All Things Profane and Sacred

Yesterday was an orgy of running hither and dither. Got home to a trashed house and a shame-faced dog. Today the landladies are baby-sitting him for me. I'm a-hoping today will be marginally better, but since it's my hell day (9-6 with no breaks), I'm not holding my breath.

Tommorrow is the first day of my last school year. As I write this, the Grateful Dead are softly singing "Tommorrow come trouble, tommorrow come pain." I hope that's not an omen or anything. I guess I'd better go out and have me a high time tonight.

It's been a really good weekend. I have a fetchin' grin for all the people I meet as I go a-walkin' down the street.

Ha! A challenge: http://www.dogtoyormaritalaid.com/. I got 11/14!

I was shaving in the shower today (not reccomended, but I was short on time) and just about had a nasty accident. It reminded me of an earlier nasty accident (warning: graphic description ahead):

I was soaking in the tub and shaving my armpits. Now, you'd think I would have this move down by now, but as I switched from right to left, I got too close to my face and managed to cut my lip open. For those of you who've never experienced a cut lip, they bleed like there is no tommorrow. I had to shower the blood off me, and explain the next day at work how I managed to cut my lip open while shaving.

All the fresh faced 1Ls were on campus yesterday for orientation. It made me feel old and crotchety. So I thought I'd dredge up some advice for the newbies:

1. You're going to want to drop out on occasion. The trick is not to.
2. Avoid Art LaFrance at all costs.
3. Use your powers for good, not evil.
4. Don't graffiti the bathrooms-trust me on this one.
5. Do or say something stupid every day. You're going to be fucking up a lot, so you might as well get used to it. Besides you never know when your stupidity will turn out to be brilliance.
6. Have some kind of life-don't let the pressure squeeze it out of you.
7. Your reputation is your gold.
8. Don't worry about civil procedure. No one else understands it either. Trust Emmanuals to get you through this one.
9. Don't be a whiney whinerson. Everyone else is busy too.
10. Make friends-most of these people will be your community for the rest of your freaking life.
11. Give yourself a while to get into the flow of things.
12. Don't procrastinate. If you figure out how to do this, let me know.
13. Everything you write is going to be much shittier than you're used to. This will change in time. Meanwhile, take the harsh, relentless, wracking criticism with a grain of salt.
14. Don't worry about finals. They are just like every other test you've taken in your life-I promise.
15. You are not your grades.
16. For god's sake, get a laptop. Type your exams. Check your email. Surf the web. Keep your sanity.
17. In this economy, you probably won't be able to get a job after your first year, so relax already. You'll be in so much debt by the time you're done that another $3,000 or so will just be a drop in the bucket.
18. Get a credit card that gives you air mileage. Since you're going to go into debt, you may as well get a few "free" vacations.
19. Try not to eat grilled cheese with bacon for lunch every day-you'll be sitting in front of the computer too much to be able to pull that off without a radical wardrobe change.
20. Wear sunscreen.

Apparently August is Anal Sex Month: http://www.goodvibes.com/cgi-bin/sgdynamo.exe?HTNAME=about/asm.html. D'ya spose that's a brown ribbon?

Well, Judeous now has an ear infection. I'm not sure why he's suddenly besotted with afflictions, but it's two more pills a day and an ear washing for him. (Notice the thoroughly incorrect use of the disjunctive).

For those of you keeping track, the pill count currently stands at:

• Four anti-biotics (to keep the skin under the bandage from doing bad stuff)
• Three anti-inflamatories (for his red swollen ears)
• Two anti-anxiety pills (to keep him from freaking out again)
• And a partridge in a pear tree. No, wait, I mean a nightly ear washing with this sweet, yet foul, ear wash stuff.

The absolute joy of pet ownership cannot be understated.

