Spring Fever
Hi! It’s Friday! And I have lost my mind! I have completely fallen victim to spring fever, because it’s sunny and it’s warm, y’all, and that is AWESOME. And it is not only Friday, but it is the Friday after the Worst. Week. Ever, and the last Friday in March, and for some reason I am all sunshine and flowers and rainbows and kittens today. Maybe the excessive amount of coffee has something to do with it? Nah.
Point being that a co-worker just came into the office to find me giggling helplessly at the e-mail I had just received. See, we get these nice little newsletters about health stuff, and the title of this one is, “Uncle Sam Wants
YOU to Eat Better.” Hee! Thanks, Uncle Sam!
Anyway, I am also entirely mentally unhinged because computers will
drive you straight to the mental ward. I had to do a posting today, and it took well over an hour, which is about and hour and a half longer than it should take me. It’s like the computer and the document were in a conspiracy to make things as goddamn difficult as possible. Seriously. Change one thing, something else gets screwed up. It was like a game. Ok, if I fix the date, good, then… oh, the spacing is now off, so I’ll fix that and… Damn, the table is off now, ok, fix the table, fix the spacing, date is right, now…. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE FONT?!?!? And of course as soon as I got it perfectly formatted I noticed that I had the opening date as March 33, which… doesn’t actually exist, and changing that sparked a whole new round of edits. I hate computer gnomes.
Anyway, last weekend SuperGirl and my apartment finally got our acts together and went to Costco, where we promptly became terrible influences on each other and I think I need to mortgage the apartment to pay for everything we bought. But our barren cupboards now have food in them again, which is so lovely. Also, shopping cart races on the way home. (Because we sort of stole shopping carts from the shopping cart graveyard outside our apartment, brought them to Costco, and then just brought them back home). Shopping cart races that E and I won, thanks to what was actually a pretty sneaky move by E. Yay, E! Also, we finally cleaned the kitchen. Now, we clean the kitchen all the time. But I mean CLEANED the kitchen, to the point where at one point Kate, E, and I were all on our hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. This was kind of hilarious, and kind of awful, because the kitchen floor turned out to be unbelievably dirty. Like, scary dirty. But it’s clean now, so yay.
I also spent an inordinate amount of time this week laughing hysterically at
Snakes on a Plane. Seriously, people. Snakes. On a Plane. E and I spent part of Sunday laughing so hard at Snakes on a Plane that Kate heard us in the shower. I then told Jimbo about it, and at one point in class on Tuesday both of us were in tears trying to hold back laughter. This may not be the best idea in the world, but meh. Long week. So check out Snakes on a Plane.
That is pretty much all that is new right now, have a great weekend, and I hope Spring has sprung wherever you are!
And NEXT Week Will be Worse
So much is going on. So. Much. And most of it is not good, people, not good at ALL.
This week was a mess. Not as much of a mess as NEXT week is going to be, thanks to a LOVELY bit of information that was recently e-mailed to me, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First of all, this week.
Monday wasn’t too terrible, except for the following:
1. Tony actually IS dead on 24, and that is just unacceptable in So. Many. Ways.
2. Turns out that nuclear non-proliferation? Slightly, but only slightly less depressing a topic than Rwanda. Especially given the comments of the Russian Prime Minister.
3. A and I? Continue to be
exactly the same kind of stupid. To wit: sitting in class on Monday, discussing the
Non-
Proliferation
Treaty. Me: “What is an “MPT”? I did not do the reading.” A: “I don’t know! I didn’t either.” Me: “Google it!” A: “I did”. Approximately ten minutes later, A and I both gasp with realization and at the exact same moment look at each other, all: “OH!
NPT.” Seriously, y’all.
Tuesday:
Tuesday generally sucked because it was A. the longest day ever, and B. Consisted of many icky things. For example, I started the day off with a final visit to my oral surgeon, with whom I am now on hugging terms. I read the pathology report, saw many, many big words, comforted myself with “benign” once more, and left literally about 5 minutes after we had gotten there. Seriously, y’all, I was done with my appointment before it was supposed to have started. This was followed by….
