i give you "hatetheface"...

last night after we went to the gym, carson and i went to get food for dinner at the grocery store. he saw some guy in the frozen food aisle that he's seen around town and doesn't like at all. why doesn't he like him? "i don't like the way his face looks."

he's a "hatetheface"! i learned this term from my friend ed and i think it's magnificent! hatetheface! the moment when ed told me this term was a real moment of validation for me. for years i've felt alone and ashamed in my silent hatred of certain people just because of how they look. there was a girl in a couple of my classes in college whom i couldn't freaking stand because she looked like a teddy bear with a hangover. but i felt so weird about having such negative feelings toward her when really i knew nothing about her...until ed opened my eyes to the concept of the "hatetheface" as if it were a truth universally acknowledged! this is something that people do! i wasn't alone in my weird dislike of certain faces!

so, courtesy of my friend ed, i pass along to you:

hatetheface
noun: a person whom one detests solely because that person has a stupid looking face

esquire...

this blog is now authored by a member of the pennsylvania bar.

i know what you're thinking, and no -- this does not mean that i'm going to temper my rants on fourth amendment violations or anything. what it means is that i've just taken an oath to uphold the constitution and to be good to my clients and pay my bar dues on time.

regardless, it feels pretty good.

"what else is there..."

fun fact -- as of this past may, every single one of the folks in my friend group from college (the ones with whom i graduated, at least) has some sort of graduate degree. i was the last one. we're this nerdy bunch of masters and Ph.D.s and JDs. how unbelievably ivory towerish of us!

but when you think about it, this is consistent with who we were back then. we were a secret society, a crazy-youth-inspired collective of writers and collaborators. we had this standing sunday night date where we'd get together to talk about stuff we had written. this was sacred time, holy time. nothing interfered with this time. it all started at the beginning of our junior year. it sprung out of casual acquaintances with each other while working on notre dame's 1996 sophomore literary festival. it was bryce's idea. i remember running into him near south dining hall one spring evening in my sophomore year and he told me he was thinking of getting some folks together to share some stuff we were writing, kinda like a student-run workshop. i was hooked from that moment.

i don't know what it was -- probably the right mixture of ambition and inspiration and curiosity and desire and collegiality and need, and i'm sure the alignment of the stars might have had a hand in it -- but it stuck. every single sunday evening was giant steps night. giant steps -- like the coltrane song. and when the weather permitted, we would actually meet on the steps of bond hall, the ND architecture building.

i was never a strong creative writer, and i knew this then. but some of us were amazing, even in those days. and it felt so important. the thought of not meeting wasn't even really an option. some folks had church on sunday -- we had giant steps. it's still important, really. i feel like in a really critical way, those weekly meetings defined my college experience. and the friends who were a part of it continue to be very important to me, even if i don't talk to them nearly often enough.

this morning i was trading stories about college with a co-worker and i got all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic for my friends, my classmates, my colleagues; for our silly conversations about jack kerouac and miles davis; for our love of john matthias and valerie sayers; for that one place you could stand in front of bond hall and hear the acoustics bounce your voice back to you when you spoke out loud. our ten year reunion is in may. i'm going. those were good times. they're still good times.

so, friends, if you happen to check in on this blog after i used the google to hunt you all down this morning and tell you that you must join me at the reunion, well, (this is terribly and unforgivably silly, but) this blog might not exist (or might not have become so important in my life) if it weren't for those sunday night meetings and for the friendships that resulted. see you in may!

love,
emily

i heart canada...

last night carson and i went to see the weakerthans at mr. smalls. carson loves them. and now i love them, also! and what's not to love? they're a canadian indie rock band with songs about stuff like curling (the sport!) and sadness and they have two songs told from the perspective of a cat! and did i mention that they're CANADIAN?!

as we were driving to the show, carson says to me, "you'll see -- you're going to have a crush on john k. samson." (he's the singer for the weakerthans.) and i'm all, "oh yeah?" and he says, "yes! everyone does! even i do! and he's your type -- he's a skinny little indie boy." yet, i wasn't sure. because conor oberst, the singer for bright eyes, also fits that description and i do NOT have a crush on conor oberst. but, he's not canadian.

