The future, in terms both long and short.

It's been so long since I've updated, especially with anything beyond "Oh, it's finals. Life sucks." So long, in fact, that I don't really feel like updating now.

But update I will. For posterity, as always.

Finals ended on Friday, and it's Monday today. So really, it's only been a few days since my semester ended, but it already feels like an eternity ago. Immediately after my last final (4:30 pm on a Friday... fun!) I grabbed a couple law school buddies and we met up with T who was having his holiday party after-party at a bar downtown. That led to more drinks, two pizzas, some fries and a homemade sausage sandwich, all consumed at various stops between the first bar and my apartment. I wound up at home several hours later, quite full, slightly tipsy and very ready for sleep.

Saturday consisted of watching old Christmas cartoon classics (the lesser-known, racist ones, because that's all they had on Netflix Instant Watch) while I purged my study nook of all my old notebooks, outlines, books and assorted papers. I also managed to purge my closet, which started out at the beginning of the semester looking so neat and tidy, but ended up the apparent victim of a deadly tornado. After throwing every single shirt, suit jacket and dirty sock onto the bed, I sorted clothes into "trash", "giveaway" and "keep" and then stopped, leaving the tornado debris all over the room. Hah. Finishing projects is not one of my strengths.

We went on a date Saturday night, though, which was awesome. T had brought a bottle of wine home a few days ago, which I stared at longingly for the last 3 days of studying, having realized that I absolutely cannot be productive if I've had a glass of merlot. T, the wine and I made up the street to a BYO thai restaurant, where the waiter immediately whisked the bottle away to be opened, only to return moments later with the cap unscrewed. "Didn't realize this was screw-top," he said, as we all looked down and laughed awkwardly.

And speaking of awkward, the post-finals reconnection is always a little awkward, because I've basically spent the last three weeks ignoring T while he goes about his business and I sink into a pit of despair and self-pity out of which I refuse to be helped. All of a sudden, with finals over, I'm ready to return to our amazing marriage, our passionate love and fond affection for one another, and I'm inevitably frustrated that life is not immediately back to normal, my husband isn't attentive to my every need and our conversation doesn't flow the way I remember it. It takes time to cultivate the closeness that I've shrugged off for the entire last month of school. And that is why our Saturday night date, despite my initial misgivings, was so lovely.

After dinner, wine and dessert, we made our way uptown to a local art theater to see Tiny Furniture. I could write a whole other blog post about why I thought Tiny Furniture was awesome. But suffice it to say that there aren't enough movies told from the point of view of a 22-year old normal-sized girl who isn't sure why she's living with her parents or working at a restaurant after having just earned a college degree, but is pretty sure that's okay for now and the answer isn't about finding the right guy or getting a makeover. I highly recommend it, and I'll leave it at that.

So anyway, after Saturday, the rest of the weekend (aka Sunday) was just a bunch of me and T poking around the house, planning for our upcoming trips, alternating between getting things done (me: put the clothes away, t: pack orders) and laying around (me: listen to savage love podcasts, t: nap). We went over to our friends' house to eat dinner and watch more old Christmas movies, came home and went to bed.

Where does that leave me?

Well, pretty much trying to fight off a sinus infection and avoid the freezing, freezing death cold of the Big City, while continuing to be semi-productive in planning for my future, in terms both short and long. (Short: trip to T's family's rental house for Xmas, then 2 weeks in Colombia. Long: another college graduation that may or may not lead to a paying job.) I'm putting together a homemade Christmas present for everyone in my life, and telling myself that is a form of productivity. And I'm carefully spacing out my consumption of Tylenol Head Congestion pills and Theraflu Warming Elixer (or whatever it's call). And forcing myself to update my blog.

NaBloPoMo (make-up edition)

* My dog is uncontrollably itchy, and has been for weeks. I don't know what to do, and he appears miserable. It's not fleas. Do I need to take him to the vet?

* Watching Love in the Time of Cholera makes me wonder why American directors continually butcher Latino characters and repeatedly miscast Benjamin Bratt and John Leguizamo as the Everyhombres. But it also makes me really, really, really, REALLY ready to go back to Colombia.

* I tried something new at school today. In the two hours between classes that I usually spend freaking out about what to do and wind up doing nothing productive, I paused and envisioned myself sitting in a library carrel with my Fed Courts book, studying. After taking just a few moments to mindfully picture myself actually studying, I miraculously found myself walking to a library carrel and opening up my Fed Courts book. It occurred to me that most of the time I'm fretting about studying, I'm not actually committed to actually studying. The More You Know!

