Scott

I was laid off today.

Four of us were called into the boss's office and he talked to us about how sorry he was that he had to let us go, but there are just not enough clients hiring the firm and the he can't afford to keep all the attorneys. The four of us stared at him like deer in the strobe lights. When we stood up to leave he shook hands with each of us. "Ben," he said, shaking Ben's hand. "Micheal," he said, shaking Micheal's hand. "Scott," he said, shaking my hand. "Patty," he said, shaking Patty's hand.

Scott.

Merry Chrimstas!


I'm home for the holidays!
(This is not my home, this is a catalog - but there are catalogs IN my home!)
I plan to use my vacation to catch up on my webpage!
(I have never been this far behind before! I blame the schools)
(And the jobs)

Coming Attractions:

Coming Attractions: Coming soon to a theatre near you!
(since it's finals, in outline form)

Politics:
Voting
Political Protests
My Pictures in the News
Green Living:
New Efforts
Electricity - Results
Carbon Feetprint Shocker
A New Resolution (or two) - the next chapter in Green
Literature:
Reading
Not-reading
Romance Novel Titles that Amuse Me
Brian:
Doing Amazing Things at Work
Bar Results
Actual or Apparent Resistance to "Green Living" Movement
Things that are Evil
Maxim
TV
Holidays About Which I am Excited:
Thanksgiving
Chrimstas
Helping People Who Are Confused
Wearing Argyle
Twilight Movie
Finals
HP Tech Undermining
"Flying" Home - the carbon footprint flight
Chrimstas in Suburbia
God Bless Jane MY Park
USPnon-S
Chrimstas with a Cat

Pole Workers

Brian and I worked the election - we were poll workers - election officials! We spent 15 hours running a polling station, helping voters, packing up the equipment and counting ballots! We have great stories! Moving stories, funny stories (I tried to help somebody vote and somehow wound up in their house - in their living room - during the election - playing charades in Russian) and 'Can you believe her?!' stories. I also have a shift at the bookstore, though, so I can't write yet :-(

Voting Green

I just pledged to make clean, just energy a top priority in my vote this election.

Help me tell our leaders to make solving the climate crisis a priority and move quickly to enact policies that will Repower America.

Add your voice: http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/powervotepledge

Gainfully Employed

I am still working at the Public Defender's Office a day and a half a week. They can't afford to pay me anything, but it is a very good learning experience. I have learned a lot in the past year and change. Usually, I feel good about my job there. I was sad, though, when I realized that somebody had taken down and thrown away a list I was keeping in my cubicle of people I had helped and motions I'd written. Interns share cubicles at work and I guess somebody else thought it wasn't important. That made me sad and angry. I was also pissed off when somebody went rooting through MY pile of papers, dug out reference materials I had printed out and bound (at school, paying for supplies), TOOK it, put HER name on it, and now keeps it in HER pile. I was really pissed by that. It wasn't even on top of my pile, either, it was under some other things (now missing). WHAT. THE. HELL. Before now, I hated that chick because she was gorgeous and she was working on projects with Brian all the time when I wasn't there, and when I WAS there she was stealing my chair, sitting next to him, and working at my desk (and evidently, looting my stuff). Now I have a real reason to hate her.

Since they can't pay me at the Public Defender's Office I also took a job at the Campus Bookstore - where they can pay me, and it doesn't come out of my student loans (so I have more money after working). I work there one day a week, for half a day, and make $50. I had planned to make that my eating-out money but now I need it for normal bills.

It's a good job. I like it. At first it was backbreaking labour and after six hours of folding clothes on an appallingly un-ergonomic low table while standing on concrete I could hardly walk when I got home, but after we had squared away all the new supplies and inventory, the job got easy. Now I spend two hours a day shelving books, cleaning the store, and folding the clothes, and the rest of the time I spend reading. (And, you know, selling things.) I love reading. I read Newsweek (I've missed reading Newsweek). I read the supplements and hornbooks that are for sale for all the classes I'm taking. I read the first-year supplements to find the best ones to recommend to nervous customers. I read the Torts supplements from every brand or line of supplements so I know how good and of what type the products are. I even bring a Terry Pratchett book from home and read it at work. (I have a stack of them from my birthday - a year and a month ago - that I never had time to read.) When I'm not reading, I'm talking to people about books. Unlike the people I talk to at the Public Defender's office, these people are not inordinately angry with me. And if they ever got that way, I could call security and throw them out.

Talking to people about books is what Brian says makes me the worst Campus Bookstore employee in the world. Brian takes a much dimmer view of customer service than I do. Brian thinks customer service means a short line at the check-out and, occasionally, helping somebody find something on the shelves. I take a very different view of Customer Service. I practice a person-centered kind of customer service. I step into the customer's shoes, and say, Is this what's best for my customer? I advocate for the customer.

A lot of the time this means I go back with the (nervous, first-year) customer and give them a tour: "On your left you see a series written like lectures. They're very helpful, but you won't have time to read them all if you're just starting now. On your right you see a series used for hypos, the summaries of the subjects are shallow, but when you do the problems, preferably with a study group, you learn a lot and the answers are very detailed. If you're just looking to outline, I recommend this series coming up in front of us...." etc.

The real schism between Brian's customer service and my customer service is over what happens after that tour. When I have a customer who wants a book we don't have in stock, I don't tell them to come back next week to see if maybe we have it yet, because I know that we might not. That's not what's best for the customer. Besides, the poor girl is in a rush. She wanted it last week. So I tell her: "We won't have those in until next week, so if you don't want to wait until then you can order it off Amazon dot com and get overnight shipping. Or you could check the Campus Bookstore for the other law school in the city - it's downtown, on 15th Street. I went there once and they had this series. I don't remember the address but if you go to the website for the other law school I'm sure they'll have directions to that book store."

