i blame matt lauer

there was a rash and hurtful accusation thrown out over our bowls of cereal this morning, one that i would like to publicly address (anonymously). b has accused me of being a closet germaphob. which i am not. truly. awareness of germ-related facts does not make one a germaphob. i refuse to be classed with those i so gleefully mock

this is how it all went down.

the today show* was doing one of it's twice-weekly segments on how dirty and germy the world is. usual schtick. but b was actually listening and laughed when they said that you should close the toilet seat when you flush because it cuts down on bathroom bacteria. DUH. i mean, that's about as well known as the fact that the average office desk is dirtier than a toilet. so when i looked at him with shock (and concern - dear god, my toothbrush must be so dirty!) he couldn't believe that i actually knew that. and i always close the toilet seat for this very reason. religiously. (but not in an OCD way.)

and then he said it: you're a closet germaphob. like a knife through my heart, i tell you.

his evidence is as follows:
1. i know about the toilet thing. (he doesn't know that i know the average office desk is dirtier than a toilet. but he doesn't read my blog, so nanner-nanner!)
2. i carry purell on my key chain.
3. i like to make fun of germabhobs. (he says it takes one to know one)

my rebuttal:
1. i happen to remember a few of the germ facts matt lauer is always grossed out about. so what? i have a good memory and i'm smart. this means nothing.
2. i don't like the way my hands smell after pumping gas and i also ride the train everyday. it's crowded in there, and sometimes people breath on my hands, which YES does gross me out and requires some purell. also, a secondary defense is that they sell that purell keychain at target in the checkout lane. it was purell or chocolate. i had to buy something.
3. i also make fun of stupid people, balding men who refuse to shave their heads and poor dressers, so this logic is flawed. oh, and republicans. i love to make fun of republicans, and i'm definitely not one of those.

so you see, i am not a closet germaphob. and i'd like an apology. but b doesn't read my blog, so if someone sees him, please tell him to apologize to his wife. thank you.


*ok, i realize i probably shouldn't watch the pseudo-news that is the today show. i realize i should be above that, as a self-proclaimed enlightened media snob. (have i not proclaimed that i'm a self-enlightened media snob? well, consider it proclaimed.) (oh, and this clearly doesn't apply to celebrity trash, which i love to roll around in and absorb - but only real news.) where was i? the today show. yes. i have to watch it because it gives much needed precision and punctuality to my morning. first of all, i like to putz around in the morning. second, our apartment is markedly without clocks, and the clocks that we do have are all different. for psychological reasons. anyway, i know that i have to start breakfast by the time al says "let's see what's happening in your neck of the woods" after the 8:00 round of news. and i also know that if i'm not out of the apartment by the next time the local weather comes on, then i'm late. the today show basically functions as my mother in the morning. and thus i watch.

little miss impatient

i totally support gym-etiquette. when at 7am in a full exercise room, someone plants themself on the elliptical machine for 40 minutes, it really irks me. it's just not cool. so when i'm hoping for an especially long workout* on one machine i try to go at off-hours.

so yesterday, i went at 5pm, before people started showing up after work. i had just hopped on the machine when a girl storms in and asks me when are you going to be done on that? shit. there's no one else in the room, and she wants my machine. i said 15 minutes, both so i can get in 20 solid minutes and because i firmly believe 20 minutes is the standard and polite amount of time to use a machine when someone is waiting.

she then proceeds not to hop on a treadmill or stationery bike in the meantime (the logical thing to do while waiting, no?), but sit on the mat behind me, loudly flipping the pages on her magazine, sighing and checking the time on her cell phone approximately every 90 seconds.
after 15 minutes, i oblige and stop ... wipe down the machine, and hop on the treadmill.

little miss impatient spent the next 10 minutes on the machine, switching between going forward and backward every 60 seconds, and left.

after 10 minutes. 10 minutes.

she was breathing down my neck, just sitting there on the floor in order to get 10 minutes on the machine? she can't have been pressed for time, or one would logically assume that she'd have used those 15 minutes that she was waiting to ... i don't know ... exercise?

maybe switching directions every 60 seconds turns the elliptical machine into a magic ass-shrinking miracle machine, which requires only 10 minutes. if anyone is familiar with this or any other miracle ass-shrinking miracles, please feel free to pass that info along.**

maybe i shouldn't complain too much - i did get the machine back to finish my workout.

