Res · ipsa · loquitor

In my studying leading up to my Constitutional Law final, I've started to formulate why I've never felt entirely comfortable endorsing Obama for the Democratic nomination. Those of us who tend to skew liberal have shouted from the rooftops about the horrors of faith-based legislation (essentially, conservative Christianity). I agree that one's faith shouldn't be the basis for legislation. Of course, it's intrinsically difficult to separate ethics, morality, uniting principles, and other "good" bases for legislation from one's faith, as they are intrinsically intertwined in our minds - we've always legislated with our hearts, and concurrent to our own beliefs.

What rubs me wrong about Obama's campaign is that it just seems like hypocrisy on the part of liberals - it's just as rigidly faith-based as the Moral Majority, only substituting a different faith. Many (not ALL) of Obama's supporters speak of his campaign in terms of it being a moral imperative - to strike a solid blow to racism, to usher in a new era of compassion for the poor, the disenfranchised, women, children, and to restore the US's reputation abroad as peaceful and non-invasive. I don't like it when religion becomes pervasive in politics, and I certainly don't like it when politics becomes religion. Just because those morals are more appealing to me doesn't make them any more legitimate as reasons for legislation. Yes, statistics are worse than damn lies, and everyone claims to have the facts. But I don't like it that Obama is being portrayed as the new messiah - which I believe is more the fault of his supporters. And I can't help but think this is just going to further the already-dire schism between Americans. It irks me that Obama supporters are constantly lambasting Clinton's campaign for being dispassionate. In order to appease the wide spectrum of American citizens, we could use a little less passion in government. Clinton's (and McCain's) approach would have greater appeal to me at this point because it seems more numbers-based and respectful of people being free to pursue their own morality without being brats tugging on the government's skirt, whining "MOMMMMMM! The other political party took my COUNTRY! MAKE IT GIVE IT BACK." Just CHILL OUT with the values voting already on BOTH SIDES, people.

And now, back to studying. I leave for SF on Saturday for the summer, which is awesome, but I've already started to miss y'all here in Madison... Please keep in touch!

I was reading one woman's rant about her three-year relationship with her cell phone and it set me to thinking. One massive difference in personality between myself and the Vagabond - of which there are scant few to notice most days - is our relationship with gadgets and technology. I cling to my gadgets until they die a painful, protracted death when the life support is just prolonging the inevitable. He CRAVES the newest, shiniest model of anything. Granted, he IS a guy, he IS not so big on the commitment thing, and he IS a CS-degree-having, programmin' fool (at least when it comes to grubbing for the moneys), whereas I am none of these things, despite many valiant attempts to be the first two. I still love to geek out over well-designed technology that thoughtfully incorporates a nuanced understanding of user-friendliness (mmm, Google is my boyfriend). However, I tend to develop prolonged emotional relationships with my gadgets, which, granted, is maybe a little weird - since when did my life turn into Blade Runner? Anyway, I present to you a history of the emotional connections I have had to my gadgets...

( 'Have you ever retired a human by mistake?' )

Am I weird for this? Does anyone else have emotional ties to their gadgets?

Yesterday marked the glorious, triumphant return of Brewer baseball. I know I say this every year, but this HAS to be our year, folks. (An aside: seriously, the next Red Sox fan who tells me they've been suffering longer than any Brewer fan is going to be sealed in a Tupperware container and pushed out to sea... while the container is on fire. If your city's previous franchise was bought and moved to Atlanta, its World Series victories don't really count anymore, especially when your current franchise's payroll is half the size of that of the BoSox). We have a relatively young team with an intact core of players from last year. Apart from weaknesses at the catcher's position (because my white-panted boys can't go all season without giving me at least one good burst aneurysm), we've got Prince "Mr. 50 homers last season" Fielder returning, we've got my object of perpetual bullpen lust, Ben "I'd like to get between his" Sheets, and we rallied at the opener to beat the Shlubbies at Wrigley.

Oddly enough, I have never dated anyone long-term who holds the same interest that I have in sports spectatorship (Brewers, UW football/basketball/hockey [in that order], and, of course, Jesus - WAIT - I meant the Packers). I think this article does a good job of partially justifying my Brewer love, but there are other things. Several of you know that my maternal grandmother disowned my mom when she moved to Seattle to be with my dad following his med school graduation (but before the whole "wedding" part). My parents still have a rad marriage, my grandmother still doesn't speak to us (though my mom sends her a Christmas card with photos every year), and I don't consider it any big loss seeing as how this woman must be patently nuts. However, I grew up only being able to see my awesome maternal grandfather at Brave/Brewer games, when he was a ticket-taker at County Stadium. He's the one who got my mom into the game and the one who got her Hank Aaron's autograph. He got me my first Brewer batting practice souvenier ball, and he always snuck us into better seats once the game started. I bleed gold and navy, and I always cheer for the bratwurst in the sausage race.

