The Mizzzzzing Link

I admit I don't have their skill. Their four-part harmony. Their proverbial longevity in the public eye. Their haircuts. Their much-maligned popularity.

But that's all temporary.

Just you wait until I get a good night's sleep.

it's not quite the beatles, but....

a is singing to me.

oh julia
i want you there beside me
when i'm on call
i hope you raise your hand
because i tend to tune out in international law
and it's something you understand

i'm not so sure i'd actually profess total understanding, but if she's going to vouch for me, then i'll take what i can get.

i sing these songs to you
and i feel like a fool
but then you grin every once and a while
and i don't feel like such a tool
maybe i should
oh julia
when i talk to you
julia
no one knows the hell i go through
dealing with you
julia
i walk a fine line
julia
how do you think new york feels living with puppies n'sunshine
julia
i'm just going to keep saying your name
because it fits with the meter
and i'm running out of rhymes all the same
julia
okay last stanza i promise
and i'm just going to get through this
julia
to show you that i care
julia
i call you my pooh-bear
i call you my pooh-bear

....she's walking out of the room for dramatic effect. she just bowed.

julia
when you concentrate
oh julia
it's hard to tell what you appreciate
i'm so sad
i'm so sad now
'cause even after i took my bow
i didn't get one round of applause
and that gives me pause
oh julia!
i cry and you give me cause
julia
come on, give me a hug with those pooh paws.

okay she's really done. but she is going to use that tune for something else.

The Final Words of the Night.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Aye, Henry David Thoreau.

Ciao, all. Sweet dreams.

The Skill

We are sitting on the futon, each of us doing our own work. Almost. Mainly. J seems to have picked up this ability to sense and clap to death any mosquito in the surrounding area. So while I try to research radio spectrum allotment, and she's ostensibly concentrating on natural resources there are these occasional loud bangs and sudden movements right on my peripheral vision.

I'm currently sensing an incoming jig and shimmy.

Perhaps we should be sittng in different chairs?

Yeah, I know. This is more fun.

*Dance, dance, dance.*

Aaaand back to the World Radio Conference.

**Ed. note, a few hours later:
J striding out to the living room after another loud *BANG*: You should have seen that mosquito in the bathroom. Prime kill!
*Momentary pause*
A: It's not a prime kill.
And another pause.
J: Where's that centipede we saw before?
A: You freak.

the house at pooh corner, again

and this, following my most recent post:

j: i love pooh.
a: ah, pooh. OOOH! i'll call you pooh-lia!!!

i don't think i'd object...too much.

and i guess, while i have the chance, i might as well add the one that explains why these posts turn out the way they do.

"i don't see much sense in that," said rabbit.
"no," said pooh humbly, "there isn't. but there was going to be when i began it. it's just that something happened to it along the way."

and the one that is really rather me.

some people care too much, i think it's called love.

although i'm pretty sure that some people would tell you this one's more accurate.

when looking at your two paws, as soon as you have decided which of them is the right one, then you can be sure the other one is the left.

nothing makes me quite as happy as a little pooh.

the house at pooh corner

if i were a bear
and a big bear too
i wouldn't much care
if it froze or it snew;
i shouldn't much mind
if it snowed or friz --
i'd be all fur-lined
with a coat like his.

ever have one of those moments when you are just struck by how amazingly incredible each and every one of your friends is as a person? yeah, definitely having that right now.

"pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. not even when i am a hundred."
pooh thought for a little.
"how old shall i be then?"
"ninety-nine."
pooh nodded. "i promise," he said.

i promise too.

something to talk about

well, here are my thoughts, since i might as well give them. i believe what i said, in that ultimately i do not think it's possible to make anyone feel better about events that are not under their control. you can most certainly give advice, thoughts, hugs to a person regarding events under their control. it may be appreciated. it may not be. but when events aren't under anyone's control, there's nothing to be done to really make a situation better. because honestly, when events are out of your control, you have to focus on what you can control about the situation, and work on that. but the out of control stuff sometimes requires introspection. and that has to be done alone. of course people want to vent sometimes, and if they do, that's where i come in (if i want to make someone feel better). but for the most part all i really ever do is smile, and listen if necessary.