*we leave for st. martin in 1 month and 4 days. thus the need for the long workout.

**we leave for st. martin in 1 month and 4 days. thus the need for the magic ass-shrinking miracle machine.

metro monday v: the post-thanksgiving grumpy edition

let me guess. long-distance relationship? you spent thanksgiving weekend avoiding your parents' guilt-laced phone calls for not being home while you shagged in a roommate-free apartment? hey, i'm cool with that. but listen, while you are taking the train to the airport, hugging, kissing, giggling, trying not to cry, clocking the woman sitting next to the aisle with a bag everytime you go in for a new hug (and hogging most of the aisle with your huge unnecessary luggage) the rest of us are being jolted back to reality after a lovely long weekend. we're grumpy. and your cooing is not only annoying, but provides a perfect target for our general discontent with this very painful monday morning.

so don't take personal offense to all the nasty sideways glances and rolled eyes directed at you this morning. but do take the hint and say your official kissy-poo good-byes before leaving the apartment, hm?

and ps. if anyone sees me today, please know that when i pulled these socks out of the drawer this morning, they were not purple. they were dark brown. i'm an adult, and i know that purple socks do not even remotely match what i'm wearing today. but know this, that they magically transformed colors at some point between my closet and the courthouse station, which is when i looked down and realized that ... i'm wearing purple socks. (i've tried to work out how this might be the fault of the kissy-poo couple, but it's not really working out.)

move over, mashed potatoes!

b informed me over dinner tonight (a repeat of thanksgiving feast-ivities) that he's revised his top 3 list. b likes to rank his favorite things. prior to tonight's dinner, the list went like this:

1. me;
2. his dearly departed childhood dog, sam (rest in peace) to whom there may or may not be a shrine in our bedroom; and
3. mashed potatoes.

but at dinner tonight, b informed me that his version of heaven would include a giant pool of carmelized onions and garlic - and the only way to get out would be to EAT your way out. seriously. this shit is that good." and carmelized onions and garlic has replaced mashed potatoes.

the top 3 now looks like this:

1. me;
2. his dearly departed childhood dog, sam (rest in peace) to whom there may or may not be a shrine in our bedroom; and
3. carmelized onions and garlic.

mashed potatoes could not be reached for comment. although i did console them by having an extra large helping this evening. i hope it helped. (i still love you, mashed potatoes.)

you will *not* be disappointed!

i'm not usually a baker, but today i caught the bug. i combined a couple trusted recipes to come up with the best damn oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. try my recipe. you'll be glad you did!

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup regular sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12 oz) chocolate chips
2 cups oatmeal

wisk together flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.

separately, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. add eggs one at a time, beating well after each; next add the flour mixture. stir in chocolate and oatmeal slowly.

bake at 375F. 7-9 minutes. i like to turn the baking sheets half-way through so they brown evenly. and i also don't recommend putting two baking sheets in at once. take your time, people. enjoy standing around in your PJs and apron. is that just me?

my apartment smells like what i imagine heaven must smell like. chocolate and nutmeg. aw yeah.

happy thanksgiving!!!!!!!

h is for hypocrite

i've got christmas on the brain.

yesterday, beelog wrote, and i agreed, that all this super-early holiday marketing is nonsense. after thanksgiving, people. AFTER.

but then.

it's all i could think about. baking cookies, the warm glow of the tree, the instant decrease in blood pressure whenever there's holiday music in the background. i just couldn't stop thinking about it.

when i opened itunes this morning, i saw it there: holiday music.

gulp.

i thought i could just look, just see what's there. *wrong* first of all, who in their right mind can possibly resist buying a charlie brown christmas album?! also, the bulk of the classic holiday CDs are eight bucks. seriously. OOH! and they had the chipmunks christmas, which i used to listen to in record form on my little kid record player. i mean, can you blame me? i'm only human.

