Cella Bellum

Mice at Play

2008-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend TF was out in Vegas with his brother for his batchelor weekend. Also gone were many of his fellow trainers, off to get their RKC certification. Meaning there was a large group of girls whose boyfriends were out of town. I dubbed it the “When the Cat’s Away Weekend.”

It started with a little bowling downtown. I ordered a cheese-less pizza with spinach and garlic and peppers, which ended up a spinach-less and pepper-less pizza because they were out.

I walked down to Michigan to get the bus, but it never came, so I ended up making the 30 minute walk home with my little box of leftover pizza.

A few blocks from my house I get stopped by a tourist. It’s not uncommon and I often ask bewildered people on the corner if they need directions. This guy is looking for Gino’s, but he doesn’t know which Gino’s when I inform him that there’s quite a few locations in the neighborhood. I find this strange, but it is not the strangest thing that will happen. The conversation went like this, I swear to god:

Me: Well, there’s one on Superior, which is-
Him: I’m from Montana, you ever been to Montana?
Me: Um, no.
Him: I raised a wolf as a pet.
Me: [pause] Oh. Um….That’s…wow. …Ok. Well, there’s another Gino’s-
Him: What you got there? Leftovers?
Me: Pizza. You wouldn’t like it.
Him: I’m in town for three weeks. I went fishing today and I’m gonna go to the Bears game. How old are you?
Me: [uncomfortable laugh]
Him: I don’t mean to get personal. Are you single?
Me: No, I’m engaged. [wiggle my ring finger, flash the diamond]
Him: Oh, that’s too bad. I went to the Cubs game today. Want to get some pizza?
Me: Um…[awkwardly hold up my pizza leftovers]. I already have some. And a fiancé.
Him: I thought we could go get some pizza.
Me: Well, I have to go home and walk my dogs. So…sorry! [practically sprint down the street]

Weirdest part about this was that it wasn’t in the touristy part of my neighbor hood, where all the people and things are. It was in the nice, residential area, which is why I really thought this dude was lost for like, half of the conversation. So I present it to you here as a lesson in not how to pick up girls in three simple steps.

#1- Don’t try to get a date on a street corner. Ever.

#2- Save the wolf as a pet story for at least the second date. It’s not the opener that you think it is.

#3- Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to suggest pizza, know when someone is already holding pizza in their hand.

The next night was dinner with the girls and then out for drinks. I dragged one of them out to a club where I was meeting another group of girls-nite-outers. My friend K is drop-dead gorgeous and couldn’t move for the boys trying to chat her up. Best bad opening line: “I want to teach your martial arts!” So we spent the night testing out different stories to see which got them running the fastest.

All and all, a good weekend, but I’m happy to have TF back home tonight. I’m cleaning the place top to bottom in preparation for a week of snuggling on the couch before my flight to Dallas on Saturday. I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about, or acknowledging the reality and permanency of the move, so I can’t say a lot about it. Just the “yes, I’m sad to leave but yes, I’m excited to settle down and start work.”

Uff, Ow

2008-08-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I fell off the exercise equipment at the gym. Yes I did. It was the ARC Trainer and it was moving, so that's good I guess. But it wasn't like a little stumble like when you sometimes get caught up watching a tv on the treadmill and you trip on yourself. It was a "whoa-OOOHHH!" arms flailing, crash into the side of the machine. It was a nice bruise on my butt this morning.

So that was embarrassing.

Also, a homeless woman spit on me. Or, the ground as I was stepping on it.

I did see another homeless woman wearing a Pineapple Express t-shirt. So all and all I'd say it was your typical week.

I am the law!

2008-08-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Am I late on picking up on this?

Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

…And One to Go

2008-07-30T14:45:00.000-07:00

Dear MBE,

We are officially broken up.

I’m sick of your mind games and the way you treat me. I work and work and work my fingers to the bone and still it’s never good enough for you.

Well, I don’t need you in my life anymore. So here is your Statute of Frauds back. I put all your Recording Statutes in a box (to the left, to the left). I was going to keep the First Amendment you gave me that day at Starbucks, but it brings up too many bad memories.

