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Independence Day

Hello, my friends. Today is the day our country celebrates its freedom. In honor of our nation, let me enlighten you on my own tale of living the American dream.

As some of you may know, I like food. Like, really like food. And of course, ice cream is one of the finer foods that I enjoy. Ben and Jerry's in particular has always been a particularly big draw to me. It started out with Chocolate Fudge Brownie (AMAZING) and took off from there. Many a conversation has been had about the glory and the wonder of B&J's flavors. There is Black and Tan, a flavor that frightens and confuses me; and of course, Half Baked, with combinations such as Neapolitan Dynamite and Brownie Batter. Truly, B&J's has forged the landscape of ice cream. But Nation, when I first heard of Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream, I knew I had to have it. Vanilla ice cream with fudge covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. Doesn't that sound glorious?


Alas, a quick search on benjerry.com revealed that Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream is only sold at 3 grocery stores in the greater Austin/Round Rock area, with the closest one at least a half hour drive away. My dream seemed further from reach. Then, one fateful Friday night at Super Target (that's right, I spend my Friday nights at Super Target), there it was! Glowing from the frozen food aisles was my dream. And it was every bit as delicious as I'd imagined. Tastes like America. And now, Nation, I can truly say that I am living the Americone Dream.

New desk + someone else taking out my trash

Somehow in the process of moving, our old FutureDesk exploded. Now, I wasn't here when this supposed "explosion" happened, but I'm assuming it's just a story Stephen made up so he won't have to admit he couldn't lift the desk. Apparently, while carrying out the glass desk top, it simply "shattered". So, last weekend we made the hike out to Round Rock to Ikea to find a new desk. We ended up getting the stainless steel desk, so now we have the ULTIMATE FutureDesk. It's so clean and futuristic, I don't even want to put anything on it.

In other news, our apartment complex just began Valet Trash Service. Meaning I no longer have to go down a flight of stairs in order for the filth of our apartment to be gone forever. Which helps when it's rained for eight days straight, with no end in sight.

Special delivery

So, it's officially been two weeks since I began working at the Travis County Attorney's Office, and the experience has been going rather well. I started off hired in the Transactions division, which, from what I could tell, would have involved sitting in a small room (which contains a small fan that actually takes about a half hour to start up) with three other law clerks and researching things on Lexis. On day 2 and a half, I was whisked down to the third floor to start working with the Family Violence division. Things there have been much more interesting, in that I've mostly been watching prosecutors strike deals with defense attorneys and sitting through most of a jury trial.




Today was a particularly exciting day in Court 4. Fridays are pre-trial days, in which the prosecutors either strike deals or give defense attorneys discovery on the cases. First, not one, but two male attorneys came in wearing seersucker suits. I guess it is officially summer in Texas! Second, and less exciting even, was that a woman in the lobby of the court room went into labor while waiting to... do something. Oh, it was quite the commotion. EMS was called, the sheriffs were attending to the lady in the bathroom, and one other prosecutor was set in charge of caring for the woman's 2 year old son. That's totally part of the job description. Anyway, this kid got a sticker in the shape of a sheriff's badge (AWESOME), and from what I am told, also got a balloon, a stuffed dalmatian and a ride on the fire engine, so I think he came out on top of the whole situation.

As far as my duties go, my main job has been to watch the prosecutors and nod my head every once in a while. Sometimes I look over the files and tell them "what I think", which I am sure they value greatly. Finally, I wrote up subpoenas for a couple of days, so I actually feel like I might be contributing something.

In other news, Crazy Mexicans from Upstairs are gone. The apartment manager ran into me and Stephen outside our apartment on Wednesday, and she sang "They're goooone" with great glee. Now, it's our turn to move to the other side of the apartment complex. It'll be a hassle, but our new place has a balcony that faces a field, as opposed to the parking lot. Apparently we're not supposed to grill on our balconies, but now that our apartment will face nothingness, they'll never know of our covert grilling practices! Mwahaha.

Ay, yi, yi! We're probably moving yet again!

First and foremost, thanks everyone for the support and kind words re: previous post. Don't worry, things are going better and no, Philip, I am not suicidal.

My friends, I have previously been on the side of the law that dispenses justice (albeit in very short, uneventful spurts at summer jobs, etc). But now, I come to you on the victim end. That's right, we've had a break-in! As scary as Century was, with its homeless men living in the laundry room and reading porn advertisements, at least no one attempted to break in at any point. I'll break down the scene for you, as best I can.

