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...

A soccer adventure, or how I forgot I was in law school for one night

Last night, I felt like I got a taste of my life in the days before law school was even a twinkle in my eye. Ironically, it started with my skipping class to study Federal Courts.

I do that. Skip class, I mean. And skip it to study. There may be little to no logic in it, but I've realized that instead of beating myself up over it, I should just trust myself that I can learn the material, learn it well enough to do okay on tests and as long as I don't surpass my allowed absences, I need to go with my gut.

Anyway, that's what I was doing last night. I was set up in the little corner of our bedroom that's been designated as my study spot, and which I've recently rediscovered as a less distracting place to read than the couch in the living room. I'm working my way through supplemental jurisdiction and debating whether or not to read United Mine Workers v. Gibbs for the gazillionth time. So I decided to take a break and check facebook on my blackberry.

"COLOMBIA!!!" is the first status update I see listed on my friends page. And that's how I learned that the US was playing Colombia in an international friendly match last night. "We're coming up from DC on a party bus!" was the first comment on the status update. And that's how I realized that the US-Colombia match was going to be played in the Big City. Oh crap!

In typical me fashion, I got super excited extremely fast and immediately start scheming for ways to get tickets to the game, planning the best route to the new stadium (that's 30 minutes outside the City) and imagining all the shots of aguardiente (a popular Colombian liquor) I would be taking in the parking lot. I leap over to the iPod, put on the Diomedes Diaz and start a massive text message campaign.

Can you guess what happened next?

30 minutes later, my blood is still pumping fast, but I have realized that tickets to the game are going to run us a minimum of $35 a person for the worst seats, we'll have to pay $15 for parking, T is going to be tired when he gets home and everybody else is out of town or studying. Plus even the soccer bars in town didn't know about this match, or just didn't care enough to remember it. I can feel my dreams of a Colombian rumba slipping away. I settle on watching the game at the one local soccer bar that's got the game on its schedule. I find a friend who's up for going.

When T gets home, he's up for watching the game but less than excited about watching it at my selected bar, which is admittedly a jock chain irish pub and not exactly our preferred atmosphere. He suggests the local German beer house around the corner from us, where we caught many a World Cup game. I call them up and they agree to play the match. But when 8 o'clock rolls around, T is on the phone with his business partner and my other friend has already committed to meeting people at the jock pub. I walk over to the German bar alone.

Sitting in that German beer house alone, eating a soft Bavarian pretzel and watching old footage of the fateful Escobar auto-gol (can any Colombian match be shown on a US network without that clip being played) I started feeling sad. Sad because I couldn't find other people to share my excitement. Sad because I didn't care about the game so much as the camraderie. Sad because nobody else in the bar was watching the game, and because the damn place was blasting polka music. Sad because I was homesick for another country.

The game started late, and T showed up just as it began. I learned from striking up a conversation with an older couple at the bar that the bar's owners had actually gone to the game. They had a bunch of tickets they were selling to go as a caravan with bar regulars, but they couldn't even give them away. We had just missed them. It occurred to me that anybody in the Big City who actually care about the game was actually at the game.

"I'm sad we're not there," I said to T.

"You want to go?" he replied.

"No, there's no point." I sighed, fully invested in feeling sorry for myself. We sat in silence, trying to get excited for a minute. "I mean, by the time we get there, the game will be almost over," I added.

"We can go, if you want to."

"Well..." I considered it. Thought of all the reasons it wouldn't be worth it. And then thought about what would happen if we stayed. We would drink a couple more beers. I would muster up a little enthusiasm, but mostly continue to feel sad, and then we'd go home. The polka would continue to blast.

"Eff it, let's go." I looked at T to see if he was really okay with it. "Let's just do it, why not?"

"Okay," said T. "But I think the dog needs to go out."

So I handed T my credit card, told him to finish his drink and pay up, and I walked back to the apartment to walk our dog and grab the car keys. Five minutes later, we were on the road. Before we even left city limits, I felt a thousand times better. I didn't even care if we missed the game.

