Computer-less

So my laptop, she is tired, she is ill, she is unhappy, she is kaput.

After a run which restored to me some of the sanity I was so sorely missing, I went to the Apple Store yesterday and was told by a supremely condescending tech guy that my hard drive was failing. After a year and a half of use! Boo.

So off she goes, the laptop, to get a new hard drive, and to have her memory wiped clean of all those pesky files. Thanks to the tech guys at school, though, I did back up everything (except music files -- forgot, and by the time I got to the Apple Store, my CD drive wasn't working either).

Fortunately, I bought the 3-year warranty when I got the computer last year, so it cost me nothing to get a new hard drive. And you know, I like not having a laptop around. It's like a squarish, white, 5-pound elephant in my room -- and I do enjoy imagining a cartoon elephant squished uncomfortably on my desk -- that silently demands attention all the time: the emails I should be responding to, the passport I should be ordering, the loans I should be consolidating, the notes I should be taking on my reading, blabbity blah blah. With all the computers I have access to in the school, it's not a burden to get access, and I like having my room be just my room, not another place where I should be doing work.

Ooooh, I'm just going to hate having a PDA, aren't I?
------------------------------

So today, I got up late, went for a run, dithered around for a while, and finally got to work around 3 pm. Capital punishment professor, you are on CRACK! 70 pages of reading for Monday and 30 pages for Tuesday? The hk, she weeps, because it is 7 pm, and she still has 30 pages of Supreme Court opinions to go before she sleeps, and she should have gotten this done and gotten a few pages of con law done by now, and really, Tony (Scalia) and Clare (nce Thomas), can't you play nice and stop sniping at the majority in every single g-d case we read? Actually, I'm talking to all of you. Yeah, you guys, in the robes. Just stop it. 20-page opinions and 20-page dissents, with 10 pages devoted to whether the attorneys only had information from two social services reports and whether the lower court knew that the attorneys only had info from two reports -- just freakin' ASK the lower court what it knew! Christ Almighty.

In the good news category, my plea to friends in New York has resulted in some very attractive offers and suggestions for summer housing, and things are happy happy joy joy in that sector.

Tomorrow, I shall really get out of the house by noon, go over to the undergrad library and do lots of productive history research until I go pick up mum at the airport by 4 pm. (Good plan, hk!) (Thanks.)

More on the stress thing

I'm not sure why, but I can't stop freaking out about all the work and errands that have to get done before May 15. And this is why I've been sitting here since 9 am -- doing some work, yes, but spending a good deal of time trying not to hyperventilate and cry. You know when you feel so overwhelmed that you don't know where to start, and so you do useless things, like clip your nails or delete old emails one by one, because you can't face the mountain before you?

I think I'll go for a quick run, in the hopes that I chill out.

Stressed?

Oh, just a tad.

Not only is my mother coming for a visit (yes, self-induced, I know), my father is planning a visit the SAME weekend. Has a business meeting in New York on April 3, and thought he'd drop by a few days earlier to hang out. Which I would normally love and drop all things to do, but -- see mother visiting. So I spend an hour on the phone this evening trying to plan things so I can see my father for the first of probably only two times this year, call my mother to see how she feels about seeing him, hyperventilate on the phone with life coach BC for half an hour, call my mother back to tell her the plan, wait for my father to call back from Korea so I can tell HIM the plan, and all's well that end's well, right?

Hey, maybe they'll realize that they're actually still in love and like, renew their vows and shit, and it'll be like a very special 7th Heaven episode!

Or maybe hell will freeze over and I can go ice skating this weekend.

And I STILL have a thousand and one pages of con law reading to do. Yes, it's really that boring. Yes, the textbook reads like a law review article on major crack, and why the HELL do these authors even bother with writing this "textbook" when it's really geared toward law professors who have the background, interest, and knowledge to debate issues like whether the 11th Amendment (state immunity from individual lawsuit brought by citizens) clashes with section 5 of the 14th Amendment (Congress' enforcement of the rights in the 14th Amd) and not at ALL geared toward law students who are trying to just get a handle on constitutional law for the FIRST TIME in their lives? To messieurs Stone, Seidman, Sunstein and Tushnet and M. Karlan: a big, sweet, smiley FUCK YOU from hk.