Please don’t ever talk to me again.

Love,
Cella

Actually, today was not the worst thing ever. It was not so awesome that I even want to entertain the idea of doing it again, but I sit here with at least a fond hope that I am still passing the bar.

I finished both the morning and the afternoon sessions in about an hour each. I went over my answers and counted all the As, Bs, Cs and Ds because I couldn’t get that thing out of my head that the BarBri lady said about them all showing up equally (i.e., each answer is correct 25 times out of 100). I’m not saying this as advice because it will probably screw with your head much more than it will ever help. Because I was way short on 1 letter, but of course I didn’t know which answers were wrong. So you start thinking “Well, if I change my answer to this question- because I might be totally wrong seeing as I know jack squat about veto power, if that’s even what the question is asking me- then I’m closer to 25 Bs but now I’m short a D. And I could change the answer to that question, but that will ruin my balance of As.” And on and on and on.

So I just turned it in and went to lunch, which was at the fine dining establishment known as My Car. Or, My Sister’s Car Since I’m Borrowing It. So I ate from my cooler of apples and peanut butter and hummus and pita and looked at my notes from practice questions until I realized that really, I know what I’m gonna know and I’m not learning anything new. Partly cuz I can’t focus, partly because I don’t care so much anymore, who knows.

Back from lunch, they didn’t open the doors at 12:45 as they had promised so we’re all stuffed into the un-air-conditioned hallway in the heat. And I am sorry, Texas Tech T-Shirt Guy, but Man Sandals (“Mandals”) + Heat = Nasty Sweaty Boy Foot Stink. Also, you wore jorts. Both days. …I’m just saying.

And I’m also just saying that some girl wore a “I Own Blackacre” shirt. To the Bar Exam. I assume on purpose. I also assume that everyone who wore a t-shirt with their law school emblazoned upon it also did that on purpose. Especially those from schools not within the vicinity because my guess is that you are staying in a hotel like I am, and that you packed, like I did, three shirts. But you appear to have different criteria for shirt selection that I. Or, alternatively, you own three shirts.

And one girl wore her Shitty Law School Law Review shirt. And then I died of barfness.

One Day Down

2008-07-29T14:14:00.000-07:00

Even though today was a half-day it was still brutal. First of all, I’m taking it on my computer. There’s only two locations in the state that allow computers, so we’re in this massive Exhibition Hall. I kinda feel they probably show tractors or something in it when we’re not taking bar exams in there. My tablemates and I estimated about 400 people (we couldn’t see all the way to the other side).

A couple people at the table next to me showed up literally at 7:58 for the 8 am test. I don’t know what you thought you were stuffing into your brain in those last five minutes, but I doubt it was more valuable than the peace of mind of having your computer turned on and the exam software up and running by the time the test started.

One person at my table didn’t show up at all.

Then there was the epic FAIL of everyone trying to save their tests to the jump drives provided to us. This took roughly 20 minutes, all the while we’re bouncing in our seats doing the peepee dance because they wouldn’t let us leave for what the Proctor kept calling our “Comfort Break.”

She made “comfort” sound like “soft blanket, nice hug” type of comfort but I’m pretty sure the Bar Examiners meant “physical relief from the need to pee” type comfort.

Upon return from our Comfort Break, we were chastised by the Proctor again. This time, she was “very disappointed” that we had chosen “not to pay attention the first time” and apparently some people tried to go outside for a cigarette. And because of our atrocious behavior, these “Comfort Breaks may have to be discontinued in the future.”

I finished the Procedure and Evidence part in a little over an hour. I sat there for a minute or two, but I really didn’t have anything else to say. If I didn’t know it, I didn’t know it. If I did, I said everything I could about it. A couple things were totally out of the blue, and some stuff I was sure would be on there wasn’t. So even though I had 30 minutes left, I turned it in and went home. I was hungry, anyway.