We didn't really have much of a plan. I'd grabbed some cash from T's sock drawer, but not enough for us to buy two tickets to the game. Besides, we weren't even sure how much time would be left by the time we got there. We just decided to go and see if we could figure something out once we were there. Maybe they'd let us in to see the last bit of the game. Maybe we'd just party with Colombianos in the lot. Maybe the whole thing would be a bust.

We spent the drive talking about our days, like we'd do if we had had dinner at home. I watched the city lights as we crossed the bridge, as if we were driving back to Virginia. It felt like an escape. With my stupid new little Blackberry as our guide, we fumbled our way through shitty parts of abandoned towns to get to the soccer stadium. We laughed at the marker on Google Maps for Chiang Jiang Chinese Food. T rolled his eyes when I insisted he use Google Street View to figure out the best place to turn. "I can't even see that thing. It's not helpful!" And then he blamed Street View for nearly turning too early. "It looked familiar! Street View confused me."

Anyway, by some miracle we ended up finding the stadium about 35 minutes after our initial decision to go. Getting there involved turning onto a half-paved road, crossing railroad tracks and driving through a chainlink fence with barbed wire on top. But we did it.

The parking lot was closed off because the game was over halfway done. I jumped out of the car at the barricade and called over a parking lot attendant.

Parking Lot Man (PLM): "You know the game's almost over, right?"
Me: "Yeah, we're just trying to catch the tail end."
PLM: "It's supposed to be $15 to park here. That's okay. Gimme $10 and turn to the left and park over there."
Me: "How about $5?"
PLM: "It don't matter. That's fine."
Me (Running back to the car and whispering to T): "Quick! Give him five bucks, let's go!"

So we parked the car in the lot and walked over to the stadium entrance, fully prepared to bribe some other people to let us into the game. Cash in hand, we sauntered up to the entrance. There were at least three stadium attendances at the gate, none of whom was prepared to let us in without a ticket.

Me: "Even though there are so many empty seats? Can we just pay at the gate?"
Stadium attendant (SA): "Nope. If you don't have a ticket, you can't get it."
Me: "What are we supposed to do?"
SA: "Try over there?" (Gestures to the closed ticket booths.)

T and I wander over and knock on the windows of the ticket booths, where a woman working late came over to tell us that we couldn't buy tickets after halftime. We wandered further down the stadium to the team shop, which had the game playing on a big screen t.v. that we could watch through the window.

As we stood there watching the game, I listened to another couple standing beside us, watching the game and talking to one another about how their passes would get them anywhere except the field. I looked over. They were wearing shirts from the local soccer team and big passes around their necks. Someone from inside the store came out and took orders from them. "How much is that shirt over there?" said the man. The store clerk went in and looked and came back with a price.

I turned to the couple. "Are you here with...the team?" The woman turned to me and smiled, "We're with the [Big City] team."

"Oh, that's cool," I said. "Well, it's kind of a bummer that your stadium won't sell tickets to people who want to go to the game just because we got here late."

"Half-time," she said apologetically, by way of explanation.

I shrugged. "Yeah, that's really disappointing."

I listened to the couple muttering and they eventually went back to their banter as they watched the game through the glass. Getting self-righteous and huffy, I began fantisizing about the bad review I was going to post on Yelp about the experience. After all, every news article about the game mentioned the lack of ticket sales. Why wouldn't they take our money?

"I'm not sure we're going about this the right way," said T. We stared at the screen. Score was 0-0 with just under 30 minutes left. "I don't think there was anything else we could do," I said back.

We glanced behind us to where a small cadre of people had gathered with the couple who had been standing beside us. They'd relocated somewhere back by a flagpole. I wondered who the hell they were.

"They want to get into the game?" I heard someone say. I looked over. A girl in a knitted beanie and big puffy coat rushed over to the storefront. Next thing I know, she was standing beside me.

"Here, take these, quick!" she whispered. "Don't tell anyone!"

She flashed two tickets to the game and pressed them into my hand. I grinned. She rushed away.

"Wow, thanks!" I said. I have no idea if she heard me.