i guess that's because i know how i am when these things happen. i don't particularly like being hung up on things that aren't within my control. there's almost no point. i also don't particularly like being mopey. no point to that either. and most of the time, if i am mopey, i don't like to talk about it, because it will most surely pass within a few hours, and i would rather not wallow. i would rather process and move on. so i like to handle these things with my own self. if i would like to talk about something, i will bring it up to a friend. but if i'm not talking, it's because i don't want to. because it's a problem no one can solve. because i don't want anyone to solve it. because i want to think about it for a few minutes, become at peace with the situation, and get on with my life.

but that is just how i react, and everyone is different. i think, in general, though, that if people want to talk about something they will make it clear, and when they don't, that they will also make it clear. and that it is definitely not up to me, regardless of what i think, to decide when a person should be ready to talk about things, but that i am happy to be able to be there for those close to me when they need to.

The Ramblepost

J seems to be in a particularly unsunny mood this morning. She maintains that this is not true. Very well, I will believe her. Puppies'n Sunshine.

I do sometimes (often) wonder what it takes to make someone feel right about things that are not under your control. Maybe the whole effort is just a waste of time. J, reading that previous sentence, told me that it was. But accepting that leaves me with a bit of a quandary, in the sense that I feel both morally obligate and emotionally compelled to try and get people feeling good almost always.

Which isn't to say that I'm a stunning success at that, but again -I do try. So maybe doing so is actually more of a pretentious thing than the supportive maneuver it's intended to be? That is, in the sense that you feel A, I think it would be best if you felt B, I try to get you to feel B by doing things to try to tweak your emotional state. Or is it you feel A, you really would be happier if you felt B and I'm trying to get you to that spot and therefore that's a good thing?

Seems like it would really depend on the situation, and differentiating between the many environmental factors that tip the classification one way or the other is a matter of skill and sensitivity that I'd really hope a) I've built and b) I can keep on building. Very difficult thing, when I think about it.

What do you prefer to do when you see someone down? Let them 'work through it' or try to alleviate some of the gloom? I'm pretty sure that despite the technical nuances of it all, most people prefer one path over the other on a general basis. It would really interest me to know if that was correct and if so, what the more prevalent approach is.

To lighten the mood of the ramblepost (again, coined it myself), I leave you with an unattributed quote, overheard today standing in the coffee line at Saxby's.

Random Gtown Univ. Girl to her friends: Ohmigod. I had a dream last night that Saxby's raised its prices. It was... SO.... STRESSFUL.

Said with accompanying appropriate traumatized facial expression. Let's hear it for delicate constitutions and lotsa money to burn.

i'm a toys-r-us kid

i guess i am not a grownup yet because i definitely splashed a big puddle a few days ago and totally enjoyed it. gizzle is my witness. but i was wearing galoshes, which i think makes a difference.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, A!!!!

The Way the Years Change You...

When I was a kid, jumping in puddles was awesome. Next to crunching leaves, splashing in puddles - and having other people thereby splashed - was just a delicious punctuation mark in the day.

When I was dressed in a long skirt on Friday night and trying to make it back to Georgetown through Foggy Bottom during a tremendous puddle-making rainstorm, I made the mistake of accidentally stepping into a pothole full to the brim of water. Unlike old times, the resulting puddlesplash (coined that one meself) served only to wash places I didn't even know I had and make all the other ones really cold. That elicited a different kind of punctuation mark, the kind that comes at the end of a muffled scream.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have now officially become a grown-up.

Yeah, I know.

I think deep thoughts on my birthday.

new haircuts

isn't it funny that when you change your hair a person who has known you for years does not recognize you at all anymore? it's like i've gotten a completely new face. i kind of like the feeling.

sharpies write out loud

today has just been full of some truly stellar conversations. w has decided that she will in fact trek out to georgetown tomorrow morning to join me after this lovely exchange:

j: so you're coming tomorrow, right?
w: yep, i'll be there.
j: great, could you come around 11?
w: let me check my schedule.
j: excuse me?
w: i feel like that's a reflexive thing that i say now.
j: i know, i was starting to think, what's going on here? now you're going to PENCIL ME IN?
w: oh yes, i think there might be time between waking up, taking a shower, and going over to see you.
j: you know, you could even pen me in, because, baby, i ain't goin' nowhere.
w: i don't know if i want to tempt fate like that.
j: that's true, you'd better leave it in pencil. so that you can erase me if needs be.
w: how about erasable pen?
j: waffles, erasable pen is like an open relationship. don't be ridiculous.
w: i never liked the way erasable pens worked anyway.

so she is coming at 11. i may or may not be penciled or erasable penned in to that time slot on her schedule. somewhere after waking up and taking a shower, but before going to sleep. and, since it's her schedule, probably sandwiched between copious amounts of studying. which is, not at all shockingly, exactly where she is penned into mine.