Or when people try to buy Gilbert's AND Emmanual's, I tell them to take a moment and flip through the chapter on Duty. "I think you'll see that they have the same information, pretty much page for page, the only thing that's different is that Gilbert's uses bullet point and numbers, and Emmanual's uses sentences. Do you really want to spent that much money to buy the same book twice? Just pick one."

When a lady spent half an hour picking out a sweatshirt for her mom (I was running all over the store looking for different colours, finding sizes in the back, etc.) and she finally settled on one, I asked her if she was sure an 80-year-old lady would want a sweatshirt with a hood. "You know, a lot of older people don't like the hooded style." "OH!" she exclaimed, "It has a hood? I guess I got so confused with all the sweatshirts that I didn't realize this one had a hood. You're right, she wouldn't want a hood. She wouldn't like that at all." When we went back to her second choice and found that it was also hooded, she decided there wasn't anything in the store that looked quite right, and left without buying anything.

Whenever anyone buys one of the "Understanding" series I give them the refund-slip and tell them to check it out for free from the Academic Support office, which is located in that building, over there. Or try the library. Last week I brought brochures from Ac Support to the bookstore. And I tell everyone, everyone, to look on Amazon.com, buy the book used for half the price (some of them don't even have marks on them) and return the brand new book for a full refund. Here's the refund slip, so you don't forget. I'll just staple your receipt to that so you don't lose it. (I think it's very strange how many law students never think to look on Amazon for their law-type books. They are all shocked when I say Amazon carries them. Really? (they ask me) Amazon has law books? Come on, guys, Amazon sells BOOKS! If they also sell lawn furniture and vibrators and saris and novelty salt shakers, don't you think they'd also have branched out into LAW BOOKS?) In the past seven shifts I've probably stymied $300 worth of sales - and lord only knows how many returns are made when I'm not there by the people who've found it cheaper online.

Think of all the people I'm helping!
I think I'm the best Campus Bookstore employee ever.

Pride Before a Fall

I was proud. I fell. Just a few hours after bragging about my amazing organized meal plan salad, I opened the fridge to make an unplanned snack-salad and found the the spinach had other ideas. I bought too much. I didn't eat enough. I planned badly. It was noisome. Noisome spinach. I am a meal plan failure.

Organized Life Salad

A weekly meal plan is helpful in balancing nutrition, takes advantage of special sales, saves money, wastes less food, streamlines shopping to one trip a week, gives Brian invaluable guidance when I am in class at 5:30pm, and is a sign of an Organized Life. So I've been making them for us for some time now. I'm getting good at them. I include the recipes, print everything out, and put it on the fridge.

Behold, Mortals!
It is the Teriyaki-Chicken-Spinach-Caesar Salad
(with feta, eggs, and nutritious red peppers) of your dreams!

Avacados on super-reduced 50% sale. Feta cheese bought with coupon. Eggs bought two-for-one, hard boiled two days ago - some were deviled for Brian, some were saved for future salads. Chicken is the extra teriyaki chicken breast I marinaded two days before, and broiled the night before, keeping one aside for tonight's salads. Caesar dressing bought on super-reduced 50% sale. I have no excuses for the red peppers and baby spinach - they're good for you.

As you look at this salad, tomorrow night's steak is defrosting in the fridge (so I won't need to microwave it tomorrow at 5pm - avoids wasting electricity AND offgassing toxins from the styrofoam and plastic wrap into the food) - leftover steak for salads the night after. Isn't it beautiful?

It's the Organized Life Salad!

Green Deeds

Partly because I'm totally broke (after mandatory bills my budget for the semester - including food and Chrimstas - is $200) and partly because I'm trying to Live Green, I've done these Green Deeds in the past month or so:

• traded for / given away things on Swaptree and Freecycle instead of buying new / throwing away
  
• switched from hair conditioner to diluted apple cider vinegar (I bet you wouldn't believe how effective this is, how shiny my hair is, how much cheaper this is, or that it doesn't smell at all).
  
• showered with my t-shirts and socks (with the plug in the tub) agitating with my feet in ankle deep water and then letting them soak overnight instead of running the machine with new water (and paying for a machine)
• used a t-shirt instead of a loofah, thereby cleaning us both (meaning me and the shirt)
  
• hung laundry in the apartment instead of using (paying for) an electric dryer
• bought sneakers at a thrift store (supporting a women's shelter) instead of buying new ones
• started a recycling program in my friend's apartment (I showed up with a green crate, the list of things that can be recycled, and tape to put the list on the wall. This is a picture of the first thing she recycled.)
  
• written to Schick razors to complain that the big plastic razor package doesn't have a recycling number on it
• written to Safeway (this was Brian) to complain that their drink powder container was unnecessarily made of (unrecyclable) #5 plastic when it really could have been made of #1 or #2 plastic
  
• sent my used Brita filter to the "Take Back the Filter" campaign to get them recycled here like they are in Europe
  
• written to Potlatch, who makes my 100% recycled paper bathroom tissue and paper towels, to complain that their stupid plastic packaging is unrecyclable plastic #4 and why aren't they using paper, anyway?
• Recycled (Brian drove) electronics at a special collection place. (The broken humidifier's fan, and a "Spark-sparky POOF!" microwave.) He picked a place where the proceeds from the scrap metal will benefit a charity.
  
• Recycled batteries at IKEA (some of which I had brought back from NH in my luggage because I couldn't find a place to recycle them there).
• TRIUMPED OVER ELECTRICITY USAGE - Brian and I cut our August electricity bill in half - meaning this August's usage was HALF what last August's usage was. Brian was a good sport about turning the AC up to 76*F and putting a small fan by his desk. I also think it's because we only use CFL's, in every light, and we put everything (tv, computers, chargers) on surge protectors and turn the surge protectors off when we're not using the appliances. I hear the tv makes a big difference.