And that's how T and I ended up getting into the game, where we caught the last 20 minutes of the US-Colombia international friendly from mere feet away from the US goal. We were surrounded by so much yellow and red and spanish and beer and soccer chanting that I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. It was amazing! We did it! And when I turned around from our seats, I saw this:



PAZ EN COLOMBIA. Peace in Colombia.

And then it was over. No score. Un empate. But on the way back, we drove under a bridge as a train passed by, and I noticed every diner on the side of the road. T laughed when I said, "The best part was that we just went." When I asked why he laughed, he said it was because of how nonchalant I was. I reminded him that this was kind of thing we used to do on a whim, to just go, to adventure out and find something to get ourselves into. It's how we have ended up tailgating a rodeo, napping on the Gulf shore, eating lobster rolls in Maine, climbing to the top of a drive-in movie screen. (And falling in love.)

Last night, I remembered that there is a life beyond law school, beyond work, beyond the daily grind and its attendant expectations. Thank God.

Out of breath, but breathing

I've spent the last three hours living an after-school special about Why You Don't Wait To The Last Minute To Assemble Your Applications. I guess this was a sequel to my 1L year lesson in Why You Always Check Your Legal Memo Word Count Before Saying "I'm Done" And Going To Sleep.

Anyway, I really am done now. Like it or not. And for the first time EVER, I felt an urge to run off steam. At 29, "firsts" don't come every day, but this was truly a first. So after I parked my car (legally -- check), locked it up (wheel lock -- check; faceplate put away -- check) and found the house keys I borrowed from T (in the locked car -- check), I suited up in some raggedy shorts and running shirt and WENT ON A RUN. All by myself. And not an obligatory run. I did that yesterday at the gym. This was a real "I actually want to" run. Cue the heavenly music.

Okay, so it was only a mile, and of that mile I only actually ran half of it: 2.5 blocks running, 2.5 walking, repeat. And I took the dog who had to do his business along the way. But for real, I came back sweaty and thirsty and exhausted. Yay :)

Now I am going to take a shower, await the return of my hero (T, as usual) and hopefully meet some friends for drinks and pub quiz where I will forget all about September and the Great Fellowship Debacle Quest of 2010. Bring on October!

Stick to the eye

I walked the dog to the park today, as per usual. At the end of a long day (shepardizing cases for an emergency motion to stay a deportation & taking the heartbreaking affidavit of a Sudanese refugee), all I wanted to do was get home and lose myself in a sudoku puzzle. So when I raised a stick in the air for E to jump up and grab, of course he jumped too soon and knocked the end of the stick directly into my eyeball. And of course, as I'm panicking and envisioning my eyeball being dislodged from my socket, I go running over to three complete strangers on a park bench to ask if my eye is still there. In my mind, the whole thing was nothing short of a medical emergency. I couldn't understand why they were all just sitting there, and why the one woman kept talking to my dog about how, "sorry, mom said you couldn't have any treats," like in the midst of being blinded for life I'm going to change my mind and allow her to give my dog a greenie. The man looked in my eye and said it looked fine. I wanted them to walk me home. I couldn't open my eye! Instead, I took E and stumbled across the street to Best Woman's apartment. Thankfully, she was home. She let me in, sympathized with my discomfort, did not make me feel like an idiot for being freaked out, gave me eye gel and walked me and the dog back to my apartment. What a good neighbor.

In other news, my best friend just gave birth to a healthy baby boy. El bendito was born at 11:47 p.m. on Sunday, June 27th, 2010. I am over the moon and I haven't even met him yet. Mother and baby are doing great!

The tree-hugger

Before I forget, I want to describe the most bizarre crazy person I've ever encountered in this city. There are plenty of people who wander around the streets talking to themselves, but this one takes the cake:

On the advice of Carolyn Hax, I decided to round up the dog, steal one of T's books and walk over to a nearby park to read in the sunshine. First day post-finals merits this kind of indulgence! So I'm sitting in the park - it's a giant square with sidewalks criss-crossing through it, and benches all along the way. E is lounging in the sun, making eyes at a golden retriever twice his age who is lolling around on the pavement. I'm alternating between reading and giggling with a little boy who keeps coming over to watch E but is too shy to actually get close enough to pet him. All around, the quiet, pleasant chatter of lunchtime conversation buzzes in the air. Then...