The Equivalency

J - you ask a stupid question...

I'd like to state for the record that
a) she would look really bad bald.
b) I never wanted that discussion to go anywhere near the realm of cancer patients.
c) she would still look really bad bald.

And then she would probably blog about it!

Sincerely,

J's conscience

i hope i'm never bald

a and i are checking out potential haircuts. a conversation transpires:

j: when natalie portman shaved her head, i almost did it.
a: why would you do that?
j: i don't know, it looked cool.
a: you'd look awful!
j: how do you know?
a: because there are only three people in the world who can pull off bald and you aren't one of them.
j: if i get cancer someday won't you feel bad for saying that?
a: maybe, but i'd still think it. i just wouldn't make fun of you.
j: give me the computer.
a: NO JINKS OF WE!!!!
j: types furiously. (types jinksofwe.blogspot.com, to be accurate)
a: look, i just don't want some law firm to see this and think...
j: dude, it wasn't serious, was it?
a: no. i mean i'll never think you look good bald. nothing will ever change that.
j: oh, dude, that's going in.
a: (in a whisper) j, this is your conscience speaking...
j: no it's not, it's YOU speaking because you don't have a conscience because you said i would look bad if i was bald if i had cancer.
a: (in a whisper still) this is your conscience, trying again. put down the computer. this is still your conscience. you suck.

don't you wish you lived with us?

bang bang

i am so desirous of bangs. real, long, nelly furtado-esque bangs. i almost got them in brasil but flaked out and got layers instead. today i started looking at the urban catalog and discovered that i still secretly (not-so-secretly) want them. i know they'd make me look even younger and i already look 15. someone please give me thoughts on this. talk me into it. or out of it. either way.

hey, how you DOin'?

hmmm, roomie makes some interesting points. first of all, i will say this: it is my firm belief that one ought to be grammatically correct. i realize that i do not capitalize, often abuse periods (i.e. use them far too frequently and after obvious sentence fragments), sometimes enjoy british conventional spelling, and have a penchant for ee cummings. all that being said, i think one must demonstrate a mastery of grammar to flout it so enthusiastically (that reminds me something of dinh's comment that you have to know the constitution to break it...i guess this is as close as we'll get to agreeing on something). now that's over with, on to more substantive things.

i don't know if life is supposed to be about what you want to DO or maybe just want you want to do, not capitalized, emphasized, finalized. i was having this conversation with e as we walked to dupont circle the other day, both of us doing a little soul-searching as we're reaching that point in our lives where the FUTURE seems to be looming in full force. she remarked that maybe it was easier for me because i've always seemed to know what i wanted to DO. so, okay, maybe that's true in some sense -- i am very directed. but i don't know if that's exactly what counts to me. jobs are great and i'm beyond excited for mine. but it's not who i am. who i am is what i want to do, i think, not what i want to DO, at least not what i want to DO in the way that people ask you what you DO at cocktail parties or when you meet them for the first time in the shopping mall or at a nice restaurant. it's funny how we seem to place all this emphasis on that kind of doing...maybe DOing should be the other thing, what nobody asks you about but what you really want.

