This is the start of insanity, isn't it?

For at least the past week, I've had a Black Eyed Peas song in my head, the one that's in heavy rotation on the radio right now, "Boom Boom Pow." It. Is. Awful. And it won't go away. Sunday night I kept waking up because it was playing in my head over and over again, loudly. It continued throughout the day and again today. I can sort of get it to calm down by constantly having my ipod going, but it doesn't get rid of it completely. I'll have a little Bon Iver with Fergie in the background. I can't get it to stop, people. I've tried all kinds of techniques and it just gets worse and worse. I like that boom boom pow, that music's driving me wild. ARRRRGGG!!!

I'm pretty sure this is how people go crazy, isn't it? How much time do you think I have left? Should I start looking into asylums now, or wait and see if it switches to a Beyonce song?

Oh, who brought the fuck-up fairy with them to work today?

In a move of absolute brilliance, the Department of Defense decided to take advantage of a lovely spring NYC day to shoot some photos...of an airliner flowing low past the Statue of Liberty, chased by a military fighter jet. Because that's not going to freak New Yorkers the fuck out or anything.

Way to go!

Having 12,457th thoughts

Ugh. I STILL have yet to put the nail in the ugly-ass coffin that is this appellate brief. I just hate it SO MUCH. I don't find legal writing all that difficult, besides my inherent inability to remember all the damn citation rules and my lack of desire to look them up constantly because OMG TEDIOUS. It's just so freaking boring. I seriously cannot imagine myself doing this on a more consistent basis. I cannot imagine a more soul-sucking activity. And I'm not necessarily talking about all the standard motions, decrees and other forms that I can easily generate by plugging info into a computer program. It's things like briefs that make me hate life. Yet I volunteered for this. Oh boy.

I'm in the home stretch though. The home stretch of the most stressful month of the year so far. The Lilith fundraiser was Thursday and it went off stunningly well. We had a tremendous turnout, way more than anticipated, and we brought in plenty of moolah. I co-emceed the event and despite my being really sick that day, it went pretty well. I decided to take the low-key approach to public speaking and I didn't even write out remarks, just jotted down notes. And I did pretty well. I wasn't even very nervous, which was nice. I guess by that point I was just too exhausted to be freaked out standing in front of a room full of people, including politicians and directors of sister organizations.

However, all night long, as I ran into acquaintances I haven't seen in weeks, months or years, I had to answer the questions, "What's going on with you? What are you doing now? How's your job?" And I really just wanted to gloss over my life updates quickly and move on to them. It's better than saying, "I work for a great organization and I do fulfilling work, but it's not at all what I want to be doing anymore and I have no idea what my next move will be." Then I have to think about how I'm in all this debt to become a lawyer and I really don't like doing boring lawyer shit. And how I feel like I'm back at square one, except for the letters after my name. I know it's not quite that bleak, but I really need to take charge of the situation and figure some stuff out.

In the meantime, I need to get back to slogging through all this crap and crank out this crappy brief. After I turn it in tomorrow, I need to send off some subpoenas, respond to a bitchy discovery request and draft a letter to a client that I'll then have to translate into Spanish. And after all that is done, I'll just be coasting until my much-needed short California vacation. Wee!

Ah, technology

I would have loved to have seen the expression on this 911 operator's face as she was taking this call. I imagine it was a look of resigned defeat, as if she'd finally just given up on humanity.



Although in this woman's defense not all cars have locks that can be easily pulled up manually. In my Mini Cooper, the locks automatically engage when I go over 5mph and when down, the lock is almost flush with the door. However, when you pull the door handle the first time, it unlocks the car. Hence the annoying double pull on the door handle to get out. It's one of the Mini's many quirks. I don't know how many times I've given someone a ride in my car and this has happened:

We stop and first they have a hard time figuring out where the door handle is. It's a little round, silver thing way up on the door as close to the front of the car as the manufacturer could put a door handle. They lean forward and pull on the handle and it doesn't open. Instead of letting go and trying again, they continue to hold the handle, but just pull harder, as if the handle is just stuck. Then they sit back and pause for a second, trying to look for something else that might be a door handle, since that weird-looking round thing didn't work. And every time I have to say, "You have to pull it twice." I could just remember to hit the unlock button when I stop the car so this won't be an issue, but I've gotten used to the double pull, so I don't think about it. Plus, the lock/unlock and window control buttons are in the center of the car, right under the stereo and A/C controls, so it's not very convenient and easy to use. Bottom line, the Mini has some annoying features, but even if I can't pull the lock up with my fingers easily, the car still has a safety mechanism where I can open the door and get out if I need to.