I do not have time to grapple with the intricacies of the limits on Congressional power to enforce Reconstruction amendments. I need to be taught the law. 'Cause you know, there are these things? Called students? By definition, they are here to be TAUGHT?

So, seriously. I cannot finish the reading. I need a strategy. Which probably means I skip the majority of "notes" following each case and depend on the lectures for clarification of the issues.

It seems so sad and counterintuitive that I am TRYING to do the reading, I am TRYING to understand and engage with the material, but time dictates that I CANNOT. I cannot go to my clinical twice a week and read 120 pages of con law and 100 pages of capital punishment each week and research and write my 25-page history research paper by May 17 and go to class and do the activities I enjoy and simultaneously keep my sanity. There is no way.

I am but a simple lass who likes to do what's assigned and try her best to keep up. I've no head for strategy and intrigue. I don't want to seek out the Golden Outline of past Sears Prize winners (the award for the highest grades, given each year) and I don't want to plot out the path of least resistance. In a way, it's the lazy way to approach school, I guess. I don't want to take classes based on the availability of good outlines (oh, you better believe that's the way some people do it) or because the prof is an easy grader. I want to take classes that sound interesting, with professors who have a good reputation as good teachers. And I want it to mean something that I've tried.

Yeah, I know. Too much to ask.

Ghosts from the past

On my 30th, I received an email from my ex of 3 years ago, wishing me a happy birthday. Two emails later, I'm sitting here thoughtful and a little pensive, as you are wont to be after hearing about someone you thought you might never hear from again.

I broke up with my ex (almost exactly 3 years ago-- christ) in the most excruciating breakup of my life, and since then, have received emails from him once a year, on my birthday. I've wondered what he was up to, worried if he'd been called back into service (he was in the army when we met), hoped that he was doing better than when we broke up. Back then, he was broke, living with relatives, struggling to get through school, and thinking periodically of going back into the army.

Well, 3 years after the fact, he's on his feet, perhaps better than ever before: engaged, a houseowner, holding a steady job, finishing his degree. He even has the hound he always wanted. It appears that life, if not fair, can reward you for getting through the tough times.

I've long been over the agonizing, almost crippling sense of guilt I felt after breaking up with my ex, but my memories of him still have a shadow of that guilt tinting every photograph and reminiscence. I've thought that if I could only know that he was doing well, I could let go of the guilt completely.

Well, he's doing well. And I hope that the guilt finally is laid to rest. But it seems appropriate to spend a little time today thinking about the ways in which he enriched my life and continues to enrich it, not in a once-I-went-out-with-a-non-Ivy-guy-and-lived-to-talk-about-it kind of way, but in a "I once went out with a guy who had the biggest capacity for love of anyone I've ever met, and I became a better person because of him" kind of way.

By the way, that non-Ivy thing? Turns out he got into Stanford. The college that rejected me. How about them apples?

Spring break!

The first day of spring break, and oh, what a joyous day it's been!

10:30 am: wake up (that, at least, is good -- needed the sleep)
11:30 am: get to library. Read con law.
2:30 pm: lunch! Except -- school cafeteria is closed for spring break. Boo.
4:30 pm: back to library. Read, read, read. Are you ever so bored by what you are reading that you want to cry? And then realize that you are behind at least 300 pages of dense legal opinions and law review-type mental masturbatory discourse and that if you read every single minute of this spring "break" you would still not finish? And then further realize that doing well on the final -- which poses a hypothetical case and asks you to write a legal opinion in the style of one of the justices AND write another opinion for another case -- probably has nothing to do with the reading? And does this ever make you want to jump out of one of the windows of your extremely posh and state-of-the-art law library? Just asking.
7 pm: run off to meet out-of-town friends, before meeting a different set of out-of-town friends at 9 pm.

