Twit-like Twittering in the Twilight

Primarily in response to No. 634's post about twitter.

Well, what *I* wanna know is not so much how twitter works, or what client is best, or what it's for, because I think that is easily found and quickly understood. What *I* want to know is: What method is best suited for what purpose?

For example, ABC News did a little twitter expose the night after Obama's speech, to explain twitter to us, but most importantly, why bother? Because DURING Obama's speech, a LOT of the senators and congresspeople were sending tweets while sitting there in the room with Obama. ABC News thought it was interesting (as did I) that all of these people had their heads bent down with their thumbs and fingers clicking away ON THEIR PHONES, sending out tweets about what they were hearing, thinking or who they were seeing...there were a lot of star-struck tweets such as: OMG...Justice Ginsberg is here or whatever (something like that). We know WHAT it is and what it does...but by what means? In the case of the senators/congresspeople, they were using their PHONES. Not to follow anybody else's conversation or to follow a thread or whatever you call those #text terms, but simply to post in a very unidirectional manner. They weren't actually listening/reading anybody else's tweets, they weren't gathering info, taking anything IN (like that's some big surprise! ha). What they were doing was sending info OUT to the world. So that tells me how twitter is used in that situation.

That's the kind of detailed info i seek. Not from you personally, as in privately, but from you as in, how you as a generic Everyman/Everyperson law student, perhaps, is likely to use it, when in class, when back at the dorm, etc. My computing habits differ depending on context and purpose, so I'll do one thing at work and another at home. Well, actually, I'll do the same thing, but use different approaches, different methodologies, in each place.

Anyway, that is what I've been trying to gather more info about. And I disagree with that twitter video that says the primary idea is to answer "What are you doing?" The primary question is actually "What are you paying attention to/reacting to right now?" People tweet much more often about what they're thinking than about what they're actually doing. Who cares what you're doing? Instead, tweet about what's on your mind, and send me that tiny url! Right?

Open Appeal to Twitterheads

I'm trying to get deeper and deeper into twitter. (Sounds x-rated, or w-rated anyway) So, pride, shmide...I'm a tweeter ignoramus and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

Here's an open call to All Twitterheads to PLEASE tell me a trick or two about twitter that helps you love it so. I'm learning slowly, but I think I need people to clue me into some tips or tricks.

Obvious example: twitter is best accessed via COMPUTER, not phone. I base this on the fact that I see a lot of "updated via web" tweets out there.

Anybody disagree?

Computer-based-tweeting is less dynamic, though. I always have to hit refresh on the Home button. Whereas on the phone, the updates I allow to come through to my phone just come on through, dynamically, in real-time. I like that. But there's so much you can't do via the phone's basic SMS functions (I have a Palm Centro).

I just found search.twitter.com. So THAT's how you track all those #searchterm tweets. But again - no dynamic updates. Is the answer to setup an RSS feed from search.twitter.com to Google Reader or something? (starting to feel boxed in by feeds to google reader!)

This is a pretty lame-o post. The last time I appealed for technical assistance to the blogosphere, I got zero, zip, nada response from anybody. Let's see if that record stands this time. Go ahead, I dare ya. Say something. Say something smart. We're waiting.

Bar Exam Karma

For Trannyhead and ambimb: you're in it, right this second. The blogosphere sends you well wishes. All is calm. All is triumphant. You shall reign supreme. You shall pass the bar, puff yourself full of hard-fought and hard-won self-satisfaction (and I say that only because I know that's what I would do and rightfully so), and seldom pass this way again, quite likely. Well, so be it. I'm still cheering for you both. Good luck. Good brain waves. Good results. All for you.

Sahara Special

My daughter has a book report to turn in this Friday. She's been reading (in tiny little fragments) Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell for the past couple of weeks. The one thing she HAD to do today was finish the book. There were about four chapters remaining. I managed to get a proper lunch on the table and then into our tummies, after which we settled down into my big fluffy bed and we read. I made some progress on Obama's Dreams From My Father and she eventually settled into Sahara Special. I only had to totally yell at her to stop making farting sounds with her mouth once. Progress.

After an hour, Q was ready to move on to the next activity. With just two chapters left to go! This is what kills me. Your one assignment that you MUST FINISH TODAY...c'mon kid...just get the job done already! Geesh. So, I offered to read aloud to her.

