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