It'll Only Hurt for a Minute

2008-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

Good luck to everyone taking the bar tomorrow! I'm safely holed away in my hotel room, after a stressful weekend of not having my admissions ticket (have it now!), almost getting on the wrong plane (didn't!), getting here and settling in (...am?).

I've only stayed in a hotel by myself twice before (callback interview and all-attorney firm weekend), but never for three nights. It's weird, sort of lonely but also kinda freeing.

Not much more to say than that. I've studied and now I'm tired. I'm ready to go take the test, which is not the same thing as knowing enough, but what can you do? I was so stressed this weekend that I had to take my anxiety meds (see above about having no admissions ticket, etc), but now I'm just ready to get into bed, look over my notes and get some sleep.

The good thing is that tomorrow is just a half day, comprised of the two parts of the test that matter least. One, I'm not worried about at all. The other, I don't know enough about. My strategy is to do well enough in the other three sections that the procedure and evidence section isn't much more than a place to pick up some extra points.

But, I ramble. The Tylenol PM is kicking in (taken just in case the anxiety attacks come back, so I will sleep through them). Good luck again to everyone. My friends, I know you are stressed but I also know you are smart. You will pass. I will pass. We will all move on.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Spends So Much Time on Facebook

2008-06-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

If it’s not been painfully clear by now, I am deep in bar study hell. And what fluctuates between more hellish and a mild reprieve from pangs of death by bar is that I am doing it alone in my room with an iPod. That means that every morning I get up, make coffee and sit at my breakfast room table with an iPod and the 40 lbs of books that BarBri sent me. I wear little headphones, even though I’m the only one in the house, and sometimes I chuckle a little to myself at the things the voices in my head say. I was trying to remember some of them so that when TF asked me how my day was, I could say, “Well, I’m listening to torts and the lecturer had this hysterical story about trespass to chattels. And yesterday the guy doing Crim Pro called the defendant a ‘little bastard’! Can you believe it? Oh, we just laughed and laughed!”

TF asked me what studying for the bar was like, if it was anything like studying for finals. I think he was trying to prepare himself for Barmageddon. “Will there by crying?” Yes. “What about wallowing in self-pity?” Very much yes. “Throwing things?” Mmmmaybe. “Including tantrums?” Oh. Yes.

Studying for the bar is kind of like studying for finals, if you were taking all your finals at the same time and some more finals on classes you never had because the thought of taking classes with names like Commercial Paper and Oil and Gas made you put sharp, hot, stabby things in your eyes.

And after a week of sitting at my desk, or the table, sometimes the couch, with my book and headphones, I developed pain in my neck and head so bad that I almost puked. TF made me get a deep tissue massage. Now I can’t move my head at all. I have had deep tissue massages before on my leg, when I was going to a chiropractor. I know they hurt and I know they can leave you bruised. But it’s one thing when it’s your leg, it’s another when it’s your friggin neck.

I will say (proudly) that I didn’t do one embarrassing thing during my massage. This may be the first. Although, I will say the moment I laid down I automatically reviewed all I had eaten in the past 12 hours.

So that is where I am and what I’m doing. I can’t say I expect too much excitement to happen here in my apartment, but I promise to be on the lookout. I do try to venture into modern society at least once a day, but I’m sort of embarrassed by the number of times I visit CVS in a week. Last time I was released in the wild, I ran into one of TF’s coworkers. I was standing in CVS (of course) wearing the same sweatpants I had worn all week and an oversized hoodie pulled over my unwashed hair, and holding a box of Cheerios. I can’t say for sure, but when I caught his gaze, I might have hissed and skittered back into the shadows from whence I came. You know what they say, if bar review is going to make you feel stupid, it might as well make you feel ugly too.

Would you look at him? Sittin' there with his hooter scrapin' away at that book!*

2008-05-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

K did a little list of books and out of curiosity, I did it for myself. Bold for the ones I've read, underlined for the ones I read for school, italics for the ones I never finished. Also copying K, I bolded and underlined the ones I read for school but then re-read (or, actually read) for myself.