Con law book, I will melt you. That is, if my brain survives the melting process it undergoes everytime it encounters you.

Number Thirty

I had a great 30th birthday, even though I was and am suffering from some allergy/cold-flu-s sickness that manifests in violent sneezing, sniffling, fatigue and malaise. To wit:

- Went to clinical and conducted a meeting with a client (if by "conducted a meeting" you mean "stumbled through the possibility of settling a claim until I was completely stymied, at which point my supervisor took over")
- Happy hour at clinical at 4, which was a bit lame because most people are gone for spring break already, but followed by several students sitting around and discussing race and the Parody (more on that later), which was really fascinating and perhaps helpful
- Cambodia reading group at 7:30, which was far more fantastic than I could have hoped, given that many of the kiddies hadn't read, and some were there clearly just for the food. This was the brainchild of one of the clinical supervisors me and my co-leader for Student Org 2 work with -- he suggested a series of reading-group-style meetings about our project, and although the project fell through, we loved the reading group idea and went through with it. Because I'd read the book and suggested it, I sort of led the discussion, but I barely had to lead besides interjecting a question or comment here and there, because there were enough people who wanted to talk about the book and the history and the politics and the upcoming tribunal to really all teach each other. Yay!
- The crowning glory -- a party that Joiner threw for me, complete with Betty Crocker cake she made and green frosting spelling out Happy Birthday, hk. They even had a drink for me and my sniffles -- the hk, a vodka-and-Immunity Defense-orange-juice combo. The hk! The drink that launched a thousand ships. A number of people showed up, ranging from the Project Runway girls to the friendly LLM in the hall to the hallmates of last year to Mr. Destroyer (Ms. Destroyer called during the singing of the birthday song to say she was sorry she couldn't make it) to Friend to Squashman to Def and Stave, whom I especially applaud for coming down to the basement of the dorm and hanging with the kiddies on a school night. I had been of 2 minds about celebrating in this fashion, but it was great fun. Joiner is the definition of a good friend.
- And of course, all the birthday wishes from friends and family around the country.

Dang, I'm 30! Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Last night of the 20s

It's the eve of my 30th birthday, and here's what I'm thinking:

- I'm too busy to deal with my birthday.
- So my friend Joiner is dealing with it for me, and I’m thinking, hk, you lucky dog, you. You must have done something right in a past life to deserve this.
- Speaking on panel today in con law was dreadful, but having drinks with the con law professor this afternoon was actually kind of fun and much less weird and awkward than I and the other two kids thought it would be.
- I don’t know where I thought I’d be at age 30, but I didn’t think I’d be in a dorm room at Crimson College Law School, surrounded by law books. I’m looking around my 12x8 dorm room and wondering, is this the parallel life that the real hk gave a brief thought to and discarded? Did the thought take life of its own and get down and crazy and spin off into its own series? What’s the real hk doing? I hope she’s happy and fulfilled, wherever she is. Maybe she stuck close to home, on the west coast. Maybe she’s living abroad. Maybe she went to grad school and is trying to find a job. Maybe she’s married and has a kid. Bwah ha hah! Aw, man. Whew! [wipe a tear from the eye] No, she doesn’t have kids. It’s still me, after all. But she’s not in law school, I can tell you that.
- Sometimes I feel very young, and other times I feel old. Lately, I’ve been feeling old. Old enough to take on responsibility, but young enough to resent it.
- It’s not such a bad life, you know? Yeah, I know.
- Should leaving the 20s be a bigger deal than it feels? Hm.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

10 days ago, someone stole my keys.

Yesterday, my computer stopped working.

Tomorrow, who knows?

---------------------------
After calling Apple -- Apparently, one of my picture files is corrupted. The computer repairperson I spoke to on the phone suggested I take all my files off the hard drive, completely rebuild the OS, and add all my files back in groups to try to isolate the problem file. Considering that I have easily 10,000 pictures on the hard drive, this is not a feasible option.