Friday night, around 7:30 I was hanging out in the bedroom while Stephen was in the living room watching TV. Suddenly, Crazy Loud Mexican Neighbor who lives above us unlocks our door and walks into the apartment and starts heading down the hallway towards the bedroom. At this point, Stephen, in shock and awe, gets up and makes some sort of "What the hell is going on" noise, our neighbor turns around and says "Oh, sorry man", and walks out. At this point, of course, we are pretty much freaking out, call the apartment management and first things first, got our locks changed the next morning ASAP. Throughout the course of the past few days, we've talked to the cops, who first said "Well, there's not much to be done yet, but report it anyway", and apartment management who is pretty much evicting them, and giving us a new place. You know, so they can't stalk and kill us for kicking them out. Apparently this guy is saying that his key somehow worked in our lock. No, now he's saying that the door was unlocked. Now he's telling apartment management that Stephen tried to hit his 3 year old son. Whaaaaat?

It's quite an adventure being on this side of the law, but it seems like apartment management is being pretty helpful and our new place may actually be cheaper than this one. So now all we have to do is worry about our safety for about two weeks! BONG.

Blarg

So, a lot of stuff has happened lately, and I've kind of dropped off the face of the earth, with no explanation. I know I owe it to all my friends for me to actually call them like I say I'm going to, but this seems like a more efficient method. Trust me, once I build up the cajones, I will actually call all of you individually and you can each give me your wag of the finger.

I suppose the main thing to talk about is that yes, Stephen and I are not only postponing the wedding, we are no longer engaged. Blarg. There's a lot of reasons behind that, but we both essentially decided we're not ready. I suppose the more accurate description is that I'm not ready. We're still living together, and working on things, so I guess we'll see how it goes, but I think the next couple of months are going to be pretty key.

Second, I've decided to stop drinking. Through law school, I sort of kept going with the college lifestyle, which got me into all sorts of problems, and the best thing to do is to completely stop drinking. This may make future social gatherings (tailgates, etc) a little awkward, but I know I make some horribly awful decisions when I'm drunk that I invariably regret, so the best course of action is prevention. So, there you have that.

Thirdly, I am not, in fact, working for the Big Firm I was supposed to be working for this summer. The job was in San Antonio, which was fine, but once Stephen moved, I decided to commute, and then, considering the above decision, I decided it probably wouldn't be wise to go to a job every day where there are scheduled happy hours, wine tasting events, etc. Blarg. So instead, I'm working for the county attorney's office and taking summer school. Law school summer school. At least this way, I'll get some hours out of the way, but also I won't be making fat cash and instead paying the school fat cash.

So that, in general, is what has been going on in my life lately. Blarg.

Whaaat's happening

Hey guys! What's... up. I realize it's been oh... a couple of months? Anyway, Stephen and I have moved. The new place is much, much better, except for our upstairs neighbors. They tend to stomp around a lot, which we recently discovered is caused by their 3-year-old child. You know, discovered since we went up to confront the man at around 11:30 at night, and the 3 year old answered the door with him. For a while, we felt bad because hey, he's got a child, but stomping around late at night has only caused our distate to grow for the family upstairs. They'd better watch out, or we'll start blasting Roger Miller through the vents straight into their apartment. Speaking of vents, we also seem to think that their vents are somehow connected to ours. I recently got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and was met by a most unpleasant odor. After confirming with Stephen that he had not, in fact, just been in the bathroom at 4:30 in the morning, the only conclusion is that their horrifying bathroom odors are somehow seeping into our apartment. It happened every once in a while over the weekend, and hasn't happened since, so maybe they had an incontinent grandpa from The Old Country over for a while or something.

Revelation

Sometime late last night, I had an idea.

Somehow, Stephen and I noticed that my alarm clock was set a half hour ahead of what it usually is. Then I remembered that we had just seen that episode of Battlestar in Season 2 where the cylons insert a virus into Galactica's computers and mess with all the programs. COINCIDENCE?

Knut fever

One more week of school, one week closer to finals. Yay! I had to drive to San Antonio on Wednesday to drop off the supporting documents for our immigration case, so that was a lovely jaunt down and back. I thought I was going to get a ticket because, you see, I made the mistake of going to the court house first (apparently you're supposed to drop it off with DHS first), so I had to make an extra trip and hope I made it to the court house in time. So, as I was speeding ever so slightly back to the court house, suddenly a cop turns his lights on behind me and speeds up so he's riding my ass. I was in the left lane of the freeway, so I just sort of panicked for a second, then turned on my blinker to go in the middle lane, and he waved me out of the way and sped by. Phew. As Laurie says, there are two types of people, those who always get speeding tickets and those who never get speeding tickets. I've been lucky enough to be the latter so far.


In other news, I've decided that getting a puppy would be good, but getting a Knut would be about ten times better. Knut is just about the cutest thing ever to exist. And to think that animal rights activists actually said that the Berlin Zoo should kill Knut because his mommy ignored him! More proof that animal rights people are just insane hippies that want to slaughter polar bears. I think Stephen Colbert had something to do with that campaign.

And finally, happy easter to everyone. For some reason, it got cold in TeXas again (happy now, Rocky?) so it doesn't quite feel like it, but most likely I'll be heading to Houston to see the folks and my cousins and finish up some wedding stuff.