Most of the ones I never finished are still sitting on my bookshelf with their bookmarks in place. But I'm reading White Noise right now, so they will stay where they are. BTW, the front desk guy at the vet's told me White Noise was his favorite book and I think nearly wet himself or started crying when he saw me with it. So....yay?

Oh, and the list is from LibraryThing where people list their books. These are the most commonly unread books listed. Some of that is not surprising (hey, Ulysses!), some of it is (seriously, you can't get through Catch-22 or Brave New World? They're like 20 pages each!)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
Catch-22
The Silmarillion
Don Quixote
The Odyssey
The Brothers Karamazov
Ulysses
War and Peace
Madame Bovary
A Tale of Two Cities
Jane Eyre
The Name of the Rose
Moby Dick
Emma
The Iliad
Vanity Fair
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Blind Assassin
Pride and Prejudice
The Historian: A Novel
The Canterbury Tales
The Kite Runner
Great Expectations
Life of Pi
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Atlas Shrugged
Foucault’s Pendulum
Dracula
The Grapes of Wrath
Frankenstein
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Mrs. Dalloway
Sense and Sensibility
Middlemarch
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Sound and The Fury
Memoirs of a Geisha
Brave New World
Quicksilver
American Gods
Middlesex
The Poisonwood Bible
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dune
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Satanic Verses
Mansfield Park
Gulliver’s Travels
The Three Musketeers
The Inferno
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Fountainhead
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
To the Lighthouse
A Clockwork Orange
Robinson Crusoe
Persuasion
The Scarlet Letter
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Once and Future King
Anansi Boys
Atonement
The God of Small Things
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Cryptonomicon
Dubliners
Oryx and Crake
Angela’s Ashes
Beloved
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
In Cold Blood
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
A Confederacy of Dunces
Les Misérables
The Amber Spyglass
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Watership Down
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
The Aeneid
A Farewell to Arms
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
Sons and Lovers
Possession
The Book Thief
The History of Tom Jones
The Road
Tender is the Night
The War of the Worlds

*This is from one of me favorite movies. Many, many cookies if you can guess it. The hint is that you have to pronounce it "booo-k."

Fun With MadLibs

2008-05-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the BARBRI. It was sooo BARBRI. I saw my friend BARBRI as I was BARBRIing the BARBRIs at the BARBRI. I said, “Hey, BARBRI, what are you doing here at the BARBRI?” He said, “What else would I be BARBRIing? I’m a BARBRIing BARBRI BARBRI who BARBRIs BARBRI BARBRI, BARBRI.” And I said, “Tell me about it. Fuckin’ BARBRI.”

The end.

The Robo-Boogie

2008-05-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took at kickboxing class at the gym. I think it was called something like “I WILL KEEL YOU! I WILL KEEL YOU DEAD!” I figured it would be hard. I didn’t figure that I would throw up a bit in my mouth.

So this morning I had to waddle to the doctor’s office to have him look at my sore throat. TF is scared to death that it’s mono and that I will breathe germy death all over him. Thank you, but I will not.

Anyway, so I kinda love my doc. He says really awkward things but doesn’t realize how really awkward they are because he’s one of those people who’s really smart but that’s about it. Doesn’t do the social thing too well. The awesome thing is that that makes it totally ok to kind of laugh because you feel so awkward but also at the same time at him because he’s making it so awkward. You know?

So the doc is looking at my neck and nose and mouth and starts squeezing aforementioned bits and then he pokes at my shoulders and goes “Is that a rash?” and without pause goes on “Oh, no. That’s just your complexion.”

So of course I start laughing and go “What did you just say?” and he’s all “It’s just your skin. You know.” Because that makes the situation BETTER.

And I also love my doc because when he asked me if I was taking anything for the sore throat and I responded Benadryl he goes “Ooh, good choice,” in a totally unironic but completely excited manner. Like I just told him I brought him cookie dough ice cream. “Yes! Good call! I LOVE ice cream!”

