Traveling the Ways...

Back to the grind

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:07:00 GMT

... but not quite yet. Today is my last full day in Iowa, and snow is blowing around like crazy. I don't even know how much is coming down and how much the wind is kicking up. We usually get a good deal of snow here, but there's been snow on the ground for WEEKS in a row now. It's astounding. And the temperatures, ugh, don't get me started - even without wind chill, I've woken up to minus zero temperatures. The highest high recently was 16, yesterday, which meant there was JUST enough moisture in the air for it to freeze and tumble from the sky. Well, at least I got to look at some very pretty snowflakes. Who else likes doing that, looking at tiny snowflakes on your gloves and coat and windows??

Then tomorrow I'm getting up at o'dark thirty to fly to Orlando (which will be warmer than here, yay, but way less warm than I was hoping, boo) where sweetie is running his second marathon. He is crazed. I'll be missing the first day of class, which is probably a good thing because we have an assignment for Monday from the book, which I do not have.

Soo... leaving Iowa again. I did stop by the memorial garden at our church where Amie's ashes are, but the walk was too snowy to actually go up there. I meant to go visit Adrian's gravesite also, but yesterday afternoon worked out differently from what I had planned, so I was relieved of my borrowed vehicle before I could. It's really too bad, but sweetie and I are planning to come back here in June so he can run Dam to Dam. If I trained for it, I could run it too; it's only (ha, "only") 20K, a little less than a half marathon. Hmph. We'll see. I'll be happy to get back to NYC, where I don't need a car to go anywhere and where I can walk to places and where I have friends I don't have to go through the drudgery of, like, CALLING and DRIVING to see. I am SO bad at arranging to see my high school friends when I'm here. It's terrible. At least I saw some of them at my friend's baby shower - OMG that was an estrogen overload. It made me want to hammer something afterward or go drive a pick-up truck or something. It's funny - most of the NaNo crowd is female, but I've never had an estrogen overload feeling like that. Obviously the conversation is a *wee* bit different.

But I'll be sad to leave my parents, my mother's house, trees, and stretches of pretty snow (I should say, seeing stretches of snow from the inside - I won't miss being outside in it). I really enjoy spending time with my parents, which is part of the reason I don't call people (especially now that people are all on facebook). I also enjoy the unlimited access to pop, which is what I call it when I'm here!, and fancier cooking supplies and equipment than I have at home. Also, tamales on Christmas. ZOMG. Theoretically I know how to make them now. Hmmmm. I like all the room in this house, especially the loveseat where all my stuff is gathered. I like being able to walk aimlessly around the house, though I won't miss my freezing bedroom downstairs. I spent a little time in Amie's bedrooms at both houses, partly just to be in there and partly to see if there's anything else I want to take. I feel so weird doing the latter, but I know that not only would she want that, but I would want the same! I would haunt people and say, "Doooooon't spend moneeeeeeey! Uuuuuuuuse my thiiiiiiiings!"

It was a pretty uneventful break overall! Oooh, but I DID get a bunch of classy new clothes with my mother. I had a pile of stuff I liked, and when my mom said that we could just get all of it (instead of sorting out what I really wanted), the saleslady looked pretty surprised. Awesome. Now THAT'S an accomplishment! I received so many assorted little things from my stepmother and stepsister that I felt guilty about not spending more on them (especially compared to other people, ha), but I'm sure they understand that I am but a heavily indebted student - and if they don't, they can bite me.

I did less writing than I meant to because I'm always lazy on break, but I did outline three major writing goals for myself, and I am absolutely determined to finish both my outstanding fanfics. I wrote a chapter of each of them, which isn't quite nothing. Hooray! I also knitted baby things, which were adorable, and got a big ball of this pale yellow yarn. I love getting new yarn! I'm looking forward to being a classy, productive dame once I get back to NYC. But first, I should make sure I have EVERYTHING packed for tomorrow. Away I go!

Oh, and I saw the End of Time parts 1 & 2. I loved them!! The Who finales and specials like that always leave me giddy, instead of sad like some people, partly because they usually affirm my conviction that Rose is the Doctor's One Twoo Wub. Even if they never mention it again, and I don't expect them too, this is my firm belief. WTF Eleven is like my age!! I do approve of his giant hair.

Giant meme!

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:12:49 GMT

Nerdy Media Corner will appear eventually, I promise! But tonight I am a little braindead after travel, so meme-age it is. It's been making the ol' LJ rounds, and I have time to vegetate. I had a surprising amount of stuff to do during what I thought was a free week, but now it's really REALLY over! Now I'm back in Iowa, trying to get re-acquainted with a house that seems emptier every time I come back. Um, but I AM happy to be here.

Anyway, meme-age! This will probably be a little depressing, actually.

2009 in review

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

Gave a eulogy for my sister. That was the most memorable, in the absolute worst way. I also went to Boston and Disney World, and I had a successful law interview! And I had an MRI and ultrasound (just on my thyroid!).

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I honestly can't remember if I made any, though perhaps LJ could enlighten me. If I did, it would have been about writing more, and I did write a couple short stories besides NaNo. I'm not sure I'll do it again, for this precise reason!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Nope, but someone surprising got preggers. I have a baby hat knit for the critter, and as soon as the airport delivers my luggage with my needles, I'll start the booties!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

See #1. I lost my sister. We also lost the kitty cat we've had for... I think about fifteen years now.

5. What countries did you visit?

I don't think I visited any!

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

A clerkship and a kitty cat in Brooklyn!

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

26th of February. See #1. It's funny, I'm not sure the date itself will remain etched upon my memory - the days were sort of a blur.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Getting my clerkship and winning the paper-writing contest.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Um... as usual, not writing as much as I should.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Other than my usual few colds and chronic headaches, I don't think so.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Hmm... good question. My new bed, maybe! It's awesome.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Hmm... my family, during our latest tragedy. My sweetie, generally, especially flying out to Iowa for the funeral, and taking me to two Broadway shows! A guy I read about recently who wrote a really stupid column for his school paper and then wrote a sincere apology about What He Learned.

13. Whose behavior made you depressed?

Well, the guy who was driving the car, birthers, the NY Senate.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, plane tickets, unlimited metrocards.

15. What are you really, really, really excited about?

Being with family, seeing sweetie in Orlando, seeing my preggers friend.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

I didn't listen to a lot of new music this year. Oh, I know. The songs from Wicked and Regina Spektor (I attended a concert of hers with sweetie).

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Ahhh, that's too complicated to answer with one pat word.
b) thinner or fatter? Probably the same.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Write, of course! Hmm... explore Brooklyn beyond my admittedly awesome neighborhood.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Be bored online!

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

With family, wearing a lot of layers!

21. What was your favorite month of 2009?

Hmm... November is always good times because of NaNo. August was nice because it finally got warm.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I suppose you could say I fell more in love. OOOOH sappy.

