amazing what a late night phone call can do to restore sanity. (Unless, of course, it is a late night phone call in which my dreams are destroyed. But anyway). So overall I felt it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t say something along those lines, and along the lines of Thanksgiving. So there you go.

Now, I will resume COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCKING PANICKING w/r/t: Exams.

Useless Babbling, Now With More Links

2005-11-17T15:47:00.000-05:00

Ok. Since I promised I would do more with the "updating" and less with the "sitting at home and ignoring my blog", I decided to stop in today to make a couple of points.

First, I would like to point out that my apartment has officially pulled of a Career Trifecta, in that Kate ALSO just got a raise, and we rock. Yay Kate!

Secondly. Remember back a few years ago when it was determined that I probably, should not ever, EVER, date? Some things don't change. Of course, I think I need to blame myself for this one. When the advice from my supervisor in re: The Date is, "Just muster up as much of that ambivalence as you can", it might be a hint that my heart isn't really in it. Just a thought. See Also: when I am surrounded by available, interested guys who actually want a relationship, and I am attracted only to the 25 year old with no job who travels the country and is only there on a lark as well. So I think it is officially once again official- I simply don't have the time or the energy to take myself seriously enough for a relationship right now. Unless you are Jared Padalecki, in which case- call me!

And speaking of Jared Padalecki, I am relatively annoyed with myself for Tuesday night. I mean, it's one thing that when I am alone on a Saturday night I might watch a scary movie and freak myself out. This is fine. Do you know what is not fine?? Not being able to handle a TV SHOW on the WB without covering my eyes and fast forwarding through the scary parts. I love Supernatural, but Christ people... shit scared the HELL out of me. Kate comes home from trivia all, "Hi, what are you up to?"

Me: "Hiding on the balcony because I am now afraid of the apartment."

Kate: "Oh. Um. I'm... home now, so the apartment... will not get you? So you can go to bed?"

She is intelligent enough to simply not watch the show; therefore she does not experience general unease and localized panic, at say, a lamp. But seriously? That lamp? On the show? Nearly killed Jared Padalecki, my friends, and he may someday be my boyfriend. And I am totally not about significant others being killed by household appliances.

Anyway, this has been an insane week, and I have gone out a lot, which is strange because 1. I had stopped a lot of "going out on weekdays", 2. Especially because of law school, and 3. Especially 3 weeks before finals, but has been entertaining, if nothing else. And this weekend? HARRY POTTER WEEKEND. Y'all know.

Ok, so I should probably get back to work, by which I mean "reading my Evidence assignment", because finals really are in less than three weeks and I am, to put it mildly, fucked. The good news is that, except for the spacebar, my computer is fully functional, so I am hoping that after a quick trip to Best Buy I will be actually able to type and update from home, like a sane person.

Note I said like a sane person. I have no intention of getting all boring and sane.

There Seems To Be Some Residual Cookbook Anger, Here

2005-11-15T14:38:00.000-05:00

Hi again. How are all of you out in lovely internet land? In case y'all couldn't tell, I am feeling a lot better. Also? Entirely cracked out. But a LOT. BETTER. Why am I feeling better? Well, there are lots and lots of reasons, but here is a quick rundown of the highlights:

1. I got a new job! Still in my agency, but for lot more money and for a new boss. One of these things HIGHLY outweighs the other, and it's probably not the one you think it is.

2. I decided to go home for Thanksgiving, and home is now Houston, meaning I get to go back to Texas! And that is healing, in a lot of ways.

3. Long, helpful e-mails with friends near and far, especially Prairie- hang in there, hon. And keep writing e-mails.

4. Corporations? Is making far more sense that I had any right to expect it to, and there is a small chance I may not actually fail out of law school.

5. Insane city adventures with the Peanut, possibly involving four minute dating and the Peanut saying, deadpan to the bartender: Peanut: (holding out her empty rum and coke glass) "You see this $10 bill? I will give you this $10 bill if you fill this glass with vodka". Classic.

6. Did I mention I got a new job? Because, YAY.

7. Insane city cab rides involving a cute gay man who buys me cigarettes and a six pack of Miller Lite. Yeah, I said cab ride.