Good Deeds

In the past few weeks I've done - or attempted to do - a number of good deeds

...some of which went awry:

• A woman came into the bookstore and asked if we were keeping the graduation gowns out back somewhere. (No.) Her daughter had gotten sick, missed graduation, and never gotten pictures. I know someone, personally, who didn't return a law school graduation gown. I think I could get it, you could borrow it, and take your pictures! She was so happy. On her way to campus she got in a car accident. She called me in tears. I haven't heard from her since.
• I joined Freecycle - a living green / living broke forum for giving away things you don't need - the idea being that it's better for the planet to re-use stuff instead of everybody buying everything new and throwing it away slightly used. I posted the leftover orchid bark (Yay for student-loan funded ($3) trips to the plant nursery!) (the smallest bag they had was 5 lbs and I only needed a few cups). Eight people responded, so I felt bad when I had to tell seven of them they couldn't have it. I put the orchid bark outside in a plastic bag with the guy's name on it, and somebody stole it before he could pick it up. Honestly, who steals a $3 bag of bark chips? I had to e-mail the guy and tell him his bark was stolen.
  
• I ordered prints of pictures we took in NYC to send to my grandmother. The prints arrived at my building, addressed to me at my old apartment down the hall. No problem, right, my friend lives there. She'll pass it on. No. The mailman wouldn't deliver them to that apartment because my name isn't on the box anymore. But neither would he deliver them to the box with my name on it, because that is not the apartment number on the envelope. The prints were returned to sender, and I got an e-mail from ShnapperFlyingFish. No pictures.

Some of which were successful:

• I boxed up a bunch of my extra office supplies (who needs TWO three-hole-punches? And honestly, we had about 200 pens) and mailed them to a local women's shelter that was asking for office supplies on their donations wish-list. (In the same sweep I returned about 20 office-pens to the office.)
  
• I signed up to mentor two first-year students. Unlike many other mentors, Brian and I met with our mentees as promised and answered questions about law school for 10 of their friends (it was like we were holding class out there, people were sneaking up behind us, I turned around and realized we had an audience, it was weird).
• I spent 12 hours writing a step-by-step "How to Outline" instruction booklet with sample Torts Outline for the first-years I mentor and my first-year neighbors across the hall, after answering 15 questions about outlining.
  
• I passed a note to a girl in class to let her know her thong was showing (by like three inches) whenever she leaned forward.
• I gave a handful of business cards to the international students' panel on Living At Law School, volunteering to help stranded international students who needed a local guide/ride.
• Brian and I took an international student to two grocery stores because she doesn't have a car and can't get out to go shopping (we plan to take her out every week).
  
• I've been making milk-free bread for my friend down the hall once a week because she's terribly allergic to milk and it's really hard to find bread without trace amounts of milk in it. Credit for this good deed should also go to me Mum, who got me the bread machine.
  

Our Dinner Party

The first-years here do dinner parties. They host in someone's apartment, they cook a whole lot of food, they serve drinks while we chat, we sit around the table and tell stories. It's very grown up. Everybody else had hosted a Friday-night dinner party. Not us. Circumstances conspire against us. For one thing, we don't cook. Also, we work all day on Friday, our apartment is under construction (new living room), and it's never clean at the end of the week. We can't have guests over! Even if we did, there's no place to put them. We don't have tables, or chairs. Nevertheless, I've felt myself to be under a duty to provide a dinner party and I've been wanted to do one for a long time. It's my turn! It was kindof a suprize, though, when it finally happened to me.

One of the guys had a birthday, so everyone decided to throw him a party. Dani was leading the charge, there - planning it, cooking dinner, hosting the party in her apartment, and making reservations at a comedy club afterwards. Brian and I bowed out of the comedy club because we were having a horrible week and really just couldn't get enthusiastic about starting something at 10pm on Friday, but we'd be there for the dinner party. Turns out everybody else was having a horrible week as well. As problems developed I kept volunteering Brian and I to help with more things, until finally, the day of, Dani suffered a disastrous tragic tragedy and couldn't host at all. Only by heroic efforts was she able to get to a store and buy princess-themed paper flatware. Everything else was up in the air. She was missing for a long time when she should have opened her apartment for us. For a few minutes there I thought we were going to have to host in our apartment (which was a mess from the horrible week). I had to wake up a sleeping Brian to tell him that. Sunny he was not. Dani rushed through to let us into her apartment, though, and saved him. After that, she had to leave again - some faculty dinner thing she had to attend, meant she couldn't do the party.

So Dani lets me into her apartment. It's messy, there's no food, it's not decorated, and we don't have a cake. I can handle this (I bring my own tape). I clean her apartment (read: hide her stuff). Two of us decorate with balloons and pink streamers. I wake up Brian again and send him out to get take-out from two restaurants. Dinner, solved. I try to follow Dani's instructions for the novelty birthday-cake-in-ice- cream-cones recipe she has picked out. Dani shouts directions to me while she is in the shower (running late) because the recipe is in Hebrew and I, as you will be shocked to hear, cannot read Hebrew cookbooks. I can't cook, either, so we aren't playing to my strengths here. I spill the batter out of the ice cream cones, drop them on the floor, catch them on fire, and undercook them. Dani is gone by this time so I call Brian and say "On your way back from the Indian restaurant, can you buy a birthday cake?" Brian says he's stuck in traffic at the grocery store, and will be very late. We call the guy at the mall to delay the birthday boy for as long as possible. They buy an iPhone.