what i really want:
1. a pair of converses
2. a polka dot umbrella
3. to make a pile of leaves and jump in them (right now!)
4. to see the maldives
5. to move back to south america
6. to eat good indian food
7. to learn french, a little german, and enough arabic that i'm passable
8. to go to sudan and kenya and south africa (and many other parts of africa, honestly)
9. to buy my favourite fedora, which is far more expensive than any hat ought to be
10. to go camping in canada (maybe lake louise?)
11. to sail around the mediterranean
12. to get a cat and name him fofo
13. to see my good friends often, and to always think of creative gifts for their birthdays
14. to learn how to make a souffle
15. to go fishing
16. to listen to my grandma's whole life story
17. to see israel and istanbul (st. sofia) and cyprus
18. to live in my own little personal auberge espagnole
19. to always have a day to go exploring on the weekends
20. to climb to the bottom of the grand canyon and back up

of course there are a million more things that i would like to do but i think 20 is a good place to stop since otherwise i would go on all day. but see? maybe this is DOing and not the other thing. recently i have been resolving to get out there and do as much as i can, and enjoy things as much as i can, because that is LIVING. that was the other thing that was nice about being in brasil (aside from not having a cell phone). there people LIVE. and DO. it's hard not to feel alive when you're speeding down the road at 2 in the morning going to a disco with the techno pumping and eight of you packed into someone's little tiny car. or when you're jumping into the water on copacabana beach. or when you're looking over rio from the corcovado. or when you're standing on the center divide in the middle of avenida paulista with the heart of sao paulo rushing by you at 60mph.

well this was rather introspective. as befits law school i am heading back to the clean water act and then off to evidence. but i will be eating good indian food tonight, which takes care of #6....

The Addiction and The Question

Caffeine has officially got me by the throat. Insidious little bugger. Can't quite wake up without my morning coffee. Not that that's an entirely bad thing.

Then again it would be nice to wake up and actually be awake. Yesterday morning I was trying to communicate something to J who kindly made me repeat what I thought I was saying three times until it came out in something at least resembling English with proper syntax and everything. For someone who doesn't use capitals and specializes in lax punctuation, she's certainly got some lofty standards.

Anyway, to sort of continue J's theme of law school vs. real world in a sort of half-assed manner: I've thought of things that I'd like to learn at some point in my life. Statutory interpretation never ranked overly high, but maybe that was simply shortsighted on my part. What did rank: glassblowing, learning Latin dances, woodwork (with a specialization in crafting guitars), getting certified as a yoetzet halacha, getting licensed as an EMT and maybe one day as a paramedic, travelling the Far East, parenting well (far off, people, you can exhale), and aspirations to polyglotting it as much as possible (with Arabic, Chinese and Russian as priorities). The list is actually significantly longer but those things were very much at the top. Who doesn't want to learn everything eventually?

While getting all that done does seem very far away I do know I'll get to at least some of them within the next decade. Hard to really imagine, but that seems like a fairly manageable time to wait for something you really want as long as you're being worthwhile in other ways in the interim.

Closing thought: It's funny that when people ask you what you want to do with your life, you're supposed to respond with a career choice rather than what you actually want to do. Not an awfully reflective response, I think. So... let's have some fun and see who's actually reading this thing.

What do you want to do with your life? Leave a message at the beep.

shantih shantih shantih

i am in a distinctly ts eliot sort of mood, but then again i usually am, because there's not often a moment when i couldn't be convinced to pick up a little ts. sometimes i wish i could have lived in his head just for a day because to have all of that going on is just amazing:

o o o o that shakespeherian rag
it's so elegant
so intelligent
'what shall i do now? what shall i do?'
'i shall rush out as i am, and walk the street
'with my hair down, so. what shall we do tomorrow?
'what shall we ever do?'

the wonderful thing about the waste land is that it encompasses pretty much anything that i could ever be thinking. how does he do that?

in the interest of lightheartedness i think i will find it in me to begin writing a play sometime soon. a parody of sorts, about 2L. now that i've said it i know i had better commit and buckle down and write the thing. there are always lines floating around in my head on the bus in the mornings. but then i am distracted because they planted new trees in front of tax court. maybe i'll work that in somehow.

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

The Warm Fuzzies

Courtesy of one of my (and NW DC's) favorite peoples -

Type in your full name in the beginning of the following link, like so:
http://www.firstname.lastname.youaremighty.com/ , i.e. http://www.mickey.mouse.youaremighty.com/.

It's a little picker-upper. Like a mini-Bounty paper towel in your day. And if you really want to cry tears of joy, do the same but substitute 'youaremyfriend' for 'youaremighty.' Make sure you have sound or 95% of the effect is lost.

Yeah, I know. If you're a Georgetown 2L then you were sending these around to dunces with their speakers on during class last year. But if you aren't, then these are certainly worth a look-see.

