every once in a while...

...the onion makes me giggle! it used to make me giggle every week. now it's only sometimes. and that makes me sad. but today it totally got me with this:

14 American Apparel Models Freed In Daring Midnight Raid
September 19, 2007 | Issue 43•38

LOS ANGELES—Acting on information gathered from billboards, alternative weeklies, and Internet banner ads, an FBI strike team liberated 14 dazed, sallow, and undernourished American Apparel models in a raid on the controversial organization's downtown Los Angeles compound early Monday.

"There were girls lying everywhere—draped over furniture, sprawled spread-eagled in the corner, and huddled close like animals," FBI Special Agent Curtis Froman, who oversaw the raid, said at a press conference. "Many of them had been given nothing more than a pair of tube socks or men's briefs to wear."

the story goes on here.

i swear -- nothing baffles and befuddles me like american apparel! i mean, what? nobody needs gold lame leggings or a dress made out of sheer t-shirt material that can be worn forty different ways. i know the clothing is all american made and the company hates sweatshops and all, but do they have to parade their models around with their nipples poking through their clothes and their asses exposed? i don't get it. isn't the notion of "sustainable" sexy enough without having to look sexually exploitative? silly hipsters!

it's a new car!

no, it is not a new car, but somehow someway i am now the owner of a 1997 chevrolet monte carlo with 244,555 miles on it. for all those counting, this car has driven farther than the distance between the earth and the moon.

how did i obtain such a well-traveled american automobile? well, you know how i had a birthday on monday? so, either because carson is very generous or because he's just tired of having to hear me ask if i can borrow his car every time i need to buy cat litter or laundry detergent or anything kinda heavy and bulky that's a pain in the ass to walk home from the store with, but probably because of some combination of the two, carson gave me this car as a present.

it's not as fancy as it sounds -- the car was his dad's old commuter car. and his dad was looking to get rid of it anyway, so he sold it to carson for cheap. and carson passed it on to me, as a means to get to interviews and run errands and go to the yarn store until i have a job and can afford to get a real car.

here's how the gifting went: carson pulls up at my house on monday evening so we can go to the gym before we went out for birthday dinner. i get in the car (carson's car) and he hands me a set of keys and an envelope with the title to what is now my car in it. the following dialogue ensues:
c: here you go! a piece of shit car for you! happy birthday!
e: um, whoa. i can't accept this.
c: that's because you're a socialist. you people only know how to give, you don't understand how to receive.
e: fine. give me the goddamn keys.

so there you have it. despite its mileage, the car seems to run fine. it needs an oil change and will need new brake pads soon. and transferring the title into my name is a process that PA's DMV website does not exactly lay out in easy-to-understand form. but it's mine. and it's quirky and a little broken, too -- just like me! for example, to get into the car, i have to use the key in the passenger side door, then use the power locks inside the car to unlock the driver's side. fancy!

it's been years since i've owned a car, and i'm a little afraid of it. and i doubt i'll use it more than i need to. but, dude, my boyfriend gave me a CAR for my birthday! wtf?

hey, happy birthday to me!

hooray! today i am 31 years old. also, today the united states constitution is 220 years old.

i dunno about the constitution, but if i can manage to stay alive for another 40 years or so, then i can live forever, thanks to the singularity!

better luck next year...

yes. my beloved fighting irish are 0-2. i know. i still love them. i'll still watch all the games. this season is going to be ugly, and i'm not yet charmed by our new freshman quarterback (whom i think dick vitale referred to as a "diaper dandy" during the ESPN coverage of the ND/penn state game. "diaper dandy"? gross!) who may have lots of talent, but he's not in high school anymore.

at least michigan is also 0-2! until this weekend, of course. they may win this weekend. sigh...

go irish?

swimming with sharks...

you know those dreams that haunt you all day long? the ones that follow you around and mess up your thoughts long after they've ended? i had one last night. i blame it on this program i watched on the discovery channel at carson's house last saturday while waiting for the ND/PSU game to start.* the show was about these great white sharks off the coast of seal island in africa that breach while feeding. apparently this phenomenon doesn't happen in other places. see the picture for more fun.

anyway, the program might have gotten me all choked up at one point because there was a little seal that got away from a shark attack and the researchers on the boat pulled him on board and took him to safe, shallow waters. the little guy was gonna be okay, but he had a huge chunk taken out of his side and he was a bloody mess. i didn't like this at all.

so my dreaming brain concocted this ridiculous scenario last night where my brother was attempting to film breaching great white sharks and dolphins and walruses and seals that were all hanging out in the shallow water beyond the seawall in my hometown. and he was doing this with an underwater camera, at night, and in a canoe that looked like it was made of some sort of screen or net.

we're driving along the seawall and we get out of the car to set up for this little documentary excursion. there are huge dolphins swimming right up to us. there are also seals with huge chunks taken out of their sides -- escapees from shark attacks. my brother insists on getting in the water with his camera. i'm terrified by this, because you can see sharks' dorsal fins breaking the surface all over the place. but it hardly seems like being in the water is any less safe than in the canoe, because the canoe's walls keep bending like paper.

and that's about it. nothing really happens, it's just scary as all hell -- it's nightswimming with sharks and a videocamera. here i am, many hours after the dream ended, and i'm still creeped out.




*yes. i have yet to blog about notre dame football. i'll get to that in a minute.

getting better all the time...

okay. today was much much much happier than the rest of my boo-hoo week. i started my day with a meeting with my boss from the internship i had after my first year of law school. this guy also happens to be my favorite attorney. i went to talk to him about my job search. you know, because i need all the guidance i can get.

while i was sitting in his office talking with him, he asked me where i'd ideally like to be in ten years. he asked me the same question back in march of 2005 when i interviewed with him. it's the "dream job" question, the "if money wasn't a factor" question. and you know what? my answer today was the same as my answer in march of 2005. that is enormously reassuring to me. it means that after three years of personal relationships and academic challenges and internships and the general chaos of law school, my goals and my focus are the same. i still feel called to service in this profession. i still feel inspired by the possibilities that my law degree can create.

the reasons why i wanted to be a lawyer in the first place are still the reasons i want to be a lawyer! high fives!

oh, also, we totally won our kickball game tonight! and i'm convinced that my team is the bestest kickball team in all of the pittsburgh sports league. hooray!

these days...

...okay, i admit it. i'm in a bad mood lately. and being in a bad mood is completely counterproductive, which makes being in a bad mood even more annoying. i found myself last night at the gym literally trying to outrun my anxiety. and it worked for a little while, until i started getting all anxious about whether i was in danger of becoming a girl who uses exercise as therapy and who never actually overcomes her demons, instead she just uses endorphins and adrenaline to medicate them...

see? i'm in a bad mood.

i'd have to go back and read my posts from this time last year, but i'm pretty sure i was excited about my 30th birthday. i seem to recall turning 30 as a GOOD milestone, one that seemed full of promise and opportunity. now, i'm in a face-off with birthday # 31 and the birthday is winning. and i'm in a bad mood. i'm almost 31, i don't have a real job, i'm $130,000 in debt (that's all education debt, by the way -- there's nothing tangible in there, like a mortgage), and my apartment is a mess.

i hate this feeling. it's like those anxieties, those demons, those fears are all lurking, like my shadow, just waiting for me to let down my guard so they can pounce! i can't let them. i won't let them. being consumed by my fears is SO twenty-something. i'm a thirty-something now. gotta handle this like a grown-up.