Forty minutes and three tissues later, we finished reading the book.

OMG, ya'll. I am such a cry-baby. It is so embarrassing! But this is one seriously good book. Well, I can only speak for the last two chapters. They were powerful. I cried. Like I usually do. I can't imagine what it must be like to have a cry-baby for a mother. I said, "It's really saaaad! Don't you think it's sad?" I got a clear-eyed, steady, "No." for a response.

Fine.

At least she has not inherited this burden of excessive sentimentality from my side of the family. My brother has been known to tear up from watching a McDonald's commercial. We are pussies. (Yeah, I said it. I've earned the right, after a lifetime of weepiness.) You don't know how many times in my life I was desperate to find some private corner in which to hide while an attack of leaky-eye-syndrome overcame me in public. It totally sucks.

As Miss Pointy says in the last chapter: "...the main character is the one who changes." I just hope that Q remains as unsentimental (yet without true snarkiness) throughout her post-pubescent years as she is now. Despite being her own main character, for her sake I hope that part doesn't change.

GarAttitude

GarAttitude...the best thing since Garanimals.

My brother was laid off a couple of weeks ago. That, plus Black Thursday, plus the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of layoffs and lost jobs in all corners of the global economy has forced me to wake up and smell my paycheck.

Really, I'm trying to focus on gratitude. It's kind of a fad these days, actually. There are articles and websites and a somewhat recent book all touting the health benefits of gratitude.

So I'm trying to be grateful for what I have, instead of thinking of what I don't have or what I don't like. So here's an attempt at identifying things that make the glass half full.

----------------------

I am very grateful to have a secure, well-paying job. I appreciate knowing that even in these bleak economic conditions, job openings are currently being posted that seek the duties, skills, and expertise required by my current position. That's a big deal. That is not something to ignore. But am I listening?

I'm very grateful that blogger does not charge me anything for this blog. Because it would suck to feel so blogfully incompetent AND go into debt for it.

I'm grateful that twitter lets me ignore it without consequence, unlike Plurk which is really good at making me feel like I suck at being human and I couldn't bum a nickel from a stranger if I had to.

I'm grateful for my house and my family and the sound of my daughter cackling at the 147th episode of Hannah Montana that she's watched today while waiting for mommy to think of things to be grateful for so mommy can finally end this post, step away from the computer and finally fix both of them a decent meal today.

I'm grateful the ground turkey didn't get stuck to the pan when I left it cooking while I snuck back over to the computer to quickly finish this post if I could just think of one more thing to be grateful for.

I'm grateful we don't have a dog, because letting a dog sit around the house all day with nobody home just spells disaster in the form of chewed up woodwork, digestion problems, vet bills, even more pet hair and the guilt I would feel for making it sit around the house all alone all day.

I'm grateful our cars are still under warranty. For the next three months. Maybe four.

I'm grateful my husband has a job, a part time job with lousy hours, so that we don't see him all weekend long, and is barely above minimum wage and has no benefits but brings in almost enough so we only have to use the credit card a little bit each month.

I'm grateful that my husband seems to care about the fact that we have to use the credit card.

I'm grateful I don't eat lunch. Seriously. Lunch is a pain in the butt.

I'm grateful for each and every comment I get on each and every post I dare to publish on this stupid blog that I love, love, love and which has broken my heart at least five times because I was apparently hoping I'd written something full of divinely inspired brilliance and was expecting the validating comments proving as much to come pouring in by the dozens and when that didn't happen I was forced to acknowledge that I just wasn't that interesting afterall.

I'm grateful for the delete key and that sometimes I know when to use it.

I'm grateful we found a girl scout troop without all the drama and stress of the last one and which has a leader who really likes me.

I'm grateful for the DVR's pause button and fast forward features. I really am. Shut up. It's the little things.

I'm grateful I snuck out of work Friday to go to a lunch thing with my mom and that she felt good enough to go and that we both found the energy to mix and mingle a little bit.

I'm grateful my parents live nearby, are alive and well and don't need in-home care and can still drive. And are able - and willing - to swing by school and pick up Q when I leave the office too late to make it to afterschool pickup by 6pm.

I'm grateful that the worst thing I can think of is that I stay at my current job for the next couple of decades. Cry me a river, already. If that's the worst thing I got going on, I'm fine.