8. E also got a job, so yay E and general happiness abounding in my apartment!

So see? Lots and lots to be happy about. Plus, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, which means in less than 2 weeks Kate and I can listen to Christmas music and decorate, a realization that caused much excitement last night. My building sponsored a little traveling bookstore* today, and I bought 4 Christmas CD's in anticipation.

* Sidenote on the book store. The selection of books was almost entirely children's books and self help books with the word "God" in their titles. And there was a book called "1000 Places You Must See Before You Die". Now, seriously. If you are living your life, and have some brain cells IN YOUR HEAD, and you cannot come up with your own list of places to see before you die, and you have to rely on a GENERIC, MASS PUBLISHED book to tell you what you must do to live a meaningful life, you may as well already be dead. But that's just my thoughts on the matter.

My other thoughts? Come from the "Six Ingredients or Less" cookbook. I can't help but feel like if it's only six ingredients, I probably can figure it out for myself. It's like when I look in the SBD cookbook, and there are recipes like, "Turkey Wraps", and it proceeds as follows:

1. Lay tortilla on plate.
2. Put 2 slices turkey on tortilla.
3. Spread one tablespoon mustard on turkey.
4. Roll up and enjoy.

I mean, yes, that is, in fact, a "Turkey Wrap", but... I mean, are there actually people out there who cannot manage this without instructions?!? To whom it has never occurred that mustard and turkey might pair nicely? People who get all the way to step 4 and are just like, "OH! Now I get it!"? Come on, people. When I see a recipe for a "Turkey Wrap", I want instructions on how to baste and roast the turkey, create a lovely Dijon from mustard seeds and vinegar and bake my own damn rosemary lavash. (note, I would probably never actually do this, but that's the kind of cookbook I want).

So the bookstore was relatively useless, although I did manage to procure my aforementioned Christmas music, a Far Side desk calendar, and a Christmas themed fleece blanket (oh, don't even ask).

Anyway, I should get back to work, but I wanted to stop by and say that yes, I am doing better, and things should start heating up here in the next few weeks...

You'll see.

Ok

2005-11-04T12:13:00.000-05:00

So. Everything in my life is going ok. Work is ok. School is pretty ok. Money is ok. Family is ok. Friends are ok.

I? I am… not.

I don’t know why, exactly, I’m not. It’s not that things are bad, per se, it’s more that I simply don’t care. I’m going to work and I’m going to class and I’m coming home and at no point do I actually feel connected or plugged into any of it. I’m not sad, I’m not… anything. I’m not emotionally invested even a little bit. Good and bad things are still happening, and it’s like, work gave you a really nice award! And you’re falling really behind in school! And your friends got engaged! And you’re having a party! And I’m all like, “meh”. And then I’ll be walking around the grocery store, passing the meat section, and the thought of chicken apple sausages will tear through me and the strength of the emotion will practically bring me to my knees*.

And this? This is not good.

I’m not Big D Depressed. But I’m also not just “having a bad day”. And I don’t even think that all of what I am going through or thinking about or feeling or not feeling is bad. I spent some time outside of my life. I saw things, I felt things, I learned things. That changed me in some ways. And I think it is really good to take the time so that instead of trying to cram the changed me into the same life, I’m also examining that life to see if maybe it needs to be altered some to fit around the changed me. And there were things about my life I was unhappy about or ignoring or not totally facing, so it’s good to think about those things, too. And at the same time there are things that I love about my life, and I need to realize that and focus on them, as well.

But there’s a line between “taking some time for me”, and “withdrawing from the world”. There’s a difference between being introspective and hiding out. And there’s a HUGE difference between re-evaluating some priorities and re-evaluating your entire sense of self worth. One leads to being a stronger, happier, steadier person. One leads to a giant black hole.

I don’t want to go anywhere NEAR that hole.

So I’m going to force myself back. I’m going to use this blog more. And sometimes it may contain more than the funny stories it usually does. Because maybe I wasn’t always real here. And maybe that means I wasn’t always real in person. And maybe I wasn’t always real to myself. Which may be ok sometimes, I don’t know. But I want to try being more real here, and see what works. And… I was going to type, “I want to write about Texas.” But… I don’t. I don’t want to necessarily, but I think I may need to, so at some point I am probably going to attempt to do that.

