Blogger, Blogging, To Blog

I'd been wondering why blogs I normally read hadn't updated in a while. I thought maybe there was some blog hiatus conspiracy and I wasn't invited. Turns out you just need to hit this crazy button called "refresh." Go figure!

I've noticed that blogger never shows when I have comments on entries anymore. It always just says "0." "0" makes me sad. Has anyone else had this problem? Sometimes I wish I had the money to move to movable type or typepad.

Also, I've been thinking about my blog lately more generally - where it's come from and where it's going.
I used to love to write while I was in high school. I wrote a lot of poetry my freshman year, and I kept a pretty consistent journal through junior year. The habit died after that, was reborn a little during my freshman year of college, and then promptly died again until law school. My idea in high school was, and it certainly still seems true today, that one writes best when they're in distress. It's hard to write well when you're perfectly happy.

So now that I can't take pictures of my law school books in the oven anymore (well I guess I could... they're in a box next to the kitchen), I almost miss it. I would come home from school so excited to blog it up. Sometimes I'd sneak away at lunch to blog. Blogging kept me from hoisting myself into the Monongahela River.

I think I could really use some spring (late summer?) cleaning right now. I need to finally take pictures of those shitty law school books of pain and slap them on amazon/ebay/half.com and try to make a buck. I need to write down where all the money is going that I'm making out checks for. I need to pick up the dirty clothes off the floor, finish brilloing the rust off the wok, go through my old clothes and take them over to Good Will, sign up for Habitat for Humanity, volunteer at a hospital, respond to my e-mails and voicemails, study for the goddamned GRE (incase?), paint with my fingers, meditate, take kung fu, buy some new make-up, and vacuum bits of food that my boyfriend trails around off the carpet.

I thought I would be reclaiming my life after I left law school. Instead I'm piling on and piling on. I love so much about my life now, yet there are some things that I feel like I'm losing my grip on more than ever before. There's never a good time to do anything, is there?

No wonder my mother always said that once you leave college it's too hard to go back to school. I can see how you could just be frantically going through the motions of life and lose track of time. Suddenly you wake up and you're 55. After all those years of promising yourself that you'll lose some weight, join the symphony, or run a marathon, sooner or later tomorrow becomes today.

Where are the brakes?

Sorry, Gremlin

I know it was just a fish, but I think I killed him. This morning when I woke up, Gremlin was dead.

I changed his bowl water last night, but I suppose that he didn't like it. In the beginning I only used distilled water for him, but this time I didn't have any so I used that chemical that makes the water safe for fish. I guess it wasn't that safe.

I've seen lots of fish die in my day, but this one is really sad because a) he was my responsibility b) he died the morning after I changed his water. So it seems I really did kill him. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to have a pet...

A Little Trivia

I stole this thingy...

1. Three things that scare me:
Disease/sickness
"Bad guys"
Living an unexamined life

2. Three people that make me laugh:
Boyfriend
Joss Whedon characters
Most friends

3. Three things I hate the most:
Corporate culture
Law school
Rude/aggressive/judgemental people

4. Three things I don't understand:
Math of all shapes and sizes
The chemical reaction that occurs when mixing Mentos and Diet Coke
Space

5. Three things I'm doing right now:
Waiting for boyfriend to get in
Thinking about getting a bowl of ice cream before the above referenced thing happens
Throwing away old receipts

6. Three things I want to do before I die:
Drop two sizes
Go to a nude beach
Travel cheaply in Europe (again) or China, just me and boyfriend

7. Three things I can do:
Display a disturbing amount of knowledge about Buffy the movie and Buffy the tv show
Impersonate people with strange voices
Solve mysteries

8. Three ways to describe my personality:
Silly
Loyal
Loving

9. Three things I can't do:
Math, again
Drive stick shift
Make hospital corners

10. Three things I think you should listen to:
Reason?
Wait Wait... Don't tell me
The ocean

11. Three things you should never listen to:
Hate
Drunk people
Religious people holding mean, intolerant signs who yell at girls that walk by and call them sluts (this happened a lot at my alma mater)

12. Three things I'd like to learn:
Chinese and German
More about cooking (also cake making/decorating)
How to grow and maintain an herb garden
and I had to throw in a fourth... what I want/need in life; that would also be nice

13. Three favourite foods:
Macaroni and cheese
Pumpkin pie/bread
Stir fry chicken with vegetables, extra spicy

14. Three beverages I drink regularly:
Milk
Diet Pepsi
Fruit Smoothies

15. Three shows I watched as a kid:
Hey Dude
Muppet Babies
Salute your Shorts

That's Enough, Richmond

Another cute, young girl is killed in Richmond, VA in an area that is very safe.