We've forgotten a birthday card, and one of the girls is calling the guy's friends (we forgot) to invite them to his party. We're out of soda and doan want to serve beer with sushi. $200 later Brian pulls into the parking lot with a spread in the back seat of his car: five kinds of Indian food, tons of sushi, and a really pretty cake from the Safeway bakery. He's just in time, arriving at the same time as the rest of the party. Everybody loves dinner. We eat for an hour. Dani arrives and the party rolls out to the comedy club. Brian and I stay behind to clean up the dishes. We look at each other and realize we've just hosted our first dinner party.

Apartment Improvements

While I was ridiculously busy and unhappy, Brian tried to make the apartment nice to cheer me up. He helped me clean the hell out of it, and then, while I was away at work and in class, he made us a living room.

It used to be that Brian's bed was right there when you opened the door. In our apartment there is a front room (Brian's) and two back rooms (mine) and his bed was in the front room. Right by the door. This was ideal last year, because Brian wanted to study next to his desk, while sitting in his bed, while watching TV. There was only one way to make that work out. Now he's not studying, and we have friends who live on our hallway, so it was something less than ideal. Having the bed right there when you opened the door meant we had no living room - just a big bedroom and a little bedroom. This made having guests over (or even sometimes, just answering the door) awkward. And for some reason everybody seemed to think the worst of me for having his bed right there by the door (why ME?)

So Brian made me living room.

He went above and beyond to make me a living room. He took all the drawers out of his dressers and moved them across the room, disassembled his whole bed, drug the boards around the corner, in pieces, and reassembled it, from scratch, took all the books off a 6' x 6' bookshelf and moved it, and drug around inconvenient things like tv stands, lounge chairs, an elliptical machine, and a 100 lb five-foot beanbag bed. Then he put it all back together, and made it look nice. Now the front room is divided by the 6' x 6' bookshelf (packed solid like a wall) into a living room (the space by the door, a little bigger than a queen-sized bed) and a bedroom (behind the bookshelf). People can come into the living room and NOT invade my personal space. It's great! Once my student loans came in we went to Bed, Bath, & Linen's & Things and got some great big floorpillows. Floorpillows! Now I have a living room, and people can come in and say hello! (In fact, it's already happened a few times.) I'm really happy about this. We have a living room!

In other apartment-improving news, I asked the maintenance department to fix some things in our apartment that were looking really broken and embarrassing me when we had people over. They did a nice job and I was happy - until I realized they must have been standing on the bed to fix the drapes! They invaded my space! I had to make it my own again by changing the sheets and re-arranging all the blankets.

Buying Food!

Brian fed me throughout the Cycle of Sadness, but (aside from going out for Indian food too often) I tried not to make too many demands on him that way. So I was dying to go grocery shopping once I had money of my own. At the same time, Brian was getting more and more busy with those writs and appeals, so it was getting harder and harder for him to make dinner on weeknights (and sometimes I come home at 10pm). When my student loans came in, I read cookbooks, consulted Brian, make a list, went shopping, and cooked everything for the week in one marathon session (from scratch!):

• Deviled Eggs
• Apple Cake
• Chilied/Curried Pot Roast with Vegetables (I accidentally followed half of each recipe - took me four hours)
• Brownies
• Teriyaki Marinaded Broiled Chicken Breasts
• Bread
  
• Lasagna
  
• Blacmange that tasted exactly like burnt marshmallow. Brian pointed out that people pay money for that flavour (when it's in jelly belly's) but I threw it away.

Plus Milk-free Bread for my friend down the hall.

I spent most of the weekend either standing in the kitchen or cleaning up the kitchen. I collapsed, slept, and went back to classes, triumphant and sore.

I'm Just Exercising

I sprained my middle finger while rough-housing with Brian. It hurt for a whole week. I had to do stretching exercises in class.

We're in the Money! (Briefly)

October Third - my student loan refund is in my bank account! (sings) We're in the money! After a month of sadness, anger, depression, and above all, extreme stress, things started to turn around. I celebrated by spending Saturday at home, paying my bills and making a budget for the semester. Whereupon, I found I was broke.

It took me about two weeks, but eventually, having money repaired several broken elements of the adventure:

• pay rent
• pay for health insurance
• fill prescriptions
• pay credit card bills
• get credit cards turned back on
  
• stop aggressive 6am phone calls from grumpy credit card company employees
  
• pay back Brian for the emergency loan
• pay when we go out to eat
• regain some measure of dignity
  
• order prints of pictures in NYC to send to my grandmother AND a NYC souvenir frame
  
• re-pot my orchid (in a special orchid pot) with new orchid bark
  
• buy a new humidifier (the old one broke during the cycle of sadness and I, too broke to buy a new one, was waking up every morning with chapped lips and a bloody nose).
  
• get a living room with which to entertain our new friends
  
• buy food

Still in the works - fixing my car. Took another three weeks to jump it and get it to the dealership because Brian and I were never free at the same time, during regular business hours.

Mommy!

After three weeks of despair, etc, me Mum asked me why I STILL needed to get a ride to the social security office from Brian. Wasn't my car fixed yet? (No, Mom.) Usually I try not to bother me Mum with things like this because she is so busy, so overworked, so stressed out, and so broke that when I call her (while filling out a form to request a copy of my social security card) and ask her something minor (what HER social security number is) she flips out. It's like the last straw. She just can't handle one more demand: Why do you need that?! Where are you?! What are you doing?! No I don't know your father's number! It's in my wallet! This is such a pain! You should have taken care of this ages ago! You should have planned better! I have a lot going on right now! - It's like her whole life is spent the way I just spent the past six weeks. So I'd been holding off on sharing my woes with her. But she was having an unusually relaxed day, and I was having an unusually horrible month, so I told her the whole story. Mom did a search-and-rescue on my sorry lost-hiker ass. She went to our Social Security office back home (with the ashes of my birth certificate in a zip lock bag) and said "My daughter is in school, so she can't come here, but she needs a copy of her card." (They must have thought I was like 10 years old.) "I am her official guardian." (They must have thought I was 26 and retarded.) She got me a card, and mailed it to me with a cheery note and check to pay for getting my car fixed. It's probably next week's grocery money. She really cares about me. I'ma get her something extra-good for Chrimstas.