23. How many one-night stands?

Ha, none.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Hmm... I'd have to say "Mad Men". I wish that show was a bit more cheerful sometimes! "Lost" is also pretty entertaining and suspenseful.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Nah.

26. What was the best book you read?

OH DANG. Um... "Under the Dome" by Stephen King kept me in suspense for 1072 pages. I really liked "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and "Carter Beats the Devil."

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I'm not sure I'd never heard Regina Spektor before 2009, but I definitely didn't get into her until this year.

28. What did you want and get?

More time with sweetie, more awesome eating out with various people, my own apartment.

29. What did you want and not get?

A decently-paying summer job. But I don't mind!

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I was just talking about this recently. I think "An Education" was my favorite.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 25, and I went out to eat with Mom, best friend, and sweetie. We tried to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park and failed.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Remember #1? Not having that happen. Otherwise, I can't think of much.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

Well, I guess it expanded because I took on some of my sister's clothes. Colorful, comfortable, pretty.

34. What kept you sane?

Best friend, Other Best Friend, sweetie. Law school probably helped with that, in the form of a distraction. NaNo both contributes to and detracts from my sanity!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Hmm... ooh, Naveen Andrews of "Lost."

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

The Election!

37. Who did you miss?

My sister, my family when I had to leave.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Hmm... I'm not sure I met a lot of new people besides NaNo folks whose names I have mostly forgotten because I fail at that. I probably met people through writers' group, but I can't remember if that was last year or this year. So besides them, maybe sweetie's aunt Rose. She's so sweet!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Ugh, do I have to, cruel meme?? On a depressing note, I guess I learned that nobody is invulnerable. It can always get worse.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

"If we make it through December/everything's gonna be all right, I know." Except substitute 2008/2009 for December.

Whew, meme-age! Will I post a more substantive post eventually?? Only time will tell!

Five down!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:45:27 GMT

And just one to go! I refer to the semesters in law school. Okay, it's not entirely accurate to say this one is down; I have clinic work I should be doing at this very moment, but classes and finals are over!! Wooooo! Now, many people hate finals time because it's really stressful, and I understand that... but I love finals time because there's no classes, no homework, and I get to study when I feel like it. It usually involves baking as well, but I didn't do a lot of that. I DID dye my hair with some free red dye I got from freecycle. It ended up more like highlights, which I like. It's been leaving orange smudges on my pillow, but I anticipated this and put a t-shirt over it. I'll probably wash it today and try not to ruin sweetie's towel. I make no promises.

Anyway, I think finals went well. Both were take-homes, so I was able to stay in exotic Clinton Hill. I've already received two Christmas presents - fancy tequila and Cointreau from rov with which I made delicious margaritas last night, and from sweetie the new Stephen King book and tickets to Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" Tuesday. Woohoo!!!

Okay, I'm going to go do some clinic work, but I should have a Nerdy Media Corner in a day or so. My days are pretty unstructured, so I'm sure I'll get to it sooner or later!

Nerdy Book Corner Extraordinaire!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:26:41 GMT

Today's entry is nonstop Nerdy Book Corner! It was inspired by the sweetie, to whom I related the story of Free Book, who insisted that I blog about it. I was walking from school to... hmm... the bank a couple days ago, and a line of people were handing out free books. Could I ever resist a free book?? No way! So without further ado...!

Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species. Wow, I thought! It's a hugely important text in science and culture! I should probably read it! ... with special introduction by: Ray Comfort. The special introduction begins with a discussion of Darwin's religious beliefs. This seems less than academic. It then starts in on an introduction of DNA and how gosh darn complicated it is! You guys, there's a LOT of DNA, and it does really complicated things. Plus, we share 50% of our DNA with bananas. Have you guessed it by now?? The introduction starts with religion and ends with religion; the last section is called "Do It Today." I shall transcribe the first sentence:

"To receive the gift of eternal life, you must repent of your sins (turn from them) and put on the Lord Jesus Christ as you would put on a parachute--trusting in Him alone for your salvation." The footnotes for this section come from the Bible. Does that sound like a scientific discussion of Darwin to yous?? Does it sound in any way relevant to the origin of the species to yous?? GAH! The "special introduction" is written in nice big 12 point font, complete with pictures (including caricatures of Darwin as a monkey, har har), while the text of Origin itself is a solid wall of 8 point font. Nice guys. Real classy.

So readers, I have a conundrum. My instinct is to tear out the offending pages, but sweetie suggested that I keep them to show them to people who may not fully comprehend how terrible the "special introduction" really is. Thoughts??

In happier NBC...

NaNo update: this totally counts as a nerdy book. It is a book, or at least a large collection of words in prose format, written by a nerd, after all. So the fictional non-fiction account of the wacky cult known as the Under Faith (aka Sympastanding, aka Synthesology) is going wonderfully. Every time I can't think of something else to add to the collection of wacky documents, something even wackier occurs to me. Right now, I'm writing what believers of the Under Faith claim to be a Book of the Apocryhpa, which is basically several of the most well-known Bible stories with a Cthulhu twist! I just did Jonah and the Giant Tentacle and the poor widow who becomes a queen of the undersea city. I'm now writing the ark and Cthulhu's 40 day temper tantrum.

David Morrell, First Blood. This is the book that the movie Rambo is based on! I've never seen the movie, so I can't tell if it's at all true to the book. I borrowed this from sweetie, so if you're reading, you should probably skip this for spoilerz. So this tale revolves around a sheriff and a majorly PTSD-ed war vet known only as Rambo. The plot is... well, they kill each other. Rambo is hitchhiking through town, and the sheriff wants him out. Rambo doesn't like nobody telling him where he can't go, so he keeps coming back. Sheriff tries to put him in jail, but cutting Rambo's hair goes too far. A killing spree ensues! So this book was pretty well-paced, but dangit, I wanted to know a lot more about the serious mental damage of these two characters and why they cannot. let. it. go. I guess this one of those books where the characters are just vehicles to deliver the plot (we read copyright cases about this), and... eh. I'm much more of a character reader. I was amazed but not really surprised at how long the characters kept going when they had torn each other to bits, and I was relieved when they died. Not for my sake but for theirs!

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's a classic, I hear! I'm not very far into it, but daaaaang. I'm starting to see what some of these stream of consciousness books are aiming for and how far they fall short. So far, the narrator and his lawyer have taken a shit ton of drugs and picked up some poor terrified hitchhhiker. Oooh, similarity between these two books! My mind boggles at the quantity of drugs they're taking. I'm trying to ignore the twinge I feel whenever the idea of the intoxicated driver strikes too close to home.

Stephen R. Lawhead, The Saga of the Dragon King (or something). I started this book a looooong time ago, and for awhile I was reading it steadily. But then I got to the final book of the trilogy (it's one of those giant volumes with three books in one), and I put it down for weeks. I finally finished it up to a very underwhelming ending. The proselytizing just got to be too much for me. Sexism and racism I expect from mediocre high fantasy, but the unabashed proselytizing was new and repulsive. Seriously, the kingdom of the Dragon King previously worshipped a whole Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, but then the baby Dragon King and his hermit friend brought the religion of the God Most High to the people! The baby Dragon King even had VISIONS of a brown-haired man beaming at him! Then God gave him a magical sword, but he wielded it in anger, and it stopped being magic. But then he believed again, and it became magical once more!