Also, I have to wonder how this woman got the car door locked in the first place. So, she got in, tried the start the car and her door was locked? Or did she arrive, turn off the car, not have the door unlocked yet, then the car wouldn't start? So many variables.

In addition to cars presenting challenges, there are also the anxiety-inducing technological breakdowns when watching TV. What happens when the batteries die on a TV remote? Catastrophe. And obviously the TV won't work at all. Granted, if you've got some overly-complicated, penis-induced TV/cable/electronic device set-up with some sort of mega universal remote, the death of said remote could make TV watching difficult, if not impossible. But I'm talking about a regular TV by itself. When I lived on the Central American political refugee camp in the mid-90's, I came in to watch the Spanish language news and telenovellas one evening and one of the refugees was just sitting on the couch, looking forlorn. He informed me that the TV was broken.

"What do you mean, it's broken?"
"It's broken. Doesn't work. Won't turn on." And he tapped on the remote.
"Oh, it's probably just the batteries. But the TV still works. Look!" I get up and manually turn the TV on.
"No, it's broken," he replied as he sat there on the couch, looking at that crazy gringa actually getting up to press buttons on the TV. Madness!

This, of course, was the same refugee who flew into a panic when I announced that I was leaving the next day for a two week vacation.

"But will you do the grocery shopping before you go?"
"No, I already went to the store this week, on the regular day. I'm sure someone else will do the shopping next week."
"But, we're out of food!"
"What are you talking about? The pantry is full."
"But we don't have any way to prepare the food."
"Uh, the kitchen works..."
"But you didn't buy enough oil. We only have half a bottle left. That's not going to last very long and then we'll have no way to cook food."

Sigh.

Body Acceptance

"You have to look in the mirror and see that what you're wearing looks good on the body you have now," she says. "Wearing a larger size is just . . . wearing a larger size." That's especially important for those of us who cling to old clothes that are too small in hopes that we'll someday fit in them again.

--Stacy London of What Not to Wear, on body acceptance and style

Who knew Stacy London was this awesome? I've never thought about it, but she and her co-star Clinton Kelley never comment on a woman's weight or call her fat or roly poly or anything other than curvy. I love her snark on people's wardrobes and I've often fantasized about going on this show and getting the $5000 NYC shopping spree. Let's face it, my style is erratic at best. I just don't have whatever it is that other women have that makes me want to accessorize and pull together fashionable outfits. I almost never wear jewelry and things like belts, scarves, etc. are something I only think of when I realize that what I'm wearing would be better off with them, but I don't own them. I love cute clothes, but hate to shop for them. And I really don't know what I'm doing. I tried for about 5 seconds when I started my job, working in an office full of women, and found some inspiration from my more stylish coworkers. Now I just envy their style and accept my lack of it.

A couple years ago, I decided to throw out my "skinny jeans." In fact, I gave away a whole box of great clothes from my early 20's, as well as clothes that were still in active circulation in my wardrobe, but were literally being pulled apart at the seams from my weight gain. I then went out and bought some new cute clothes that actually fit the body I have. Was I admitting defeat? No. I wasn't. I'm still trying to get on the path to regular exercise and healthy eating. I am not completely satisfied with my current weight. But I also realize that the Skinny Heather of Yore is now a memory, and that is okay. Because the Skinny Heather of Yore had all kinds of other issues. So I'm happy to let go of the Skinny Heather with issues and keep the Zaftig Heather with wisdom.

So, ladies, let's stop beating ourselves up about not looking like teenagers, models and actresses. If you were never 100 pounds and size 0*, then don't expect to be that now. Stop hating yourself! Just do whatever you need to do to feel healthy and accept who you are and what you have to offer the world. You are more than a number on a label, more than your measurements. Screw the media and Hollywood for making us feel inadequate! Take pride in those curves, girl, and enjoy that sandwich!

