The Definition of Weekend

About a week ago my brother/housemate mentioned that his friend/old roommate was coming for a visit this weekend. Now, this friend has been to visit for a weekend once before and let me say that the results of that last visit (The Weekend, Part One) did not endear me to the idea of another one ever again. Our house was a revolving door of drunk, rowdy boys that culminated in one night when no less than six of them came back to the house after the bars drunk, loud and prank calling Craigslist prostitutes WITHOUT MY BROTHER. My brother did not show up until noon the next day because, he who never meets girls, met a girl. Awesome timing bro.

So, could not have been less excited about The Weekend, Part Two until yesterday when I am suddenly struck by the realization that all I should have gotten my brother for Christmas was a big ass Dictionary because this "weekend" visit is actually from tomorrow (Tuesday) until next Monday. Wherein "weekend" = 6 days. What?

Whereupon he is so fired.

You can go home again...

...and you should. But do not expect that blog updates will be as frequent in your first week (oh, guess I should have mentioned that before).

Never fear loyal readers I have a lunch break and blog updates will surely flow from this point on. Unless some innocent diversion shall impead me (it is summer after all).

More soon...

Karma, bitch!

I really like to be right. It's one of my worst qualities. A while back I got taught a little lesson by fate, or karma, or God.

A friend and I disagreed about what artist wrote a particular song. I, of course, thought I was right and I knew I had the CD case in my trunk so I decided to prove it. The case was way in the back and I had to crawl back a little to get it. In order to do this I dropped my keys...you can guess what happened next I'm sure. Yes that's right, I locked my keys in my car trunk. Locked them in the trunk trying to prove a point about a song.

FYI: I was wrong, my friend was right.

I missed Heroes b/c of counterfeiters

This is what happened to me tonight.

I need to print something out. My copy card for the printers in the library is empty so I went to ATM #1, which is located in my building. to get cash to replenish it. ATM#1 was out of order.

No problem. I took a short walk across campus to ATM#2, located in a college dorm. ATM#2 has been converted to an exclusive US Bank ATM. I do not have a US Bank Card.

Fine. I call my friend who lives in my building to use her printer. She's not home.

Great. I walk out to the parking garage and to my car to go to ATM#3 a few miles away. My friend calls me back in route, but i decide to press on to ATM#3. I obtion the cash needed and drive back home, park and walk to the library. The law school is locked and my card isn't letting me in. Heroes has already started.

Whatever. I knock on the window and some chick opens the door. The two brainiacs already waiting and too dumb to think to knock on the window and I enter the building. I go to the library. The decidedly un-hitech card replenishing machine does not take multi-colored bills, which is what ATM#3 provided me with.

HOLY SHIT I AM GOING TO KILL MYSELF! The guy at the circulation desk does not have any change. I call my friend back and tell her I changed my mind about her printer.

After wasting about twenty sheets of her paper trying to figure out how to get her printer to print on both sides of the page I have printed out my document. Heroes is over.

And that is how counterfeiters made me miss Heroes.

Story of a Monday

I wonder how this story will be told. There can be no doubt that it will be a tragedy. Yet even the saddest most tragic story has light and dark.

There will be victims. In death these victims will be pure. Cherubs pulled down from the skies before their time was spent. They are casualties of the deep dark places of life that mostly stay hidden. Through the story we will peek in, get a glimpse of these places-the endless holes of life's brutality.

The heart of the villan will be a place of much interest. Yet we will step away quickly. The endless darkeness is too chilling for a stare. At a glance we will see too much of what scares us about the world, and perhaps we will see a little too much of ourselves.

Besides victims and villans, there will be heroes. Their brightness will turn these brutal holes to shadows. Oh, I wonder who will be the heroes of this story? Who are these heroes that allow us to see ourselves reflected in the light in their eyes rather than the shiny black spaces of evil? Heroes allow us to go on.