As I write this, I'm watching Veronica Mars. Everybody has such wonderful things to say about it, and I suspect I would too if the high school drama would DIAF, so it would be all motorcycle gangs, mysteries, and the awesome minor characters. So far I'm enjoying it, but the Pretty White Kids With Problems need to become interesting or go away. Snarking and angsting and making out do not count as interesting. Also, I keep mixing up Veronica's new boy and her ex boy. Damn you, pretty white kids! ETA: OMG kids, please stop calling Veronica by her full name. It's driving me nuts.

ETA II: I completely forgot to post about the Great Gas Scare of '09! I'll put it as briefly as possible: my CO alarm went off, and after I wandered around in confusion for a few minutes, I called 911 and told them what happened. A quartet of firefighters stomped into my apt, checked everything, verified that the CO levels were normal, shut off my stove/oven and stomped out. Minutes later, a duo from the gas company came, poked around my stove, and then discovered that I had a significant gas leak because the connection between the flux (gas pipe) and stove was lacking An Important Piece. He was shocked that I hadn't smelled gas before, and I have noticed that my apartment smells different now when I come in. Anyway, I called my landlord and then wrote a letter and sent it along with a copy of the warning the gas guys gave me, and I am once again stove & oven-less. Oh dang.

Oh heavens, time to go work on the clinic work. Have a nice weekend, all!

Weekend!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:45:31 GMT

Gosh, I should do these weekend posts regularly. Lots of people found something or other to comment on in my last one!

First of all, thanks for all the responses to the FAQ question! It was leaked eventually that I was the "F-A-Qs" advocate and rov the "faks" advocate. It's funny - both of us were genuinely shocked to hear the other pronunciation. I never did add up which one of us won; I think he might have, by a slim margin. Ah well!

On to the weekend! The highlight was seeing Keith Hamilton Cobb, of Andromeda (and other) fame, in a reading of The Brass Butterfly. It's a very funny play by William Golding of all people, the author of Lord of the Flies, and KHC was great. Well, all the actors were great, though the female character didn't have a lot to do besides look mysterious and then proselytize. We were going to try to make two gallery shows also, ones that my art law prof told me about, but the play started late - fortunately for us because we were also late - and we wouldn't have made it back across the island before they closed, especially the way the trains were running. The weather was icky, but we sloshed our way to the original Two Boots pizzeria (very yum) and then a bar for sweetie to watch the end of a football game and me to read the Catholic pacifist newspaper a lady on the street handed to us. It wasn't as hippie as I hoped it would be, but it was a good way to kill a few downs.

Today I finished (read most of, really) Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett which I enjoyed when I wasn't depressed by it. It's a non-fiction story about the friendship between these two women, which sounds totally Lifetime. I guess it was a little Lifetime in places, but it was also about these two women being writers. It made me want to write more, but things do every so often and eventually wear off. NaNo is coming up, and I have an awesome scheme for that, so I'll indulge my "writing every day I PROMISE" urge for a whole month. And then get tired of it. Ah well.

Oh! Sweetie and I also watched Saved! last night, which was a lot of fun. There were some great lines, and the ending was totally Jawbreaker, except Jesus got decapitated. Oh man, I am endlessly amused by representations of White!Jesus because... no. Actually, at the very beginning of the movie, one of the characters calls out another one for that, which led to sweetie and I talking about it for a few minutes, which led me to say, "Jesus probably looked like Sayid on Lost." So from now on, in my head Jesus will look like Sayid from Lost.* And I think that's win.

I also sped through Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape in just a few days. I enjoyed all the essays in that book (my former roommate wrote one!) even though some of them didn't really resonate with my experience. It's a borrowed copy, but I should really get one for myself. On the whole, it fit pretty well with my brand of feminism, somewhere between radical and empowerrific. While I was waiting on the subway platform after writers group, a dude hit on me while I was reading it. He started conversation by asking what I was reading, and his response to me showing him the book was "Oh, like Take Back The Night." He got props for that and for being generally respectful and friendly and not creepy or condescending - and then for taking it gracefully when I told him I had a boyfriend. He should try that on a single lady, and I'm sure he'd have excellent luck.

And then I got home to annoying issues with former roommates and Time Warner and then insurance issues the next morning. Ugh. But these things are inching toward resolution, and the weekend has gone a loooong way toward restoring my peace of mind. Today was beautiful!

*Or possibly KHC. He was in a movie where he played a guy who thought he was Jesus. He had his awesome hair in it, which makes it even better.

Question!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00:31 GMT

Okay, people. I have a question for y'all's expertise. rov and I have discovered that we have different ways of saying "FAQs." One of us insists that you say each letter, so it's "Eff Aye Kyooz," and the other one insists that it's pronounced like "facts."

Which do you say??

Weekend!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:36:54 GMT

All the cool kids are recapping their weekends, and I had a pretty interesting one, so I thought I'd follow suit.

The highlight was my third and last Family Day at the law school. The event itself isn't much of a highlight; seeing my mother is. She's come out for all three of them, and this time sweetie joined us for the afternoon activities. In the morning was a mock class on sentencing law and policy, which was interesting, but we did not quite appreciate that one of the case studies we read and talked about was about a drunk driver getting into an accident and killing somebody. Thanks for that stark reminder of family tragedy! Lunch was okay, a sampling of some of the cuisines associated with different parts of the city (I think the knish and the weird egg thing were my favorites).

I think all of us dozed off at some point during the afternoon panel at which three professors (and another, who moderated) nattered on about the problems facing the Obama administration. My former tax professor was the most interesting speaker of all of them - not his subject but his delivery - which says a lot. And then they served amazingly decadent desserts from the Dessert Truck, after which we waddled around the chilly and windy sidewalks until meeting sweetie's parents for dinner. Now all our parents have met all our parents! We had a fantastic dinner at the Gotham Bar and Grill, which I was still slightly too full from the Family Day eatins to completely enjoy.

My mother came in Saturday, so after we met her at Penn Station (how we would have done so without cell phones I cannot imagine) we hung out at my apartment, drank tea and espresso and ate cookies. Saturday night sweetie and I watched The Shining after my mother left, and I was scared.

Thursday rov and I saw Phantom of the Opera, which was tons of fun. We also had a revelation at almost exactly the same time - the Phantom is the ultimate Nice Guy (TM)! Think about it... he insinuates himself into Christine's life by claiming that he wants to help her with his music, but then he starts killing people, abducting her, threatening to kill her fiance, writing an opera in which he gets to seduce her because he wuuuubs her. And the world was rly rly mean to him! Okay, well, the world WAS rly mean to him, but that's no excuse! Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I did lose my hat on the subway, but such is life.