*Can we talk for a minute about size 0? When I was a teenager, I was super skinny, even before I had some mild eating disorder issues. Even then, the lowest size was a 2/3. Anything below that was the child's section. I get that now there's this whole vanity sizing thing and a size zero is probably more like a 4/5 from back when I was young. But why do we even want a size zero? "Hi, I'm a zero/want to be a zero." Zero is nothing. Do you really want to be nothing? It sounds tragic to me, this striving to be a zero. They have completely erased us, ladies. We have been brainwashed into thinking that being nothing is desirable. So how can we continue to place our self worth on our size, when the "ideal" size is nothing? Does this mean we're worth nothing? I refuse to accept that.

Talking about Tea Bagging with Mom

So, I'm still in the midst of this damn brief, which will be turned in a day late (not a big deal, really). I would be further along, but I have the worst luck. I'm sick and in a great deal of pain right now, so I can't concentrate for very long periods of time. It's coming along though. It may end up sucking, but whatever.

I'm also behind because yesterday I had lunch with my parents, my brother, his betrothed and her parents. On the way to the restaurant, my mom started bitching about what a jackass Governor Rick Perry is and about how stupid the whole tea bag protests were. Which lead to this exchange:

Me: So, uh, Mom, you know what tea bagging is, right?
Mom: Yes. Well, I didn't until I looked it up on urbandictionary.com

Even my mom knows about urban dictionary and knows to look up suspicious terminology that could have a sexual connotation. Or rather, she probably picked up from MSNBC that tea bagging was a double entendre and then looked it up. Which begs the question: could conservatives learn from my mom or was she educated on this sexual practice because of them?

Procrastination over. Now back to my regularly scheduled boring law shit.

Random Friday Eve Thoughts

Ah, what a day. It started off with dropping my little cousins off at school and then on to a final divorce hearing. I finally closed the first case I was assigned when I started my job. Okay, not really "assigned," but dumped on me by a lawyer who is no longer employed at my agency who when I said, "Let me know if there's anything I can help you with," gave me all of her problem cases in my first week of work. Which to her was all her cases, as she couldn't be bothered with things like drafting documents and calling clients and helping people get divorces. It's not the first case I've closed, but certainly the longest-running case I've had, one that was unnecessarily prolonged due to her jackass husband. It ended with a whimper, over in five minutes, and my client was elated. She's finally out of a toxic marriage and can start fresh, with a new name.

I then set off on the drive home, which should have taken about 3 hours. But the rain was brutal and it took forever. Like five hours forever. I was completely spent. Last night I was swept up in the whirlwind of a home with 5 kids ages 10 months - 8 years and when they were finally all asleep, I stayed up talking with my cousin. Now I have so much more work to do, but I spent the rest of the afternoon and all evening in bed, snoozing and watching movies. Now it's on to writing a brief in 3 days. Woo. I'm so glad I put things off to the last minute like this. I obviously strive on the incredible pressure and stress.

One of the movies I watched this evening was Rachel Getting Married. It was pretty good, but MY GOD that wedding took forever to happen. Seriously, how many toasts and musical performances can one movie have? And the never-ending string quartet providing the soundtrack to the whole thing was unbearable. Day and night. Night and day with the violin. Dear god. When Anne Hathaway's character said, "Are they going to fucking play all weekend?!" I actually blurted out, "Thank you!"

After the movie, I sat on my porch and listened to the quiet sounds of life on a rural street in an urban jungle. I've been pretty melancholy this week, in between all the stress and absurd drama. Today I was reflecting upon friends and how grateful I am for the good ones I have. There are times when I feel really alone and lost, but I really am blessed. And I hope they all know how much I cherish them.

It's getting late and I need to get up early to get a jump on work. And pilates class. Ugg, I am so incredibly unhealthy right now. April has been From Hell. I have only managed to exercise a small handful of times and my diet has been abysmal. And let's not even talk about the smoking, okay? Because it's not good. Earlier today I snapped out of a catnap and rushed to check the PO Box for donations so I could send the final list of sponsors to the program designer. I was so out of it, my left arm felt numb and I was certain that I was having some sort of attack and would die while driving downtown. (I have a penchant for the drama, apparently.) At that moment I swore that I wasn't going to smoke anymore, for good, forever, but after the Rachel movie, I fucking needed a smoke. Anne Hathaway smokes ALOT in that movie.

