grand mal elmo...

whoa. i am in love with _wait wait don't tell me_. it has regretfully been several weeks since i've tuned in, but today i HAD NO CHOICE but to put on NPR to try and offset the blow to my intelligence that was my exposure to saturday morning TV (see prior post).

anyway, the celeb who is doing the "not my job" segment on today's _wait wait_ is elmo. the muppet. from sesame street. now, elmo is no grover (who was my childhood fave resident of sesame street...because he's neurotic, so i identified with him), but elmo's puppeteer is hilarious. as is _wait wait don't tell me_.

brilliant!

the children are our future...

perhaps out of sheer boredom or impatience or whatever, i turned on the television at 11:00. and, like the train wreck that television is, i've sat here for 20 minutes watching awful awful network saturday morning adolescent-oriented programming. oh my. now, here's the point at which i start to sound like an old codger, but have you guys seen the absolute crap-of-the-world that people are trying to sell to kids these days? aside from the fact that toys and their various marketing strategies are so obviously gendered that it makes me want to go all rosie-the-riveter (i'm not sure what that means), if ever i have children some day (and such lucky little angels they would be!) ain't no effing way i'm buying them crap like bratz dolls. back when i was a kid, my parents made me play outside. what happened to encouraging kids to read or use their imaginations? god, i feel like a relic... a silly, self-important, full-of-hot-air relic. it's only a matter of time before i'm the scary old lady up the street in the dusty old house with lace curtains and an overgrown lawn that the neighborhood kids think of as an evil witch. oh wait, that's not possible because that would require that the neighborhood kids have some creativity.

ugh. i need NPR and my knitting projects STAT!

totally unrelated, i just thought of a conversation that george and i had the week before the semester started. we decided that we should open a restaurant called "subpoena's". get it? because you would be served? served with food? get it? brilliant!

happy birthday, LJ!

lis, do you ever even read this little blog?

regardless, have a spectacular birthday! i'm so grateful i got to hang out with you this summer -- you're one of my favorite people on the planet and the only friend i've got whom i would let date my brother.

come visit me soon! we'll do the fall/winter equivalent of fallingwater and farmer's markets. be amazing in school and give my love to philadelphia. the next time you and tina go get dollar beers at the khyber happy hour, think of me -- i'll be there in person soon enough!

oh, and you know who's playing in the 4-1-2 tonight? built to spill! the timing is uncanny.

xoxo,
here the near deer

zealous advocacy, revisited...

i'm frustrated. i'm really, honestly, sincerely frustrated these days. i think it's due in part to my internship, in part to being a third year law student teetering on the edge of the career abyss, in part to having just turned 30, in part to having taken on way too much schoolwork this semester. nonetheless...

i've become rather disenchanted with my race, religion, and the law seminar in the past couple of weeks. the meetings seem to have devolved into various classmembers soapboxing their opinions and their own religious/ethnic backgrounds. what's the point? where are we going? what's the goal of the course?

i chose the course for a few reasons. firstly, i think the professors are amazing. secondly, i know that my own relationship to religion is complicated, at best, and i thought the course could provide an interesting context in which to explore the intersections of race and religion and how the law could inform that discussion.

but, i have this feeling that it's not exactly an organized effort, that my classmates and i are serving as test subjects for the professors, that we're talking ourselves blue in the face and we're getting absolutely nowhere.

nowhere! except that i'm pretty confident that i can predict what's going to come out of the mouth of whomever raises her/his hand to speak before the words are spoken, because we're all saying the same things, just from our own viewpoints. i've tried to throw out more questions than answers, because truly i have more questions to ask than i have answers to suggest.

today i got really really angry. really frustrated. really fed up. and at the break in the middle of class, i had a discussion with a good friend of mine that turned somehow to the obligations of being a criminal defense attorney. he argued that the duty was to "get your client off". i argued that the duty was to make sure the prosecution puts on its case properly and thoroughly. this seems pretty obvious to me. the truth, folks, is that people commit crime. it happens every day, everywhere, and i'll be damned if i'm going to be so foolish as to say that people who do the crime shouldn't do the time (i'll save my frustrations with the shortcomings of the prison system for another day, however). certainly not all, but a whole hell of a lot of defendants are guilty. is it my job, in my "zealous advocacy" to keep a guilty client out of jail? absolutely not. no way. that's not justice.