...And on a far less sentimental note, MLB combines three of my all-time favorite pastimes: drinking beer, yelling profanity, and obsessive note-taking (I score the games). If anyone's up for some Miller Park road trips, any time before May 16th and after August 15th are good by me.

(Seriously, Universe, you OWE me after the Davidson debacle on Friday.)

I love me some April Fool's Day. Though I normally am awful at perpetrating pranks of my own (and really, the only prank that comes to mind would be downright sadistic to play and entirely not worth the heart palpitations it would induce - the perennial "winner" that is "HAHA EX-BOIFREND I IZ PREGGERS LOLBABIEZ"), I eat up other people's April Fools' net-nerd pranks. My yearly FTW stamp nearly always goes to our robot overlords at Google, though other geekery purveyors have done admirable jobs creating lists of the best pranks (do check out the video for the Newton Virus on the second link; it's stunning). They also mock themselves incisively.

Today's favorite so far (why yes, I am suffering from wretched insomnia; why do you ask?) is ThinkGeek, but I'm still holding out for the robot overlords' offering (well, in addition to this, that is). I'd pay good money for a GoogleSmite application, even if it's still in beta testing...

The best Nerd Christmas sites (especially for listing the pranks lurking this year) are Urgo and everyone's favorite shockingly-accurate hive mind. Don't say I never gave you a Nerd Christmas present. Go forth and support the nerd prankitude, you puckish little imps, you.

The return of the happy: the Lexapro has probably kicked in. I still have some misgivings about being on it. First is that this might just be a placebo effect. I don't know if I'm part of the "most severely depressed" class the article mentions. I have a strong family history of depression: my brother and parents are all on anti-depressants, my grandfather was clearly depressed, and all those years of bulimia (which is nearly always treated - successfully - with anti-depressants) seem to make me a prime candidate. I have also let depression wreak havoc on my work ethic, which can (and has) tanked my scholastic achievement, so it has tangible negative effects on my life. On the flip side, I haven't been a suicide risk since eighth grade, though I admit I was a complete wreck from age 12 to 14. I even have a difficult time realizing when I'm depressed, and sometimes just chalk it up to being "emotional," or blaming it on some outside stressor. This other side may just be denial, so it's neither here nor there.

My second misgiving about the anti-depressants is that on top of my prior concern, I worry that anti-depressants are pushed so hard in our profit-oriented medical structure. I don't want to opt out of pills just to "fight the system," but I'm pretty cynical about a lot of the operating procedures of pharmaceutical companies, especially when it comes to maladies like fibromyalgia and restless legs syndrome. Hey! There's even a term for this - disease mongering. Lest you think I just get all of my information on this stuff by being a raging conspiracy theorist backed only by other theorists blogging on the internets, I'll tell you that I've had lengthy discussions with a classmate of mine who has an M.D. He practiced medicine for nearly two decades, and has run an "unoffical" experiment on himself with a stock of anti-depressant samples (which he actually credits with significantly improving his mood the winter he tried them). He agrees with me about over-prescription of many drugs for many maladies that are likely "just in your head" (as it were). Again, on the other hand, my dad's a doctor who has practiced for three decades, and has been on anti-depressants constantly for a decade, which I've seen firsthand have dramatically improved his life.

My third misgiving is the fact that I've been exercising vigorously for a few weeks - perhaps the mood improvement is more a matter of correlation than causation. However, maybe the anti-depressants were what finally helped my drive to exercise return. There are so many chicken-and-egg issues in this entry that I might as well run my own hen house.

Hmm, I hope this blog doesn't tank my chances of doing business litigation on behalf of a pharmaceutical company. (Fun fact - if you Google my legal first and last name, this blog is what pops up as the first result, even though I list my last name nowhere on it - the only things that connect my last name to my blog are my Gmail account, my friends-only Facebook profile, and a link on Carleton's blog ring!) For every rad thing the internets do to improve my life, there is a dark flip-side of the coin. Although if Michael Clayton is to be believed, I'm probably dodging a bullet by not taking that type of employment. "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything," as the saying goes.