In the meantime, I have plans for the weekend to eat an entire Dr. Pepper cake from the Czech Stop Bakery in West, Texas. If you haven't tasted this heavenly confection and you have the opportunity to pull off at exit 353 while heading south on I-35 from Dallas to Austin, you MUST do it. Although you won't find it. I saw the cake, but there was a big black marker line through "Dr Pepper" on the label. I took it to the cashier and asked if this was in fact a Dr. Pepper cake and she said, "It is, but it isn't. Some guy from Dr. Pepper came in and said that we had to stop using the name. Weird 'cuz you'd think they would want the good publicity. And we already had these labels printed up so we just marked through the Dr. Pepper on them. See? We even had to mark out Dr. Pepper in the list of ingredients." What the fuck, Dr. Pepper? That cake is fucking good and you should be proud that a can of your delicious soda beverage results in such a moist, delectable creation of chocolate perfection.

Also from the tales of East Texas, last night I took two of the brood up to the little convenience store up the road to get a snack and saw that they still sell candy cigarettes out there. Just the other day I was having a conversation with someone about how they don't have those anymore and then there they were, a throwback to the days when parents would send their kids down the street to buy a pack and you could smoke everywhere. East Texas is in a time warp that way.


I let my cousins pick out a candy and when I took the above photo, my little cousin Sage said, "Can I get those?" No, child, I am not going to buy you candy cigarettes. And then we went home and I smoked a real one outside while she watched me through the window. I'm so going to hell, assuming there is one.

But backwardness aside, I plan to go out there more, and not always for work. I just want to see those kids more often than the maybe once a year I've been seeing them up until recently. I'm a decade older than their mom and I was always close to her and her little brother, taking them places and being there for her as much as I could when she was a teenage runaway. Or is it technically running away when your crazy father kicks you out? And frankly, it's the closest I've got to being the cool aunt Heather who always shows up with gifts and plays with them and talks to them about sex and being tolerant of gay people and people of different races and stuff. If I have to drive 3 hours to do it, so be it.

And now it's back to fretting over all that I didn't get done today, which will surely result in insomnia. Two more weeks in this month and then it's off to San Francisco for a few days. The light is visible in the distance and I'm chugging along toward it.

not a good sign

Oh my god, y'all, I just lathered up my hair twice with conditioner. When I reached for the bottle of shampoo, I swear my addled brain read "conditioner" and I put it down and grabbed the other container. For a brief second I thought the consistency of the "shampoo" was a little creamier than usual, but continued to try and lather it into my scalp. I was a little frustrated at the dearth of sudsiness and the filmy texture of my hair after I'd rinsed it out, so I went another round. Nope, I still felt greasier than Spencer from The Hills. I just figured that all the oil my stressed-out body has been producing lately was overpowering the suds. Then I reached for the "conditioner" bottle and within seconds of applying it to my hair - lather! I grabbed the bottle again and realized my mistake. Yeah, I'm a dumbass.

Now for sleep...

Why? WHY??

Okay, so why exactly did I convince my boss to let me do this pro bono appeal? And did I really think it would be fun to write the brief? What exactly did I think was the least bit not-painful about any sort of legal writing? What is wrong with me?

I'm home sick today, although now I technically feel fine. So here I am in my yoga pants, on the couch, staring at a stack of books and papers, stepping outside to smoke periodically, eating shitty food and having massive law school flashbacks. Why do I struggle with this so much when I actually find writing pretty enjoyable? Why does work have to take all the fun out of it? And if I were to fulfill my dream of getting to write what I want for a living, would that also start to be an arduous task?

The thing is that it's actually a pretty interesting brief. The appellant is completely nuts and before I had even researched or written a word, I had the organization of the brief pretty well established. Most of it seems fairly straightforward, mostly because he is so completely wrong on the law. Of course, the lower court transcript is somewhat messy because both parties were representing themselves and the poor judge was just trying to get the facts and reign in the opposing party's heaping helping of crazy. And the gems in the appellant's brief are oh, so priceless. If only I could share them with you. Although his 42 page handwritten brief is physically painful to read for more than two minutes at a time, it is nothing if not highly entertaining.

But of course this has to come crashing down on me right around the time I've got a million other things going on. I could ask the court for another time extension (or I could have been smarter and asked for 60 days instead of 45 days), but I really want this to be done and I truly thought I would have whipped this out much sooner. Why do I live in such deep denial of how strong Procrastination runs in my blood? This pointless blog entry is proof enough of that!

