beingcarly

2008-02-05T22:34:00.001-05:00

Law School

2007-10-11T22:18:00.001-05:00

Project

2007-09-19T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've been working on this project, and it's been kind of interesting. The project is going to last from yesterday until next Tuesday. It's mainly to entertain me, and will not benefit any reader in any way, but I consider it a form of blogging and therefore will not be making contributions here until next week. It's based off of this project that IKEA is doing. I'll leave it to you to check it out if you're interested. See you next week...

I just want little ears and a fluffy tail

2007-09-17T20:35:00.001-05:00

I want these shoes! They're from BC and they sell them at Nordstrom. I think I might ask Neaner if her roommate can snag me a pair. I think they're so cute!!!!

Drawback - it's very likely that I am the only person on earth who thinks these are acceptable footwear. My mom thought they were slippers and Kyle's reaction was "You'd wear those out?"
Um, no. I'd wear these EVERYWHERE! In, out, up, down...I think nothing would set off those neutral Express slacks like a couple of whiskers peeking out from beneath the cuffs.

I admit, I'm one of those people who is a sucker for cute. The only problem is that I'm a total closet case. I can't help it. I've heard the snickers and mean comments about girls with Hello Kitty purses and snow caps with kitty ears. I know all the terrible things that are said about people who wear t-shirts with cartoon characters on them. So I have this small section in my closet devoted to clothes that I really like, but that I can only wear on the weekends when I'm hanging out with Kyle. Kyle gets the whole cute thing. He, too, enjoys a good cartoon on his t-shirt. He's not really with me on the bunny shoes thing, but if they come out with adult ninja turtle pjs, I know he's going to be all about it.

Why is cute so looked down on? Ok, I get the whole immaturity thing. I suppose grown ups should dress like grown ups. It totally blows, though, because kids have all the coolest stuff. Character watches, shoes that light up...oh man, don't get me started on the tennis shoes with the roller skate wheels built right in. I'm not even sure what would happen if I started to glide down the halls of Moritz.

I just might have to start a revolution. It will be quiet, but if you look closely, you might notice a little pink nose peeking out from under my jeans the next time you see me...

Introducing Miss Jones

2007-09-16T22:43:00.001-05:00

Ok, she's off the hook. Brytt finally sent pictures, which...to be fair...arrived much faster than the pictures of Miss Audrey Chase.

Name:  Lyvia Elaine Jones

Weight:  8 lbs. 10 oz.

Length:  20 1/2 inches

Date:  9/11/07

Time:  10:32 p.m.

Lyvie

2007-09-15T00:38:00.000-05:00

Well, Bryttin had her baby. I'd give out more information, but I didn't actually hear it from her or her husband. I heard it from Becah, who didn't actually hear it from Brytt or her husband, either. Bec happens to work at the respiratory unit of the hospital that Brytt is in and since Brytt was getting respiratory therapy following her c-section, Bec saw her name on the list and found out that she had a baby, Lyvia Elaine Jones.

I think it's safe to say that Brytt quit the friendship.

You know, it's so weird. I was inseperable from Bryttin during high school, especially our senior year. We student directed the musical together, did the drama club play together, starred in the school play together, acted in the one-acts together, went to state competition together, and celebrated our Greensheet awards together. I think I spent at least 2 full months sleeping at her house in 2000 alone. And yet, because of time and life, etc., I wasn't at her wedding and now I hear she had a baby last Tuesday because another friend (who was friends with her since kindergarten) happened across her name on a rotation schedule. What happened there?

I guess 7 years happened. So weird that she just had a kid and I happened to hear it through the grapevine. I'm still really happy for her and her husband, Jason, but it's very much like accidentally wandering into a party that you assumed you'd be invited to if it were to happen. I hope she tells me at some point. It's weird to congratulate someone on a baby that they didn't announce. I'd feel like a stalker.

As for Bec's baby, he's a kicker and he's squashing all the nerves in her lower half. I still don't know what Staci's baby is...I think she should since she's about 5 months along now, but there haven't been any announcements. Here it is when it still looked like a chicken nugget:
I would love to post pics of Brytt's baby, but she might be in college before I meet her, so...

Facebook Feng Shui

2007-09-13T14:24:00.000-05:00

Kristen got a Facebook account today, after 2 years and 4 weeks of being out of the loop. She was enjoying the stalking capabilities at lunch and adding people to her friends list. On either side of her, Janean and I were teaching her the benefits of Facebook. Neaner and I have two very different approaches. Janean has all of her Facebook fields filled out and has about a million photo albums. She's friends with everyone she's ever met, including people she no longer knows, people she never knew, and people that make her go "yuck" (or person. or ex-OSU law student. or crazyface. whatever you want to call her.). I was teasing her about her excessive Facebook nostalgia, especially in regards to her continued "friendship" with this girl from first year who we all think is a nutzo.

See, I'm probably about as opposite from Janean as I could be, without abandoning Facebook altogether. I'm on it every day, but that's because my mom and I play scrabble all day. No, literally. Like, I get up in the morning and open my laptop because I know the last thing she did the night before was to put down a word. We're both totally addicted but it's nice because Scrabble was something that we really enjoyed doing when I lived in Utah and now it sort of bridges that huge geographical space. Anyway, I log on, I play scrabble, and then that's about it. I change my profile picture semi-regularly and I put pictures up when I remember to take them, but my fields aren't filled out. They actually used to be, but that was before I got into Facebook Feng Shui. Facebook Feng Shui is all about deleting whatever isn't necessary, including old albums, which drives Janean nuts.

I go through these zen cleaning phases where I wipe out my Facebook wall, delete all my photos and start over. I also go through and take off people that I haven't talked to in the last couple of months or duplicate profiles if I already have someone somewhere else. This has resulted in some confusion at times (and then there was that one time I unfriended Kyle. oops.) but mostly it ensures that I'm not getting the vacation updates for that girl that I met at 1L orientation but never spoke to again. I figure it helps other people out too, since it keeps my stuff from popping up on their home pages when I upload pictures, etc.

There was one bad post-zen occurance, which is when I cleared everything off of my profile, including my relationship status. Instead of just falling back into zenlike nothingness, my profile immediately posted a message on everyone's home page that said Kyle and I had broken up, which resulted in weird emails from people that I hadn't talked to in forever. That's another reason to hedge those friend lists. It's odd to get personal emails from someone that you might have had a conversation with once in a bar somewhere.

I admit, I have some people who are continually on the fence. High school people fall into this category. I don't talk to them every couple of months, but usually they sought me out after not talking to me for a long time, and I was really good friends with them at one point, so it seems mean to cut them off on a technicality. Same goes for good friends of good friends that I've met once or twice. Even if you have a really good time together, they aren't really your friends...but it might make your friends look bad if you delete them...which will get you into trouble...etc.

I do wish that Facebook let you see whoever's profile you wanted to. I have curiosities about old crushes, etc., and I would love to know what they're doing these days, but I'm not about to friend them. I actually friended my big high school crush this summer because I was curious to see what he was up to. I now have the satisfaction of knowing that it never would have worked out between us. (I'm not so much an "outdoor" girl.) I also want to know what the profiles of the other Carly Lanes look like. Here's a photo sampler, in case you were curious:

Facebook was such a cool thing when I first started law school. I was facebook friends with everyone who was signed up on the Moritz chat boards, which ended up being a bunch of people that I don't talk to. I also was able to look at all of Erica's (my new roommate) old photos and see people's pictures after talking to them online for forever. I know for a fact that I was thrilled to see Kominsky, Isken and Rose in their profile pics since I had been talking to them so much. Man, it's so weird to think back, because it feels like they were these totally different people that I had constructed in my head. That's the danger of facebook. It stops you from imagining crazy things about people's lives and forces you to deal with their reality.

Happy Conception Day!

2007-09-12T12:35:00.000-05:00

What is Conception Day, you may ask?

"Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has decreed Sept. 12 a Day of Conception and is giving couples time off from work to procreate. Couples who give birth nine months later on Russia's national day -- June 12 -- will receive money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes." - CNN

That's right. Did you have sex today (because everyone in Russia did)? Apparently, this is the most modern of methods designed to solve the population crisis in this part of Russia. I can see Conception Day being a popular holiday in the U.S. if it were introduced. Maybe Obama should start running on the Conception Day platform. I forsee support for Conception Day coming from both sides.

There is something a little impersonal about a day set aside simply for procreation and breeding. I mean, if you did get pregnant, you might be one of many. Probably be one of many. And what about those people who don't end up getting pregnant? Did they lose the Conception Day game? Are they bad citizens? Should they have to make up that day of work they missed due to non-productivity?

I'm not even going to get into how damaging this would be if you were a single person who wanted to have children but couldn't find an egg/sperm donor. Or what about people who knew they were infertile, despite a desperate wish to have children? I'm leaving people who don't want children out of the matter, since they're getting a free day off to enjoy non-productive activities as they see fit. I still think it's a dangerous holiday.

Every day is Conception Day in Utah. The Russians would be so proud.

I thee and thee and thee wed

2007-09-11T08:01:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in Family Law, which has turned out to be a more difficult subject than I had previously anticipated. Should same-sex couple be able to get married? Yes. Ok, I had an answer prepared for that one. Should polygamist couples get married? Sure, I have no problem with polygamy. Wait, what? Yeah, apparently that's not the common view of the American public, at least not in Ohio. For example, Nate surprised me with his uncharacteristically narrow take on the subject and the massively misogynistic lens with which he views the situation. Nate argues that polygamist unions are inherently unbalanced in the favor of the man and that the women involved in polygamist unions always suffer from a lack of choice and power.

Ok, I'm not saying that sister wives in polygamous unions are the most empowered women in society. God knows we hear enough terror tales from 14 year old brides who have been dragged into polygamist unions against her will. The problem, though, is that we never hear good stories about polygamy because it's illegal. Nobody is going to come forward with a "polygamy rocks" story unless their an asshole like Tom Greene and they're just looking for 5 seconds of fame. I knew a polygamist in high school. She was actually the daughter of a polygamist family, but she was planning on being a sister wife after high school. We've lost touch, but I know that she was the second wife to a young man and she was very happy about it. This was in Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake, not out in farm country. When we did move down to Riverton (out with the cows), a polygamist family with 6 wives lived at the end of our street. It was just one of those things...I'm not sure anyone really registered it as unusual.

I wouldn't be a polygamist, but that doesn't mean it doesn't sound like a good idea sometimes. I don't mean having a lot of different husbands (polygeny), I mean being a sister wife. After all, if I was a woman who was planning on having a lot of different children, I would be signing up for polygamy no problem. Why? Well, basically if I'm going to have 11 children, I'm going to want some damn help. I'd want help with dinner, help with laundry, help with bath time. Of course, the natural reaction is "who the hell would want 11 children?" The answer is: everyone in Utah. My friends (except for Catholic Katelyn) all come from fairly big families. Jed has nine or something, and I know the Tates had 13. I'm talking about families with only one mom. That's pretty tough, even if you have a wonderful supportive husband who can be home a lot, which isn't the case of many men in that situation.

That being said, I don't think I could do it, personally. I'm the jealous type and I would miss my husband a lot if I had to share him. I also wouldn't really want to take care of my sister wives' 23 children. Even if the collective family only had 10 children or less, I would want to keep all the marital benefits to myself and duck as many marital responsibilities as possible.

Polygamy has been glamourized recently by the HBO series Big Love. I actually tried to figure out if I could get HBO without getting cable, just because I love this show so much. (Turns out that it's 75 dollars a month since most people actually want all those other stupid channels) Big Love follows a suburban Salt Lake family with 3 wives and 7 (almost 8) children. The family has a lot of money and they struggle more with emotional issues than the day to day problems of living. The series portrays polygamous compounds as terrible and restrictive, which I don't think helps the general view on polygamy in Utah, but it also makes polygamy seem surprisingly alluring at times. The wives fight but the fact that they're married to each other, as well as to their husband, is constantly reiterated and a real loving, sisterhood bond emerges in the storyline.

HBO was responsible for a certain amount of sexual liberation, at least conversationally, thanks to Sex and the City. Will we see a resurgence of support for polygamy thanks to Big Love? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Wine Party 07

2007-09-09T15:08:00.001-05:00

Janean's infamous wine party was last night and, although it is 4 in the afternoon, I still cannot pull it together enough to do things like my laundry and my homework. In the photo to the right, you can see wine party 06, which also incurred much hangover misery and non-productivity. As you can see this year traditions were carried out, including the putting on of Janean's bras and the taking of pictures that show just how drunk and not-Vogue I can be.

Unlike last year, I apparently was not in a picture taking mood and therefore cannot piece together events that have been blocked out. I know I had a lovely time, but the details are oh so fuzzy. I know that there was a lot of wine involved...umbrellas...mass use of the Tide pen...and I think a game of spin the bottle? I can't ask Kyle to fill in the details because he's at work and I think I might be in trouble because he sounded grouchy. I have no idea what happened post-party. I actually woke up freaked out because I didn't know how we'd gotten home. I also found broken dishes, which isn't a good sign. Conversations with Janean and Nate have shed no light on the situation, except that apparently I was not the only one who was massively drunk last night. Everyone looked so pretty, I wish I had more pictures. I also wish I had a semi-decent picture of me because I'm wearing a cute top and not doing it justice in my drunken state. Oh well. I'm getting too old to party, I can tell. I may not be able to get out of bed until I have to go to work tomorrow morning. C'est la vie. Totally worth it.

Hello, Baby Riley!

2007-09-07T13:10:00.001-05:00

This is Baby Riley. He's currently safe inside Bec's tummy, but his photo is already on the internet. How's that for technology? I can think of two other friends whose babies had photos and Myspace pages before they were born. Craziness.

I was excited to get these pictures. Riley isn't due until Dec 30 and I'm not sure when I'll actually see him, since I still haven't met Miss Audrey. (BTW - no updates because the Audrey blog is blocked. Margs, what happened?!) It's pretty crazy that we have 3D photos of Riley, from inside of his mom. I'm not even totally sure how this all works. Waves of sound or something? I don't know. But here he is. I have nothing else to post about him, though, since he's a fetus, etc.

Here's the future parents of Riley Marcus Ogden.

Is this working?

2007-09-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

How do you really know if your relationship is working? (Don't worry, Kyle, it was another conversation and not you that got me started on this topic.) What kinds of tests are applicable in the "I don't know if this is working for me" self talk? Are they universal or do you have to tailor them to your relationship? Are you tailoring them or are you just adjusting to ensure a passing or failing result?

I would google "is this a good relationship" but I don't want to pull up those kinds of websites while I sit here in class. I'm sure I'd get some big, pink flashy website with the words DESPERATE SINGLE written across the top. I know one test for your relationship is supposed to be whether or not you have common goals. Are you going in the same direction? For example, if one person only has short term goals with no long term plans and the other person is operating on a different schedule, we can assume that that couple would have problems about priorities and how they want to spend their time. The same goes for people who have different financial goals. Some people enjoy having all the newest, coolest stuff while other people really like having a fat nest egg. You can't really say that one group is right or wrong, it's just a sign that those people might not work out in the long run.

Another test is supposed to be whether or not you're supportive of each other. You're always supposed to feel safe and supported in your relationship. Is the other person trying to help you be everything you can be, and vice versa? That's kind of a hard question. How do you really know if you're being supported? What if a person believes that they have your best interests in mind, but they disagree with your choices? Are they supporting you? What if they believe they're doing what is best for the relationship, even if it's not in your best interest?

I think there's also supposed to be a test that has to do with how well you fight. Do you get it all out or is there a lot of silence and tears? Snide comments? Hitting below the belt? Then again, if you aren't the kind of person who wants to sit down every other night and talk through your issues, maybe that's still a sign that it isn't working. Two people who love to scream might be great together and two people who really enjoy not talking about problems might be completely content in their own repressed way. I don't know.

I had a date last night. Kind of. I only say kind of because I don't ususally consider things that don't leave the apartment to be dates. But it was very date like. I let the homework slide for an evening and Kyle and I made dinner and opened a bottle of wine. We watched a couple movies, drank too much, and had far too much fun for a Tuesday night. I kept giving him crap because every ten minutes we were stopping the movies so that we could pay attention to each other and it started to get a little ridiculous. He's just so funny and cute. He makes me laugh all the time. It's also retarded that I still find his conversation so interesting, since it's been 5 years and we're supposed to be over each other by now.

Is that a sign that our relationship is working or a sign that we shouldn't drink entire bottles of wine in the middle of the week? I had a conversation today about priorities and putting your sig other at the top of that list. Is it more that you should force yourself to make choices that signal that your other half is #1 on your priorities list, or should that person default to being #1 because you can't think of anything else you'd rather pay attention to? I personally find Kyle to be distracting to a fault. It's nearly impossible to get anything done because whatever he happens to be doing or talking about is always much more interesting, even if I've heard the same stupid story four times. Maybe Kyle's detrimental impact on my productivity is a sign that my relationship isn't working. Or a sign that I'm not working.

Yeah, but I had so much fun last night.

Portraits

2007-09-03T23:44:00.000-05:00

I've been cleaning media off my computer in the hopes of clearing up some space. Apparently there is a limit to this laptop. I thought the videos would be enough, but it looks like some of the pictures will have to go. Can't imagine why. I only have around 3 million of them.

While I was deleting things (most of the last two years, believe it or not. I had the stupidest pictures!) I came across some funny ones that I forgot that I had. Some were pictures of my family and others were pictures of things I had come across on the internet and then forgotten about. I found one folder, however, that struck me. I have photos that Zach took of me for my 22st birthday and I never think about them. They were buried in a subfolder of a subfolder and I almost deleted them. It wouldn't have been a tragedy, exactly, since they're just photos of me, but the quality is pretty impressive. Zach isn't a portrait photographer, but he did a really good job. This is back when he had his stupid low quality digital, too. You can tell by the graininess.

I actually got the idea of asking him to do my portrait from my mom. She saw a snapshot that Zach had taken and she commented that Zach was the only person who could actually take pictures of me while my guard was down. I'm not sure if that's true, but it definitely helps to be relaxed around your photographer. When I did portraits, especially risque sessions, they were so so SO much easier when I knew the person beforehand. It's really hard to work with someone who doesn't want you to look at them and I hate it when people pose for my pictures. Camera faces are the worst faces - save it for Myspace.

Anyway, this is how I celebrated my 22st birthday. I went to work and then Zach and I did a portrait session. I was relaxed, but I remember it being a little awkward. We had broken up at this point and had been broken up for a little over a year. So we were definitely civil and even friendly, but we still hadn't quite hit comfortable. To his credit Zach was very patient and nice about it. He even got me ice cream during a break. He must have taken a thousand pictures just to make sure he had a couple that came out ok.

It was sort of a silly thing, actually. I didn't need photos of myself for anything. I just remember feeling like I was finally starting to have a different life and I wanted to capture the moment. I had gotten into OSU at this point and I was finally planning on leaving Utah. I was graduating and I had come out of a long relationship, a short relationship, and was struggling with what would become a new relationship. There was just that idea that I was going to look back at 50 and see this as a turning point in my life and I wanted photos to prove that I was 22 at one point.

The photos don't look that different yet. I look thinner and maybe a little worn out (this was during the 2 job phase). I can look at them and appreciate Zach's talent. But I don't look fresher or hopeful or any of those things that youthful photos are supposed to look like. I really hope this wasn't the peak I thought it was, because it all ended up being so anti-climactic. 22. What a bullshit age. So glad I have pictures.

Aesthetic

2007-09-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

I guess Iowa was just kidding.

I've had an incredibly aesthetic couple of days. Not really that I myself have looked any better, but more that I keep finding myself in situations where I'm standing in beautiful rooms looking at beautiful things. Weird, no?

I went to the APALSA opening on Thursday night and it was quite the happening party. I guess we had around 50 people show up. I wish I could say that I was wildly social and inviting, but Nate and I holed up in a corner like we always end up doing and had a 5 hour conversation on life, religion, and philosophy. It's sort of funny to attend a party only to end up doing what you would have been doing anyway. While we were sitting there, drinking bad martinis and listening to bad music, I kept noticing how nice the interior of Spice Bar is. The couches and tables are all really beautiful, and the lights dimmed progressively throughout the night so you could really see the candles. Spice Bar is one of those places that, although the drinks aren't good and the music is too damn loud, you always feel kind of posh just for sitting there. At least I do. Of course, I'm easily impressed.

Friday night was a night in with work (I'm stuffing 1824 envelopes this weekend) and movies with Nate. We watched Thirteen, which is one of my favorite movies, and I now that I've seen it so many times I notice a lot more of the artistic details. The whole thing is shot in grainy, color-saturated film and there's about 1 million shots of advertisements throughout the film. I only noticed now that they repeatedly show a cosmetics ad and at the end, there's a moment where the main character looks at herself in the mirror and she has the same kind of dull, vapid beauty.

Last night Kyle took me out to dinner and the Gallery Hop, which was a little too hopping for me. We wandered around but didn't really find anything. Actually, we really loved one antiques store in particular, but it was closed by the time we came back. Kyle has fallen in love with a hat rack, while I am crazy about a library cabinet. They had some nice art as well as some nice jewelry, but it was just so crowded. I hate having to wait in line to walk. It's my least favorite. It was a really good night, though. I think one of my favorite date things to do is just to walk around when it's warm outside and peoplewatch. This is especially true when you have a light buzz.

I'm a little obsessed with aesthetics. You'd never know it if you looked at my wardrobe or the frequency with which I actually do my hair, but I really really enjoy a good design moment. The design blog of a woman in France is still one of the few (if not the only) blogs I check every day because she just has the most marvelous finds. I love the idea that you can make everything in your life exciting and beautiful. I just don't love the idea that it all comes with a price tag. I'd make it my life's mission to make design and style accessible to everyone, but Target already did that and now I have the same bookshelves as everyone else in the world. That's the other thing about style. It's not really cool unless nobody else has it. Which brings me to the amazing purse I bought yesterday...no, I won't blog about my purse. I'm not that much of a girl.

But it really is amazing.

Still Marching

2007-08-30T15:37:00.000-05:00

We've been talking about equal marriage (gay marriage) in class. I have pretty strong feelings on the subject, but Kyle doesn't. He doesn't really think anything about it. A lot of his friends are pretty prejudiced against gay people, which is surprising to me. I know we're in the Midwest, but I thought that it would be an occasional redneck friend that everyone else made fun of when they weren't around. I mean, most of my friends from home are homophobic, but that kind of comes along with the whole Mormon thing.

Kyle isn't prejudiced, but he definitely doesn't devote a lot of time to marching for gay rights. His attitude is that it isn't his fight since it doesn't have anything to do with him. I can sort of see where he's coming from. I mean, there are a lot of problems out there and this particular one doesn't directly affect us. Still, though, it has a lot to do with us anyway, doesn't it? I mean, we live here. We have friends who can't marry who they want and that affects us. We live in a country where people are kept from enjoying the benefits of marriage due to a prejudice against something they can't change. That affects us.

I don't know, though. I don't want to push that agenda on people. I can't push it on my Mormon friends because I don't think they can have the perspective that would allow them to accept it. I can't push it on Kyle's friends or family because somehow it seems like a destructive move, rather than a constructive one. And I can't push it on Kyle because I want him to feel free to disagree with me on political issues.

It's a weird thing, though. You know, my great-grandparents had to cross state lines in order to get married and then got in trouble because marriages between people of different races was still illegal at that point. My parents only missed the prohibition of their marriage by about 50 years, and if that legislation hadn't passed, I probably wouldn't be here. My parents aren't really the kind of people who take on the government. They take stands, but only if they're sure they aren't standing alone. Maybe they would have gone for it, but it sure decreases the chances of my existence.

And yes, I am talking about something else. With biology as it is right now, allowing same sex couples to marry probably may not increase the population of children raised by these couples, but there would be the benefits of security, legal status and such for the children in those families. And that's really, really important. It's up there with my stance on education. This is not the destruction of the American family, it's just another way to let good, strong, stable American families exist. It's pretty much a return to the conservative notion of marriage, parents and children.

I just...I don't know. It's naive and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with how I was raised, but I really don't understand why the legislation hasn't already been passed. I mean, yes, ignorance and tradition, etc...but you know, I take it for granted that black people have equal rights. I take it for granted that women have equal rights. I don't understand why people who are homosexual don't have the same protections as other classes who have had their rights withheld. I guess that's why it's hard to figure out if something needs to be done, or what to do...it's just really odd and confusing. I don't know how I'll explain to my kids why there was a time when same sex couples couldn't get married. It makes me wonder if my great-grandmother felt the same surprised confusion.

*** EDIT *** Weird. Apparently people in Iowa agree with me.

Legally Broadway

2007-08-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

I'm completely addicted to the Legally Blonde: The Musical soundtrack. Wait before you judge because I also thought that this musical had to be the worst idea since the musical version of Debbi Does Dallas (which I also want to see). I was in Utah when I saw that this musical was offered on iTunes and so, for nine bucks, I bought it to listen to on the flight home.

It turns out that the soundtrack is completely awesome. The first song (Omigod You Guys) is a little high pitched and shrill, which is too bad because (although catchy) it's probably the most annoying song out of the whole CD, so it's not a good selling tactic as a test song on iTunes. I really like it, but you have to embrace the valley girl beginnings of miss elle woods in order to really appreciate it. The next song (Serious) is the musical rendition of elle not being proposed to and it's just fantastic, musically and comically.

The third song (What You Want) is one of the big chorus numbers and deals with elle trying to get into Harvard law school. It's pretty impressive, actually, as it incorporates different styles and I'm sure it's a lot of fun to watch. The next two songs (The Harvard Variations and Blood in the Water) serve as an introduction to Harvard. Blood in the Water is pretty funny, especially if you've had professional responsibility or Fairman. The song following elle's dismissal from her first class due to lack of preparedness (Positive) is kinda bleh, but it's probably a pretty fun dance number because it features elle's invisible greek chorus of sorority sisters. Get it...greek?