*CATCALL WHISTLE* woot-woot!

Here comes this man, an older fellow, dressed in business casual, with an out of control beard and one lazy eye, sauntering up the sidewalk toward me and the dog.

"Wow!" he proclaims loudly. "Take a look at that! What a beaut." I see that his head is pointed in the direction of the golden retriever's owner, a matronly woman, not unattractive but not dressed to impress by any stretch of the imagination. This is starting to get uncomfortable, he's getting closer to me.

"Have you ever seen a tree that looks so good!? Now that's a tree!"

Wait. What?

Crazy man keeps strolling his cartoon stroll down the walk, approaching me and E. E catches his attention.

"Hey, pretty dog!" he exclaims. "That's a good looking dog!"

"Thank you," I reply demurely, not wanting to engage in conversation.

He continues walking but keeps his eyes fixed on my dog. Until something else catches his attention... the giant oak tree providing our shade. The man looks the enormous trunk up and down.

"Wow!" His smile gets wider. "How about that tree! Whatta tree!"

If only these words could do his voice justice. This ranks up there with the guy in the park in DC who shouted at me that I must be a cowgirl on account of my bow legs.

So last night...

I went to quizzo with T and some of our friends from the neighborhood. Nobody else showed up to play, so the seven of us split into two teams. We drank while we waited for other teams to show up. We drank while we trash talked each other through six rounds of trivia. And when it was over (my team won! T's team lost!), the bar owner came around with shots of Jim Beam, one for each of us.

Yeah.

Well, I thought I was just drinking regular beer. I picked the Sixpoint Righteous Ale off the draft menu because it sounded good. Then, because it actually was good, I had another (two). Three beers and a shot of whisky is a big night, especially for a Wednesday. But T was matching me drink for drink with his Stella Artois. So why didn't he wake up with a killer headache? Why was I the only one incapable of facing the day until noon?

Turns out, it's because those beers I was drinking? Turned out to be fancy 7.4% ABV (high-alcohol) beers. Whoops.

I'm not gonna lie. I wanted to go big last night. After having it casually dropped in a phone conversation with my parents that my dad had a biopsy done of a recently-discovered lump...meanwhile we're still waiting for that mass they found in my mom to be removed... and then there's the family dog that apparently they expected was going to up and die yesterday, before he made yet another miraculous recovery (at 15 years, he's had quite a few). I mean, at least I was being intentional and all. But I didn't quite intend to go as big as I went. And I paid for it this morning. Ughhhhhh.

And I'm paying for it now, too, as I catch up on all the reading I should've done last night, for the classes I should've gone to today. (Just kidding. I made T help me cook pad thai for dinner, then we took the Myers-Briggs personality test online after the 10-question 2010 census didn't quite live up to T's great survey expectations.)

Who is JE Guide to Life?

I never used to understand why people posted about their blogs being boring. I've always just done a blog to do a blog. To have a place to put down thoughts, and secretly entertain the thought that Someone Out There cared. (Someone Out There typically being my future self.) But lately, I can't shake the feeling that my blog is just plain boring.

Maybe that has something to do with my recent obsession with other people's blogs. Just to give you an idea of how obsessed I've been with blogs, I'm going to link every word of this paragraph, starting now, with various blogs I've landed upon over the past week or so. I'm just pulling them out of my history.

Lately I've been reading a gazillion blogs about newlyweds and new families (i.e. "we just had a babyyyy!" blogs). I am interested in these blogs because they show a different life than the one I have now. These are blogs centered entirely around the matrimony or the wedded bliss or the TTC journey. These aren't blogs of women (or men) who happen to be married or mothers. These are people who choose to center their online identity on their family status. I am thinking a lot about that.