This entry is not very linear, is it? I think that's all for now, and international law is about to head into the make-up class. Blech. He and my art law prof cancelled class for much of the last two weeks, and today I suddenly have five hours of class. Blech! I know, I know, none of you who work will have sympathy for me. Ah well.

My NaNo novel is looking more and more awesome every time I elaborate it. It'll be the best fictional non-fiction book ever!

Weekend!

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:00:58 GMT

Some of you may have seen this on ze facebook, but I'll repeat it here: today (well, Sunday) was the one-year anniversary of the day Sweetie and I started dating. ZOMG! Amazement! I got a decadent TWO cards - one hilariously bad one and one very sweet one (with no pre-printed text!), Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (author of the best free book I've found yet, The Remains of the Day), the soundtrack to Wicked, and some lovely potted mums. I love it - that conglomeration sums me up pretty well! And goodness, it was a liquor-soaked weekend; I imbibed every day from Thursday to Sunday (never enough to be hungover, woohoo!). It helped that we went to our first date restaurant last night and told the owner that - he gave us each a drink on the house!

What else? Could it be time for the long dormant Nerdy Book Corner??

Actually, it's Nerdy Media Corner this time!

Dollhouse, season two: I was a little bit drunk when I saw the first two episodes, moreso during the first one. Usually this disposes me to think well of whatever I'm seeing, but dang, I was not at all pleased with the premiere. It's strange because it was more about the bigger story arc than the second one, but geez, it was dressed up in so much sexyface and violence and in-your-face emo that it turned me off. It looked like a blatant ploy to suck in new viewers. I enjoyed the second episode a lot more, even though I had a hard time buying Eliza Dushku as maternal.

Inglorious Basterds: WOAH DUDE. This movie made my glad of my mastery of the averting-of-the-eyes trick. I enjoyed it a ton - funny, considering my issues with the Dollhouse premiere - and LOLed at several points while wincing at others. Brad Pitt's laughable accent totally sealed it.

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. First of all, I'm amazed that the female MC was written by a dude. She had all the deficiencies and strengths and oddities of an actual, real person! And every female character was distinct from every other female character! Anyway, the main thing I thought after reading this book is that it did what a recent workshop piece sorta failed to do - made a highly defective and traumatized MC an interesting, readable, even sympathetic character who does a lot of unlikeable things. Even as she was bitchy during the first portion of the novel, a pushover during the second, only slowly turning into a reasonably together person during the third part, I was completely addicted to the book and this character's very meandering quest to be whole. Oh, I got this book as part of a 3 for $2 deal with my art law book, from a recent NYU grad.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. I'm enjoying this and reading it in all my odd spare moments, which is always a good sign, but after the above, it's a little underwhelming. It's well done, though the author does have a penchant for a few poetic phrases, but the irony of the plot is pretty unsubtle. The plot is that Male MC's wife gives birth to two kids, one of whom has Down Syndrome. He gives the Down Syndrome child, a girl, to Female MC (the nurse attending the birth) to put into an institution. FMC goes to the institution but can't leave the girl there, so she raises her on her own while MMC and his wife raise the son. Now for the irony... the "normal," wealthy, healthy, biological family members are all depressed and cold and unable to express their feelings, while the atypical family - single mother, sorta adopted Down syndrome child, eventual truck driver husband - are happy (so far!) despite the challenges they face. I feel like telling the author, "Okay, I get it. Money and normalcy, whatever that means, don't mean happiness. Love and communication make a family. Secrets are bad." This was also of the 3/$2 deal.

The Dragon King Saga by Stephen Lawhead. This was another free book and good thing; I'd be pissed if I'd spent money on this. It perfectly encapsulates the sort of fantasy I'm trying to capture in the UFPE, both the up and downsides. The upsides - there is some lovely, if overwrought, description, and I am impressed at the level of detail during things like military maneuvers. The downsides - the blatant racism, the sexism which is seen mostly as self-directed by the women of the cast, and, unlike other fantasy series I've read, the incredibly proselytizing. Yes, proselytizing. There's a pantheon of typical fantasy, sorta Roman-based gods, and then the God Most High. Oh my lord in heaven, the God Most High. He is SPECIAL because he CARES about his people and LOVES them and MIRACLE-IZES and APPEARS TO HIS FOLLOWERS in times of need, unlike the stupid old gods and their stupid priests who only care about material sacrifices and fake oracles.

I don't even get why the author feels the need to proselytize his warm fuzzy happy monotheist God Most High. Dude, most of your audience will have been raised in a monotheistic religion; either they've rebelled/are rebelling or not. Your characters spouting sweet nothings about this Most High fellow isn't going to do much except annoy people.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I confess, I may not finish this book (the final section is from her nonfiction work about women and economics), but I had a lot of fun reading the fictional pieces. Most of them are pretty transparent, fun little feminist short stories without my subtlety, which I enjoyed immensely because dang, not enough of those! But The Yellow Wallpaper, now there's a story. I've read a couple of times that this has been included in horror anthologies, and I can see why. The poor woman goes completely insane in a fairly terrifying way, mentally smothered to death by her husband's well-intended and infantilizing care, and then... well, the ending is gloriously ambiguous and perplexing. It's one of those short stories I can see myself re-reading over and over again. The slow descent into unreality and the complete normalcy of what life must have been like (and still is, ugh) for some women are both described marvelously.

Whew, Nerdy Media Corner, yay! It's been far too long!

Updates!

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:42:27 GMT

The most important update is, of course, that I got the clerkship position I interviewed for! Woooooo! It's for a magistrate judge in the southern district here. I had the interview Friday, and though I thought it went well, I've thought that enough firm interviews have gone well that I wasn't expecting much either way. Monday afternoon he called me (while I was on the subway!) and left a message that was so laconic in tone that it wasn't until he said, "I'd like to offer you the position," that I realized he was hiring me! So I called back and confirmed and may have squeaked just a bit.

So woo! Job for next year! Will not starve in the streets!

As for the minor updates...
-Cable has been banished and replaced by Netflix. Of course, my first Netflix disc was unplayable, but I got the replacement promptly and watched it just last night. It was Enchanted, loverly!

-Boston weekend coming up! Wooooo!

-I've been getting back into running a couple times a week, now that it's not meltingly hot during the hours I'm awake. I'm also doing yoga in my bedroom a couple times a week, hooray! Because I have all this fitness stuff available at home, I'm not signing up for any fitness classes at the gym, at least not for this quarter. By "fitness classes," I of course mean fencing. I know, no fencing! I just want to see how living in Brooklyn and having my clinic work especially work out time- and convenience-wise. I'm hoping to get back into it.

-NaNo looms large! I'm thinking of yet another excursion into the UFPE-verse, but also, a recent Wiki-surf ended up on the page of some wacky racial supremacist religion, and I thought... gosh, I could invent one of my own! It's tempting. I've been pondering.