The Blurred Line

between a justified feeling of accomplishment and pomposity sort of escapes definition for me, but at least one person today definitely failed to straddle it adequately.

It's all in the presentation, I guess.

The Misconception

I'm back. Totally wanting a shower and a nap and perhaps a way in which to regain a LOT of lost study time, but otherwise mostly groovy. To try and lift this site from the introspective mopey depths to which it seems to have sunk (don't worry J, I don't really mean that and appreciate anything you deign to post here) I'll grace you all with the story of how several members of the local synagogue came to the conclusion that I shake down short people for candy.

There's a communal meal at the synagogue every Sabbath. People pray, go to the meal, go back to praying and by the time the whole hullabaloo is over, so is the Sabbath and we're all free to go back to our electricity and pens. Because space is somewhat at a premium, a bunch of meal-goers have carved out zones for where they usually sit. I mark my territory in the following ultra-civilized way: I drop my keys on the table by my seat. Works like a charm. Everybody knows everybody at the place, there's no danger of someone walking off with them.

Right. Of course there is, you're thinking. And on this particular weekend, you'd be right.

One of my friends shot into the kitchen as I was helping prepare things and asked if I had removed my keys from the table. Following a short series of cardiac palpitations, I said no and then went out to the scene of the crime to verify for myself that they keys were missing. I did this by checking the entire table and floor, and then staring intently into the eyes of the 25-65 crowd I was sitting with to try and guilt whichever joker it was into giving up the goods. No dice. They were in fact, not to be found.

And then, I noticed one of the synagogue's cute little children helping hand out soda. About five years old. Adorable kid. And I thought to myself, hey, give it a shot.

"Zachary, did you see some keys on the table, here?"

Zachary looked up at me with his tremendous brown eyes, and with an even more tremendous smile, started nodding his head frantically up and down. Very proud of himself.

"Uh, Zachary, did you take the keys from the table?"

Smile. Nodding, nodding, nodding. He had probably recognized my keys from other games we had played in week past.

Cute, actually, but things get complicated right about... now.

I quickly bent down, picked him up and took him right outside the central room (that part's fine, we usually play together a little bit). Putting the little gremlin down, I looked down at him from about four feet up and waited for the keys.

"Zach, I need my keys to get into my house."

Looking up at me with pleading eyes, he disagreed politely but firmly. "Your father can open the door when you get there."

"No Zachary, I don't live with my father. I will not be able to go home. Give me the keys."

And so on and so forth until he was finally convinced that I lived on my own and wouldn't be able to enter my apartment without what he's got in his pocketses.

Sighing, he reached for the keys. Luckily for him, and ridiculously for me, he had just had a visit with the synagogue's candy woman who had loaded him up with about 15-20 lollipops, all of which were somehow crammed into his pockets. The upshot of this was that he was searching for my keys in what were basically cavernous pockets brimming with candy. And as I was standing over him glowering, he was slowly laying out lollipops on the floor in front of me, one at a time.

And everybody that walked by for the next 5 minutes saw a six foot tall 20-something forcing a kid to clean his pockets out of all of his sweets and give them to her.

Me. Shaking down a five-year-old. On the Sabbath no less. In the House of the Lord.

*Sigh*. I am the Anti-Tact.

you're so far away, doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

since roomie is out of town this weekend, i find myself all alone...which is very sad. not to mention that my only hope of watching the cleveland-boston game (since our television has randomly decided to become rather fed up with life and take a hiatus from it) is to go to rhinos, whereupon i will most likely be impaled by a barstool thrown by an angry bosox fan after revealing that i REALLY REALLY REALLY hope they lose.

however, current loneliness aside, today was quite lovely and there really is nothing better than sitting down by the waterfront when it's 75F out and eating a sandwich. of course now that i know i'll be leaving DC again, at least for the summer, i want to do everything i possibly can while i'm still here. and that's a lot of stuff. hmm, it seems we're back to the law life/real life dilemma. if only there weren't finals to worry about and it wasn't so sunny outside...

it occurs to me that these posts have only been half-humourous recently and something probably ought to be done about that. i think we'll see an upward turn in hilarity once roomie returns.