Earlier this year it was the Harvey family who was randomly and brutally killed in their home, again in a very safe neighborhood. Before that, Taylor Behl, a college freshman at VCU was killed at a beach during what the killer called "rough, but consensual sex."

I know people are killed every day and all the time. I know there are some areas of cities where the children are not allowed outside to play because it is so dangerous. I'm not saying that those deaths are less worthy than the high profile cases I cited above, but they do drive home the point that it can happen to anyone.

How many times have I been to the place where the most recent girl was killed? Plenty. It's not unsafe, so why wouldn't I go alone? Why wouldn't I go with my head up my ass, daydreaming about whatever, and not paying attention to my surroundings. It could be me; it could be anyone I love.

What a fine line we have to walk between being neurotic about our safety and learning to pay a little more attention. And no matter how prepared someone is, who knows how you will react when in that type of terrifying situation.

At Least It's Not Monday

Thanks for the information yesterday, Internet. If you come up with anything new please let me know. I want to get as much information as I can because, as I'm sure you can imagine, the last thing I want to do is jump into more graduate school without thinking. Even though if I choose to do this it will take me a while to get there (GREs, prerequisite classes), I'm still pretty good at making a plan without thinking and executing the plan without thinking.

A friend visited for the weekend. We went to the Hirshhorn Museum, an obscure band's show at a coffee shop, and saw my nudist neighbor partially naked. It's almost boring at this point!

I also took my second cooking course on Sunday: Artisan Bread Making. It wasn't nearly as good as the Chinese food class. The instructor for that class was lively and patient, and the students were pretty much on the same page as far as level of experience went. The bread making class was mostly older people who had been trying to make bread for some time. It made me nervous to even touch my dough (which I was mostly wearing by the end of the night because it was sticking to me so much).

We made rosemary focaccia, challah, french bread, and sticky buns. I don't remember focaccia I've ever had being salty, but this was super salty. Also we used big electric mixers to stir the dough (which I certainly don't have/can't afford). Guess I shouldn't switch to making my own bread any time soon.

My family is at the beach without me. I thought I'd be able to go, but that was earlier in the summer when I was still unemployed. Now I'm a working lady, so no week long vacations for me yet. How does my family comfort me even though I'm missing out? By sending me camera phone pictures of the beach and the house where they're staying, of course!

Happy Tuesday, because it's better than Monday.

Falling off the Horse, Climbing on the Horse

What should I do with my life? Who are my real friends? Diet Pepsi or generic brand cola?

It's amazing how many questions we're bombarded with in one day.

As for the first question, I've been calmly tossing around various alternatives in my head. I know I can't and won't stay at my current job forever, if for no other reason than that I don't want to settle in this area. But before I make any big decisions I want to test the waters. I want to get into it as much as I can without actually jumping head first.

What is it that I've been tossing around? Nursing, actually.

Yes, I was a history major in college. Yes, I hate math. But I don't think those things necessarily matter. Lots of schools have an accelerated BSN program specifically for people who didn't major in Nursing and are now interested. Also, from what I've heard, the math is fairly basic.

I'm interested in science, information that changes, having to constantly teach yourself new things, specializing in some skill or trade (even though the legal trade didn't fit the bill), being a member of a team, and working with people. Maybe that listing sounds extremely basic and unexciting to you, Internet, but it's taken me years and thousands of wasted dollars in loans to figure it out.

I've been thinking about Nursing since maybe April, but I still have not uttered the word to my parents. They won't approve a) because it's not law school b) because it's what my boyfriend's mother does, and there will be weird rivalry and feathers ruffled as usual. But I thought it would be interesting to come clean here. I tried to make contact with some alumni from my school, yet they haven't responded.