So then I shuffle off to the grocery store to my favorite Salad Bar in the world and make myself the Best Salad Ever which is this: lettuce (but only the really green kind and none of that crunchy white middle crap), spinach, dried cherries, carrots, tofu, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, crunchy stick things, sprouts, croutons, and “Low Cal Fat Italian” as the salad dressing bottle describes itself.

Then I’m at the bus stop with my groceries and salad, eyeing the old man with the cane to see if he’s gonna take the last seat on the bench. He is not. Victory! I ease myself down and open my salad and juice and the guy next to me goes “No wonder you look so healthy!”

Now, I don’t know what that means. I especially don’t know what it means coming from an 80 year old, overweight man smoking a pipe at the bus stop. But I will take it. I will take it better than rashy skin, anyhow.

Also, I forgot to mention that I participated in the latest Mixtape Project on "The Future." It was one of the harder themes for me, for some reason. I wanted to do "The Office" but was denied. Anyway, here was my offering:

1. I Predict a Riot (Kaiser Chiefs cover) - Cheshire Chord Company
2. Here Today Gone Tomorrow - M.O.P.
3. Future is in the Future - Electric Six
4. Song for a Future Generation - Chicks on Speed
5. Future Bolt - Hotpipes
6. I Don't Wanna Grow Up (Ramones cover) - Cold War Kids
7. Going On - Gnarls Barkley
8. If She Wants Me - Belle & Sebastian
9. This Time Tomorrow - The Kinks
10. The Future Pt. 1 - Voxtrot
11. Forever Young - Youth Group
12. I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
13. Hide and Seek - Imogen Heap
14. Signing Off - Oliver Future
15. Here Comes the Future - The Honeydrips
16. [Special Bonus Track] Robots - Flight of the Conchords

What do you mean, you didn't like Atlas Shrugged?

2008-04-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

Not only does this make me feel better about judging people by the books they read, it also makes me feel better for hating the shitty writing of Ayn Rand, something I always felt like I had to hide from my college friends.

A Dingo Ate My Baby

2008-03-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

YO!
I am back from Australia. I am still very tired even though I have to sit here and try to get some work done.
I would tell you how it all went, but my sister is doing a much better job over at her blog (multiple paragraphs! For shiz!). I took a buttload of pictures (buttload = approx. 700 pictures) so once I sort through them and betterize them with the magic of photoshop, they'll be on my flickr. If you know me personally and don't have my flickr address, lemme know.

If you don't know me IRL, this post must totally blow for you.

So anyhows, I'm knackered but have to finish the videos for the law school musical. Damn me and my overactive imagination ("Oh no, we will TOTALLY have time to use chromakey!"). So I will be at my computer all day for the next four days if you need me. Bring food.

Pictures of You

2008-02-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

My graduation present came last week and it's my favorite new toy. I hearts it so much. So this is just an excuse to post some puppy pictures. And to show my parents where their money is going! Click pics for biggers. Also, I realize the focus in the bottom two isn't quite on, but I'm working on it.

And just to show off the detail, chocolate chip pumpkin muffin!

Popular, You're Gonna Be Popular.

2008-02-17T21:41:00.000-08:00

Awesome: The IT Crowd is coming to America.

Also Awesome: Richard Ayoade is coming with it.

I talked about this show a long time ago (Sorry, I think the video link is dead.) and what I saw of Season 2 was just as funny if not funnier.

They better not make it stupid.

Awesome: The journal board has changed and I’m officially done with all journal work ever. Did I say ever? Cuz I mean ever. I still have to pass on all my wisdom, in its infiniteness, but other than that. Done done done.

Also Awesome: A few people told me they appreciated how I kept the meeting on task (all 19 hours). That felt nice.

Not Awesome: I got desperately, direly ill the next day. So ill I couldn’t even handle reading emails. I’m functioning again, though. So that’s nice. I'm just still playing catchup.

Awesome: A classmate nominated me to help the school by doing a bit of blogging. I think she said I was funny. That, too, was nice.