justice, however, for the criminal defense attorney (in my young, naive, limited opinion) means zealous advocacy for the constitutional rights of the defendant, be s/he guilty or innocent. it's the prosecution's job to prove BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that the person charged with the crime should pay the penalty. if the prosecution cannot do that but the defendant is convicted nonetheless? well, that seems like the opposite of justice to me. defense attorneys are the necessary check on the prosecution -- they ensure that there's a balance, that there's fairness. that's overwhelmingly important; indispensably crucial.

to be honest, there is a lot that i've seen in the past few weeks that turns me off to the idea of doing criminal defense. there are reasons for that stereotype of the sleazy defense attorney. there are too many folks out there who don't seem to get that you can do your job well without being a complete bastard. there's this icky attitude that somehow being compassionate is a sign of weakness, when really it's just a sign of being a fucking person! i feel that i've reached this point in my own struggle for how i want to spend my career at which i feel i simply cannot NOT do this work. i can't not! it's almost like a compulsion -- i HAVE to do this. i'd be selling myself short or betraying who i am or something. but honestly? it would be a hell of a lot easier to do something else, to go civil instead of criminal. it's ugly out there. and it's sad. but i feel as if everything in my life up to this point has led up to me doing this type of work. i've got the energy for it, i've got the desire to do it, i think i have the right balance of compassion and principle for it. i'm gonna give it a shot. and if i fall on my face or become an alcoholic because the job gets to me, well, at least i can say that i've tried. this is what i want. i have to see if i can do it.

oof. what a mindfuck, all of this. it exhausts me. right now i'm exhausted. i suppose this is the way you figure this stuff out, though. your brain and heart muscles have to get torn and bruised and broken before they can start to truly become strong. i just have to get past this feeling that i've been run over by the 18-wheeler we call the criminal justice system and i'll be okay.

...and billions of thankyous to mark for listening, for being supportive, for helping me feel that this struggle is justified. and for reminding me that i do the whole "what-if" thing ENTIRELY too much for my own good.

wardrobe malfunction...

man, this internship of mine is chock FULL of humbling experiences!

this afternoon i was to go with my boss to observe preliminary hearings at city court (because my boss wants me to start doing them -- hooray!). we're getting ready to leave, and i figure i ought to stop in the loo. so i do. and while i'm going about my business, the zipper on my skirt breaks. BREAKS! like, not just sorta breaks, but the freaking zipper came out of its track and totally separated. so there i am, sitting in a not-so-well lit bathroom stall, frantically trying to make the zipper functional again. i'm trying everything -- using my teeth, my fingernails, anything on hand that could possibly serve as some sort of tool. the minutes are ticking away and nothing is working. and i'm getting more and more anxious and my heart is racing because all i can imagine is me traipsing back into the office in my slip trying to explain that, no, i can't go observe the prelims because my clothes are broken and i must go home. freaking out! and i'm also thinking that my boss must be wondering where the hell i am and if perhaps i'm seizing in the ladies room or something. and then, in some strange stroke of good luck, i managed to get the zipper back together! finally -- i had functional clothing! i headed back to meet up with my boss and of course he says, "um, are you okay?" and i'm laughing and my face is totally red and i just told him, "i'll tell you when we get outside." and so when i had explained why i had just spent 15 minutes in the bathroom, i said to him, "look -- i'm smart, i'm capable, i can do a good job; i just happen to be particularly accident-prone."

(i wonder, if that zipper had stayed broken, if i would have had to ride the bus home half-naked... if so, i'm sure, in what is the never-ending punchline of my life, i would have gotten arrested for indecent exposure and would have then had to retain a public defender to represent me... sigh...)

as a side note, and evidence in support of the theory that there's some higher power out there with a sick sense of humor, i sat in on a sexual assault trial this morning. the names of the streets where the victim and defendant lived? romeo street and juliet street. wow.

not that daniel ever reads this, but...