So, if you need me, I'll be the one smelling like an ashtray (and chastising myself for smoking at all) over here on the couch, the one with the Cadbury Mini Egg drool.

Dooce!

I got to meet one of my internet heroines today, Heather Armstrong of dooce. She was doing a booksigning for her memoir, It Sucked and Then I Cried, which is now on the NY Times bestseller list. I was exhausted from a long day at work, dealing with the after effects of too much wine, but it was worth it. I got there a little late and was given a wristband for the last group to get books signed, the end of a looooong line of women who also adore her, and I was about 3 hours late letting my little dog out to pee. I admit that I got a little twinge of total awe when she walked out in an adorable little black dress and pumps, perfectly accessorized, with her husband Jon of blurbomat. Seeing both of them was such a bonus, as I've been reading about their lives for years, getting inspiration from their writing and photography. Although she balked when someone asked her if she considers herself a celebrity, I totally think she is, even if it is mostly in geek circles. She spoke and took questions and she is so damn funny. I totally want to just hang out with her sometime. Can the universe make that happen, please? But when it came my time to get my books signed, I really wasn't up for trying to make much conversation with her. It was a long night and unlike many of the other women, I wasn't trying to pour my heart out to her or take up too much of her time. Although to her credit, I've never seen an author at a booksigning be so gracious to every person who approached her. I promptly came home and opened up the book to the chapter where she describes checking herself into a mental institution, when her post partum depression became so overwhelming it was going to do her in. God, I admire her for the frankness with which she has addressed her mental health issues. That and her wit got me hooked on the site and I keep coming back everyday. I've even sent her an email to thank her for it, because I don't think it can be said enough.

I congratulate Heather on her much-deserved success and applaud her bravery, frankness, humor and talent. She is like a lightening rod for the nuttiest, most judgmental crazies on the internet and she handles it with grace and style. She's blazing trails for women on the internet just by writing about her life, by making herself vulnerable and then not backing down. I was more than happy to give up an evening of much-needed vegetation on the couch, watching Lost, in order to spend a few minutes in her presence.

red-eyed and wild-haired

I hate you, April 2009. Go away.

Is it just me or was last week just totally fucked? I polled some folks at the bar the other night and the responses ranged from it was an off week to it royally sucked giant blue balls. (That was me.) I thought, "Okay, one bad week. Whatever." Then Monday hit. First, my hearing out in BFEast, TX was a total disaster that lead to much running around on my part. Lesson learned: do not ever believe what someone else tells you. Go with your gut. It was partially my fuck-up and partially the evil judge I had to deal with. Then I had a shitty client meeting on a shitty case that I just want to click my heels and make go away. I am so fucking over family law it's pathetic. Then there was a very long drive home and I ended up falling into bed and passing out fully clothed and I slept for almost 10 hours. My mouth tasted purty this morning.

Then I woke up and get a phone call from my mom telling me my favorite uncle passed away last night and it's set the tone for the entire day.

Now I'm just trying to deal with best I can. I have tons and tons of work to do, but I have that thing going on where you cry off and on throughout the day and it makes you absolutely exhausted. Despite all of this, I have gotten some things accomplished so I feel slightly less overwhelmed. But I still feel like life has been steadily punching me in the gut this week.

I need a drink.

It's always slutty

None. It's all semantics. Sexy is just slutty in classier wrapping. And nothing wrong with either!

I'm experimenting with Plinky, because I'm trying to be like the cool kids on the internets. It's a site that gives you a prompt question and you choose an answer and then type in an answer to a follow up question. Then you can upload to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I should have included an intro because the paragraph above is confusing. The prompt question was "Trampy or fun?" And the multiple choices were "slutty" and "sexy" and I chose slutty (of course), hence the title of this post. The paragraph was in answer to the question "What's the difference?"

Basically, this is blogging for lazy asses (like me) who don't want to bother thinking up topics for their posts and want to do things like update blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. all in one place. Because everyone needs to know what I'm doing/saying/thinking at all times, right? I am completely devoid of originality lately. Ugh.

What the...WHA??

I'm taking a break from my schedule of no-time-for-anything to bring you this.

I have no idea.