The introduction of Paulette, the hairdresser, comes in this song called Ireland, which is kind of funny but also a little weird. I suppose it sort of moves the plot along, but it's bizarre. It gets stuck in your head, though, so it can't be all bad. Elle's transformation from fluff to substance happens during the duet with Emmett, the 3L student assistant (Chip on My Shoulder). Elle even gets to wave her job offer in Warner's face during So Much Better. On the first day of work, elle and the other interns meet their new defendant, a fitness instructor accused of murder (Whipped Into Shape). I love this number and I wish I could see the choreography!!! To thank Emmett for all his help, elle gives him a makeover (Take It Like a Man) and Emmett reveals to the audience that he's in love with elle.

The bend and snap moment from the movie gets it's own song (Bend and Snap) which is ok, but the whole Paulette side plot is just odd. The next song (There! Right There!) deals with whether or not the key witness for the prosecution, the alleged lover of the defendant, is gay or European. It's a great song and very clever. Following that days trial, Cunningham - the lawyer/professor - kisses Elle and when she rejects him he fires her and she decides to drop out of law school (Legally Blonde). This song is actually my favorite, because it's so pretty. I know, it has a dumb title. It's a really good song and it has a kick ass reprise in which Elle goes back and takes over the trial after Cunningham gets fired.

After Elle wins the trial, there is a musical medley that covers her rejection of Warner, her graduation from law school as the valedictorian, and the where-are-they-now for all the people in the show. Everything is wrapped up nicely and follows the movie almost exactly. It's a really fun, light show and if you love the movie, you will completely love this soundtrack. It's also great for working out to because it's an hour and fifteen minutes worth of music, so it covers a good cardio session and a cool down. It's a steal off of iTunes for $9.99. Anyone up for a Broadway road trip?

Good Night

2007-08-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

Blogging is a lot harder when a) you aren't trapped in front of a computer all day writing a book and b) your school doesn't have internet. I've officially only net surfed in one class so far and it was because it was the only class I could get internet in. I actually can't surf in Sarah Cole's class because she asked us not to. Actually, all professors ask us not to, but Sarah is the only one I'd actually feel bad about.

Aside from the not blogging, my first week of school was great. The whole thing with Randy was freaky, but he's mending and hopefully will be back to normal pretty soon. I've even had some weird developments with job possibilities this week. I'm starting to get asked to do interviews and lunches, which is a little weird. Apparently that stuff happens whether you like it or not. I haven't committed to talking to anybody yet. Man, I wish I could pick a career...or at least a geographic location.

I do have exciting semi-work related news, however. After a lot of scrimping and saving, I officially paid off my last credit card today. I have 22 credit cards and not a single one has anything on it at the moment. I basically have had credit card debt at all times since I was 17, so this is pretty major. I'm trying to be a responsible adult about the whole not being in more debt than I have to be thing. Plus, not moving every 6 months really makes life easier on my checking account. I'm knocking on wood, though, in case something expensive and unfortunate happens. That sounds like something that would occur around me.

Kyle made me dinner tonight and we watched a movie and played a board game. We also had a bottle of wine from Napa that was sent to us by my aunt, so my night is sort of cushioned in a comfortable haze of cabernet sauvignon. Time for sleeping...

Update

2007-08-25T15:02:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the delay in updates. The surgery went well. He had some internal bleeding, which was a little scary, but everything was taken care of and they released him on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, he's out for the season, which makes the second football season in a row that Randy has missed because he ended up in surgery. He's pretty bummed out about it. It could have been so much worse, though. I hate getting middle of the night phone calls because it always means something is wrong and when mom told me he got hurt and was in surgery I thought for sure it was going to be a spinal injury. So I'm grateful that he's at home recovering. Thanks for the emails and such, I really appreciate it!

2007-08-24T12:37:00.000-05:00

This is less of a blog and more as an announcement for people who would care but who haven't necessarily been called. Randy started his football season last night. He's in the first line and played in the game. He was injured and after finishing the game he was taken to the hospital. He entered surgery last night around 2 A.M.

The Wedding March

2007-08-22T20:45:00.000-05:00

I'm having flashbacks. When I was 17, I started a three year run of never-ending bridal showers, hen parties and wedding days. Being from Utah, I enjoyed a veritable cascade of wedding festivities after my first year of college. The summer after high school featured 2 weddings. The summer after freshman year featured 7 and the summer after that one featured 5. From then on, I hit a 4-wedding-per-year average that evened out into a nice 2-weddings-per-year once I moved to Ohio.
However, it's starting to pour again. It seems that everyone I talk to is getting married, just got married, or is a bridesmaid in the wedding of the year. Wedding magazines litter the gym, the doctor's office and the newstands, proudly shining where Cosmo and Jane stood only a little earlier. Those not yet involved in festivities seem to be counting down the days until they will be involved and no lack of wedding reality has stopped anyone from a little wedding planning in their spare time.
Even my conversations with men have been frought with wedding jabber lately. Inquiries as to who's popping the question, who's set the date and who's settling down in suburbia have been thrown to the forefront of social attention and I realized today that, after seeing them for the first time since spring, I asked more people if they had gotten married yet than if they had had a nice summer. It's like the hot new catchphrase. First year was "where did you do undergrad?", second year was "are you on journal?" and third year is apparently "where's the mrs.?"
I generally experience a low level hum of wedding interest at all times. I love weddings, I love people getting married, and I love daydreaming about the big day. However, I rarely find myself surrounded by so much company eager to talk tulle. It's a total throwback to my first years in college and I remember burning out on the weddingness about 3 months into the multi-celebrations. I have to admit, walking around Bed Bath and Beyond with 4 different registries is a crap way to spend a Saturday and the repetition can totally take away from all the good feelings you're supposed to have when choosing a gift for the new family. I had a friend who kept a gift closet of things that she had received but didn't like or things that she had bought at after-christmas sales. Whenever a birthday, shower or wedding came up, somebody got something from the gift closet. It's completely depressing when you think about it. I hate the idea that the people you invite to your wedding can be cheap about how they choose to celebrate your happiness.
I also hate it when people think of weddings as the bride's day. The groom totally gets the shaft. Even if a guy acts like he's completely disinterested in any of the wedding stuff, it's as much a celebration for him as it is for the bride. Hopefully, he'll only have one wedding and I'm sure any guy has a general idea of what his perfect day would look like. It may have nothing to do with decor and everything to do with the people, pacing and food, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Starting out by alienating the groom from his own marriage celebration is so bizarre and yet it seems like EVERYONE treats the entire affair as something that the groom is just dumbly stumbling through in order to placate his blushing (and demanding) bride.
Not that I actually mind demanding brides. I really don't. I think if a woman wants things a certain way, she can get away with being bossy on her wedding day. Maybe not for the whole wedding planning season, but at least for the day and the days leading up to it. I've been a bridesmaid 5 times and I know for a fact that I have at least one more tour of duty as a bm before I'll be through. The brides have ranged from demanding to spacey, but it's their day and honestly, by the time someone makes you a bridesmaid you're sort of supposed to be willing to put up with their bullshit. That's your job. You aren't supposed to look pretty and have a good time. You're supposed to deal with the bullshit.
Yes, brides can get out of hand. I photographed a wedding once where the bride asked if she could get a discount if I only took pictures of her party and didn't do the groom and his friends. Apparently they had a disposable camera.

...um, what?...

Here's a hint: if you've hired a photographer for your wedding, you might want to capture the people actually involved in the wedding, which for many couples includes the groom. If you aren't interested in having photos taken of the groom, you should probably just schedule a fashion shoot and skip the whole annoying engagement/wedding thing altogether. There isn't a photographer anywhere that would say no to doing bridal portraits, regardless of whether or not you're actually getting married, so just save yourself the trouble of finding a guy who agrees to not be photographed.
Depending on who and where you are, weddings are totally different. I went to a lot of canyon weddings when I lived in Utah and a lot of receptions held in church gymnasiums. I also saw my fair share of official reception halls, which were always pretty but the photos I took at those weddings looked exactly like all the other photos taken in the same settings. My mom got married in Napa, in the family church, and then held the reception in the church hall. They had wedding glasses etched with cowboy hats and my whole family got smashed on Beringer wine and listened to burned cd mixes while tearing up the BBQ Chinese pig. My dad got married up in Millcreek standing next to a waterfall. We had a table service dinner that featured tiny portions of gourmet foods and my whole family got tanked on whiskey sours and listened to the string quartet playing classical pieces in the corner.
I'm still not rushing towards the altar. I can't really at the moment, since everyone else is getting married, and I honestly don't know if I have enough brain power to think about things like that right now. This whole job/future/picking a city thing is a little oppressive. Maybe the key is to line up a job so that you can refocus your attentions on important things like centerpieces and deposits. The only disappointing thing is that Kyle and I are entering that phase where people don't even ask about it anymore. It's just this thing that's kind of a given and I'm afraid that when we do get married people won't be excited because a) everyone will have just been married themselves and b) people will be like, "you're getting married? um, yeah, no kidding. we thought you were already married. i mean, congratulations or whatever. anyway..."

It's all about family

2007-08-21T19:55:00.001-05:00

I had my first class of my 3L year today. Family Law. Hey, guess what? If I do family law, I'm going to die! That's right, the first 15 minutes of Family Law was dedicated to stories about people being shot by angry spouses who don't like the way their divorces are progressing. By the way, most violent episodes actually happen in the areas around the courtroom, such as the parking lot, elevator, and adjoining hallways.

I was kind of considering Family Law, but this was a hell of a way to start. I don't really want to get shot. It probably wouldn't even be a high profile shooting. I'd be a mini-paragraph on page 7 of the Wednesday Dispath, under the recipes and golden anniversary announcements. Of course, job satisfaction is apparently pretty high, despite the threat of death.

I could be a divorce lawyer. So much of that job isn't actually being a lawyer. I need a job where a lot of it isn't being a lawyer.

Post class was lunch and thrift shopping with Neaner and Nate. I got a velvet painting, a mirror with decals, 2 WDW glasses, a Disney board game, a Madeleine story board, a Disney CD and the X-files movie collector's pack. Between the velvet, the Disney and the X-files, I'm pretty much geeked out for the rest of August. Lunch blew (vegetarians are insane. Janean actually ate a burger made out of beets) but I made up for it at dinner. Melissa is in town so we went out with her and her friend. Thank god for smothered steaks and baked potatoes. Same goes for tall Blue Moons.

I'd keep blogging, but I have to go study for Evidence. Man, I forgot how much school blows. This summer was so nice...

On the other side

2007-08-20T14:48:00.000-05:00

Today was a work day, free from nagging thoughts about book research, Race Judicata or travel plans. It was really nice to just jump into work and have 100% of my attention on what I was doing. We had a staff meeting this afternoon and people started talking about the things that were coming up. Sarah mentioned a really great idea about a project the commission could be working on in the future and Maria noted that it might be a good idea to tie it into the Commission's 20 year anniversary in 2009. Suddenly, sitting there, I realized that in 2009 I won't work for the Commission. It really bummed me out.

I had the same problem with Sam Weller's, Granite School District, and the U. The only reason I didn't miss WDW right away was because I was cleaning up puke and I hadn't had a paycheck with 3 digits in more than 5 months. I look forward to being able to stay with a job for a decade. I just can't seem to hold still long enough to make it a reality.

I would work for the Commission in a heartbeat, but the reality is that they can't pay me. It turns out that, while not too materialistic, I am one of those people who wants to get paid for their work. So I have to start the job hunt again, which is even more oppressive this time around because it isn't a temporary until-I-go-back-to-class position. I'm supposed to be looking for a real job. A lot of people went through this around this same time last year when they scrambled for their 2L summer jobs. From what I hear, most people had a really good time and I'm assuming that many of them will be able to stay with those positions if they want them after we graduate. I kept waiting for that inner voice to tell me that I wanted a firm job, but it's just not a happening thing. I also don't really want to tie myself down to one position yet.

I think I actually need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Bah.

Goodbye summer

2007-08-19T21:38:00.000-05:00

School officially starts tomorrow and, though I do not have classes, I do have to go to work. It's basically the end of the summer. I don't feel much like blogging, though. To be fair, I've written more this summer than I ever have before, which is impressive for an ex-English major. So a quick recap before we move on:

Top 7 of Summer '07
7) Finishing the Book
6) Sleeping in every day
5) Disneyland Road Trip
4) Justin and Jenna's Wedding
3) Trip to D.C.
2) Our second anniversary date
1) Trip to Oregon

Bottom 7 of Summer '07
7) Being away from Kyle while I was in D.C., CA, and UT
6) Not being able to work more than once a week
5) Finding out I have no 07-08 financial aid set up
4) Finishing less than half of my summer reading
3) Writing the book
2) Researching the book
1) Realizing the summer is over

The nice thing is that it was actually pretty hard to come up with the Bottom 7 list. If I had done this last year, that list would have been packed with moments fighting for a spot. Maybe my luck is changing. Of course, as I start the year sans books, without financial aid and with a serious case of apathy, it's going to take a little grace from above to get me through the first couple of weeks. C'est la vie. It was a short summer, but it was a very nice one. I haven't been this relaxed and happy in a long time. I think I'm starting to remember what life was like pre-law school.

Summer in review:

Girlfriends

2007-08-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

I just checked Margi's blog and read the updates on her baby girl. I can't believe I still haven't seen her! Between the road trip with Schovy and the trip to see Kate and Jed, I just couldn't make it over to Missouri this time around. I also haven't talked to Bryttin in forever, even though she's due in September and, although I did get to see Bec's ultrasound, I don't know if I can stay long enough over xmas break to see baby Riley (his birthday is around 12/30).

Oh my girls. I think most people have their high school group, but I don't know how many have people stayed in touch through the years. In high school, we were the fab 5 and we were all fairly inseperable. At any given moment, at least two of us were together. This was especially true when my family moved in senior year, forcing me to spend about 7 months sleeping on couches and in guest bedrooms of people near my high school. We did all the dances, all the plays, all the clubs, all the movie nights...in a weird way it was like one single friendship. I had a hard time dividing the girls and thinking of them as individual relationships. I was best friends with Kate, Jed, and the Girls.

It's not the same these days, which is no surprise, but our friendship has held up surprisingly well. The only casualty has really been Bryttin, who started to drift away right after we graduated. She's remained distant but friendly with the other 3 girls, but unfortunately we had a fight during our second year of college that we never quite recovered from. It's odd. I still love her and when it comes down to it, I would fly across the country on a moment's notice if she needed me, but when we talk there's a weird, strained, fake quality to our conversations, like we're both forcing it. I guess it's just the distance, both in geographic terms and in terms of who we grew up to be.

I'm still surprisingly close to the other 3. It helps that the rest of us were in town together following high school for the first couple of years (Bryttin went to Idaho). It may also be the order in which relationships occurred. Bryttin got married first, at 19. The fight actually occurred when I told her not to marry her husband because I thought he was turning her into a jerk. Yeah, I actually started that conversation. Tact and grace are never going to be strong suits of mine. Margi married next, and though I was very involved in her wedding, her marriage pulled her away from late night girl talk and dollar movies. Becah followed, which didn't change much in the beginning because she was working for my mom. However, after she changed jobs, her time was stretched between her marriage, school, work, and commuting to their house on the edge of the city and she had a hard time fitting in shopping trips.

I don't actually think my relationship with Zach changed anything. I think it might have been a sign of the impending break-up that I was as happy not hanging out with Zach as I was with him. I had no problem changing or dropping plans with him to hang out with my girlfriends. At the time I thought it just meant that I was in a healthy relationship that didn't tie me down. Realistically, though, especially now that I have a definite preference for being with Kyle, I think I just wasn't into him enough to miss him when I was gone. I don't think I need to be with Kyle all the time, and I really miss my friends after a while, but it's rare to go more than a few hours without suddenly missing him a lot.

Michelle wasn't pulled away by boys, so she made choices that pulled her away by geography. She did a year in Essex (U.K.) and then started a L.D.S. in Germany, which kept her for about a year before she broke her leg and had to be flown home. In between those times, Michelle and I enjoyed the fact that we both attended the U. We were able to take classes together and see the theater productions. In a way, I think it might have hurt my college social circle, because I defaulted to seeing Michelle and the other girls who were still in the city. I hung out with people in college, of course, but I didn't make any real lasting friendships.

Of course, I finally pulled away from the circle when I moved here. We stay updated with phone calls, emails and blogs, but it's getting harder and longer between conversations. Sometimes I miss them terribly, but the reality is that I just don't seem to find those extra 20 or 30 minute pockets in the day, and when I do, I can only call one of them at a time. (We tried the multiple party line thing once - total chaos) I've remained closer to Jed and Kate because, like in high school, I think of the Girls as one relationship, so my time is divided evenly between those 3. That means that my girls get phone calls about 1/3 as often as Jed or Kate do. It also helps that Jed and Kate are in my time zone and that neither of them are mormon, which gives us more things in common.

Besides, I've developed a new friend circle and I'm actually more attached to people here than I thought I would have time to be (I hope that doesn't sound too awful). I do feel vaguely guilty, like I've traded the Girls in, but being here, with non-mormon, single people in graduate school is really, really nice sometimes. Then again, nothing is going to beat lying on shag carpeting, dipping into a giant bowl of buttered popcorn and trading stories with people who have known you since the days of training bras and summer camp. Those girls are my history and I'm positive that I'll be friends with them for the rest of my life, including Bryttin. I love them because I love who we used to be so much that it carries over into the future. They're still a really important part of who I am. I don't know where I would be without my girlfriends.

Coming Attractions 07-08

2007-08-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

I went back to school today, unofficially. This was the final day of orientation for the new 1Ls (poor kids) and I kept Emily and Nate company at the DRA table for the school organization fair thing. We got a wonderfully long list of email addresses from suspicious and unsuspecting new 1Ls. Here's to a new year of ADR joy.

It was odd to be darting through the halls of Moritz, saying hi to people again. One more year in law school and it will all be over. No more pizza lunches, no more heads popping out of the carrels like grumpy gophers. Well, I guess I could always come back for the L.L.M.

(cue laugh track)

Emily kept pushing my book today, so that was odd. It's even weirder to hear other people talk about the book and the 1Ls don't know that I'm not a real author, so that was kind of fun. Actually, when we were all talking about what we've done in law school and what we were planning on doing, we sound a lot more impressive than we feel. Emily is working on different projects for Sarah Cole, she's been very involved with DR and Y all 3 years, she is on a journal, she's finishing her courses up early and she did a year at another law school. Nate went to Crete, is on a journal, did Moot Court last year, participated in all the competitions, and is writing a book. I'm getting the certificate, have been working at the Commission for more than a year now, and I did a few of the competitions.

Nate and I have actually done a lot of the same things. We both served in the presidency of APALSA and did Race Judicata for MCOP. We both spent the summer working at the Commission and writing books about ADR. We both did the mediation practicum and worked downtown and we both spent our first year of law school doing Big Brother Big Sister. We also both love to scotch tape random quotes and objects to the walls of our carrel, but somehow I don't think that would look that great on a resume.

I don't feel like I've matured or grown that much (at all) since law school started, but apparently I did get a little weathered over the last couple of years. This was very apparent tonight when Kyle and I attended a house party on Lane and Summit to hear one of Kyle's friend's band play. I forgot what it was like to hang out with a house full of drunk people who aren't old enough to be drinking. Um, it kind of blows. We got splashed repeatedly by people who were trying to drink and mosh at the same time and, honestly, that music was a little too damn loud. It was a good show, but the atmosphere just killed it for me.

There was this one girl who was right front and center and she was dancing and really getting into it. I realized that I used to be that girl, and I used to not care if people splashed me with beer or rubbed against me with their sweatiness. Soooo not that girl anymore. Now I'm the girl (woman) who stands at the back of the crowd with her arms crossed, thinking that she could really go for some jazz and a whiskey sour. I'm not yet convinced that this is a good metamorphosis...

Workin' It

2007-08-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

I'm in Akron, but I went to work today. I attended the last day of a CRE training today in Parma, Ohio, which is kind of up and in the middle of not much. CRE is Conflict Resolution Education, for those of you who don't hang on every word, and it's the subject of the book I just finished. Today was my first actual training, though, so that was pretty exciting. Kinda wish I could have seen the trainings and then written the book, but whatever.

So I basically spent the day with teachers, talking about how to make their classrooms work better. The funniest thing about dealing with a bunch of teachers is that they act exactly like the students they're complaining about. They wail and cry out in despair over students who won't stop talking, won't stay on task, and won't get involved. And then they turn around and talk to each other while the trainings are happening. They lean back in their chairs and doodle in the margins of their papers during lectures. They make fun of the lessons and beg for the bell to ring. I wanted to videotape them and then say "see, it's not so easy, is it? And they do this all day, ever day for years and years!!!"

It's a lot of fun to hang out with teachers. They're all weird and they dress like they live a decade behind the rest of us. I've never seen so much permed hair held back by clips the size of remote controls. And all of their folders have stickers and doodles and beaded bookmarks. And nobody brought their laptops, their designer bags, or their french tips.

Of course, hanging out with teachers also has its disadvantages. For one, everyone always wants to be the "talker" because they're all used to leading the lesson. I heard about 400 stories from experience today that had nothing to do with what we were talking about. They also try very hard to guess the one correct answer, even if the questions asks for an opinion or a memory. Finally, they all want things for free. All things. All the time. Free free free. Which is not where I come in.

I got trapped hardcore today. All of the teachers were given a CD-ROM for a 1000 page CRE guide at the last workshop. Of course, looking at 1000 pages of documents on a computer screen is a pain in the neck, so they all wanted the print version, which is something I can do. Unfortunately, I can only do it for 65 dollars. It's not my fault! It costs the commission 65 bucks to print the stupid things out, and we can't just give one away to every teacher in the state of Ohio. But, as I was the one asking for 65 bucks (coupled with the fact that I had the label of future lawyer while everyone else had an apple on their desk) basically made me the greediest, meanest, most anti-education person that ever lived. I thought they were going to tear me to pieces and make me into a science experiment.

I may have left the education bubble for good. I suppose I can't ever go back to K-12 teaching. A K-12 teacher with a law degree is just silly. I've totally, accidentally excluded myself from an entire class of people. A whole class of permed, sneaker-wearing, kitten sweater people that I desperately wanted to be in. I'm so lame I'm too lame to be lame. Nice.

acknowledgements

2007-08-14T23:41:00.000-05:00

i finally, officially, actually finished the book last night and gave it to Dean Rogers this morning. It's been on the brink of being finished for some time now, but I had to tweak some of the aesthetic things and write out the book parts (index, glossary, etc.). I had a surprising time writing the acknowledgements. (British spelling, but the other one looks stupid.) I knew who I needed to thank, but actually putting it down on paper was pretty weird, in an uncomfortably intimate kind of way. The whole book is casual and familiar, but there isn't really any of "me" in it. It's a connect-the-dots between teachers and researchers. No carlyness. The acknowledgements were all carlyness, though, which made them probably the hardest thing to write in the whole damn book.

if you're wondering if you made the cut, you probably didn't unless you work at the commission, you research CRE for a living, or you're the dean of Moritz College of Law. however, if you're name is Nate or Kyle, your chances of being included in the acknowledgements are much higher.

I had to thank the commission because they're the reason I got started on the whole thing. It's really Maria and Sarah specifically that I'm thanking, but everyone there is so great I thought I'd just throw a blanket of gratitude over them. It's funny, but I just keep coming back to the fact that it's crazy lucky that I found the job that I did. I can be creative, it's a flexible environment, and I'm working on stuff that I'm totally interested in. I actually really like going to work, and if anything I'm irritated that I can't be there more often since I feel so productive on my working days. Plus, the commission has first dibs on publishing, so a thank you was in order.

Had to thank the researchers, because...well...they created the field, etc. I really am grateful but not enough to blog more about them.

Dean Rogers has been really great this summer. She's very enthusiastic and supportive, but at the same time she's constantly challenging me to step up. We had a nice little moment today when I turned the book in, where we just kept looking and the book and then grinning at each other. I think she gets a kick out of how totally bewildered I am that I actually wrote a book this summer and other people are currently reading it. It's also so cool that she doesn't try to box me into traditional law student goals, especially since she hasn't spent much time with education-focused students. I literally could not have done it without her.

Had to thank Nate. Can't not thank Nate. I can go on and on about the researchers and the commission and Nancy and how they all make me want to do great things, but it's Nate who's threatening to kick my ass if I don't stop watching Sex and the City and start writing. He endured a whole lot of "hanging out" that consisted of him just being over while I sat and wrote and talked to myself. He also had the good fortune to spend time with me when I was in my I'm-writing-a-book-and-don't-ever-need-to-not-be-in-pajamas phase.

And then, of course, Kyle, who continues to be the reason I do anything. I've been scatterbrained and distracted all summer and he's put up with it beautifully. If I had to give him a quarter for each rant he's listened to about school systems and teachers pay and literacy rates, I would have to take out another loan. I know he wouldn't think of himself as a calm person, but sometimes I feel like I'm actually getting my reserves of "down time" from him in the same way a person gives you bottles of water. It's very weird. Can't explain it.

It was a little hard to limit it to this. I couldn't decide whether to thank my parents. It seemed weird to thank them generally, since their forms of support are incredibly seperate, but I wasn't going to go into a whole Mom...Dad...stepparents thing. All other family was excluded after I made the parents decision. My friends have been supportive, but Nate's the only one who gave tangible support, so he's who made the cut. And then there was that whole thanking God thing that a lot of people do, but considering how often I've asked him to damn the whole project and the educational systems in general, I doubt he wants to hear about it anymore.

People are reading my book. Right now. So odd. Much weirder than the poems, short stories, or articles I've sent out. They've commited to 7 pounds of my writing. They're carrying it around out there. It's taking up space in people's houses. So so odd. Couldn't even begin to picture how people who make bestseller lists feel. I don't think I could handle it.