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER! may this year be filled with eagles victories, a college degree, and a move up north next summer!

i love you and miss you bunches. someday soon we'll celebrate september birthdays together again.

xoxoxoxo,
the smart one

cold medicine --> effed up dreams...

first, there was the one about my needing a haircut and getting a complete makeover, including new contact lenses that didn't just sit on the surface of my eyes, but wrapped around the eye, and were shaped like tiny, transparent lasagna noodles. and somehow i was trying to network to get my old roommate a job with the woman who cuts my hair. p.s., my old roommate is not a hair stylist.

second, there was the one about this great plan i had to orchestrate everyone singing "we are the world" during the chicago marathon. now, i know nothing about the chicago marathon, nor can i logically link its signficance to "we are the world", but in my dream, things started as a local community theater production of a dramatization of "we are the world", then progressed to a glass train-car/elevator (like the wonka-vator) trip through chicago to strategize the effort. there were signs, painstakingly placed individuals along the route, runners, prompters, people who would hand out cups of water and lyric sheets, and jumbotrons. and it all culminated in this run up some iconic chicago bridge where everyone would be singing "we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day so let's start giving..." in unison while they ran together up and over the bridge, with scenic lake michigan in the background, and down to the finish line of the marathon. ah, utopia...

what. the. fuck. (?!)

also, a couple of nights ago, i dreamt that caitlin, my little sis, was a weeble (as in "weebles wobble but they don't fall down") and she was adorable and small. and swaddled in a blue fleece blanket and hat, so she looked kinda like a triangular/egg-shaped doll. and i had to take care of her no matter what.

wonders never cease...

just when i was contemplating writing a blog post saying how i will always love notre dame, even when we lose, something magical happened: two michigan state turnovers in their last two possessions, the first of which became a ND touchdown which put us in the lead for the first time in the sad sad game, and the second of which allowed us to run out the clock and win the game. win. the. game. like, win. the game. we won! and i'm totally exhausted from the stress and am now going to bed.

GO IRISH!

i am so headed for craigslist missed connections-ville...

so, those who know me well will attest that one of my true prized possessions is my r.e.load bag. why? because it has pterodactyls on it -- pteros that i drew myself, in a design that i painstakingly rendered to scale so that the kind folks at r.e.load could create the bag of my dreams. they did a spectacular job. it looks like this:


now, the ONLY negative about this bag is that it's fucking huge. it's way too big for daily use. i should have probably gone for the smaller size. but it's fantastic for food shopping, because it will hold several days' worth of groceries. hence, i took it with me when i went to whole foods today.

AND...

while i was staring confusedly at my options in the cereal aisle, the whole foods hipster hottie that i've had a crush on forEVER, who was stocking kashi or whatever nearby, looks at me and says, "hey, i really like your bag. r.e.load?" and i said, "yeah. thanks!"

swoon!

interning, week three...

this afternoon at work, i had what may qualify as the most humbling experience in my young legal career. i sat in on a sentencing hearing for a man convicted of rape.

a number of things went through my mind while i sat in the courtroom. first of all, i realized that i've never actually seen a rapist. sure, i've read the cases, i've heard the stories, i understand how it works, but as for actually making eye contact with someone who has committed the act? never.

secondly, the defendant's attorney -- the public defender -- was a woman. i want to do criminal defense work. i understand that means defending the rights of men and women who are guilty. and i've gotten the questions from friends about how can i represent people who have committed crimes and all, but today really cemented for me how much of a big deal that question is. i couldn't help but imagine myself in that situation, advocating for someone who has committed rape or murder or child abuse or something that is just so, for lack of a better word, criminal that it becomes seriously difficult to see past the act to the humanity of the actor. i sat there while the PD went over all the mitigating circumstances, but when the prosecutor read the victim's impact statement, my heart just broke.

thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, i felt a little ashamed that i was so affected by this experience. the shame was not because i personally was so affected by the experience, rather, it was because i realized how bad we are, as a profession, at keeping the focus on the client, be s/he plaintiff or defendant, victim or attacker. the whole notion of "zealous advocacy" seems so misplaced in this context -- it's not about standing up for someone or trying to do the right thing. it becomes this ugly game of win or lose.

every single law student should have to do what i did today -- should have to watch a man cry as he gets sentenced to years in prison for a crime he knows he has committed. every law student should hear the statements of victims of real violence. every law student should remember that it's not just a constitution we are expounding, we're dealing with real human lives with real pain and sorrow, on both sides of the aisle.

i am completely floored.

dear fellow law students...

...please STOP using the phrase "begs the question" unless you're going to use it properly. you're making yourselves look like assholes. and please don't think that by continuing to use it incorrectly you will eventually be able to convince the rest of us that "begging the question" is justifiably equivalent to "raising the question".

also, please refrain from saying "another bite at the apple". i don't have a smart ass link to add to this request, i just think it's a silly phrase and, in general, references to bobbing for apples are just weird.

warmest regards,
me

ramon fernandez, tell me, if you know...

there's this wallace stevens poem that's been on my mind today for some reason. i'm not sure why or how or what to do with it, so i'm putting it here:

THE IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

i read this out loud to myself just now. it's beautiful. the sounds are beautiful. and i can't hear it without thinking of john matthias, one of my college english professors, with his lilting voice and his long, contemplative hands. it's his voice i hear when i read this poem. oh, the days of stevens and williams (WCW also has a september 17th birthday!) and berryman and robert lowell and paul celan and elizabeth bishop and HD and ezra pound and "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo." those were good days. these are good days.

ramon fernandez, tell me, if you know...

milestone...

happy birthday to me! i've made it to the big three-oh. 30!

i don't want to get all, you know, sentimental or anything (i thought about writing a retrospective of year 29, but decided against it, since it would be the blog equivalent of a sitcom flashback episode.), but i'm not sure i'm capable of deleting all silly sentiment out of my birthday blog post. 30 is kind of a big deal. i survived my 20s intact -- no loss of limb, no force majeure, no criminal convictions. sure, i had a couple of big scares and a broken heart or two, but all of that heals. we keep moving forward. and that stuff kind of floors me, in the holy-shit-this-is-MY-life kinda sense. pretty fucking cool.

last night i had what is definitely in contention for the best birthday ever. i was surrounded by wonderful, kind, funny, brilliant, generous people; people that i'm so grateful to have in my life. there was much silliness (shots of goldschlager?!) and happybirthdayness. and of course there was carrot cake. and my fantastic friends did all the cleaning up for me! i should turn 30 every day!

a billion trillion thanks from the bottom of my heart to krista, paul, michael, steph, george, jess, sandy, josh, oliver, aubrey, randy, regina, katy, michael, grant, dana, elizabeth, greg, chris, joshua, andrew, and tom, for making my birthday celebration wonderful and amazing! and a billion trillion thanks, too, for all the wonderful phone calls i've received from the folks i love who are too far away to have been here in person. you people make me look forward to the next 30 years. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

and let's not forget what else cherishes this day as a special anniversary -- the United States Constitution! consty, you may not be worth the paper on which you're written these days, but you still mean something to me.

p.s. i'm deliberately not mentioning yesterday's notre dame game because it's just not how i want to remember the waning moments of my twenties. oof...

is it just me...

..or are these quotation marks a little unnecessary?

(this is the sticker that you get to wear once you pass the voir dire process in allegheny county. fancy, no?)

people always say things happen in threes...

first, there was this.

then, there was this.

who's next?

BRAVO!!!

the ever-brilliant schoss sent me something fantastic today! start with this:

Throcky Gets Physical was a physics musical written and produced by Mr. Tapper's Block 4 Physics AP class at Morristown High School, NJ. Its one and only showing occurred on April 29th, 2002 in the high school auditorium.