well, as soon as the show started and john k. samson started to sing, and he just looked so smiley, and like maybe it would be nice to have a molson with him or something, i turned to carson and i said, "i DO have a crush on him!"

reclaiming space...

if you're at all curious as to how long i've been tolerating the ever-worsening frost problem in my freezer, i remember at my 30th birthday celebration my friend greg opened my freezer and made some smart-ass comment about how i might want to defrost the bastard.

um, for reference's sake, i turned 30 thirteen and a half months ago.

anyway, yesterday i had reached my breaking point. i had stopped buying frozen foods at the grocery store weeks ago, but now i could no longer successfully open or close the freezer door because of the frost build-up. i am both embarrassed and amazed that i let my freezer reach this point:


so like a mad mad madwoman, i grabbed a fan and a bunch of towels and got to work. i pretty much spent about three hours hacking at ice chunks with a mixing spoon, spraying warm salt water on all the frost, and generally going after the ice build-up with a fury that would rival the classic greek tragedies. it was magnificent!

and now? well, see for yourself:


i couldn't find my swimming goggles, so i had to use those sunglasses as my protective eyewear. of course.

words cannot express my sense of accomplishment at having conquered this feat.

kicked...

we won!!! we totally won! the blue team are the champions of the kickball world! hooray!!!

this is especially exciting for sandy, who has played PSL kickball for four years and this is her first championship!

my team freaking RULZ!!! go blue!!!

when turkeys attack...

friends in boston! you're under siege! beware of the TURKEYS!!!

i know this isn't really funny, but it's kinda funny... i mean, wild turkeys harassing people in brookline? on beacon street? we're not talking about suburbs, here. this is bustling, urban space. and apparently these guys are making themselves at home and chasing people down the street on their way to the doctor!

the accounts are kind of amazing! look at this:

The turkeys started chasing kids and joggers down the street. Neighbors would laugh watching the lawyer or pediatrician who lived next door being chased by a gobbling mob of birds.

or...

Schnoor's neighbor Louise Dionne was attacked by a large male tom. It jumped on her back, beating its wings and scratching at her with a talon that turkeys have on their leg. She made it to a neighbor's house after kicking the turkey in the chest.

kicking a turkey in the chest? holy crap! the mental image i have of this scene is...well... holy crap! it's like if alfred hitchcock visited the twilight zone! with turkeys!

apparently the rise in the turkey population is due to deliberate efforts by the massachusetts division of fisheries and wildlife. good one, guys!

thanksgiving is coming soon, birds. watch your backs.

kickball playoffs!

my mighty PSL kickball team has made it to the playoffs! i'm not entirely sure how this happened, but i'm psyched nonetheless.

we play tonight at 8:10, and if we win, we go on to the final round afterwards! wish us luck!

PSL-kickball-team-in-thursday-league-A-who-wear-the-light-blue-shirts FTW!

(we don't have a team name)

na na na nylons...

i have a truly amazing ability. if i were a superhero, this might be my superpower. this keen and magical skill of mine is an uncanny knack for getting runs in my nylons. oftentimes, this occurs in the brief window of time between when i get dressed and when i leave my apartment. and i notice that i have the run while on the bus or walking into work. seriously -- it's like i'm some sort of nylon-run-getting savant. truly incredible! if only this were a marketable skill!

the catch (pun intended) here is that i only ever wear nylons when i wear a suit. ONLY. why? because i freaking hate nylons. (apparently, they don't like me much either.) what about wearing skirts on cold days? those times are for tights, which i like very much because they are fun. nylons are kind of moronic and awful and weird. (btw, i refuse to call them "pantyhose" -- that word is just too ridiculous.) but days when i wear suits are days when i'm supposed to look all professional and grown-up. and lately, days when i wear suits are days i'm going on interviews.

and you know what is not professional and grown-up and appropriate for interviews? having runs in one's nylons.

since i've started knitting and i understand the engineering of these sorts of fabrics, sometimes i wish i had a very very tiny crochet hook so that i could mend my nylons. i have this wish for about half a second, which is approximately the amount of time it takes for me to do a cost/benefit analysis of the situation. the benefit is not having to go get a new pair of nylons. the cost, however, is losing my fucking mind trying to repair the tiny fibers of a pair of $3 nylons. uh, no thanks. my mind is worth $3.