Published

2007-08-13T17:19:00.001-05:00

I've been facing a publishing crisis lately. It's likely that if you're reading this, you noticed that my blog went offline for a little while. Let me explain...

So, the book is done and it's a real book and people are reading it and it's going to be published. PUBLISHED. As in, it's going to be sent out into the world and no matter what I do I won't be able to completely reclaim it. It's not going to be a best seller or anything, but the idea of something being published was enough to give me a bit of a scare. I'm not a fan of being published. I've only been published anonymously before and when I was published in college I didn't say anything to anyone about it. It's just...unsettling. I don't think it's a modesty thing or a fear of failure exactly, it's just that it's so foreign to have written something and then run into it in some form other than your scribbled sheets of paper. It's also weird to hear people talk about something you've written. It's oddly personal, like you've handed them a naked photograph and they're commenting on your belly button placement. It's not totally awful, but it isn't pleasant.

And that's how I feel about publishing.

So when I had my mini-crisis after realizing that the book was indeed going to be published, I started thinking about all of the words I had sent out into the internet, via this blog and the ones before it. I've deleted all past blogs, which totals up into at least a million words vaporized and it gives me great satisfaction that those words are gone. Like I said, it's embarassing to have things like that hanging out there. So why blog? Why bother to put something out there at all if I'm just going to whine about people reading it?

That's a good question and one that I can't completely answer. After all, this stupid blog, which has a limited audience, is sometimes the source of great anxiety for me. Doing the math, I'm fairly confident that only about half of the people who read this thing are actually friends of mine. The rest fall into three odd categories: lost strangers, curious net stalkers, and people who know me and are actively looking for reasons to put me down or make fun of me. I'm positive the last category exists for two reasons. 1) I've been told repeatedly that my blog was mentioned by someone else for purpose of saying negative things about me and 2) I witnessed the public stoning of another classmate's blog during our first year. I can't even say anything negative about this group, because I read gossip about Brittney Spears for the same reason. I relish the bad things that happen to her because they're amusing and funny. I also love to talk to people about how dumb she is (read in between the lines: how much better I am than her).

So, knowing this and knowing that I don't like to get published, why do I blog? Well, there's the obvious answer. I like people to know what I'm up to, since a giant section of important people in my life aren't in Ohio. I also like to read other people's blogs and my blogging tends to encourage their blogging. Plus, I really do like to write. I have a fun time with it and it's good practice for the other writing I do. Finally, I guess it is a sort of validation. Not that I'm so awesome and people can post and tell me how awesome I am. Just that I struggle and have good days and bad days. It reminds me that I have my upswings and downswings and that all my convictions could fly out the window tomorrow. For that reason, it sort of organizes my life in a retroactive manner. It's all chaos when I just think back on things, but when I blog I can actually check back and see day by day what I was feeling and thinking. It also triggers memories about things not written into these entries, like where I was, what I almost blogged about, what I was too afraid to say, and what someone told me later. So I guess I'll keep going.

And thanks. It helps that you read. I can't explain why, but it makes a difference.

Confession

2007-07-11T18:13:00.000-05:00

I have to confess - I'm totally cheating on you with another blog. Summertime means the Disneyness has gotten out of control...I wouldn't expect another normal post until August at the very least.

http://thatdisneygirl.blogspot.com

Don't even know

2007-07-05T23:47:00.000-05:00

Blog? What blog?

Summer tips from yours truly:

Don't ride the bus. Summer people smell.

Listen to the Netcot podcast.

Take cold bubble baths.

Walking around at night just because it's warm out is the greatest way to hang out with someone.

Don't buy those travel pillows for airlines unless you're crossing an ocean.

Don't cross an ocean. Europe blows and if you're heading the other direction, you might as well just stop at California and have a good time.

Attend city festivals and town days.

Read. Read, read, read.

I'm just a summer girl

2007-06-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

I'm not dead, I'm just having the most wonderful summer. I'm also working on something that has taken the late night time I used to spend blogging. More later...not that I should even update this thing as all blogging activity appears to be on hold for the entire world. I'm glad you're all having such wonderful summers as well!!!

Tabula Rasa

2007-06-21T23:02:00.000-05:00

I have a blank canvas hanging on my wall in a large gold frame. I bought the frame because it matched my decorating ideas for my bedroom and hung it without putting anything on the canvas so I could get a general idea of where it would go and how big it would be. It's just hanging there now, slightly askew and completely empty.

It isn't so much that I was intimidated initially by the blank canvas. I'm a fan of filling in blank canvases. I simply ran out of steam after the living room decorating extravaganza and barely made it to the everything-out-of-boxes stage before quitting. Unfortunately, as the months have passed, the canvas has become a bit intimidating. It's now a question of whether I should wait for actual insipiration or just accept the fact that nobody gives a crap what's hanging in my bedroom anyway and fill it in.

Kyle suggested either a black and white Batman design or some other similar portrait of a winged superhero. The suggestion is motivating me to come up with something and draw it in before he comes up with any more ideas. In college my room was covered in chalk portraits of nude women, done in my art major phase. I could default to some sort of chalk portrait, but I'm a little old to be drawing nude girls and hanging them. At this point I think I have to go professional or bust if I want nude ladies.

I could do a collage...maybe something interesting with fabric and paper. I would actually really like something in a dusty rose and burnt gold, a little darker than the rest of the room but still in keeping with the theme. Of course, when I move out it would just be scraps glued together to form art that doesn't match my new color scheme. Disposable art is just a little depressing.

What about written word art? Some sort of poetry or typography art piece. It's an interesting thought. I've though seriously about an oversized and off-center word in typewriter letters running off the edge of the canvas. But is that pottery barn chic predictable? Just a bit. I might as well frame a wallpaper sample.

Where is my muse? Hopefully in D.C....3 more days...

Little faults

2007-06-20T17:06:00.000-05:00

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The difference between someone being endearing and someone being annoying is that an endearing person will make you aware of their faults and you will appreciate that they are aware of them and will feel closer to them because you can identify with having faults. An annoying person appears completely unaware of all the things about them that really piss you off and you will dislike them because they are too annoying to notice how annoying they are. I have lots of little faults. I procrastinate, I exaggerate and I don't have a very large attention span. Of course, I have larger faults as well, but isn't it interesting that the larger ones are never the ones that come up in conversation? It doesn't mean they aren't there of course. They're just slightly tucked away.

I don't think about my larger faults too much, actually. I suppose there's a whole group of faults that fit into the category of "it's just my personality - can't do nuthin' 'bout 'em" faults. I saw the quote above a few days ago, though, and I started thinking about my larger faults. What are they and why haven't I changed them? Surely I'm not such a concrete person that I couldn't make improvements for the better. In an effort to dredge up a better version of myself, many known faults have been divided into categories:

Little Faults

Procrastination
Tendancy to obsess about silly things and overlook larger obligations
Total consumer (this is on the little fault list because I chalk a lot of it up to simply living in middle-class America)
Inability to return things on time
Not financially savvy, despite 2 courses, 4 self help books and hundreds of overdraft charges

Big Faults

Commonly unecessarily harsh with people
Extremely phobic and prone to hysteria
Lazy and impatient with other people's laziness
Possessive of personal items and personal space
Critical of other people, particularly friends and relatives

Obviously there are more, but these are the ones that spring to mind. It may be difficult to change the phobic and prone to hysteria component of my personality. Believe me, I don't enjoy it and if I could not have either I would be a happier person. The rest are probably open to improvement. If I can't improve them I could probably at least keep them to an internal, rather than verbal, expression.

Maybe we only have faults if we say them out loud. If a girl criticizes a tree in the forest, but nobody is around to hear her, is she really critical?

Tired

2007-06-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't been sleeping again. It could be the book thing. I wish the damn thing was finished already. I shouldn't call it that. Sorry, book. I love you! I don't mean to call you names. I just don't like that you've taken over my apartment.

I think it's something else. One of those things that wouldn't work as a blog topic. But I'm feeling very resigned lately. I guess everyone feels resigned at times, but I feel like I'm letting go of something heavy that I wanted very much and I'm watching sink down into the ocean. But it's all going very slowly and it's confusing because sometimes I feel like I'm reaching out to pull it up, not to release it. I literally don't know if it's coming or going.

What is it really to want something? When you want something, you have to ask yourself two questions. 1) Why do I want this? 2) Will I be ok if I don't have this? In retrospect it's easy to answer questions like this.

Why did I want law school?

I wanted to keep proving that I "could".

Would I have been ok if I didn't have law school?

Sometimes I think I would have been better off and sometimes I think I would have just been bobbing up and down in the world like a buoy.

Why did I want to live by myself?

I needed something stable to come home to.

Would I have been ok without it?

No, it was definitely time.

Why did I want the teeth whitening gum I bought today?

Because all magazines say that gum removes things that stain your teeth.

Would I have been ok without it?

Definitely. That was unnecessary.

It's harder to answer these questions about things that are still wanted. For example, I obviously do not need a new party dress and only believe I need one because I have too many fashion magazine subscriptions. But in the store earlier I started to really feel like I NEEDED it and that if I didn't have it I would never feel sexy again. There are weird undercurrents in the world of want.

So there's this big thing. And I really wanted it. I've wanted it longer than I can remember wanting anything else and I've lost so many nights of sleep wanting it that you could stitch the minutes together and form a childhood. So it's odd to suddenly be resigned to the idea that it's not something that's in my cards. I don't know if I'm getting over it and moving on or fighting it and drowning. But I'm losing more minutes of sleep. There's so much dreaming going on in my head these days, I have nothing left by nightfall. Just that same feeling of looking down and watching it fall away.

The Coast

2007-06-18T10:14:00.000-05:00

So we're back from our jaunt to the pacific northwest. I went to the coast fairly often when I was growing up and fern filled forests are as much reminders of home as salt crusted deserts and vineyard rows. This stay was no disappointment and was enriched by the fact that I haven't seen my family in so long. Waking up to the sound of the ocean is even better when the love of your life is next to you and mom's famous big breakfasts are waiting downstairs.

kyle spent his longest time yet with my family and survived no worse off (save perhaps a little lighter financially. you have to watch your pockets around my fam.). my grandparents held up pretty well all week, despite being 81 and 82. Only one of my aunts was able to come, but Rich and Linda definitely added something to the atmosphere. I had nights of the best seafood in the country and days full of tourist traps and tiny seaside knickknack shops.
I could go on and on and on, but honestly I think to do so would make me too homesick. It's amazing to spend an entire year thinking about one week and then have it disappear like a quick breath. The only salve available is the fact that I'm off this weekend to spend an entire week in D.C. with Jed and Kate, which is my longest spree yet in our nation's capital and which is completely free of touristy smithsonian demands, which provides respite for my travel weary feet.
Of course, there is that little nagging thing called my book...whatever happened to that?...

Father's Day

2007-06-17T10:40:00.000-05:00

It's father's day. I thought I'd remind you in case you forgot. You might have. Unlike Mother's Day, which always fell during the school year, there was never a reminder about Father's Day when I was growing up. Thank God for commercialism. If it wasn't for all the Father's Day advertising, I would have completely forgotten about it. Not that I think my father would have really minded, but there's no reason to go against the grain of Hallmark holidays.

My little brother has two dads. Well, technically, I suppose he has 3, if you count his biological one, but we don't. Randy has known Lonnie basically his entire life and has lived with him since he was...3 or 4. He spends a lot more time with Lonnie than he does with our dad, since the divorce happened only a year after he was born and Randy hasn't lived with dad full time since. They have their time together and it's fine. I don't know how Dad really feels about missing out on living with Rand. We don't talk about it.

Theoretically I should feel like I have two dads too, but I don't. That's not saying anything about Lonnie. Lonnie is a great man and I think sometimes that if it wasn't for Lonnie, my outlook on men in general might be pretty grim. It isn't a stubborn loyalty to my own father either. I just don't think that I equate the word "dad" with that guy that is in your house taking care of you. "Dad" is the person who is smarter than you, who gets mad at you and who is responsible for your bad habits and short temper. In all of your memories he is both an adversary and the person who is constantly instructing you. You learn more from your father about the mechanical workings of the world than you will from any other person. He's also the person who is forced to deal with you whether he likes it or not because it's his fault you exist in the first place. That's my dad.

I don't mean to harp on my father, if that's what it sounds like I'm doing. We just have a different relationship than the one I have with anyone else in my life and I could never confuse him with someone else. Nobody gets me mad faster and yet I do take comfort at times in his simple logic and unemotional outlook on things. We don't have a very warm relationship, but he catches me off guard at times with his spontaneous displays of attachment. I think my father used to be a different person and that person still bubbles up at times. I don't know if I would have liked that person any better, but I believe that my dad might have been happier with that personality. I don't feel like he laughs very much anymore. I don't know. It's hard to say. I don't even think I can actually make judgments about my father, since so much of his life is hidden from me. I also have to filter my own feelings about him through what I hear about him from my mother.

I'm sure I would have been friends with my dad in high school. Captain of the girls' powderpuff team, number 1 in his class, straight 4.0's, quarterback on the football team. He sounds like a very well rounded person. I believe he had lots of friends, although it's hard to tell because he, like me, hated it when people signed his yearbook. He didn't like them marking up his stuff. So maybe he was more himself than I imagine. He had one friend that lasted beyond high school, but I don't believe they keep in touch now. He also had a friend in medical school, but I don't think they keep in touch either.

He does have a brother and 3 sisters who positively adore him. His mother thinks the world of him as well. Maybe that's enough. I forget sometimes that they are there because none of them are really in touch with me. Weird, weird family. Divorced parents, detached mom, Navy dad, farm life. The picture I have of my father's childhood is unpleasant, but that's definitely shaded with my memories of uncomfortable Christmases.

I don't know. My dad is my dad. I miss him, but spending too much time together wears me out. We're only really happy together when we're travelling or trying something new. I think that we use each other to generate inertia to do certain things. We go to new states, try new restaurants, check out plays from new companies. One of the things we share is dissastisfaction with anything we've already seen. I think that's why he doesn't understand my nostalgia about Disney. No reason to hang onto the past. The man doesn't keep photos or letters or trophies or anything. If anyone ever lived in the now...I think it makes him impossible to shop for on father's day. He's rich, so there's no special treat I can buy that he wouldn't get himself. He's not nostalgic so giving him a mug with a picture of us would just make me feel stupid. And we can't do dinner because I'm not there. I guess I'll just call and try to avoid mentioning that it's father's day. Holidays irritate him. It's ok, they pretty much irritate me too.

(Side note to Kyle: except for our anniversary. Fail to celebrate our anniversary and you shall face certain doom.)

Happy B-day (and that's it for a while)

2007-06-07T12:06:00.001-05:00

I'm going to Oregon tomorrow at 5 AM and I won't be back for a week, so no blogs. Blogless world.

So I have to get a scheduled blog out of the way early. Let's all pretend that it's June 10th. Or better yet, wait until June 10th and then come back.

The June 10th blog:

Happy Birthday Michelle! I think I actually did a b-day blog for Schovy before but God knows if she saw it because she doesn't pay enough attention to me and the things I do. So here's another one and I'm sending it all the way over to England where she is and where I am not. Miss you so much!!!

Ze story de Meeshell -

Totally hated her in 7th grade. Can tell you where I was when I decided I hated her. I was standing in Mrs. Nelson's science class, on the second floor of Oly Jr., next to one of those big black tables we all had to sit at and I was looking down at my yearbook. You know how everyone randomly signs everyone's yearbook in jr. high and you don't get yours back until the end of the period? Michelle had started a page of my yearbook and wrote: "Carlie, I don't really know you. H.A.G.S. Michelle." So, of course, not only was there some random note from a girl I didn't know who didn't even FAKE being my friend, the rest of my page was dedicated to "Carlie". I realize that this is a lame reason to hate someone, but it was good enough for me.

Flash forward to 10th grade. Despite hating her, Michelle repeatedly turned up in my life due to her involvement in drama. She was just sort of always around and I honestly don't know how we started being friends. It just popped up one day like a daisy. And then we were pretty inseperable. ???? I don't know. Schovy (as everyone calls her) ended up being nothing like I thought she was. I thought she was a jock with an attitude, but she's the most unassuming, forgiving, and open person I've ever met.

She also had all sorts of endearing problems, like an inability to apply self-tanner correctly (hahahaha) and a laugh that honestly sounds like geese honking. We didn't have that much in common in high school, though, outside of drama and honors classes. Schoves didn't really enjoy being a "girl" and didn't really understand "boys" and got upset when I "sat on her" and "forced her to ask people to dances". And she complained about every costume I put her in. "It's too tight" "It's too low cut" "Why do you keep making me wear all these stupid ruffles!" We pretty much fought our way through high school. And then I threatened her life with great sincerity on our senior trip when she continued to use a certain singing fish to wake me up at 7 am.

But we were the only two people going to the U (outside of a certain red headed boy that I hope has met a terrible fate) so we took a class together and went to all the theater performances and everything sort of calmed down. Michelle (I'm the only one who doesn't call her Schovy) and I actually have a ton in common. We love theater, Shakespeare especially. We love poetry and good stories. We love old movies (Gene Kelley! Be still my heart!) and we love singing along with the radio badly. We do not love Budoh Macbeth and we do not love having people ask us when we are getting married. We are also both incredibly stubborn and some day it is quite possible that we will kill each other in an epic battle of wit.

But until then, Michelle is positively one of my dearest friends and I'm envious of her good heart, her non-judgmental outlook on life and her ability to make everyone around her feel included and welcome. I would pay a mad amount of cash to be with her on her birthday, filling her bedroom up with baloons and hitting all of "our" spots in London. She is very possibly the greatest person I know and I am eternally grateful for her patience, her counsel and her friendship. I love you, mi belle!

"What happens in London, stays in London"
"I just got molested and you did NOTHING!"
"Take me to the river...put me in the water..."
"You guys, that buffalo just rammed our car!"
"Fudge? Fudge? FUDGE!"
"Hold on. I'm air drying."
"I quit the friendship!"
"You mean the guy with the purple hair?"
"I need my fix. I need the clam chowder."
"Shut it!"
"Nerdbomber"
"Schovy, I'm gonna kill you. Get the wood."

Declaring my major

2007-06-06T14:46:00.000-05:00

So, you know how I change my entire life plan every ten minutes? Yeah, that's nothing new and the result is that I have the most confused work experience that anyone could ever have. I think it's good to have some variation, but I definitely overdid it. I swear it all started with the idea that you had to declare your major in college and then really work hard to realize your dreams. That's not a good thing to tell 18 year olds. Of course, lots of my friends instinctively got their generals out of the way and then moved on to one or two possible paths. I, on the other hand, had tested out of a lot of general classes and was unfortunate enough to have the entirety of the university curriculum at my manicured fingertips.

Phase 1: Random fact - I used to design costumes. I actually spent half of jr.high and all of high school doing the costumes for the theater departments. If that sounds lame, it totally is. But I didn't know that at the time. No, at the time, I thought I was the pimp shit of hemming. I even won a state award my senior year. I knew what I was doing with my life. I was going to win a Tony. I got a theater scholarship to the University of Utah and everything. I had all of my first year classes lined up: Intro to Theater, Costume Design, Fashion Construction, History of Textiles. And then this really great thing happened. I was offered a summer position at the Utah Opera. They only take 1 to 2 people a year. And then something happened that was surprising at the time, but in retrospect was totally predictable. Once I had actually succeeded and gotten exactly what I wanted, I changed my mind. I dropped theater like a bad habit and turned down the job at Utah Opera. I kept the scholarship by taking one acting class, but that was it. That part of my life was done.

Phase 2: The problem with leaving the world of theater is that it was all I had been thinking about for the last 5 years. I didn't have that many outside interests. So when I dropped it, suddenly everything was fascinating and new. Big problem. I felt like I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, but the only other thing I really enjoyed doing was writing. So I went to the academic advisor's office and re-declared my major as journalism. I took a year of communication courses and things like that, but realized that I couldn't be as invasive as I needed to be. I always ended up writing what I thought rather than "the inside scoop". The only class I really loved was photojournalism. So I decided it was a sign from God that I was meant to take pictures for a living.

Phase 3: So I had my nice camera and I was getting pretty good at the photography thing. I took my second photojournalism class and then for fun I took a photography class from the art department. In the meantime I had started doing paid portrait sessions for people I knew. I did a few senior photo sessions and things like that before I moved on to engagement sessions. The next thing I new I was doing full on weddings and making 5 grand per event. It was fun work and I really liked how creative it was, while still being "functional". Obviously, this was a lot better than running around trying to take pictures that were socially important. So I went back to the academic advisor and switched my major from journalism to art. I was going to be a professional wedding photographer.

Phase 4: That went well for a while actually, until I got completely burnt out all of a sudden. I started feeling like I was contributing enough to the world. What was I doing, anyway? I was just taking pictures of parties. I started to get nagging sessions of guilt about adding to a consumer driven wedding market that was already creating unrealistic expectations in the minds of young women. Besides, I was turning down smaller weddings so I could take the big money jobs, when the whole reason I got into it was to provide a cheaper but still classy alternative. I was turning into a bad person. So I took some other courses randomly. One was adolescent psychology and I just fell into it completely. It was so interesting, especially the part about the school environment. There were so many things that had to be done in schools! That's when I started thinking about teaching. If I became a teacher, I could really make a difference and I could turn around the lives of young, misguided teens. So I went to the academic advisor and told her that I needed to redeclare as an education major. She took one look at my history and said she wasn't changing it until I could prove that I was serious about it.

Phase 5: So I did something a little radical, even for me. I didn't register for the second half of my sophomore year. Instead, I went straight to the local school districts and got a job as a substitute teacher. I took every position I could get for the first month, until teachers became familiar with me. After a while I had classes who requested me all the time and I got some jobs that lasted a few weeks to a couple months. I was finally inside the classroom, in charge of really teaching these kids. I was making a difference in their young lives. And you know what? It totally blew. I had panic attacks regularly about kids who weren't reading at grade level. I started getting to schools as early as 6 AM, waiting there like a groupie until the janitor unlocked the door so I could sprint in and prepare elaborate classroom projects. I spent so much on classroom materials (and was paid so little) that I took a night job at a department store and kept picking up photography jobs for the weekends. And I was tired. I got tired of yelling at students who wouldn't settle down, tired of kids who weren't potty trained or didn't know not to eat their boogers, tired of parents who sent their kids to school in pajamas during snowstorms, tired of faculty meetings in which teachers would just bitch about particular children and how they wished those families would move away. I was tired. And really cynical. I needed a change. I needed happiness. Do you know where happiness is?

Phase 6: Um, yeah, I quit teaching and got a job at Disney World. I needed sunshine and laughter and tanning and people my own age. I needed a mindless job that wouldn't have me up until 3 AM, creating word puzzles. I needed to stop having nightmares about fire drills. And there was Disney, like a little beacon of sunny goodness. And you know what happened? They made me take out the garbage and clean up vomit 6 days a week, 9 hours a day and then paid me so little that I wasn't able to fully cover my rent. My life became one big mindless routine of simple activities. Wake up. Go to grocery store. Come home. Make sandwich. Go to work. Pick up garbage. Put in new bag. Take garbage out to dumpster. Wipe tables. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Even the trips to the park weren't enough to keep my interest. I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't empowered at all. The thought of doing that forever was horrifying. I needed to really do something with my life.

Phase 7: I went back to school, ambitionless and directionless. I signed up for random classes because they were at convenient times and threw myself into reading books, trying to find a good path. To facilitate the reading of books, I got a job at an independent bookstore. And then I spent a year having no idea what I was going to do. I was doing boudoir photography on the side for money, but that wasn't the most appealing career. For those who don't know, that means I was taking scandalous pictures of married women for their husbands, etc. Still, putting 38 year olds in pin-up costumes is pretty damn boring, no matter how nice the lighting is. Finally, at the beginning of my senior year, listless and uncertain, I went back to the academic advisor, empty handed. I asked her to just find me a path. When she pulled up my record she pointed out that I was one class short of earning an English degree. When I had defaulted to taking random classes I signed up for a lot of English courses because I had read all the books anyway. I was only short one advanced class. Took it. Done. Here's your degree, congratulations on graduating. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Phase 8: So what do you do with a B.A. in English? You take the LSAT. Why do you take the LSAT? I don't know. What happens when you get the scores back? You consider law school and realize you have nothing better to do. If you're lucky, you're already in love with someone in another state. So you move there and go to law school. And then you start blogging and basically your life gets pretty lame. Luckily, you stumble on a random side program called ADR and put all of your attention on that, ignoring the mainstream classes. Despite your best efforts to the contrary, you do well and they give you a J.D. and a pat on the back.

Phase 9: ??? Basically I'm qualified to design a gown, write a news story about it, photograph it, teach others how to think about it, clean it, write an essay about the hidden themes behind the gown and then mediate any arguments the gown gets into. So if anyone is hiring for that, I'm your girl.

Ex-communication

2007-06-05T12:16:00.001-05:00

During my marathon of writing/deleting book chapters yesterday, I watched Before Sunset. It's the sequel to Before Sunrise and if you didn't catch either of these movies, it's probably because you have Y chromosomes. Before Sunrise is an Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy movie about two young strangers who meet at a train station in Europe and spend the whole night talking to each other while wandering around some European city. The sequel is them meeting semi-accidentally in Paris 9 years later and you find out that although they had planned to meet again, they had not seen each other since that one night. The two movies are basically two long conversations about life and love and relationships and everything else. Watching them is a lot like being on a date. If you haven't seen them that probably sounds like the most boring way to spend 4 hours of your life, but I would actually recommend them highly. Not that this actually matters. I have a hard time renting movies that my friends tell me to go see, let alone taking movie suggestions from a blog.

Anyway, the interesting thing about the sequel is that you can tell that these two people have been spending the last 9 years thinking of all the things they want to say to each other, but when they're actually together things come out in a confusing rush and it's apparent that they still can't communicate what they're feeling. They lie to each other about how happy they are with their lives and their feelings about the one night stand 9 years ago. Eventually the truth seems to leak out, but neither ever seems to really come clean.