What is my online identity? Do I even have one? Amongst the many law school blogs out there, I think mine does not stand out, largely because I'm not really writing much about law school. I'm not a mom so I'm not a MILP. Law school is not my primary identity. I'm married, but even though the engagement, planning, ceremony and honeymoon all happened over the course of the past blogging year, it barely registered a blip on JE Guide to Life. I didn't write it all down here, largely because I didn't feel compelled to. I own a dog, but he's not my Fur Baby and I don't have much to say about him either.

What do I have to say? Maybe nothing much. I don't like to post my deepest thoughts and feelings on this blog because I tend to be a private person, and I have no idea who from Real Life is reading. (Thanks for staying on the DL, by the way, Real Life friends :) I prefer to control who knows what I'm thinking and why and when I'm thinking it. Unfortunately, that makes for a boring blog.

Sometimes, funny things happen in my budding marriage that make me want to write them down in here. Sometimes, I look at the dog, smile and feel like I should say something about him here. Sometimes, bad things happen and I want to talk about them. Sometimes, school gets the better of me and I must vent or explode. But mostly, I guess I'm just gazing at my own shoes, being not that interesting, and hoping that as the posts add up, they'll paint the picture of my life.

And for posterity's sake... Today I had a lovely meal with a couple of out of town friends, including our friend who married us in August, at a really fancy restaurant for prix fixed Restaurant Week lunch. Was late to immigration after already having skipped a class, five days into the semester. Go me! Logged on to find the last of my grades awaiting me... an "A" in political and civil rights... WOAH! YAY! A "C+" in employment law. Fuuuuuuuuuu.... Dammit. Thought to myself: "So this is why they don't give us our grades until the new semester starts. To keep us from drinking ourselves into oblivion during the winter break." I got home intending to walk the dog briefly and crawl in bed. (I'm sick.) He dropped a gross watery something into the grass, and when we got home, retreated immediately to T's office. I followed him to discover a foul-smelling pile of goo on the carpet. I am waiting for T to come home with the papertowels so I can clean up his mess. Yuck. I have a ton of Civ Pro reading to do, and my Corporations book hasn't come in. Can I take my Theraflu yet?

E

snugga wubba!

I don't remember exactly when I vowed I would never buy my dog a soft toy again, but it was more than two years ago. There are so many cute soft toys out there, and they're so cheap, but E would tear them apart within minutes. Inevitably, I'd be left with mountains of synthetic cotton all over the house and the sad shell of a chipmunk or M&M character. It sucked because E loves to play with the softies, and the disemboweled remains are often his favorite part. His toy box is filled with scraps of fabric, a graveyard of stuffed goldfish, carrots and miniature Santas.

This year, though, I discovered the Best Dog Toy Ever. It combines the fun (for a dog?) of a plush toy with the indestructibility of a hard rubber toy. Best of all, there's no stuffing! We always get E a stocking for Christmas, and I usually take advantage of the splurge to try out a new toy. This year, it was the Snugga Wubba by Kong. It's essentially a Kong (indestructible rubber chew toy) wrapped in a soft cotton exterior, with stringy octopus legs hanging off of it. Let me tell you: it's a hit.

For the last three days in a row, since we returned from our holiday travels, my dog has picked up his toy, marched up to me and knocked me in the knee. He wants to PLAY! With a TOY! Usually his idea of playing is to force me off my lazy behind to chase him around the house. In order for me to get him to use a toy, I have to bribe him with treats, or it has to have stuffing. Not with this toy.

Some of the things he likes to do with this toy:
- Have it dangled over his head so he can jump for it.
- Play tug of war
- Fetch it

Notably, he is not interested in having me chase him around the house. His little trick of bringing me a toy to get my attention, only to have it devolve into chase? That's not happening here. And I'm so happy! (And lazy.) So, because I am still trying to avoid writing cover letters, and because I just got interrupted by a game of jump-pull-fetch, I thought I'd take a moment to urge any other dog owners to try this thing out. And no, I'm not getting paid or endorsed in anyway for this review!