In the end both the light and dark will dimish back into natural light. The story is told but not quite spent. The last page turned but the words kept locked in some corner of our minds. We never quite forget a tragedy.

Spring Break

So I've missed a whole week of news and happenings while relaxing on Spring Break and trying hard not to pay attention to the world.

I will be back as soon as I remember what day it is.

Hey, it's a post about me.

On more final examination left on Monday. Tax law...yeah, shut up, you'll get yours.

So I'm going to my parents' on Tuesday and my exam is at 1:30 on Monday (til 4:30). I'm going to try and get all my Christmas shopping done on Monday night. Quite laughing! It's totally possible!

So yeah, I guess that makes me an optimist. Still, there is nothing I love more than some power shopping. It will be the perfect celebration for the end of exams. After two weeks of studying non-stop and 14 hours of exam taking Christmas shopping is child's play. I'll be taking some bitches out! See how I just went all gangsta? Yeah...don't mess with me!

So this post is pretty incoherent.

Sorry, but I'm saving all my coherence for tax law.

Snow Day

So no class today. That's nice. In honor of the snow day much of the Midwest's students are enjoying, I thought I'd share a story.

I think I've mentioned before that up until high school I lived in a very small town (population 2000 or so). Snow days were a fairly common annual occurrence given that it usually snows a few times a year in the Ozarks and many of the town's students lived in rural areas outside the city limits that became inaccessible by bus during inclimate weather. The final decision as to whether school would be cancelled or not rested with the Superintendent of schools. A man who just happened to live right across the street from my family.

Early one winter morning my brother and I woke up to a white world. We were hoping for a snow day but it was a hard call, only a couple inches of snow. We camped out in front the tv, closings scrolling across the screen, visions of snowball fights instead of Math, English and History dancing in our heads. Still no word. My dad came in the back door chuckling.

"There's not going to be any school today kids," he said with a big grin on his face.

"How do you know," we protested. The TV says...

"I was out getting the paper and I saw the Superintendent checking on the roads. He came out of the house, up the driveway, into the street and promptly slipped and fell flat on his back. There's not going to be any school today."

And there wasn't.

You can't make this crap up

A homeless person got mugged down the road from the University yesterday. A homeless person got mugged! A homeless person!

This is the kind of shit that happens in the most dangerous city in the world. I mean come on! I'm just saying.

In other crime news...Prison Break was ridiculous last night. Could this show get any less realistic? I love it so much!

This is a non sequitur.

As I've mentioned I have tax law this semester. You gotta give the IRS credit for the things they catch people doing. Even though they only catch like 10% of tax-evaders it is definitely not a piece of cake, what they do. They are good at getting people for stuff you would think is hard to track. I won't be committing tax fraud anytime soon.

No such thing as bad publicity?

How does it feel to live in the most dangerous city in the country?

Not good. Not good at all.

It doesn't feel good that my dumb ass decided to rest itself in the least safe place in the United States of America.

I can tell you one thing, the 'rents are not going to take to this news at all.

My mom was just telling me how good the World Series win was going to be for the image of the city. I hope the city enjoyed its day of good publicity.

A prison for your mind...

Yes I've been watching the matrix again, so sue me...

Moving on.

I took a trip for fall break to beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. While I could say a lot about my trip, I will leave it at this: everyone should be so lucky to go for a drive through Kentucky and Tennessee when the leaves are changing. (Not that Missouri leaves aren't nice.) When I take a drive like that I can't believe that there are people that live places with no trees, no space and no open air. Also I can't believe that they would think I'm crazy for loving life in good ole' Missoura. I guess it's all about perception. I'll also say that Nashville is probably my favorite "city". Far superior to Saint Louis, but I guess it figures that I'd like a place where music pretty much grows up from the ground.

It is almost November and that means we have reached the holiday season people. Christmas is a mere two months away, fall semester is winding down, and the Cards just won the world series. Life is pretty positive right about now. I'm not even suffering from a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), even though it has been cold, rainy and dreary for days.