Ok, so I have exes. Only one of them really deserves that title, since the rest are lumped together in a general category of mistakes that lasted between a month and a year. The only one I still talk to is Zach (though we don't talk nearly as often as we should and I hope he's reading this so he can get off his ass and call me. sending text messages in the middle of the night does not count.). Zach and I are, I believe, pretty honest with each other about everything, but it took us a good three year period to get to the point where we could cut out the bullshit and every now and then I still get the impression that I'm only getting half of the conversation.

I can't imagine talking to my other exes. One is one of few people on the planet that I would actually wish a horrible demise upon. Another is a confused college mistake that I'm sure has now melted his brain with illegal substances and wouldn't be worth talking to about anything. The only other relevant relationship played so many mindgames that at the end of each date I wasn't even sure what had happened. Luckily I was able to review all confusing conversations when he used them against me at the end of the relationship. Have you ever been dumped because you lack the clarity of following your philosophical convictions all the way through to reality? I have. I still don't even know what that means. Apparently I have a cloudy soul. Nice.

We only had one conversation post relationship demise and it consisted of him trying to get back together and me trying not to vomit the obscene amounts of strawberry daquiri I had been sucking down. If anything meaningful was said, I blocked it out. If we were to meet again in total sobriety I don't know if we would have a normal conversation in which he apologized for being a total freak while we were dating or if he would simply point and shout, "Thy soul is cloudy. Be gone with ye." Dating intellectuals is the worst.

In a purely philosophical sense, it's too bad that these lines of communication have been closed, because I had The Night with each of these people at one time or another. I do not mean the night of going all the way, I mean the night in which you talk and talk about everything until the sun comes up and you walk away feeling like one more person on the planet really gets you. That's so self centered when you think about it, but I think nothing is as romantic as really listening to someone and talking without censorship. It would be nice to think that you could meet up a decade later and talk without feeling closed off from each other. It's so much more depressing and invalidating to have The Night with someone and then willingly decide to stop talking to each other than to never have that connection at all.

I don't think I could ever stop talking to Kyle. Even if he did horrible things to me I would still want to talk to him about them. I'm completely addicted to talking to him. Poor kid. He's probably getting some sort of oratory callus from the sound of my voice.

you're cordially invited to my $40,000 party...please bring a toaster...

2007-06-04T14:11:00.000-05:00

Jed and I were talking about weddings today. I told him all about the one I just went to and immediately the conversation turned to cost. How much was a soiree like that running in north canton? I'm not exactly sure, but I know the food/alcohol was only 4.50 a head (and Kyle and I drank enough to cover about 20 times that amount) and renting the entire bed and breakfast was only $1000. I say "only" 1000 because there were about 15 rooms that were rented out and that's not that bad. On the other hand, we've just covered about $1500 and that was just two elements of the party. We didn't talk about everyone's attire, the cake, the DJ, the rental of the reception hall itself, the minister, the flowers, the salon visits, the photographer, the videographer, the rehearsal dinner, the invitations, the tiny pots of honey, the invitations, the programs, etc etc etc. This wedding was easily a $20,000 affair.

Did you know that's actually the average costs of weddings these days? $20,000. That's almost a year's salary for a lot of people and it's spent on 1 or 2 nights of celebration. I'm not knocking big weddings - I had a blast this weekend. But that's a whole lot of money for a party.

I used to want a huge wedding. The weddings in Utah that I attended were mostly pulled off by people under the age of 25 - big events with mediocre buffets and guest lists that covered most everyone we ever knew in high school. They were expensive, but a lot of that money was tied up in the cost of the dress, the reception location and the rings. Now, depending on how you look at it, this could be a good/bad decision. The dress and the rings are objects that you get to keep, rather than 1 day events. You can almost consider them investments in heirlooms for future children. Besides, doesn't everyone like to show off a giant rock? The reception location will A) determine whether some guests show up, B) be preserved eternally in your wedding photos and C) can say a lot about what kind of wedding you're having. But the reality is that I've been to some weddings in beautiful buildings and I've had a really bad time because the food was inedible, there was no alcohol and the only music present was provided by violins and harps. I like the idea of spending money on making sure guests have a good time. I think it would be better to have an expensive wedding that was a ton of fun but seemed pretty casual than an expensive wedding that felt expensive and kept people checking their watches all night.

Perfect world - you can have both and be like the brides on television who color coordinate their dream destination weddings and talk about how it was the single greatest day of their lives. Reality (at least in my case) - if Kyle and I get married, we will be responsible for flying our families and wedding parties out to wherever we're getting married. Since it's pretty unlikely that any of our people will come together on their own, that means paying for the airfare/hotel rooms of approximately 30 people. Basically, the majority of our wedding budget would be spent just trying to get people to show up. I don't want a major ring because it would make me nervous and I fully intend on never spending more than 100 dollars on a wedding dress. Even so, the leftovers of our budget would probably result in a backyard BBQ type of wedding, complete with a paper centerpiece from JoAnn's fabrics. Not exactly the Disney Dream Wedding I was hoping for.

But the funny thing is, I've kind of stopped daydreaming about my wedding. Every now and then I'll think of something that would be cute, but it's hard to get that worked up about something that's only going to last a day or two. The honeymoon stirs a bit more wishful thinking, but even that will only be a week. When I really think about writing out all those checks, I start daydreaming about having a home and saving up for other things. Jed put it nicely when he pointed out that we've probably matured past the need for a big "presentation" and are now at the point where we're clear about what we really want out of a marriage. It makes me glad I waited to get married. I'm sure my wedding would have been just lovely at 20, but there would have been a whole lot of empty space once everyone had driven away.

Wedding Weekend

2007-06-03T21:13:00.000-05:00

I had such a wonderful weekend. Kyle came and picked me up from Nate's house on Thursday night (following a riveting game of real life car soccer - details later). We went to his parents and enjoyed the 5 million cable channels and the free food (as always). On Friday we picked up Kyle's tux and hung out with Kaitlyn for a little while before heading to the rehearsal dinner for Justin and Jenna's wedding.

I've been to my fair share of weddings and about half of those have included the rehearsal dinner. This was hands down the best rehearsal dinner/wedding package I've ever seen. The wedding was held at Fieldcrest of North Canton, which is this historic lodge/inn that sits on 50 acres. The wedding and reception took place inside this fantastic lodge and the bridal party stayed at the historic inn about 100 feet from there. The groomsmans gifts were rooms in the inn, so we got to stay in this incredible place for free. So the rehearsal was there and then we all went to the Winking Lizard, which had this really good menu ready for us. The bride and groom not only bought us dinner but also paid for the beer, so we got pitchers of Guinness, which would have been better for Kyle if he hadn't been driving. I bravely tried to make up the difference but unfortunately I cannot drink that much and we actually had to walk away from half a pitcher. We hung out at a bonfire at the groom's house that night before heading back to Kyle's parents.

Random note - that night was a long night due to this lovely Ohio weather. It was so hot, I couldn't sleep at all. It didn't help that I was sharing a bed with Kaitlyn who is the world's most cuddly child. And by cuddly, I mean she moves to wherever you are in the bed and crawls on top of you (while completely asleep) so that she can share the fact that she's 5 million degrees when sleeping. It was like sleeping while duct taped to a heating pad.

So the next morning we checked in to the inn (after a tea party hosted by Kaitlyn and featuring the play food I made her thankyouverymuch) and I was able to spend 4 fantastic hours enjoying the luxury of our room while Kyle ran around with everyone and did pictures/shots/general groomsman stuff. The wedding was beautiful and very personal. The reception started off a little slow, though, at least for me, because Kyle was all tied up with more pictures and his other duties and I didn't know a soul. Apparently Kyle is Justin's only high school friend left because everyone else was a relative or co-worker. I actually met a lovely girl named Annie when we found out that we had been assigned to the dates-of-groomsmen table and we had a good time talking since she didn't know anyone else either.

I wish I had taken pictures of the lodge (or anything else, for that matter). It was so amazing, but it just didn't even occur to me to capture the moment. The bridal gift was really sweet, too. Each place setting had a little pot of honey with a pottery top featuring a heart. It was very nice. There was also an open bar from 5-11, so Annie and I kicked back about 5 drinks each before things got started. The bridal party finally came into the reception almost an hour later and we had dinner. Then there was the bride+groom dance, the bride+father dance, the bride+stepfather dance, the groom+mother dance and the groomsmen+bridesmaid dance. Then there were 4 toasts, the bouquet toss, the garter toss, the cake cutting and I finally got my date back.

The DJ was a friend of theirs that we had met at the bonfire and he did a really nice job. We danced and danced until midnight and then everyone who was staying at the inn headed back over there and played games in the billiard room until we all passed out one by one. It was a rough night for me. I had 4 whiskey and cokes before the wedding, two glasses of spumante with dinner, a vodka and cranberry, 6 shots and 3 highballs of whiskey during the reception, 4 gin w/olives while we were dancing and a healthy allowance of Jameson at the after party. Kyle matched me drink for drink and we passed out hardcore right around 1 AM. It's amazing we made it back to our room without making complete fools of ourselves. Or if we did, we don't remember.

When we woke up I was hungover as shit and Kyle was still drunk, so it was sort of a tentative morning. Everyone was pretty much in the state we were in and we all headed to the lodge for the Sunday brunch they had going on. Apparently brunch at this place is a big deal because a lot of people there were all dressed up (whereas we were mainly in sweats and t-shirts). We got a good deal on the buffet so we loaded up to cure the alcohol poisoning. Random fact - shrimp and cocktail sauce is not actually as effective as eating 2 pounds of bacon, even if it is more expensive. Eating 2 pounds of bacon apparently cures anything.

So yeah, we're back home now and hopefully by tomorrow we will have fully recovered. It was a lovely wedding and I'm really happy for Jenna and Justin, who are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Next time around, though, I'm going to try to remember that open bar does not automatically mean that you should drink an entire month's (summer's? year's?) worth of alcohol just because it's free.

Sorry, it's an inside joke

2007-05-31T10:18:00.000-05:00

Meep.

Every now and then I post an inside joke in one of my blogs and I hope that the "outside" readers will just gloss over it. This has only really bit me in the A once (sorry to use harsh letters), when I posted an inside joke between Nate and myself and someone commented with the opinion that it was the most judgmental thing I'd ever written. That's the problem with inside jokes. They don't translate well if they're not clearly labeled. But you don't want to follow up every statement with "sorry - inside joke" because that sounds like you're being a dick. Besides, there's the chance that the person you were speaking to, who was not in on the joke, laughed anyway and then started using the phrase and you feel bad because they look like an ass. Caesar salad!

I could completely abstain from using inside jokes, but I write these blog entries instead of writing letters to people, so at times I can't help but slip personal notes into them. Hey, isn't that Lucas? Besides, the one person who is in on the joke is usually thrilled, or at least gets that I'm teasing them, i.e. were you wearing those socks? Some things are universally funny anyway. If I type "Oh, snap!" most people will know what I'm saying AND a choice few will understand why I decided to use that particular turn of phrase. But Nate and I were just checking out my blog map (hey, what's this big Asian country?) and I was telling him how weird it is that I keep getting new dots from all over the planet. Who are these people and why are they reading my blog? Should I be writing in a less personal way to reach the masses? What if they think I'm trying to convey some huge message? What if they think I'm part of an international conspiracy of inside joke code? What if there actually is an international conspiracy of inside joke code? What if Jed is actually JED?!?!

Yeah, this post will only be funny in its entirety to me. I apologize to everyone who reads my blog religiously (esp if you do lots of things religiously). What can I say? You should have seen this coming. After all, I am the original lifesaver candy.

A-K-Rowdy

2007-05-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here at the dining table in Nate's parents house. Everyone is sleeping and I'm very not sleeping because I'm broken and wanted to read about CRE more than I wanted to sleep. We played Clue tonight with his brother and his brother's girlfriend and I totally should have won, but I gave up the answer to everyone else. C'est la vie.

I love the drive to Akron so much. The first time I made it was with Kyle and it was the first time I came out to see him in Columbus. We were two or three days into the trip, so it was still sort of cool and novel that we were being relationship-ish and not just friend-ish, so I equate the drive to Akron with a whole lot of me thinking that Kyle was the cutest boy in the world. Not that I haven't thought that on other trips, but it was a little more intense the first time around. I miss that crazy/stupid feeling where you actually believe that the person you are with is the greatest person that has ever existed and you might as well just keel over because it will never get better than this.

The drive up today was the first long drive in Nate's new car. Have I posted that Nate got a new car? Yes, it is proof that constant nagging does pay off. Nate has a little red honda that doesn't try to kill me when I ride in it. The only drawback is that it has no radio. Does that mean that Nate and I had a deep, intimate conversation on the way up, which bared our souls? F*** no! (Sorry to use harsh letters) It meant that I pulled out my laptop and held it on my lap so we could listen to Dane Cook. That Dane Cook, he's a silly bitch.

We got here in time for dinner. I love Nate's parents. They're total intellectual, peace people. They were hippies before they were parents and there are cool photos and books all over. 3 minutes after we got here we were involved in a conversation about the underpinnings of the psychology of human happiness. It's pretty sweet. Weird fact - Nate's brother's girlfriend looks/acts exactly like Schovy, which made me miss her a ton. When we were playing Clue I kept having mormon game night flashbacks. Oh man, sometimes I miss the PG rated fun. Popcorn, Pictionary and Meg Ryan. That's all we needed in high school.

I suppose I should go study. I should actually go sleep, but I don't think that's going to happen. Nate is supposed to be waking me up in 7 hours so we can start our day of studying. We actually considered doing things like paintball or miniature golf or being out on the town and decided that the thing we would each enjoy most would be to sit and make each other study about ADR. So we're having a little ADR party up here in the Akron area. If you want to join in, you should stop by. Bring some Ruffles.

Work

2007-05-29T17:41:00.000-05:00

Do you remember Channel One? If your school didn't have it, it was a news program everyone had to watch in 1st period. Channel One paid for televisions to be put in every classroom and then tried to involve kids in the news by making us watch stories told by young reporters. I was one of the geeky kids who liked Channel One, which isn't that much of a surprise since I've been addicted to CNN forever. My favorite reporter was also the youngest, an 18 year old named Lisa Ling. I'm not sure if she was my favorite because she was Chinese or because she seemed to have the most straightforward way of getting right to the point of the story.

Lisa Ling went on to bigger and better things. Right now she's the correspondent for the Oprah show. Didn't know Oprah had a correspondent? Lisa Ling goes out and reports on international topics, like forced vaginal mutilation, abandoned Chinese babies, Virginia Tech and the Katrina aftermath. She's also a correspondent for National Geographic. Basically, Lisa Ling goes all over the world and blows these kinds of stories open so that everyone can see what's going on.

I can't tell you the level of respect I have for that kind of work. On one hand it seems like a dream job. Exciting and really effective at changing things. On the other hand, it would be exhausting to bounce all over the planet, tracking down interviews and good shots for 15 minutes of screen time, if that. I think it would also get depressing, like no matter where you went there were horrible things being done to people by other people and your job was to get in there and really see them. I'm not sure I could do it.

I went to work today. I don't know if I really make an impact. I get a lot of things done and I always produce a lot of stuff (papers, stacks, folders, notes) but I don't know if I am producing a real result. Part of that book I keep talking about was that everyone in this generation expects to make a big contribution but we can't all make huge contributions, or at least not the kind of contribution that you can see immediately. I think being able to see it would make it easier to throw myself into work without getting tired or bored. So how do people who really don't think they're making a difference at all keep going to work? Is it enough for them that they "have to"? Am I even allowed to put that in quotations? I mean, a lot of people really do have to.

Apparently I'm not going to come to any clear conclusions today. I'm just going to ramble. Nice.

Shop it out

2007-05-28T21:44:00.000-05:00

I had a really hard night last night. After Kyle fell asleep I pulled out the laptop and started reading my old emails from Kellie. The last time I talked to her was the night before she died, which was five years ago as of last night. I thought I was ok and then the next thing I knew I just fell apart. I knew I was sad, but I was caught off guard by how bad I got when I really let myself start feeling it. I ended up having incredibly bad nightmares that were very vivid and had absolutely nothing to do with Kellie. I think Nate's right, whenever I'm stressed out about something I subconsciously stress myself out about something else that's less important so I don't have to focus on it.

When I woke up this morning Kyle let me have some time to myself. I hung out for a while and just felt a combination of tired and sad and restless. I did find my locket a couple days ago, so I put it on and then I pulled out all my pictures and letters and went through them. And then I decided that I needed to stop feeling so depressed whenever I think about her and when I look at my locket, or someone asks me about it, I get unhappy. So I went out and bought a different way to remember my cousin. Commercial grief? I took a cue from Kellie. When distressed - shop it out.

I decided I needed a new piece of jewelry. I bought the locket not very long after I lost Kellie because I wanted something that felt like she was near. That's why I put her photo so close to me. But the reality is that the locket only reminds me that she's not here, not that she used to be here. So I got a pearl ring because Kellie's birthstone is pearl. Kyle was very patient and understanding and we hit about every jewelry store in Columbus. Finally we went to Jared's up at Polaris and I found the perfect ring. And I feel really happy about it.

Women Math and Men Math

2007-05-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

More thoughts from GenMe. I think I'll probably be talking about this book for quite a while. I still don't know if I'm swallowing the whole thing, but there were a lot of interesting mini-revelations. For discussion today is Men Math and Women Math.

Women Math:

Women who want to have their own children understand that they have to have these children before 35, 40 at the latest. Therefore, women have a habit of automatically calculating the fastest reasonable time to marriage once they meet someone. They then add at least two years of time to be married before having children and then try to space the children two years apart. For example, if a woman meets a man at 26 that she thinks she could see herself with forever, she will calculate this relationship possibility by thinking 26 + 2 = marriage +2 = 1st baby = 30. Of course, it may take a longer or shorter amount of time, but these are the increments that many women use. This is woman math.

Men Math:

Men assume that until they reach the age of 35-40 they can marry any age woman they want. So if a man meets a woman he could see himself with forever at 26, he is not doing the same calculations as the woman because he is not under the same time limit. Instead of thinking about having children at 30, the man is trying to decide if he could meet anyone better in the next 9-14 years. If a man decides too early he may be limiting his chances at finding the best possible match. This is men math.

I discussed this with Janean, Nate and Drew last night. Janean (like me) was appalled and although not surprised, this lends credence to the theory that all men are secretly assholes. Of course, we could just be biologically jealous, since both of us operate under the women math theory. Nate and Drew both agreed that this is how men think and then pointed out that this can actually cause stress because there is pressure to either find that perfect match or free yourself up for something better, whereas women aren't as concerned (theoretically) with find the one perfect person.

Ironically, this would appear to have not worked in the favor of men. For every 1 single women in America, there are 1.2 single men. Of course, there are more women than men, so how is this possible? The reality is that the older men are marrying into the younger population, thus snatching them up. Which is exactly why women are so concerned with getting into that under 35 time limit if they want to get married/have a family. It's like women after 35 are automatically disqualified.

Disclaimer before I post - I do not assume that all women and all men think this way. I know many women who are not concerned at all with getting married "on time", either because they don't want a family or because they know that as soon as they're looking for something like that, they can get it. I also know many men who are in committed relationships without actively looking around for something better, despite their young age. I'm simply saying that if I had to pick a theory of operation for most young Americans, I would say that Women Math and Men Math wins out.

A day of Asian

2007-05-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

Nate and I hit the Asian festival early this morning. It opened at 10 and we were there by 10:30. It's being held at Franklin Park and it continues tomorrow (Sunday), free to anyone who wants to partake. I highly recommend it, it made for a very fun day. We wandered around and saw a lot of everything in the five and a half hours we were there. This picture was during the Lion Dance demonstration. I love the little lion dancers, they're so cute. The best part about this little lion is that the front and back are twin boys. They were actually pretty good. We saw a lot of other demonstrations. My favorite was the Indian dancing done by four teenage girls, but Nate was biased towards the Dragon Phoenix wushu club, since he's a member.

I got Panda Express for breakfast, which was an awesome way to start the day. I felt bad later about not supporting local Asian cuisine, so I spent 5 dollars on the worst iced tea in the history of the world. Other than that I only bought a jade turtle for Kyle. There would have been many more retail adventures, but it turns out that the Asian festival, and the rest of Franklin Park, is devoid of ATMs. I guess I'll have to go back tomorrow and get those little silk dresses.

What other highlights...we watched people play...tekron? Something like that. It's basically volleyball with your feet, played by teams of three. Think hackey sack meets volleyball. They were pretty talented, but it was a completely silent game so it was hard to watch after a while. Apparently you don't clap during tekron. We also saw a dance troup made up of 5 year old Chinese girls and if it wasn't for the fact that I was stuck with a witness, I would have put one of them in my purse. They were so cute!!! They had the red silk dresses and the pigtails and everything. They looked just like little dolls. I told Nate that it's lucky that Kyle and I will be having 75% white children because if a few popped out looking 100% Asian I know I'd love them more than the other ones.

Oh, and I got the worst sunburn because I'm an idiot. That's right, Nate. I'm owning up to this one. It's not your fault that I'm in severe pain, even though you watched me get burnt to a crisp. I'm the moron who didn't wear sunscreen. Yay cancer. In other news, the awesome foursome finally got together and had pizza tonight, saw Pirates with the rest of the gang, and I finally got to see Emily and Evan, who I will be hanging out with a lot this summer (hopefully?). Booooo to people who don't just sit around all day working on obscure education theory.

Go to the Asian festival. Support your local Asians!!!

You are Special!!!

2007-05-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

My summer reading has gotten out of control. I'm up to 2-3 books a day on the days that I'm home, which would be great if it was "fun" reading, but it's not. It's reading that I want to be doing, but after book #17 on education theory, my brain started to mush up a bit. I actually haven't read this much since I started law school, which is sad for all those silly classes. I haven't learned this much this quickly, either. But yesterday I hit an intellectual roadblock and I haven't gotten my bearings yet.

I read 2 books in quick succession yesterday on being the best teacher you can be. Both were full of very positive tidbits of information about things you can do in the classroom to make your students feel nurtured and encouraged. They included things like not grading in red ink because red is a "scary" color for children and not posting A+ papers on the bulletin board because it makes the C students feel bad. I noted a lot of this information and made a lot of connections between these practices and the CRE theory that I've been working on. It was a little educational lovefest in my living room all afternoon. And then I read book #3.

I've actually been dying to read this book since it came out, but it was continually checked out of OSU's main library. Why they only have one copy I'm not quite sure...but it was finally my turn and I saved it for last because I was so excited about it. The book is called "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans and More Confident, Assertive, Entitled -- and More Miserable Than Ever Before." It was written by a professor of sociology named Jean Twenge who studied the generation differences in standard surveys given out to college classes from the 50's onward. Since the surveys are basically identical, she was able to compare the information from each generation to see how attitudes have changed.

Generation Me is mainly made up of children born in the 80s and 90s, although some flexibility was allowed to include the children of the 70s. The idea is that we were born into a time in which individuality has always been stressed, whereas conformity was the social norm for all generations prior. Dr. Twenge argues that this focus on individuality and self-worth has actually harmed an entire generation who have been told that whatever you are is good enough and if you really feel something or want something, you are entitled to say it out loud and go after it. As a result, a huge majority of Generation Me actually expect to eventually be rich and/or famous, although the costs of health care and housing are skyrocketing. Therefore, the gap between expectations and reality has never been greater, and young America is unprepared to handle feelings of disappointment and an actual inability to be whatever you set your mind to.

I'm reading this, and I'm thinking "Oh my God, she's right!" I've always assumed that I would make a big contribution in the world and although I haven't assmued I would be rich I've always assumed that I would have a comfortable, beautiful home and an accomplished, beautiful family. But after I put the book down and thought for a while, I wasn't sure if I believed her statements. On the one hand, expectations do seem to be inflated, but on the other hand, at least from a personal statement, I actually could be rich if I wanted to. I come from a high-middle class family and I'm getting a law degree. I'm young, mostly white, and all the other crap that's supposed to give me a subconscious advantage in the minds of other people. So why shouldn't I have high expectations?

But then again, everyone does seem to feel entitled. I'm not sure if this is because I only hang out with entitled people (90% of my social circle is highly academic) or if this is because our generation was actually ripped off by all those "you are special" coloring books they gave us in 1st grade. I remember the self-important "All About Me" class presentations, the emphasis on individuality when writing my entrance essays, the 4 year period (extending into college) in which I was told (and actually 100% believed) that if I wanted it enough, I was going to win a Tony Award at some point in my life. How much of this is just a curriculum of delusion?

I'm not going to write this book for teachers and tell them not to encourage their students. From a certain light, it's nice to think that kids grow up thinking that they can do anything they want to. But when we get to the point where we think that criticism is so damaging to a child that it shouldn't be given, are we simply telling the child that being themselves is the greatest thing they can do and therefore there's no reason to try to be better? Why are we surprised when children fail to be good citizens if we tell them repeatedly that they don't have to be anything they don't want to be? Have we gone too far?

Oh my Oprah

2007-05-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

I love Oprah. I think I've posted about this before, but that's how much I love her. I love her enough to post twice about how much I love Oprah. If you think you don't love Oprah, you need to buy her 20th Anniversary Collection, because if you watch it I guarantee you will also love Oprah.

I woke up fat-bummed again, especially because I didn't feel like going for my run and even after I got my workout clothes on I ended up just laying back down and feeling blah. So I decided to eat breakfast and run later (a practice that always gives me a 50/50 chance of not running at all) and while I was eating breakfast I popped in the weight loss section of my Oprah DVDs. 10 minutes later, I'm ready to run and I've got tears running down my face because Jenny lost 330 pounds and got her life back!

Yes, Oprah is cheesy. You have to muscle your way past the theme music and the tearful faces in the audience, but once you do it's just so damn uplifting. This is why she's created a dynasty. Watching Oprah does generally make me feel better about my own life. Sometimes it's really sad, but ultimately you end by thinking that if we all just listened to Oprah, all of our problems would go away. Isn't that a nice thing to sell? I think so.