Not Awesome: Keeping up regular posting in two places will no doubt prove difficult. As I have a proven record of failing at regular posting in one place, I do not predict a change.

Awesome: I haven’t publicly embarrassed myself in a while.

Not Awesome: That leaves me with little blog fodder. I promise to do better.

A West Indian Man

2008-02-11T11:21:00.000-08:00

TF’s Valentine’s Day present came today. As I was riding up in the elevator, I noticed that above his name and address the envelope said “A West Indian Man.”

TF is not, by the way, a West Indian man. Even if he were, I’m not sure why that would be on an address label. Our landlord, however, has an Indian name. I haven’t slept much recently,* I am not thinking… well, much at all. So now I’m wondering why the Post Office has started race profiling people and identifying “addresses of interest.”

I get upstairs and as I’m opening the envelope, I’m imaging supercomputers and Homeland Security and why they would possibly care that a West Indian man lived at my address. Inside the package with TF’s present is a letter thanking us for our adoption of a West Indian Manatee.

And with that, I’m off to bed.

*Law Review Board elections were yesterday. We spent 19 hours straight in a small room that was painted a horrible bright light green hue. I got home at 3:30 a.m. I am glad to be done.

It's not the 50s anymore, Frank. The kids aren't bopping anymore.

2008-02-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

I am surely due for an update. If only I had interesting things to tell you, but mostly it’s me just keeping my head above water.

To wit: yesterday I asked TF, offhandedly, that if he happens upon my glasses let me know because I can’t find them. He, of course, asks when I last had them. “I know I had them,” I say, “when I went to the theater with T.”

“That was two weeks ago! And you just now thought to bring it up to me?”

“Well,” I say, “I figured I’d come across them. But I’ve looked and now they’re really lost.”

TF just starts laughing. Uncontrollably. What could possibly be so funny about my losing my glasses and having to ask the professor to make the font bigger on the projection screen because I couldn’t read it?

“It’s just so you,” he says. “You just bop around your life and just happen to bump into the things you need as you go.”

This, I humph, is Not. True. What does he mean “bop around”? What is this “bumping into things”? I do none of this. None of this, I say!

And then: today.

My mom asks me, inexplicably, for my passport number. As I am getting it, I realize that my passport expires in May. Not in May 2009, like I thought, but May as in four months for now. I leave for Australia in a little more than a month. I decide to check up on the little rumor I heard that to enter Australia, your passport must expire at least six months after you return. Oh, of course it does. Of course.

I have bumped and bopped my way into realizing I need to renew my passport in the nick of time. I’ve also bopped my way into a $60 expedite fee. Sigh.

And I still can’t find my glasses.

Just Too White and Nerdy

2008-01-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

I wish I had great stories to tell you of the holidays. But I do not. They came and went completely uneventfully. Yesterday, I took down my tree *sniff sniff* and all that's left is an empty corner of my living room. If that's not bad enough, classes start up tomorrow.

TOMORROW. That is crazy. My last semester of school. Ever. I'm blowing my mind right now.

What have I been doing?
- I got TF a Wii for Xmas, but I'm the only one whoever plays it. I thought about not admitting to anyone that I got DDR for it and play it all the time, but I figured the only way I could find someone who was willing play with me was to embrace my extreme nerdiness.

- I got to see Jersey Boys. As reigning Queen of the Oldies, I was warned repeatedly (and unnecessarily, thank you very much) that there was to be no singing along. I maybe kinda sorta mouthed all the words but IT COULD NOT BE HELPED. I'm sorry, but you cannot take me to a musical with one of my all-time favorite songs (Stay- although I prefer the original Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. But just slightly.) and expect me not to bounce up and down in my chair for two hours. I am told that at one point, I actually had my hands clasped tightly under my chin with saucer-sized eyes like a six year old looking at a candy store window display.

- Other than that, I've been really, really lazy. I'm working my way slowly through Shantaram, but it is almost 1000 pages and the last time I read a book that long, it was Harry Potter and had pictures. I also spent a good amount of time prepping for the law school musical. See? Embrace the nerdiness! It feels good!