Throcky was a character who appeared often in our physics textbook as "your annoying cousin Throckmorton", who was always swinging on a swing demonstrating pendular motion or trying to balance on a see-saw or something of the sort. We took his name and wrote a story about a teenage Throcky and his romantic problems. Throcky is a loser who doesn't care about school, while his girlfriend Roxy loves physics. She can't accept Throcky's attitude towards her favorite subject, and she leaves him for Darius, who knows physics. (Darius also happens to wear a purple hat and a boa, because we were lampooning a certain metrosexual who cared too much about grades.) Throcky has to learn physics in time for the prom so that he can win Roxy back and take her to the dance. Fortunately, he has help from many peculiar characters, including 3 physicists, from the past, present and future (like A Christmas Carol), the Vector Gang, and a white rabbit with a skateboard and an Australian accent. Can he surpass Darius's physics knowledge and win back Roxy? Does the audience discover that physics doesn't suck? Watch and find out!

that's right!!! _Throcky Gets Physical_! a play based on your cousin throckmorton, the namesake of the best blog ever!

oh, but it gets better! it turns out that throcky the musical has its own website! and this website contains song samples, video of the one and only performance, and THE SCRIPT!!!

so, if anybody wants to read a mathematical tour de force, an intermingling of drama and science that would make even the intelligent design folks blush, check out _throcky gets physical_!!! it's got action, it's got romance, it's got one of those dorky high school teacher guys who thinks he's really cool, and the best part? it's got PHYSICS!!!

perspective...

hooray!!!

congratulations to my little sister, who got an A on her first college paper! see? brilliance must run in the family!

i'm very very proud of you, c! and not a bit surprised!

xo

buzz bin...

something's gotten into me lately (student loan money in my checking account, perhaps?) that's got me on this lame indie rock consumption kick. and by "lame" i mean that i'm collecting all this music that's fairly new (i.e., it's not from my beloved pavement/sonic youth-era indie rock heyday), but to which i've been hopelessly oblivious because, well, i just don't put nearly as much energy into keeping up with new music as i used to. i've recently acquired albums by such old-fangled groups as neutral milk hotel and the decemberists and broken social scene. and my friend chris gave me a DVD with about a billion gigs of music on it that i've only just begun to give my attention to (seriously, chris -- i've only really gotten through maybe a dozen of the albums on that disk. but i'm really digging the butterglory and the holly golightly. and i know everybody loves clap your hands say yeah, and i'm sure rolling stone suck-azine is touting them as the new white stripes and all, but i really like them, too. oh, and mates of state? rad.).

and it's nice. i gotta say, it's nice to have music that i don't know. i have a tendency to compulsively consume music that knocks me out (see, e.g., my sufjan stevens obsession) until my brain is full of every timing quirk, every harmony, every misplaced electric guitar track (does anybody else share my frustration that sufjan had to go and ruin "springfield...", which is a fucking beautiful song, with the guitar track? does anybody else even know what i'm talking about?!?!)

like, if i can round out this cliche for you, on sunday afternoon i was at [ahem] a tiny coffee shop in shadyside, listening to [erm] my ipod, while i read for my [eyeroll] gender and the law class [AND YES, GODDAMN IT! I _WAS_ WEARING MY NEW FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC BLUE ADIDAS GAZELLES! but let the record show that i was NOT drinking a latte or anything like that. and i had all my stupid colored pens--my intricate and effective multi-colored note-taking system--all laid out in front of me on table. see??? i'm NOT a hipster!!! I'M NOT A HIPSTER!!!] and i managed to listen to five albums while i was reading, none of which was familiar enough to me that it posed a threat of distraction from my reading. not too bad. not too bad indeed.