Her Angel network has done so many things for different charities and emergency relief situations. Her book club actually got people to read, even if it wasn't books that everyone else thinks people should be reading. She has a magazine, her television show has branched into spin-offs on cable television, and she just opened a girl's school in Africa to teach them to be leaders. For better or worse, she's done a lot of stuff by herself just by talking women into it by connecting with them in their living rooms.

Oh God, this little kid just donated his life savings to the Angel network so he could help send needy children to school. And I'm in tears again.

Seriously, you've got to start watching Oprah. It's so good. You don't even know.

Eye of the Tiger

2007-05-23T18:12:00.000-05:00

Went out last night and made bad decisions about calorie intake. It was all Nyoh's fault. Nate came over and we decided to hit the bar for a few drinks. They sell bottles of Strongbow, which I've been craving for weeks. We get to the bar and there's a line to get in that stretches out onto the sidewalk. The place was PACKED and I have no idea why. Good Tuesday night drink specials? If anyone is looking for the big group of undergrads trying to get laid, I know where they are on Tuesdays.

So we end up at Applebee's, sitting at the bar, watching the Jazz game, which was actually more pathetic than it looks typed out. I had a big sugary drink (that later tried to kill me) and Nate had some really good summer ale and we split an order of the greasiest nachos in the world. We closed down the joint (so lame) and went home, where we put old kung fu movies on mute, while listening to Dane Cook and drinking 6 packs from Kroger. It was quite awesome until 2 AM or so, when I got so sick I can't even tell you. I don't know what happened. I think my body just rejected the idea of Applebee's as an establishment. We're never going there again.

Between that and recent awful photos that have surfaced of me (Sheena!) I have been walking around feeling like a sea cow today. Stop now if you don't want to hear about it. Every now and then someone will leave a comment that tells me to stop whining about being fat. Here's a secret: if I don't like comments people leave, I delete them! I know, it's censorship and awful, etc., but it's my stupid blog. Anyway, if you don't want to hear about it, stop reading and check back later, or go find one of those pet blogs or the ones about the Kennedy theories. Anyway, so I'm all bummed and Kyle knows I'm bummed (he saw the pics) so he suggests exercising together since it was his day off. For the record, I have been exercising, which so far is only proving that it makes no damn difference, but Kyle and I have never been running together.

It was very awesome and if I can I'm going to convince him to get up every morning. We're not that far from the Olentangy river trail and we had time to just talk and talk. You think we'd get enough of each other talking, but it was nice to be talking without doing anything else. Actually, he probably does get enough of me, but he's a man and that's to be expected. I, on the other hand, could have deep conversations with that boy until we both turned blue. I did have a few twinges of panic when teeny girls jogged ahead of us, with their iPods and their arm-like thighs, but they're getting fewer and farther between. I've started to feel too old to compete with the freshman of OSU.

It's just stupid at this point that I keep letting it bother me without doing anything about it. I need to really crack down on myself. I 100% believe that it doesn't bother Kyle, which is helpful, but at the same time I feel like it makes me lose motivation to do anything about it. But now I don't want to be photographed until I'm more Nicole Richie than Kirstie Alley. Maybe the threat of Facebook will be the straw that breaks the sea cow's back.

Snapshot

2007-05-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in the green papasan. Kyle is on the purple couch to my left, playing Spiderman 3 on the PS2. Every now and then he says things like "whoa" and "oh man" and I smile and make appreciative noises even though I'm not watching. I really like having him here even when we aren't doing things together. I think sometimes that if I could keep him in my pocket and carry him around I would.

Beenie is sleeping in the penthouse of cage #1. She's covered herself with white fluff, but she's jammed up against the plastic so we have a perfect view of her smushed up face. Everytime Spiderman does something really noisy, she tucks her head a little deeper into her paws.

My files are sitting here on my right, perfectly organized and color coordinated. There's a folder for each section of my book, 52 in all, and they progress from right to left, back to front. When I need to, I just pop the lid on and tuck all my research out of sight. This is handy for spur of the moment entertaining. Too bad my only spur of the moment entertaining consists of Kyle and Nate, both who could care less about the state of my apartment. Thank god for PS2 and X-files.

My bed is straight ahead, just through the kitchen. It's not made. I consciously stopped making my bed now that I'm home all day. A well-made bed is just too inviting. I have to lay down on it in front of the air conditioner and spend the day reading and not contributing to society. It's just easier if I cover the bed with old clothes, shoeboxes and grocery bags.

There's a loaf of bread in my closet. I put it down yesterday when I was looking for my shoes and I keep forgetting to get it. Actually, I just don't care that it's over there. I don't really have room in the kitchen anyway. My attempts at dirty dish control have been fairly effective, but there's still only about three square feet total of counter space. It's all used up in a functional manner, except for a single framed photo of my parents and me, circa 1985.

I should get lunch together. Maybe PB&J, no crusts. I don't really have fruit or chips, but I can fake it with cheese and crackers if I have to. If I leave Kyle to it, he'll forget to eat entirely. Chicken tonight? I need to defrost if that's the case. Of course, I do have that chicken/vegetable skillet thing in the freezer. Better hit sunflower tomorrow for some fresh produce.

Oh, the life of me.

Constructive grief

2007-05-21T13:29:00.000-05:00

I've been stressed out about something I shouldn't be stressed out about. A week from today, Monday, May 28th, will be the five year anniversary of the day Kellie died. I don't know what to do about that. Theoretically I shouldn't do anything. I mean, it's not a holiday. I already try to celebrate Kellie's birthday in some way and I do something for her at Christmas. Doing something for the day she died seems like it's an anti-celebration.

I wouldn't even notice that I've been stressed out about it, if it wasn't for two specific things. The first is something totally weird that keeps popping into my head. There was a picture frame that Kellie bought me. It's the last thing she gave me. It was a vintage frame and I kept a picture of my father and his first car in it. Something happened to it when I was living at the old apartment, and Laura thought she saw the pieces that were missing, but I never found them. With everything else that was going on at that point, I just had to let it go. But it keeps coming to mind that it's broken. I can't do anything about it and honestly, it shouldn't matter that much. I have a lot of things from Kellie. It just keeps coming to the surface for some reason.

The other thing also has to do with the move. I don't know where my Kellie locket is. I've been in sort of a low grade panic about it for a couple months, but I just can't find it. Somehow, I know it is in my apartment, hiding somewhere. If I tore the place up, I'm sure I could locate it. I've been keeping myself from freaking out about it, though. The whole reason it got lost is that I was consciously trying not to wear it. I've been worried that I was hanging on to my grief too hard, so one of my new year's resolutions was to stop wearing it, or only wear it when I really felt like I was going to need it. And now I can't find it at all. Again, it's not something that should be stressing me out, because I'm sure it's here somewhere. It's just bothering me.

So, I have a week to get a grip on myself, or I feel like I'm going to have a really hard time on Monday. Kyle has the day off and I guess we'll probably do something, unless I really should just do something on my own. I hate dragging Kyle into that. It's so unfair to him, especially because he never knew her. She died about two months before we met. Maybe I should really focus on letting her go. I had a hard time the other night and ended up emailing everyone I could find on the facebook who graduated from her high school class. I asked them to send me pictures of her if they had them. I don't know why. Seeing pictures of her that were new to me would have been kind of like she still had stuff going on, I guess. Nobody had any. In 2001, I don't think digital pictures were a big thing yet. I went through the handful of emails I had from her too. I even had a moment of complete delusion where I considered calling her cell to see if I could get her voicemail. I'm sure that would have surprised whoever has that number now.

There has to be something I'm not doing that would make me let her go. I don't even feel bad now about trying to actively move on. It's been five years and I still spend at least 5 minutes a day just trying to catch my breath because it hurts that much to miss her. Sometimes I feel like if I don't let her go, at least a little bit, I'm just going to sink. I really hope I get a moment of clarity before Monday.

Update on the book writing

2007-05-20T16:35:00.000-05:00

Everything is still going really well. I can't believe how much I've read in the last week. I'm actually having dreams every night about classroom management and implementation of new programs. I had a spastic moment yesterday where I forgot that I have another year of law school and started looking into this new international education institute. I've been so wrapped up in this that it escaped my notice that a lot of people don't really understand what I'm doing. So I thought I'd clear that up...

The 30 second info-blob on CRE

Conflict resolution education is an approach to education that is designed to enhance students' emotional and social development. There are three goals: creating a safe learning environment, creating a constructive learning environment, and creating a constructive conflict community. So what does that mean? It means that CRE methods are used to make a class in which everyone feels safe and encouraged. The students work together to support each other and their own education. When there are conflicts, the students are given the skills to respond to the conflict in a constructive way. The idea is not to avoid conflicts, it's to use conflicts to your benefit and to the benefit of those around you.

How is this done? There is a focus on increasing perspective-taking, empathy and emotional awareness. It's basically the same things that we try to encourage in mediation, which is how the two fields are related. Agressive and hostile interactions are reduced by an increase in constructive conflict behaviors, but these behaviors are not limited to the teacher's intervention. The students themselves are taught to control their responses to conflict and to use their feelings in a constructive manner. All sorts of good things come out of this: improved school climate, kids having a better time at school, fewer disciplinary problems, less violence, improved social relationships, etc.

But seriously, how is this done? My book explains why CRE has so many benefits and then breaks down classic conflict resolution approaches, like the ones discussed above, and shows teachers how to sneak them into the current curriculum. English discussions become discussions about empathy through a careful selection of books and activities that increase opportunities for perspective-taking and connections to conflicts the children are familiar with. Reading books about the holocaust has commonly been linked to CRE lessons about bullying, peer pressure and prejudice, for example. Math story problems that focus on debts and payments are expanded to include creative ways to handle conflicts when one person owes another person money. Science lessons open the class up to discussions about bioethics, ecological responsibility and conservation, along with providing opportunities for constructive group work and problem-solving.

Basically, I'm writing a book that will hopefully lead to peaceful children. That sounds like it should have a big fat cartoon sun hanging over it, giving the world a thumbs up, but I'm trying to keep it from being too cheesy. Then again, we all know what a good handle I have on whether or not things are too cheesy.

So, I actually need help. I'm doing a lot of research right now on possible arguments against these types of programs. From an outsiders position, what are some reasons you can think of that would make the CRE in the classroom approach seem unrealistic or ineffective? Please let me know if you have any negative opinions on the subject. I'm really trying hard to cover all my bases here. Thanks!!!

(Oh, and if you know any teachers who would be willing to be interviewed for my research, could you e-mail me if you haven't already? I'll give them a copy of the book next fall when it's published. Thanks again!)

My little brother is 15!!!

2007-05-19T10:12:00.000-05:00

Yep yep yep, it's Randy's birthday. He's 15, which is just insane. Time for a birthday post...

So, we actually got Randy only a couple days after he was born...it might have been the next day, actually. It's not that common for adopted babies to come home so fast, and if I recall I don't think we thought we were taking him home that quickly. It was just mom and me and I sat in the back seat with him and we both just kept looking at him like he was a space creature. It was so bizarre to suddenly have a baby in the house. I'm sure it's still weird whenever babies come home, but I think it's weirder when nobody was pregnant and then *poof* there's a baby.

I have to say, he was completely boring for the first 6 months of his life. I was commonly put in charge of staring at him while he slept (a.k.a. "watching the baby") which is probably the dullest thing you can do when you're 10. I used to poke him until he woke up. Not that he was that entertaining awake, either, but at least he made noise. He was a really cute toddler/little kid, though. My parents' divorce happened around his first birthday so I was in charge of him for a lot of the time. He did go through a phase where everything was a weapon. I don't know how that happened, since we never watched violent television or anything. I was constantly picking him up to keep him from clobbering imaginary enemies. I used to carry him everywhere. When he was three or four I was still picking him up and putting him on my hip, even though he was a pretty thick kid by that point.

Randy has always been super muscular and athletic. His dad played for BYU football and was Samoan (his mom's tahitian). He's won awards for tai kwan do, golf, baseball, football, basketball, bowling, and he rides horses and just did his first triathlon. I think that Randy was born to make up for all the athletic activities I couldn't/wouldn't participate in with my father (see Frisbee post). Oddly enough, bowling is his big thing. He has more than 10,000 in scholarship money from bowling. I still don't even think of that as a sport. It's just a thing I have to do every now and then to keep everyone happy.

The one thing about Randy is that he's a softy. When he was little he started this thing where he cried whenever something was unfair for someone else or when other people were sad. He also cried whenever someone was disappointed in him. It makes him sound like a dream child, but it was awful. You couldn't yell at him without him bursting into tears. And these weren't "I hate that I'm in trouble" tears, they were "I'm such an awful person" tears. There was no middle ground between not being sorry and being ready to go to the firing squad. It was really bad. I gave mom crap all the time because he just couldn't cope. This continued all the way up until...honestly I think to an extent it still goes on. He doesn't cry as much now, but I think that's because he's learned to hold it in and not do it in front of his friends. All through elementary, he did it in front of his friends. Sad books? yes. Sad movies? yes.

And he was still popular! The kid is a mystery to me. Everyone loves him. He's on student council right now and he has 8 million friends. It doesn't occur to him to not like people. He and I were talking about school just in the last year and he was mad because he didn't like his partner for one of his classes. Apparently she was the fat girl that nobody liked. I asked how he got stuck with her and it turned out that he picked her first because he was afraid she wouldn't have a partner. Who does that at 14? Especially when you're friends with everyone else in the class? That's what makes him such a cool kid, but it also makes me think that there's something seriously odd about him.

What else...Randy and I have a good relationship, but it's not always a sibling relationship. We definitely pick on each other a lot, but I have a hard time not wanting to just manage him. I still think of him as a tiny kid. We play board games and things, but we never "played" together because I was so much older than he is. Right now I miss him sometimes, but when I call him he's an absolute pill on the phone. He'll do this thing when I call to talk to my mother where he'll say "ok, hold on" and I'll wait and then after a while I'm like, "Randy?" and he just starts laughing. So I yell at him to get mom and he says "ok" and then 5 minutes later I realize he's still just standing there listening to me breathe. He thinks nothing is as funny.

That's probably why he's so popular. Hands down, funniest person I know. He has my mom and me in tears every day that I'm in Utah. Oh man, I could just go on and on, but I guess I'll wrap it up. He's the greatest little brother ever. I feel so bad for everyone who has a different little brother. (Except Justin, his little brother is very cool.)

holy nightmare-in-a-photo

2007-05-18T13:36:00.001-05:00

Do you know what this is? This is a photo of an escaped gorilla, wandering around a zoo in Amsterdam, while people try to grab their children and get the hell out of there. Apparently he grabbed a woman, dragged her around and then bit her, before charging through glass doors into a crowded restaurant as people ran screaming.

I love gorillas. I always spend at least a half hour looking at them in their little zoo enclosure. But I am terrified of gorillas and if I had to pick, I would rather be face to face with a lion in the wild instead of being faced with a gorilla. The only thing scarier is a shark, but seriously it's like #1 - shark and then BOOM, right there, #2 - gorilla. It's practically at #1.5. I don't even know. Somewhere out there, in Amsterdam, there's a woman with a big gorilla bite mark who's like "I don't even know...went to the zoo...nice day out...gorilla jumped over the moat and grabbed me...tried to rip off my arm...check out my bite mark..."

Defending Your Life

2007-05-18T08:20:00.000-05:00

Nate and I watched this movie the other night. I was going to blog about it yesterday, but I got all caught up in the book writing, which is going so much better than I expected. It turns out that I do pretty good work when I actually care about what I'm working on.

This movie is about what happens after you die. Basically you go on trial and have to defend your life, to see if you're ready to move on or if you need to be sent back to Earth. It's not about how "good" you were in life. You're measured by how well you conquered fear. If you've done well, you move on and each time you move on you use more of your brain, which makes you smarter. It's all very interesting.

I saw the movie for the first time in VandeVeegaete's class. I can't remember at the moment if it was World History or Philosophy. I'm assuming it was Philosophy, but honestly we learned some weird shit in World History, so who knows. Vande was far and away the greatest public education teacher I had and a lot of the things I learned in his classes I've held onto. I can honestly say that this movie changed my life. It's one of those things that sticks with you once you watch it. I'm surprised that it isn't more popular and I wholeheartedly recommend it, even if you have set ideas about what happens in the afterlife.

Following the movie Nate and I had a brief (too brief) discussion on the kinds of moments in our lives that we would be judged on. Nate jumped right to a positive moment, while I started thinking about all the negative moments. Sometimes I wonder if it's enough to do the best you can. I really believe in karma and when bad things happen I always assume it's because I've done something to deserve them. If you know me at all, you know I'm a magnet for the weirdest unpleasant experiences, which makes me think that I just walk around being a horrible person without realizing it. Or I realize it, but the outcome is unpredictable. For example, I was a terrible friend to someone earlier in the year, and then later someone was a terrible friend to me. The odd thing is, the two were completely unrelated, but in a weird way it was like, "ok, I don't understand why this happened, but it makes sense somehow." Maybe if I actually am "judged" at some point, I will have broken even through swift karmic justice. Or maybe I was just plain awful in a past life and I'm still paying off those debts...all very complicated. The mind reels.

Law + Kids = ?

2007-05-16T10:55:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting on my couch right now, working on my book and watching vintage Sesame Street. I spent most of the morning researching Education Ph.D. programs. They're all really exciting, but about 98% of them require a GRE score, which is a bummer. Oh well, it's just another test. Maybe I should think of it as a substitute for taking the bar. I'm still considering taking the bar, for shits and giggles, but I don't know why I would need it.

There's a professor at the OSU school of Education who specializes in Education Law. I suppose that would be a more natural progression than going straight to Teacher Education, but I don't find it as interesting. Still, I suppose I should meet with him, since I don't know anything about Education Law. I guess it all comes down to a question of whether I want to make a difference in exiting schooling through legislation or change the schooling itself and then hope that the legislation is agreeable. Can't really do both. Perfect world - legislation would pass a bill that mandates conflict resolution education for all teachers before they can be certified. All teachers and administrators. Of course, we need a good standard conflict resolution education program before that can happen. So do I design the program and hope someone else is working on the legislature or vice versa?

Kids have no idea how much their future depends on votes and lobbyists. I think this is because kids have core beliefs in fairness and justice. If you ask elderly people about their school experiences, they will remember mainly negative moments in which their senses of fairness and justice were breached. For example, a teacher who unfairly punished them for something they didn't do or a bully who took their lunch money and got away with it. If you think about your own school experiences, I'm sure that you'll remember times when you realized that things were unfair and you couldn't do anything about it.

As lawyers, we are expected to accept that things are at times fundamentally unfair. In the interest of the legal process, we are supposed to overlook the unfair moments because overall, more things should come out in a just way. The fact that a few unjust things occur isn't as important as keeping the system moving. If you were to explain this to children, they would not understand. A child arguing that a situation is unfair is patted on the head and dismissed. Why? Because we know better than to expect everything to always be fair.

Which is actually too bad, when you think about it.

Kaitlyn is five!

2007-05-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

Birthday post for the birthday girl, despite the fact that she can't read yet. I missed Kaitlyn's birthday party this weekend so I could work on my book and be a productive citizen. She called yesterday and informed me that she received a bike and then told me a long story about her Uncle Mike who is almost old enough to drive. I think there was something else in there, but it's hard to understand her sometimes because when she gets on the phone she just goes and goes and goes.

Let's see...what can I pull up about Kaitlyn? The first time I met Kaitlyn was in...2004? '04 or '05. I actually saw her long before then. Kyle showed us her baby picture when we were down in Florida. It was actually one of the first things he did. I remember because I was standing in the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen and everyone was pushing around us, moving stuff in. I guess she was born only 3 months before we met.

The first thing I noticed about Kaitlyn when we met was that she was very very cuddly. In fact, she wanted nothing but to be held and picked up. She's still really cute like that. Whenever we're around each other she follows me everywhere. She does the same thing to Tracy, Justin's girlfriend. Very cuddly kid. I totally fell head over heels for her the first time I met her and I've adored her ever since. She's a really good kid. She has her bratty moments, but not nearly as often as other kids. She's incredibly empathetic and she hates the idea that she's hurt somebody's feelings. She's also very talented. She has a wonderful singing voice and she has really great comic timing. I'm telling you, she's going to be the next big thing.

Kyle is so so so sweet with her. She adores him because they play together. They'll chase each other around the house until Kaitlyn sounds like she's about ready to pass out from lack of oxygen. He also lets her watch her cartoons (as if he'd be watching anything different) and talks to her like she's his friend and not some kid he has to take care of. He's going to be super overprotective of her when she gets older. I don't even know what's going to happen when she's old enough to start dating someone.

It's so cool that's she's going to have an entire life's worth of experiences and she's just starting out. It's also cool that I get to watch her do it. I'm older than my brother by a good chuck of time (10 years) but I'm still too close in age to him to really be able to appreciate what he's going through. With Kaitlyn, she brings up all the things I remember about being five and it's just amazing to see her actually learning how to think and react and play. Oh man, this post made me want to zoom right up to Akron for a tea party. It's a good thing she's not here in Columbus, because we would do nothing but play!

My brother, the bad ass

2007-05-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Quick post:

My brother did a triathlon this weekend down in Southern Utah. It's his first (he's 15) and he finished with flying colors. You know, the kid has been solid muscle since he was about two, but these pictures from the event just prove that he could take each and every one of you. Troy Smith has nothing on Randy.

Mother Envy?

2007-05-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

Feeling depressed post-mother's day? Wish you had your own child to nurture? Well, look no further. These children are all currently available for adoption, right here in Ohio.

Danielle is a third grader with an above average I.Q. who enjoys art and being at school. She was adopted from Russia, but unfortunately she developed an attachment disorder and her adoptive family decided that they could no longer care for her. I'm sure that didn't help her attachment disorder at all. She would do best if she was the youngest or only child, so if you're looking for a one-time deal, Danielle is your girl.

If you're more in the market for a little boy, this is Owen. Owen is 5. He's well liked at school and excells in athletics. Owen is currently the oldest child in his family, but his parents are having twins and no longer feel they can give him the attention he needs. Developmentally and socially his teachers report that he is right on track, although he does tend to be jealous of attention being paid to other children. He loves to play.

Of course, one thing that commonly comes up when people are considering adoption is the question of age. It often seems easier if the child is as young as possible. That way, they won't remember their birth parents and you'll be able to bond with them as they take their first steps, learn their first words and start calling you mama. If you're a future parent interested in such a child, this is Skyler. Skyler is currently in Florida and enjoys bathtime. His caretakers describe him as alert and cheery. An added bonus is the fact that he does not yet know his name, which means you could pick your own!

I'm a huge advocate of adoption. My little brother is adopted and I remember going to pick him up from the hospital. I only sort of saw his mom, she was kept out of sight because she was pretty upset. Randy was in the little incubator room with all the other babies, and I swear to God he opened his eyes and started to lift his head while we were standing there. I wouldn't trust my memory if it wasn't Randy, the wonder athlete. At age zero he was already overachieving.

I'm going to adopt a baby, hopefully two (especially if I can get rid of this debt!). Sometimes I think I would like to adopt them all, but I know it's important to Kyle to have one that looks like him. That may be open for negotiation, depending on how scared I am of labor. Angelina Jolie recently gave an article where she said that she decided to have a biological child once she realized that it wasn't a threat to her adoptive children (for Brad Pitt's affection). I never considered the possibility of Kyle loving his own biological child more than our adoptive children, or the idea that I could have an instinctual preference. I don't think it would be a problem, but it makes me wonder.

These are the sweetest children, I can't imagine how their families could let them go, especially the two who were willfully rejected while their siblings were kept inside the family. Giving Randy back is not one of those things that is in reality. I think it would be more plausible to imagine attempting to return my father. Randy has a bunch of half siblings (and perhaps a couple full?) out there somewhere. They're all split up. It's weird, the things people do with the power to create life.

Mom

2007-05-13T09:29:00.000-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I hope your homemade pencil holders and your crayon scribbled pictures are just lovely.

My mom overshadows the rest of my immediate family in the same way Kellie overshadowed my extended family. I have a lot of family memories, but 85% of them are just my mom and me. When I was little she worked from home, so we did things together all the time. I have very distinct and clear memories of shopping trips or lunches at restaurants from when I was three or four. When I started school, she was the ideal room mother. There were always treats or special surprises for my class. Actually, this was horrifying later in elementary, when my mother reached a level of popularity that I found evasive. A combination of creativity and generosity resulted in bags of goodies where stickers would have sufficed, gourmet buffets of exotic foods when the assignment said "bring a snack" and elaborate handmade outfits when it was "wear your school colors" day.

My mom really threw herself into being a mother. I think she was born to do it. While my father appeared to be blindsided by the prospet of fatherhood, my mother seemed to have been saving things up her entire life. We shared her favorite movies, dressed her childhood baby dolls and read the books that she had enjoyed as a little girl. Whether it was on purpose or not, I believe a great amount of energy was put into making me as much like her as possible. I suppose it paid off. My mother is my greatest friend and I'm sure she always will be. She has also successfully remained a parent and when I'm completely lost she's still the first person I call. And I am her best friend, which is an interesting idea. Creating your own best friend is quite a talent.

Of course, in the same breath, I can say that there are times when we want to kill each other and there were definitely moments in the past when we almost did. I suppose most teen years are a little rough, but I think my adolescence was sort of an overnight catastrophe. I don't remember fighting with my mother anywhere near as much as I fought with my father until I hit the age of ten. After that, it was a free-for-all. Following the divorce, the rose-colored glasses were definitely off when it came to viewing my parents and I refused to respect either of them, probably for about four years. This resulted in power struggle after power struggle. It was so tumultuous I actually have a hard time remembering specific instances, but there was a general feeling of "Oh my God, why can't they leave me alone?" for a really, really long time. And the combination of my mom and I in the ring gets pretty ugly pretty fast. Remember how I said I'm like my mother? That includes inheriting her hot tempered, manipulative fighting style, complete with low blows and moments of martyrdom. I mean, there were some differences of course. Mom is much more prone to dragging other people into it by complaining about me (LOUDLY) and I prefer the detached, cold "are you through because I have other things to do" response. Good times.