all i can say is that it's a good thing the tree is in off-site storage (read: the back of my car) and the car is still at the dealership being fixed. otherwise, i can't promise that B wouldn't come home to a decked-out apartment.

with the linus & lucy song in the background, culling through a hundred pages of evidence notes isn't that bad. i guess next time i choose to grumble about the mass market and society and blah blah blah, i'd better pick something i'm less susceptible to...

metro monday iv: thanksgiving edition (who wants seconds??)

i'd forgotten how empty the trains are once late november rolls around. but don't worry, i still found not one, but two gems to pass along.

sitting in front of me (have i mentioned the train was empty?! a seat during rush hour? glorious) ... there's no way this man was married. i couldn't see to check for a ring ... i didn't notice mismatched socks, or a wrinkled shirt. no, no. i know this man was single because of his ear hair. my god was this amazing ear hair. it was coming out of every place ... short, long, curly ... seriously, there was one hair that was at least an inch and a half long. i promise you that's the truth. and it looked like he'd gotten a hair cut recently - couldn't they have taken a little off the ears? i usually associate incredible ear hair with much older men - this guy couldn't have been much older than 50. he was only barely graying around the temples (including the ears...) - if he had a wife, she'd never let him out of the house like that. i'm sorry, but it's true. the best part was that, a few minutes after i sat down, he reached up and touched his ear hair!!! for a minute i thought, dear god was i thinking about his ear hair outloud? was my inner dialogue, my first mental draft of this blog, actually coming out of my mouth? i don't think so, but i guess i can't be too sure.

specimen number two was a holiday classic. he was dressed like a six-year-old boy. he had the quintessential fugly wool holiday-ish sweater (looked handmade in the early 80s, but it didn't have a tree or a reindeer on it) with a turtleneck underneath and a wool cap. the sweater even looked like it was too big, the arms a little long, the collar a little wide ... like his big brother had thankfully grown out of that shit and passed it on to this sucker.

so all in all, a good metro monday. a seat, some good material for everyone, and i don't have to ride the train again until next monday! yay thanksgiving!!!

i've realized riding the metro may be the most exciting part of my day

or, at least the most blogworthy. i have not yet decided how i feel about this realization. but i like to watch people, and there is no better place than a metro car for that pastime, ladies and gentlemen. so i think i'm ok with it.

let me tell you about last night's ride. first of all, you all know how i feel about balding. it's like aging, gentlemen. best if done gracefully. this man on the train last night ... he had a pretty substantial comb-over, which is a definite no-no. (unless you're carl levin or someone else who looks like ben franklin. then you can do whatever the hell you want. i love you carl!) but it was so much more than that. the wind had displaced (er ... mangled) his combover. it was sticking out, up, around, every which way. oh god it was hiLARious. (i have seriously got to get a camera phone, people. seriously.)

how am i not supposed to stare? i know it's rude, but you know what? so is a comb-over. hmph.

then ... just as i was recovering from the shock of this comb-over-gone-wild, this middle-aged, in-town-for-business, reeking-of-cheap-beer midwesterner siddles on up and plops into the seat perpendicular to mine. he looks at me and the cranky tired secretary sitting next to me, smiles, and says -

ladies.

if he'd had a cowboy hat, i'm sure he'd have tipped it.

what the ...

i'd love suggestions on how i should have responded (and don't bother commenting, with a confused look that says, "sir, we don't talk on the train. not to strangers. and not to strangers with ipods." followed by some pretend text-messaging to further avoid eye-contact. because i'm already all over that.)

i'm pretty sure i might have mono (updated)

i've been part of B's family for a while now, and it's high-time i join the club and start diagnosing my own medical conditions. this is, it turns out, the family's second favorite pastime ... second only to cooking insanely large meals for a minimum of four times the number of guests that will actually appear. their third favorite pastime is bossing me around in the kitchen.

here, S, can i get you to chop/cut/dice/slice [fill in any vegetable, most hard cheeses, fruits (dried and fresh), bacon or bread]?

so i'm trying to fit in. and i've decided i must have mono. this is the only logical explanation for my total lack of motivation to engage in anything law school related. these are the symptoms i found on webmd (who knew there was more than just being a lazy ass!):

fever, which may range from 101 °F to 104 °F, and chills.
hm. negative on those. i'm cold, but that's because we're still running the AC in november.

sore throat, often with white patches on the tonsils.
um, not this either. unless you count scratchiness from the occassional cigarette that i definitely don't smoke.

swollen lymph nodes all over the body, especially in the neck.
well, no. i don't think so.

swollen tonsils.
maybe. ok, not really. but i'm really bummed that i haven't answered yes yet.

headache or body aches.
yes! i had the worst headache as i was listening to my evidence prof read slides for two hours!