Agh. It's 4 pm on Sunday and I have yet to:
- finish capital punishment reading (she IS on crack -- 130 pages over 2 days),
- start the research I stupidly took on for a professor
- upload examples of bad and good historical writing for my history class
- touch the con law reading for the past 2 weeks or the stuff I need to read for panel on Wednesday
- do anything except go for a run, shower, and read 15 pages of capital punishment

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Bad stuff:
- keys, computer, all the crap that needs to get done, mother coming for spring break, needing to find a place for the summer, taxes, consolidating loans, getting a work visa when I can't find my passport, being on panel in con law on Wednesday and not having started reading the 300 pages of briefs for panel
- clinical supervisor saying on Friday, "Hey, it's the last weekend of your 20s!" Thanks.
- Ms. Destroyer getting all up in Joiner's face about some position in some organization they do; likewise for getting all up in another friend's face about some joke she (the friend) pulled on her.
- Mr. Destroyer totally leading a friend on, said friend reciprocating, me having to straighten her out on Mr. Destroyer's M.O.
- research for a scarily smart professor, on top of everything else. Luckily, not legal research, but possibly worse -- social science research.
- spring? it's 40 freaking degrees out there!
- spring break, but spring "break" = research for prof, catching up on 500 pages of con law, hosting Mom, going down to NYC to look for apartments.

Good stuff:
- an amusing interchange from last week's law school Parody:

"It's either total corporate whoredom, or public interest poor-dom."
"Really?"
"Yes."
[Small voice from the audience: "It's true."]

- con law reading group on Friday night, which consisted of getting together with people to discuss a book written by Justice Breyer. Still can't believe it. It's like what everyone thinks Crimson Law Students do all the time, instead of what we really do, which is lay about watching Project Runway and American Idol and complaining about the lack of free coffee after 12 noon.
- good midterm eval from my clinical supervisor, who is the first lawyer I've worked with who makes me feel like I could actually be a lawyer.
- uh, birthday, I guess. (Oh shit, need to get bday presents for bigbro and Auntie E!)

Long absence

Sorry about the long absence. (I'm going to cheat and retroactively fill in stuff from the last 10 days gradually.) Double M was in town doing research last week, and I had and have a shitload of work coming at me from all sides -- it's crazy, and I feel like I'm drowning under all the reading and demands from various quarters.

Today, I skipped one class because I hadn't read for it (I was in training for advanced mediation skills over the weekend), and realized the horror: 109 pages over two days. I realize this may not sound like a lot to other grad school disciplines, but consider this: it typically takes me an hour to read 10 pages of any given assignment.

Reading an opinion in preparation for discussion in class is not like reading a history article (which I've read several of for my history class this semester). Getting the general gist is not sufficient. You have to understand the logic leading up to the end point, which requires careful reading. Supreme Court opinions are the worst, because in the kind of cases we're reading for capital punishment, there's often 2-6 different opinions, all responding to each other (often snarkily, which is entertaining), focusing on different things, and using past cases and opinions in different ways to support their arguments. I took 3 pages of notes on one case I read tonight, and that's not really that rare.

If I had enough time to read this shit and think about it and place it in a framework with all the other cases, maybe I'd find it enjoyable. But I don't have nearly enough time. If I spent every spare minute reading until the end of the semester, I still wouldn't finish.

Sigh. I need a strategy, instead of blindly reading everything so carefully. I made the mistake of taking "thinky" classes (read: the final will reward creativity and brilliance) instead of black letter law classes (read: the final will reward you if you can apply the law you learned), and I'm paying for it.

I'm also paying for the 2 days a week I don't read at all (except on the subway to and fro) because I'm at my employment law clinical, which has its own demands and stresses.

Plus, there's drinking to be done! And Destroyers to mess with!

Ack.

Full and First Friday

Full: my clinical supervisor told me at the end of yesterday's work day that it had been fairly typical of a young associate's day. (While he said it, I thought -- except that at a firm, the partner wouldn't have been so nice and patient, with billing on the mind.)