In some ways, my mom is the classic mother. Home cooked meals, handstitched Christmas stockings, etc. In other ways, I look at my friends' mothers and realize that I don't have that same distance between my mother that I've seen other people keep. I think it's because I don't fear her judgment and I don't have anything that I can't say to her. My mother is the ultimate in people who are stuck with me, so there isn't any censorship. My brother has the same sort of connection with her, although I believe that it's still one sided (with her not divulging everything and the kitchen sink). My stepsisters have their own relationship with her. It's definitely closer than my relationship with my stepmother, but it's also more open to abuses. I don't actually completely get their relationship. I wonder if they'll call her today.

It's not easy being a mom. Everyone, even the non-mothers know that. My mom has done an amazing job and I really love her for it. I should admit, though, that when I woke up this morning and remembered it was mother's day, she wasn't who I thought of first. My Aunt Carole is going to be somewhere, celebrating for her mother and receiving a gift from my cousin J.W. And in the back of her mind, she's going to be thinking about Kellie, who always overdid anything she did for her mother. If my mom threw herself into being a mother, Kellie threw herself into being a daughter. Following her parents divorce, Kellie tried as hard as she could to fill up everything that she could in her mom's life, as if she could keep her from noticing that her dad had left. She spent too much on gifts, spent hours making oil paintings or writing poems, and angrily demanded that everyone around her contribute to her mother's happiness. If she were alive, today would have been nothing short of a circus. And I know Aunt Carole knows that. I doubt she misses the circus, but it must be hard to lose the effort.

Anyway, I hope your mothers are enjoying this day. I also hope that Miss Margi is enjoying her first round of mother's day presents. And finally, because it's mother's day I should note that Becah just found out that she's going to be a Mommy in January!!!

Kyle, this is why we are not getting a turtle OR a cat

2007-05-12T17:35:00.001-05:00

hooray for hamsters!

News from the village

2007-05-12T15:42:00.000-05:00

It's 4 something and I'm laying on my bed, not being productive at all. So much for getting half of that book written this weekend. Bah! Can't believe how drunk I got last night. Sheena's birthday necessitated a shot and then Shira's arrival necessitated a shot, but nothing necessitated those 5 (6?) beers. Fact: I'm allergic to beer and can only have so much before I really get loopy due to some sort of complicated thing with the sugar. I don't really get it. The doctor gave me a pamphlet on it, I don't know where it is. You can see how committed I am to my beer allergy. Anyway, I'm usually much better about it, but last night...not so much...

All sorts of craziness, including the traditional Nate/Carly taco bell run and passing out on Neaner's bed. She was very kind about it and didn't even try to wake me. It's a true friend that will sleep on the floor while you slip into a drunken coma on her comfortable bed. I woke up very under the weather and haven't completely recovered, despite a valient attempt at curing the badness with Paul's Pantry omelettes and toast.

I love it when Shira's here, because she automatically equals a good time, but I admit that I always end up paying for it in migraines later on. I'm supposed to have gone with Nate to a wedding and I backed out. To be fair, I'm not sure if I was really supposed to go since it's very small and the reception was at El Vaquero's? I don't really know. Anyway, I didn't go. No idea what's going on tonight. I think togetherness is happening, but I'm so bad about being proactive about it. Drew is being seriously shady, so I doubt he's in and his Emily is apparently out of town. I think it's been almost a year since I've seen her, which is just ridiculous. If I had any energy I would run to my phone and organize general bonding, but that's not going to happen...neither is my book...maybe if I try really hard I can at least pull it together enough to do the dishes.

Diana

2007-05-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

Diana is 5. She lives in a trailer with her mother, father, and little sister. Her chemotherapy has made her hair fall out.

There was a post secret postcard a few weeks ago. It was a picture of materials to help parents with deaf children. The postcard's message said, "I hate everyone with a normal child for having the life I wanted to lead." I hadn't really thought about parents having that reaction. When your child is sick or has a disability/condition that alters the quality of their life, you just have to take it. It's not like you can return your child. But I never thought about the difference between taking it and wanting to take it. I wonder how many parents out there would alter their decisions if they knew their children were going to be sick...not for the sake of their children's suffering, but for their own life plan.

I have a hard enough time planning my next 20 years without thinking of the wild cards that are going to show up. I suppose that's what makes life interesting, but it's frightening to think about all the what-ifs that are out there. Kyle and I actually make ourselves manic sometimes, worrying about our non-existant children. We run through scenarios of having house fires, choosing a babysitter, choosing a daycare center, public v. private schools...I suppose we haven't talked about having a sick child because it's not something we can be active about. You don't choose to have a sick child, and once their sick you don't choose the next course of action. At that point someone, or something, else is dictating your life. It's the nearest thing to losing total control that I can think of.

There is a combination of reasons that I'm thinking about this. The first is that I came across these photos of Diana last week and thought they were beautiful. The second is that I've been looking at charities around Columbus, trying to pick my summer volunteer position, and some of them deal with sick or underdeveloped children. The third reason is that I recently read an article about women who choose not to have children who have tested positive for birth defects. The article was split into 4 parts. The first was a woman who chose to not have the child for the child's sake. The second chose not to have the child for her own sake. The third had the child and it ended up not having the defect and the fourth had the child and has assumed the responsibility of taking care of this child for the rest of its life.

I found myself identifying most strongly with the second woman, not because I would choose to abort the child if it had a birth defect, but because the woman expressed an honest fear and distrust in herself to be able to make up for all the things her child was going to lack. She flat out said that she was afraid and didn't believe she was up to it. I found that to be a very brave statement. I'm sure she was criticized. I don't know what I would do in that situation, but I'm hesitant to judge anyone who chooses not to have a baby, no matter what the reason. It would be so hard to have that conversation with people, after you'd been pregnant for 6 months and everyone around you had celebrated your new child. Did she come out and tell the truth, or did she simply say "I lost it?"

People always say that they want healthy children, but when I really think about what a total miracle and blessing it is to even have one healthy child, I get that nervous/relieved feeling...the same feeling you get when you dream that you're falling and you wake up right before you hit the ground. I think having healthy children would make up for any other personal trials I could face. It's also a lot of pressure to think about how much of that is on me, vs. being something related to Kyle. I suddenly have a real craving for some prenatal vitamins...

who needs sleep? well, you're never gonna get it.

2007-05-11T00:50:00.000-05:00

No Tipping Point today. I bought two new books and read one of those instead, but it was sort of cheating because it was a Williams Sonoma cookbook. I got two magazines in the mail and it interfered with all intellectual activity. Fact: I have 23 magazine subscriptions. Why? Couldn't say. Love 'em. Always have. I think I would read anything if you put it in a magazine. And yes, I do read the stupid magazines put out by the ABA.

Bought lots of other stuff too. I've been showing off my culinary arts for Kyle, so tonight we had grilled chicken and penne in a truffle/artichoke sauce with spinach salad and berries for dessert. The impressiveness was a little dented unfortunately, when I set off the smoke alarm again. Apparently garlic bread doesn't take that long to broil. And now I know. Poor, poor neighbors peering out into the smoke filled hallway. They probably think I'm doing something illegal in here.

Hit Gameworks tonight with Kyle, Nate and Billy. There was less Zombie action and more Hot Air Ballooning tonight, which was not in my favor. If there's ever a world crisis and we're all forced to take to the sky in hot air balloons in order to defend our fellow man, I'm totally screwed. I can, however, run a mean drag race through the streets of L.A. I'm also very talented at shooting zombies, if I may say so myself.

Yes, I have a very high geek rating, but it's just so damn fun to hang out and not care about anything. Very uncomplicated. Rather unfeminine, but uncomplicated. Oh well, I'll have enough complications tomorrow at work, I'm sure. And then...a long stretch of a four day weekend without Kyle. Here's hoping I survive...

Bookworm

2007-05-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

First full day of summerness today. I slept in, spent the whole morning cleaning my apartment, made a full four course dinner and started in on my summer reading. Kyle and I even caught a movie, Disturbia, and it was kind of like being a normal person with time to do things like date.

Today's book was The Freedom Writers Diary and I just finished it. I actually finished the Handbook of Conflict Resolution this morning before I started the other one, but that doesn't count because it's for my book project. I feel vaguely guilty for not getting more done for my own book, but I'll have lots of time to do that this weekend when Kyle is out of town. Kaitlyn's birthday, his dad's birthday and mother's day are all this weekend, but I'm going to a wedding with Nate here in Columbus, so I'm not making the trip. C'est la vie, there's work to be done anyway.

I liked the book I just finished and I think it's going to make it to my bookshelf. Books in my life have two possible futures. Either they make it to the bookshelf or they go to half.com to find a new owner. Someday I'll have all the space in the world and I'll be able to keep every book, but that's not possible right now. I have too many books here as it is. Besides, I have books stored all over the place, in multiple houses. I just can't give some of them away. It's super cheesy, but they're like old friends.

I taught myself to read when I was two and a half, which is the main reason I was moved up in school. It was probably out of boredom, but I don't remember the process very well. My parents were actually very against me learning to read outside of the school system, so they were no help in the beginning. I thought the ABCs were fascinating, though, and it didn't take long to figure out that it was easier to read and write than to actually say things out loud. For some reason, things make more sense to me when I can see them on a two-dimensional surface.

Anyway, the romance with reading has never let up, even though I'm more open about it now than I used to be. I was targeted hard in school for being a bookworm. I had a best friend in elementary who got mad whenever I read faster than she did, so I would deliberately wait until she turned the pages in class before I would move ahead. While I waited I would think up all the things that could possibly happen on the next page. Or I would rearrange the words to make new sentences, or take out every other verb and see how the meaning changed. This is second or third grade. Yeah, I really was that much of a nerd. I spent a whole lot of energy trying to convince people that I didn't read very fast and that I thought reading was super boring.

In reality, all I did when I was little was read. This makes more sense when you remember that A) I was an only child for the first ten years, B) I was not allowed to watch television and C) I was able to read adult books very early on. Believe me, if reading sex scenes in Harlequin novels was a possibility for all fourth graders, there would be a lot of extracurricular literary adventures. I mainly devoured children's series. Mary Downing Hahn, Betty Wren Wright, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Lynne Reid Banks...I had a mafia loyalty to writers who had managed to capture my attention. And then there was the non-fiction: the holocaust, egyptology, miniature dollhouses, portrait sketches, biographies...for a long time I was slightly fanatical about adding to my booklist. Everything I couldn't express at school, I made up for at home. I had a terror of asking/answering intelligent questions for fear that I would be singled out as a good student, so I would secretly write down lists of questions and then attack my library at night. I think that's how the journaling things started, actually. I felt like anything that wasn't written down would just blow away.

My parents were actually very supportive of my reading habit later. They bought me 5 sets of encyclopedias in the first eight years, which I'm sure cost quite a bit. I knew the Comptons and Britannicas by heart and they were located near the dinner table so I didn't have to miss anything when it was time to eat. They were also very generous when it came time to order books each Friday from the pamphlets they sent out at school, and my teachers were always understanding enough to keep my books behind their desks until I picked them up, since the stacks were so much larger. Oh, I miss book orders. Whatever happened to them? I guess now we have Amazon.

Fast forward about 15 years. After I got back from Disney, I needed a job and I was disillusioned with teaching in public schools. Private schools wouldn't hire me without a degree, but a friend of a friend got me an interview at an independent bookstore downtown. I thought the job would be in the bag. Turns out, I do not know so much about books. The problem with developing mafia loyalties to certain authors/publishers/subjects is that you miss out on a shitload of stuff. I had read all of the classics but I had never read any of the gritty, beatnick, obscure crap that everyone else at Sam Weller's knew by heart. I couldn't name Western or Sci-Fi authors, I didn't know a copy of the Alchemist from a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook. And I sure as hell shouldn't have told them I was well-read without being careful about what I was getting myself into it. I was definitely in the below-average category at Sam Weller's.

That is, if you don't count children's books. I know children's books by heart. Give me a child and I'll name you 50 books that will be personality specific and character enhancing. Too bad I wasn't better at selling books that cost more than five dollars, but oh well. What can you do? There are a couple of grandmothers out there who are damn lucky that I was there when they needed me. But, alas, I have come to realize that it is time for adult books. At least most of the time.

Tomorrow's book: The Tipping Point.

i'm........so..........tired............

2007-05-08T18:36:00.000-05:00

I'm supposed to be out at the bar crawl right now, but I'm not because A) I'm a terrible friend and B) I seriously cannot remember being this tired.

I finished my paper the night before last which effectively ended my second year of law school. Yay! I celebrated in the most common way, by watching Evil Dead 2 and playing Risk with Kyle, Billy and Flash until 4:30 in the morning. At work the next day I was basically a zombie, but there were a million things to do for the symposium (which was today). I went home ready to crawl into bed, but Flash was at Kyle's when I attempted to get into afore mentioned bed and we ended up going out and being out until 1. I had to go to work super early for the event and I was there really late. Result? I'm way way way too tired to do anything, which is really too bad because I was looking forward to going to the Stube, probably for the first time ever.

The event was awesome. It was a symposium on bullying prevention and I've been working on it since January. We had a really amazing turn out and all of the speakers were interesting. I just wish I could wiggle my nose and blast all of that information into the heads of teachers and parents everywhere. You know, you could make a complete career out of trying to stop bullying nationwide, and you would still have work left on the day you died. It was a great day, though. I heart teachers.

I have so much I could probably talk about, since I've been busier in the last four days than I have for a while, and so much was accomplished. Instead, I leave you with this unrelated photo:

This is Moose, Kyle's long-haired dachsund. (Actually, this is supermoose, but you get the idea.)

A night of tragic plots and terrifying surprises

2007-05-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

I was a good girl yesterday and did a lot of work on my ADR paper. I need to finish it up today, which is going to be hell for a few hours (I hate finishing papers like this because they're never good enough) but after today I only have 3 more days of work before summer. I think I'm going to accept the summer position at OCDRCM, but only for one day a week so I can really focus on my writing. Cross your fingers that they'll hire me under those conditions. I think if I actually do spend all of my time holed up in my apartment writing I'll go bonkers before I get to July.

Kyle and I had a date last night. We've actually had a good run of romantic evenings lately. He was a good sport about going to see student theater with me. We saw The Children's Hour at the OSU Dept of Theater, which surprisingly is the first play I've ever seen at this university. I never missed one at the U and I had season tickets to two of the professional companies in Salt Lake. I guess I put that all behind me when I moved. I thought that seeing the play would make me want to run out and get season tickets, but it only made me want to run out. I shouldn't be so hard on it, actually, for a student performance it wasn't bad. It wasn't fantastic either, though, and there were director decisions that were completely confusing and odd. If you're curious, I recommend the Audrey Hepburn movie. It's probably hard to top that performance, anyhow.

Post-play Kyle and I had dinner and hung out for a long time before he went home. We haven't been spending the nights together since I stay up late to write and he goes to work so early. So after he left I locked everything up, wrote for a half hour or so, messed around on the internet and then crawled into bed with one of my five hundred books on peace education. I'm laying on my stomach reading, and I suddenly think about Kyle and glance over at his pillow. And there's a tarantula on it.

Ok, so it probably wasn't a tarantula, but if you can imagine a spider being as close to a tarantula without actually being one, that was this spider. It was brown/black, there was fur and I swear to God it was the size of a half dollar. So I scream and attempt to get out of bed, which only resulted in me pulling all of the bedding, including the pillow over to my side of the bed so it could fall on top of me. The rest of the story is long and gruesome, but the climax didn't occur for another 30 minutes, so I'll skip right to that part. It's now 1:30 in the morning and I have cornered the spider at the window by spraying every toxic spray I have at it. Because this was the primary source of movement, my bed is completely soaked with hairspray, air freshener, windex and tile cleaner and the spider is sitting in a soggy clump, waving its legs at me. At one point I even poured dish soap over it and it refused to die. I had kitchen tongs out and had been attempting to squish it with a tong-gripped sandal for ten minutes when I finally gave up and called Kyle in hysterics.

I swear, I never know when I'm going to just fly over the line that divides normalcy and insanity, but when I do there is no going back. By the time he got there I was babbling on and on about the fact that the spider had it in for me and wouldn't die and was probably some horrible beast spider and looked very much like something I saw once on Dateline. Kyle, to his credit, sprinted over and took the spider all the way out to the dumpster in the parking lot. Heroism has never seen such bravery. I was then relocated to the other apartment, as I had created a cloud of highly questionable fumes. That, coupled with the residual smoke of the kitchen fire, has left my apartment smelling very much like...I don't even know...maybe a Nevada whorehouse? It's a smoky, sickly sweet, sanitized kind of smell. It's pretty awful.

Girl Power

2007-05-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there was a little princess. The princess would play with her dolls and her tea set and her plastic tiaras and she would dream of growing up to live in a big castle where she could dress her babies and organize her pantry. Unfortunately for the little girl, the woman's lib movement happened and totally screwed her over.

Ok, I'm probably a traitor to my entire gender, but I'm really not too keen on this whole woman's rights movement. What did I want to do in life? I wanted to iron and raise babies. What do I want to do now? Oh, I want to iron and raise babies. But, thanks to the feminist movement, if I iron and raise babies I'm not living up to my full potential. So I had to get a stupid law degree.

Yes, it makes a certain amount of sense to not rely on getting married and having someone take care of you forever. Yes, I'm sure I would have been very bored and dull. Yes, I might have ended up like Sylvia Plath. OR I might have been completely content. I now can't regress to being a housewife because I'm overeducated. The one thing I wanted to do, I can't. I have to go out and earn my keep.

I can feel the judgment pouring in before I even publish this, but I can't help it. I really just wanted to be a good wife and mother. How many of us (men included) would really rather work than stay home? If we had the money, would we still go to work? I suppose a lucky few would, but the vast majority would probably stay home, travel, do charity work, or pursue creative interests. The difference is that fifty years ago, I could have stayed home to do charity work and embroider tea towels and nobody would have thought any worse of me, no matter how well I did in state standardized tests. But now, we have to be all equal, blah blah blah (which is totally crap, because we aren't equal and don't EVEN get me started on that one). Anyway, I'm mainly bitter because I would really like to watch TV and sew today and I can't because I have to get an A for my stupid law school transcript that I hate. And I blame the bra burners. So there.

Zach's 25th

2007-05-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

Today is Zach's birthday, hence the b-day post. I've actually gotten complaints because I've missed birthdays but A) I don't remember everyone's birthday and B) if I already did one for you the year before, you're out of luck. I can't remember if I posted about Zach, and seeing as I deleted all of those blog entries, I have no way of double checking.

Zach's off in Utah somewhere, working for my stepfather and turning 25. And no, we did not meet because I was sleeping with my stepfather's employees, that arrangement happened after we broke up. Zach and I met through Katelyn, actually, a blind date set up accidentally. Katelyn was IMing Zach (college friend) when I called and started complaining about the fact that I had been boiling pasta and it caught fire. BTW, it's so nice to see that I've come so far in the last six years. Anyway, Zach happened to be talking about this great dinner he had just cooked and Katelyn told him he needed to bring me some because I couldn't even boil spaghtetti. It turns out that Zach was only about 3 blocks from me at the time. And, voila! 2.5 year relationship.

I could ramble on about a lot of things from our relationship, but it actually wasn't that exciting. It wasn't a bad relationship by any means, but it also wasn't very eventful. Zach was my first serious relationship and I give him a great deal of credit for putting up with all the crap I gave him. There's probably nothing worse than dating an 18 year old who doesn't know what she's doing. He'd actually been engaged before me (started early) but honestly he wasn't much better at the relationship thing that I was. It's sort of amazing we lasted that long without killing each other.

The break-up was awful and eventually bitter, as all break-ups are, but miraculously we're still friends and I actually continue to lean on him when I really need help. I'm very lucky, actually, not only because Zach has made it easy to continue our friendship, but because Kyle isn't jealous of the fact that Zach is still so important to me. To be fair, I haven't gotten them into a room together since 2002, which probably helps. I think they'd be fine, though. Zach's girlfriend is perfectly lovely, which isn't a huge surprise. He has really high standards, thank you very much. It's actually sort of strange how it all worked out. (*Side note: the Star Wars picture is not some bizarre photoshop adventure. it's one of those tourist photos where they stick your heads in. we had it done at Star Tours in WDW. I have to put it up, because it's probably the weirdest photo I could ever have of me and my two big relationships.)

I suppose eventually we won't talk anymore. It's weird to think about, because not being friends with him would be the final piece of my college years that I would have to let go of. In a weird way, a lot of my "youth" is caught up in my relationship with Zach, so ending it would have even more significance to me. And after all, he is a great person. I wouldn't have been with him so long if he wasn't. Besides, I have Kyle thanks to Zach (they were roommates at WDW) and even though that's a really weird side effect of a long relationship, it's another thing that makes me still love him. Is it inappropriate to still love your ex? I don't know. Maybe. Then again, I hate the idea of throwing people away because their labels change. So maybe it isn't so bad.

Stop, Drop and Roll

2007-05-03T23:12:00.000-05:00

I set my apartment on fire tonight. Good times.

It all started rather innocently. I was watching a DVD with Kyle and I got thirsty, but all I have is sparkling water. I started dreaming about iced tea and decided to make a big pot so I'd have it tomorrow for the all day ADR paper marathon. I boil my ice tea instead of making sun tea because the water needs to get really hot to kill of bacteria (fun fact of the day). Anyway, when we moved out Laura gave me this gigantic pot that I think is probably meant for canning or things like that. I filled it and dragged it onto the stove, which I promptly turned onto the highest heat. Hey, I was heating a shitload of water, it made sense at the time.

So we're watching the DVD and all of a sudden I realize that I can hear water running, only it sounds like a creek rather than a faucet. I stand up and go around the corner. Yeah, not so much "water running" as "giant flames taking over my kitchen". There was a brief scramble for baking soda (surprise! don't have any!) before I dumped approximately 9 lbs of white flour onto my stove top. Not only did the fire go out, I can't even see the stove anymore! It's kind of like having a snowman right here in my studio apt.

Smoke alarm went off, Kyle dropped to the ground, general chaos, etc etc. The frustrating thing is that I'm usually so good about that kind of thing. I just wiped my stove off yesterday morning. (Kyle made dinner last night, I think a third of it ended up on the burner.) I had the scary what-ifs right after, i.e. what if I had ignored the sound, what if I didn't have flour, what if I had started to boil tea and then had a seizure and burnt to a crisp?

My apartment hallway is still full of icky smoke. I wonder if all the other residents are nervous. If I suddenly smelled the definite scent of resident stupidity, I would be nervous. I bet I increased the number of apartments with rental insurance by at least 25%. Hey, just another day of me being unable to fulfill the functions of a successful adult. Woohoo!

Ridiculous

2007-05-02T17:46:00.000-05:00

I got the second part of my Peace Corps application today. It's amazing that something I was so happy about can now make me feel like such crap. I still feel like I'm selling out by considering other options. I also feel like an ass because the reaction from half of the people I told originally was "that's not going to happen". There's nothing worse than feeling like you've made yourself a joke.

Today, while I was working on my ADR paper, I kept having to check myself so I wouldn't make statements that sounded too revolutionary. I don't want the paper to communicate the fact that I really do want to save America's children, because (again) that makes me sound ridiculous. I think one of the most discouraging things about optimism when it comes to peace and making the world better is the fact that people are laughing at your attempts. One of my favorite things about Kyle is that he honestly believes that I can do the things I want to do, and when he has dreams they start out sounding as ridiculous as mine do - even though Kyle is going to do great things with his life. The only problem is that I feel like we encourage each other so much that it starts to alienate us from other people.

Short story: The other night Kyle and I went out to dinner with his mother and some of her friends. We had a wonderful time, they were very nice people. At dessert, we were looking at the menu. I pointed out that the cookie ice cream pie looked amazing and it was too bad we couldn't order it. Kyle's mom replied that we could have anything we wanted and we had to explain that we no longer eat Oreos because it hurts the orangutans. It's a complicated connection, but the creation of palm forests for the production of palm oil (used in Oreos) is a major cause of the destruction of natural orangutan habitats. So we stopped eating Oreos. I already had this debate with Drew, so don't bother. No, I don't think that the cookie company is reeling from the loss of our business. No, I don't think that Oreos are actually made out of orangutans. It's just something that we wanted to do to help. Anyway, there was silence and exchanged looks and what I swear was suppressed laughter at the table when we announced our reasons for not eating Oreos.

I hate that. I hate the feeling of being disregarded as silly. And I hate the fact that I turn it around and wonder if I actually am leading a ridiculous life. So often I make people laugh unintentionally. Nate thinks I have natural comic timing, but I wonder sometimes if I'm just not in on some big joke that's entertaining everyone else. Anyway, all of this was stirred up when I got the stuff from the peace corps. I felt something that I think was near shame that I ever really thought I could be that person. And then, instead of throwing it away, I put it on my desk, in the pile of stuff I need to go through after finals are over. I mean, I can always hope.

I don't want to be one of those people that loses hope. If Kyle lost hope I don't even know who he would be. I get so much of my hope from him, sometimes I think he has this incredible reserve just stored up somewhere. Weirdly enough, he can't always get to it, but it's always there when I need it. I did do something hopeful today, actually. A friend of the family has a little boy named Carson. Carson is four and has the worst form of muscular dystrophy. This brave family has put together a website to help support research for the disease, as a way of fighting back, since there is currently almost nothing they can do for their son. Carson is a very sweet kid and I cannot imagine the helplessness that comes with not being able to cure every sickness that your child has. So I made a donation today and I'm putting the link here in case you're overdue for doing something hopeful. I actually don't make donations all the time. Not only am I generally cynical about the money actually being used to help the cause, sometimes it seems like such an overwhelming problem that I can't see my little bit of help as helping at all, but rather just another drop in the ocean. So I give to the church, or I give cans of food, or things that I can actually feel - that can be handed to someone who is cold or sick. I don't know if anything will ever be done about muscular dystrophy, especially for Carson. I don't know what the money I gave today will actually be going to. I don't know if this was the best cause I could have picked today, out of all the millions of problems in the world. But I believe in this one and even though it seems ridiculous sometimes, I am so full of hope for this family.

