that'll do, weather
Apparently, Madison is in the middle of a massive snowstorm right now that will leave roughly a foot of freshly-fallen snow on the city by tomorrow.
Yes, it is March 21. I know; I double-checked.
Fortunately, I'm in Mesa, it's 77 degrees out at 10am, and I won't have to deal with snow when I go to the Brewers spring training game this afternoon. Right now, my "get out of Madison" spring break plans make me feel like a genius.
But if the snow/ice isn't off my car by the time I get home, and I have to dig my car out from underneath a sheet of icy residue yet again, I am going to be one very, very unhappy panda. (Some might even go so far as to call me a "sad panda".) And I will be an unhappy panda right up until the part where I move to Austin two months from, well, today, and never have to deal with snow again.
Labels: madison, wisconsin winters = death
primary day
How in the world does the city lose someone's voter registration information?
Okay, okay. So it wasn't "lost". The explanation that I received was that sometimes, the city just decides to reject voter registration information - even if you use that registration information to vote on a previous occasion.
Still. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Labels: madison
updateage
So where have I been over the last ten days? Well...
**Birthday. Yes, I turned 26 last weekend. Did I have a good time? Yeah. Did I get to do what I really wanted to do for my birthday? No. But oh well. I did have a very lovely dinner on my birthday after a fun trip to the corn maze, so I can't complain too much. (But I wish I had been able to find a cheaper flight to Arizona to spend the weekend with my sister, who actually would have been willing to do what I wanted to do on my birthday, instead of making plans for my birthday and expecting me to be happy tagging along with those.)
**Sick. Of course, birthday weekend ended with me getting sick, and spending most of the past week sitting in class with a fever. (Note to the rest of the UW Law School: you're welcome.) Because this is me we're talking about, of course I had to get sick during the one week this semester where I've actually had work to do. Speaking of which...
**Schoolwork. I had two writing assignments, a cite checking packet, and...something else...all due last week. I've gotten the first writing assignment back and discovered that I completely misunderstood the instructions that my professor didn't really explain at all. (Apparently, "outside case law" meant "Wisconsin cases not in the materials". Who knew?) All that work led to me sitting in the library about ready to pass out with the above-mentioned fever. Although now that I think about it, I have a feeling that the schoolwork caused my illness. I have to believe that, at this point, my body is just completely opposed to doing anything productive, and my immune system is doing whatever it takes to keep me on the couch watching TV like I should be.
**Relaxation. So I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of the fly-over at the UW football game. No, I didn't go do the cane toss. I figured other people who actually had family coming to the game needed the tickets more than I did....and besides, I won my first trial over the summer. So unless the cane toss is now giving people "find a job" luck, it's really wasted on me. Saturday night was Halloween, which involved me not getting dressed up before going to a friend's house to watch scary movies. Sunday, I went and saw Dan in Real Life, which I was very impressed with. Honestly, I think Steve Carell has more than proven that he has actual acting talent, and isn't just a funnyman along the lines of Will Ferrell. (Okay, okay. I cried during this movie. I'll admit it.)
**Football. I know I touched on the Badger game above, but I need to take some time to point out that I'm really enjoying this football season. But that's probably because I'm a New England Patriots fan, and I'm having fun taunting my friends who are Redskins fans about the fact that Washington didn't really show up in Foxborough during yesterday's 52-7 trouncing. It's just a shame that I can't get Super Bowl tickets....
Labels: classes, madison, my neverending medical issues, new england patriots
is "indian summer" still politically correct?
...then again, I don't really care if it is.
The temperatures here in Wisconsin over the weekend reached 90 degrees. It was so hot in my poorly-ventilated apartment that I couldn't get to sleep until about 4:30 this morning. (And yes, for some reason, I showed up to my 9:00am class.)
I realize that, in all likelihood, I'll be moving to Texas in May, and that it's hot there. They also have air conditioning, which is more than I can say for any apartment in Madison that rents for less than $1000 a month.
(Don't worry - I'll be complaining about the frigid temperatures in about three weeks. When that happens, I don't want to hear it.)