The Dentist.Oh y’all, I hate the dentist. Not my dentist per se, but the whole idea of the dentist. The Platonic Ideal of Dentist, this is whom I hate. Honestly, is there ANYTHING else in the world that assaults ALL of your senses at the same time in such an unpleasant way? The screech of the drill, the smell of your teeth as they grind away, staring at a giant light into your dentist’s scary goggles, the GIANT FUCKING NEEDLES, which, OW, and of course the tastes of blood and tooth and stainless steel. Yum!
So I go, and he has several teeth to fill, because I inherited extraordinarily crappy teeth from my father. He needs to do both the left and the right side, and I am actually kind of grateful, because the left side has been bothering me for an unreasonable amount of time now, and he keeps putting it off. And this time was no exception. He started on the right hand side, and things went fairly normally. By “normally”, I mean, “I sat there completely tense and in a complete panic because it doesn’t matter how much Novocain you give me, I still feel phantom pain while you are drilling and it HURTS.” The came the “polishing down” section, at which point he developed OCD and spent approximate 427 hours grinding down the filling
he had just put in. I was ok at first, and then I tolerated it, and finally I got to a point where I feel I was exercising remarkable restraint by not grabbing the fucking polisher and jamming up his nostrils, when he finished. I relaxed, ready for him to fix the other side. And this is what the man says to me.
“Ok. Well, I can do the other side, but it will have to be
without anesthesia.”
…
I have to say that I actually don’t remember that moment very clearly, because my head was busy exploding while my body was producing fight or flight chemicals at a remarkable rate, but I honestly think the words, “Oh, HELL no” actually left my mouth. I mean, people. I AM NOT JAMES FREY. I mean, ok, I realize that even James Frey was not so much James Frey, but that just strengthens my point.
Apparently, one cannot numb the bottom of both sides of ones mouth, or one may choke to death. Which, fine, I get your logic, but couldn’t you have, maybe, mentioned it before we began this little journey????
So anyway, it wasn’t even one in the afternoon and I was already sort of a disaster. I then went to work, and then class, and THEN Kate drove me to Baltimore, where we went to trivia and a friend’s house and THEN to the hotel at which I would be staying until Thursday, for computer training.
Computer Training.
This was not too bad. However, several member of the class just…. Lost their toolbars. I… I don’t know either. I know at one point I had to hide my face behind my monitor because I was laughing so hard. Because seriously? How do you lose. a toolbar?
The Evil That Has No SoulThe worst part, however, was Wednesday night, when I received an e-mail from Jimbo which basically said the following:
“Here are the notes from Crim. Oh, by the way. We have three hour classes all next week and all the reading for the rest of the semester is due. Have a good night!”
Um. The HELL? I tried for clarification, but really, there is none. As Jimbo noted, we have apparently “taken our sweet ass time” going over the material, and the Prof wants to step it up. And has done so by dictating three hours of class a night and extensive reading. And… he can just do this. This is apparently A-OK.
(There may have been weeping).
Luckily, the rest of the week picked up, except last night when stupid Kari lost me approximately SEVEN MILLION POINTS in our ANTM fantasy game. Kari? Try WALKING. Without FALLING. It’s not that hard, GOD.
Anyway, that is that. Next week is going to clearly suck, with the millions of hours of classes and the millions of pages of reading and KILL ME NOW.
But have a good weekend!
In Which Law School Needs Paxil
This week law school has utterly and completely KILLED MY WILL TO LIVE. Now, law school does this on a fairly regular basis, I understand. The heavy books to schlep, the never going out or having a life, the exams, the nonsensical cases, the exams, the EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH tuition bills, and, of course, the exams. (In case I hadn’t mentioned that). In fact, I wonder if I have
had an actual will to live since August of 2004.
But this week is different. This week law school sucks in a whole new way. Law school is being creative! Law school is Thinking Outside Of The Box. Law school is
depressing the ever loving shit out of me. Allow me to recap my week:
Monday: Three hour discussion on the Rwandan genocide. With a man who has spent a great deal of time working on the ICTR in Rwanda. Y’all? There is no way on this earth to talk about that situation and not want to come home, curl up in a ball, and cry.
Tuesday: Civil Rights, And How The Courts Ignore Them. Seriously, people. This class is about
statutory interpretation, it’s not even about substantive law, does he HAVE to pick the most depressing cases on earth to showcase for us??