So, if you are in nursing, know someone in nursing, have no connection to nursing but still have something to say... I would love to hear more about it. Information such as pros and cons, likes and dislikes, newbie advice and sage wisdom are all welcome.

Chickens and China

Last night I took a cooking class: Chinese Cooking 101.

It was lots of fun and extremely delicious. The instructor was very quirky and kept telling silly stories about her life in China or her husband.

I'd been cutting chicken so, so wrong. I'm almost ashamed! Also we treat our wok so badly that it's rusted. Anyone have a wok? She suggested that I should get a brillo pad, take all the crap off, and start from scratch by seasoning the wok all over again. And I need a cleaver. Anyone have a cleaver around the house?

We made:

Boiled Rice
Hot and Sour Soup
Hot Cabbage Peking Style
Sliced Chicken with Vegetables
Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

I really hope these recipes work out when I try them!

A Little Unsettled, A Little Uneasy

I was browsing my celebrity blog of choice yesterday, when I came across something that disturbed me on a rant about Britney Spears:

I was a little worried when I found the first picture (is she seriously rockin' the top pony tail -- prolly with a **shudder** scrunchie?!)

It wasn't Ms. Spears or the scrunchie banter that disturbed me, but, and please don't laugh, I didn't know that hair half up and half down was really that "uncool."

I have curly hair... lots of it. Sometimes that style is the best I can do when my hair is unruly but I don't want to wear a ponytail. I thought it was a nice in between look. Sure, Gwen Stefani isn't wearing it, but I didn't know that it was that bad.

Sorry, Internet, I guess I'm pretty uncool.

In other news, Facebook has developed another feature to make it more like Myspace. Now you can blog on Facebook, but I think it's really the last place that I would want to blog... ever.

Last, the people I went to law school with (who didn't leave or get kicked out) have all headed back to school. Today might be their first day. I don't wish I was there or anything, but it is weird that I'm not there. It's a little difficult detaching myself from that school/class mindset; but I left.

It's similar to that feeling you get when you realize that your parents probably at one time had sex (just to make you, of course) or when you see a teacher outside of school. It's hard to imagine some people having hobbies/ interests/lives. Maybe because I left I figure that obviously everyone else left, too. The whole school is shut down now, actually... probably the whole city as well.

Right.

Oh the Excitement... for them

This past weekend was move-in weekend at my alma mater. My young friends are collecting their apt and dorm accessories and packing it up. After summers that consisted of traveling across the country, traveling across the world, mostly being unemployed, and drinking every night of the week, they're back to take classes again.

My cousin will be in Rome all semester. Some people I know who recently graduated are beginning graduate school. Hopefully it works out better for them then it did me, especially for my friend who is beginning law school today. Her away message says

today is my first day of school AND picture day! haha i wonder if I can hang an LL Cool J poster in my locker

She's so excited. Over the past year when she would ask me for advice I would usually respond just wait, don't go quite yet. But thinking about it now, she is much different than I am. And for some reason it's hard for me to understand that just because I hated it doesn't mean everyone else does or will, even though a great majority do.

Ah, to be in college again!

While We're On the Topic of Male/Female Issues...

I still can't believe that this is really a woman.

You have got to want it so incredibly bad to actually get a sex change operation. It's hard enough being one gender let alone adjusting to the jolt of becoming another one... not to mention the complete chaos it would make of your life. I just can't imagine it being easier for the person to change sexes. Every day would be a battle. But, I guess it would still be a battle if they didn't do it.

I like Alyson Hannigan with dark hair

source

When Good/Bad Things Happen to Bad/Good Feminists

Two young men (early twenties) have recently offered me their seats on the metro.

They don't just offer it to me, it's like a crusade. The first guy (black, mid-twenties) made a speech about how he didn't understand why any man was sitting down while ladies were standing up. The second guy (asian, I think military, early-twenties) kept going on about how it was "his pleasure" to offer me his seat.