Tis The Season

2007-12-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

To fall on your ass.

I happened to take my trip on Saturday, on the way to a holiday party. No, strike that. On the way IN to a holiday party. So, you know, no time for anything to dry, black bits of street grime accenting my newly matted hair. So hot.

I slipped in front of an apartment building, stepping off the curb. I must have put my hand out to stop my fall- a lesson I should have learned the first time I sprained it. But no! I refuse! Take your gravity and shove it, you! I will go careening across icy streets only to end up splayed like a dissected frog on the dirty, dirty ground with my skirt halfway up to my neck and my hand in a deceivingly deep puddle TIL THE DAY I DIE!

In other news of my grace and elegance, I rejoined TF’s gym and am forcing him to train me. He wouldn’t do it until I went to rehab for my back, so I did and I’m almost done (to quote my physical therapist, “Wow, you have tight old lady hips!”). So he kicked my ass for an hour, laughed at my puniness, and then tortured me some more by stretching my legs afterwards. So I’m lying on the bench on my stomach, waiting to die, when he goes “What’s up with your leg?”

I twist my head around to see him pointing at a large swath of hair left unshaven centrally located on the back of my thigh. I immediately try to roll over or cover it with… nothing. It’s completely exposed and entirely noticeable.

“Did you do that on purpose?”

“Of course I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“It looks like you’ve been growing it out on purpose.”

“I’m not growing anything out! Stop looking at it! Roll me over!”

“Seriously! It’s like a Mohawk straight down your hamstring! You have a HAMHAWK!”

“I DO NOT HAVE A HAMHAWK!”

But I did, indeed, have a Hamhawk. And no amount of asking TF to ignore it has stopped me from having a Hamhawk. I spent at least ten minutes in the shower battling it with a razor. TF, however, is keeping the legend alive by laughing at it over dinner, after dinner, and before bed.

Long live the legend of the Hamhawk.

PUNCHED! FULL RECOVERY!

2007-12-03T17:13:00.000-08:00

Did you see that SNL short where Andy Samburg punches people in the face and then celebrates with a happy dance? I believe it was called, appropriately, People Getting Punched Just Before Eating?

Well, appropriately or not, that's the dance I did when I got my MPRE results. Really, I can't describe the metaphor. Let's just say that I was surprised and happy and roughly 20 more points ethical than I need to be. ...What? I don't know. I don't have to make sense, I'm ethical, dammit!!

Overheard On My Block

2007-11-19T13:40:00.001-08:00

Tourist Lady #1, shouting into cellphone: Everyone here has herpes!
Tourist Lady #2, shouting over TL#1's shoulder into same cellphone: There's a whoooooole lotta herpes in this city!

Oh, really? Wow, I didn't even know they made ethics rules for that.

2007-11-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to be blogging about the MPRE. So here is mine:

(1) It sucked.

(2) No, really.

It was surprisingly hard.

I only did self-studying for the exam, but that’s pretty much how I’ve always studied for tests like this and I’ve always done really well. I’m just one of those people who wishes everything in life were based on standardized test scores, because I am good at them. I’m not smart in a lot of ways, but I’m definitely good at filling in the correct bubble on a scantron. I was kicking some ethical ass on the practice tests here too and figured I could at least muster up the 30 something points on the real thing when I was hitting 40s on my couch.

Maybe I should have studied harder, I won’t know for a while. But I really did sit there for two hours and guess.

Don't Ask Me About Shoes

2007-11-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

I think one of the reasons I don’t post so very regularly here can be best understood through the following story (if you can call it that):

Yesterday was Halloween. I wore a t-shirt and jeans. I was at school for 12 hours. While my building was having its Halloween party, I was at my second of three meetings of the night.