Wednesday: Racial Profiling! Yay! Now with guest speakers! Who tell us all about how THEY were profiled and humiliated on the side of the road. Also- articles from a charter school in the area about how black teens are treated by the cops. Honestly, nothing is more fun than reading about innocent teenaged kids, taking a break from school, on SCHOOL GROUNDS, with SCHOOL PERMISSION, getting frisked, beaten up, and arrested for no reason. Thank God our professor decided at the last moment NOT to show the movie clip he was going to show, because he physically wasn't able to sit through it, it was so upsetting.
Tonight: Homophobics! More racists! Kicking people out on the street when their same-sex partners die! Not allowing discrimination protection to gays! (Although I have to say that case turned out better than I thought it would. Thanks to… Scalia. Great. Now my head just exploded.)
Tomorrow: Police power- stops and frisks.
I mean, ok. I get it. We suck. But… do we all have to suck all at once? I mean, couldn’t their just be ONE happy case or SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, before I SLIT MY WRISTS?
So I e-mailed this to A, and he responded as follows:
“Does GULC offer the Law of Puppies and Kittens and Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks? Or what about Rainbow Property Rights where we learn that EVERYONE owns the rainbow because it is made of joy and love and there is plenty for everyone!”
Not only did I suspect he was making fun of me (lighting quick there, ain’t I?), I also am so far gone that this was my response:
"Rainbow Property Rights" would probably turn into a litany of the ways that homosexuals are denied rights. (Note: I care about this. But it defeats the purpose).
The Law of Puppies and Kittens and Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks would begin with a lovely story on a small child getting mauled by a pit bull. (note to readers: actual case we read yesterday). Then we would discuss the illegal fight scene and how the dogs are tortured to make them mean. The kittens portion would most likely cover the following: drowning unwanted ones, legal implications of the lonely, crazy old woman down the street who has 437 of them, and maybe how Kittens Make Good Snake Food (note to readers: not an actual case we read, but I am not optimistic).
Then we get to the meat (heh) of the course. Fuzzy Yellow Easter Chicks. Where do I begin? First off, I think there is a significant racial issue in the fact that only yellow chicks are chosen over white ones. Now, I know there is some question as to whether civil rights legislation includes or excludes "whites", and I think we need to discuss. Second: Easter. I believe that we have stated ourselves to be a secular society and it is Not Fair to take innocent chicks who cannot speak up for themselves and force them to be a symbol of Christian hegemony. How do you think the Muslim, Jewish, and atheist chicks feel? This is not right.
Finally we need to look ahead to the true fact of Easter Chicks- it's only a matter of time before they become Easter Dinner. And that is after we have harvested their eggs, denying them procreation which they have a right to. We at the very least should have informed consent before we eat our feathered brethren.
So there.
Thank god for reality television. It sounds so sad, but when everything is totally depressing? Snarking on Tyra is a surefire boost. Which is why last night, which involved me, Kate, Top Model, Gleb, Mexican food, wine, and the first round of the ANTM Fantasy game, was perfect.
Cheers!
Quick Update
Just a quick update, because I am busy and also not very coherent. (Right, like that’s… news). Anyway, things are all lovely and fun, as long as they don’t involve my body turning on me and all forms of nourishment.
Last week I went to Texas, and S came, and it was fun and we drank wine and played pool and then my stomach
waged war on the rest of my body. Stomach flu: Not A Fan.
But I survived that and was keeping solid food down just in time to… go back to work and school. Yippee. However there is plenty of fun going around, too. Right now I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of the draft for my fantasy game for America’s Next Top Model. Yes. YES. Stop laughing. This is
awesome. I mean, I am a huge fan of sports fantasy games and all that. But a game in which there are three different point levels for three different variations of “getting naked”? (the models, people, the models). And also for various permutations of crying and having sex? Y’all, this is gold. And Kate and I and, fittingly, Top Model now have such a good reason to kick back with some nice wine and bad reality TV on Wednesday nights. Not that we needed a reason, but…. Still.
And I NEED to kick back and relax on Wednesdays, because Mondays are KILLING. ME. Writers of 24? You had BEST sleep with one eye open. That is all I have to say. I don’t want to write any spoilers here for those people I know wait for the whole season or have Tivo or whatever, but. Writers. That trick you pulled? At the end of the last episode? WHEN I WAS ALREADY CRYING? That was NOT OK. And I HATE YOU.