The coffee shop awaits

At 7:30 the alarm goes off. I let T hit snooze over and over again. Eventually he tires of this and starts making kissy-noises on my face. I tell him its annoying. No wait. I tell him, "Don't use your nose for evil." He laughs. I open my eyes. "Finally, a sunny day," I say. There is blue peeking through the slots in the blinds.

Yesterday, I promised him that I would make the coffee while was in the shower, so when he gets up to start his day, I get up to start the coffee. Inspired by this bright start, I return immediately to the bed. I invite the dog "up up", then fall promptly asleep.

I wake up at noon. Whoops. Once again my self-discipline has been conquered by my love of sleep. The dog has been barking. It occurs to me that he may not be barking in alarm at noises he hears coming from the street. He may be simply shouting at me to get my lazy ass out of bed. I open my eyes again. He is staring at me.

Before I pull back the covers, I start to sing. This is my way of exciting the dog. By exciting the dog, I feel more guilty for not getting up. It works. Eventually, I pop upright, and the dog hops down. We start.

I consider my options:
- Walk the dog to the coffee shop with me, and study there with him. No. I won't get anything done.
- Walk the dog to the park, then go to the coffee shop and eat something there while I study. No, I am tired of eating croissants for breakfast and lunch.
- Walk the dog to the pet store, buy him a bribe bone and then go study. No. He needs a real walk. And I need a real breakfast.
- Cook breakfast, then walk the dog, then study. Yes.

Last night I baked brownies in a fit of procrastination. For once in my life, I decide this isn't enough sustenance to get me through the afternoon. I eat two canned pineapple rings. Not enough carbs. I fry up the last couple slices of fake bacon, while looking at the nutritional info. Good for some thiamine and not much else. I check out the box of Rice Cripsies. OK. Pineapple slices, some bacon and a bowl of cereal. It warrants a brownie for dessert.

I eat and read the city weekly. Some police officers recently arrested a guy in our area of the city for filming an arrest on his iPhone. Crap. This reminds me that I have a lot of outlining left to do for Political and Civil Rights. No time to think about that.

Post-breakfast, I saddle up the dog and go down to the park. We chill for a while. I take him back. I pack up my backpack. Then I make my way over to the computer to look for an outline someone was supposed to send me. I end up checking out blogs until the dog comes in to whine at me. So I get up, guiltily, and walk over to the living room to pet him. I lay on the couch for five or ten minutes.

Finally, I get up, sling my backpack over my shoulder and walk out the door.

The coffee shop awaits. It's always waiting.

A Sunday at St. Paul's

Realizing that I haven't updated here in like a million years, for no particularly good reason, I just need to throw out here that I just got back from my first ever Catholic Mass! (Unless you count funerals and weddings.) I know that on my 30 Before 30 list, I had put that I wanted to attend one of the local masses in Spanish or Italian, but instead I went to a full-on Latin Mass. While the ritualism and formulaic nature of the service is definitely not necessarily for me, I definitely see some value in the sense of tradition and the dedication of the parishoners. I'm glad I went. It was an hour and a half of a Sunday well-spent. If nothing else, it's nice to step out of the craziness of life for a little while and take some time to reflect (or space out).

In other 30 Before 30 accomplishments, I'm now almost done with the Gospel of John, which will put me through all 4 of the gospels and a good way through my goal of reading the New Testament! I realize that all my goals seem oriented toward religion, but these happen to be a couple of the easiest of my goals to accomplish. I'm debating whether learning to put mousse in my hair counts as learning a new hairstyle.