oh the places you'll go...

carson and i are planning an adventure -- the kind of adventure where you throw a dart at a map and wherever it lands, you drive in that direction. i originally wanted to go to montana and to yellowstone national park, but then i looked at a map and saw how freaking far away montana is. so this won't be the time when i go to montana. but someday...

i would like to go on a moosehunt. i lived in new england for two years and never saw a moose! i suggested to carson that we go on a moosehunt and he didn't seem too excited about that plan. i think he's afraid of mooses. i can say that, too, because he never reads this blog. my boyfriend is totally afraid of mooses! then he suggested that we look for bison and i was okay with this, too. basically, any sort of quest to find an animal that looks totally made up is okay with me.

the plan is to drive somewhere, go hiking/camping for a couple of nights, and then spend a couple of nights in a place with regular shower access. actually, the plan is just to get the hell out of dodge for a few days. i like this plan. but it's a tentative plan -- it depends on whether i can get the time off from my temp job.

anyway, to pass some time today, i've decided to list some national parks i'd like to visit someday:

1. yellowstone
2. denali
3. mt. rainier
4. acadia (i've already been here, but i love it!)
5. redwood
6. glacier
7. dinosaur national monument (duh)
8. banff
9. death valley
10. joshua tree

UPDATE ON 10/30/07:
i've been told by both carson and mark now that i should make two additions to this list. so here they are:

11. zion
12. bryce canyon

at least i can listen to WHYY online...

it's pledge drive season again at WDUQ, pittsburgh's big NPR station. this means that every morning during "morning edition" and every afternoon during "all things considered", i am bombarded with pledge breaks and ira glass telling me that giving to NPR is the "right thing to do" and all. OKAY! I GET IT!!! but now that i know that the economic powerhouse that is the catholic church is behind WDUQ, i feel a lot less responsible to support the station...

here. from (of all sources!) the pittsburgh tribune-review.

and here it is in the post-gazette.

i'm sorry, but since when did my NPR station have an allegiance to the catholics? i know that the "DUQ" in WDUQ is for duquesne university, but i had no idea that the university and the church had such a presence in the station's programming or fundraising efforts. WDUQ has no catholic (or religious) programming. WDUQ, for all intents and purposes, touts itself as an NPR station, not as a mouthpiece of catholicism.

this is from the FAQ section of WDUQ's website:

What affiliation does DUQ have with Duquesne University?

Duquesne University holds the broadcast license for DUQ's 25,000-watt broadcast signal. The station is a non-academic unit reporting to the Provost and Academic Vice President. Duquesne University provides DUQ with annual in-kind support (facilities and services) and 6% of cash funding. DUQ is considered self-sustaining. This means that DUQ must raise its direct cash operating support from sources outside of the University, such as membership and program underwriting.

huh. but look at this excerpt from the above article in the trib:

Hanley said a donation to DUQ is a donation to Duquesne. He said this is the first time this type of situation has arisen.

"The university's president felt very uncomfortable with accepting gifts from Planned Parenthood," said Hanley, who emphasized the school never has interfered with the station's editorial integrity.

Bridget Fare, a Duquesne spokeswoman, confirmed that the university told DUQ to halt the broadcast of Planned Parenthood's underwriting messages and refund the organization's $5,252.

"Planned Parenthood is not aligned with the university's Catholic mission and identity," said Fare, who cited the organization's support of abortion as an example. "DUQ operates under the university's (nonprofit) status and it can legally accept or decline funding from any organization. Accepting or declining funding from an organization is a separate issue from DUQ's ability to cover controversial news issues."

the "hanley" mentioned in that quote is scott hanley, DUQ's station manager.

it's disturbing enough that WDUQ is denying support from planned parenthood. that's enough to raise my feminist hackles. but what takes this one step further, into the realm of propganda, is the promotion and insistence on the catholic mission! uh, what? a donation to WDUQ is a donation to duquesne university? are you kidding me? if that had been more obvious, i highly doubt that planned parenthood would have made its donation in the first place.

well, if duquesne and the catholic church, an organization of extreme wealth and influence, are supporting my public radio station, i guess ira glass is right after all -- it really doesn't matter if i pledge my support or not. the show will go on.

nice knowing you, WDUQ. good luck with this.