Why I want to do criminal law (Bad boys bad boys. . .):

Pair exchange blows with dead snake, baseball bat
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
By Jean Jonesgcnews@sjnewsco.com
LAWRENCE TWP. -- A dispute in Cedarville Sunday proved that just about anything can be used as a weapon.
Cedarville resident Michael File received several small lacerations on his back Sunday as the result of being whipped with a dead six-foot-long blacksnake, state police said.

File, 26, wasn't wearing a shirt when Kenneth Davis, 42, of the 400 block of 8th Street, Vineland, allegedly whipped him on the back with the snake in the yard of his Main Street home.
Davis later was assaulted by File with a baseball bat, authorities said.
State police said they learned that Davis had been attempting to let the snake, which was alive when the incident began, crawl into File's residence. File's father, whose name was not available, saw the snake approaching the front of the residence, stepped on it and beat it to death with a piece of wood. Police said Davis, who had been drinking, became angry and pushed the elder File.
Michael File told Davis to leave the property, whereupon Davis picked up the snake, twirled it over his head and assaulted Michael File with it, police said. The Files then went into the house.
Several minutes later, police said, Davis entered the File house and attempted to assault File's father. Michael File is said to have come out of his bedroom, grabbed a baseball bat, and hit Davis over the head with it several times.
As Davis was leaving the house, he was met by the Cedarville Rescue Squad, who transported him to South Jersey Healthcare, Bridgeton Hospital, where he was treated for lacerations of the scalp and released.
Davis was charged with simple assault.
Investigating troopers David Lawless and Arthur Ferrari were off duty Monday and additional charges are pending. Sgt. John Cuzzupe, station commander, said File's assault on Davis with the baseball bat is not considered aggravated assault because he was coming to the defense of another.
Davis' injuries from being flailed with the snake were not severe, Cuzzupe said.
Police were unable to say why Davis brought the snake to File's house. The reptile was not a pet but a wild snake found in the area, according to police.

So, I'm a huge phone phobe. I hate calling, I hate receiving calls, I hate dealing with phones in general. I even have problems talking to old friends or family members. I just don't like the cold faceless techo buggery of it all. Phone conversations just seem so phoney (ha ha). Bad puns aside, I seriously hate the telephone. Unfortuneately, as a single girl, I need to deal with the phone stage in any potentially fun situation. Pukey.

Buckets of rain, Buckets of tears. Got all them buckets comming out of my ears. The weather here is just fantastic today!

Went out by myself tonight to my favorite neighborhood tavern, and got myself invited to a pirate themed party. ARRGG Matey. I got a bit drunk and gave out my phone #-Ooops. Violated rule number one of drinking by yourself-never give out your real number when the beer goggles are firmly in place. But it was a fun night of pool I wasn't paying for, so whatever. The really drunk girl of the threesome I was playing with was falling down and knocking shit over, so I feel good.

Update: D'oh! Forgot to close out my tab last night. Have to crawl back in this afternoon and settle up.

This is the most hi-fucking-larious thing I've seen in a while:

"Looking for friend, girlfrind. maybe life partner not looking for sex enless we just cant help are selves. If this sounds like you e-male so we can talk more your pic gets you mine."

Culled from (where else?) craigslist.

Today I hauled 6 boxes of crap up into the U.S. Attorney's office. How does one accomplish such magic? Glad you asked:

The U.S. Attorney's office is located in the heavily guarded federal fortress, um, I mean building. To get in, you must first circle the building and the strolling security guards looking for the ramp so you can wheel your cargo on in. The ramp will be located as far away from your vehicle and the checkpoint as possible. You then try to produce some I.D. (Does it really make them feel safer knowing my name? Do they think a terrorist would have identification with her actual name on it?), realize you left your I.D. in the van, go back to get the I.D. and then feel like a skulking evil-doer for not having said I.D. mounted to your arm at all time.