I guess that's all for now. My clinic had a big pizza party lunch, so I am thinking of doing something very restrained for dinner. I had shrimp on pizza for the first time! It was win.

WOAH THERE KIDS

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:20:38 GMT

I was watching Monk on my DVR just now (cleaning it out before I give it back Friday, sob), and I sat on the remote, and it switched over to one of the Disney channels. I have no idea what the show was, some sort of a cartoon, but they totally made an obscenity joke.

Girl: What is 'cute,' anyway?
Boy: I can't explain 'cute,' but I know it when I pick it up on my cute-o-meter.

WOAH THERE KIDS.

Also, I have a clerkship interview Friday. Wish me luck! Unlike firm interviews, where they can have dozens of associates interviewing tons of people, there's just one judge to interview people, and they have, you know, judging to do, so they only pick a handful of people they're genuinely interested in. Funnily enough, one of the young ladies I worked with as an RA last year recently started as this judge's clerk. A good sign, I think!

I've been meaning to re-read my paper again before my interview, and in the spirit of "Machinima, Music Videos, and Fan Fiction: Proposing a Collective Rights Regime to Regulate Fan-Generated Content" (which is the name of my paper), I present you... pure distilled Trek/Monty Python awesome. Hey, it's relevant!

Writing!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:00:39 GMT

Considering the stressful afternoon I had reading child porn cases for art law, this evening has turned out much more pleasant than I would have thought. Obscenity in the adult context is endlessly fascinating; these child porn cases almost make me physically ill to read. Blech. Moving on.

OMG look, writing that is inspired neither by NaNo nor impending writers group workshop! In that it's vaguely urban fantasy, I've written stuff like this before, but in that it's a cannibal (sort of) romantic comedy... not so much! What's that? You want an excerpt? Very well! Here are the first few lines, as I have them right now. I have no idea where this is going, but so far it's so much fun to write.

“For what it's worth,” she told me when I confided to her that I was considering entering therapy, “I was in therapy for over a decade and it taught me two things. One, that even though I'm a flesh-eating monster, I am entitled to my life and my happiness.” She paused and heaved a deep sigh. “Two, that everybody else is entitled to their lives as well.”

I stared.

“These revelations probably prevented me from committing suicide,” she went on earnestly, “but it ruined my sex life.”

Now we were back on territory I recognized. “Therapy ruined your sex life?” That worried me. I was hoping that therapy would help me get my life, and all aspects thereof, back on track. The sex aspect was high on that list.

She pursed her lips and gazed into the distance. “I... suppose not. No, it's more the fact that I'm a flesh-eating monster that ruined my sex life. My therapist just helped me to accept it.” She shrugged “Of course, our professional relationship stagnated when he persisted in trying to find the root of my delusion.”

“The delusion that you're a flesh-eating monster?”

She nodded. After a moment's consideration, I nodded back and then took a long swig of my drink. It seemed like the thing to do.

We proceeded to get very drunk that night as she divulged the secrets she had never told anybody before. During high school, my sort-of boyfriend came out to me after prom, clutching a bottle of cheap red wine as we sat in the back of his car, and the combination of terror and relief that I heard in his voice that night reminded me a lot of what I heard in my best friend's voice that night. She had paused only for drinks and my occasional question, and as the bartender hollered that last call was upon us, I realized that I had two options.

I could nod and smile and write her off as a nutcase, or I could believe her.

Shopping spree!

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:49:35 GMT

With a day off class (I have Tuesdays and Fridays off this semester, but I suspect that my clinic will take up a good chunk of that time) and my student refund check safely deposited, I decided to stock my kitchen a bit more. Why didn't I think of restaurant supply stores sooner?? I went to Bowery Restaurant Supply, which is cramped like any of them and hard to navigate, but they have some great stuff for cheap. Like what??

For just under $35, I got:
A mixing bowl--I've been using various dishes for this until now. Yay real mixing bowl!
A colander--The lid method scares me. I may once have dropped my eatins in the sink. I got one of those metal ones, which they called a Chinese colander.
Bamboo skewers--partly for skewering food and partly for suspending seeds for sprouting.
A big plastic cutting board--Alton Brown has told me twice in the past week or so of taped Good Eats episodes that glass cutting boards are bad for knives.
Vegetable peeler--Okay, I don't peel stuff hugely often, but I hear it can be a useful thing to do.
Bread loaf--BREAD! Also, meatloaf.
Muffin tin--MUFFINS! Or tiny pies! Alton Brown also uses them to cook meatballs. Wacky dude.
Tongs--Unlike Gondor and a king, I do need tongs.

And then I wandered around Chinatown some more and got some of those Ramen-like noodles (which I cooked tonight, lucky I got some hoisin sauce a few days ago) and spring roll wrappers, which were a lot harder to find than you might think in freaking Chinatown. I'm planning to cut them in half and make little dumpling-esque things with them, also inspired by an episode of Good Eats. When I have another completely free day, I might go back and get some peppercorns to put into a grinder I've not yet purchased. I <3 freshly ground pepper.

Oh and! From one generous Brooklyn freecycler, an infomercial kitchen toy called a GT Express. It looks like it cooks small sized things very quickly, which is perfect for a single (well, single-person household) person like me.

I'm still dreaming about a food processor, and then I'll be kitchen happy... for the moment!

ETA: OMG!! I was just looking through the channel guide and found the original Ugly Betty. I've seen parts of the two series that sprung from it, and now I'm watching the original. This makes cancelling my cable at the end of the month a little harder, I must admit. I have to say, though, that this is the least ugly Betty out of all of them. She's just a pretty brunette in glasses, a boring (not even poorly fitted) suit, and slightly frizzy hair. It is freakish how well the Alicia in the Mexican version channels this Alicia, or whatever her name is (so far, they're pretty similar). Fernando, sadly, is way less hot and probably way less hilarious.

... um, I'm watching this solely for the sake of maintaining a bare comprehension of Spanish. Yes. That's it.

Apartment-warming!

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:23:50 GMT

It went well! I made/bought just the right amount of food, and now I own spirits for the first time ever! The cookies were the most fun to make, though squashing chickpeas is also good times. I've also never used this many glasses at once (nor had to wash them all at once!). I also got greenery--a plant from bestest friend and flowers from my mother. Hooray, color! Thanks everybody who came! My apartment is officially warmed!

And now I am astonishingly tired; I think drinking in the afternoon confusing my body horribly. I'm going to go to bed and wake up early enough to read my (hardly extensive) homework before my 11 am class. I love that 11 am is my earliest class this semester. Gosh I love law school.

And tomorrow night I get to be flayed. Hooray! Um, or something! I've found that, like movies, it's best for me to go into my own workshopping with exceedingly low expectations. This I think it's actually warranted, but I guess I'll find out!