-----------------------

if you want to send an e-mail to the folks at WDUQ in protest of this, go here and fill out the form!

clockwatching...

i had an awkward conversation a bit ago with one of the women i do work for at my temp job. she was calling to make sure i had processed one of the invoices she had sent up to me. (btw, the fact that i just used the term "process" to refer to one of my essential job functions makes me cringe!) all of these invoices have claim numbers on them, in addition to actual client names. my job entails a lot of typing in numbers, matching them with other numbers, filling in some information on form letters, and a little bit of arithmetic. it is incredibly (and exceedingly) dull and unengaging. so when this woman called me to ask what was the status of the [insert client name here] invoice, the first words out of my mouth were, "um, wait, what?"

yeah. well, she interpreted my lack of recall as an admission that i hadn't done it yet. the truth, folks, is that about 75% of my time in this temp job, my inbox is totally empty because i have nothing to do. i pretty much get paid to sit here every day, do an average of 8-10 hours of work per week, and play on the internet and read wikipedia articles for the other 30-32 hours per week. and it makes me miserable!

i think i managed to smooth out the conversation once i figured out what she was asking me for. i went through everything on my desk (which consists of stuff that has already been, erm, processed, and which is ready to be passed along (have you ever seen the movie _Brazil_? sometimes i kinda feel like that.) and since the invoice in question wasn't here, it means it's already been done and passed along. this was, of course, after she suggested that she and i sit down together so she can explain how things work around here. ouch! just because i was a little caught off guard? again, once i explained to her that i pretty much do things as i get them and don't let them sit around collecting dust, there was no further mention of such a meeting.

i think the real challenge is that i'm up against some bad precedent. the woman who had this temp slot before me (and who handled the bills for the same examiners i now work for), messed a lot of things up and didn't do a lot of things and, as the rumors go, failed the bar exam like six times. now, i don't mean to discredit the bar exam or anything -- that test was freaking hard as hell. but after the fourth or fifth failed attempt, well, maybe it's time to re-think your strategy... and this job is pretty tough to mess up. i get all my work done AND have plenty of goof-off time. too much, as a matter of fact. i'm pretty sure it's making me stupider.

and i REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want a lawyer job! i'm so antsy. i'm not really making that much money and i've got nothing really to do but sit here and think about how eager i am to actually use the degree i just went into so much debt to obtain...

dad and daniel are coming up here for my swearing-in in early december. i really hope i'm working for real by then. ugh.

in rainbows...

hey! radiohead has a new album! and they've decided to let their fans choose the purchase price for the album. um, three words: bad idea jeans! silly anti-capitalists! silly radiohead!

anyway, so like zillions of radiohead fans, i went online yesterday (the official release date) to download the new album. of course, the site was overloaded and was running really really slowly and kept timing out and all that stuff that reminds us that we're still fallible. this isn't radiohead's fault, but in our i-want-it-NOW day and age, it was a wee bit annoying. but once the proper pages finally loaded, i got to the screen where i got to enter my own price.

bear with me through this next part -- i promise i'm getting to the point...

way back in the day, to make some extra cash, i took a part-time job in visitor services at the philadelphia museum of art during a big edgar degas exhibition (a truly irrelevant aside here is that i wanted to make t-shirts for the visitor services staff that said "viva las degas", but i seemed to be the only one who thought that was funny. whatever. impressionism is totally boring anyway.)

just so i properly flesh out my personal history here, this was one of three phases of my life in which i was employed by the PMA. i was a full-time grant writer for a couple of years. and i also did a stint as a membership telemarketer for a while. why? i honestly don't know. the PMA has a weird way of getting its hooks into hipster artsy coolkids in their 20s and not really letting go until those hipster artsy coolkids grow up a bit. and yes, you heard right -- i just pseudo associated myself with the philadelphia hipster artsy coolkid crowd. n.b. i said PSEUDO. that was probably the closest i ever truly came to being hipsteresque, and even then i was way on the margins. i mean, i never had an asymmetrical haircut or wore skinny pants with socks and flats. come on -- that stuff is just silly. i'm way more punk than hipster anyday.