Labels: austin, madison
once bitten, twice shy
I made the mistake of getting up to go to my 9am class this morning. Yes, I know getting up that early for a class is always a mistake. But today was particularly mistakey. (That is a word. I made it up.)There has been so much rain around here the past few weeks that mosquitoes are everywhere. I live two blocks from my bus stop. By the time I got to the bus stop, I had killed about five mosquitoes in mid-bite - on my arms, my legs, my face... When I got to school, I realized my arm was covered in red welts from all the bites I received. It's so bad that (a) I'm embarrassed to be sitting in class with my welty arm, and (b) I'll probably be wearing long sleeves for the foreseeable future.I can't believe I'm saying this, but is it winter yet?Labels: madison, summertime
why i'm a bad person (today)
I got invited to a friend's house for dinner. Said dinner is supposed to take place about an hour and a half after I get home from class.So I ask my friend what's on the menu for that night - particularly whether the menu includes some sort of seafood or eggs (neither of which I eat). Ever. (And my friends are huge quiche fans, which I find completely foul. Even the smell of eggs cooking makes me nauseous.*)After class today, my friend asks me if I'm still coming to dinner. I say yes, and she replies that she was unsure because I had the gumption to ask what they were having for dinner. (Apparently, inquiries about the menu are extremely gauche when you're a picky eater.) So I point out that I wanted to be sure that I would actually have something to eat. My friend replies that the point of getting together for dinner is to enjoy the company, not to be concerned with what we're eating. (Hmm.) So I once again say that I wanted to know if I should eat in the hour and a half I'm sitting at home before I go over and hang out.... but apparently even that response has put me on the douchebag list. I mean, I understand the fact that my question may have sounded like my hanging out was contingent on the menu. But at the same time, is it so difficult for people to understand that there are certain foods that others can't/won't eat? It's not like I was asking for special consideration; I just wanted to know if I should just eat last night's spice-encrusted chicken before coming over.*Speaking of foul food smells, I should mention my dad's homemade tofu scramble. I'm convinced that particular smell is the smell of death (if not worse).Labels: madison
an open letter to the madison hobo association
Dear State Street Beggars,Look, I'm sorry that I don't give out spare change like...well, like I have change to spare. Really, I am. But making catcalls (such as telling me what parts of me you'd like to "play with") isn't going to make me want to stop, turn around, and magically procure some change from the depths of my wallet. Maybe this just makes me a horrible person, but that sort of thing only makes me want to run away faster.Thanks, though, for cementing my desire to stay in at night and catch up on my TiVO backlog.Jim and Pam are totally real,Me.Labels: hobos, madison, the office
with friends like these, who needs enemies?
So I have this class that prepares us for our summer clinical positions. Part of this class involves basic writing assignments with feedback. And, unlike many of the people that sit around me, I consistently receive good feedback on these assignments. I was excitedly telling my friends about this one night last week - mostly because my lack of a boyfriend (to dictate every waking minute of my life outside of school) means that I have nothing else to drone on and on about. After talking about my semi-good fortune in this class, one of my friends pipes up, "Maybe you've finally found something in law school you're actually good at." (emphasis hers, not mine)I didn't think about it at the time, but the more time that passes, the more I think I'm actually insulted by that. I'm (fairly) certain she didn't mean that to come out as catty as it did...but I'm starting to second-guess myself by wondering if certain friends of mine honestly think that I'm not fit to grace the same "hallowed" halls as them. Labels: classes, madison
he's just not that into you
Typically, I take the Justice Scalia approach to dating: if he's interested, he'll say so explicitly. You can't loosely construct a conversation to reach the conclusion that the sparks you're feeling are felt by that other person. But every now and then, I start to let my guard down and allow the "looks" and the flirtatious remarks to overpower my logical approach to the situation. So when you feel a certain chemistry (for lack of a better term) with a person, and you're not sure which side of the "friends" line that chemistry falls on...do you follow your heart, which is telling you that you're not completely crazy, and that there's at least something there worth pursuing - and that you should just let him know that you want to get to know him better?Or do you just say screw it, he's not worth all the time you've spent thinking about your personal dilemma, place this one squarely in the "friends" column, and either (a) force yourself to ignore the attraction, or (b) just avoid being anywhere near him altogether? Labels: con law, dudes, madison