You must then unstrap the heavy as shit boxes from your dolly and load them into the x-ray machine. At this point it will occur to you that you have no idea what is actually in the boxes, so you will hope the contents are not guns and dope and porn as you uneasily eye the guards' sidearms. You then push your empty dolly through the metal detector, and go through on your own. Then you strip off your clothes for the guards amusment until they decide you can go on up. You take this humiliation with a grain of salt, remembering Abu Ghraib.

Repeat three times. Go home and drink.

More fun with the no bite collar-

The collar is held on with heavy duty velcro straps. I came home the other day and immediately realized Jude must have been rooting around in my laundry basket because he had two socks hanging from his collar. What the hell do you suppose he's doing in my laundry basket?

I've been seeing posts on CL for LSAT study partners. I know it's wrong, but I feel like emailing these people-the text would probably go something like this:

GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!!!!!!

My professor is still hiding from me, which means I suddenly have a lot of free time on my hands. I suppose I could conceivably use this free time to do responsible stuff and such, but instead I'm improving my rather poor guitar skills. I've lost all feeling in the tips of my left fingers-I think I could run a blow torch over them and feel just fine.

Speaking of blowtorches reminds me of a period of time in high school where I polled people on that all important question, "Which would you rather do: eat a sandwhich bag full of pubic hair, or stick your fingers in a blowtorch?" Thus was my foray into to raw science: information which we currently have no use for, but may lead to important discoveries.

Oh, the results? Pretty unsurprising: only one person polled opted for the blowtorch. The rest took the pubic hair, except for one guy who threatened to beat the shit out of me if I ever asked him such a stupid question again.

Another trip down memory lane today. I'm a-doing my Sunday cleaning and listening to Jesus Christ Superstar (ok, fine. I like musicals. I am not ashamed.), which brings back so much past it damn near made me explode. Wondering whatever happened to the various folks that populate my past, and wondering if they ever wonder the same thing about me. It's funny how our lives can intersect in so many ways, and how you carry on a bit of the folks with whom you interacted, frozen in a slice of time, forever in a particular moment or era.

I'm thinking today about a guy I worked with back in high school. For some reason everyone I worked with called me Miss Amber (none of the other ladies were called Miss anything so I'm not sure what was up with that), so I called everyone Mr. (or Miss) First Name Here. It made me feel vaguely like I was living in a Joseph Conrad short story (Mistuh Kurtz? He dead.).

Anyhow, this particular guy's name was Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig was all mechanical and would fix your car up on the cheap, so long as you sat and talked with him while he did it. Now this may seem like a fair trade for getting your brakes done for $5 a side, but until you spend 6 hours listening to a guy explain in detail how your brake system works you cannot truely understand the trade off involved.

He spent the season working in the cranberry bogs and the rest of the year supplimenting his income with odd jobs about town. It's the sort of living you can afford when you live in a small town. While he may not have been the most sparkling human to walz through the galaxy, he was a really decent human being. The value (and number) of quietly good people shouldn't be underestimated.

I have spent way too much time on-line today, but I just wanted to post one observation before going out to enjoy this fine Friday the 13th. I am on no medications. None. My dog now gets (twice a day) a pain killer, an anti-anxiety pill and two anti-biotic pills. In addition, he gets a sedative once a day. I feel like I have Munchausen by proxy syndrome, pushing all these pills down his throat. I'm going to have to get him one of those day-of-the-week pill compartment dealies.

For some reason my digital camera goes through batteries like there is no tommorrow-Can anyone explain this to me? It's starting to get rather embarassing going through the check out at Safeway with stacks of AA batteries. The checkers are catching on. And yes, they are all going into my camera, thank you for asking.

Another day, another $100 vet visit. The Jude has his bad boy image to keep up, after all. He just won't let the bandages be. This time he got at them while I was sleeping. Since we've already tried the cone and sedatives, we now have this device called a no-bite collar. It's pretty complex-kind of looks like a really long neck brace.

My love affair with St. Vinnie De Paul began when I was about 16. I remember hearing about the three story tall thrift store and knowing I had to visit, if only to pay homage. I believe this muli-level St. Vinnie's was in Eau Claire (about a 3 or 4 hour drive from my hometown), but 16 is a prime age for road trips, so a few friends and I made a day of it. Fantastic!