I got to work around 9 to finish reading a deposition transcript in preparation for the 10 am depo. The 10 am depo was really quick (just an hour), and then we de-briefed with the client about the deponent's answers and how he presented.

The client meeting took 1.5 hours, during which my supervisor was incredibly respectful and patient (I started zoning out in patches, frankly -- the problem when you haven't been trained in law is that you don't realize what's legally relevant a lot of the time).

I had a quick lunch, and then spent an unexpectedly long time researching a procedural question, which was kind of interesting. (It didn't involve looking at cases, just at rules and statutes. Which you would think would be straightforward and clear, but when the federal rules just say, "Oh, just follow the state rules," and the state rules say, "Oh yah, just do A or B," but you can't really do A the way they say it because the opposing party isn't in the state and B involves getting a third party to do the deed -- well, mud is all I can say. Clear as mud.)

I wrote a follow-up email to our client, reviewed my supervisor's notes from the meeting and added my own, scheduled a stenographer for another deposition, left a message for another client to have her come in, started writing up questions for a deposition next Friday (which I was originally scheduled to do, but found out yesterday that I can't -- sad! but relief as well), and then ran out of time and took stuff home to deal with over the weekend.

So my Friday was busy and eventful and varied, which was great, but while I was observing the deposition and the client meeting, I thought, "Oh, I canNOT do this."

First: The first Friday of each month is a late-night meat market-type event at Crimson City Museum of Fine Arts. I went last semester with some of the girls, and it was pretty meat-market-y, but Joiner and I loved seeing the Ansel Adams special exhibit, so it was well worth it.

Last night, after downing a couple Bombay Sapphire drinks (B.S. is one of the sponsors, I think, so they get a special B.S. bar), we saw another wonderful exhibit -- David Hockney. I've always liked Hockney's California stuff, which to me captures the curiously flat light and cool warmth of Los Angeles, but I didn't know how brilliant his other stuff was until last night. I especially liked the photo collages he did -- inspired by Picasso, he uses slightly different versions of the same person or scene to create a dynamic, living quality to the works. There was a really poignant one of his mother at a medieval ruin in England, as well as the one I thought most perfectly artistic: a 6-photo collage of Billy Wilder lighting a cigar.

But all his stuff was just gorgeous -- the line drawings of his father, so full of affection, his brilliantly executed watercolor portraits, the late-90s oils portraits of his mother and friends in the same electric colors, his 1960s take on A Rake's Progress, the series he did of museum guards using a camera lucida to trace their likenesses on paper. And what was heart-warming was the fact that he used his friends and family members as subjects all the time -- there is great tenderness in many of his works. Man, I wanna be friends with a famous artist.

The centerpiece of the exhibit, but (frankly) one of the less interesting pieces:


One of my favorites in the exhibit was My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, Nov. 82 #4 (1982). Notice Hockney's shoes in the foreground, reminding the viewer that he's there and creating a connection with his mother, alone as she seems.

From 9 to 9

9 am: I set out to the administrative hearing that my clinical supervisor emailed me about last night. It's a discrimination case, but the client is also trying to get unemployment insurance, so the hearing's about that.

The adversarial method is so frickin' inefficient. The hearing officer was very inexperienced, so that made it slower, but the whole question-answer format of the direct examination is such an ineffective method of getting the story out. I came into the waiting room and got the story from the client and my supervisor in 10 minutes. Yeah, it was one-sided, but it was coherent. In the format of the hearing, which mimics a trial in procedure, it took an hour to finish direct examination of the client -- still to come are the cross-examination by the other party, the direct examination of the other party, the cross of the other party, and (possibly) closing statements by both parties. It's nuts. Adversarialism sucks!

1 pm: My supervisor and I get back to the office. He very nicely buys me lunch.