So the rest of this week is shaping up to be pretty good, what with ANTM tonight, and then Thursday will be nice because our professor bought the entire class beer. This seems to happen about once a year and I am a huge fan. Somehow it makes life suck a lot less to be in class when there is a beer. I feel far more like I am a part of the 1900’s French intellectual society and far less like a person with no life stuck in law school. Aaaannd… I’m a dork. Moving on.
Friday is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day, which shall be celebrated in a haze of Guinness and actual authentic Irish food cooked by Supergirl and Jimbo. What started out as a small gathering has quickly grown to epic (at least in our small apartments) proportions and promises to be a great time. Best part? They live IN MY BUILDING. This makes stumbling home so much more convenient.
I haven’t worked up my next major question yet, but I will leave you with this small observation:
Do you think anyone at Dell Computers has noticed, and subsequently cared, that for all intents and purposes they basically have a big Enron “E” right in the middle of their logo?
I’m just saying.
The Whole is More Evil Than the Sum of Its Parts
Ok. So I know no man is an island and all (tm Donne), and generally people come together to accomplish things. It's teamwork, it's networking, it's alliances. It's reaching out and touching someone, people who need people being the luckiest people and blah blah blah humanity cakes. But sometimes... Sometimes the alliances are not so helpful. Sometimes, maybe, they are downright scary. Sometimes you may be sitting in class and notice that on a few frightening occaisions, things are happening in the high court that just don't... make sense. And then you might be walking down the street and see an ad for something that just scares the HELL out of you, because again- this type of alliance is downright
creepy.And if you are me, you will force your roommates and others into elaborate conversations about this and force them to help you answer the question:
Which is the most evil unholy alliance: Justice Stevens and Justice Scalia, or Dr. Phil and Match.com?
This is a highly difficult question, because they both have the potential to wreak havoc on society as we know it. On first thought, Dr. Phil and Match.com are clearly better known and will have a more direct effect on the viewing society. However, on second thought, the power of the Supreme Court (whether or not you believe in activist judges) is pretty grave- especially now that they are electing presidents (rimshot). Kate and I have been pondering this question for quite some time, and we think we have come up with the answer.
Analysis: Scalia and Stevens
On its face, having both the Conservative and Liberal powerhouses on the same side of a Supreme Court battle seems unstoppable. After all, most decisions are decided along party lines, and now that we have lost the On The Line vote of O’Connor and replaced it with the I Am Not So A Rabid Conservative (Except, I Totally Am) Alito, actually bringing both sides together would appear to be quite a coup.
However, potential just doesn’t cut it. You have to look at when these unholy alliances actually happen. I can think of two, and both were dissents, and frankly, both were completely batshit crazy. Because you know how the political spectrum is kind of a circle, and Scalia and Stevens are at like 180 degrees apart? Well, the only time the two of them actually agree on anything tends to be when something happens that so throws them off that they run screaming blindly into the night in their respective party directions so far and so fast that they actually smack into each other on the other side of the ideological circle. And then they write completely inane and irrelevant dissents, like in
Hamdi, when they completely ignored the War Powers Act, or in
Smith, where they both fervently argued that selling a gun for drugs did not constitute “using” it. Yeah.
So basically, while it is always nice to see insane ideological rhetoric meet in the middle, I feel an overall analysis of Scalia and Stevens is amusing, but irrelevant.
Analysis: Dr. Phil and Match.com
Ok guys, I have to admit, I kind of like Dr. Phil. Of course, E and I also search for the world’s worst reality TV, so maybe this does not so much come as a shock to any of you. There’s just something really refreshing about the way he can deliver a smackdown on some poor, pathetic soul that makes me want to yell “Oh, snap!” and buy him a tequila shooter. However, the one area where he generally never amuses me is on his advice to single women. Namely, don’t be one. I mean, he is quick to say a woman doesn’t need a man, but… it’s disingenuous, somehow. And it isn’t just disingenuous in the normal, ‘Hell yeah a woman needs a man’ kind of way, but in a more insidious way. Because the message is kind of… “By all means, if you are completely fucked up in your own life, the LAST thing you should do is involve a man, because you already ruin our lives with all your whining and crying and passive aggressiveness and periods and hormones and other things that terrify Manly Men, and that’s when you’re healthy. So please. Fix yourself before you bring a good man down with you.” And that shit ain’t right, folks.