It's also election season, which is proving to be a interesting mixture of intriguing and annoying. I wish somebody would get Rush Limbaugh a muzzle. Conservatives are getting to be like Christians, we can hardly rise up for those in our membership dragging us down. (Also talking to you Mr. Foley-- thanks a bunch.) Thank God for the radical Muslims doing thier part to make us look a little less like fascists. Luckily America has a massive superiority complex so they can tolerate it in thier political parties. I did catch a Rumsfeld press conference the other day that was beautiful to behold. The sadistic side of me loves how he gets up there and spends the entire time ridiculing the press to thier face. If we can't get substance then I guess it's nice to have some amusement.

I'll be on the lookout for the first How the Grinch Stole Christmas of the season. Last year it was Nov 12th, but I have faith that record can be beaten.

Go Guard!

Why does an itunes download seem so much more valuable than an actual dollar? I got a card for a free itunes download last time I went to the movies, and I just spent like 10 minutes on the National Guard website redeeming it. Now if they would have told me they were going to send me a dollar for reading all this crap about the National Guard there is no way in hell I would have done it. So either I'm just an idiot, or itunes should be charging more than a dollar per song.

I have two more cards, but you can't redeem more than one in a 24 hour period. I guess we'll soon see how far the rabbit hole goes. Oddly enough I've never read Alice in Wonderland. I believe I just thought it was wierd when I was a kid. Which for adults it's obviously a satire, but for kids it's just supposed to be so crazy wierd it's fun. I never got that stuff when I was a kid. I guess I've always been hard to impress (except when it comes to itunes music downloads).

One thing I love is when kids movies can appeal to kids on one level and adults on a totally different level. To this day I LOVE Mary Poppins, but of course it's not even close to the same movie it was when I was a kid. It's wierd how your perception of something you've loved when you were young can change as you grow older. It doesn't really even have to be that drastic of a period of time. The first time I read Gone With the Wind in high school I was all about Ashley, now I love Rhett Butler. It makes me wonder how I would have felt about stuff as a kid that I didn't discover until I was an adult. Like Harry Potter. Would I have loved those books when I was ten? When I was ten I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables, and I still love both of those.

Did this entry start out about the National Guard? Sometimes I scare myself a bit. When I was a kid we had a picture window in our front room. I could sit in front of that window and stare out at the street thinking for much longer than I should have been able to. I wonder what would have become of me if I didn't have such a practical streak to pull my head out of the clouds?

Born & Raised in the Boondocks

I was raised in a small town in the Ozarks of Missouri. Cassville, population 2000, one school, two grocery stores, one fast food resturant until 1997...one great place to grow up. By virtue of my small town roots I have had the pleaure of:

1. Attending a fish fry in a milk barn.

2. Attending a barn dance in a regular barn.

3. Playing in the woods.

4. Attending K through 8th grade in the same school building.

5. Have my Kindergarten teacher be my Sunday school teacher and my neighbor.

6. Having my father be several of my best friends' parents' boss.

7. Having seen the interior of a chicken plant.

8. Been in a car driven by a thirteen year old with parents' permission to do so.

9. Been to countless rodeos.

10. Been freinds with someone who goat ropes.

11. Been friends with an auctioneer.

I think most of these are experiences I wouldn't have had in a city. I have a special place in my heart for hick towns and good ole' boys.

Guess Who's Back

First my apologies for the absense, but I'm sure that everyone knows how it goes with family and Christmas (and parents' sucky dial up internet).

Being home is wonderful and horrible and fun and tiring and annoying and a little sad. I can't really elaborate futher than that (or I don't want to), but there is always a little tension between moving on in life and remembering to cherish the old times.