in the days of the wild west STOP dammit, my telegraph broke STOP

yes, indeed, i long for those telegraph days. except those things are tricky little buggers to operate. my great-grandfather was a telegraph operator. one time i found a telegraph in the garage and tried to work it. i think it was broken. but i did learn a little morse code. like S-O-S. in case my ship is ever sinking.

but here is the way i feel about communication: sometimes it is nicer not to have it. when i was in brasil, i had no phone. it was so liberating.

interjection:
a: dorkus incrediblius geekus is what you are.
j: silence, she is typing
a: can i call you julius?

anyway, as i was saying: in brasil, i had no phone. it was so liberating. if people wanted me, they found me. or i was with the people i would have wanted to find me anyway. now, that is the way it should work. of course, our modern world, so big and small at the same time, necesitates that we must have about 15 different ways to get in touch with each other at any given moment, precipitating the unnecessary freak-out at lack of response. did it not occur to us that someone might be busy? but, of course not! the phone is right there. i mean, they really could just CALL. is it that hard? maybe it is. you know, i should just be like w, who never answers her phone. then, when you actually make contact, it is a pleasant surprise! she deigned to pick up the phone? this must be your lucky day. or she thinks you are on the verge of death. or something. it makes you feel like you've won the lottery every time you speak to her (not that speaking to her isn't already that much of a pleasure).

interjection, again:
a: it's like a guy's name so it's a double entendre pun!
j: silence, she is still typing
a: it's a puntendre!

so the thing is that as hypercritical as i am of instant communication, i have fallen victim to the immediacy of it all myself. the other day i was sitting by the fountain in dupont and felt the sudden urge to throw my cell phone in. then it could be like brasil again. but of course i didn't, because it's such a pretty little thing and it has a picture of my cat on the screen, and besides, wouldn't people get offended if i didn't return their calls?

i wish it was like when we were little again or before that, when if you wanted someone you walked to their house and asked if you could play. but nobody walks to anybody's house just to ask anymore. these days that's lame.

interjection, again again:
a: whenever i want to play with you, i will walk to your door, and i will say julia, juliUS, will you play with me?
j: silence, she is still still typing
a: is there nothing sacred, woman?!?!

defenestrate really is from the latin defenestra. i really am a nerd. but my name is not julius (though my great-grandfather's was, but he was not the one who was the telegraph operator). and i would not like it to be. julia is just fine. with an a, not an e, please. it is latin, not french. and don't worry...i'll still answer my phone.

The Downside of Instant Communication...

is that you expect instant replies. When someone doesn't get back to you immediately after you've sent an email or left a phone message, there's either this fear that the message didn't get through ('can you hear me now? can you hear me NOW?') or this nagging sensation that maybe you've been pushed to the bottom of some sort of response 'To Do' pile. Which may in fact be the case. And you know what? An extra hour or day of waiting on something doesn't usually hurt anyone.

Then there are those like me that insist on keeping the cellphone off for a certain amount of time every month so that I can still pretend to have some control of just a few minutes of my day... for a week or two at a time. It's not ignoring you if I don't know you're calling, is my philosophy. Besides which, I do check the voicemail.

Anyway, what brings about this confession is J's current longing for a return to the days of the telegraph. When response time was normally minimally a few hours or days it wasn't that much easier to wait, I'll bet, but the lack of choice in the matter was probably much more calming.

Thoughts?

P.S. Just another day in the life of We:

J: I feel like jumping out a window.
A: Don't.
J: But then there's that cool verb you can use...
A: Defenestrate.
J: From the Latin verb defenestra.
A: Dork.

It could have gone on for longer - I've hung around enough Latin geeks to start cracking jokes in poor form - but drastic and immediate action was needed. And taken.

The Kicker

This summer I worked three jobs, one of them a really well-paying position in order to compensate for the lack of money coming from the others. To quell any emerging fears about the lucrative job, I state now that it was teaching high school classes about law for Georgetown (and props to a a couple of lawyer-mentor-friends including this Author for helping me out with that in a major and charismatic way). Life and I were getting on pretty well as I was feeling both productive and in the black.

Long story short, Life and I are having a bit of a disagreement at the moment, following its decision to paste a tremendous "Kick me" sign on my back in the form of a more than 40% deduction of taxes from what was supposed to pay the rent for a while.
On the bright side, if Social Security lasts, I now have several hundred dollars poured into that and thousands wherever the USG decides to wisely spend it.