I am also terrified of Match.com. That site is NOT kidding around, people. My co-worker dated around for years, then one day she was like, “That’s it. I want to be married”, and she joined match.com and was engaged 9 months later. Match.com is for people who are very, very serious and committed to being very, very seriously committed.
So… these two together? Having Dr. Phil break down the individuality and confidence of a bunch of people who then all find each other? And then procreate? This is not just an unholy alliance, people- this is the Anti-Darwin. It’s like a friend of mine and I were discussing about two people the other day: Alone, they are stupid. Together? They’re a Darwin Award.
I mean, really people. All of these people who actually believe in what Dr. Phil says, instead of watching it subversively to snark on it, are going to meet each other and get married. Whole neighborhoods will start springing up of Stepford-like households with just a hint of kicky attitude. The holier-than-thou condescention of man down to women that he exudes will spread. More women will start to believe that their role in life is to silently cheer on their man, stand behind him as a backdrop to his career, and provide lip service to his life. What's worse, they may start to believe that a few offhanded comments about how the women secretly "rule the roost" is the same as actually having power in a relationship. And they will raise children while enforcing traditional sexual and gender stereotypes.
And there aren’t enough Brokeback Mountains in the world to stop that shit.
In Conclusion:
The most evil unholy alliance is: Dr. Phil and Match.com
"Benign" is a Four Letter Word
Hello! I was clicking around today and I suddenly realized that my last post was February 8, and now it’s… It’s March? The Hell? When did THAT happen?
Anyway, I have not posted much this month, but there was a very good reason for that. Which I will now explain. Because you care.
About three years ago, I suddenly had PAIN in the roof of my mouth. I even skipped my very first kickball game ever and went to the emergency room. Of course, they couldn’t really do jack except give me percocet, (which, woo!) and tell me to go to a dentist, but still. Kickball-missing type pain here, people.
(Of course, this was also the evening that my kickball team figured out where I was and showed up en masse in the emergency room, with purple pom poms. Y’all, I used to have such a fun life).
Anyway, turns out there was an impacted wisdom tooth and a cyst and an oral surgeon got involved. And there was cutting and knives (surgeon), and demanding of anesthesia (me), and then I began my lifelong friendship with vicodin and life resumed.
So a few weeks ago when I began having similar pain, I didn’t think twice. I simply went to my dentist who sent me again to my surgeon. And although he wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong, and it was not the same thing, there was cutting and knives and I walked out desperately clutching my prescription for vicodin and everything was fine. Except, of course, that the highlight of my Valentines Day was ‘federally regulated narcotics’, which either makes me the saddest person ever or the most awesome. I choose not to delve too deeply into that question.
Anyway, a week later I went back for what I thought was a routine visit to get the stitches out. It… wasn’t. I mean, the stitches came out, but then the Doctor sat down with me. With a pathology report. Me, my doctor, and the pathology report.
Since I had thought that I had had a harmless cyst, I was not at all prepared for words like, “rare condition”, “tumor”, “most likely benign”, “top rate cancer research center”, and “more surgery”. I just… wasn’t prepared for that at all. So I kind of smiled, and nodded, and picked myself off the floor. Then Kate took me to work, and I called all my wonderful friends who made me laugh even though they INSISTED on googling me. Which seriously? Just… don’t, people. All roads lead to cancer there. 20 minutes on the phone with Peanut I went from “benign tumor” to “lymphoma”. Anyway, I got through the day, but.
Y’all? I was
freaked the fuck OUT.
And I remained so for basically the rest of the month. Because even with words like “benign”, it’s hard to stop your head from going places like, “if they were so damn sure it was benign, why the ten minute lecture on the virtues of the cancer center we are now working with?” So I didn’t write, because I didn’t know what to write.
The good news is, the Top Notch Cancer Research Center agreed with the original pathology report, and even said I don’t need further treatment. Scare over, I can breath and sleep and possibly stop having panic attacks now. (Because y’all? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, triggers panic attacks like the words “cancer research center”). So now we’re back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.
And to everyone? Who helped with the last few weeks? Thanks.
