Law school is like a bad boyfriend.

Ha! Psych! This is just me reminding myself to spew out my 10 minute rant on this topic at a later date. Like perhaps after I've finished my paper for legal writing. Which now seems like it will be "never."

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other.

OK, I heard this on KEXP today, and my first thought was, "Wow, that guy's doing a really subtle Willie Nelson imitation." No. It's actually Willie Nelson. Singing a song about gay cowboys. Wow.

Hm. I think this is kind of bad.

In the February 13 & 20, 2006 issue of the New Yorker, there's a two-page ad on p. 26-27. It's for AT&T communication services, and it features some guy named "Roger." It seems like maybe we're supposed to know who Roger is, but I don't. Some tagline in the ad says, "The World According to Roger: find your passion first, job second." This is "written" on a piece of music paper that overlays the bottom right corner of the ad. The main body of the ad is a large picture of Roger sitting on a swanky couch in a nice library-type room. Does it sound like a bad ad? It's a bad ad.

Anyway, I'm scanning this bad ad for cues to who this "Roger" guy is, and thinking things like:

• If Roger's so cool, why does he have a cheapass Dell laptop?
• Hm. But I like Roger's coffee table. It's cool.
• What's with the portable record player?

And then finally:

• Wait--why does Roger have "Examples & Explanations: Civil Procedure" on his bookshelf?
• Wow--is that the Torts one too?
• I wonder if Roger would let me borrow that?

I don't know who's more pathetic--me or "Roger." (Hint: me.)

Another disturbing thing I have said to my dog.

(While play-fighting...)

Oh no! Am I gonna need a face transplant? Aaa! I'm gonna need a face transplant!

Completely inappropriate and somewhat disturbing things I say to my dog.

No. You can't go eat more dirt. I don't want to make you feel like I don't accept you as a dog, but people really don't like that.

You pretend you're play fighting, but I know better. You're a very angry little dog! You're filled with anger! And resentment! Anger and resentment! Grr! Grrrrr!! You're seething! You're seething with anger and resentment!!! (Now switch to voice of dog) "I was supposed to be a wolf! You humans fucked me up! You fucked me up!!"

You stink. You're a stinky little dog.

Why must you torment me like this?

Dogs are so dissatisfied. They're full of desires. Dogs never have enough.

OK you little scuzzly butt, let's go for a walk.

(Singing, to the tune of the Waitresses' "I know what boys like") I know what dogs like, I know what pups want. Dogs like, dogs like, dogs like walks. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah...

You're just evil. You're an evil dog. Evil dog.

Let's see if I can drive this thing...

Mike, of the creatively named Mike's Web Log, has tagged me for a meme.

I have a couple of fears here:
1) I don't think I have enough blog buddies to send the meme to, so it may die (or become significantly less vigorous) with me.
2) Blogger has a scheduled outage at 9:00 PST, 27 minutes from now.

OK, here's the first part, where according to Mike I have to "Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot."

1) Haligweorc
2) King Alfred
3) polyglot conspiracy
4) mike's web log
5) Oh, Please (or superannuated 1L - I don't really know what to call myself)

Next select five people to tag.

1) eat light
2) velvet rut
3) aporia (who never writes anything. on the blog, I mean.)
4) [and, uh, that's it...]
5)

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was in a doctoral program in English, just starting to read for my qualifying exams. I think that entailed a lot of drinking. I was teaching a particularly weird section of Freshman Composition which was over 50% foreign students, and me without any ESL training. Superficially, things were going well. However, on another level I was starting to check out on the academic game. I was living in a great apartment on Capitol Hill, a really solid 1922 building with old school plaster (changes the sound of the rooms, smells different too) and lots of Panamanian mahogany. I cried when I moved out of that building.

What were you doing one year ago?
I had just gotten into law school. In fact, my admission letter is dated February 8, 2005. I was working at my old job and I think there was some kind of going-out-to-lunch celebration, but my memory is unclear. At work, I was trying to kickstart some lame project that our sales force had sold, but the client stakeholder didn't really want. Eventually, that died.

Five snacks you enjoy (As I attempt to answer this, I realize that in order to have snacks, one must eat something else as meals. So this is more like "Five things I eat that other people might consider to be snacks.")
1) Bread and stinky cheese
2) Chocolate of whatever form
3) Nuts
4) Those schmancy mini carrots
5) Double tall mocha with whip and a ton of cinnamon.

Five songs you know the words to
1) Lola (The Kinks)
2) You’re So Vain (Carly Simon)
3) Let My Love Open the Door (Pete Townshend)
4) Queen of the Savages (Magnetic Fields)
5) Mexican God (Robyn Hitchcock)
Can you tell that halfway through that, I thought "Oh crap, this is going to be like 'greatest hits of the late 70s and early 80s. Abort! Abort!!'"? If I hadn't done that, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Rolling Stones) would have been #4 for sure. OK, there’s lots more. Like most of Hank Williams, and all kinds of standards (I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Love for Sale, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes…). Hmm. I don't usually think of myself as a person who knows lots of song lyrics, because I'm not a person who sings. Weird.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire (Are we talking multi-millionaire, or just a flat million? If just $1M…)
1) Pay off my student loan debt and pay for the rest of school.
2) Pay off my mortgage.
3) Save my house from becoming ‘dozer bait by doing some wacky shit where the current house becomes the middle story of a two-story thing over a full-height basement. Remodel the kitchen too.
4) Help my nephew(s) with college.
5) Get the yard professionally landscaped.

Five Bad Habits
1) Too much time online, reading, or looking for distractions.
2) Nail-biting.
3) Sometimes forgetting to brush my teeth at night.
4) Being self-critical and insecure.
5) Incredibly bad housekeeper.
Most of my bad habits are more about the failure to establish productive routines, like cleaning the house, weeding the yard, etc. Even the routines I establish (brushing teeth, yoga) are surprisingly fragile.

Five things you enjoy doing
1) Eating delicious food with friends.
2) Taking the dog for a long walk.
3) Gardening, actually. Is it supposed to be sunny this weekend?
4) House projects involving power tools.
5) Looking at art.
Hmm. It’s really strange that “reading cases” isn’t on there.

Five things you would never wear again
1) Birkenstocks.
2) An ill-fitting bra.
3) Cosby sweater.
4) Wedge shoes with a hole through the heel.
5) An asymmetrical bob.

Five favorite toys
1) Google.
2) IMDB.
3) LexisNexis.
4) Sitemeter.
5) 5” circular saw (aka trim saw)

Oh jesus fuck, Betty Friedan died.

Here's the NY Times Obituary.

OK, maybe I'm old school, but Betty Friedan. She's older than my dad, yeah, but The Feminine Mystique was literally and absolutely the first feminist essay/analysis/thing I read, and it sunk in, and ideologically, she's just as much my mother as...who else? It's in the bone.

"It's a picture perfect evening and I'm staring down the sun...

...fully loaded, deaf and dumb and done."

Again, I love the iPod shuffle...

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine....

This here party, I just get bored..."

Perfect. The last guests leave my party, and this Patti Smith song comes on the iPod's shuffle.

I have a certain level of hostess ego, which was satisfied tonight by people who demanded assistance in exchanging emails with each other, which I suppose is as good as it gets in the 21st century...