A thousand is a lot

2007-05-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

Took my Com Law exam. Only my ADR paper is left and I've been deliberately putting it off because I was so excited to get into it. It's pretty much like I'm starting my book now. I think I might take tonight off, but I'm getting up early tomorrow to really get into it. Yay for icky tests being over!!!

So, I'm still fixated on this map I have under my profile picture. For those of you who are just tuning in, each dot on the map is supposed to represent a different IP address. The bigger the dot, the more IP addresses in that area. The dot over Columbus just reached the 1000+ mark. That's technically only 1000 different computers, not 1000 different people, but that's still pretty damn odd. I'm a little uneasy with the thought of more than 150 people reading my blog. I think that's because I would only be able to name 150 people if pressed and I don't know why people I can't name would read this. Maybe the map has some sort of internal glitch.

Last bit of news: I have four tickets to The Children's Hour for this weekend. I got them in the PILF auction and then totally forgot about them. I think Kyle and I are going on Saturday, but I'm not using the other two tickets, as far as I know. Everybody is studying and grouchy. If you want/know anyone who wants the tickets, let me know. I love the play. It's not children's theater, by the way. It's legitimate grown-up entertainment.

Reflections

2007-04-30T20:44:00.000-05:00

I always study my reflection in mirrored elevator doors. It's so vain. Usually I check out my hair or my eyeliner to make sure nothing has gone horribly wrong while I've been out in the world. Today I checked out my calves. I always do that when I'm in skirts. For years I've been trying to figure out how to suck my calves in. I've determined that if I point my feet almost completely to the sides of my body and put all my weight on my big toes, my calves definitely look thinner. I haven't perfected walking in this position, unfortunately, so it doesn't do me much good unless I'm standing in a decorative fashion.

I was doing this ballet/yoga stance today in the elevator when my security escort met me. I had to go into work today to deliver some sandwiches and coffee, which is my best office minion story yet. Normally I wouldn't have gone in for the sole purpose of serving coffee, but there was a mix-up with the dates and I didn't realize that this particular coffee day was also Commercial Law Eve. I felt bad about backing out of it, so I went in to work for three hours just to be the lunch girl.

Anyway, I needed a security escort because I was taking the freight elevator on the way back up. I was a little bit nervous, mainly because I was anxious to leave and incredibly sleep deprived. As we exchanged pleasantries and rode down the next twenty floors, I checked my reflection out again and actually was pleased to see that I looked like someone who would be working in a big downtown office building. I was something resembling a professional adult. Completely pleased with myself and all my fabulousness, I confidently sauntered down to the cafeteria.

Confidence was shattered two minutes later. I was under the impression that the sandwiches had been paid for, but that was not the case and I didn't have 150 dollars tucked into my bra at that particular moment. Thus, I ended up sprinting up three flights of stairs, taking an elevator, sprinting across two floors and taking a second elevator, just to get to the conference. I then had to interrupt and demand seven dollars in cash from anyone who wanted a sandwich. The next ten minutes consisted of me trying to delicately climb over people (trying not to interrupt) while they all handed me twenties and expected change. I am not a piggy back. This concept was lost on the 75 people who only had twenties. One man kept repeating, "But do you have any ones? If you had ones, I'll take ones? Do you have ones?" I kept telling him I didn't, but he didn't seem to get it, and I finally got frustrated and said, "I'm sorry, I don't carry large wads of ones on me. I'm not a stripper." That's exactly the type of thing that lands you those big promotions.

When I made it back to the cafeteria my security escort had given up on me and the rush of lunch people made the struggle with the over-loaded sandwich cart a little ridiculous. I managed to find a non-english-speaking custodian who was able to get me into the freight elevator after a lot of pleading and confused responses (at one point he offered me his spray bottle of cleanser). Turns out, the freight elevator has mirrored doors as well, and this time there was a reflection of a girl who was gripping a cart that was bending under the weight of a tipping tower of sandwiches. Her hair had come loose from the ponytail, one button of her blouse had decided not to stay closed, her face held a mixture of panic and confusion and her calves were decidedly the fattest I've ever seen. I have no idea how she ever got hired.

One day closer to getting that A

2007-04-29T23:31:00.000-05:00

Today was Drew+Carly day, the big super-productive study date.

It actually was super-productive. I bought popsicles, Drew introduced me to a new web comic, we listened to a song Jed sent me, I made Crispix mix and later we went out to El Vaquero with Kyle and Nate. We topped off the evening with Car Soccer on the PS2 and a Season One episode of the X-Files.

What did I learn about Commercial Law today? I learned that buying the additional post-it note tab set for the 2 extra colors was silly, because now I have seven when I only needed five. I also learned that study aids might not be worth it if you only use them as paperweights for your other study guides.

Just one more day between me and that exam. Too bad I have to work tomorrow. C'est la vie. At least my soccer skills are improving.

Hamster Love

2007-04-28T23:39:00.001-05:00

I kept thinking about that guy from Hamster Tracker all day. 200 hundred hamsters probably die every day, but I still feel really bad for this guy. It's obvious that he was very wrapped up in her. I don't blog about my hamster much because...well, honestly I don't want to be that girl who blogs about her hamster. I tend to slip into lameness enough without putting nails in my coffin. However, I can do a semi-tribute post tonight because this guy's pathetic little webpage really touched me and I hope he's doing ok out there in the Netherlands (wherever the hell that is...I just keep thinking Peter Pan...).

True story: Two days after I got Bambina I tried to take her back to the pet store. She got out of her cage the night I bought her and for the next two days she had an accute case of wet tail. Apparently it was just the stress of her new home and the food change, but at the time I thought she was going to die on me and I was so upset I decided I wasn't ready for a hamster. I should put in a little side note here: I was completely devoted to Madeleine, the hamster I had in Utah. You can see her on my hat in my profile picture. I rescued her from the Humane Society and she lived at the bookstore with me in the children's department for two years. I didn't bring her to Ohio because we weren't allowed to have pets in the Gateway and she died before I could get back home to see her. Even though she was very old and I hadn't seen her in a while, it was still pretty upsetting. So the idea of this little one dying on me was just about too much.

It's totally to Kyle's credit that I still have her. He was comforting, but when that didn't work, he pretty much yelled at me. He pointed out that if I took her back they were just going to euthanize her because nobody was going to buy a hamster with wet tail and she was my responsibility. He basically said that if she was going to die she could at least die while I was making her comfortable. So I hung onto her and hovered around her for the next week until she was feeling better. She's completely recovered and has put on enough to weight to masquerade as a guinea pig. She's recently been spoiled. I bought her a glass cage to serve as a play area so that she could have something other than her ball to entertain her. The play area has a new wheel, treats, and an edible bed. She also got a big girl bed for her cage, since she was growing out of the puppy igloo. I think I've bought everything a person can buy for a hamster, other than tubes. Kyle's obsessed with tubes, but I'm afraid she's too fat and she'll get stuck like that kid in Willy Wonka.

Personality wise, she's different than Madeleine. Maddie was very calm and friendly and was basically a lap hamster. She liked to be held and she liked to cuddle up in pockets and cleavage. Beenie likes to interact, but she isn't what I would call "friendly". When I hold her she won't sit still, but she gets irritated if I stop paying attention to her. If I lay a treat on the ground she'll refuse to eat it, but if I hand it to her I have a 50/50 chance that she'll throw it on me. I was laying on my back once with her on my stomach and I gave her a raisin. She put it in her mouth pouch, walked up and crawled onto my face (she likes to sit right up against my nose) and then she threw that stupid raisin directly into my eye. Don't know why she did it. She loves raisins. She just wasn't in a raisin place at that moment. She's kind of a bitchy little hamster, actually, but she can be really really sweet when she's willing to grant an audience. She's pretty cuddly tonight, so we took some photos. I feel bad that I don't have more of her, since Lucy got an entire webcage and fan base.

I have to go. She's in her ball and she's running into the bed repeatedly and then looking up at me. I think someone wants to play.

Double blogging again

2007-04-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

Had to add a teeny tiny note:

I know not everyone is a hamster person, but there's sad news in the world of hamsters today. There's a website I visit about once a week called Hamster Tracker. It's an entire page devoted to a hamster named Lucy, created by the guy who owns her. It's kind of the kingpin of people who have webpages instead of lives, but it's very sweet and entertaining. Being a hamster person, I like to check in on Lucy and see what she's been up to.

Anyway, apparently Lucy got a bladder infection and died. I feel really bad for the guy. If you want to look at something interesting, check out all the messages in his guestbook. It's so bizarre that people all over the world are joining this man in his grief. And by bizarre, I mean wonderful.

Cowboy, take me away

2007-04-28T10:14:00.000-05:00

We went to Nyoh's last night to release a little bit of finals week tension. I'm really starting to feel it, as is reflected on my credit card statements. Today is a full day of studying. I'm only allowed to leave the house to go out to dinner. Of course, if I went out and bought some new post it tabs, that might really improve my work ethic...

Nyoh's is still my favorite bar. No live music last night, but they play a great mix of old/new country. There were a handful of line dancers, even though the place was nearly empty. One man in particular, with his tucked-in shirt, his cell phone belt clip and his weirdly large butt, line-danced for about three hours straight and prompted conversation:

Carly: Wow, look at that guy go!
Kyle: Oh yeah, he's really cool. I wish I could walk around in a big stupid white cowboy hat.
Carly: I think the hat is cool.
Nate: Oh come on. No way.
Kyle: How can you think that's cool? Look at him! I don't think anyone who isn't in the act of riding a horse should wear boots.
Carly: If I could have you be anything, I wouldn't have you be a Marine or a firefighter. I'd have you be a cowboy.
Nate: What? Why?
Carly: I'm from Utah. Hello?
Kyle: You think that guy is hot? (Bubble butt is in the background, tearing up the dance floor to "Sold")
Nate: You're attracted to racist, unintelligent rednecks?

Ok, I'll grant that men who wear boots, drive trucks and tip their hat to you when you walk by might be more conservative, politically speaking. I'll even say that these men might be more likely to have blue collar jobs. But not all men who want to be cowboys also want to beat up minorities in their spare time. There are just as many intelligent, well-rounded country boys as there are intelligent, well-rounded college boys, and 95% of the time they treat women better. And yes, cowboys are still hot. This particular cowboy was kind of like Dilbert in a ten-gallon, but in general I find boots, wranglers and giant belt buckles to be quite sexy.

Kyle eventually got vaguely beligerent about the fact that this man was not attractive. Beligerence is a side effect to drinking that you have to watch with Kyle. At one point last night, we actually had to have the "I'm going to kick his ass" "No, you're not" conversation. In another life I think Kyle would have made a very fine country boy. Unfortunately, I think his background is a little more "trailer" than "country". This is an important distinction. Trailer is never sexy.

You know how you have childhood moments that stay with you and start to form a part of your personality? One of these surface moments is Kellie and me sitting on sawdust with our Daisy Dukes and our bottles of homemade lemonade, watching the cowboys at the Reno rodeo walk by. We ranked them on height, shoulders and posterior formation. We both had our pigtails and our cowboy hats, and Kellie was rockin' her 200 dollar cowboy boots. Kellie was about 5 times as country as I was. She got her own horse when she was 5 and she was studying to be an equestrian vet when she died. Personally, I think there's nothing cuter than a little chinese cowgirl. I think we were 15. Our families were off somewhere, messing with the horses. There's nothing else to the story, it's just one of those moments that comes to mind when I think "who am I?".

Maybe Kyle and I will have to move out to Big Sky Montana so he can learn to rope some stuff. I don't actually care if he never rides, since I continue to not be a horse person (so much poo!) but it would be pretty hot if he could rope stuff. Oooh, and line dancing. Line dancing is hot. Shut up. It is. You like it.

i'm so deep, i can't handle it

2007-04-26T23:21:00.000-05:00

i swear to god, i did study. i studied for a good half hour.

i took a short break to do my dishes. of course, i set a sitcom playing on my laptop so i could watch it while doing the dishes. when i had finished the dishes, i had to finish the sitcom, so i started reading Jane magazine. Of course, the sitcom finished but i still had to finish the magazine after that. at least i was multitasking.

anyway: reading Jane is never a good idea. it's the worst magazine and i don't know why i've read every issue since it came out more than five years ago. i'm a sick puppy. anyway, this issue was no different. a lot of indulgent, immature articles about being a 20 something woman. i ate it up like candy.

so there's this article about inspiring women called 30 under 30. it's basically 30 women in their teens or twenties who have accomplished various things. i think three or four of them are bloggers, including this 17 year old girl named Cory Kennedy. i looked her site up to see what the big deal is, and realized that she's basically fabulous and that's why she has a following. i wish i had a following. i can't even get kyle to read this most of the time.

so, inspired, i set out to write a fabulous blog. an edgy, effortlessly cool blog about the grittiness of the whirlwind that is my life. first off, i needed a gritty, fashionista polaroid photo of myself being fabulous. (see underage sophomore photo above) secondly, i needed to actually be effortlessly cool and gritty. but i'm not really a "partying in milan's hottest underground club" kind of girl as it turns out. i'm more of a "hey, this is my hamster. i like apples. it's sunny out." kind of blogger.

i don't think i'm going to make Jane's '08 30 under 30. even if i do stick with this super-gritty fashionista font. c'est la vie. maybe i'll be grittier and more effortless tomorrow.

Studying for Commercial Law

2007-04-26T19:19:00.000-05:00

I have a Commercial Law final in a few days, so naturally Kyle and I spent the day at the zoo. I was supposed to study yesterday and I sort of did, except that I also sort of went to Whole Foods and DSW and Target and Petsmart and bought lots of stuff and then messed around with the afore mentioned stuff all night. Bleh@studying. Besides, I can't possibly study until I have less than 24 hours befoe the exam. The greatest motivator in the world is blind panic.

I'm going to study tonight (right now! as soon as I'm done with this! and ignoring the fact that I just bid on about 25 things on eBay!). Of course, I do have to do all of my dishes, and then I'm making dinner. I'm making myself a nice dinner for once, which might actually be a first. I ususally save all of my nice dinners for other people. I only eat steak when other people come over and I almost never make something that has a side dish unless I'm cooking for three or more. I decided this was sort of stupid, since it's expensive to cook for a lot of people and I can't keep making people come over so I can make them food. So, tonight I'm having scallops with bacon and mushrooms over wilted spinach. It's a very deliberate I-live-alone moment (which should procrastinate studying by a good hour and a half).

Anyway, really I am going to study. Besides, it's not like I didn't learn a ton today. I saw 3 snakes eat mice, found out that the manatees' names are Stubby and Holly, chilled with a baby gorilla and heard a Puma meow. You can't buy that kind of education, people. Screw the bar, when I grow up I want to be a marine bioloigist. (Did everyone go through that stage? I feel like 99% of the kids in the nineties wanted to be a marine bioligist. Do we even know any marine bioligists?)

I suppose I better go so I can find other ways to put off studying.

Finals week continues to rock

2007-04-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

One exam down, two to go. I have to admit that I got that same old feeling of depressed despair that I always get when I finish a test. Nothing like the thought of "Oh my God. I don't even think I passed that one" to really wake you up in the morning. I rebounded nicely, though, with a good/bad blockbuster chick flick (Little Black Book) and a sinful breakfast (chocolate covered bananas).

I got a special treat today. Someone screwed up at Costco and Kyle got to come home early. He actually timed his arrival perfectly with the end of my movie. We spent the afternoon out in the sunshine at the park of roses. We (sort of) flew a kite. It turns out you really do need wind. Running only ensures that the thing will dive and slam directly into the back of your head. We also played frisbee. I am slowly conquering my fear of frisbees.

--interjection for fear of frisbees story--

A girl stands on her front lawn. She is seven. Across the street, neighborhood children gather under the thin shade of a tree and sit on the lawn to watch the performance. The girl's father stands 20 feet away from her, weilding a hot pink plastic frisbee. He wags it in the air.

"Are you ready? I'm going to throw it at you."

"I don't want to play frisbee."

The girl's mother stands in the doorway leading to the house, waiting for the first toss. It's a routine that is becoming more and more frequent, even as the length of "play" decreases.

"Here it comes. You better catch it."

"No."

The man whips his arm back and sends the frisbee flying through the air. The girl closes her eyes and scrunches her nose as the frisbee smacks her directly in the face.

"Ok, now throw it back."

The girl blinks a few times, bends over and picks up the frisbee. She slowly walks over to the man, hands him the frisbee, and walks back to her original position.

"Alright, are you ready? Here it comes."

The girl closes her eyes.

--end of frisbee story--

See, the words "frisbee" and "power struggle" were basically interchangeable when I was growing up. The game wasn't actually the disc flying through the air, it was the fact that he pretended not to notice that I never played and I pretended not to mind getting hit in the face with a frisbee repeatedly. I'm sure you won't even believe me when I tell you that this game lasted at least three more years. It usually only lasted ten minutes before the inevitable split lip or frisbee-in-the-eye.

Today I actually tried catching. It's more fun, as it turns out. I do have the bad habit of closing my eyes right before the frisbee reaches me. Old habits die hard. No blood was drawn, however, so I'm ahead of the game.

After the park we went to the comic book store, the pet store and then drove around aimlessly for a little while. It's so nice to just have time to spend together. Kyle has the day off tomorrow so tomorrow is zoo day, unless it's raining. Cross your fingers for sunny skies.

i love finals week

2007-04-23T20:07:00.000-05:00

i'm getting a little taste of what my summer is going to be like and it's going to be AWESOME.

sleeping in = awesome.
wearing yoga clothes all day = awesome.
doing everything at my own pace = awesome.
working while simultaneously deep conditioning my hair, doing a load of laundry, and making bread = awesome.

i officially never want to be on anyone else's schedule again. too bad i have to go back to work on friday morning. on the other hand, it's so nice to know that that is my only time commitment this whole week. i have a a week to study for my exam and then a week to finish my paper. doing one thing a week really agrees with me.

in other news, i finally got my birthday card from Kate! if it had come a week later it would have been exactly 3 months after my birthday. god bless the united states postal service. honestly, it was about 30 times more exciting to get it today than it would have been to get it around my birthday. she put 50 bucks in it because she's awesome, so i gave myself a little study break and bought some books from the NY times bestsellers list that i've been eyeing for some time. besides the crazy writing/reading i'm doing for my book, be prepared for some book reviews a la summer reading. i already have a stack waiting for me on my kitchen table. May 7th cannot come any sooner. god bless finals week.

Earth Day

2007-04-22T01:07:00.000-05:00

Nate just left. We spent the night eating hormone-free steaks and watching Clive Owen movies. I rented Children of Men because I heard it was really good. To be fair, it was really good. However, it left me feeling very down about the future of the planet. Nate thinks I missed the whole point, because he found the movie to be very hopeful and uplifting. We watched part of Beyond Borders after that, but mostly we just sat around and talked about peace.

Yes, that's what we do. We get together and sit around and think about ways to create world peace. I pointed out that we are probably the only people who do this. We also aren't doing the best job. For example, we did nothing this year to further peace through our service projects. Nate did stop me from getting ice cream tonight (I was depressed after the movie) by following me around the grocery store saying, "Is society going to be any better off if you get ice cream?" Of course, that has nothing to do with helping society. It's not like I saved $3.49 that went directly into my Feed African Babies fund. Bah.

We talked a lot about the peace corps. I feel like such a jackass for being so excited about it not that long ago, since I don't know if I'm really going to do it. I'm also wondering if I'm just using it as an avoidance tactic. Technically, I could do more for relief work, at least initially, by working here and not in the field. I told Nate, I think he and I are think tank people, not in the field people. Going into the field would only accomplish two things: it would put off my student debts and it would fulfill a girlhood fantasy of saving a village. Bah again.

You know, when I was little I actually thought world peace was going to happen. I thought about it the same way I think about a cure for cancer. It's coming, it's just not here yet. I took it for granted that people were working on it and by the time I was an adult, all the world conflicts would have been settled. Modern society wouldn't have world conflicts, after all. It turns out - peace? Not so much. I'm just now really starting to realize that peace might actually be a mythological state. Bah x 3.

Do you want to hear something stupid? I took my cloth bags to the grocery store and was so happy because I didn't waste plastic. I, who have double bagged so many things that didn't need to be double bagged, actually was happy about saving one or two grocery bags. That's what I did for society today. Bah Bah Bah Bah. I'm so tired of not knowing how to save the world. Someone out there has to have some idea. I refuse to believe that this is really the best we can come up with. I'm very afraid that Nate and I are going to grow out of wanting to create peace. I really don't want to reach the point where I start expecting less of myself as a citizen just because it's easier that way. I think that would be really depressing. Even this horrid guilt beats not caring at all. I think.

Flashback to '88

2007-04-21T08:51:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my social circle, circa 1988. Don't you love the matching dinosaur t-shirts (expertly done in puff paint, mind you)? From left to right we have Michael, Jefferey, Ben, me, and Christina. No idea where any of these people are now, so this is not that kind of post. I'm vaguely curious, but when you're 5 you don't bother with things like people's last names, so I have absolutely no way of internet stalking these people.

I actually do remember Michael's last name, but that's because he was my first boyfriend. You can't see it very well, but our puff paint dino shirts match - we're both triceratops. Michael was rowdy, but dashingly handsome for a five year old and he had a really cool backyard, which is all I look for in a man. He also had the courtesy to not run screaming when I kissed him (Jefferey punched me and Ben cowered and crouched on the ground. Not romantic.). I actually have a necklace that Michael gave me when he asked me to be his girlfriend. It's a prism with lots of different colors in it...I don't really know how to describe it. Very 80s. The next day we set up a whole marriage-plot. We were going to run away at 16 to get married in Mexico and I would ride horses and he would be a soldier. I suppose if I hadn't moved away at 6 that's exactly where we'd me right now. Mr and Mrs Michael Widiker. Or, I guess, Senor and Senora Michael Widiker.

Jeffery was a little pain in the ass, who could not stand affection, no matter how it was given. It took a good year before he would accept me saying that we were friends out loud, despite the fact that we played together every day and I think he loved my mom more than he loved his mom. In fact, it's quite possible that Jefferey was only in it for my mom. I don't remember specifics, but I know his home life was nothing to brag about. And my mom is a really good cook. Anyway, Jefferey is the first person I can remember who cared about the fact that I was a girl. He was very into boys playing with boys and girls playing with girls and it was with great disdain that I was allowed into the social circle. On the day I told him I was moving away he cried. I think that's the last time I saw him.

Ben had almost no outside-personality, but was the sweetest kid ever. He was very polite and quiet and shy. He was also very funny, but it took a couple of months of coaxing him out of his shell before you realized this. Ben never cared/realized that I was a girl. He had sort of a sense about him that he was just bewildered to have friends.

Christina never brushed her teeth. I realize that this is an odd reason to be friends with someone, but that's how it happened. I was already friends with the boys and then Christina started going to our school. Everyone made fun of her and wouldn't talk to her, so I threatened to pound anyone who made her feel bad. She didn't ever say much. I think she and Jefferey had the same thing going on at home. To his credit, as mean as he was to everyone, he never gave her shit. And nobody picked on her because I had a history of punching and biting people who picked on my friends. Yes, it's quite possible that I was a nasty little 5 year old, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Anyway, if there's a word I would use to describe Christina, it would be loyal. I think she's the closest thing I'll ever have to an entourage.

I can remember at least five other people I was friends with at that time, including my best friend Yoriko - who was in the grade I skipped out of. I'm sandwiched between her and Christina in the photo below. As an FYI, the heads you can see belong to Jeremy, Michael, Ben and the blond head is a girl named Gena. Gena actually picked on Christina once after we'd become friends. She told her that she smelled up the whole classroom. The result was me biting her hard enough to probably leave a permanent scar and ending up in the principal's office for the first time. She was actually a pretty good sport about it and we were on good terms after that.

It's weird to think that I absorbed that much at that age, especially since Kaitlyn is turning 5 next month and I think sometimes we still treat her like she's not retaining anything. I have really clear memories of things that happened to me, especially when they concern my friends. I also feel like a lot of that stuff shaped my personality later. It makes me wonder if any of them have clear memories about me.

Sleeping made me tired

2007-04-20T09:48:00.000-05:00

I had a series of nightmares last night. Not really terrible ones, just the exhausting chase-dream kind. I always have dreams about people chasing me inside my own house. There are two elements that always show up. The first is that I always end up hiding in a closet and it's always a bad idea because when I peek out, whoever is chasing me is staring right back at me. The second element is that I always try to call out for help and the person chasing me is always already on the line. In this particular dream I was on my cell phone, but it didn't matter. I could hear it ringing and while it was ringing (nobody ever picked up) a man's voice came over and said, "I'm looooooking for you."

So I woke up this morning and actually did the feet check. The feet check is the check you do when you sit on your bed and peer down, snoopy-vulture style, to see if anything under your bed is going to grab your feet when you stand up. At 24, at 7:30 in the morning, I was doing the feet check. It's troubling to think how little I've advanced.

I'm so tired today. What a waste. I spent all those hours sleeping, when in reality I was just using up energy by being scared for my life. There has to be a way to turn dreaming off that doesn't involve copious amounts of Jack Daniels. I didn't do a lot last night, luckily. I stayed in and watched Freedom Writers, a drama about a new teacher who turns around the lives of her students. It's not a surprise that those are my favorite kind of movies. Dead Poet's Society, To Sir with Love, The Miracle Worker - all faves. I'm such a sap.