House hunting

As you all know, shortly after Stephen's life-threatening move to Tejas, he moved in with me. He even signed the lease and everything so now it's all official-like. Now, don't get me wrong, our current apartment is just fine. But that's it - fine. It's fairly cheap considering what the normal apartment rate is in Austin, not a huge dump, and ridiculously close to the law school and Stephen's work. There are a few problems though:

#1 - I think I'm about to go all warrant of habitability on their ass. My building is only about 20 apartments or so, and it's owned and managed by one very tall old lady and her husband. They're very nice, but they're not, shall we say, efficient. My shower has been leaking for quite some time now, and the guy actually came to check it out, about, oh, 6 weeks ago. It was fixed on Thursday. Also, there has been some sort of strange funky mold growing on the ceiling of the bathroom, so if Stephen and I die of mold poisoning, feel free to sue them for me.

#2 - And this is the MAJOR problem - no pets allowed! I was okay with this at first - if you'll recall my poor kitty died about a year and a half ago, so I was cool with not getting another animal for a while. However, I've got the puppy fever. I want a dog! And alas, our building does not allow them. So we must persevere and search for a halfway decent place to live!

Apparantly, that's much harder than it seems. Any place we've looked at so far has gotten fairly crap-tastic reviews about management on apartmentratings.com or has reports about crazy drunken rich kids running throughout the halls at night. And I will be damned if I'm living in a dorm again! And if a place looks too good to be true, well, it is. We found a really nice apartment complex out by where I used to live last year, and besides the distance, there's also - surprise! We're selling off our apartments as condos. So, possibly someone will kick you out of your place. Suckaaa!

I think I might just resort to Craigslist.

SBA elections

Since I am still technically in law school, I am obliged to talk a little about SBA elections, mostly because people I actually like are running.

First, I'd like to recommend everyone to vote for Brad Domangue for SBA President. He's a cool guy, did a great job in SBA this year, and I'm sure he'll do a great job as Pres.

I actually don't know any of the people running for 2L or 3L rep... I guess I'm not as much of a social butterfly as I was in undergrad. Now I just sit at home eating cake and watching Lost (Mmm, Lost!).

Second, I want to encourage all you 3Ls to vote for Kellie Starr for one of those permanent class representatives or whatever the position is. I like her. She's funny, and super involved in everything she does (which is a lot), and I'm sure she'll actually do what she's supposed to.

There, that's the end of my PSA.

I guess I'm posting once a week now?

Hey guys! Yup, still here. Blog... still sucks. I'll try and work on that. But I'm not making any promises.

First of all, everyone should send some "get well soon" vibes to Philip, as he had an emergency appendectomy earlier this week. Happy St. Patty's Day, Philip! You're going to the hospital. Actually, I think he's back at home, milking the surgery for all it's worth. Well played, Phil. I did much the same last summer.

My own St. Patty's Day almost led me to the hospital as well. Not from drinking, though. I went to the rodeo with Stephen in Houston and we gorged ourselves on carnival food. Sausage on a stick (delicious, and I don't care about the jokes, I love sausage!), funnel cake, bratwurst, and even my first taste of deep fried oreos. The oreos were just okay. I think I prefer the regular funnel cake. Anyway, I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack mid-bite. I'm sure I'll be paying for it way down the line.

Other than that, the weekend was pretty good. This week has been getting back into the school groove. I had a dinner last night with the incoming board of TRESL. I think I found the perfect journal. I don't know if it's helped at all in finding a job and all that stuff, but it is something to put on the resume with minimal effort. To give you an idea, I've been on the journal for a full year now, and just met pretty much everyone at the dinner last night. Not exactly the most social of journals, but at least we don't have mandatory library meetings like some other journals *cough* Oil and Gas *cough*.

Now, if all my non-law friends haven't passed out from boredom already, I present you with something to occupy your time. Which reminds me: I'm still on the lookout for a good bilingual DJ for the wedding. Someone who can appeal to all genres of people who will be in attendance. I want Dan and Todd to grind with my grandma - that's how crazy things are going to get! Unfortunately, it seems bands are very cost-prohibitive, but if we were going to get a band, we would probably get these guys. Texas Party Band! Stephen and I are going to check them out tonight. Oh, it's happening!

Finally, since a blog post is never quite complete without a picture, I present to you Exhibit A, What My Hair Does When It Gets Sort Of Rainy Outside, But Kind Of Just Drizzling Sometimes (As It Has Been In Austin These Past Few Days):

The break of spring

Hello! It's spring break at the University of Texas. I am currently in Houston, mainly doing wedding planning (which is tough - I think I'm working more now than I usually do in school).

I've been getting some comments lately:

"Have you abandoned your blog?"

"I thought you were dead."