When I moved down to Madison, St. Vinnie's was there for me. I swear, right down on Willy Street is the very best St. Vinnie's in the country. If you are in Madison, stop there to browse their book room-it has all of heaven and earth. I even managed to snag an annotated copy of "The Sexual Politics of Meat" (one of the most unintentionally funny books I've ever pseudo-read).

When I moved out here to Portland, St. Vinnies furnished my pad and provided a welcome release from my troubles. Hell, retail therapy should always be so cheap. But today my heart broke.

My neighborhood St. Vinnies is all closed up. It was full of Russian ladies with flaming accents and homey ways, books on the cheap and shady characters shopping for their shady families. Now it's empty, blank staring windows flanking anonymous walls.

I lost a bag of poop today. I know, bite back your sarcastic responses (Oh no! Was it a family heirloom?). All I know is that I scooped up Jude poop on our walk, got home, went to throw it away, and realized I no longer had the poop. I have no memories of ditching it anywhere along the way. Did the poop fairy spirit it away? Did I have some sort of black-out and go on a poop spree? Wherefore art thou poo?

A friend who goes back to ye olden days of Nort'ern Wisconsin came over tonight. We were talking about how intensely boring we really are, and realized that we are boring in almost exactly the same way.

Both of us love people watching and are perfectly content to spend the day walking around and staring at stuff, sitting and staring at stuff or hanging on the porch and bullshitting (oh-and staring at stuff). I'm sure this isn't a thunderbolt out of the blue for those of you who are playing at home, but these "activities" are actually just doing nothing at all.

So we posited that we were trained to enjoy these activities due to a childhood of deprivation in the middle of nowhere. You see, where we grew up, nothing was all there was to do, so I guess we just coped by becomming entertained by doing nothing. Ha! And I thought I didn't have any good deprivation stories!

Oh my freaking God. The temperature is supposed to be up over a hundred today. I usually subscribe to the Tom Robbins, "Weather: celebrate it, or ignore it" philosophy (ok, so I'm more striving to achieve oneness with this philosophy-whatever), but this is just too much.

If I wanted to live somewhere where the heat choked and killed, I'd be in Arizona. Seriously. I mean, I had the brochures and applications to go to school there when I realized I hated the heat too much to possibly be serious about it.

I was involved in a politcal discussion last night about the possibility/desireability of creating incentives for families to have less children. I said I thought there would be first amendment ramifications since such incentives would infringe the practice of any religion that didn't believe in birth control or whatnot. But I was thinking about it this morning, and now I'm not so sure that such incentives would violate the first amendment.

Now, I haven't completely thought this out, and I'm certainly not doing any freaking research today, so bear with the fuzzyness of my "analysis." The current line of first amendment cases suggest that a neutrally applicable law that incidently infringes on religious practice does not violate the first amendment. I think the incentives would be seen as such.

Of course, while I'm writing this it occurs that this hypothetical law would probably be scrutinized as affecting privacy interests, so it would be equally doomed. And beyond that, if the incentives were at all effective, it may lead to more abandoned children (especially since safe abortions are so hard to come by in many parts of the country, and for poor folks wherever they live). I dunno. Just some thoughts swirling around m'head today.

Tommorrow is the anniversary of Nixon's Resignation. Okay, I hear ya, another Watergate related post. But I can't help myself-I'm completely drawn in by the psycho-drama that played out on the national stage. So, I'll be all holed up on Monday, beer in hand, toasting Woodward and Bernstein and hoping that this next election will go in a way so as to avoid another Watergate blow-up.

Update: D'oh! Yesterday was the anniversary of the Nixon resignation. Shit. Well, I'm still toasting tonight-Nothing can stop me now. This is what my lazy research gets me.