I want to thank Kate, and the Peanut, because honestly without them I think I might have given in to the urge to just stay in bed. And I’m sure I haven’t been much fun the past three weeks, and I really, REALLY appreciate the support. Thanks, guys. And thanks to SD, who without knowing it has given me more smiles and more things to think about than I have had in a long time.

Well. THAT was pleasant. I’m resisting the urge to apologize for the heavy entry. Instead, I will just say that now that I have this out, I may be able to type here again easier. And when I can, I SO have a story about Ninja Horses.

Yep. Ninja. Horses.

Take care!

* There is an actual reason for this. I have not just randomly become deeply emotionally invested in poultry products.

2005-10-29T00:34:00.000-04:00

Hi.

I'm still here.

And not overly excited about it.

Still working on the adjusting and the balancing and trying to figure out where everything should end up. However, I decided that I would drop in here and say hi.

Hi.

Ok, that's where I started. Anyway, here are a few random, unrelated things in the life of Citycat.

1. I hit absolute rock bottom at work today. I mean, the absolute lowest of the Trump-esque corporate doublespeak nonsense. We have to do these presentations on what our offices do for the rest of the agency (strike one). Under instruction, I was preparing ours in PowerPoint (strike 2). All that would have been reasonable had I not had a moment today where I was searching for clip art (argh!)... of... a forest (the Hell?)... because the first part of the presentation is....

"The forest for the trees".

And I was also looking for clip art for the second part, which was... (oh yeah, you know where this is going)....

"The trees."

Then I e-mailed all my friends and asked, again, that they PLEASE, for the LOVE OF GOD, just KILL. ME.

2. Yoga. Ok, I like yoga. I really like yoga in the sense that I HATE HATE HATE to work out but I can do yoga and it occupies enough of my mind that I am not bored to tears. However. I have a yoga DvD that was "Yoga for Stress Relief", and it is wonderful, and there is this one exercise with your neck and the stress going away and maybe you don't feel like your neck can so much hold your head up afterward, (which... not so good, since that is like the sum total of the necks' purpose, unless it's to show off pretty necklaces, but...), but you don't care because it feels So. Damn. Good. So maybe I was lulled into a false sense of security with yoga. Maybe yoga... lied to me.

Because since I moved to the new apartment, there is no actual room to do yoga in the living room, on account that there is a coffee table there and there is NO WAY I am doing yoga around a coffee table. So I bought lots of yoga tapes, and do yoga in my room now. And I bought all different types, and I liked AM and PM and conditioning and abs. And I thought I really liked yoga.

Then I tried Power Yoga.

People. The FUCK? I hurt in muscles I wasn't even aware I had. Normally, yoga is kind of like, "Ok, ow, ow, there, that feels better, ok". Power yoga? Power yoga was like, "Ow. Ow. OWOW. You want me to... WHAT? I don't think... it's supposed to bend that way... and OW, and ooh, my hips are a little, and eek, my arm isn't really, and OH MY FUCKING GOD I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR MY WRISTS TO HURT THIS MUCH". The yoga? It hates me.

So yes, I realize that this is probably a combination of me not being in ANY sort of shape and probably doing the poses wrong and overdoing it and also pushing too hard into the poses and you know what, y'all? I DON'T CARE. Because those are all reasonable, rational explanations that put the blame on ME, so I am ignoring them entirely and blaming the INANIMATE YOGA TAPE. So there.

3. I so have ADD. It was almost embarassing. This week I went on a field trip for work, in which I went to a Port, and we learned all sorts of really fascinating things. And despite the ship captain who nearly had a coronary when I established my rudimentary knowledge of diesel engines, (Quote: "Who the hell IS this chick? She knows engines??"), I had a good time. However, we were standing there, and the port man was talking, and I swear it was even interesting , and the next thing I knew I was complimenting one of the general counsel attorneys on her bracelets. So to recap:

Guy With Knowledge I Need And Want: "Blah blah blah very important stuff."
Me: "Oooh. Shiny."