LACK OF ENERGY AND FATIGUE.
this is it! this is the one. definitely. add lack of motivation and disinterest in all things law school.

loss of appetite.
ok, definitely not.

pain in the upper left part of the abdomen, which may indicate that the spleen has become enlarged.
my spleen is actually feeling a-o-k these days. (does anyone know what the spleen even does? or where it is and what it feels like? anyone? RK??)

UPDATE: On 11/15/06, rk wrote:
i think cleans out the old red cells in your blood. helps fight infection.

didn't i tell you guys she knows everything??

well shit. i really don't know what to say. i'm still pretty sure b gave me mono. he's seems to be pretty uninterested in school these days too... i'm sure this is the answer. i'll do some independent medical research and get back to everyone.

the green-eyed monster wears little pink sneakers

what is it about little girls that makes my estrogen sky-rocket? is it all the pink? the giggling? the eyelashes? thank god i only have nephews.

this morning i met a friend and her little daughter for breakfast. everytime i see this little girl, i leave in a daze, light-headed, dreaming of striped tights and pink nurseries. GAH! somehow the intimacy of this mother-daughter bond manages to replace my visions of being a dark-suited, high-heeled, well-respected attorney with visions of doll houses and hide and seek at 2 in the afternoon.

it's like i'm in a cartoon, with the lawyer S on one shoulder and the mom-and-daughter S on the other. i'd like to see them duke it out - maybe the lawyer S would use her blackberry as a laser gun and the mom S would sling-shot barbies and freshly baked cookies.

the two versions of s are not mutually exclusive, i realize. there is a time for everything. blah blah blah. but something about seeing that little girl calls up a choir of doubt that i really could have both.

to sum up, it's a good thing:
1. i only have nephews;
2. this friend and her bundle of pink live in a different state now and only visit every few months; and
3. i have plenty of time to figure all this crap out.

metro monday iii

at first, i thought metro monday was going to be about b & i today ... about how we were both so caught up in scanning the crowd on the train for funnies that we each were, at separate stops, taken off-guard by the train's jerkiness and flailed into the people next to us. or about all the colorful language b used when he saw that there were five minutes between trains during rush hour on the orange line. (the horror! who are these incompetents?!?!?)

but as i was approaching the escalators at foggy bottom, i saw something very, very special. there was a group of touristy-looking 20-somethings trying to yank an umbrella that had gotten stuck in the door out. i assumed, as is i think logical, that the group had been leaving the train and the umbrella got stuck on the way out. but ... after they dislodged the umbrella, they stood there - waiting for the next train! one of these brainiacs, it seems, had stuck her umbrella into the train door thinking it would stay open for the whole group to enter.

listen. i don't mean to pick on the tourists or anything. it's everyone's city, yadda yadda yadda. but people. it's not an elevator. it's a train. it will smash whatever you stick between those closing doors: umbrellas, arms, small children. "please stand clear of the doors" isn't a polite reminder. it's a warning.

a little friday "it sucks that we have to work while everyone else in this city has the day off" story

we all have those co-workers in our lives that are technologically-challenged. (read: god only knows how they turn on their computers in the morning.) and those always result in some hilarious, time-wasting incidents.

this morning, rk shared with me her recent experience with her office-sharing nemesis, the smirking self-important elderly gentleman who occassionally leaves the office in the middle of the day or a project for such important tasks as, oh, picking up a ham. and he also falls asleep in meetings. a real fav of hers. let's call him SOG (sleepy old guy).

rk: SOG has been grumbling about how he always has a hard time logging onto the website where we are taking those online certification courses. you have to put in your work email and password, blah, blah. you can of course click the little "remember me" box so you don't have to enter the info again.

he was grumbling and i said i would help him. so i stand over his shoulder and watch while he enters his email and password (making sure the remember me box is checked). he clicks "ok" and sure enough he get the error message "this account doesn't exist". so i say go back and try again. this time i pay a little bit more attention as he types.

umm...as it turns out, SOG has been misspelling the company name in his email. that's why he can't log in.