* T and I have a date night planned for tomorrow. I can not wait. We really need some catch-up time. It's been nice taking it slow this week, and spanning time together.

* Human Rights casebook and I have a date for tonight. Exciting action happening in my bed in about five minutes. I have to close my eyes and visualize it first though, if I want to make it happen. So, if you'll excuse me...

Balentime's Day

The fireplace was a nice touch, but just the novelty of sitting in the Omni sipping cocktails was by itself enough to make yesterday a memorable date night. "Happy Balentime's Day," T said to me. "Happy Balentime's Day," I replied. And we toasted, he with a Jack and Coke, I with a gin and soda. We chatted about office gossip, what our lives will be like when we're old, and whether money is a romantic topic of conversation. (Me: Yes. T: No.) Over by the bar, a group of hotel guests were huddled together, strangers acting like old friends, watching the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was grinning.

We hadn't intended on having a "Valentine's" date. I just suggested that we go see a movie. But then we realized we still didn't have food in the house, and we were hungry. So we decided to walk over to our favorite Thai restaurant a few blocks away. It was a brisk walk, what with the snow and my refusal to wear my new boots to dinner. But when we saw the neon lights and the inviting sign, thoughts of cold disappeared. Instead, we began to wonder why nobody was eating at the restaurant.

"Welcome!" said the lady who greeted us. "We have a prix fix menu for Valentine's Day. $35 a person. Would you like to see?"

"Um, are you doing your regular menu, too?" was my classy reply. Predictably, the answer was no.

After a quick huddle, we decided to throw caution to the wind. Kind of like we did the last time we decided to splurge on dinner out. And the time before that. And I haven't even gotten to last week!

Kidding! (Sort of.)

I'll fast-forward through the delicious appetizer course, scrumptious dinner and so-so (hey, just being honest) dessert, except to say that our dinner conversation consisted of deciding that we should look for a new apartment. The glory of being on a month-to-month is that we can pretty much move out whenever we want, except for the whole 60-day notice thing. After a year and a half of being in this little firetrap, we've official been in Big City and in this apartment for as long as we were in Richmond (and our nice, big apartment). Other exciting topics of conversation included gushing over our fat, "just married!" tax return, and the speed with which we will now be able to pay off credit cards. T quickly wiped my hefty student loan debt off the table of conversation.

Anyway, after dinner, we had a good long stroll down the main drag of our neighborhood, where we stopped in to some of the charming local shops (Condom Kingdom, Beyond the Wall). I considered buying a journal for logging, uh, bathroom functions. Mostly I pretended I was 15 again and hanging out at the mall. I even saw a group of my old high school friends (or their doppelgangers) sharing fries at Johnny Rockets.

Eventually, we wound our way up to the movie theater, where we were 45 minutes early. I guess Condom Kingdom didn't have enough to keep us occupied between dinner and movie. Cue T's brilliant idea to get drinks at the Omni Hotel, which is right next to the theater. Yes, I had to use my passport to get my drink, since I lost my driver's license at that stupid 1/2 to JD party a couple weeks ago. But no, they did not kick us out for looking like vagabonds wandering in off the street.

But the whole point of this post is to tell any reader lucky enough to have read this far that you must go see Fishtank. If it's not playing at a theater near you, rent it on Netflix when it comes out. This was a beautifully stark, well-shot and never-dull "coming of age" story about a 15-year old girl growing up in public housing in England's East Side (?). I hate the concept of "coming of age" movies, which usually seem to be about boys trying to have sex for the first time. But this one was awesome. I can't recommend it enough.

That concludes my obligatory Valentine's Day post. Thank you for reading :)

wedding insanity

It was a lovely weekend, but seeing that it was capped off by unprecedented wedding stress and family drama, I have joyfully returned to my firetrap apartment in the Big City where I spent the morning watching White Oleander on the couch and blissfully not checking e-mail. (Mondays are office hours, so work doesn't start til the afternoon.) Now I intend to get dressed, saddle up the pony-dog and head over to the cafe to space out and not think about wedding. What a beautiful way to spend the day.

To go or not to go

Where did this night go? It's 2:23 am. About 15 minutes ago, I tried to start a game of The Game of (Real) Life on the grounds that it was only 11 o'clock. I was, of course, reading the hands backwards on the clock. Whoops.