Don't get me wrong - I really want that seat. I would love to sit and read/pass out/stare at funny people instead of being sweaty, jostled, and smooshed against 20 other sweaty strangers. But shouldn't I not want the seat?

The first time I took the seat, the second time I didn't. Why should I get offered the seat? Who the hell am I?

I also enjoy that a white man has never offered me his seat, and I've never even witnessed a white man offer anyone else a seat.

In conclusion, white men don't know how to share, and unless I want to be treated as a sex object I guess I should get used to standing?

Everything Changes, Everything

It's kind of funny (or really sad) that I had more free time while in law school than I do now. But that's probably related to how much effort I put into the whole thing.

I don't even know why I keep a blog anymore. It's like someone is laughing at me in cyberspace; it's a document of every time I have to eat my words.

The wedding this weekend was the best wedding that I have ever been to (okay, I've only been to four not including this one). It was just absolutely beautiful. It was so meaningful, you could tell how excited both people were and how much they cared about each other, and because they had a wedding planner everything ran so smoothly and was well organized.

This, like I said earlier, was the first wedding I had been to for someone my age. I think that helped make it even sweeter because they are young (but not too young) and starting their new life together. Right now their honeymoon is driving to their new home in Colorado... quite a distance from everyone and everything they know and love in Virginia. They'll be driving for two weeks, stopping at points of interest.

Wave if you see them, because I wish them all the best. On this blog I'm snarky and grumbly about things I see or do that irritate me, but all I really feel right now is compassion for those two people and guilt that I didn't understand how to just let the past go and be happy for someone. I assumed that she had not changed over the years... what if someone assumed that about me? I would be angry. There were quite a few good friends there, and we've all changed. None of us should have to have who we used to be thrown in our face. In high school, the bride had been needy and manipulative. But now she has the fortitude to pick up and move across the country - that is not needy.

All I can think about this week so far is that wedding and how it makes me feel about my own life and about other people. I feel like it aged me a little bit. I don't feel so much like a kid playing dress-up in her mom's clothes. I'm not moving across the country any time soon, but I wonder if I could if I wanted to.

Going to the Chapel of Freaky People from your Past

Internet, this is very exciting.

This weekend my boyfriend and I are going to a wedding for two people that we went to high school with. I haven't really spoken to either of them in at least five years, and I don't believe that he has either. I even thought that the bride and I had a bit of bad blood between us, so I'm not exactly sure why I'm even invited. My best guess is that I'm invited because of my boyfriend - he and the groom were friends when they were children.

Maybe a better question is, why am I going?

I've played out all sorts of bizarre scenarios for this weekend in my head. Will there be tons of people from high school who I haven't seen in years? Will the bride go ape-shit when she sees me? Will she ignore me? Yes, maybe this is rather self-centered. Even if there is bad blood it's still her wedding, so why would she waste her time worrying about me?

We'll see, Internet... we'll see.

Rembrandt was Scared

There are different interpretations about this (like anything), but in most of the art history classes that I took in college the professors always raved about Rembrandt's self-portraits.

Many artists paint self-portraits, but Rembrandt really took the torch and ran with it. He produced self-portraits throughout his entire life. My professors believed that his careful and meticulous representations of himself, capturing every wrinkle and blemish, were a testament to Rembrandt's attitude about death. His ability to portray himself even in the darkest stages of life shows that he wasn't afraid of old age and death and that he embraced it.

But, who among us hasn't had a grand old time with the digital camera taking ridiculous pictures of ourselves: melodramatic and myspace worthy close-ups, shots with hair-in-the-face and earnest eyes, the pouty lips, or looking away from the camera?

I know I have.

Does our unencumbered picture snapping mean that we, like Rembrandt, balk in the face of old age? I don't think so. And I'm not so sure that that was really what he was going for either.

Rembrandt didn't have a digital camera, but he was interested in his image. What does what we look like say about ourselves? How do we go from being tiny, crawling babies to robust young adults to wrinkled, malcontent senior citizens? It's interesting to watch where we came from and where we go. Maybe it's not that we're not afraid of getting older; I think it could be the opposite.