pain
As much as I may whine about it sometimes, I really do enjoy my alone-ness. There's something really liberating about not having to live my life as though it revolves around another person's schedule, no having to check "our" schedules to see if I can go out and do something "I" want to do, etc. But tonight, I remembered the downside of the whole alone thing.I got home from a wonderful night out with friends (the first night out in a while), and conveniently forgot that my parking lot is a sheet of ice. (You would think that I would've remembered, since it took me an hour and a half earlier today to dig my car out of said ice.) I'm happily strolling across the lot into my apartment when I slip on the black ice.Like, cartoon character-style legs-over-head slip.And then land with a crack - except this cracking wasn't the ice.I can still feel my toes...but barely. There's this pain shooting up and down my leg right now, but it's not like a muscle pain or a bruise. It's more like someone's taking tiny needles and poking my bone really, really fast over a space of about six inches. And what sucks is that I can't get off the couch to go into the bathroom to get the peroxide to clean out the giant scrape on my elbow that also resulted from the aforementioned fall. (What's awesome is that I cut my elbow through a thick wool coat, a wool sweater, and a long-sleeved t-shirt.) And since it's 1:15 (2:15, depending on when it is we exactly spring forward tonight) on a Sunday morning, it's not like I have a lot of friends around that are free to, like, help me in case I pass out at some point in the night.If I were in a lighter mood, I'd joke about how this is just further proof that I need to move back down south where it's warm. But...this really, really isn't funny. Rather, it's just me coming to the sad realization that maybe, just maybe, I can't do everything on my own.Labels: madison, my neverending medical issues, wisconsin winters = death
need help; please send diet coke.
I realized this afternoon after I went into a selfish rage that, well, I've been on a shorter-than usual fuse lately.So in my mind, I rewind to this past weekend. Specifically, the half hour I spent on Sunday afternoon scraping ice off of my car, only to realize that it was all for naught because I'm parked on a giant sheet of ice and all that happens when I step on the gas pedal is that my wheels spin. This spinning means that I haven't been able to get to a grocery store in over a week. Which means that my weekly supply of caffeinated beverages has sadly run out. Instead of my normal 5 sodas a day, I'm down to 2...maybe 2 sodas plus a coffee, depending on the day.So if you see me between now and this weekend and I'm even less chipper than my normally disgruntled self, don't fret - I'm just going through serious caffeine withdrawal.In other news, have I mentioned lately that I hate law school/Madison and can't wait to leave? Labels: madison, wisconsin winters = death
bus 2, me 0
My bus home last night was really crowded - more crowded than it normally is at 5:00 on a Monday night. So crowded that people were standing in the aisles all the way from the front to the back. (Sort of.) I stand up at my stop, and there's three people standing between me and the door. There's enough room for those people to back up and maneuver around to let me get to the door, but they just stand there and watch me struggle with my giant laptop bag. I elbow and push my way to the door (finally), but the fact that I have to push hard enough to get past two very large men means that I'm on the stairs leading to the bus door with a little too much force. Now, I don't fall, but I push through that door really, really hard - and land on the sidewalk a little awkwardly, causing a sharp pain to sear through my big toe. This morning, as I'm getting ready to go to class, I notice that the swelling and brusing in my big toe from the night before has gone down, and I can walk without too much pain. Considering this a victory, I head off for the bus stop a little early. I'm a few minutes ahead of schedule and about 100 feet from the bus stop when the bus comes barrelling down the street and past the stop. Yep - I was early, but the bus was earlier - it's Murphy's Law of the Madison Metro Bus.So I decide to walk to class - it's about a 20 minute walk from my bus stop, so under normal conditions, it's not too bad. But as I'm walking towards the law school, I notice the pain in my foot starting to come back. Right now, I'm sitting in class with a throbbing big toe, and I wish I had some painkillers. Although now that I think about it, this would've never happened if I hadn't gone to class in the first place... Labels: buses, madison, my neverending medical issues