Well, at least I'm on one brain drug that has fantastic side effects. Although, continuing in the style of this entry, it has a tangible downside due to the fact that I'm in a long-distance relationship...

And on a more personal level...

Law school morale is at an all-time low. It seems epidemic to many of my classmates, too. Most of us got at least one grade that really took the wind out of our sails from last semester. Many of my classmates are having trouble finding anyone to employ them this summer (I have my default firm job where I'm currently employed in Madison, and an interview with dwarf8's cousin the judge in SF on the 17th... send me good luck vibes). We're all behind on work, unmotivated, and driven to distraction by emotional discord. And the fact that we have almost 2.5 years left just compounds it all. It feels like a death march right now, and spring break is the only pleasant thing on the horizon.

There are no words for my hatred of the weather. Just when I thought spring could be around the corner, this is what happens. I've got a lovely scrape on my hand from my last tumble on an icy sidewalk, and two-foot-deep slush puddles are on every corner. This is our first day of quality sunlight in weeks. The whole mess of this winter has strengthened my resolve to get out of this godforsaken state at the earliest opportunity, no matter how much I love everything non-weather-related about it.

I'm getting out of Dodge for spring break (March 14-23), heading back to the aforementioned San Francisco for some desperately-needed quality time with the Vagabond and assorted friends. There's been some drama in my social life here lately (little of which directly affects me, but still), so I'll be glad for the respite from that. I'm working out daily, but the steady good-for-the-brain endorphin effects haven't kicked in yet.

And on top of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad morass of "ugh," Brett announced his retirement today. I hate the world.

ETA: Calling all music nerds! Our version of fantasy football has arrived: www.thesixtyone.com

My handle there is "thornbek", so if you create an account, list me as your reference so I get mad points, eh?

I've started to cultivate some opinions about why the Democrats are so good at shooting themselves in the foot come election season. One article finally put my main issue into perspective, a summary on Slate about the Wisconsin primary. The article mentioned that the other candidates embraced Wisconsin's "Ya Hey" (small-town Upper Midwest) culture: McCain attended a fish fry, Hill hung out at Kenosha's Brat Stop, and Huckabee went bowling in the nation's oldest still-operating bowling alley. One of these things is not like the others: Obama stuck to Madison and Milwaukee; according to the Slate article, he was courting the "intellectual vote."

And that's EXACTLY why I worry about the Democrats come this election season, no matter how stacked in their favor the deck is. Democrats, apart from the (original) Clinton years, have been for the last several decades the party of effete, condescending, hip urban intellectuals. Where is the blue-collar union-member Democrat of yore? Gone, because that person feels completely disenfranchised by the party and its most vocal members. If the Dems want to succeed, they need to reach out to those in rural areas, those with minimal education, those who live in poverty. It's a testament to this notion that so many low-income people are willing to vote against their own economic interest because the Republicans are so good at courting the "average Joe."

I should note that I'm perhaps a little histrionic about this because I have grown up (and currently live in) a city full of effete liberal intellectuals, and spent four years surrounded by self-proclaimed socialists (whose parents were shelling out six figures for their degrees...). I don't want to knock Madison or Carleton for their prevalent beliefs, but for some of their denizens' methods of persuasion. Lesson #1: if you are condescending to someone for not sharing your beliefs or opinions, there's no way they're going to listen to your message. Perhaps I'm especially hard on the Dems and liberals because I tend to swing that way, and I hold them to a higher standard, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

I saw Billy Joel last night at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. I was surprised (though, perhaps, I shouldn't have been) at what a great performer he was. I started ruminating on what makes for a good live show, and I've come up with a few principles:

1. Talk to the audience! Joel had great banter, a good sense of humor, and excellent timing.
2. Know where you are, and acknowledge it. That means at least a smidge more than "Hello, Milwaukee!" Last night, Joel stuck in an uptempo piano rendition of "Roll Out the Barrel" into the intro to "My Life," and told a great anecdote about his first gig in Milwaukee.
3. Showcase your band. Don't relegate them to the background. Joel had nearly every member of his backing band do a solo (including flugelhorn), he introduced them, and he even played an instrumental piece. Rock instrumentals are my own cause - they're a dying breed, they're never released as singles, and whenever they're actually done, they sound fantastic.
4. Include one cover, done well. Some of you may know my two rules for cover songs: make them sound good (natch) and don't just do a color-by-numbers rendition; ADD something to the song. Joel actually brought out a member of his ROAD CREW to do the vocals for "Highway to Hell" - and it was outstanding!
5. Save your best songs for the encore that's obviously coming - we got "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," "Only the Good Die Young," and "Piano Man." My college nostalgia was completely fulfilled.