Maybe a painting or digital photo is the only way to make ourselves slow down and stop moving. If we could just hold that pose a little longer or pin it up on our wall, then maybe we'd always stay that way. Maybe Rembrandt was trying to halt the aging process like we all wish we could.

And When I Notice It, It Brings It All Back

Two days ago I was annoying. I sent out one of those long surveys asking about my friend's favorite this or that. But, it had been a while since I'd done one, and sometimes you lose sight of those little questions especially with your closest friends.

One of the questions was "what's your favorite smell?" The first answer I got back was, "do people really have a favorite smell?"

I was really surprised by this answer. I can think of so many favorite smells. Sometimes certain smells just drift by me, and it brings so many wonderful (or bad) memories to mind.

The smell of the beach reminds me of happy times with my family and as a child, the same is true with: pumpkins, sea water, cooking fish, bread, and so on. Sometimes when I'm awake early in the morning and I can smell the crisp grass it makes me think of band competitions and the sense that the air was pregnant with possibilities. Lately, I've actually noticed that one quite frequently. I get very nostalgic, and I long for those carefree, wonderful days again.

Not all smells hit me the right way. A heavy cigarette smell still reminds me of a classmate's funeral my freshman year of high school. He committed suicide, and I remember sitting in the funeral home's hallway as smoke from the "smoking room" wafted out towards me.

And what about the smell of a loved one and that sense of peace and security when you know that they're near you. I just can't believe that someone couldn't think of a favorite smell. What's yours?

Weighing Conspiracy Cartoons and the Feminist Burden

Tonight I have something to look forward to. My boss had baseball tickets he couldn't use, so we had an office trivia contest to see who could get them. Obviously right now he still underestimates my ability to quickly locate obscure information online.

In other news, I woke up with the David the Gnome theme song stuck in my head. Anyone remember that cartoon? I seem to remember David (the gnome) going on all sorts of adventures while wife (also gnome) stayed home and baked things.

It reminded me of a Anthropology class I took in college in which the professor told us that if someone asked him whether the Earth was flat or round, he'd have to say flat. We had to look up all sorts of flat Earth theory.

Yeah, a man with a PhD really believes that the Earth is flat.

But he also made us watch all sorts of cartoons and old movies and talk about why these are bad for our kids. He showed us Disney's Peter Pan. He pointed out which characters stand for the U.S. and which stand for Russia and how it was all just a plot to inspire confidence in the President.

I don't know if cartoons are really out to get us, but it's pretty interesting to watch these shows looking for some kind of hidden message. Of course, you could probably go crazy coming up with conspiracy theories.

Last night the boyfriend and I watched The Colbert Report. He had on Linda Hirshman, author of "Get To Work!" The book encourages that women, even if they want to stay home with their kids, shouldn't stay home and shouldn't want to stay home. They should want what's best for women and society, which is (apparently) the power that comes with going to work.

I can see her point. It's definitely harder for women in the work place because if you have a child it cuts into your career in a way that just won't happen for men. But, many women don't have the money to hire a full-time nanny. More than that, many women may not want to. I'm personally uncomfortable with the idea of my kid being raised by someone I don't even know. Kids pick up so much that we don't intend for them to, what would they learn from some nanny while their parents are (always) at work?

I don't want the David the Gnome, Peter Pan, flat Earth theory style of living. But I also don't want to pop out some kids and then head right back out the door. I'm not saying I'm staying home the whole time they're growing up, but I'm not going to hurt my kid because of some political pissing contest.

But, Internet, maybe the feminists and mothers out there can set me straight.

Clerks II

I love when I have low expectations for something and it turns out to be good.

I'm not a huge fan of Kevin Smith movies:

• Jersey Girl (2004): I saw this on a plane to Europe. If I wasn't so excited about Europe, I would have ejected myself from the plane.
  

• Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001): never saw it... thankfully
  

• Dogma (1999): It wasn't awful? Except for the scene with the shit monsters.
  

• Chasing Amy (1997): I don't see what all the fuss was about.
  

• Mallrats (1995): meh?
  

• Clerks. (1994): The first time I saw this I loved it. I watched it again two years later and thought it was the worst thing I'd ever seen... so... I guess I have mixed feelings.