election day, part deux
You know, voting for governor just isn't that exciting when you don't have Kinky Friedman as one of your candidates.This was my first time voting in Wisconsin. I should've known when they let me register at the polls that I was in for a real treat. The ballots are only a slight step above scan-tron cards (okay, they essentially ARE scan-tron cards), and I got to play a sweet game of "Connect the Arrow", all the while hoping that the person at the DMV-style table next to me didn't peek around the curtain and cheat off my sheet. At least in Virginia (you know, a "backwards" southern state), we had booths with levers and automated switches to flip...and the 360-degree curtain simulated voting in the shower. When I finished voting this morning and put my ballot in the scan-tron reader (I was Voter #617), there was no "I Voted!" sticker waiting for me. NO STICKER. I got off my couch and walked five blocks to my polling place, and I didn't even get a sticker for my trouble? What kind of Communist state is this????So I had to ease my no-sticker sorrows by going to Target and picking up Season One of 90210 - complete with FREE SOUNDTRACK - including the musical stylings of Color Me Badd. So now I can re-live high school at home, instead of just at law school. Labels: madison
and it doesn't have a snooze button either
My neighbors are putting new siding on their house. Which means that every morning, around 9:00, I wake up to the sound of power drills and hammers instead of the incessant beeping of my alarm clock. Obviously, I can't throw my neighbors' construction workers across the room to get them to shut up and let me sleep in peace. So it takes me a while to drown the sound out enough so that I can get back to my regularly scheduled nightmare. Why couldn't they have started this project, I don't know, during the summer, when I had to wake up early 4 days a week? This is just torture, because I only have to wake up before 11 twice a week. Their noise pollution is infringing on my constitutional right to privacy - and by privacy, I mean "10 hours of peaceful, uninterrupted visits to Sleepy Land". Labels: insomnia, madison
new arrival
Yesterday, I welcomed a new bundle of joy into my family.That's right - I'm the proud owner of a shiny new baby TiVo. Now I don't have to worry about stupid law school getting in the way of my enjoyment of all of my favorite television programs (which is a very long list, to be honest).Would it be completely wrong of me to throw a TiVo shower to celebrate? Labels: madison
dig it: a non-law related post!
I cooked lunch for some friends this afternoon. I mean, it was great - chocolate cake, cheesy potatoes, and grilled chicken. (I'm listing the menu in order of importance, of course.)In the midst of my gourmet extravaganza, I forgot that my oven is only about fifteen inches wide. So I go to get the casserole dish out of the oven and bang my arm against the side of the oven (that's been sitting at 400 degrees for about an hour and a half).(long string of expletives deleted)I now have a blister on my arm that's about an inch long and half an inch wide...the scar itself is even bigger. This is going to make for good stories for many years to come. I'd post the picture, but it's not exactly "good" - you can see that there's some serious discoloration (honestly, it looks like a giant snot rocket on my arm), but that's about it.In the meantime, I can't wait until I can one day own my own home, so that I can have a kitchen that's large enough for someone to cook in...with an oven that actually fits a normal-sized pan. That would make me happy. (Side note: I think "kitchen large enough to cook in" would be above "maid" on the wish-list, but below "dishwasher" and "TiVO".)Of course, if I didn't enjoy cooking, I wouldn't hurt myself doing it - because it's always the things we love the most that also hurt us the most, isn't it? The sad thing, I guess, is that I only choose to leave myself vulnerable to my stove/oven rather than members of the opposite sex. But that's another discussion for another time. Or maybe the saddest part of the whole ordeal is that I put off going to get the requisite Neosporin and Band-Aids large enough to cover the blister until tomorrow, so that I could combine that trip to Target with my trip to Target to purchase the second season of "House" on DVD. I'll keep telling myself that it's to conserve gas and save the environment, but we all know the truth: I'm just that lazy.
Labels: cooking, madison, my neverending medical issues
in the heat of the night
It's been about 95 degrees here for the past week or so. My apartment has no air conditioning. Even with five fans running at all times, the temperature inside has been about 150 degrees...and is the most humid place north of South Carolina. Boss: What's to stop some sheriff on a crusade to make prisons the most miserable place possible?