I'm grateful that the whole law school question remains in the realm of fantasy for the moment, that I can research my options without jeopardizing my family's welfare.

I'm grateful for every contact, every supportive word I've found through blogging. I'm grateful for the money I've saved on therapy because of blogging. I'm grateful for avoiding the many fights my husband and I might have had if I hadn't already expressed my thoughts and feelings on the blog so that I didn't try to share them with him only to have him walk away for the thousandth time and totally piss me off because I suddenly find myself talking to an empty room in mid-sentence.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to be inspired. To get out of my own head. To feel connected.

I'm grateful for Cadbury mini-eggs, too.

Yes, the answer is 43

A lawyer friend of mine told me law school sucked because it really comes down to opinion and how well you argue it. There are no absolutes, there are no ultimate truths. You're not right or wrong. You're just persuasive. So, in this hypo, is there a right answer in terms of an exact number of liabilities to be identified?

(from here) ... Finding Nemo tort hypothetical:

Marlin, a clown fish, discovers a pair of snorkeler goggles. Marlin's friend Dory, greatly desirous of the goggles, grabs the goggles from him; Marlin grabs back. In the course of the struggle, Marlin accidentally lets go of the goggles. They hit Dory in the face, causing a nosebleed. Assume that Dory has no title to the goggles.

Blood from Dory's nose wafts up to Bruce, a shark and recovering blood addict. Marlin and Dory are well aware of Bruce's addiction. They are further aware that blood causes sharks to go crazy. The blood induces an insane rage in Bruce, who then chases after Marlin and Dory, destroying property from a derelict ship (owned by Ships, Inc.) along the way. Bruce's chase also causes enormous emotional distress to Marlin. Dory, a more relaxed fish, simply takes Bruce's insane rage in stride.

Marlin and Dory flee into a torpedo shaft. Neither of them are aware that the metal cylinder behind them is a torpedo; nor are they aware that the "balloons" outside the derelict ship are mines. They are in no danger within the torpedo shaft, but Bruce continues to rage outside. Rather than waiting for Bruce's blood lust to wane, Dory triggers a switch that causes the torpedo to slide out, jamming itself in Bruce's mouth and causing at least one broken tooth. (Bruce, however, regularly regrows broken teeth.)

In an attempt to rid himself of the torpedo, Bruce swings his head back and forth. Unfortunately, his final swing hurls the torpedo out over the minefield. Unlike Marlin and Dory, Bruce is aware of the mines outside the derelict ship. The torpedo hits one of the mines, and they all explode. The derelict ship, which already lies on the bottom of the sea floor, is knocked into a nearby trench, causing more destruction. The mines are all obliterated. On the surface of the ocean, a pelican is disturbed by the gaseous discharge from the explosion.

Who may be liable to whom, for what, and why? Please note: Dory is perhaps mentally incapacitated due to her lack of short-term memory, and Bruce has a history of childhood neglect. If your legal conclusion depends on additional facts not provided here, identify those facts and discuss how they would affect your analysis.

On Choosing Yourself Over Your Child

LSAT studying has not really been happening for me. I just will not get less than seven hours of sleep a night (I often get eight hours). So that's constraint number one. And going to the office for eight to nine hours a day is contraint number two. (Unless I could study online for the LSAT. That'd be the only way I could sneak it into my work day.) And keeping Q on schedule pretty much eats up most of the evening, until after 9pm. She just will not or can not settle down and go to sleep like she used to. It's very frustrating and tiring.

By 9:30 (lately it's been closer to 10pm) I'm tired and my attention is fractured. Plus, if I'm ever going to finish Obama's first book, then I need to put in at least half an hour of reading. After doing that, it's time for bed.

The most obvious solution, although some risk of discovery exists, is to stay late at the office and study from 5-7 and get home around 8 (which then allows my husband time to go to the gym). But that means almost no quality time with Q throughout the week. It means not knowing the meaningful bits and pieces of what's going on in my kid's life. This is a major stumbling block.

When do you let go of the little details of your child's experiencing the world? How do you stand aside, focus more on yourself, and know that the nuances of today will not be known to you?