And since it's such a beautiful day out, I'm going to saddle up the dog and round up some casebooks and go sit in the park to study. See how that works out.

you're gonna miss this

This is the time in my life where I lived in the Big City, spent many evenings cooking dinner and studying and messing around on the computer, and went to a lot of bars to drink a lot of beer. This is the time of my life where I was a newlywed who felt like an old hand at my relationship with T. It's the time when we talked about 401ks and career trajectories, down payments and family planning, but it was all non-committal and blessedly rhetorical. This is when we lived on one income and our greatest hope was T getting a promotion and his department not getting shut down. It's when I tried to go to the gym to stay in shape because it was free, but I rarely actually followed through. It's when I spent entire afternoons in a library with other 20- and 30-somethings excited about the law, not jaded or overworked from years of practice, even though we all pretended we were. It's when I watched a lot of television on the internet, and T was obsessed with his Netflix queue. It's when the dog was decidedly past puppyhood but not yet an old man dog. When my parents and T's parents lived back in VA and we all looked for opportunities to see one another, but those opportunities were fewer and farther between than we would've hoped. This is the time in my life where I lived in a tiny, firetrap apartment full of dog hair and furniture and casebooks and zines, and not much else. Where we could walk to the grocery store or the park, to a diner or the train station, downtown or to a friend's house, without even breaking a sweat. Where life was everywhere around us all the time, in a loud, noisy, gritty way. It's the time in my life when I was 28 and in my first year of marriage, second year of law school and completely fascinated with trying to figure out what comes next.

Deep sigh of relief

I'm back! I'm married! I'm totally exhausted!

And I'm still embarrassed about throwing a hissy-fit (at least that's how I remember it) during the first two hours of the reception, when all 145 guests were locked out of our reception site, and then the sound didn't work for the next 2 hours (i.e. when all the "traditional" stuff was supposed to happen).

That aside, it was by all accounts a truly beautiful wedding. I am so blessed to have so many family, friends and amazing people in my life who busted their butts to bring it all together. I keep hearing the food was among the best wedding food ever, but I hardly had a chance to eat, and I was mostly mad at our caterers for keeping people out and then making us leave early, so I am not ready to admit they maybe did a good job yet. One thing is for sure, though. My grandma was definitely there in spirit, because her cakes were a hit! My bad-ass aunt spent 5 sleepless, grueling days before the wedding baking upward of 15 cakes using our old family recipe; and although we had more leftover cake than we knew what to do with, people were definitely walking out of their with enormous boxes of leftovers at the end of the night.

After a restful honeymoon, doubling as the first true Vacation that T & I have ever taken together alone, I am ready to gradually rejoin the world of the normals. I'm even looking forward to law school! But before I delve back into that masochistic mess, I have to tie up like a million loose ends. First on the list is getting the dog back from my parents. Wow, do I miss him!

Sopping wet and trashy

T and I just got back from camping. One week before our wedding, we were laying under a semi-starry sky talking about the things we want to promise each other on our wedding day, while drinking Lionshead and feeding pretzels to the dog. In the middle of the night, raindrops started pitter-pattering on our tent roof. The dog was a good sport about it, considering he is terrified of even the dark clouds that precede a rainstorm. The rain lulled us back to sleep. A couple hours later, with daylight just on the horizon, we awoke again to a downpour. Our tent was still dry, so we cozied back to sleep content in our waterproof cave. Not much long after that, I heard a weird scraping noise and realized the dog was standing in the far corner of the tent. Without opening my eyes, I asked T, "Is the dog licking the tent?" "Yes," replies T. "Okay," I mutter, and fall back asleep. At about 9:30 I wake up to realize that there is water coming in from all angles, not flooding us out, but slowly soaking anything on the edges of our sleeping area, including my shoes, our flashlight and the bag with my only pair of non-pajama pants. Whoops. T, brilliant problem solver that he is, quickly comes up with a plan to get us out of there relatively free of soak. Flashforward 15 minutes: I'm mostly dry (but still in pajama pants) and T and the rest of our gear is mostly wet. We're on the road.

So we just got back, at a decent hour, to our little firetrap in the Big City. Our little firetrap is on the third (top) floor of a row home, with no porch, no stoop and no balcony. Step out our front door and you are greeted with an assortment of characters waiting for the bus. In short, there is nowhere to put soaking wet fabric. Of which we have a lot.

Me, brilliant problems solver that I am, have come up with a solution! I have tied a loop of fisherman's yarn between our two bedroom windows, which overlook the street. In a kind of half-assed, fake-Seasame Street-meets-NYC at the height of the industrial era way, we now have our very own "laundry line" out the window. Which is to say, a soggy, sopping wet tent and a bright blue tent tarp sunk into the middle of a piece of string are dangling precariously close to our second-floor neighbors' windows.