This all makes me sound like a raging Billy Joel fangirl, but it wasn't so much about the music as it was about putting on a good performance. I'd have a hard time deciding my top three live shows, but I certainly know my three worst:

1. Weezer: Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer, was condescending and rude to the audience. The setlist was tepid and uninspired. No stage banter, insults aside. Nary an introduction of a band member. Solos were short, few, and far between. Every song was a played-out single. The only redeeming factors were the stage theatrics (a confetti drop at the end), and the fact that Tenacious D opened. I should have taken a cue from half the audience and left after the D's set.
2. Bob Dylan: played with his BACK TO THE AUDIENCE for the ENTIRE SET. Acted so bored and irritable. Didn't speak a WORD to the audience. No encore. (On a side note, others who've seen him perform live have had better experiences, so perhaps he was just having an off night.) I've seen I'm Not There, and Bob? If you hate fame so much, stop making albums, or at least stop touring and charging exorbitant prices for shoddy performances.
3. They Might Be Giants: this was at least six years ago, not the concert they played Friday in Madison, which may have been totally different. One of the lead singers was energetic, engaging, and into the crowd. The other had a glare plastered on his face for the entire concert that would have terrified Marilyn Manson.

I've been hiding from most people lately. I haven't been feeling very social or energetic. I don't think I've seen the sun in days; while not essential, it would be nice. The sidewalks have been impossibly slick the last few days. Everything melts during the day, then the thin layer of water on the ground freezes as soon as night hits. I'm far more attuned to the slippery walkways now that I know how easy it is to sue. I'm working hard to combat the winter blues with working out. I finally have a workout accountabilibuddy again, so that's helping. I also have my weekly poker games with my small group, which always provide ribald entertainment.

I just now got the last of my grades back. I got all middle-of-the-road stuff, but for a good Contracts grade and a truly vile one in Crim. I'm bummed about Crim - I really wound up liking the course and the professor, and I thought I'd prepared well and done a thorough job on the final. That's an exam I will be reviewing, if it's ever returned to us. I'm thinking about doing some volunteer or clinical work for the DOJ this summer to show any future employers that I'm taking that deficiency seriously. (Other law schoolers - do you think they'll take notice of that effort?)

I'll start working at that IP firm in Madison this semester. I can't wait to get some projects and start feeling like all these research skills being crammed into my head are useful! This job is good for my resume, and will be quite conducive to a summer employment offer. Given my middling grades, I don't really have a shot at anything this summer in the Bay Area apart from an unpaid summer clerkship with a federal judge who's the cousin of dwarf8. I'm focusing on Madison for this summer, in particular this IP firm and my mom's old firm. I'm going to miss seeing the kids out in California, but the Vagabond has plans to return to the Madison area at least 3 times this summer. I'm also making plans to head out to the Berk for my week of spring break in March.

Back in Madison! Second semester started yesterday. New classes: Property (yay!), Intro to Criminal Procedure (the jury's still out... heh...), Constitutional Law I (ditto), Legal Research & Writing II (electric boogaloo). Have finally gotten all but 1 of my grades. I am squarely in the middle of the pack, yet sickeningly proud of my good grade in Contracts, which somehow became my favorite class of the term. I think it's because the goal of contracts is never to punish, but to maintain a healthy marketplace and to restore the parties to where they'd been had the contract never occurred. I'm pondering going in the direction of corporate law (given the startling love for contracts) or appellate law (being the more cerebral, history-centric, "questions of law" over "questions of fact" arena). It's still too early to call. Wills and estates still seem intriguing, though mum says I should take the class before I decide anything; I get the impression she finds it boring. My ultimate goal is still to teach in law school and retire to the bench.

I despise Wisconsin weather in winter. I am also unwilling to talk about last Sunday's Lambeau debacle. I seem to be suffering from really wretched insomnia, so any suggestions for that would be quite appreciated.

On politics currently: I am quite sick of all of the primary candidates on both sides, mostly because of how obnoxious, rude, and downright mean their internet supporters are. I seem to have inherited my mother's political cynicism, though it's not quite as extreme as hers - homegirl voted for Nader in 2004 ("Damn, you are bad!"). I should probably lay off the political RSS feeds for a while.

Before the '06-'07, school year, I didn't know how to talk to kids. Perhaps this would have helped, perhaps not. Actually, this would probably have been more helpful, at least with the majority of the boys and girls-of-my-nature.