A Wedding!

'Arry and Gelby's Wedding Invitation arrived! (Now it's MY wedding invitation.) It looks wicked cool! And it confused me! I think they're getting married twice! And not to each other!

('Arry sorted me out when I asked him these questions in person.)

Also, why didn't it mention the Ren-Faire masquerade, costume contest, and bollywood dance troupe? You ought to tell people it's a Ren-Faire masquerade early, so they have time to find good costumes.

Getting Medieval On Your Beef

I practiced being poor by buying cheap, tough beef on sale and boiling it for hours, with spices and root vegetables, until it was palatable (getting in touch with my oppressed Irish roots). It turned into quite a nice dinner. (I must not be oppressed enough.) I was cleaning up dinner and I was about to pour out the 'water' that had been boiling beef for three hours and scrape the plates. The great big black pots made me feel like a scullery maid. Only she wouldn't throw out all these odds and ends, would she. She's too poor to waste salt and fat like this. What would she do? I figured: poor... medieval... it's about the same thing. I'm going to get Ye Olde Beefe Tavern on your dinner!

I threw all the scraps into the
cooking pot - the fat we wouldn't
eat and the leftover bits I saved from Brian (No! You can't eat that! We need it for tomorrow! Eat a potato!) and boiled it in the beef-boiling water for another four hours, adding spices and root vegetables, cooking it down thicker and thicker. By the next night, I had an amazing, yummy beef stew! (I must not be poor enough) served in a homemade bread-bowl. Free Dinner!

Brian's Making Waves

Brian has written writs and appealed cases to the intermediate level AND the Supreme Court in the past few weeks. Practically unheard of, especially in multiples, and I've lost track of how many cases are where. All I know is that everyone in the office is talking about how amazing he is, and I can't get a ride anywhere (even to work) because he has to be downtown wrangling miracles with higher courts. Need to get my car fixed.

Getting Political

I watched the Presidential / Vice-Presidential debates with Brian (when I wasn't in my nighttime classes). First time ever. I've also been watching the news, SNL, and Jay Leno. I never really watched TV before, but now I get my TV by osmosis: Brian has it on because he loves politics, and I... live here. I sit next to the TV, doing something else, while old men yell at each other about the Direction of American Conservatism Today. And Brian is always telling me things he's been reading online. And that's a lot because politics is pretty much his only hobby. Consequently, I am more aware of this presidential election than I have been of any other. For the first time, I'm a well-educated voter. For the first time, I think I can make important political decisions based on a deep understanding of the candidates and the issues. For the first time, I've heard entire speeches, in context, rather than 30-second sound bites taken out of context.

My deep and profound conclusions about this election are as follows:

First: It is truly creepy how similar Tina Fey is to Sarah Palin. Truly creepy. But also, somewhat vindicating. Because there are all those episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess where she arrives in (some city) and gets mistaken for (somebody else) or somebody else is pretending to be Xena, because even tho' they are unrelated, she and (the princess / the priestess / the prostitute) look exactly alike and nobody can tell which is which. And Brian always scoffs at those because there is no way that could happen in real life. Or the movie Dave - where the president-impersonator steps in and acts as the President. Like that could ever happen. Well, Sarah Palin is here to prove you wrong, Brian. It could totally happen in real life.

For your amusement - Tina Fey / Couric Interview HERE

Second: It disturbs me that Palin:
1) doesn't answer direct questions
2) doesn't speak English (I suspect that's why she can't answer direct questions).
I think I'm pretty tolerant about people who doan speak English visiting the US, living in the US, becoming citizens of the US, or even living in the US without speaking English and without becoming citizens... but really, shouldn't the Vice President be able to speak English? More disturbing, Palin has been unable to demonstrate fluency in ANY language. It's not like ambassadors could switch to French when speaking to the VP... they'll have to switch to pictographs. (How do you say 'tariff' in stick-figure?) Golly gee whiz, there's gonna be some higher prices at the Wal-Mart, you betcha!

Third: I wish Palin would stop killing wild animals. Holding up bloody carcasses in triumph - like slaughtering some inoffensive segment of the ecosystem is a service to humanity - is in frightfully bad taste, and machine-gunning them from planes isn't folksy, it's just criminal. More criminal than stealing money from the state for 'traveling expenses' for living in your house, using your authority to fire people you doan like, charging taxpayers for your felonious, secessionist husband and kids (Soccer, Liverpool, Flutist, Twig, and Calculus) to travel with you on business trips, and banning books, even. And what's with the nearly constant recreational snowmobiling?! Haven't you people heard of sustainable living?! Put on a sweater, go snowshoeing, save the oil!

Yep, I think it's pretty clear that being a better-educated voter hasn't made me think deeper thoughts.

The Cycle of Sadness

My Life - from Sept 8th to October 3rd

My life got so bad so quickly I was all confused and had to make a flowchart to sort it all out.


I went into the Financial Aid Office near tears after the first week (three weeks after loans were supposed to disburse) and talked to Wendy's boss. He's a nice guy. He told me Wendy was lying about not being able to look up my individual information, looked up my individual information, got the right forms to the right places, and then called my lender to check on my paperwork and find out when I could expect loans to be disbursed. Nice guy. On Friday, they said. We got the paperwork today, we're going to disburse loans tomorrow. Good news, he said. Of course that means you won't get them until next Wednesday, because the school has to process the loans, take out for tuition, and write you a check for the refund, but still. Good news. Ok, I say, Wednesday. I can wait one more week. So I didn't apply for the school's emergency loan (which would also have arrived on Wednesday) or borrow money from my parents or Brian. I want to take care of myself, and I can wait one more week.