Divine Intervention Near the Baked Goods Counter

Feeling lethargic and depressed, I was seriously eye-balling the huge cookie sandwiches in the bakery case at the grocery store the other night. The middle consisted of about two-and-a-half inches of cream filling. Cream filling....mmmm. It was whispering to me that all it wanted to do was cheer me up if I'd only give it the chance. I felt myself leaning towards it while my daughter, still wearing her soccer practice attire, was handed her free cookie by the nice hairnet guy.

Suddenly I realize somebody's saying something nearby. I jerk my eyes away from my love interest, whipping around with a "Who, me?" attitude. I see that it's one of Q's schoolmate's mothers standing there with her cart and her three kids, cheerfully saying hi. Q and her eldest were in the same kindergarten class three years ago. We (the two moms) were both a lot heavier then.

She looks good. Well, she's in pre-dinner, full-kid mode, so she looks good in a quick-trip-to-the-grocery-store-with-three-kids-to-wrangle kind of way. Neither of us are sporting made-up faces or well-coiffed hair. Still, I am struck by how much skinnier she is than she used to be. Her body's parameters have drastically changed. This is the second, maybe third, time I've seen her looking this way. The first time, I did not know who she was until she spoke to me. Now I recognize her, but my mind again registers how much different she looks. And she looks pretty happy, too. She's got a big smile on her face.

Looking at this woman, my mind's eye jumps from the come-hither creaminess of the cookie sandwich to this newly-skinny-mommy-figure. By seeing her, I see the things the cookie sandwich cannot give me. She is happy. She is healthy. She has energy. You can tell she feels good about herself. That is what is important. This is a freaking sign from gawd, and I know it. The cookie sandwich could not give me those things.

I tell her how great she looks, ask her what her secret is. She tells me she's been exercising a lot. I tell her it's great to see her, take care, see you next time.

There is no way I can count on a second messenger from gawd to intervene were I to, oh I dunno, maybe meander through the snack food aisle. How many gifts from gawd does a girl get in one night? As Q happily munches on her free cookie, I head straight to the checkout lane, with quiet determination and no looking back.

My new mantra while shopping: "Walk away, girl, just walk away."

Turning Point?

I'm tired of thinking about this, talking about it, worrying about it. Critical mass has been achieved. I found a lot of helpful folks over at nontradlaw.net (thanks for the tip LawIngenue) and rather than be a complete poser, I will at least sit for the lsat, probably the June one. Lookee there, a decision.

I bought Law School Essays tonight. Also am in the middle of Obama's first book Dreams from My Father, which has nothing to do with me going to law school, but might be why I don't post for a while. My recent posts have disappointed me anyway, and other things need to be done.

I'll still be around, as I hope you all will be. I just have to find a healthier balance.

His Highness, Michael Phelps

I got nothin' against Michael Phelps. I am rooting for him. Really. I mean, put him at the end of the line behind a number of former Presidents if you want to castigate somebody for smoking pot. He should be the last one sentenced. No soapbox about that here. He just popped into my mind because of this post's subject matter. I'm going to talk about a bunch of unrelated things that somehow are connected in my mind (which doesn't need pot to free associate, obviously). Good luck following me as I segue from pot smoking to Hyphen Mama's darling Wynnie (NO connection between them whatsoever) to my own messed up hynace from early childhood, back to pot smoking, then back to Hyphen Mama and Butterflyfish. Try to keep up. You're embarrassing me.

We are here for the love of language. We are here in response to Hyphen Mama's post about "pershy hate", which is so cute I have to show it to you:

................After Wynnie finished picking up toys
................in the playroom the other day she said,
................"Mommy, do you pershy hate me?"
................To which I replied, "No baby, but I do appreciate you."

How cute is that?!! I find it amazing how willingly children accept whatever phonetic sequence you give them. They just roll with it, just take it as they hear it.

Instead, being able to fully accept some strange new sound sequence is not so easy for me. It's hard for adults in general. We adults have well formed ideas of what's a possible word or sequence of sounds and what isn't. And we can't just stop knowing all that at will. It's hard to block out.

But young children don't have preformed linguistic filters for what's possible and what isn't. Clearing your throat could mean something, something like "Eat your cheerios." Why couldn't it, right? They have to sit back and listen and watch very carefully. To see what it is WE pay attention to. The stuff we don't react to must be meaningless...well ma'am, toss that out already! And they do.