Regardless, my guide on how to really talk to kids:

Step one: let them talk. (If they're older, use the always good open-ended, "So! What're you up to these days?")
Step two: repeat. (If they're older and still don't take the bait, remember they're pupating and are essentially worthless until they've gone to college, possibly until after they've graduated. Then give up. I'm 23 and I admit, without shame, that I was unbelievably lame until I was at least 18, probably older. Hell, I'm probably still lame to several groups, I just stopped caring, which is a beautiful part of maturity.)
Step three: if they won't talk, tickle them until they do. (I am still speechless that Guantanamo hasn't used this one; perhaps the nauseating irony prevents them from using it.)
Step four: if you can't tickle them, shut off the damn t.v. and read them a story. If they're young, something simple (though the three-year-old I nannied for asked for Harry Potter *by name* after I'd read her and her older sister one chapter, so...), if they're older, start reading them one of your beloved books. Do their parents not read? Come prepared.

At any rate, screw those four questions mentioned in "This American Life." Just don't freaking patronize kids. They're whip-smart, they know when you're talking down to them, and they will speak their minds more readily than any "polite" (read: conflict-avoiding) adult. At least give them that much credit.

And to correct Arjewtino on a niggling point, girls aren't different, teenagers are different. Trust me.

P.S. Berkeley is sublime. The vagabond is sublime. Couldn't be happier, unless someone in the Bay Area wanted to offer me a paid summer internship...

Some might classify our torts class as a bunch of bleeding-heart-liberal pro-plaintiff ambulance-chasers. Regardless, as anyone who's seen Sicko can tell you, insurance companies are capable of some pretty reprehensible behavior. Case in point: a health-law clinical program at UW Law had to provide assistance to a family whose cancer-stricken child was unfairly denied treatment because it was deemed "too experimental." The kid got the treatment, but had it not been for the center, they would have had to tote out some serious change to get a lawyer to do that for them. Insurance companies have plenty of money to pay for lobbyists (despite apparently having not enough money to pay for legitimate claims...), and one of their most important organizations is the American Torts Reform Association, which aims to reduce plaintiff lawsuits and damage awards. Its acronym is ATRA, which (according to my classics-major former-Latin-teacher classmate) means "black, as in Hades" in Latin. Hmm.

I'll just come out and say I generally think that lobbyism, in principle, hurts America even more than Tucker Carlson. Lawyers can be pretty awful too, but some of that comes out of the adversarial nature of the system and nasty clients whom they represent. So I'll forgive (some) lobbyists for the same reasons I forgive (some) lawyers: hate the game, not the player.

Unintentional humor for computer geeks moment! For those of you who don't know, I'm hopeless with computers. Not knowing that Stuffit Expander won't open .zip files, I sent an irritated email to My Favorite Vagabond bemoaning the fact that I couldn't open a zipped file he sent me. I chose to start said e-mail with one of my favorite typed exasperations: "RAR." (For those of you as computarded as I am: the Vagabond informed me that RAR is a compressed-file extension.)

I'll likely be out of touch until after finals. I leave the day after my last final for the Bay Area (December 19) to spend my month off canoodling with the Vagabond and seeing good friends from college (dwarf8, 'sup?). I shall return to Madison January 21st. Kisses!

Long story short, my cold has inevitably turned into a sinus infection. My usual Z-Pak is now considered ineffective, so I was given heavy-duty Amoxicillin horse pills to fight it. For the first four days, I had minimal nausea. Then, this morning I turned into Linda Blair. Deciding that throwing up on my classmates is probably not welcome, I got to my parents' house safely and have spent the day running to the WC to regurgitate anything I put into my stomach. And the most frustrating thing is that it's slowing down my work. They tell me I'll have to go back in to urgent care to do anything about it. Dadster says I can try anti-nausea drugs, but that when he's had them for his chemo, he's gotten acute anxiety attacks, which are apparently worse than any physical pain he's ever endured. Yay.

Thurbercat has a nemesis! It's a gray probably-homeless short-hair. Being an indoor cat, he hisses and spits and wails mercilessly through the window glass, and gets sassed back in kind. According to the 'rentals, it's been going on for weeks. Kind of a Maggie Simpson-Evil Unibrow Baby relationship.

In one piece of good news, I successfully set up two single friends. Just call me "Yenta."