anyway, visitor services is the department at the museum that does things like staff the admission desks and sign up new members and manage the coatroom. the job was super-easy and actually pretty fun. especially in the coatroom where i'd make well over $100 in tips in any given shift, even though by the end of the shift, i'd be completely exhausted. anyway, the admission policy on sundays at the museum is "pay what you wish." despite its plain-on-its-face meaning, this concept baffled visitors every single sunday. in my opinion, it's a pretty rad policy (duh -- it appeals to my inner socialist). you can't get in for free, but you can pay a penny if you want. it was a really interesting thing to experience from the receiving end of the transaction. a lot of people would just pay the regular admission price (which at the time was $10). every once in a while someone would pay more than the regular admission price. but most folks would pay between $5 and $7. and some folks paid only a dollar or two. and there were always the jackasses who acted like they were gaming the system and would give me their pocket change in exchange for an admission button. i was all, "really? you think you're mr. coolguy for giving me a shiny nickel? because really i don't care -- it's freaking 'pay what you wish' day. it's not a moral challenge -- it's a freaking admissions policy." also, back when i worked in the development department, i saw the general operating budget for that place. i know full well that it doesn't make the bulk of its money from admissions.

which brings me to the point -- when you let people name their own price, there seems to be a dangerous (in my opinion) tendency to bring morality into it. remember, the vast majority of museum visitors on pay-what-you-wish sundays would pay between 50% and 70% of the regular admission price. i could see the wheels turning on their faces as they decided what to pay -- it was as if they were thinking, "well, i don't want to not pay enough, but i do want to take advantage of this, so..."

look, it should come as no surprise that i'm not a capitalist. and that i don't think morality and economics should cross paths any more than they have to. (and if it does come as a surprise, hi! and welcome to my blog!) but how else does one figure out how to price something without thinking of the valuation process as one of both economics and personal worth? take two groups of people i encountered while working at the admissions desks -- the folks who paid more than the usual admission price and the folks who paid less than a dollar. on one level, paying more than you must is show-offy and paying next to nothing is cheap. on another level, paying more than you must is generous and paying next to nothing is living-within-one's-means. but the people who seemed (based on my own observations, which may or may not be an accurate assessment of financial resources) like they truly and honestly didn't have the money to spend on fancy museum admission were rarely the ones who only gave a few cents -- they would generally try to pay at least a couple of dollars. i can't help but wonder how much of the decision of what to spend was motivated by altruism, how much was motivated by ability, and how much was motivated by a sense that they might be judged according to how much money they gave.

i.e., how influential is the perceived judgment of others? i'm no sociologist or statistician, and nor am i much of a gambler, but i bet it's pretty freaking powerful.

okay, now back to the radiohead album...

there are obviously some major differences between this "pay what you wish" policy and the one at the PMA. first of all (and perhaps most importantly?), this transaction takes place online, so you don't have to speak to or encounter any real people while naming your price. a nameless, faceless, secure online payment system isn't nearly as intimidating as an actual human cashier. second of all, i'm not sure how comparable a not-for-profit cultural repository (even one that is pretty well established and has one hell of an annual endowment income) is to a for-profit rock band with a loyal following, seven studio albums, and a career that spans more than fifteen years. third of all, i imagine that the vast majority of people who would actually purchase the new radiohead album at a named-by-the-record-label price in a store have long ago overcome their moral hangups about downloading music for free. we're not talking about bringing art to the masses, here. we're talking about kids in college dorm rooms who can put music on their ipods in their sleep if need be.

and radiohead (or the folks who market their music) isn't stupid. on that same website where you can download the album for whatever price you choose, you can also pre-order the _in rainbows_ "discbox", which includes the actual CD, a bonus CD, two vinyl albums, and a book. this magic discbox set can be yours for a mere 40 GPB. which, according to current currency exchange rates, is about $82. and just like all of those silly folks who pre-ordered the "legendary" release of Halo 3 (which for a bunch of extra dollars, gets you an extra DVD and a stupid master chief helmet?!?), i'm quite sure there are plenty of fans with disposable incomes who will insure that sales of the _in rainbows_ discbox keep radiohead from going hungry.