Now that my running partner is stumbling around with his foot in a cast and a cone on his head, I've been taking him for walks around the neighborhood rather than the traditional run. It makes me kind of cranky to be missing out on my morning adrenaline rush (which substitutes the caffeine I used to mainline), but it's nice to interact with the weird folks who are about in the morning.

This morning, some strange guy told me that I was wearing the largest pair of sweatpants he had ever seen. I'm not sure what kind of freak catalogues sweatpants mentally (mentally being the operative word), so I wasn't sure how to take this. I inherited the pants from my last boyfriend, and while they are rather large on me, I'm sure they're not THE largest pair in existance. You see, while I don't often admit it, I have been to Wal-mart.

Another day of editing this monsterous paper lies ahead of me. I really like editing-seeing holes and surplusage, clearing awkward driftwood and rearraging a snarled paragraph into a coherent set of ideas that convey meaning. But a few hours of it and I feel completely done in. I was a bit of a shambling mess last night-I put off work untill the afternoon/evening-and spent 4 good hours crawling over the paragraphs. By the time I got done, fragmented sentences were marching up and down behind my eyelids. Now I'm fresh, and ready to charge off into Section III: Casual Connection: The Nature and Rights of Victim Status!

The goddamned ice-cream truck is driving through again. Poor bastard. How can you spend your day listening to the entertainer played endlessly in lollypop tones through tinny speakers? I have a friend who was an ice-cream truck driver for about a day. He confirms that it is an especially shitty way to earn your keep. Kids crying. Kids stealing. Kids throwing rocks. And the endless empty joviality of the burned out clown blaring an assortment of muzak at high volume.

I saw this on craigslist today and thought it was interesting:

The following is from a transcript of a May 14, 2004 Bill Moyers interview with Susan Jacoby:

"[...] in 1797 the Barbary Pirates were attacking American ships. And so, you know, President John Adams and signed in the Senate and the House unanimously signed a treaty that was arranged, the Treaty of Tripoli. And they were of course Muslims at the time in Tripoli. And one of the provisions of this treaty which was published in American newspapers and again ratified with no comment in the Senate, in the House and signed by President Adams, was that the United States is in no way a Christian nation is the exact statement." "Was in no way founded as a Christian nation. Therefore we have nothing. I'm paraphrasing now. We have nothing against they called the Muselmen then. They were reassuring the Barbary states that America, which was not founded as a Christian country, as the document states, was not going to interfere with their religious practices." "And this provision occasioned basically no comment. If the separation of church and state was not taken for granted even that early in the Republic by both the religious and the nonreligious in America why imagine the fight we would have over some agreement. You know let's say we signed a test ban treaty today and it said something like, 'We are not a Christian nation?'"

Okay-I know I've been putting this off. I've promised a comprehensive review of Clinton's biography, and then I punked out. See, the thing is this: If you're a Clinton hater, you're going to read a negative spin on everything. If you're a Clinton lover, you're going to read a positive spin on everything. In the beginning of the book, Clinton says that he is probably not as good as his supporters would say, nor as bad as his detractors would say. And that's the rub: everyone is already sitting on a side of the fence on the whole Clinton issue, so why bother?

For example, Clinton doesn't make one harsh judgement in the entire book. Even when pointing out his disagreements with people, he tries to find something he admires about the person or has in common with them (An example within an example: He goes so far with one politician to say that though they disagree on shit loads (my phrase) of stuff, they share a common debt to Thomas Jefferson, because neither of their home states would exist without the Louisiana purchase).

Now, Clinton lovers would say this shows a remarkable tolerance for diversity of thought, respect for people, non-judgementalness, insert made up adjective here. Clinton haters would say this shows a remarkable amorality-Clinton doesn't make judgments because he doesn't care about right and wrong. Of course if Clinton did make harsh judgments, the haters would cry, "Oh! But who is he to judge!"

So no review. T'would be an exercise in futility, and I only enjoy futility when it serves my own purposes.