There is nothing more sad to me then friends who let life take them away from those they love. It's especially hurtful to realize (or think you realize) that what you had meant more to you then to them. Having grown up in one town and moved away when I was 14 and having gradually lost touch with friends that I have had since pre-school, I know how it feels to try and maintain a one-sided relationship and its frustrating but mostly its just hurtful to realize that friends will let time dull your importance.

Maybe I'm just pathetic to try and hold on to things that are so obviously past their time. Even so, I can't ever seem to quit letting it make me sad.

On the bright side, there aren't too many times when you can say, "Tomorrow's a new year."

Seriously stressed!

It occurs to me that my posts have become a bit opinioned lately and the tone has become, dare I say...a bit superior. This, of course, is not my intent. I may or may not have mentioned before that I love discussion (lawyer anyone?); however, I also have a tendency to think I'm right. As a consequence of that tendency, I may, from time to time express my opinions as fact. For me, being opinionated is something i try to rein in whenever possible. Lately I may have been lax in that duty.

That being said I'd like to talk about a more objective subject today...stress.

It's coming up on finals time here in "law school land" and everyone is getting a bit stressed, even me. I am not a very "stressed" person, but I think the volume of work combined with the time constraints around here could get to anyone. For me, stress manifests itself in a constant nagging feeling that reminds me of the huge mountain of things to accomplish in such a short amout of time. This impedes any relaxation I may try to accomplish. Furthermore it results in fitful sleep, because I dream about schoolwork, and makes it harder to get to sleep, because my head is buzzing.

I remember when I was younger math would give me fits (not literally). Around test time I would have dreams about having to do math problems all night long. I'd wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. Maybe my stresses show up in my dreams, because i attempt to supress stressful feeling in everyday life. I don't know, I'm a law student not a psychology student.

I'm looking forward of that feeling of all the weight of finals being lifted off my shoulders Countdown to last final exam (December 16) = exactly one month from today. Wow thats a long time and a really short time too. I dread and look forward to that day in equal measure at this point.

I'm allergic to Mondays

In undergraduate I had Spanish at 9:00 on Monday mornings for a whole year. I hate Spanish (I suck at languages). I hate getting up early and I hate Mondays. I missed A LOT of Monday Spanish classes. My Spanish teacher used to say I was allergic to Monday's. Her diagnosis is probably the only thing I remember from that class.
Now I have Torts at 8:00 on Monday mornings. I make it, but after two cups of coffee I'm barely coherant and by right about now I feel like I've been hit by a train. I wish they made a Claratin for Monday allergies.
Next semester my first Monday class is Civil Procedure at 10:00 a.m. Civil procedure is ten times more boring than Torts, but with an extra two hours and the same two cups of coffee, I think it will play out about the same...coma.

I miss my mommy

I often wonder how old you have to get to quit missing your mommy.

I'll let you know if I ever get there.

A little nappy-poo

Okay, first the title. My dad calls it that...really he does. He'll go lay down on the coach, turn on golf, and say, "I'm going to take a little nappy-poo." Now, who can blame him, because he is watching golf. Although slightly less boring than baseball, but I digress. Still, it's kinda wierd that he says that because he's actually a very masculine man. He's the GM of a manufacturing plant. He's the authority guy. I can only imagine what his employees would say if they heard him expounding on his nappy-poos. Anyway I took a little nappy-poo today. Although I should know better, because now I won't be able to fall asleep unitl late. Then I'll be tired tomorrow. Then I'll need another nappy-poo. Yes mom, I know! That's what you get. Anyway, it's all very interesting because I technically stopped taking naps when I was three. Which is pretty early for a little kid. When I was little I could never sleep during the day. I was the only kid at the babysitter's who didn't take a nap, and I never could fall asleep during nap time in Kindergarten. Up until high school I could never take a nap at all. Maybe all that lack of sleep caught up with me all of a sudden and I just got REALLY tired. Now though, naps are no problem, except that they are incredibly unproductive and they make it hard to sleep at night. So they aren't a problem to take, but they cause problems. Do other people have these problems?