Wednesday comes, Wednesday goes, nothing happens. No money! I ask questions. They send me to the Business Office, where I meet another women whom, I swear, is named Wendy - if not on this Earth then on the Astral Plane. She didn't have time to process the loans, Wendy II tells me. There is a stack of them, you know, and she's a very busy person. When might she get to them? She gets defensive. Friday. On Friday she'll process the loans. She's a very busy person. And then I'll get my money? No, she says. What she's doing on Friday is taking out for tuition etc. here at the law school. Then she has to send the loans, the bills, and her math to the main campus (in another city) and THEY will do math and write me a check for the refund, which will then be sent BACK here, where the law school will deposit it in my bank account. My eyes fill with tears but she is too evil to notice.

One more week.

Wendy was too busy on Friday. She didn't process the loans. She's a very busy person, you know. And she only does loan processing on Wednesdays and Fridays, so when she missed it on Friday, she couldn't possibly get to it until Wednesday. She tells me this, bitterly, like HER life is going down the tubes and it's MY fault.

She was too busy on Wednesday. I asked. She didn't process the loans. She got testy.

She was also too busy on Friday. I asked. She didn't process the loans. She got hostile. No loans. I went home, cried away my dignity (answered bill collector's calls at 6am, 8am, 9am, 10am, and at noon turned off my cell phone) and borrowed money from my parents and Brian.

It only took three days to borrow $30,000, but it took three and a half weeks to get the check processed by the school.

I was pissed off the whole time.

My Birthday

After the super-exhausted grumpy week - just got back from NYC - wherein I had the unfortunate encounter with said Wendy - Brian helped me clean the whole apartment really well. I was tired and anxious and out of sorts. And somewhat enraged. Tripping over drinking classes wrapped in dirty laundry is especially annoying when I'm tired and anxious and out of sorts. And somewhat enraged. Brian wanted to help. (And, probably, wanted to live.) He made superhuman efforts to make things nice - so superhuman that I noted it in my day-planner afterwards. Having a nice clean apartment made my whole weekend better. Then I went back to classes and work.

The day before my birthday Brian cleaned the whole kitchen really well (it looked like we'd been robbed!) and brought home takeout Indian food. It was so nice to come home from class and find that waiting for me. Super nice! On my actual birthday I went to court and to all my classes. My client got a really good deal (and I didn't even have to tell the judge it was my birthday!) and I didn't get called on in class, so I got a nice break. I opened packages of love (and presents) and Brian made me Indian food. Happy Birthday!

On the weekend afterwards, the people I have been getting to know here (the dinner-party first-years, Dani the graduate grad student, and company) threw me a surprize birthday party. (Unlike Oleave, they didn't kidnap the guests :-) The real surprize was that they would do that. I didn't think we were that... involved. It was a really nice party. They made a special effort to do something I would like, so we didn't go clubbing (like they probably wanted to), instead they made dinner together, got me a Godiva chocolate truffle cheesecake, and (Brian helped pick) rented Underworld - one of my favorite movies that I do not own! We spent the evening hanging out in Dani's room (which is my old apartment) eating pasta, chocolate, chocolate cheesecake, and ice cream cake, telling stories, and watching Underworld with the subtitles on so we could talk at the same time. It reminded me of home! (sniffle)

I came home at the end of the evening (with leftover Godiva chocolate truffle cheesecake) thinking "Wow, we're really friends!" I was touched by the effort they went to - planning, cooking, driving around, shopping, decorating with balloons and streamers, and, in one case, walking a mile and a half thru a bad neighborhood in the dark to attend. (Brian drove him home afterwards, so his death wouldn't plague my conscience forever afterwards.) When Brian said we should watch Underworld at the party one of the girls thought he was saying Waterworld, and was dreading the event. She was going to come anyway, though, and suffer through it. I was really touched by that. And, unbeknownst to me until much later, Dani spent the evening threatening her (grumpy) date with grievous bodily injury to keep him from "spoiling my party" by throwing us out and/by going to sleep in the next room.

I'm not having a seizure, I'm telling a story

They're painting his toenails sparkle-princess pink.

Dani and I

bumpy ride

I haven't posted since my birthday! That has got to be my longest break from self-publishing YET. I only did it because everything was so awful I couldn't ever write. Being 26 has been really rough! (And it's all Wendy's fault! :-) But I'm going to post this weekend, I swear. About everything to which I have been up. I even have pictures!

Wendy = Evil

I hate women named Wendy. Automatically. Knee-jerk reaction. I hate all Wendies. Indiscriminately. (After I discriminate against Wendies, I mean.) It's an irrational hatred stemming from childhood trauma. (Aren't those the most real of all hatreds?) Wendy was my monster in the closet. I never saw her, but I knew she was there. I don't know where she is now, though. She could be anywhere. She could be anyone. Any Wendy that is. Every Wendy is suspect, and every Wendy shares, unwittingly, in my animosity towards The Wendy.

I met a Wendy last week that reaffirmed my deep and abiding hatred for all things Wendy-ish. In fact, if she had been my first Wendy she might have given me a deep and abiding hatred for all Wendies, all by herself. This particular instance of the class: Wendy works at the financial aid office (all the better to work her dark powers to my detriment). I went in there for help, in a panic, because my loans hadn't arrived. They were two weeks late but I thought I had done everything correctly and the financial aid office hadn't sent me a letter or anything, so I figured everybody's loans were late. These things happen. I shouldn't get bitchy with the financial aid staff. They must be busy this time of year. Maybe I counted wrong. But with bills two weeks overdue and no word from financial aid I figured I should just pop in and ask if loans were supposed to have gone thru by now.