It's movie night again tonight, featuring a viewing of Noises Off. It actually got all screwed up, which is my fault. It was supposed to be last night, when everyone had free time, but I thought Drew could make it today so I switched it to tonight. Kyle is working late was supposed to be going out of town, but he changed his plans to make it and I arranged to get out of work early so I could clean his place since he wouldn't be home. Of course, the end story is that Drew still can't make it and now Kyle and I are going to be exhausted and he doesn't get to spend as much time with his best friend and Janean's been at work all day too, etc etc etc. Oh well, at least we're sort of getting together. I can't do anything else social until after May 8th, between work and finals. Bah @ being a grown-up.

Looking back on my second year

2007-04-19T08:42:00.000-05:00

Carly: You guys need to remember that I'm a girl more often.
Nate: You're right. I'm always like, "Let's play video games" and "Let's sword fight" and "What the crap are those things on your chest?"

Today is the last day of classes for my second year of law school. I'm sitting in Commercial Law, trying to gather up everything good I remember about this year. I hope your year was as good as mine has been. It's nice to be at this point and realized that I survived without any major calamities. So weird - we're almost finished!

A look back at being a 2L:

SCHOOL

Prof. Travalio: Is "this car is in A-1 condition" an express warranty?
Stanek: No, it's too vague. He could mean that the car is full of delicious steak sauce.

School is school, but this year (minus Ap-Ad) was a lot better than last year. Doing mediations in small claims court was surprisingly fun and I've been able to focus on topics that I'm actually interested in (school bullying, teacher retention). I'm also enjoying the Mondays and Fridays off and the once-a-week night classes. Besides, I've had a line-up of the best professors this year. (Whaley, Chamallas, Cole, Hinchcliff, Dean Rogers) Even with finals coming up, I'm just not that stressed about it. 40 pg papers beats 4 hour exams any day.

WORK

Janean: I don't know what to say in my interview.
Carly: Maybe you should just be honest.
Janean: I don't think that "hey, I don't really want to work here and I'm not interested at all in doing this, I'm only doing it for the money" is going to get me a job.

I really, really got lucky with my job. I love being there and I love that I'm doing things that are more creative than doing straight legal research. I also really like the people I work with. Maria has been a very good mentor and working with Sarah is so easy because she's such a nice, normal person. There were a couple of times that I really thought about quitting because I wanted to stay home and do schoolwork (i.e. watch episodes of Friends) but I'm very glad I didn't. Not only did I have a great work experience, I've really gotten into the teacher retention/CRE theory and I think it might turn into a career.

Every now and then I have flashes of regret for the legal position at the Department of Education, but that's only because it would have been a safer choice, career-wise. I'm 98% sure that I would have hated it. Then again, what I want to do for a living changes every 30 seconds, so next year might find me back in that interview.

EXTRA-CURRICULARS

(1st APALSA meeting)
Shilpa: And now we'll have 1L rep elections!
Carly: (whispering) How are we going to do that? Have them raise their hands?
Shilpa: (whispering) I don't know. Maybe we should give them paper. Do you have paper?
Carly: (whispering) We should have thought about this before 40 1Ls were staring at us.

Thank God for Shilpa and Nate. I have been a very bad extra-curricular girl this year. Shilpa carried APALSA and Nate carried MCOP, while I sort of sat back and enjoyed the ride. I did the Negotiation Competition, but that was mainly to help Nate out. Past that, I think I didn't do a whole lot. I feel like I was really involved last year, but I just couldn't get it together this year. I'm starting to volunteer on my own again this summer, hopefully next year I won't be such a worthless citizen.

RELATIONSHIPS

Carly: How would you handle some guy hitting on your girlfriend?
Nate: I'd probably calmly approach him and talk it out.
Carly: Mmm, that's totally hot.

This has been a weird year relationship wise. On the one hand, things have been tough, between Kyle's 4 month absence and this spring break. Then again, Kyle has really made my year awesome, and he's still the greatest thing in my life. I have to admit that part of me wishes that we just never had problems. It really gets pretty hard sometimes. But we're closer now than we ever have been, which bodes well for fighting in the future. I think it drives him crazy that I blog about our relationship, but he's been a good sport about it.

Everyone else's relationships have been interesting as well. Drew and Nate flip-flopped this year, with Nate being single and Drew having a steady girlfriend. Janean found Kyle and now she's going to live happily ever after. Lori went from "I'm going to be single forever!" at Christmas to "Ring by Spring" engaged girl as of April 1. More weddings this summer...man, we're all growing up so fast.

FRIENDS

(during a highly competitive game of Scattergories)
Nate: Sam Adams beer is not an "A" because it can't be Adams, Sam beer
Carly: Yeah, that's like saying Office Max is an "M"
Drew: But Sam Adams was a real person!
Carly: Office Max could have been a real person

My friend circle has been more focused this year. I've spent a whole lot of time with just a few people, and then wonder why I never see some others. I think I went out less this year, but I'm not really sure. The beginning of my first year in law school is a little blurry with the socialness. There are a lot of people I hung out with last year that I don't see anymore and a lot of people I only vaguely knew last year who are now some of my favorite people. I have no idea what kind of social fireworks are in store for next year, but it's nice to have a really solid core of people to fall back on. Just think, only one more year before we scatter.

HOME

Home for Christmas:
Margi: How are you girls?
Carly and Michelle: (in unison) Fine.
Margi: Great! I'm fine, too.
(approx 30 sec of silence)
Carly: I've been making myself throw up.
Michelle: I almost threw myself under a bus last week.
Margi: My family is so messed up, I can't stand them!
Carly: Oh, thank god. K, let's get started...

I have to admit, home was not as missed this year. Dad came out here just in time to see my ceiling fall down, and my short xmas visit home was puncuated with awkward high school reunions and realizations that everyone at home is just as stressed as I am. Margi's had her baby by now, Bryttin's pregant and Becah has started adoption proceedings. Michelle leaves for London without me in less than a month and promises to come out this summer. Zach continues to be part of my support circle (which is good, since he owes me money!) and the people at Sam Weller's have changed enough to keep me from wishing I was still a 20 year old bookseller. Mom's health has been better and I think we've both gotten more used to not having each other around. My sisters are almost completely a mystery these days, and I'm giving up on having an actual conversation with my little brother until he isn't a teenager anymore. But still, every now and then I really miss having family around.

Moments that come to mind:

Napping at Sheena's boathouse.

Getting baby Duncan from the creepiest Amish family in the world.

The super-efficient postal service from D.C. to C-bus. (you know, I still don't have my card...)

Mediating at small claims court (He's possessed by the devil!)

Shopping with Nate (Janean: is it ok if we light those jeans on fire when we get home?)

Drew: (whispering) I smell incontinent people. All the time. They don't know they're incontinent.

Drunk Janean at parties ("Are you having a good time? Do you need a drink? Do you think everyone is having a good time? Ok, I'm gonna go walk around. Have fun, ok? HAVE FUN.)

"I hate this class. We have to go watch minorities this weekend." "Minorities? SHIT!"

Whaley: What am I talking about?

Here, I got you "not cancer" for Christmas.

The battle of The Little Mermaid. (It's his KNEE!!!!)

Muffin

"I told everyone I had to go to Friend Night"

Nate: "Ok, get to work. If you feel like having fun later, call me and I'll come over and kick you in the butt until you go back to work."

Janean: "Drew, we need a heart to heart. You and me. Heart to Heart. Me and You. Monday. Heart to Heart."

St. Patrick's Day at NYOH's

More interesting tidbits from the halls of Moritz

2007-04-18T09:04:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in Commercial Law. I think I blog about Prof. Whaley's comments more than I blog about any other class. This is either because the man is profound or because I blog while sitting in this class more often than while sitting in any other.

This morning Prof. Whaley started class with a short discussion of how to communicate with people. He pointed out that most people communicate with others by talking about themselves. Example:

Person 1: "I just got back from a trip to Alaska."
Person 2: "I've always wanted to go to Alaska, but I don't know when I'll get the chance."

The second person steered the conversation away from the first person's trip to talk about his own desires. The first person can ignore this and continue talking about his trip, but unless he's used to the other person doing this, he's going to feel resentful because the second person appears to not be interested in the conversation. This is bad communication.

Everyone does this, all the time. Most people only notice it when the other person is doing it, not when they themselves are doing it. I know I'm guilty of this. It's so rude when you really think about it. It's right up there with interrupting (another thing I'm guilty of). The worst is interrupting someone and then realizing that you weren't even listening and that's why you decided to talk. It's hard to come back from that.

Anyway, that's all. I thought it was worth thinking about. Try to listen to each other. Thanks.

Casting the story of my life

2007-04-17T10:34:00.000-05:00

Kyle and I watched The Dirty Dozen last night, a 70's movie featuring a cast that was better than its plot. Casts make or break movies, naturally. You can have the best script in the world, but if it's cast badly, it's not going to work. On the other hand, you can have the worst script in the world and it will instantly become a number one hit if you have the right people.

This post features the all-star cast of "beingcarly: the movie". Updated as I ponder it more...

carly

kyle

janean

nate

drew

Phototourism

2007-04-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

Zach updated his photo album recently with his spring break photos. The link is on the right, under everyone else's blogs. If you have any interest in taking a road trip out west, you should check out the pictures. They are simply stunning. It's almost frustrating how good his eye is. I miss my camera, but I simply do not take pictures like these. I enjoy taking portraits of people, but nature/travel photography is not really my thing. I love nature photographs, though, and a handful of these are seriously being considered for future art installations in my living room.

Not only do I miss my camera now, I miss being out west. Kyle and I are flying out to Sacramento in June and then driving up to Newport to spend a week on the coast. It feels like there are eons of time between then and now. I'm desperate to see the ocean and I haven't been to southern California or the Monterey Bay area for more than 5 years. It's so true that California is unlike anything else in America. All states have their high points, but it's hard to top the Pacific coast.

Kellie used to get really bored with California. I don't think a campground exists that she didn't stay in, to be fair, and I suppose things were getting a little old by the time she turned 20. If it hadn't been for our family, she would have moved to the east coast as soon as she turned 18. She used to go on and on and on about living in New York, clubbing in Miami, taking long weekends in New Orleans. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, but I can't think of anything on this side of the country that tops California.

Oh well, maybe some day I'll go back to being a Cali girl. A nice little ranch house free from Ohio weather is sounding very lovely right about now. Until then, I'll have to live vicariously through the travels of my friends. C'est la vie.

Race Judicata, windchill and Nate's repeated attempts to end my life

2007-04-15T15:25:00.000-05:00

Author's note: This one is for Martha and her spontaneous blog-reading confessions.

So Race Judicata was this morning. Chances are, you weren't there, because my GOD was it cold. I dragged Kyle along for the fun, but sent him home a half hour later so his extremities wouldn't freeze and fall off. It was so cold. Fucking Ohio wind, that's all I have to say. We actually had a pretty good turnout, all things considered. For those of you not in the Race Judicata loop, let me fill you in.

SBA decided to have a charity 5K race and asked MCOP's leaders (Nate and I) to pitch in and help. This was all well and good in October, when it sounded like a lovely idea, but over time Nate and I sort of shrank into the background in the hopes it would go away. To Nate's credit, he stepped up at the end and pulled his weight. My contributions included the purchase of Powerbars and the taking of pictures. The rest of the credit goes to Claudia, who pulled the thing together. It ended up being pretty miserable, because of the weather, but a ton of people still brought money and we ended up with more than 20 runners, which just boggles the mind. Kudos to Claudia and Nate and the runners and all who showed up. Extra credit goes to Nate, who finished tenth and Shilpa who beat her target race time by 8+ minutes! Hooray for everyone and (for the love of God) can we have it in September next year?

So, post-race I needed a ride home, since Kyle had taken my car. Nate had driven and I didn't really have any other options (totally should have grabbed Shilpa in retrospect) so I accepted his generous offer of a ride home. BIG MISTAKE. I know I've blogged about Nate's car before but it's even more of a death trap these days. As soon as he turned it on there was a really strong, weird smell and Nate started screaming at me to roll down my window. Mind you, I'm still freezing with all the nose-running and eyes-watering that accompanies being freezing, and I'm now riding down Kenny with my head out the window like a golden retriever. I couldn't even catch my breath to yell at him between the fumes and the wind.

Note: I love Nate and he is far and away one of my favorite people. But I was so upset with him I was near tears. By the time we got to the Rusty Bucket (celebratory alcohol-laced MCOP board meeting) I felt like I had been drinking paint thinner. Nate's pride was wounded by my hacking and wheezing and he insisted that there's nothing wrong with his car. To prove his point, he kept his window rolled up on the drive home and turned on the heater (which expedited the entrance of deadly fumes). The result was a lot of swerving and a moment in which he forgot where my apartment is. I hope he made it home ok.

I say we pitch in and buy him a new bike. Or at least hunt down the people that stole his old one. Something has got to be done. It's going to be completely lame if he makes it all the way through law school and then gasses himself to death in a Tercel.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2007-04-14T10:26:00.000-05:00

You have just come home from dinner with your family in celebration of your graduation from law school. You walk into your apartment and quickly change into the clothes laid out on your bed. You only have a half hour! As you turn and pick up the suitcases you left by the door, you take a minute to look back on your 300 square foot apartment. It's hard to imagine moving on. You smile and open the door, confidently stepping out to face your future. You:

A) carry your bags outside and put them into the waiting taxi. You check your watch. Your flight will be leaving in the next few hours for D.C. and you don't want to be late! Peace Corps orientation begins sharply at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning and you want to be refreshed so you can soak it all in. It's hard to imagine that you'll be in Africa in less than a month's time. It's a good thing law school prepared you to resolve disputes and help communities work together!

B) hand your bags to your boyfriend and check your mail one last time. It's supposed to be forwarding to Stanford, CA, but you just don't trust the postal service. Moving across the country sure is a pain, but hopefully the next four years of study will make it all worth it. Nobody said getting a PhD was easy! It's a good thing law school prepared you for days and nights of endless studying coupled with a meager allowance upon which to live.

C) put your bags in the back of your '95 jeep cherokee. It's really time to start thinking about a new car, now that the firm will be encouraging a nicer lifestyle. At least you got out of that shoebox apartment! You drive away from dingy carpets and the smell of curry to enjoy your new, modern apartment downtown. It's a good thing law school prepared you for working 80 hours a week to earn that big fat paycheck!

Wait, I'm confused

2007-04-13T08:26:00.000-05:00

So, Drew has been helping me with this blog map. I do not only mean the location of the dots (which continues to be a mystery...stupid geography...) but also the meaning behind the dots. I thought the dots happened whenever anyone looked at my blog, but apparently it only counts them if the IP address is one that has never opened the site. Does that make sense? So theoretically they are all different people, or at least the same people on different computers.

Ok, so I get it, that's all very interesting, but now I have a major question: Who are the people making up the dot in the middle? What is that, Kansas? I don't think I know anyone in Kansas and I definitely do not know 10-99 people in Kansas. Is it a glitch? Have Ohio IP addresses somehow switched over to Kansas locations?

I don't know. That's the burning question of the day, anyway.

The APALSA banquet was last night. It was lovely. We had it at China Dynasty this year and found out that they have a really nice back room. The food was good (except that they don't clean their shrimp. yuck.) and there was certainly plenty of it! Kyle and I sat across from Jimmi Nicholson, which is the first time I've ever sat down and spoken with her. She's incredibly nice and such a step up from the admissions guy from my year! (tool) She kept us entertained throughout dinner. I made little favors for everyone out of vellum boxes and they were actually pretty cute, so obviously that is the one thing I really accomplished in law school. Nate missed the banguet to be at another banquet (where he found out he's getting PUBLISHED) and so he came over after for leftovers and video games.

We discovered last night that I own a video game that allows you to play in 2 player split-screen mode as small cars on a soccer field, trying to kick a giant ball into the other team's goal. There is nothing more to say about this because the awesomeness explains itself.

It's Friday the 13th. Watch out for black cats, ladders, fallen salt, etc.

Kurt Vonnegut 1922 - 2007

2007-04-12T09:58:00.000-05:00

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. - Slaughterhouse Five

Kurt Vonnegut died. America has lost another great author. Even if you completely hate Vonnegut, you have to appreciate him. (You should also scour your bookshelves for your Vonnegut novels, they just went up in value)

I have read a few Vonnegut novels and don't generally enjoy them. I usually end up feeling quite depressed and hopeless. I suppose it makes sense, since Vonnegut is one of those people who became a great author mainly because horrible things happened to him. Anything that is 90% created from suffering is going to have an ill effect on your subconscious. But I still read Vonnegut simply because he is a creator of art. You have to think of his novels as a cultural experience, rather than a leisurely entertainment.

This is a personal opinion of course. I'm sure there are many people who are relaxed by Vonnegut's writing, who pick it up and comb through it in the same way I comb through Barbara Kingsolver. I'm just not one of those people. I don't actually like to read books in which the main character suffers from end to end. I need heroes and lightness. For this reason, if you are going to read your first Vonnegut novel, I recommend God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater instead of the more famous (and probably better written) Slaughterhouse Five. Slaughterhouse Five is an amazing book that will make you want to kill yourself and take the rest of society with you. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater will only leave you a little cynical. For those of you who enjoy dark humor, I strongly recommend it.

You know, it's common for young authors to be referred to as "the next Vonnegut". I wonder if that bothered him in his old age. I would not want people buzzing around me, competing to take my spot. Or perhaps it is the greatest validation, especially for an old author who has battled being suicidal. It may be very comforting to hear that people would want your life if they had their pick.

Auntie Rose

2007-04-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

My Auntie Rose died today. She's the tiny one in both pictures. I have at least 40 photos with Auntie Rose because every time I saw her for the last 24 years she had to grab me and take a photo with her tallest niece. And now her tallest niece can't be there for her funeral. I hate that feeling of far-awayness. I haven't seen her in over a year. February 2006. I've been so terrible about my family. Bleh, I wish it was summer. I have places to be and people to see.

Easter 2007

2007-04-11T12:04:00.001-05:00

Thin

2007-04-11T10:06:00.000-05:00

These photos are from Lauren Greenfield's book "Thin". The after-picture is taken after 10 weeks of treatment at an eating disorder clinic in Florida. There's a documentary that was put out by HBO that goes along with the book - if you youtube it you can pull it up.

I really really really love photographer Lauren Greenfield's books. I have Fast Forward and used to have Girl Culture, which is one of the greatest books ever, but the dog snacked on it. If you haven't seen Girl Culture, you need to check it out. I would even say to buy it off of amazon without looking at it first, it's completely amazing.

I have to add being a documentary photographer to my list of fantasy jobs. It's the perfect mesh of trying to help people and creating art. Fast Forward is centered around youth in the L.A. area and how they're growing up to fast. My favorite is the photo series on the 11 year old boy with all the posters of porn stars. His mother bought them for him "because it's better to be open about things like that." And that's why everyone in L.A. has a therapist.

Girl Culture is a mix of celebrity photography and pictures of normal girls. There are a lot of pictures from fat camps and school functions. It's really interesting. I'm completely fascinated by the world of teenage girls. I'll throw in a movie recommendation here: Thirteen. It's probably the most honest portrayal of jr. high school I've ever seen.

I don't think I'm going to buy Thin. I looked through it last night at Barnes and Noble and it was actually too much. I'm so sad for those girls. I can't imagine and I haven't been far from them. Everytime I think about making myself throw up, I make myself think about how bad it can actually get. But I definately never got anywhere near where these girls are. I think some of them are beyond help. It's such a pointless condition.

Where in the world?

2007-04-10T09:17:00.000-05:00

If you haven't noticed my new map, you should check it out. It's quite entertaining. (It's over there ---> under my picture)

I had to ask Drew about one of the dots this morning. Geography = not my greatest subject. Turns out the dot is in Portugal. Who is in Portugal, reading my blog? No idea. Someone I don't know, I'm sure.

I think I know the dot in Africa, but I'm not totally sure, because I thought the dot I know lives at the bottom. But then again, geography is not my strongest point. Gareth used to live in Bulawayo, but now he's moved up to Harare to take some sweet job being in charge of people. I've been waiting for him to come back to America so we could run into each other again (Vegas, baby) but no such luck, especially now that he's so busy. His brother lives over here somewhere, but that doesn't seem to be doing me much good.

Gareth and I met at Walt Disney World during the college program. (I met all my best men at WDW) We actually worked together, sort of. Gareth was one of the rotational people and we weren't usually scheduled together because we would sneak off to chat. He was responsible for sneaking me pizza every now and then, but other than that he was the model Disney worker. He even stayed until 2 AM on Christmas Eve, doing the dishes by himself. Every girl who worked at All-Star had a crush on Gareth. I think it was the accent, or the height. (He's 6'6"ish) I wasn't allowed to have a crush on Gareth, since I had a boyfriend, but that didn't stop us from flirting shamelessly. I'm pretty sure that Zach was not too big a fan of Gareth, actually, since I would come home and go on and on about how cool it was that he was from Zimbabwe and grew up in boarding school and was a twin and was old enough to buy alcohol, etc. etc. etc. It's hard to compete with that when you're a 20 year old from Utah.

Anyway, I haven't seen him since 2002. I actually never got a chance to say goodbye. I went over to his apartment in the middle of the night, before we left, but he wasn't home. Therefore, I will forever remember him in that red/yellow/blue polyester uniform, complete with baseball cap. I get pictures and stories every now and then, when he can pull himself away from work. His life continues to be much more interesting than mine. He's also a professional golfer, which is so random. And, as you can see above, in Africa lizards just constantly ride around on your shoulder. Like parrots.

back to the grind

2007-04-09T13:34:00.000-05:00

Easter was lovely, the drive back was fine, date night last night was wonderful, work is bleh.

I shouldn't even complain about my job. I love my job and they are so nice to me. I just happen to be between things at the moment and nobody has anything for me to do. This results in my over-attention to things I've already done. (Are those margins lined up?) So I'm just sitting here, blogging now and wishing that I was at school. Yes, it's true, I'm addicted to doing my Com Law outline. I'll have a marathon session with it tonight. Kyle's mom is coming into town, which translates into no sleepovers. C'est la vie.

5 more weeks of my second year. A few months ago I was terrified of graduating, now I can't wait. I still feel like I'm slipping farther away from the Peace Corps, which is really disappointing. I could still do it, of course, but if it really seems like a dumb idea I'm going to have to let it go. I'm sending in part 2 of my application this week. We shall see...

I don't know if I'm going to be done with school. It's very possible that I'll end up with a Masters/PhD in addition to everything else. I'm going to be so overeducated. Blah. I don't know if I'll go straight back to school, but I really need extra training if I'm going to do what I want to do in schools. My lack of desire for financial success is becoming a little annoying. I would very much like to have money, but I'm not interested in making money at all. Classic American problem.

Oh well, one step at a time. As of today I've got (most) everything under control and I'm looking forward to a nice, if busy, summer. Oh man, this whole Life thing is pretty exhausting sometimes. We have to work on making 4 day work weeks a national reality.

The Easter Bunny is not a real thing

2007-04-08T09:44:00.000-05:00

My mom was always pretty big on Easter. Most of my early Easters were spent with my cousin, in frilly little dresses and straw hats. Later Easters were spent in Utah with only my mom and my dad. For those of you who plan on having only one child: easter egg hunts are not that exciting when you're the only one looking and your parents are obviously bored with the whole process. If you're only going to have one child, take them to a park event or rent another child for the morning.

After Randy was born and the divorce happened, Easters were suddenly a 4 kid event. Naturally, I was "above" the whole Easter thing by then, so it was my job to feign boredom throughout the ceremony. In truth, I think egg hunts are effin' fantastic and since my basket was always loaded down with treats that cost at least 30 bucks, Easter was a fairly serious holiday. I think my last egg hunt was my second or third year of college. Yeah, we hang onto some traditions.

No basket this year. We did paint Easter eggs, after I soft boiled them and Kaitlyn dropped half of them. Pictures of the mangled mess will be posted later. There's also general Easterness going on in this house (candy, stuffed bunnies, special breakfast). It's all very lovely. But I miss my mom. I find little pockets of homesickness every now and then and this is one of them. I miss waking up and having her act like she hasn't even noticed the giant baskets of treats on the table. I miss Bisquick pancakes and homemade hot chocolate and using the big stupid ceramic rabbit dishes that take up one third of the kitchen storage space. I even miss the days after Easter where we had to eat 5 million devilled eggs, all slightly green/pink/brown.

I hope you're each having the straw hat-stuffed bunny-pink/green devilled egg kind of Easter, even if you're not so much the Christian type. I, for one, must leave you to sample the sausage+egg quiche.

sleepover

2007-04-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

Last night we went out with Sean and Melissa. We knew that we were going to dinner, so we hung out with Kaitlyn earlier in the afternoon and dyed easter eggs. (2 lessons: I do not know how to boil eggs and Never let a 4 year old carry more than one egg at a time.) Dinner was fun - some hibachi place in Akron - and then we went to a bar and were there for a really long time. The boys did 4 or 5 Irish Car Bombs so Kyle had a good buzz going on. By the time we got home, we were both ready to collapse.

Surprise! There was a note on the door to the guest room that announced that I was sharing my bed with Kaitlyn. Apparently, we were having a spur of the moment sleepover. This was around 1, so she was quite asleep when we got there. However, she woke up as soon as I got into bed and this resulted in a 4-5 hour sleepover party during which she had a wonderful time and I begged her to go to sleep. We had 2 stories, 3 lullabies, 1 Spongebob Squarepants movie, and about 3 hours of listening to my iPod. She was completely fine and chipper this morning. I, on the other hand, feel vaguely like I've been hit by a schoolbus.

I don't remember liking/disliking sleep when I was little, but I think if I could go back in time and do anything, that's what I would do. I would take endless naps. Read and take endless naps. I would be the lame kid in the back of her class with her head on her desk.

Anyway, we just got back from lunch with Flash, Tricia and Craig, and it's time for someone to take a nap...