I clearly left a large portion of my mind back in Texas.

Happy Weekend!!

Return

2005-10-17T15:31:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back.

For the last three weeks I have been in Texas, helping the Red Cross with disaster relief after the dual tragedies of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I spent several days in shelters, and then joined a mobile feeding team. My team moved to Orange, Texas, where we lived without electricity and potable water in a devastated area. We took out Budget trucks filled with food to people who had not yet been helped. In 2 weeks we served over 100,000 meals and provided for the basic needs of the community. In addition, on our own time, we saved dozens of animals that had been abandoned after the storm.

It was incredible, it was sad, it was fun, it was amazing. I met some of the most incredible people I have ever met in my entire life, and I will never, ever forget them.

If I could, I would go back again as soon as I got some rest and my strength back. (And had a doctor check out my leg, because seriously people, who actually punctures themselves on an actual rusty nail? Oh, I do.) I fully intend on doing this for the rest of my life, whenever I have the opportunity to do so.

In some ways, it was time to go, and in others, I don't want to be back. An experience like this challenges you on a deeply personal level, and I haven't worked out my answers to those challenges yet. This is not an overall bad thing, and although the Red Cross emphasizes the potential need for mental health assessment when you get back, I don't think I'm going to fall into a deep depression or anything. (Unless shopping with the Peanut or talking on the phone with Jen while moaning, "I haaaate my life" counts). But in some ways a lot of things have shifted, and it will be awhile before I come to equilibrium again, and maybe longer to come to terms with that new equilibrium.

So, until the next day to day disaster provides me with something to write about (or until I process some things and get my pictures developed), I have been tagged with the following by WaveUnfurled:

"Five idiosyncracies I have and am willing to own up to."

1. I have always, even before my recent time in Texas, said "y'all", even though there is not a damn Southern thing about me.

2. I have no maternal instincts whatsoever for human beings, and overwhelming maternal instincts for animals.

3. The list of Things I Am Petrified Of includes: monkeys, marionettes, and revolving doors.

4. I refuse to eat any meat attached to any bone. (This one cause my Red Cross team to reconsider my need for psychological counseling).

5. I prefer all foods to be lukewarm, except ice cream, but only because that is impossible.

Deployed

2005-09-22T20:01:00.001-04:00

Sure. I FINALLY get around to posting after an apparently nearly unforgivable absence (thanks, Trouble :)), and now I am going to not be posting for awhile again. That "normal people" living from the last post? Screw that.

After Hurricane Katrina, I felt compelled to do something. So I signed up for a Disaster Relief deployment with the Red Cross. They needed thousands of volunteers to head down to the Gulf and run shelters, bring food to people with no electricity, etc. Now that Rita is hitting, the need is even greater. Yesterday I got a call and tomorrow I am deploying to Texas. I have no idea where I will be or what I will be doing. If Rita hits one way, I may stay in Austin, living in a hotel and working in a shelter. If it hits a different way, I may be sent to Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama and be living in a tent. It's a three week deployment, so I could end up doing some of all of the above.

So this decision seems to be begging a few questions, namely, Citycat... What about work? And don't you go to law school?

Yes. But...

Work: Work is wonderful and amazing sometimes and wants to help. So work worked things out for me and are almost unbelievably supportive. This is one time, I can say, with a complete lack of irony, that I am truly grateful to them.

Law School: Heh. Well, ok. On the one hand, it is definitely not advisable to take off for three weeks mid semester. On the other hand... life happens. When I weighed the two against each other I realized that in this case, life wins. I'll work my ass off after I get home, and may pay a little in grades, but... It is what it is. The Professors are really supportive and my classmates, especially A, are going to help me a bunch.

So it will be awhile before my next post. Everyone have a great three weeks!

This Must Be How Normal People Live

2005-09-20T14:20:00.000-04:00

HI!