SOG also sent a nasty-gram to the administrators for the website complaining about his inability to log in. i'll update if i hear anything resulting from the nasty-gram.

the congressional revolution of 2006 - bringing families together

i know we're all still working through the implications of this election - nancy pelosi becoming the most powerful woman in american history, the demise of our beloved rumsfeld, finally some oversight of the debacle in iraq - add one more to the list, shall we?

it's not news that my relationship with my dad has, of late, been somewhat ... ahem ... strained. but this election, folks, has brought us back together. we spent a good chunk of time this afternoon gushing over how giddy we are, and how fun and glorious and wrought with come-uppins this election has proven to be. he went off for a little bit on a few moderately insane conspiracy theories and plans for border control (long story short: they involve annexing the 51st state, mexico) - but i was just so thrilled he was actually talking to me that all i could do was smile.

helping estranged family members see past their differences because they have been blinded by the overwhelming joy of seeing republicans get a swift kick in the head.

thank you, democrats. those are some family values i can get behind.

"who's the decider now?" OR "to quote the eloquent nelson muntz ..."

1. yes i did get a couple hours of sleep last night and

2. i never said i wouldn't gloat.

i'm gloating, damnit. and i'm being immature about it. and i'm loving every moment.

in fact, if you had asked me if, when the dems retook the house (and how!) and the senate will probably fall our way (not to mention that governor's map. ah, the blue!!!), i would gloat, i'd have said hells yes i will gloat!

i'm a sore loser, and 2004 had me in a funk for months. but i'm also a poor winner. and so i gloat.

i won't blog on this at length. i'll let the kids at the wonkette, who are so much better than i am, take care of it. but i just have to tell you that i heard the gentle voice of karma when ken mehlman was talking about the importance of every vote counting (er, um, ken?) ...

i also just heard tom delay on cnn call karl rove a genius. this is going to be a fun, fun day.

i guess you take the good with the bad....

last night in the hour between work and class that i typically spend pretending that i'm going to study but really putzing around online, i thought it'd be a nice idea to take a walk. the reasons for this were two-fold.

1. it was a nice evening, and i didn't even have my textbook for class, so i couldn't tell myself i'd study and

2. i've recently decided that i really, seriously, honestly, swear to god, have got to start exercising. between the ever-closer trip to the french west indies (sigh), the two visits to the doctor's office that involved stepping on a scale (me: what the?! um, ma'am, i'm sorry but this scale is like 15 pounds off. seriously. i know you told me last time it was right, but really.) (ok, not outloud. but i was thinking it.), and a glance at wedding pictures that are only 14 months old (me: dude. who is this skinny girl in the white ... wait a second!) ... it's time. the 1L 15 i've started calling it.

thus: a walk.

dc is, i think, one of those cities that's much more charming after the sun's gone down. the buildings somehow seem larger, the smells better. i don't know. maybe it's just me. during the day, i never notice the small buildings tucked between the taller ones, the kosher delis, how much wider the sidewalks are here than in the midwest. (yes, we have sidewalks in the midwest.) i walked up from foggy bottom to dupont, and felt a ping of nostalgia as i passed the office building where i worked as a receptionist for an architecture firm when i was first in dc. that was only three or four years ago, but my god how things have changed since then. dvorak's new world symphony came up on shuffle on my ipod. i was zipping along, happy with the world and the city and my life and all that.

and then. then, on 20th just south of p, there. on a loading dock. there was a man. and he was taking a shit.

yeah.

metro monday ii

it's monday again, folks. sad as it is. but it's time for the second metro monday, which is kind of exciting.

