two! no, six! no, twelve! BAKER's DOZEN!

i told you that i'm crazy for these cupcakes, cousin!

have you guys noticed that, erm, cupcake places are popping up everywhere? like, little bakeries that specialize in cupcakes? are cupcakes the new coffee? do people now ask, "so, you wanna grab a cupcake sometime?" in the early stages of courtship?

i don't know about you, but rarely am i stricken with a mad urge for a cupcake. a cupcake isn't the kind of thing that really needs a place in my day-to-day existence. don't get me wrong -- cupcakes are rad. i in no way mean to disparage cupcakes. cupcakes hold fond memories for me of birthdays in grade school. good times. but a freaking specialty cupcake store? uh... wha?

krista's insight into this newfangled cupcake phenomenon is that americans are just stupid enough to throw money at anything. i'm inclined to agree with her on this one.

i really don't understand it. at all.

yoga is not for show-offs...

or, it shouldn't be. but when you have classes full of all sorts of people, you're bound to get some varying approaches to the yoga practice.

obviously i'm thinking in particular of someone. there's this person whom i've seen at yoga a few times, and, well, i don't like her. she messes with my chi (yes, i know that i am the one to blame for this and not her). because she's a yoga show-off. for example, when we're in this position, instead of being in that position, per the instructor's instructions, she goes into a headstand. now, i'm all for people making the practice their own, and challenging the limits of their bodies, but a headstand??? in the middle of the room? ugh. i could go on, really, but pittsburgh is a small town and i fear the repercussions of my non-anonymity...

another thing about yoga... people should really wash their feet before coming to class. i don't mean to be an ass, and i'm generally pretty tolerant of natural body smells, but when you're in close quarters in a crowded room where one person's feet are right next to another person's head, and it's hot and sweaty and you're gonna be there for 75 minutes, as a matter of common courtesy, please don't come to class with smelly feet. it's gross to spend that whole class time focusing on ujjayi breathing and inhaling bad foot odor.

i really don't mean to be a jerk. i just want folks to be good neighbors. is that so wrong?

citizens against the Pittsburgh Left!

no no no, this isn't some ideological diatribe. today, friends, i'm here to inveigh, to bemoan, to decry a befuddling and horrible maneuver amongst pittsburgh drivers...

you see, carson got a car recently, and he's very kind to me and lets me borrow it, so i've become more attuned to the ways of the road. i've known about the pittsburgh left for quite some time, but i've never directly experienced until lately. and you know what? it really pisses me off.

what is this pittsburgh left, you ask? here's what wikipedia has to say about it:

The "Pittsburgh Left" involves two cars waiting at a traffic light or other stop signal: one turning left and one going straight. The left-turning car will execute its turn through the intersection before the car going straight passes through the intersection, where normally it would yield. Permission to do so is either given (by the car going straight), or taken (by the left-turning car cutting in front of the other car).

weird. and stupid. and ILLEGAL!!! pennsylvania law (like the law everywhere) says that drivers turning left must yield to drivers going straight! so why is it that some pittsburgh drivers think that they don't need to heed this law? i dunno, but i don't like it. not one bit.

this morning, somebody pittsburgh lefted me. so i did what any wronged driver would do -- i honked the horn and yelled a bad word at him. if the pittsburgh left causes an accident, i'm pretty damn sure that the left-or is at fault. but this local custom puts a weird responsibility on the left-ee to make sure nobody's gonna smash into him/her off at an intersection. wtf?!?!

sadly, i doubt that anything i do can overcome the commonality of the pittsburgh left. nevertheless, i will not participate in it, nor will i stop honking and yelling at drivers who initiate it at stoplights. play by the rules, people!!! vehicle accidents are not cool!

erm, but i guess i should mention that i have one caveat about this -- i have, do, and will let bicyclists turn left in front of me at a stoplight, provided that they signal that they're making a left turn. why? because i like bicyclists, i like when bicyclists use the turn signals, and compared to big ol' gas-guzzling cars, bikes are little. i'm okay with this inconsistency. you should be, too.

i <3 my first year writing students...

i'm a legal writing TA. i've been lucky -- i really like a lot of the first year students i've worked with this year. currently i'm sitting in the downstairs lounge at the law school waiting for krista so we can go get some lunch. a group of my first years is a few tables over, playing the game settlers of catan.

effing rad!

rockstars...

this morning, in between clicks of the snooze button, i had this dream that kiss was playing a free concert at my law school. only, my law school looked like half of parkway-facing entrance of the philadelphia museum of art. this kid i knew had set the whole thing up, and he was going to introduce me to the band, but instead i met some long-haired rock guy named "strattera", who was in the band, but had replaced one of the original members. i don't know whom he had replaced, but i hope it was paul stanley, because paul stanley totally sucks. anyway, so strattera was trying to get me backstage to meet the rest of the knights in satan's service, but no such luck -- there was too much going on.