But until it's clear that something (like throat clearing) means nothing, they don't rule it out.

For example, I wonder if Hypen Mama's daughter Wynnie thought of it as "pershy hate", with "hate" being the same "hate" we're thinking it is. Because what else could it be, right? Well, to a child just learning, it could be anything. It could be "hayit" possibly, or "h-eight" (long "a" sound, as in the number "eight"). It might not be the verb "to hate" that she hears when she strings those sounds together:
per-shee-h8. Then again, it might, but let's explore the first possibility anyway.

Here's an example: the term "Your Highness". Pretty simple:
high + ness. OK.

Except I always thought of it as "Your Hynace"...kinda like "furnace". To my ear, the first syllable ended with the "n", and the second syllable was a simple "us", like "hine-ous" or "hien-ace". Which makes no sense and I don't know how I could be that dumb, but whatever. It just sounded like a special word, unique, that meant "a royal person". They're so special and royal and important people, they have their own freaky word just for them. Again, anything goes when you're first hearing this stuff.

It never occurred to me that the term included the -ness suffix. (Doh.)
From here: "The suffix -ness is added at the end of an adjective to indicate the state, condition, quality or degree of something."

High-ness. Ok, makes sense. Royalty, kings and queens, high above us all. Gotcha.

So, we're agreed that "highness" means the state or condition of being "high".

Yeah, we're starting to come full circle back to the beginning of this post. When you think of the "state or condition of being high", do you think of Queen Elizabeth? Uh...not so much. At the moment, the first person I think of is poor Michael Phelps. His highness, Michael Phelps.

High-ness...not hynace! Seriously? And yet there are no high-ness jokes? Why in the world doesn't it get applied to people experiencing a high from drugs? I am so in the highness, dude. Ride the highness, my friend. Enjoy your highness. If I said, "Her highness won't last much longer", who would you think I was talking about, Queen Elizabeth or the stoner girl from homeroom?

I learned about kings and queens and princesses, heard the phrase "Your Highness", when I was still very young, from children's fairy tales that were read to me. I can only conclude that before my language filters were fully formed, when I heard the words "Your Highness", the suffix ness hadn't quite registered on my linguistic radar.

Which really is okay, all things considered. Because for a kid, if you're young enough, anything is linguistically possible. Until your mom clues in to the mix-up and realizes what you're doing (except in my case, of course, not so easily detected) that it's NOT pershy-hate and it's not fun-TEST-icles, and she patiently (or not), maybe smirkingly, but always lovingly sets you straight.

Think how many more fun-TEST-icles and pershy-hates and hynaces would be stuck forever in adult brains if not for the parent's ever vigilant linguistic guidance.

Hat's off to Hyphen Mama and to Butterflyfish for their linguistic vigilance, and their awesome blogs. And...what the hey...hats off to Michael Phelps, even though I have no evidence of his linguistic vigilance, blogging prowess, or parenting skills. He's awesome too, disregarding his recent brush with highness.

False Bravado

Dr.Cox: I love this moment so much, i want to have sex with it -

later in the same episode: This moment is so great, I'd cheat on that other moment from before, marry this one and raise a family of tiny little moments

Sorry if my last post offended anyone. Guess I took the metaphor too far. This is really just a case of false bravado. I'm much too insecure to pull off this kind of attitude in real life. You'll see that's true if you take a minute to read a prior post I wrote called "I Am So Hawt". You'll see that I don't even have the nerve to comfortably mingle at a charity's open house event. I'm even less comfortable with casual flirting or checking people out on the street.

I got the idea for the earlier post from an episode of Scrubs I saw a long time ago, where Dr. Cox says, "I am loving this moment. I love this moment so much, I want to marry it. Then this moment and I can have a bunch of little moment children together." ...or something kinda like that. [found the quote, see above...anybody out there know what episode it's from?] I found the metaphor amusing (when Scrubs did it, I about died laughing, but my attempt?...not so much) - if it even is a metaphor, which I'm not 100% certain is the correct term for this type of narrative device. Hence my suggestion that the whole thing is derivative...I really think I got the "joke" from somewhere else.