Me: Not much.
Boss: There was a big deal a few years ago about them putting air conditioning in the super max prison. They said if they did that, prisoners might not suffer enough.
Me: If they did that, I'd move in.
Labels: madison, summertime, work
my trip to walgreens, and other musings
I hit the Wal on the Square this morning to procure a Diet Coke before work. (I don't know why I reasoned that this would be better than Starbucks - probably a lack of sleep from the storms last night - just go with it.) While staring off into space waiting for the honor students running the register to get the line moving, I noticed that they are already selling bags of Halloween candy.In July. I mean, not just Fun Size candy bars. But the actual giant "Halloween-sized" bags of Fun Size candy in the orange and black Halloween-themed displays with spiderwebs printed all over them. When did it the commercialism monster start eating holidays other than Christmas (and Valentine's, and Easter, and St. Patty's, and Arbor Day... And why can't it eat Guy Fawkes Day already)??? While walking out of the Wal, I caught a headline on one of the area newspapers detailing a proposal to start charging $5 a person for this fall's Halloween celebration on State Street, intending to curb the outrageous rigols and revels by charging admission and requiring tickets to walk down the street. Do they really think this will work? People (okay, kids with Daddy's money) drive to the area from miles away and consume hundreds of dollars worth of booze over the course of the weekend - do they honestly think that another 5 dollars will be more than just a drop in the bucket to people willing to pay $50 for gas just to get to the party? I'm trying to update my résumé with info about my summer job. It's really hard to try and say "sits around all day reading E! online and espn.com" in a way that makes it sound like I actually do work.Labels: holidays, madison
you know, now that i think about it, that grass was a little greener back there
I've spent a lot of time not blogging recently, mostly because I have very little to say about my job. But part of my lack-of-posting is attributable to my daily wondering what in the world I was on when I decided to move to Madison. I've decided to post a little then-and-now, so that maybe the thoughts get out of my head once and for all and I can start sleeping again. Then: spending my entire week's vacation in Texas on the remote network so that my project doesn't fall behind while I'm gone.
Now: work gets left at the office when I walk out the door at 5:15.Then: going out with friends 3-4 nights a week to watch baseball - an event that was fun until the beer started flowing, the voices became louder, and fights broke out. (Yes, fights broke out among us several times a week, and we kept coming back for more.)Now: (crickets chirping) .....does spending 3-4 nights a week with Mulder and Scully count?Then: monthly trips to the mall with my best friend and my substitute mommy.Now: thrice-weekly trips to Target by myself.Then: showing up for work between 10 and 10:30 every morning.Now: .......well, that hasn't exactly changed. But now I don't have to sign onto the remote network at 8:30am to make people think I'm in the office answering e-mail when I'm really in the shower answering e-mail.Then: counting down the days until I got out of RichmondNow: counting down the days until I get out of MadisonGranted, there was a lot of stuff back there that I wasn't happy about (i.e., bar fights referenced above). And I'm still a little upset about the fact that I let The One I Let Get Away last summer get away (and did it again a month ago). But that's the way things are looking from where I'm sitting tonight. It's definitely shocking, though, to sit here and think that maybe things weren't as bad as I thought - and it's bad when I sit here and wonder if I shouldn't have taken the advice of those who told me not to run with my impulse to leave.Labels: madison, richmond
feelin' like a criminal
I made the mistake of taking my trash out on the way to Whole Foods. I had a trash bag in each hand and my purse on my shoulder.My car keys? Safely locked inside my apartment. On the same ring as my apartment keys.I wander across the street to my landlord's house, only to discover that she wasn't home.I sat on my porch for about 20 minutes, then got my neighbor to let me into the entryway. She provided me with a few bobby pins, and I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to pick the lock. Needless to say, that didn't work so well. That's when I notice a lone nail sticking out of my door frame. That gets me thinking...there are tools in my basement...I know how to use pliers and hammers to pull out the nails...and I have a credit card to jimmy the lock open.And that's the story of how I broke into my own apartment.Labels: hilarity, madison