Pop! And there she was. A Wendy. I flinched when I saw her name-plate but carried on, bravely, with a smile.

"I was wondering if my student loans should have disbursed by now? Because I never got mine, and I wondered if anything was wrong?"
"Oh, something must be wrong, because you should have gotten them by now. You should be panicking."
"Ahhh! I'm panicking!"
"Ok Let me look this up. Hmm. What's your name? ...And your ID number? ...I'm going to type for a while now. I'm kindof confused about how this computer works so... no I guess I can't help you. I've worked here for at least three years but I don't really know how this all works. And even if I did, I'm not big on customer service."
"Wait, so, what's wrong with my loans?"
"I dunno. You probably forgot to fill out a form, or you filled it out but forgot to sign something. Or you failed the credit check. Or maybe you maxed out your loans. All kinds of things could have gone wrong. Some you can fix fairly easily, some you can't. You might have to drop out."
"But if something's wrong you should have known about it when loans disbursed, two weeks ago. Wait, I did all this the financial aid paperwork in March. That was six months ago! Something's been missing for six months?! And you were just waiting until I dropped in to ask about it? Weren't you going to write me a letter, or something?"
"Like I said: Not real big on the customer service thing."
"And you can't tell me exactly what went wrong?"
"Yeah, even though I work here, and despite my typing in your ID number, I don't have access to individualized student information. Actually, I'm lying to you. I do have access to that information. My boss will tell you that, next week, when the bill collectors start calling you at 6am, and you come back to financial aid and cry in his office, but right now I'm going to pretend I can't possibly look up your file on my computer. And my boss is on vacation for the rest of this week. So, ah, I really can't tell you what's wrong with your student loans."
"Really? That's all you can do for me?"
"Hey, um, try filling out that form on the counter. A lot of students mess it up the first time, so I'm just going to assume that you did too. No real reason, could be anything, I'm just playing the numbers. If you fill it out we should be able to process it in two weeks, and then we'll find out if that fixes your problem or not."
"...Thanks."
"No problem! Anytime! After all, I didn't actually do anything for you."
"Oh! That reminds me. There was something else I wanted to ask you about. Remember how last week I asked you for those forms for working on campus? And you said they were on the financial aid office website? I can't find them there. Could you pull up the webpage and show me where they are?"
"Ah, well, you see, they're not there. I just told you that because I didn't want to get up and walk all the way around the counter to show you which ones you needed. I was just trying to get rid of you. The truth is, they are sitting in those unlabeled paper organizers by the door. I guess now that my ruse has failed I'll have to walk all the way over there and tell you which ones you need. I knew you would be coming back for them, but I was hoping you'd come back during somebody else's shift. Jeez you are such a pain."
"... ... ...Ok! I've filled out all these forms you gave me to work at the campus bookstore. I'll just turn those in now, and head off to work my first shift! Good thing, too, cause I need the money. Bye!"
"Wait, my wendy-sense is tingling. There must be something I should be doing... something else I can ruin for you! I suddenly have the energy and determination to go above-and-beyond the call of duty! When you worked last year did you turn in your social security card?"
"Um, I can't remember, but I'm sure I filled out all the forms. I mean, I worked and got paid, all last year, so, I'm sure everything's fine."
"Well just to be sure, I'm going to go look that up. When it would help you, I can't possibly find your individual loan information, or distribute I-9's, but I'm willing to go the extra mile if it will help me find a debilitating problem in your paperwork. My wendy-sense is telling me that it's really important that I double-check your old work forms from last year. I'll have to look this up in your individual student file. How do you spell your last name?"
"Seriously? You can look that up?"
"Oh yes, I have access to individualized student work information. Here at the financial aid office. Just not your financial aid information. Well, I do, but I'm pretending not to. And... yes I see here that we have your social security number, and a photocopy of your card. Mmm I'm afraid that's insufficient social security identification. We never saw your original card. I'm afraid we can't let you get a job on campus."
"I don't have my original social security card!"
"Ah-ha! I knew my wendy-sense was tingling for a reason."
"But you already have my social security number, you don't need the card!"
"Nope, your number's not enough. We have to sign this line that says we saw your original social security card, and then make a copy of it, before you're allowed to work."
"You're going to photocopy my card to prove you saw the original card?"
"Yes."
"And you're going to staple the photocopy to the form, just like the photocopy you have now."
"Yes - I mean no! No. This will be a photocopy of the original card."
"So is this one."
"But you didn't show me the original card."
"I can't save you a step, and just show you a photocopy?"
"No. We have to see the original card."
"Where does it say that?"
"On this form I'm waving vaguely in the air."
"Show me where it says you have to sign the line that you photocopied my original card."
"I don't have to show you that, it's for ME to sign."
"Are you sure about this? Because you seemed pretty confused about how the computer worked. You could be confused about this, too."
"I'm absolutely sure that I have to see the original card. It's a new rule. A brand new rule. It's... it's... um... it's because of the Patriot Act!"
"Really."
"Yep!"
"Get many terrorists working in the campus bookstore, do you?"
"None so far. But in this Post-Nine-Eleven world, we can't be too careful. By the way, what have you checked out of the library recently?"
"But social security cards are like blue blotting paper that's been thru a typewriter! They're not laminated or watermarked or anything. Anybody could make one! Anybody who still used a typewriter, that is. They're about as technologically advanced as a library card. Terrorists could totally have fake social security cards. Hell, half of them are legitimate citizens with their OWN social security cards. How is showing you my social security card going to make our country more secure? Wouldn't you rather see my passport? I have a passport."
"No."
"Isn't social security going to be broken by the time I turn 30 anyway? Why do you need my social security information at all? It's not like I'm ever going to collect on the oodles of benefits I'm amassing here by working six hours a week. In fact, I'm doing the government a favour by not wracking up the social security credits. They'll thank you for this later, when they don't owe me anything."
"I understand your distress (in fact, I feed on your sweet, sweet distress) but I'm delighted - I mean sorry! - to say that we'll need to see your original card."
"I don't have my original card. It was destroyed in a fire. I have a photocopy. Do you really need me to show you the original ashes in a zip-lock? I have them. They're at home in New Hampshire. It'll take two weeks to get here, if my Mom will even mail something that fragile and that valuable on the black market."
"You can go to your nearest social security field office and get a copy of your card. It should take about 10 business days."
"Wait, a copy?"
"Yes they will issue you a copy of your social security card, which you can bring to us."
"I thought you just said it couldn't be a copy, it had to be the original card."
"These copies are OK. They're original copies."
"This is an original photocopy."
"It needs to be on blue blotting paper."
"I have blue blotting paper"
"And typed with a typewriter!"
(sigh)
"So you can't give me my student loans?"
"Nope."
"And you don't know why?"
"Nope."
"And when I come back next week I'm going to find out you really could have looked up what was wrong, you just decided not to?"
"Yep."
"But one thing you are very clear about, is that I'm not allowed to get a job?"
"Yes."
"Are you just dead-set on keeping me broke?"
"Yes. I hate lawyers. And law students. Irrationally. Due to childhood trauma. Was there anything else you needed?"
"No, thank you. I think you've done enough. I'm broken. And I'm due at work in 20 minutes."
"You can work all you want but we will never pay you. Muhahahah!!"