J, as regards the rent next month... uh... you're it! (*tapping J on the shoulder and then sprinting away, laughing wildly*).

The Neighbors

"The school's director-general, Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, said Wednesday that.. the academy has adjusted its curriculum in recent years and removed some of the inflammatory language that had been included in the Saudi text.... He also pointed out that many of the school's teachers are Christian and Jewish."

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1271550

Two points:
a) We're talking about a school in Fairfax, Virginia that has a just a little too much Saudi funding and influence for the Feds to be comfortable on the matter. So they've recommended shutting it down until they can verify that the curriculum meets basic standards of civility. I.e. no mentions of an hour of judgment delayed "until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them." Waiting to see the reaction from local free speech orgs on this one.

b) The 'some of my best friends are Jewish and Christian' line is no more convincing than when you have other ethnicities and religions switched into the sentence.

better together

all right, all i really want to do this morning is lie in my bed for about three hours and listen to jack johnson and be sentimental. it is cloudy and it rained last night and i missed it and it sort of cooled things down but it's still humid the way the end of summer is.

there's no combination of words i could put on the back of a postcard
no song that i could sing, but i could try for your heart

i wish there was time in law school to take a moment and process all of the things that actually happen in life. it's incredible how much has changed in just the last five weeks, but i feel like i've never really taken the time to come to terms with it all. i mean, how can you ignore the evidence reading? or the massproof assignment? or the draft memo that's due? it seems like law school creates this alternate universe where real life just doesn't exist...but what happens when real life and law life collide? it's so impossible to pick which should be more important. and maybe if i work just a little harder i'll be able to forget about all that other stuff for a second. i'll just set it aside and it'll all work out. or i could focus on it and let my law life fall apart. at least i already have a job. but something tells me that the books will win out on this one. i don't even feel like myself when the work's not done. and i shouldn't give it such a bad rap -- i really do love this stuff. i am a nerd at heart and have to admit to a certain amount of enthusiasm about reading environmental law statutes.

our dreams,
and they are made out of real things
like a shoebox of photographs with sepia-toned lovin'

it's funny because over the past month i've been having all of these experiences that cause me to put such a higher premium on real life over law life. it's hard to imagine that the hearsay rule is all-important when you're milling around the produce section at whole foods. or walking from georgetown to dupont with the leaves just turning. or wondering when you will sit on the grass and look at the sky. and when you know such wonderful people, how could you not want to spend every minute you could just enjoying their company? i really do have the best friends in the world.

love is the answer, at least for most of the questions of my heart
why are we here? and where do we go? and how come it's so hard?

it's impossible not to look around these days and be struck with how incredibly beautiful the world is. east coast autumn is maybe my favourite time of the year (though i find myself yearning for snow these days) and when i get to thinking about life for a minute (not too often...isn't that what these ridiculously introspective blog entries are for?) i realize that i couldn't be more fortunate. i find it so hard to be upset about anything at all when there is so much good to enjoy. so here is my resolution: i will make the most of my three-day weekends. i will spend them with the people i love and i will do all of the things that i have always wanted to do and i will take pictures and i will enjoy it. and there will be a healthy amount of studying involved as well. something tells me i can have the best of both worlds.

it's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
i'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

The Water in the Eye

You know you're... musically mature when a song really appeals to you and not even the fact that it turns out to be some Michael Bolton weep-fest ballad-type thing turns you off to it.

I'm glad J's not here to see me sniffle at the minor chords.

'Course if she was, I'd seem like a paper tiger, and if I lose the intimidation factor I'm never going to get her I-Law notes. That's right. There's no shame in towering over others if you can use it to your advantage.

Wow. I'm like a fortune cookie, only wiser and more vanilla-flavored. And I have better spelling.

money maker

okay, so maybe she doesn't shake her behind. honestly, there's not a lot there to shake. but what she does do is this ridiculous dance which involves her knees moving in directions i wasn't sure they could. it is very distracting. the girl does have legs. as an addendum, to be accurate in our particular situation, the luda verse would probably have to go:

i keep my mind on my evidence
evidence on my mind
but you's a hell of a distraction
when you're shakin' your...knees?

oh luda, why didn't you think of that? i think your version is catchier. definitely raunchier. oh, and, for the record, you know i got it, if you wanna come get it -- stand next to this money like ay ay ay.