Obviously, there was a day or two this past week when the thought of getting pregnant again and having another child really did seem like something worth considering seriously. For about a moment. I flirted with the idea. I talked to my husband about it. He is in the middle of some life changing choices himself right now, so besides my age being a negative factor, so is my husband's situation. Anyway, it all crowded together to create the perfect storm of adjectives. So how do you address a midlife crisis, other than to toss aside a perfectly valid career to go to law school? Well, you can always try to have another baby. But after briefly flirting with this unattractive idea (unattractive for me, at my age, in my current circumstances), I quickly dumped it. STOP right there: "flirting", "dumped", "unattractive"...it was hard to resist pursuing the whole concept of attraction and the decsion to act based on attraction.

But no, I make it sound like I know a lot more about this stuff (threesomes, for example...caveat lector!) than I really do. I've allowed myself to succumb to certain influences that I've stumbled upon out here in cyberspace, influences that I've found to be quite infectious in their fun, light-hearted yet audacious approach to just about any issue. Exposure to such influences makes it all too easy to adopt a breezy confidence that I only wish I had in real life.

Now let me speak plainly: I am a big fan of those influences. They cheer me up. They make me laugh. I like them. But as for me, I can only exude such chutzpa through the written word. I am barely able to flirt in public with my husband...so even though I can talk such talk in the blogosphere, there's no way I could walk the walk (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) in reality.

Bottom line and closing argument: It's all Trannyhead's fault. Well, Tranny and Scrubs.

Now For Something Completely Different

...or maybe completely derivative. You tell me.

You know, there is more than one way to skin a midlife crisis. Number One option that is so mainstream, so trivially obvious, is of course the Law School Question, which I mean, c'mon, EVERYBODY toys with that one even when things are going great. The Law School Question should open its own adult toy superstore, that's how playfully distracting it is. There is our own sweet Everyday Reality that we know and love, but we sneak out at lunch time to meet the Law School Question at a cheap motel for a quickie. Please, like you haven't done it yourself.

Many of you have already let it knock you up (=sent in a seat deposit, signed student loans, paid tuition, bought books, etc.) and now you're stuck with an abusive partner who only cares about its own needs. Yeah, I know how Law School Question rolls, once you've let him go all the way with you.

But a new toy has shown up and it's turning my head. Just a quick glance as it passed me on the sidewalk. Yeah, I checked it out from behind as it walked on by. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Hey, I'm barely 40-ish, I'm not dead, ya know?

You want to meet it? I'm not sure how it looks without its makeup on. I have my doubts that it can still get me excited when direct sunlight is showing every blemish on its face and its split ends are looking frizzy. It's name is Getting Pregnant and Having Another Child. At MY age? At this point in our lives? Crazy, I know. Insane! But still, there's just something about it that I find alluring.

I even tossed it out there to Leo while we were having some green beans one night. I thought maybe he'd wanna try a threesome. Maybe he'd want to play along. His biggest objection is that Everyday Reality was needy enough. Was it a smart idea to complicate the situation? How would Everyday Reality feel about this, anyway? Besides, Leo already has his own little fling going on the side. Oh, it's okay. I know all about it. He's been dallying with Going Back To School pretty steadily for over three years now. Sometimes I'm a little jealous, it's true. Sometimes I wish I had Leo all to myself, but it is what it is. If it makes my man happy, who am I to judge? Let him have his fun. As long as he comes home every night to Q and me, it's all good.

The funny thing is, I'm not even that attracted to this Having a Baby thing. But I remember the last time we hung out together, and I remember how special it made me feel. I remember how my whole world revolved around it. Nobody and nothing was as important as that. But then...phew! Talk about a high-maintenance relationship! OMG, Getting Pregnant and Having a Baby is the neediest thing you'll ever knock socks with. Leo is absolutely right about that.

Well, as Maggie says, it's my blog dammit, and it's called "And Time Yet For a Hundred Indecisions" for exactly this reason. And if certain people in the cybersphere find it annoying that I can't make a decision, then pppphhhhhht on them. The Blog is turning into a hot and heavy little fling all on its own anyway. I'm not the kind of girl who can juggle multiple lovers simultaneously. When I try, bad things happen. The Baby and The Blog would just cuss each other out if they ever ran into each other in public. I'd be out at a nice restaurant with The Blog, and we'd be twittering each other under the table and giggling whenever the waiter came over to refill our water glasses, and The Baby would show up and make a huge scene and dump our plates on our heads and storm off. Everything would be ruined. And I'd run after it and apologize, my napkin still tucked into my waistline. I would chase after The Baby and just abandon The Blog. Which would be so unfair.