2 pm: Clinical staff meeting. It's pretty light this week -- two students are out (in Rio, for Carnival -- woo woo!). We chatted a little about my unpleasant phone conversation with an attorney last week who implied that we were filing frivolous lawsuits. Bad lawyer! Bad lawyer! Now go to the naughty room and think about what you've done.

I get assigned another case, and spend an amusing and frustrating 5 minutes on the phone trying to speak with a non-English-speaker about scheduling a meeting. I finally give up, roll my eyes at myself for growing up in California and not taking Spanish, and spend at least 25 minutes trying to schedule a translator, myself, and my supervisor for a meeting time with the client.

2:30 pm: Get an email from Mr. Destroyer, inviting me to come bowling tomorrow night. He ends his 3-line missive with: "Say yes."

I reply, with my regrets. I end my email with: "Suggest something else." (No, you di'int! Oh, but yes I did. I almost didn't, but life is short and brutish and unhappy, and you gotta laugh while you can.) No reply to my reply.

4 pm: Leave for school, because we have clinical workshop tonight.

5 pm: Workshop. Tonight we did negotiation, starting out with an exercise that went like this -- there's a hundred dollars on the table, and you get to propose how much to give to the person sitting across from you. If the other person doesn't accept, you both get nothing. Most of us offered fifty bucks and most of us accepted it. Which is fair. But suppose I offered you $1? If you were acting like the supposed rational person, you'd take it, even though I got to keep the remaining $99. I mean, you'd be ahead $1. Of course, very few people would take it, because that's a jerky thing to do with $100 of free money.

The exercise was to show us sample factors that might influence a negotiation. Then we went and did a mock one with the instructors playing opposing counsel. It was a bit nerve-wracking, a little like mediation, and felt like a lot of bullshit posturing at times. Really, I don't deal well with adversarialism. I felt like saying, yo, cut the bullshit, yo. There's no way in HELL we're taking $1000 when you'd be incurring at least $40,000 in attorney's fees just to get to summary judgement. What, do you think we're morons? Puh-leez.

7 pm: Workshop ends, I hoof it over to another building on campus.

7:10 pm: My phone rings -- it's the food I've ordered for the human rights group meeting. Mm, pad thai.

7:30 pm: My co-leader and I start our meeting, explaining that we're taking a little different approach this semester -- instead of a couple random projects, we're focusing on one project on the upcoming tribunal in Cambodia, and expanding our activities to reading/discussion groups. Just a couple meetings to educate ourselves about the history of the conflict and human rights abuses being addressed in the upcoming court. I'm pretty psyched about this, because going to Cambodia was one of the most moving experiences of my life, and this way my co-leader and I get to learn more about something that really interests us. This should cut down on the extreme resentment I have about having to lead a research project, since legal research = HATE for me.

9 pm: Back in the dorm. Joiner takes a couple digital photos of me so I can send one off to my summer job (they want a passport-size photo for some reason). They all look like crap. So I'll take another one in the morning; maybe a night's sleep will help me look less pissed-off and greasy.

Okay, time to bed.

Of fringes and distractions

So. Here's how it went. I met Not-Boyfriend at 5:30, we walked over to this rather cool deli-type sandwich shop. Nothing particularly remarkable about our conversation or stroll over. We ordered, sat down, chatted about classes, life. He explains he has to be somewhere at 7:30 because his friend group decided to get together every Tuesday at a bar to hang out, to avoid the difficulty of finding time convenient to everyone (which, I can attest, is extremely difficult -- these busy Crimson kids!).

I congratulate him and his friends for making that attempt to get together so regularly. And then he says, yes, well, there are those friends, and then "there are people on the fringes, like [gesture indicating me]."

Taken aback, I say (in mock honored tone): "Ooh, a fringe friend!"

"Well," he replies, probably not having meant it to come out that way, "I'm sure I'm on the fringes for you too..."

I shrug non-committedly, and the conversation carries on.