The Way of Things

Julia: dude ludacris just came on
this line makes me think of you
me: /
?
Julia: "i keep my mind on my money/ my money on my mind/ but you's a hell of a distraction/ when you're shakin' your behind"
me: Oh Lord.


For the record, she does keep her money on her mind, but I do not shake my behind. I'd like to make that really clear.

In the Footsteps of Greatness

While we're apparently on the topic of music, I'd encourage any troglodytic neanderthal who hasn't yet created an account on Pandora.com to do so. It's web radio that builds channels off of songs or artists that you input and plays it to you all commercial free. You can even rate the music so that it fine-tunes its selections. I've discovered a bunch of good music through the site, and because I lack roomie's ipod - at least until she unwisely falls asleep with it in open view - it's a good way to fill the evenings otherwise full of statutes and international trade.

You can also open an account if you're not a troglodytic neanderthal, by the way. In fact, I imagine that would make the technologically-based registration process immensely easier.

Back to work.

gimme shelter

this has nothing to do with anything, but i am compelled to point out that i think the first 1:40 of gimme shelter might possibly be the most brilliant instrumental intro to any rock song ever written. something tells me that these sort of blogs are the place where you share all of these completely random thoughts (which i have a lot of) and hope that people don't think you've entirely lost it, but at the same time don't care much if they do (would you really be writing this if you cared?).

i wish i could just play the beginning of this song on repeat all day. i wish actually that it would just randomly play when i was walking places. it's obnoxious to press the back button on my ipod all the time. i really like a good bassline. okay, enough being a waste of space. EVIDENCE READING! huzzah.

i think it's only fair....

i feel that roomie levels some unfair criticism at me in her last post. and as a result, i write to her an epic poem of love and beauty that could be rivaled perhaps only by will shakespeare himself...

o, tall girl
how i love you
you change our lightbulbs
is there nothing you can't do?

with your farrah fawcett hair
and your new york jew-girl flare
it's no wonder you've stolen my heart
i don't think we could ever part

when i walk in the door
on the futon, there you are
i just want a glass of water
you accost me with your guitar

how could i even live?
what would i have to give?
your lyrical musings sustain me
even if i try to flee

o, tall girl
how i love you
and i can say without a doubt
you amuse me through and through

if there was any question about my devotion, attention-paying skills, or capability of mixing AABB and ABCB couplets, let it be thusly vanquished!

The Impromptu Songs

I have a distinct feeling J doesn't appreciate the amount of time I invest in writing her music. She's been posting my lyrics on her away messages though, so I know she's been listening. ;-) Nothing like being quoted to make you feel appreciated.

Sample 1
Eat a vegetable patty
Stay away from the meat
I don't want to call you a fatty
But will be forced to if you eat

Sample 2
This is me laying it on the line
I think your frizzy hair looks fine
Do you want to go to dinner?
Eat veggie Indian like Jewish sinners

and then a bit later when she was still laughing at me...
"Everyone's a critic
I think you really suck
You don't sing these songs to me
I mean, g-dammit, f***."

I'm so glad this relationship is functional. It's a distinct departure from all those other ones I know...

P.S. And with all that she's skipping out on me for dinner.

hmmm

so, i must confess that i'm not really sure how i ended up along for this particular ride. it must be one of those things...when henrietta flies the coop, you kind of have to fly after her. besides, what a wonderful way to chronicle our legal hijinks! but they are low, as roomie points out to me. not high. hm.

i have a feeling there will be far more amusing things to come. plays? quotes? shockingly witty prose? you guessed it, all here. and if i can figure out some way to actually write this comic strip and post it up here...

the one burning question, which remains to be answered, is this: how do two 2Ls have time to create such an intellectually stimulating blog while maintaining some semblance of a life? i guess we'll find out.

word to the wise: it's a where there's capitalization, j where there's not. ee cummings is my homeboy.

The blog

What happens when two law students of opposite political beliefs, physical stature, and similar most other things end up sleeping together.
Rooming together.
Rooming.


Enjoy the read.