Like I said, it was just a passing fancy. Not even that hot. I've seen better, if you know what I mean.

This one's for the MILP's or MILP wannabe's

I went to the local law school's orientation session last fall (and started my blog shortly after that). They put on a class demonstration, a very gentle run-through of the Socratic method, a moot court demo (or trial court demo...are they the same thing?) and ended with a question-and-answer session with some professors and 3L's telling us to remember to take showers and write down your reasons for applying to you can remember why you're putting yourself through all this.

There was one professor who had an impeccable paper pedigree, very prestigious and intimidating. And he was really young, from my point of view. This guy loved to start every sentence with, "So...". He struck me as incredibly pretentious. It went like this:


Potential Applicant: "How would you say law school is different from undergrad?"

Pretentious Pedigreed Genius: "So...it's a process of infantilization, right? So, you have people telling you where you need to be and what you need to be doing and there's very little unstructured time afforded you while you're here."


Ugh. If I want pretentious and pedantic, I'll hang out - gawd love 'im - with my husband.

And then I thought, wtf? "Infantilization"?!! That's a six syllable word that he chose to whip out during orientation, where he's supposed to care about wooing us. Are you kidding me? So what is he like when he's NOT wooing us? omg...This guy is not living in the real world!

Now, my conclusion is correct of course, and most of you know this, because if he were living in the real world and not in some made-up, cloistered, Latin-centric La-La Land of Concentrated Brilliance, he would know that the last thing on this earth that is structured, that accepts being told where it needs to be or what it needs to do, is a freakin' INFANT. He has no clue. And so his fancy-pants use of a six syllable word backfired completely; it showed not that he was brilliant but quite the opposite: that he has not experienced the mind-churning challenge of caring for an infant and lived to tell about it. He knows nothing of life. He knows words. Kinda.

And so I dedicate this post to all of you struggling with this kind of over-the-top bs as you travel slowly but steadily through each case, each paper, each brief or motion, and each lecture. In particular, I'm thinking of A Woman In Law School's post from yesterday. The professor who loves to hear himself talk. And keeps the class late. That is just not right. Is he indefatigable or something? (had to throw MY favorite six syllable word out there)

Truth be told, even while I ranted silently to myself about his pretentiousness, something of his style permeated my brain. Now I hear myself doing it! Somebody called me the other day asking why the spam filter was blocking one kind of email but not another, and yes, this is what I heard myself saying:

Me: "Soooo...you know it's an automatically-generated message, right? That it doesn't use the same form as a regular message? Soooo...the message format is unique; it's missing required information in the From: line, soooo...the filter thinks it's spam and blocked it."

I should have said, "...ergo the filter thinks it's spam..." geesh.

Yeah, that lady isn't going to call me back any time soon.

And you are surprised that the first 9.6 seconds of THIS* is part of my morning ritual?

(yes, Cee beat me to posting this. Everybody's faster than me. And everybody's seen this by now - over a million hits on youtube already. But I just had to put it in here for posterity.)


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Oh people, I figured out how to separate out the first 9 seconds of just the lady screaming and re-post it to youtube, but then realized, if I ever do apply to law school, or more importantly, submit a bar application, a charge of copyright infringement on my record would be a baaaaaaaaaaaad thing. Rats.

Jokes Only a Parent Would Love

This is why my husband hates it when my family gets together. We're all like "Did you hear the one about..." This is also why my husband is so much cooler than I will ever be.

Nevertheless, some of you have children who will eventually approach the age of joke-telling, and it is a very challenging time for parents, because kids have no idea why things are funny (much like a lot of bloggers, myself included) but want to make everyone listen to them and laugh regardless of whether the content deserves an audience or not. So they tell "jokes" that go nowhere and make no sense. Here are two that have lasted.

What's brown and sticky? ...a Stick !
(I love that one for some reason)

The punchline is there, but it's in white font. If you want to see it, highlight the entire line.


Person A: Knock, knock.

Person B: Who's there?

Person A: The interrupting cow.

Person B: The interrupt...

Person A: Mooooooooooooo! (you have to say it fast before the other person finishes asking "The interrupting cow WHO?")