(I am hoping maybe if I say hi really enthusiastically no one will notice I haven't posted in FOR-GODDAMN-EVER). Yeah... sorry about that. I really don't want to write posts when at work, but given the fact that I still do not have my computer back, (although YAY! S, he has fixed it, except for the sticky space key which I am SURE has NOTHING to do with the incident involving the champagne. Not a THING), I have finally decided to risk posting at work rather than risk losing all your interest.

The thing is, life has been bouncing along relatively nicely in all areas which I write about here. Work, which unfortunately I can't write about here, has been Pure. Comic. Gold., even if I am the only one who finds it funny. Remember the Judy Bloom book Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing? I need to write Tales of the Retirement Age Drama Queens. But anyway.

Last week was fun and rather insane as I somehow managed to go out almost every night. I also managed the Best. Law school. Escape. Ever. Law school? SO does not hate me! See, Friday the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan at work, leaving all of us to clean up the proverbial mess. (Possibly while giggling evilly). Anyway, I was exhausted and decided I could get away with not reading my corporations, because 1. I hate corporations, and 2. He only calls on the people "at bat" for that day, and while he tortures THEM, those not at bat might as well not even be there. So really, I could get away with not doing the reading. Right?

Wrong.

Note to self: When deciding upon whether or not to do reading based on the amount you can rely on people "At Bat", be sure to first acertain that YOU are not ONE of those people.

Yeah. So I walk into class Friday and Freak. The Fuck. Out. Because not only did I not do the reading, the question for the day regarded three types of corporate mergers under three different statutory frameworks and it was NOT something that I could just BS my way through. And have I mentioned that I HATE CORPORATIONS??? NO? WELL I DO. SEE? I HATE IT ENOUGH TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS. SO THERE.

A did his best to keep me calm but all he could really do is feed me cigarettes at break. But y'all? I was fine. Miracles do happen, and Friday's miracle is that the man ran out of time before he could call on me. He ran out of time, and my law school career is intact.

So the weekend began with me being totally stressed out, but a Katrina Benefit featuring the music of D1 and the drinking ability of kickball quickly put me in a better mood. Then the Peanut showed up, and I hung out with her until she could retrieve the money that the bar was donating (she works for a Very Involved Non Profit) and then we went to McDonalds and came home.

Saturday I went to El Capitan's house for a BBQ, which was fun because I had never been there before. We drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of things with unnatural amounts of garlic in them. It was a nice, normal, fun night in which I did not: 1. Fall down, 2. need supervision, or 3. Scare myself into staying up all night (even though Kate wasn't home). Y'all? I just may be getting boring.

Sunday The Peanut came over and I remembered that she likes the same type of B-rate monster movie I do, so we watched Peter Benchley's The Beast. Then I went to the mall with her to go to Ann Taylor, where there was much trying on and possibly some weeping because I canNOT buy the $138 dollar dress, no I canNOT. There was also a plan hatched in which we are going to the Delaware outlet malls soonish and spending absurd amounts of money. Yay fall clothes!

Then we went to the grocery store, which was supposed to be a quick stop before the Peanut went home, but turned into a FAR greater adventure than necessary, and I am not sure why. The Peanut and I have a way of having conversations that evolve into plans that in no way make any sense. See, mussels were on sale. The Peanut said she only liked mussels if they were "cooked a certain way", that way being "the way the expensive restaurant she used to work at cooked them." So I decided NOT to buy them, since Kate wouldn't eat them and neither the Peanut nor I had ever cooked them before, and the Peanut needed to get home anyway. Somehow this evolved into a strange deal with the cosmos, in which we would buy mussels and eat them for dinner if we could find sea salt. This almost makes sense, except that the recipe on the back of the mussels bag, which we would be following since we didn't know any other recipe, did not contain even an ounce of sea salt. But we found sea salt, and then I lost my mind and sat in front of the white wines for approximately 87 hours having NO IDEA what a "dry" white wine to cook the mussels in would be. Eventually, I literally grabbed something off the shelf labeled "Dry White Wine" and dragged the Peanut out of the store.

So even though she was supposed to go home hours before, and even though we had clearly decided not to cook mussels, at 9 o'clock at night we were eating a steaming bowl of mussels and watching Peter Benchley's Creature.

Hee.