Okay. As my friend Pearl once said, "Now it is time to complain." So, I AM a fringe friend -- last night was only the fourth time we've spent any time together! And actually, it's very nice that he makes the effort to solicit my companionship for errant meals here and there, considering that he's in his last semester of school and all. But c'mon. It is kinda weird to just out and say, yo, fringe friend, you're a fringe friend.

Anyway. I was a little sad about it, but I feel like it is now crystal clear what his intentions are. In fact, such a (refreshingly!) unambiguous signal is liberating, and no, I'm not making lemonade out of sour grapes or whatever. It's more like -- well, you know when you like someone, and the someone seems to like you back, and you're all atwitter because you obsess over every last interaction and word and gesture, thus sustaining the obsession, but then your object of affection starts, like, dating someone else, and you realize it was all a big fat LIE, and then you basically wonder what you saw in the big ole creep in the first place? Well, it's totally like that, but with a lot less bitterness. The promise of returned affection is a big aphrodisiac, and in the face of uncontrovertible proof demonstrating a lack of said affection, your own obsession/infatuation starts to fade pretty quickly.

There it goes! Fade, fade, fade!

Of course, it fades a lot faster with distraction around. I was feeling kind of bummed out last night, so I went back home and whined to Joiner for a while, and then I went upstairs and called Mr. Destroyer.

"Hey, Mr. Destroyer. It's hk."

"Hey, what's up? I didn't recognize your phone number, but I picked up anyway."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me too. How are you?"

"I'm feeling low."

"Me too! I was just about to buy something for myself, for some retail therapy."

"I was just about to go buy a drink for myself."

"Really?"

"Yep. And I think you should go buy a drink for yourself with me."

"That is awesome. I love that you called me. Where do you want to go?"

And so we ended up drinking at a shi-shi (sp?) bar. I had a martini and a glass of muscat; he had port and a champagne cocktail. We talked about waking up on the wrong side of the bed ("But I woke up in the middle of the bed," he says, "what does that mean?"), the dearth of affordable massages in the U.S., becoming/marrying a foreign service officer, and a number of other silly things. I actually told him he was a Destroyer, which he denied -- whatever! I was most amused, and tolerably well distracted. Then, for whatever reason, I demanded that he ride me home on the crossbar of his bike, which he did. And that was amusing and distracting as well.

(Look, it was the last day of the bluest month of the year, and the eve of my birthday month. Surely it was all defensible, despite the destructability possibilities?)

F**k fringiness! Go distraction!

PS. I had an extremely vivid, no doubt alcohol-inspired dream last night: chased by faceless paramilitary types, I escaped into a subterranean waterway system with a group of other people, only to find that the world below was populated by awful monsters that pounced on humans and turned them into zombie-like creatures. (This is, by the way, the actual plot of Resident Evil, a kick-ass bad-good Milla Jovovich video game-inspired movie.) So I was wondering aloud to Joiner today what it meant, and she said, "Let's see... you're escaping from one danger, only to find that you are faced with another danger. And the monsters underground, they... what do they do to the humans?" "Uh, zombify them?" I answered uncertainly. "What's another word?" "Um, transmogrify?" I tried again. "How about -- destroy them?" At which point I bowed down to her snarky brilliance.

'nuther glas?

yeah, probably not. just a vodka martini and a muscat later, and i'm all silly and happy. not-gay boyrfiend? just plain not-boyfeidn. and mr. Destoryer? fun! especially over drinks. he got back togehter with mrs. destroyer this winter and then borke up and she apparently said, "yo, i shoulda listened to hk when she told me not to get together with you again" -- which i ttotally didn't even tell her, but would have. cause he's a destroyer! what do you expect? and he did say, "i know that's why you don't trust me, but " --- um, actually, i forget what he said after that. i'm just amused that he remembers me saying that i don't trust him. which i don't. but then i made him ride me home on the crossbar of his bike. whee! too drunk to care and loving it. joiner says i'm her hero. i'm my hero too. way to take sour grapes (not-boyfriend) and make em into sweet sweet oblivion -- er, liquor. woo!