i'm really curious about what folks are going to pay to download this album. i imagine that the majority won't pay much. there will probably be some folks who pay something comparable to what they would pay in a music store, or what itunes would charge. i don't want to be too cynical, but given what i suppose will be the demographics of those who will get this album, i really doubt that people are going to give a lot of thought to what radiohead means to them or how much they value the artistic contribution radiohead makes to society.

as for me, i wanted to get the freaking new radiohead album for free. judge all you want, but i don't have any moral hangups about paying precious little for music. and i've paid the regular store costs for those other six studio albums radiohead has released, so you know, they probably owe me or something. however, naming your own price has a catch -- regardless of what you choose to pay, the download server charges you a 0.45 GPB transaction fee. and despite my many attempts to enter 0 as my chosen price, it wasn't accepted. neither was five or ten pence. so i bumped it up to 25 pence, and this seemed to be acceptable. i can't verify that this is the lowest i could go. not only did i not try out 11 - 24 pence, but i also could have been victim of weird overloaded server issues. regardless, i got my downloaded copy of the new radiohead album for 0.70 GPB -- seventy pee. which is approximately $1.43.

and what of the album itself? it's good, kids -- REALLY good! i've been listening to it nonstop all day today.

it's worth every penny.

waste not, want not...

after the bar exam was over (you know, the bar exam that i freakin' passed?!), carson and i joined a gym. this is all part of our larger plan to make sure we live until the singularity occurs, which will save us from peak oil.*

in the ensuing months, we've been damn good about using the gym. and in the past few weeks i've reached a point where i can really see how my body is changing. first of all, i'm smaller, which tends to happen when you eat better foods and exercise regularly. but second of all, i can see muscles! i knew they were there, but now i'm starting to see them. it's kind of awesome! it makes me want to challenge strangers to arm wrestling contests!

and all that stuff about how regular exercise generally improves your quality of life is completely true. law school was not exactly the most active phase in my life. i think the calorie burning activities in which i most regularly engaged were carrying around tons of casebooks in my backpack and staving off anxiety attacks. not exactly what a doctor would recommend for cardiovascular health. but these days i feel better and i look better and carson says i snore a lot less. and once you get used to eating good foods, you start to like it. and you become aware of just how unhealthy most easily accessible foods are. we're basically a nation full of fat-asses because bad food is cheap and people keep buying and eating it. i'm trying to maintain a practice of eating the calories and types of foods that my body actually needs -- the right balance of fat and protein and carbohydrates. i get kinda grossed out now when i think of all the stuff people eat on a regular basis that is really and truly terrible and excessive. no wonder folks have cancer and heart disease and type 2 diabetes! we're putting terrible things into our bodies every day!

anyway, i'm rather proud of these choices i'm making and i plan to continue making them, since they seem to be good and all. i've got goals, too, like how sandy and i are gonna run the great race next year! and how i'm going to be able to do 20 real push ups soon (you know, NOT the girl kind where you put your knees down)!

whatever works, right? it's just nice to know that this is actually working. it makes it easier to keep it up.




*yes, of course i'm kidding. i'm not THAT freaking crazy!

this is not going to become a knitting blog...

there are entirely too many knitting blogs out there and, frankly, most of them are really kinda embarrassing.* but lately i've been doing a lot of knitting, so it's on my mind and there's this part of me that wants to blog about how i made a really cute pair of mittens yesterday by combining a strand of this weird koigu yarn (that the lady at my friendly neighborhood yarn store -- the lady that carson pointed out looks like kenobi (my small cat) -- somehow talked me into buying) with the awesome lamb's pride wool/merino yarn i found in the bargain bin in color "medieval red". or about how this weekend i knitted my first sock and now i want to knit socks all the time!

but i will blog about this... i have become a yarn snob. that's right -- a freaking YARN snob.

when one first learns to knit, one uses big needles and cheap yarn. this is because bigger needles are easier for unskilled hands to manipulate, and cheap yarn is less frustrating when you mess up a billion times. but once you start to get the hang of it, you start to experiment with different needle gauges, and soon enough you have a whole freaking armory of needles -- single pointed needles, double pointed needles, circular needles, cable needles, wooden needles, aluminum needles, long needles, short needles, fat needles, skinny needles; not to mention the stitch markers, the stitch holders, the rulers, the scissors, the counters...

but the real kicker isn't the needle-gathering**, it's the yarn. the yarn! once you start knitting with real wool, there's really no going back. it's so superior! it moves through the needles so much more efficiently! the stitches look so much nicer! it has the ability to transform a casual and pleasant hobby into true craftsmanship!