And y'all? I am SO having a dinner party soon, because DAMN can I make some good mussels.

The Stupid Comes Early

2005-09-01T12:05:00.000-04:00

Wow. Last year it took until October for law school to make me stupid. This year? Three days, people. Three days.

It’s good to be back, in a lot of ways. And the classes don’t seem too bad, except for evidence, which makes me weep. And will continue to do so until the closed book 33 question exam at the end, which will be the sole determination of the value of over 200 hours of my life. Yup. Love law school. Love.

But mostly it’s good, and A and I have the same schedule which means we don’t have to do scary things like walk into class on the first day alone, and we can double check homework and trade notes and BOTH not have the foggiest idea what the professor is talking about when he makes sure everyone picked up the packet. (A and I exchanged looks of complete resignation at that point. Packet? What is this packet of which you speak? Where do we get the packet? Distribution Center? Oh, good, another place of which I have NEVER HEARD OF. Yippee.)

But the Stupid? Oh, it is moving in quickly. A now takes the bus home, and I take the metro, so we walk out of opposite ends of the building. Yesterday he went one way, I went the other. I walk to the door and realize… I am not on the right side of the building. (Ok, y’all, don’t EVEN GET ME STARTED on the building. I KNOW it’s a big open square with 8 classrooms around the edges. I KNOW this. And I also KNOW that I get lost in it Every. Goddamn. Day. Shut up.) So I run through the building and chase after A.

Me: “A! Are you taking the metro??”

A: (stops, looks confused). “No… I, bus?”

Me: “Then why are you on this side? I was just on the wrong side because you went this way so I assumed I went the other way.”

A: “But I went this way because you went that way.”

Me: “Oh my god. We are exactly the same kind of stupid.”

Law school notwithstanding, I have also had the opportunity to be frustrated and made to look bad by my other favorite inanimate object, the Computer. So we all know my computer broke. And I sort of don’t blame it, because it gets kind of beat up coming with me to work and school. So I decided to buy a cheap new computer off e-bay and leave that one at school. So I bought the computer, and I installed the wireless card, and…. Nothing. So after several hysterical phone calls to poor S (who was at a dinner in Chicago and did not CARE that now my second computer was acting like a spoiled 5 year old, but is wonderful and noted the “rapidly approaching Crazy” note in my voice) we decided I had to download new drivers. So! Download driver to disk, install on computer, love and sunshine and kittens!

There is no love, sunshine, or kittens.

Of course, a disk is exactly .07 mb too small. So I burn it to a CD. Yay! I am useful!

I am not useful.

My computer is old enough that the CD reader does not really read burned CDs. It does that whole spinny spinny SPINNYSPINNYSPINNY Whhheeezzee... "Please Insert A Disk Into Drive D thing." And no matter how many times I tried, and no matter how many times I explained to the computer that there WAS a disk in drive D, I couldn't. Get. It. To. READ IT.

This is now the second time in my life my entire concept of reality has been challenged by an inanimate object. See, I was a philosophy major, (bet you didn’t see THAT coming), and I have a MA in philosophy, and during finals time a philosophy student can get a little crazy. So I was writing paper after paper dissecting reality, from Plato’s forms to Decartes’ “I think therefore I am”, and ran straight into an ontological brick wall.

See, I was printing a paper. Well, the computer and I were trying to print a paper, the printer was not so much cooperating. See, in the printer’s reality, it had no paper. Therefore, it couldn’t print. In MY reality, there was TOTALLY PAPER IN THE PRINTER. I could see the paper, I could feel the paper, I believed the paper was there. But the actual outcome was that there was no paper being printed. Therefore, the printer’s reality must have been correct. And then my head exploded.

So you can see why this bothered me. And nothing I did, no amount of reasoning with the computer, yelling at the computer, hitting the computer, or thinking bad thoughts about the computer would change the computer’s view of reality.

So now I own two laptops, (well, three, but just forget the third) and neither of them are currently doing ANYTHING I want them to do. I have been beaten by my own technology.

But just think! If this is only the first week of the semester, how much fun is November going to be!?

Devastation

2005-08-31T16:20:00.000-04:00

There are no words.