n.b. you know what "strattera" is? it's a medication for folks with ADD and ADHD. i figured this out after i had woken up. maybe my brains are trying to tell me something?

bikes, gardens, permits, and where-the-hell-i've-been...

so, mark keeps telling me that i need to blog more. while i'm flattered that someone thinks that i have something interesting to say on a regular basis, i'm just not sure that's the case (i am, however, sure that mark knows me well enough to know that's not the case). but i really have gotten off track with this little site lately. what can i say? i've been distracted! distractions include, but are not limited to:

1. school. ugh. SCHOOL! there's this constant competition in my head between the hooray-i'm-almost-done-with-this-shit-storm-of-lunacy and the oh-shit-but-i'll-never-be-a-student-again-and-i-really-love-being-a-student. what's a girl to do? i feel overworked and underfinanced, and i don't seem to have enough time but i'm always tired. oh, and my job-prospects-to-loan-debt ratio? don't even ask. really. don't.

2. pending unemployment. right, that whole job-prospects-to-loan-debt ratio. i told you not to ask. thankyouverymuch.

3. the ever-present irrational rage. i chalk it up to a temporary influx of stressful circumstances (because my greatest fear is that what's really happening is that lawyerly education has made me a cynical stubborn pain-in-the-arse with a heart full of ill-will), but lately i'm seriously overwhelmed with strong tendencies toward violence. i know better than to act on those tendencies, but they're playing out in my head as fantasies about shoving various undergrads in front of oncoming buses or sticking pens into the necks of classmates who say powerfully stupid things. it's ridiculous. really. no one should feel this much anger. i used to be such a nice girl!

5. my seminar paper. which is about, erm, prison rape. this is easily the most unnerving research i've ever done -- i can only work on this thing for a couple of hours at a time before i get really upset. my specific topic is why nobody seems to give a damn, why "don't drop the soap" and "scooter libby had better change his name" are acceptable jokes, why sexual violence has become an expected part of incarceration. WTF, people?!

4. yoga. this is the good distraction. i'm now going three times a week, to try and offset the irrational rage.

but the stuff that i should be writing about includes, but is not limited to:

1. i'm still not smoking! fucking A! it's been 2 1/2 months. if i can make it through the summer, through the bar exam, i believe i can make it through anything.

2. yoga. at sunday's class, i managed to hold crow pose for about 4 seconds without falling on my head! and i managed to hold this pose for the whole time, instead of wussing out and having to put my bottom knee down because i have wussy arm strength! the point is that i'm getting better, my balance is improving, i'm getting stronger. and this makes me really happy.

3. i has a bike! not a new bike, but a new bike for me. and it's a definite upgrade from my tried-and-true, but heavy-and-inefficient mountain bike, which has served me well for about six years. it's a trek cyclocross, all set up for road use, and i inherited it from my friend joshua, who inherited it from a friend before and is paying it forward. i love it and i'm psyched and it's gonna serve me well as i get ready for this summer's MS150!

4. adventures in gardening. carson and sid and i have decided to turn adam's backyard (with adam's permission, of course) into a vegetable garden. we broke ground this past weekend. here's the scary part -- we're not very experienced. this could either be the most awesome thing ever, or it could be a freaking nightmare. i've only ever grown thing indoors. wish us luck!

oh, and keeping with my own little tradition, i've got little sunflower and pea seedlings in pots in my apartment. i'm still waiting for the tomatoes and peppers to show themselves.

5. graduation picnic extravaganza! for months i've been talking about a whole group of us law students getting together and reserving one of the shelters in schenley park for a pre-graduation cookout so that we can get all of our friends/family who will be here from out of town together. and it's actually gonna happen! of course, it involved being downtown this past saturday at 7:00 a.m. to stand in a big line to partcipate in the department of public works's lottery to get a permit, which was an adventure of municipal proportions, but all has been successful. thanks to the efforts of my fantastic friends, we're going to have the best picnic ever on the day before graduation. fingers crossed for good weather!

so there you have it. i'll try to be better about writing. i promise. for now, though, i gotta go see if i can get a ticket to hear justice alito speak in the moot courtroom next thursday morning. goodtimes! if only i could also wrangle a ticket to see ann coulter speak on april 1st... talk about the april fool!

xo,
e

"hi! want a chance to win a nintendo wii? just sign up for our facebook page!"

that was the first thing another human being said to me today.

i have to walk through one of the pitt undergrad buildings every morning on my way from my bus stop to the law school. it's not uncommon that there will be tables set up for various undergrad student groups. it's also not uncommon that i want to scream "I'M THIRTY YEARS OLD!!!" in response to some perky co-ed trying to hand me a flyer. usually i'm able to keep my cool. today, however, i just couldn't stand it. almost unvoluntarily, i responded with...

"oh. my. god."