The Week Goes On

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 03:50:59 GMT

Ahhh, a week of (mostly) freedom before classes start next Wednesday. It's been... okay, I've been moderately lazy, but with this weather, can you blame me?? I did get some residual RA work cleaned up, including a presentation in front of the lawyering faculty of two awesome charts I made. The highlight of that was getting a poppy-seed cookie sandwich with red filling and much applause.

Is that all I did? Oh no! I bought fabric for my second sewing project ever, and it's halfway done. The second half will go a lot more quickly if I don't sew up the whole thing and rip out most of the stitches, which I don't plan to do. It's a slip cover for each of these two pillows I got with fairly ugly and itchy covers. It's all hand-sewn, and I've never had a deft hand with a needle, so it may all fall apart in a month, and it gaps a little in the back, but I'm absurdly proud of the first one. Related to this, I walked up to the store (about two miles during the early afternoon WHY???) on Monday, only to discover that they're closed Mondays. I took the subway back.

I had my one law interview today, hooray? I think it went okay - the guy and I basically chatted about fanfiction, the subject of my writing sample - but who knows?? I've also been watching a boatload of TV, especially the Star Treks, knitting, and writing a story for a friend of mine. I guess that's productive enough!

And now for some sad news. As I post this, the 20th passes quickly into the 21st, which is Amie's birthday. And guess what? As I was posting, an MSN spammer decided to spam me from her IM account. GAH. This is not permitted. I remember that happened a few times before, but never since she passed away. I'm planning to call my parents tomorrow and then hang out with people.

Um. In happier news, come to my party on August 30th. Exotic Clinton Hill, people!

Event!

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:06:41 GMT

I'll be posting this Around The Way, so I can catch just about everyone who would be interested in The Event.

Not this upcoming Sunday but Sunday August 30th I'm thinking of finally hosting my month-late apt-warming day! You reading this - yes you! - are probably invited! Because my apartment is a fairly small place, I'm planning on spreading it out over the course of the afternoon, so people can come and go and not burst the seams of the place. Ha ha, as if I actually know that many people!

So if you can come, let me know! If you can come and have my email, email me for my address. If you can come and don't have my email, leave me yours in the comments and I'll email you. We'll make this work, guys!

And this gives me a deadline for cleaning up the place. Hooray!

Whole loveseat!

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 04:01:17 GMT

In just under three hours, after inflicting a number of tiny nicks upon my poor fingers, covered in sweat and sawdust, I put together my nice new green loveseat and carelessly threw thereupon the lighter-green throw pillows. I also brought in my blanket from the bedroom to put on my lap so my laptop doesn't roast my legs, and it happens to be green as well! My next scheme, after I get all these boxes out of the way, is to sew little slipcovers for these two fairly ugly throw pillows I acquired. Hooray! When the boxes are gone, I shall try to remember to post pictures! I also need to get a curtain rod and two hook deals, and then I will have a Very Cozy Living Room.

And yes, cozy means so small that I had to get a loveseat instead of a real couch. Very cozy.

Now to bed, a little earlier than usual. Friday I have to get up two hours earlier than usual for the legally mandated ethics exam all lawyers have to take. But then birthday party and my first weekend here at apartment, with Sweetie and new loveseat!!

Half a Loveseat, and Others

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:50:38 GMT

I got box 2 of 2 of my loveseat today; the other was misrouted by UPS. Jerks! Oh well - I can work from home tomorrow, too. And grocery shop with my old lady grocery cart and wait for other packages and drink chocolate skim milk. I am very excited for my loveseat - without a functioning wireless router, I am relegated to sitting on the floor, on a rolled-up area rug I have yet to unroll, on a pillow, on another pillow.

So another Craft adventure tonight! This time it was craftsteak, where I had a new kind of steak. Hooray! Also, I was bought another anonymous drink. Hooray! Also, I had a chocolate souffle for the first time, ZOMG hooray. Also, I ran into a NaNo friend on the way home - so random! And now I am watching DVRred Star Trek, one of the first episodes I've actually watched. It's awesome and bizarre, full of flower-tattooed hippies who want to jam with Spock. Not that I blame them. There is a blond guy in a blue loincloth with short cape wearing thigh-high boots who is singing incomprehensible folk music. Is it the four drinks, or is that really as incoherent as I think it is??

That's the extent of the news. I'm slowly moving myself in, and I am now attempting to grow various things in various containers. I'm very excited! Who knows, maybe something will actually sprout! Cotyledons may be the cutest non-critter thing ever. This upcoming weekend shall be my first weekend spent at this new apartment, and I'm just delighted. There's a farmers market Saturday! And a flea market!

Okay, the suspense on Trek is building. The crinkly-eared hippie has connived to take control of the Enterprise! Gasp!

A Thought

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:28:09 GMT

I am thinking of completely giving up on greeting cards that already have stuff written in them. I don't send a ton of cards because I am a bad correspondent, and I have such a hard time finding ones that I think are appropriate to the situation and relationship between the recipient and me (mainly, that aren't horrifically stupid). I always like it when people write stuff in cards in addition the printed material, and I often try to add something personalized when I send out cards. Not that I mind receiving pre-printed cards - sometimes they are very nice. Another part of it is that I like sending postcards in lieu of greeting cards, especially thank-you cards. I have a whole stack of thank-you cards that I never use because postcards are way more fun. I'd ask if anyone wants to join me in this boycott of pre-printed greeting cards, but it's not really a boycott. I have no moral protest against them. I just find most of them really dumb - finding good romantic ones is especially hard when you're not actually QUITE at the "forever and ever" strage.

Of course, if I ever acquire huge coterie of card-sending cohorts, I'll have to reconsider this stance. Oh well, that's a ways away.

Now back to work!

New apt!

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:10:49 GMT

Hmm, I can't tell what the majorest of the news is, so bullet points!

-New apt!! Crap is scattered to the eight corners, I managed to track floor wax or polish into the kitchen already AND mar the nice new floor wax/polish, and I'm slightly worried about how my finances are going to work out this year, but I have a wonderful little apartment! The move was accomplished in one impressive haul, with minivan and car - or would have been, had I not sillily (why isn't that a word?) forgotten my microwave. I was waiting for the young lady who's going to take over my room when I remembered it. So sweetie came back in his car and got me, and we dragged the last bit of the move over to the new place just as the cable guy was finishing up.

-In related news, does anyone know if DVR can work with just broadcast? Would TW even let me do that with their rented DVR? That would be ideal for me. It chaps my hide that the cheapest cable package with TW is 130 channels for $56/month. What the hell do I need with 130 channels?? I do like having a DVR, though, for the few shows I will regularly watch (with sweetie) when they come back on. Well, we'll see how my first couple of months go.

-I was thrilled to see my dad over the past few days, but I am a little resentful. You see, he and my stepmother left me at about 6 this evening, despite not flying out until tomorrow. Their flight was an early one ('was' because they just found out it was cancelled), and I know that my dad doesn't believe in things like getting enough sleep. We're pretty sure he's physically incapable of doing so. I would bet money that they left because my delicate flower of a stepmother was too tired to spend any more time with me (and too delicate a flower to go back to their room on her own). Yeah, see you guys at Christmas! She was also way anti-social at our dinner with sweetie's parents Saturday night. She can be perfectly friendly when she wants to be, but while she's under strict orders to be nice to me, she has no such compunction about anyone else.