first of all, i wanted to make clear what i'm going to do with metro monday. i am only going to write about things, people, smells, etc. that i encounter on the train monday morning. that's it. i'm not going to draw from my vast experience of metro-riding experience and showcase the gems on mondays. i'm not going to write about that time a couple years back when i got in a shouting match with a tourist on the escalator who was standing on the left and refused to move when i ever-so-politely said, excuse me, this is my train. i don't think that's very genuine. instead, i'm restricting myself to write only about that 4-stop commute into foggy bottom.

i'm telling you this in part to cover my ass in case some mondays are really lame. consider this your warning.

today, i would like to take a moment just as a public service announcement to discuss the aisle-sitters.* aisle-sitting is wrong, and it needs to stop. ok, sometimes at like 2 in the afternoon aisle-sitting is fine. but on the orange line during rush hour? unacceptable. there were two - count 'em, two - aisle-sitters this morning on the train. the orange line. 8:40 am. and one of them was sleeping.

aisle-sitters: you are rude. you are not paying twice as much to ride the train, so you don't get to take up two seats because you don't feel like scootching your ass over 14 inches or you don't feel like sitting next to someone. and when i see you on the train, i can assure you that the seat next to you is *always* the one i want. please show just a touch of courtesy and move it.

(also, there was this guy in the seat in front of me in an all-corduroy suit. all corduroy. can you believe that? i think my little brother had one of those when he was four or something. that dude's gonna be hot this afternoon.)


*aisle-sitting is when there are two empty seats, and you take the outside seat, leaving the inside seat empty and unaccessible.

sunday pic

fall colors in the fog

shenandoah national park, virginia

a time and a place, folks

1. i do not support the wearing of fishnet stockings, except between 11pm and 4am. *especially* not with an otherwise conservative black suit. maybe if you'd caught me last friday, i would have told you to your face. during the evening commute? this does not fall within the rules, my friend.

2. tall brown boots and short, catholic school girl-esque plaid skirt is a bit much for crim law on a thursday evening, hm? and let's watch it when we shift in our twirly law school seats, dear. all of us in the row directly behind you very nearly got a lindsay lohan-type show. (the men in class were already thinking, you had me at the clingy sweater!)

3. in my office: (a) no to the black puma sneakers with the hot pink, mister. i mean it! i know you think because they are black sneakers, they are ok in our business casual atmosphere, but you're wrong. and you're a terd, but that's another story; (b) no to the black sweatpants and huge 80s satin bow. i mean, obviously. these two things are real wrong separately. together? definetly not. unless it's a saturday morning, your house is burning down and the only thing you can find to pull your hair back is part of your "awful 80s" halloween costume.

ps. dude. what is with the body wash that has made an appearance in the ladies' room here?! i mean, as if this place weren't weird enough.....

breaking news

i think i may have just seen david hasselhoff picking his nose in a hyundai outside of the virginia square metro stop. move over perez hilton - my celeb sightings are way more reliable.

an ode to rk

well, i just realized it's thursday, and this weekend rk is going up to new york to see madame butterfly with her father as an early birthday gift. this means we will only see rk on friday evening for some holiday party planning over thai. (that's right party people! watch your mailboxes for some pretty handmade invites!) we basically hang out with rk all the time, so a saturday and sunday without her seem a bit odd.

i thought i would take this opportunity to highlight one of rk's most amusing and educational traits. she's a friggin genius people. serious. she basically knows everything.

when she joined us in detroit for the first two games of the world series (and no, i'm still not ready to talk about it), it didn't take long before b's family started asking her random questions because, well, she'd obviously know the answer.

and just this past weekend, b & i foolishly played trivial pursuit with her. she had this question:

how many points is a "C" worth, in Swedish Scrabble?

the answer is ten. and she got it right. no. i'm not kidding.

so, here's to rk. have a lovely weekend in new york, and please prance those ferragamos into the oak room at the algonquin hotel and have a martini for me, hm?

ps. b keeps saying that he's going to start blogging some on my corner of the internet. but so far he's all talk. everyone who wants b to start blogging, leave a comment urging him to start!!!

NOTE: like an idiot, i had not realized that i had to approve everyone's comments before they were published. my bad. now i see people HAVE been commenting. and i love you for that. promise to take care of that ....