"Your blog sucks."

And while the last one has always been true, I am here to remind you guys that yes, I am still alive, and yes, I still plan on posting in my blog. Things that have happened since the last post:

- Stephen and I made the drive down from Indiana to Tejas. Illinois was harrowing. Arkansas is boring and awful. Living together is pretty neat, and I like it a lot, except we're going out to eat like every day. Which is not good if I plan on, you know, fitting into all the clothes I currently own.

- As you may have read in Stephen's blog, I was insanely busy with Assault and Flattery, the law school musical/play. As always, it was a fun time and many inside jokes were made. If you'd like to hear a tale about a man named Tom Foetus, trust me, I've got plenty of material.

- Spring Break, wooooo! Actually, spring break has been fairly low-key with me running all over Houston looking at wedding stuff. It is most exciting to actually start the wedding preparations and all that. I even semi started a website.

- My cousin just told us (today) that he and his wife are having a kiddo! That makes for baby #2 in my cousins.

- I started watching Battlestar Galactica on DVD. So far, I think I'm enjoying it. Although, I did watch 4 hours of The Langoliers on The Sci-Fi Channel on Sunday, so my mind may be a little warped.

- Stephen and I had a $20 margarita. It was mildly delicious. I think I'll go for the cheap one next time.

That's What She Said

I'm busy, which means I'm blogging. Sort of. I don't have much to write about, except for my perpetual happy dance until Friday, when I fly to South Bend and accompany Stephen all the way back to Texas. Suck it, long distance! Never again.

Instead, I'll just point you to the blog That's What She Said, which takes situations from The Office and attaches real-life litigation costs to every stupid thing Michael does. So, if any of you ever thought of kissing your gay employee to prove you're tolerant, you probably shouldn't. Surprisingly, it doesn't work in real life.

Censorship

When did "douche" become an acceptable word on prime time TV? I've been wondering for a long time too, how come when they bleep out asshole, they bleep out the hole? And the God in goddammit. I don't get it.

Wacky things

Hoo boy, it has been one full day. I won't say I have a case of the Mondays, cuz you could get your ass kicked saying something like that.

Last night, I went to Blockbuster and pulled the old switcheroo - the one benefit Blockbuster has over Netflix. I also ran over an armadillo on the way there. Man, those suckers are everywhere. You'd think for an animal with an exterior shell, they'd be a little more resilient.

Then today, I had to turn in a paper and pick up an assignment from one of my professor's assistants. I stopped by his office twice, and he was never there. I should have known as soon as I saw him - he was probably outside toking up with some high schoolers. This guy looks exactly like Chong on That 70's Show. I had to wait for this guy for like 20 minutes, so when I finally got what I wanted from him, I kicked him in the nards and ran off.

Finally, I almost got run over when I was crossing the street to get home, but I stopped the car by punching it 50 feet in the air.

Movie Review #2

I think I may have to upgrade to the 2-DVDs-at-a-time plan for Blockbuster Online. The closest service center is in San Antonio, and it took like 4 days for my next DVD to come. Bastards.

Anyway, DVD #2 was The Da Vinci Code. You've already been warned by Goat that it sucked, and I have to say that it was meh. Not great, but not terrible either (see, Crank). It would've been a lot better if they didn't have a ton of annoying flashbacks. Anyway, I can't really write a full, comprehensive review of it because I was finishing up my journal cite check assignment.

I actually finished my Texas Review of Entertainment and Sports Law journal assignment a full 48 hours before it's due! I'm being... productive? What's next, I'll actually finish my ADR paper today, a full 24 hours before it's due? I don't even recognize myself anymore.

Finally, I will point everyone to Philip's personal fundraising website for Barack Obama. I already donated, and I'm a poor student, so take some time and donate for everyone's favorite (or at least the most likeable) candidate!

Or if you just want to send cash directy to me, I'll take it too. For my personal expenses.

Dahlia Lithwick is kind of my hero

Being the huge nerd that I am, I actually enjoy reading Dahlia Lithwick's Supreme Court updates and reports. Seeing as I originally started this blog to talk about law school, I guess I should point you to this very interesting article about the female Justices speaking out, and about women in the workplace in general.

I think I'll be Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Halloween. How do I get those glasses?

My head asplode

One of the lovely things I encountered in Austin is the prevalence of cedar. Apparently, I am allergic. I've never had seasonal allergies until I got to Austin, then all of a sudden, BAM. My head kind of exploded on the inside.

So the past couple of days have had ungodly amounts of cedar in the air, and I am out of the good non-drowsy allergy medicine, which means my fallback is the drowsy, make you want to pass out kind. Weeee!

Actually, I've spent most of the past two days asleep or on the couch. I guess I'll just suck it up and live with it, but it makes for a miserable existence. If you happen to hear of massive forest fires in central Texas, it wasn't me... and it was totally Nips' idea.