[file this post under "impending mid-life crisis". did i mention that this is the last week of my 20s? hello 30! goodbye dignity.]

big leagues...

i finally got my very own copy (thanks, dad!) of _A Good War is Hard to Find_, my friend dave's first published book. call me sentimental or sappy or even just plain lame, but looking at the copyright page, with its library of congress categorization and its ISBN number, i got all proud. so i had to call dave. which was good, since it had been several weeks since i had talked to him. and, he told me something way way cool, which is that the book is gonna be reviewed in an october new york times book review! pretty. effing. spectacular.

here, check it:oh, and check out who gets a shout-out in the acknowledgements page! i'm psyched about that, too. the other names in the "first readers" group are some of my amazing college friends. every sunday evening of our junior and senior years we met and workshopped our own writing. dorky? you better believe it. we were the darlings of the a few of the faculty members in the english department and we named our little group after a john coltrane song. yet, it was one of the most amazing elements of my college existence, and those friendships will be dear to me for the rest of my life. word.

interning, week one...

tuesday afternoon my boss ran me all around the courthouse, introducing me to various folks, showing me the relevant places. it was a whirlwind of handshaking, nice-to-meet-you, welcome, see-you-soon. i've managed to remember maybe two of the names of the people i met. ah, the bliss of being new...

we got back to the building where the PD's office is and get on the elevator, joined by a really young looking kid holding some papers. he asks us, "where's the public defender's office?" my boss tells him. he then says, "are you lawyers?" my boss says he is. the elevator door opens, we all walk onto the floor, and the kid says, "hey, i've heard that it's better to get a real lawyer instead of getting a public defender. is that true?" my boss kinda looks at him for a second, then says, "yeah, probably so."

as we walked into the office, my boss says to me, "i can't even tell you how many times i've gotten that question since i've worked here."

three cheers for the fake lawyers!

hot damn!

dunno what you guys were doing this afternoon between 3:30 and 7:00, but i was watching my fantastic fighting irish pulverize penn state! i believe the final score was 41-17?!? that's a good old notre dame trouncin'!

AND ohio state plays texas tonight, which means ND is definitely moving back up in the rankings!

i know i'm in PSU country out here, but my loyal readers know how i am about notre dame football... i do take issue with coach charlie weis's new "tradition" of giving the students green towels to wave around during gametime. coach weis? um, no. not so excited about that. but the new thing where all the football players stand in front of the student section at the end of the games while the marching band plays the victory march and the alma mater? i like that one. that one can stay.

michigan is next week. also a home game. if the gods are happy with me, i'll get a 30th birthday weekend victory over the freakin' wolverines.

doubly medicated, and the cicadas...

gee willikers, the cicadas are LOUD! i imagine them up in the trees, literally SCREAMING their tiny buggy heads off. that's the only thing that can explain the amount of noise the little guys produce. yes, i know they're not screaming. i know they're rubbing their wings together or whatever they do, but sweet christ! the decibel level is impressive!

i'm not sure if there is a biological difference in cicadas and locusts. there must be, right? maybe it's akin to the difference between dolphins and porpoises. i dunno. but as kids, my brother and cousin and i used to run around my grandmother's yard and collect the locust shells -- the molted skins of the late summer bugs -- off the trees. maybe we just called them "locusts"? i think of them as good luck, for no other reason than that i have good associations with them. i've found a few abandoned skins lately in my neighborhood. good luck! i'll take whatever i can get.

i'm feeling like a cloud-head lately. not like my head is in the clouds, mind you, but as if my head is full of clouds. why? because i'm currently on full adult dosages of TWO anti-seizure medicines. this is apparently the way you change meds: wean onto one, then wean off the other. but this brief phase of being doubly medicated ain't too much fun, and has made my labor day weekend feel like one big fog.

stratus...cirrus...cumulus...cumulo-nimbo-stratus...emily.

snakes on a plane...