I joined a new gym! It has oodles of classes and is 3 blocks from my apartment. So far, I'm incredibly sore, but feeling physically better than I have in months. Classes have been invigorating - excellent music, enthusiastic instructors, an incentive program for attendance, and a lot of the same programs that I loved at my gym in Arkansas. Tonight is toning night - yoga and Pilates.

I have purchased awesome new shoes that make me feel like an anime character. They are primarily gray, with pink and yellow details. I have a Euro and a Pound in the zippered side pockets.

Is this what our president has been reduced to? Whining in his room? It's not even funny anymore. It's just sad. He needs a new excuse; the "it's war so I get to do whatever I want" argument no longer carries any weight. I do my best to avoid political discussion, but the petulance exhibited here is astounding for someone who's supposed to be the leader of the country. Also? If I know about waterboarding, I think it's a safe question to ask a candidate for AG. I wish the administration would at least put in a little more effort when they lie to us. It's insulting when they're so lazy about it. It's all driving me further into the arms of Nicolas Sarkozy, which I never thought would happen.

I'm coming down with a cold. I hate colds; I get into a mindset that I'm not trying hard enough when I get sick, like I've failed to exercise due diligence. So I'm going to kick it in the head with my energy legs, take zinc, hydrate, attempt to sleep (through all of the TRAIN WHISTLES that blow about 50 feet from my bedroom window and the DJ BOOTH one floor below in the bar), not drink, and generally act like a responsible human being. I have too much to do to get sick. This is one of those occasions where I acutely wish my favorite vagabond weren't halfway across the country; I want him to bring me Nyquil and tea and curl up on the couch with me to watch Ghostbusters, my go-to languishing movie. On the other hand, I get to go all Annie Get Your Gun on the sickness; one giant step for womankind and all that jazz.

In today's State Journal, several people wrote in to whine about UW students' uncouth behavior at football games. One Iowa fan described a post-game apocalyptic scene in which he apparently witnessed a couple in Iowa garb being attacked by two Badger fans, and a Wisconsin fan pouring "stale beer" on another Iowa fan. (I call BS. Unless he was pouring Bud on this girl, there is no stale beer in Wisconsin - we drink it long before it can go stale.) Anyway, this led him to run to his car, roll up the windows and lock the doors, and not look back until he was 25 miles outside of Madison. Um, WHAT? I really need to just stop reading the "Your Opinion" section of the paper. It's out of control.

Made it to Barcelona. Left last week Wednesday afternoon (got my passport at 7 a.m. that day), got to Spain on Thursday midday. Drank sangria and amazing blended ginger drinks, saw the Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, met some cool backpackers and crazy Romans, went to a bullfight (for the first and definitely last time), saw a crazy avant-garde German film at the Contemporary Art Museum, ate tapas and paella, heard some good music, attempted to learn how to dance from the Catalonians, went to a few clubs and more bars, and had an all-around good time with Will. Got back Monday, having made friends with my seat-mate from Serbia and a fellow globe-hopping political nerd.

Started Law School orientation on Tuesday, exhausted and sick but happy. Totally overwhelmed by the crushing amount of new classmates, but have started forging ties with my small group and some assorted others. Am enjoying the course material more than I thought I would (McDonald's coffee, anyone?), and am busier than I ever thought possible. Still sorting out some parts of my life (daily routine, mostly, especially transportation and working in time at UW's gym). Still love apartment. Going on dates with new guy. Bummed about losses last night in football and baseball, but there's still hope. First-ever UW tailgating experience tomorrow, followed by the first football game of the season. Going to a punk show tonight.

Life rocks. More to follow when not crazy-busy.

I might not be able to go to Spain. Passport is either accidentally thrown out or somewhere in the morass of filth that is my parents' house. Even with expedited service, it'd still take 2-3 weeks to get a new one. I think what most annoys me about the situation is that not only do I have to look through everything I own, but I also have to sift through the massive amounts of crap my parents have scattered all over the house. I don't remember a time my parents had their act together in terms of being organized or having a clean house. My mom swears that before they had kids, the house was entirely unlike it is now. But I don't think having kids is a valid excuse - nearly every other family I know isn't even close to the garbage scow of a house they have. In addition, my mom works at a school; she has the summers off. At least one good thing has come out of it - as some kind of Alex P. Keaton-style rebellion, I'm organized, my place is clean, and I will never end up a pack-rat.

In other news, I got my schedule for classes a few weeks ago. I can't wait for school to start. It has to be better than corralling a 2-year-old with pinkeye who steadfastly refuses to be potty-trained. After trying on parenthood for three months, law school looks easy. How on earth did my mom do both at once?