TF made me go to Chipotle on the way home and all the young guys in the building were wearing little aluminum foil hats. I wasn’t confused by this, mostly because I was too busy trying to get TF’s order right (I’m gonna come out and say it- TF is a pickier order-er than me. There, I said it, and I stand behind it). The fact that it didn’t register that they were dressed up like burritos to get a free burrito, and the fact that my response when I did figure it out (because 4 guys came wrapped up together in a tan blanket and then I saw a sign at the register) fell far below “mild” on the Richter scale of surprise, is kind of sad to me.

First year, I went to school as an International Shoe Salesman. I even made a little shoebox and a button that said “Ask me about shoes!” This year, I walked past 10 dudes in aluminum foil hats and I breezed past them thinking about how long it was going to take me to finish my work for the evening. I am not the only 3L lost in her own little law school world, and I feel sad for us.

I didn’t even eat any candy.

An Open Letter to The 1Ls Who Walk Slowly and In Groups Five People Wide

2007-10-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Assholes,

Look, I understand. Law school is like, hard and stuff. And the weight of the world (and impending exams) must rest heavily on those wee shoulders. Not to mention the 50 lbs of books you carry around.* It must make every step a feat of strength, what with all that new knowledge building up in your little, weary head.

But I am not a 1L. I am a 3L. And as such, you can safely assume that, if I am on campus, I am most definitely, without a doubt, late for something. Thus, I do not want to plod along behind you, listening to your best studying tips. All I want- all I really, really want, in this whole wide world- is for you to MOVE. OUT. OF. MY. WAY.

There is no need, NO NEED, for you to talk while standing in a line. I do not get this. Do you not realize that communication would be easier if you stood in the more appropriate, much more considerate formation of rows? Look, here’s a helpful drawing:

Why do you not get this? I'm looking, and I'm trying to understand. But I do not.

In conclusion, please try to make me want to kick you less. Thanks.

Love,
Cella

* Can I just note I have one textbook this year? This is why I’m a 3L, cuz I’ve been doin’ this for 2 years now and doin’ it well.

G as in Jesus

2007-10-08T07:26:00.001-07:00

Ahhhh.

That’s me floating around on my post-Wes Anderson happiness cloud.

The Darjeeling Limited is out and you kinda have to go see it, like, right now. It’s so pretty and lovely and of the 91 minutes, there are at least 85 of Adrian Brody pouting and that in itself is a great movie.

Seriously though, if you don’t like Anderson movies, you’re not going to like this. But out of his work, I think I put this #2 on my list, right after Royal Tenenbaums which may always be one of my favorite movies ever of all time ever. TF is appalled that I’m putting it before Rushmore, but I am. Life Aquatic, you can come fourth. Or maybe I’ll put you fifth after Bottle Rocket. I don’t know, I’ll get back to you.

Speaking of lists, TF and I spent a good long while sitting in a bar, trying to come up with our top ten Elton John songs. I really have no idea why we did, or why it was so pressing and urgent that we do it then, in a local bar. But we did. Here is mine.

1. Little Jeannie
2. Tiny Dancer
3. Your Song
4. This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore
5. Levon
6. Don’t Go Breakin My Heart
7. I Guess That’s Why they Call it the Blues
8. Sad Songs (Say So Much)
9. Something About the Way You Look Tonight
10. Step into Christmas

More than Meets the Eye

2007-09-22T09:44:00.001-07:00

In case you were wondering, I will not be clerking next year. This is a good thing, as the process nearly cost me my fiancé. I’m not exaggerating and I’m not going to go into detail about a deeply personal relationship issue. So let me say simply that I’m happy it’s all over, excited to grow up a little bit and settle down. It might not seem like a happy ending to you, but it does to me.

In other news, TF and I finally had the time to take him to see Transformers in IMAX, which he has been whining about for some time. I loved Transformers growing up (although my personal collection was mostly the cheaper knock-off Gobots) and it was exactly what I expected it to be, which is to say a big ol blow’ em up real-life cartoon. There was one scene when some cars just started exploding spontaneously, I think (at least, I couldn’t figure out why they were on fire). There was also only one female voice in the chorus of “Ohhh yeah’s” when that big ol’ bright red semi truck first came barreling down the highway. And yes, it was mine.