Wendy's Final Insult:
Two days later I got a letter from the financial aid office. A bill. I owe them money. For tuition, rent, health insurance, etc. Because my student loans have not come in. I owe them twenty-three thousand, five hundred sixty three dollars and eighty-eight cents. Please pay the full amount immediately upon receipt of this letter. (I would if I could, Wendy, but you won't give me loans and you won't let me work. What do you suggest? Lottery tickets?) When reading the $23,563.88, it was the eighty-eight cents that got me. Who delivers a bill for the average yearly income of the average American, and adds on the 88 cents?

Further Wendy-Induced Tribulations:

I need a new copy, a special copy, of my original social security card. For Wendy. On the first day I was free during normal business hours (which was seven days after I visited her lair - because I am only free one morning a week) Brian drove me to the local Social Security Field Office, so that ten days later I could get a new copy of my social security card, so I could work for two weeks, so could turn in a timecard, so two weeks after that I could get paid $100. Forty-five days. I have long-term goals. Small long-term goals.

(Brian had to drive me because my car wouldn't start. And still won't start. It too is waiting for student loans to come in.)

We found the office using the Official Social Security Office Webpage's Local Field Office Locater By Zip Code. You would think that would be a trustworthy source. It's not. It gave us directions. We went there. The office isn't built yet. The only guy there is the contractor, on scaffolding, putting up Sheetrock in what will someday be a Social Security Field Office and Card Center. He stared at us, curious as to why we were trespassing on a construction site, while we slowly circled the building like so many hopes and dreams and credit scores circling the drain.

It will be another seven days until I am free during business hours and can visit a social security office, making it 52 days from Wendy's triumph to my first paycheck. Meawhile, I'm showing up at work for six hours every week so the job will still be there when I can get paid.

When we got home I tried to look up the next-closest social security field office, but the website was down for maintenance.

I blame Wendy.

Sept 8th - 12th

The week after our surprize whirlwind weekend trip to New York City, I tried very hard not to let my schooling suffer. I didn't want to be the girl who spent the weekend partying in NYC and was an underachieving mess for the whole week afterwards. So I tried hard. I went to all my classes, had all my homework done beforehand, went to work for the public defender twice, and started my new job at the campus bookstore in a clean dress shirt (right after meeting Wendy in the Financial Aid office). I was very proud of myself for being so good all week. I was also exhausted and grumpy.

Our Last Morning in NYC

NY Cheesecake!

I was eating Cheescake in a diner at 1am! What a New-York experience!

New York Art!

Brian helps me demonstrate that Mummies are really short.

Happy to see us

Soup-Fail

The cafeteria at the Met

Korean Art:

This is the famous gray-green pottery for which the Koreans were famous way back when everybody else was making pinch-pots out of air-dried clay. (It's all gray-green because they only knew how to make one colour.) I read 100 pages about Korean pottery in that history book, so I was excited to see some examples.

South-Asian Art

NYC

Our Bertie-Wooster-style hotel


The view from our room
I stayed up at night to watch the city lights

Dim Sum in Chinatown with Becca, Janice, and JP!
I hadn't seen Becca since she graduated!

We all walked through Chinatown together

Museum of Natural History

A really happy turtle - so cute!
I couldn't resist

Happy Dioramas

We saw some nice Siberians playing in the snow... going sledding... with their friend the whale. Brian ushered me along before I could ask questions.

Museum of Natural History

My photos of our first day in NYC

Another view of Central Park

Our first morning in NYC:

Photographic Evidence

On our first morning in NYC I visited Central Park for the first time! I was excited to be someplace so famously crime-ridden AND featured in so many episodes of Gargoyles. In the first ten minutes I saw a dead body! Brian didn't believe me, so here, to rebut his skeptical editorial, is the proof!


Brian says she was a jogger, but you see how she's barefoot? I think somebody killed her for her sneakers. I hear that happens in New York City all the time.