-New apt!!

-New (to me) TV!! It's the giantest TV I've ever owned! Also, new to me kitchen cart with stools and coffee table + two end table set! The latter two things were free, courtesy of Brooklyn Freecycle and sweetie's car. Giantest TV set me back $150, which is pretty good!

-OMG unpacking! Somewhere I have a wireless router, but it's not hooked up yet, so I'm stuck to the living room wall. This obviously means I can't be actually doing things besides eating cherries on the floor.

-OMG school credit kerfluffle taken care of. It turned out to be nothing - I had registered for more courses than necessary, and the registration system gave me a hard time about it. But I don't need one of the courses I signed up for, which means my schedule will be a little freer. I did want to take that class, but I like the other ones I'm signed up for even more (except evidence).

-OMG long entry! Stay tuned for news of house-warming when my loveseat arrives!

OMG Birfday! And Things!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:53:02 GMT

Thanks to everybody who wished me happy birthday via facebook or some other medium! It WAS a happy birthday! I won't jinx things by saying that there's no way 25 could be worse than 24 for me, so I'll just say that I'm sure 25 will be a rockin year!

So as many of you know, my mother came to visit me over my birthday. We ate out a whole bunch, I treated her to Magnolia Bakery, and we both went to the Bronx for the first time (for the awesome zoo). On my birthday, we lost each other after dinner, but it was a minor hiccup. We procured a (free!) kitchen cart and stools for my new apt, but I was sad that she wasn't able to actually see the apt, especially considering that she's my guarantor. Oooh, and we went shopping at Macy's. The clothes shopping went well, but then when I found a pair of shoes I wanted to try on, the saleslady gave me a box with two right shoes! And then in ten minutes, she never came back to check on me! We tried to go to Shakespeare in the Park, but as NYCers know, it has been simply madness this year. I was willing to wait 4-5 hours for tickets, not 10.

She and I officially have a Favorite Restaurant, which is Henry's End in Brooklyn Heights. It's awesome! They had petite syrah by the glass!

The other Giant News is that I won a legal writing competition with the paper I wrote for my copyright class! Now, I'm not sure how many other people entered it - it wasn't very well advertised - but who cares?? I was sharp enough to see the sign a few days before the deadline and to get everything put together (well, with prof's help). There's a money prize, a smugness prize, and a resume line prize, all for me! I'm waiting impatiently for my mother to get out of her meeting and fax it to rov, who will email it to me as a PDF. With my prize money, I believe I shall actually try to get a reasonable sort of couch. Or I could get a cheap couch and a coffee table. We'll see!

Also, my dad is coming into town two weeks from last Thursday to help me move, hooray! He just emailed me that he sold my car, which is nice for him but a little weird for me. I plan on going home again for Christmas, and now how will I get around?? Oh well.

So that's the news! OH AND! I received an email that the New York Law Journal is sponsoring a fiction contest! Sadly, it's only open to legal folks and only for legal stories. But I'm a legal folk, and I can write a legal story! Hooray deadline!

ETA: Letter was not quite what I thought, but that's okay! That was for the local competition, which I won by default because no one else from NYU entered. Now it goes into the national round! Don't worry, some moneys is still involved!

OMG Apt!

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:45:33 GMT

Okay, posting fail on my end. Because I've been looking for apts for awhile now, I keep saying to myself, "As soon as I make some progress on my apt search, I'll post about it," because otherwise there's not a whole lot to say about my day-to-day.

So progress is made! Today I signed about a zillion papers, forked over too much of my dwindling 08-09 loan funds, and made arrangements to pick up my key next week to my new apartment!! Woohoo! It's in Clinton Hill (Brooklyn), right near a train that'll take me straight to NYU, at the top end of my price range (which is significantly less than my dorm room first year), one-bedroom with a nice-sized bedroom, on the fifth floor of an elevator building, with laundry in the basement... hmmm, I think that's all. I'm really excited! I've never lived in my own place before! And now I cannot spend any unnecessary monies until student loans get in, like woah. The landlord is way nicer than my current landlord - I guess she's a landlady - and she reminds me of a French professor I once had, who was at first intimidating but turned out to be awesome.

But there is other news as well! My mother is coming up in a few days to visit me for my birthday, and I'm scheming things for us to do. I'm very much looking forward to seeing her and spending time in Brooklyn doing fun things. Also for my birthday, sweetie took me to see Wicked July 1st!! I'd read the book awhile back, and I wanted to see it since then (and before, really, having heard a lot about it). It was fantastic, of course. I love the story, changed as it was in the musical version, and I want to get the soundtrack so I can learn the songs.

What else? The life of a research assistant is a good one - make my own hours, search apts and see doctors any time I need, wear whatever to work, work with just a handful people (all of them very pleasant). The pay is a little weak, compared to what my classmates at firms are raking in, but as I've been visiting doctors about my headache situation, I've been glad to have such a flexible job. Headache situation?? It's not as serious as it might sound - for a few years, I've had increasingly frequent but not at all severe headaches. They're more annoying than worrisome, but as often as they are, I figure I should seek treatment for them so they recur at a somewhat more normal rate. I have discovered that generic Aleve works wonders on them.

Well, that's my news. I'm about to go to a birthday party and hope sweetie is willing to buy most of my drinks. Brooklyn represent!

Back!

Sat, 23 May 2009 04:03:11 GMT

I just caught up on all my friends' journals (but no community ones), sitting here at the NYU liberry because my home internet died when I got back. Alas! But the cable guy is coming tomorrow (I know, a Saturday!) to fix everything.

The big news is, of course, my trip to Disney World with sweetie! You'll be terribly amused to know that the weather was better in NYC than Orlando - we got rain everyday, and during our first two full days there, ALL day. I was blowdrying my shoes every night!

So let's see, what's the easiest way to sum it all up?? First:
Sunday: we got in, hooray! We saw the critters near the place where we were staying - it's part of the lodgings at Animal Kingdom, so there were fun critters to see even outside our window. Then we went to a piano bar, where I requested three or four songs and got all but one played. Hooray!

Monday: Magic Kingdom! I was expected to completely love this place, but it ended up being my least favorite, which isn't to say I didn't still have an overall great time. But I think that I've grown into too much of a crotchety old feminist to really get into the whole Princesses and Wishes and Magical Dreams narrative, especially when the princesses don't seem to do anything BUT wish. It didn't help any that Parade #1 of the day made me think about Amie and sent me into a completely unexpected crying fit.Also, I don't care if it's tradition and cultural, the narrative thinger at Splash Mountain made me wince.

Sweetie thought of a fantastic drinking game - take a drink every time you hear "wish" or "dream" or "magic." You'd be dead after just the fireworks show.