Flashforward 15 minutes: T, upon spotting my brilliant solution, remarks astutely, "We look like the trash neighbors." Clearly, there is only one proper response to such an observation: "Good," I say. "This neighborhood needs to be taken down a notch."

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.

Down to Virginia

We are headed down to Virginia in just a few moments. I've stolen away with my cup of coffee to sit here and make a quick little blog post. We're on our way to visit the site where we'll get married, and take care of all those details we've put off to the last minute. (Photographer, I know you're out there somewhere...) In three weeks, more or less, we're getting married. Wow. I'm still having wedding dreams, but they're less and less like nightmares and more and more excitement and happiness.

The dog is hanging around our feet tonight because the sky was rumbling so much earlier. He has no idea we're about to shove him into the trunk of T's hatchback for a long haul south. But once we get there, he'll be glad. There's much more room to run and play, and many more gross and smelly things to roll in. Pretty soon, he's gonna get a weeklong vacation in the country, while dog-mom and dog-dad go to Spain!

Another weird thing: I can't stop burping. It's getting gross. I think burps are more disgusting than farts by a long shot. A few minutes ago, I sat down next to T on the couch, and immediately began a chain reaction of mini-burps. "I'm so glad you chose right here to sit," says T, snarkily. So I got up to write this post instead. Have a good weekend!

Falling down the stairs

is how I started my first day of summer.

Scene: Living room, 9:30 am.

"Mijo, do you wanna go outside?"

Dog perks up his ears and trots over to me.

"Getcha leash!" I reach for my shoes, and pull my prescription out of my backpack. First on my list of business to take care of now that school is out: fill my scrip and take my much neglected dog to the dog park.

The dog is now panting and wagging his tail, as I snap his leash into place around his neck. Before heading out the door, I grab my to-go coffee and, since I'm feeling a little woozy from the last few days, a piece of cheese to fill my stomach.

We start out the door, the coffee and scrip in one hand, and my snack cheese in the other, the dog's leash looped around my forearm.

Normally, I let him charge down the stairs, not holding on to him. We live in a 3rd floor walk-up with one straight, steep staircase leading up to our front door. The 2nd floor neighbors have a dog too. My dog and their dog have a kind of Maggie Simpson-Unibrow Baby relationship. They bark at each other through the door, digging at the floor and making mean noises, even though if they were to actually see each other, they'd probably play all day.

So, for some reason, I am attached to Mijo's lease when we start down the stairs, and I'm still attached when he bounds down the staircase, literally leaping 3 steps at a time, to get to the 2nd floor landing where his arch-nemesis is waiting. I go tumbling down the stairs in slow motion, watching my coffee cup fly through dead air and land nearly at the bottom of the stairwell, and wondering whether I was going to end up there too.

But I landed, ironically, on the landing, screaming in pain because somehow I really hurt my knee in the whole process. Arch-nemesis dog is barking non-stop now and trying to dig his way to me from the crack under the door. My phone is upstairs on the charger, exactly where I left it, not having imagined I would need it for an emergency on my quick errand run. And Mijo has become suddenly stoic, perching himself on the edge of the landing, facing toward the bottom of the stairs and watching the legs of people walking by through the little window in the front door.

I laid there for about 10 minutes. First the pain was almost unbearable. But eventually, it subsided enough that I could think of other things, like whether I should try to call someone, or if I should go up or down. Finally, I stood up, prompting my dog to also stand up, tail tucked between his legs. He instinctively walked back up the stairs, knowing he had ruined our walk. And I followed him, slowly. We got back inside, and I crashed on the couch to sleep for 2 hours.

Now I'm sitting here icing my knee, wishing I had bought the health insurance and feeling sorry for myself. It could be worse. As T said, think of the kid who fell out of a tree on the first day of summer break and had his arm in a cast all summer and couldn't go swimming.