So when I went to see Clerks II this weekend, I wasn't about to get my hopes up.

The first 20 minutes were painful. I felt uncomfortable watching the movie trying to find its footing. But after that, it really got quite good. I laughed out loud, and I never do that at the movies.

If you've seen a commercial for it, then you've probably seen part of the scene where Jay reinvents the little song and dance from Silence of the Lambs that Buffalo Bill does while he's making himself all lady-like. It's the best scene in the movie, extremely clever.

I really never thought I'd enjoy this movie, but if you don't expect a masterpiece then I think you can have a lot of fun with it.

A Saturday Night to Remember

I don't know what you did last night, Internet, but my night was pretty action packed.

I was about to go clean the bathroom, and I was shutting the blinds in the bedroom. I happened to glance over towards our exhibitionist neighbor. Sure enough, she was in a towel.

So, I'm only human. I had to watch. And I had to call my boyfriend to come see, as well. Time passed and she eventually started parading around naked. Of course, that was only after she had jumped up on the bathroom sink. I don't know what she was doing up there, but it sure was entertaining.

In other news, I figured out how to put pictures from my camera phone onto my computer. And my camera phone has all sorts of neat settings like black and white, negative, sepia, and solari. Now I can take melodramatic pictures anytime, anywhere. Top that for a Saturday night!

The Bottom Line

Maybe we've got our priorities all screwed up. Maybe instead of looking for the perfect job/career, something that we love and makes us want to get out of bed in the morning, we should just be looking for something that we don't hate.

I like my job, actually. This has nothing to do with that. But I can't help but thinking that it would all just be easier if we were more upfront about it.

In interviews, you have to gush about the employer, kiss ass, and show off like a male peacock when it's time to mate. Yet when you start working everything changes. It's all "back to the salt mines," "thank God it's Friday," or "happy hour here I come."

Maybe, despite our years of training in school and ass kissing in interviews, we don't want to work. You can call us lazy fools who lack a work ethic, but really, who wants to wake up early, slap something on that looks decent, travel out to a place where you're expected to do all sorts of things and spend the majority of your day there, and travel back home with only enough time to shovel some food in your mouth and wave to your spouse/significant other/kids as you pass out.

Most people, I think, would rather spend their time with the above mentioned relation or their X-Box then in the workplace. This seems self-explanatory, and I know that we're screwed either way because jobs obviously aren't going to and can't go away. Sure they're important... it pays the bills. But maybe it would make us happier with ourselves if we didn't put so much thought into work.

Some people can leave work and never think about it when they get home (father). Some people leave work and agonize over it until the point where they can't sleep (mother). Defining yourself by your job just seems so dangerous, like you're setting yourself up to be dissatisfied and fail.

I need to find a place to volunteer again and break out my art supplies when I get home from work no matter how tired I feel. It's a battle not to succumb to the routine of work where everything is about your job. But it really seems worth the fight.

Fire in the Hole

I can't write much for fear of being dooced, but some shit went down at work today. I had to discard my key because they changed the locks on the door.

It's torture just hearing bits of what's going on. I'd rather hear nothing at all. But it's hard to stay uninvolved when it's a small office.

Maybe because of the crazy events, but I actually had a little bit of energy leftover after work. So boyfriend and I went to the mall nearby. We hadn't been there yet, and I was interested to see which stores it had, despite that I'm not a shopper.

I wound up buying this sweet seeming music accessory thing for my LG VX8100 cell phone. But the bastards sold me the wrong version, so it doesn't fit in my phone. The one night I try not to fall asleep on the couch by 6pm, and I get spited.

In other news, I went to the International Spy Museum this weekend. I didn't realize that the U.S. has had major incidents recently in spy history. There was a double agent for Russia working in the CIA as late as 2001! The bio on him was really interesting, and I thought that it was one of the better museums I've been to.

Happy Thursday Night, Internet.

"I didn't know you went to law school..."

Ugh, too busy!

And I kept hearing this yesterday from the conference room, "...she also had a year of law school, so she'd be perfect for..." and I can't hear the rest.

I hope it's nothing like sacrificing babies, although I can't be too sure. But I know that something is in the works and it's coming for me.