...is AWESOME! i'm not even kidding! it may just be my new favorite movie EVER! i have to suppress my urge to just fill this post with exclamation points, that's now freaking rad _snakes on a plane_ was!!!

i [heart] sam jackson, too!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

uh...

i know that a W is a W is a W, but a 14-10 victory for the #2 team against an unranked opponent leaves me feeling a wee bit unsatisfied. yet, i'll take that W and hope that this was just one of those working-out-the-kinks games.

we did look MUCH better in the second half. yet, 17 total penalties, 12 of which were ND's??? my boys gotta look out for the false starts and the holding calls. otherwise it's gonna be a long season...

nevertheless, hooray for notre dame!

and man, have i missed college football!

onward to victory...

okay. it's time. i've managed to restrain my urge to post about this for WEEKS (because nobody cares but me), but now that it's gameday, i'm abandoning all regard for others and going full-force with my fervent love for notre dame football!!!

and guess what, folks?! depending on whom you ask, we're ranked either third or second. not just top ten, here. we're in the TOP THREE!!! i'm so proud! not that i have anything to do with the strength of my alma mater's football team, mind you, but the fighting irish have such a storied football history, it's damn nice to see them start off the season with such a strong ranking.

and the best part? the game is at 8:00 tonight (EST, broadcast on ABC), which gives me all day to finish up my paper for my race/religion/law class. but if anybody needs me this evening between 8:00 and 11:30 or so, i'll be in front of a TV, cheering my beloved irish to a victory over georgia tech, watching brady quinn take the first steps toward the heisman.

GO IRISH!!!

i apologize in advance for this gratuitous cat post...

lately, the cats have taken to sitting on either side of me (i.e., one sits on my left, the other on my right) and getting all competitive if i reach over to pet one and not the other. for example, right now we're all sitting on the couch, and kenobi is to my left. i moved my hand to scratch her behind the ears, and milo perked up and gave her the staredown, as if to say "i'll kill you bitch. you're not as cute as you think you are."

so, in the spirit of diplomacy, i had to pet milo, too. what a couple of jerks.

hello september...

damn school! getting in the way of my blogging!

since i last posted, the week got a little better. after much patience and the right amount of luck, i straightened out my schedule so now i've got five courses (gender and the law; immigration law; advanced trial evidence; legislation; and race, religion and the law), an independent study with professor t, and my externship at the public defender. all this and i'm still at a measley 14 credits. wha? yet, i'm excited about the semester and am hoping i can do well. and, i've managed to keep fridays totally class- and work-free. the next time i will enjoy a series of fridays off, it will be called retirement. so i'd better enjoy it now.

i'm weaning myself onto a new anti-seizure med. the way this process works is while i gradually up the dosage of the new med (keppra), i continue to take the old med (carbatrol) at full dosage until i'm at the full amount of the keppra. then i gradually decrease the amount of carbatrol. so right now i'm super-medicated. and boy can i tell! i'm hoping that i'm the only one who can tell, but i'm not so sure... i think it's making me freak out about stupid things more so than normal, for example, i'm currently obsessed with the fear that i'm never again going to find myself in a substantial relationship and i'm going to die alone and bitter. i'm also obsessed with trying to come up with the perfect 30th birthday celebration for myself. so if any friends want to volunteer to take over this planning process for me, please let me know. it will be one less thing to drive me nuts. three cheers for drugs for the brains! hip hip hooray!

to celebrate my tumor-free brain, i bought myself this shirt: why this particular shirt? because of my deep deep love for sufjan stevens. duh. he's playing in philly on september 28th. i keep trying to justify to myself that it's either okay for me to fly to philly for the show or that it's incredibly foolish for me to fly to philly to see the show. but what if this is my only chance to meet him in person? what if this is the only shot i get at making him fall in love with me? what's a girl to do?!?!

today i set up camp at the quiet storm to do some work. a little red-haired girl was there. she must be the daughter of one of the employees, because i've seen her there before. one time last semester when timily and i were there, this little red-haired girl was trying to show us how talented she was at using a cardboard box as a chair. oh, how charming are the hippie children... well, today she drew pictures for all of the folks in the coffee shop. featured on the right is the one she gave to me. i can't tell if it's a bowling ball or a coconut. regardless, its name seems to be "vahfav". and i don't fuck with the vahfav.

so there you go. oh, and i'm a 3L. (!) i can't help but feel like joel and clementine these days... this will all be gone soon. what do i do? enjoy it.