Tuesday: Animal Kingdom! Even though this was our soggiest day, it was my favorite. The critters were just too adorable, and I liked that a lot of the park is just you on your own, walking around and cooing at critters. I think this was the evening we went to the Downtown Disney business, where I dressed My Little Ponies in horrific outfits, made Lego Tableaux of Death, and taunted sweetie about being a pretty princess. There may have been glitter involved.

Wednesday: Hollywood Studios, formerly Disney MGM. Or something. Anyway, all the buildings were set up to look all old-timey and movie-set-y, which was really fun to just look at whilst walking around. The morning was sunny and warm, but thunder and incoming rain rolled in just as we were watching a car stunt show, which was then cancelled. Damnation! Also, we finally saw the Star Trek movie! I enjoyed it, though I wasn't as crazy about it as some people seem to be. Spock/Uhura wtf? But Chris Pine did a way better job of Kirk than I would have expected from someone so pretty. Sorry pretty boys!

Thursday: Epcot! I enjoyed the... what's it called... World Showcase or whatever, where they have a bunch of different shops and displays and things for several different countries. There was a loooot of walking that day, and more critters! I approve of all things critter. Also, we ran into a butterfly garden, which was a nice respite from all the Disney Disney DISNEY!!!! all around. We saw another fireworks show and then retired to our hotel for a cocktail. Oh, another adorable moment was when the belly dancer at our restaurant brought up little girls from the audience to teach them to dance. OMGWTFBBQ I think my ovaries spontaneously combusted at that one.

Today... waking up too early. Oof. And then I came back to non-working internet. But in between then, I met sweetie's brother (they don't look much alike but they have some really hilariously similar mannerisms), ate even more food, watched more Lost on DVD aaaaaand... that's about it. This silly laptop needs a system restore like woah, but it gives me an error message when I try. Drat! Now time to head back, think about taking a shower, and sleep for like a zillion hours. Then a weekend, and then my summer job begins, yay!

FUN POST HERE

Fri, 15 May 2009 04:36:14 GMT

First, read this post at Language Log. It's fun, believe me! Just reading it made me smile. And then tell me what your favorite/least favorite words are!

I'm not sure if I have any least favorite words; a lot of people seem to hate "moist" and/or "panties," but these seem like perfectly serviceable words to me.

My favorite word ever is "chagrin." Someone in the comments mentioned "lascivious," which is another word I like. Also, "mischievous," which I like both ways I've heard it pronounced. There are others, but of course I can't think of them right now.

A Real Post!

Wed, 13 May 2009 04:58:21 GMT

I have time to write a Real Post, but I don't know what to write about! Let's see...

I picked up a book from the windowsill in my building that functions like one of those "take a penny, leave a penny" trays, except it's a windowsill instead of a tray, and you take/leave books, magazines, small appliances... whatever fits. I've picked up a few books there, the latest of which is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's pretty engrossing so far; it's this old school English butler reminiscing about butling (buttling?) as he's driving around England. Okay, I know that sounds the opposite of engrossing, but the tone is just perfect. At one point he's addressing his father in the third person and at another he's fretting over the habit of his new American employer of bantering with him because he has no idea how a butler should react to banter. Basically, it makes me want to include a butler in the Ultimate Fantasy Parody Epic. Oh this gives me an idea for the Book of Might Have Beens!

Anyway, back to things.

Today I finished my final final of the 08-09 school year! I still have a paper to finish, but at this point it's just citations and maybe four paragraphs total of information to add. I have two days to do this, one of which will be spent at the Tea Spot, wiling away the hours with yet a new flavor of delicious tea and possibly a turkey pesto sandwich. My Friday final was cursed: first it was open book and I couldn't (and still cant'!) find the casebook and THEN my exam software refused to work, for the first time since I've been taking finals here. Eep! When school is out, I think my computer shall require a system restore (it's been acting a little funny).

Hmm, this all pretty boring. I was feeling guilty about not updating LJ about anything happening in my life, but all I got is finals and some uptight English fellow!

Let's see, what's going on in the larger scheme? I've had poison ivy for the last three weeks, and just today I got a stronger prescription of steroid goo than the one I got a week ago, so I hope it'll start disappearing sometime soon. Sunday I'm jetting off to Florida with the sweetie to visit Disney for the first time (first time for ME, that is), and when I get back, I'll be starting my summer job as a research assistant for a professor at the law school. Hooray! It'll be just like last summer, where on the one hand I have to wake up early (boo!) but on the other, I'll have no homework (yay!).

As always, I'm wracked with indecision over something! This time it's what clinic (a law school class where you actually do actual legal things) to take next year; I was accepted into both a tax clinic and a public policy one. The tax one probably sounds more boring, but it would give me actual legal experience with stuff like briefs and court and law-y research, which I'd really like to have before I graduate - and crazy as it sounds, I really did enjoy my tax class last semester. On the other hand, the public policy one would be more like what I did last summer, which I really enjoyed. Decisions, decisions!

So things are good. I'm wearing something of my sister's several times a week, and just yesterday I saw a movie (Anvil: The Story of Anvil) that I think Adrian would have really enjoyed. I think about them all the time, and though it's still a shock, the shock is becoming part of my daily life. I'm hoping I'll be able to either be home or have (at least one of) my parents in NYC over Amie's birthday this summer.

Um, on a cheerful note, things are going really well with school and sweetie, and now I am departing to make some sort of exotic tea. Exotic tea, yay!

A Thing Which Amuses Me

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:23:15 GMT

If you know a thing or two about politics, you probably know that conservatives tend to lean toward federalist outcomes of court cases while liberals tend to lead to a strong version of judicial review - or at least that's the situation these days. The hallmark example of this is the great abortion debate: should it be a matter of what a state chooses, or should judges strike down the laws to protect those hard-to-define rights in the penumbra of the Bill of Rights? The opposite was true during the pre-New Deal Lochner era, by the way.

Anyway (and yes, I'm using these political terms in the broadest, not to mention American, sense of the words).

In some areas of the law, though, the usual situation is reversed. One of these is drug policy: liberals tend to want states (like California) to be able to say what drugs are and aren't okay, while conservatives tend to support the federal government's ban on drugs. And one of them is government takings of property: liberals tend to want to support the decision of states to exercise eminent domain to acquire and develop land, while conservatives want to find a core of property rights that states cannot infringe upon. Tyranny of the majority, stealin' our land!

Did I have a point? Oh yeah. I've said this before: whining about "activist judges" is bullshit unless you always support the right of the state to decide how to govern its people - and then seriously, I'm sorry. Marbury v. Madison, get over it. And it amuses me so bad when people support the thing they usually vilify. Is that Scalia saying that we should ignore the decision of a state legislature?? *faints*

PS - you think this was nerdy? I gave a 30 minute presentation on fan fiction (and other types of fan-generated content) today. It was awesome. I played YouTube videos.