(i know -- this makes me sound batty as hell. spinsterhood, here i come!)

but there's something incredibly gratifying about knitting with good wool. sheep, alpaca, merino, cashmere... even cotton! it's all about the nice natural fibers. once you start using it, there's just no freaking way you can go back to manmade acrylics. yuck!

the issue here is that natural fibers can be freaking expensive. (there's this one skein of yarn at the yarn store that i'm completely in love with, but it's almost $60 for about 200 yards! this is a love that is destined to be unrequited.) even if you decide you're gonna knit christmas presents for everyone on your list, if you're using good yarn, you're not really saving yourself any money. it's truly sad. but i'm truly becoming a compulsive knitter (i knit on the bus, i knit in bed, i knit while i watch college football! i'd knit on the treadmill if i could do it without falling on my face!) and it's just so much better to use the good stuff.

alas, i am a poor girl these days. so my new plan is to dig out all the old sweaters i don't wear or like anymore and unravel them! yup -- recycling old yarn. i'm gonna turn ugly ducklings into beautiful swans! because i just can't stop myself.

sigh...



* i believe "fantram" is the correct word.
** yes, that was a pathetic attempt at a pun on the word "woolgathering", which (the context of this post notwithstanding) is one of my favorite words ever of all times.

two additional things about today...

...that i'd like to memorialize in this blog:

1. i got a phone call from germany! i've never gotten a phone call from germany before. and this wasn't just any phone call, this was a call from my friend george in germany! awesome! george is doing well, enjoying berlin, starts classes soon, and is gonna celebrate having passed the bar with some champagne, and some good and overpriced american staples: nacho cheese sauce and root beer! yay george!

2. i found a wikipedia entry for one of my favorite things in the world, the spit-take. rad!

and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end...

they're here! the results from the july 2007 pennsylvania bar exam! and you know what, kids? i freaking passed!!!

and i'll let you in on a little secret... i've known that i passed for about a week now, but i didn't want to say anything because nobody likes the jerk who already knows she passed the bar when everyone else is going crazy waiting to find out, too. and if you're wondering how i found out early, well, i'm not telling. let's just say i have a kick ass friend with magic connections!

right on! i passed the bar exam! to say that i'm relieved doesn't even come CLOSE to how i feel about this! it was literally the most difficult test i've ever taken. and trying to make comparisons to standardized tests in general just doesn't do the bar exam, erm, justice. it's a licensing examination -- it's fucking hard. on purpose. because we want our lawyers to be smart and ethical and responsible and all. you know, because all lawyers are smart and ethical and responsible and all.

oh, dare to dream...

anyway, so begins my life as a lawyer. i have lots of good things to accomplish. pennsylvania bar, i won't let you down!

currently distracting emily at her temp job...

hmmm... i wonder if i should sell my car and get one of these instead:

it's not that i don't have anything to say...

...it's just that right now i'm holding my breath, biting my tongue, biding my time. i've been interviewing for some jobs, one in particular that i REALLY want. like, REALLY REALLY want. to the degree that i actually said at the end of the interview, "emily [i don't wanna put my last name here, but i said my last name] for the win!" yup. i threw down the FTW. and it was risky, but in talking to a trusted source who interned at this place during law school, i think it was okay that i said it. and they laughed (yes, "they", as in a panel of six attorneys), and in an oh-that's-cute-and-funny kind of way, not in an omg-what-a-freaking-moron kind of way. so now i just wait. and wait and wait and wait.

and wait for the official notification about a certain test i took a few months ago. even though maybe i already know? do i? i dare not say!

oh, and yes. notre dame football. oof! how's that for a kick in the pants?! i hope ty willingham is eating this up. because those awesome seasons charlie weis had? were with willingham's recruits. oh well. you win some, you lose some. and this has given me an excuse to start following the SEC, the conference of my birth. (did you guys see the auburn/florida game this past weekend?!? holy crap! holy awesome!)