So obviously I've had a bit to drink. I'm laying off for the most part. But tonight, T and I went to see Revolutionary Road, which was great (kind of depressing though). There happened to be a noodle place next door, so we decided to go for dinner afterward, with wine include. One chilly walk back and we made it to the apartment just in time to see my future brother-in-law and his GF pulling up with the car we loaned them. We went out for more drinks and food. A couple hours later and we ended up back at my apartment with T's best friend, playing Wii and finishing off our bottle of wine from last night.

Now I'm sitting here trying to decide whether to drive down for the inauguration on Tuesday. I really, really, really can't decide. I had just about written it off, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like it would be nothing but a regret to not at least try. This might make up for all the other things I could have but did not do over the last few years (e.g. the State of the Union address protest on the Washington mall the year we started the Iraq war; the second GW Bush inauguration protest; etc.) not to mention it would be terrible to be able to say I attended GW Bush's first inauguration parade and not Obama's. Anyway... to be determined, I guess. One thing is for sure: tomorrow, I get to sleeeeeeeeeep in!

Date night

At some point I would like to drop some of the memorable quotes from my law classes into this blog, just because I want to remember the terribly elitist sense of humor I had during these heady 1L times. But my binder is off in the other room, where I abandoned it in the middle of reading a case that my book described as a "bad application of consideration." Can somebody please explain to me why I should be reading a BAD example of a very confusing concept as a way to help me understand this concept? Makes no sense...

But anyway. I abandoned the casebook in order to spend the evening hanging out with T. Since his best friend moved up here, I've had plenty of time to study while they entertain each other. It's kind of nice having familiar faces around too. But tonight was a good chance to steal away. We walked over to the market to get a couple of $1.50 slices of pizza (incredible) and then decided we'd go see Towelhead at one of the local theaters downtown.

It's pretty awesome that we can walk to not one, but three art house theaters that show independent and foreign movies. They're all part of a local chain of theaters, and having now been to two of them, I have to say that I'm impressed. In addition to candy and popcorn, they sell copies of Persepolis and movie posters at their concession stand. It's a really cool experience, though it can't beat the Byrd for prices and dramatic flair.

After the movie, we walked back to our hood for coffee and pastries, where ate this. Having discovered ganache, I'll never go back to regular chocolate again.

Sadly, I can't say the same for torts.

Do it for posterity

I watched a very moving documentary tonight called 51 Birch Street. I've seen many documentaries that involve children filmmakers interviewing their parents as subjects. I've been one of those would-be documentarians myself. 51 Birch Street sets a gold standard.

The film also inspired me to learn a new word. Did you know that "posterity" means future generations? What a cool meaning for a word that I'd only ever heard in cliches.

Law school continues this week, as it will for the next many, many weeks. I am feeling overwhelmed a bit by the unceasing work. Not that it's so much (yet) but it seems there is a low-level constant pressure beginning to build. (What's that I hear? The sound of 2Ls and 3Ls laughing?) I would have liked for my afternoon to involve much less planning around getting certain reading assignments done, and much more walking around the neighborhood and eating out at delicious restaurants. You know, the kind of thing I could do when I worked a regular day job.

T had a job interview today. His business also officially launched the new website today!! Check it out, because it looks awesome. I'm impressed by how much he's done in the mere week since we arrived. I want to take that as a good sign.

Forgetting Judd Apatow

T and I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night. On the way home, I got flustered by the extremely receptive audience response to the movie, and yada yada yada, we walked home in silence.

Sadly, I don't have the time or mental energy to flesh out the vague objections I have to the latest installment of the Judd Apatow 'n' Pals series. But fortunately, many other bloggers have done the job for me already. I'm linking to some posts that raise questions or take issue with FSM (and Superbad)... I don't necessarily agree with these bloggers on everything, but I can relate and in many cases I do agree.

For your browsing pleasure:

Hard Crayon on the Spontaneous, Quirky Girl and other two-dimensional female characters
Steve the Penguin on the questionable premise of Superbad
Antagony & Ecstasy feels like a grouch for not being okay with the sexism in FSM
Heavy Boots asks: what if the guy in FSM was a female and Sarah Marshall was a dude?

And two males weighed in on the issue...
41 Miles to Freedom quibbles with the ending of FSM
NPR's Fresh Air on the Great Sexual Divide