i've got you under my skin....

i was barely awake this morning as b was getting ready for work. in the fog of sleep, i remember suddenly having this pressing need to ask him about eminent domain in the district of columbia. congress has its hands all over dc (stupid constitution) and i was convinced that there must be some special congressional approval for eminent domain.

let me be clear: i'm not taking the DC bar exam.

so i'm lying there, thinking about how in virginia, localities can exercise eminent domain, and it can even be to give the land to a private party!, and what if they ask about DC because it's so close, or what if they ask on the multistate exam ... should i know this? how can i find this out if b doesn't know?

of course i was still so asleep that i couldn't make my mouth form the words to ask him, though now i wish i could have because i'm sure he would have laughed hysterically at still-asleep me, asking him urgently about eminent domain at 7:15 in the morning.

i've been having dreams about the bar exam for a couple months now, though not the typical fear dream where you show up to the event naked (which would be especially problematic in virginia since i have to wear a court appropriate suit). nope, they've been dreams where i've fallen into a ditch after dark and wondered what the city and contractor's duties to warn were under standard tort law, and if by jay-walking i had assumed any risk. or i'm looking at a house with b, and it's called blackacre (all property questions call a piece of land blackacre. or whiteacre, or greenacre, if there are multiple plots). and yesterday i was walking down florida to CVS and saw a garbage truck with "aggregate" on the side, and my brain immediately lept into an analysis of when multiple claims can be aggregated in federal court under diversity jurisdiction to meet the amount in controversy requirement.

my brain has been hijacked by bar preparation.

obviously, this is a fantastic thing from now until 5:00pm wednesday afternoon. but what i'm looking forward to most is the feeling once i get in my car wednesday afternoon, shimmy out of my suit and throw it over the seat, roll down the windows, light a cigarette (you had better believe i'll deserve a celebratory pack of cigarettes - besides, it's VIRGINIA), and let the hot july air swirl around inside the car, pulling out the smoke and emptying my brain of all this information as i head back through the blue ridge mountains and home.

UPDATE: after telling b about the eminent domain episode, he told me that last night he had to wake me up because i was doing flashcards OUTLOUD in my sleep and i woke him up. he said he could tell i was doing flashcards, because i have a certain rhythm in my voice when he quizzes me, but it actually sounded like i was talking in tongues and it totally freaked him out.

wow. it is time for this thing to be over.

despite the fact that i've spent ten weeks and - at least for the past ten days or so - 14 hours a day in preparation, i'm really trying not to think about it. no, seriously. i'm trudging through my ridiculous to-do list every day, marching across the volumes of practice essays, learning because that's what the calendar from barbri says i'm supposed to do. it's all i do, it's all i think about, but i'm not thinking about it. i'm studying for the bar exam. i'm not actually taking it. yet.

it's less than a week from d-day. i type that only because it appears my body, from whom i've been trying to keep this secret, found out. i've decided some asshat of a cell realized over night just how close It is, and started telling the others. based on the fact that the entire left side of my back is tied in knots, i think he resides over there. he's a trouble maker, getting everyone riled up. and i think they chased out all the cells that were all, she's cool, she's ready, everyone REMAIN CALM. those cells have become refugees in every sinus cavity in my head. it feels awesome.

so now that my body has found out, i suppose i can put it out here as well.

the bar exam is next week. and even after a lifetime of school and tests of every variety, i honestly don't even think i know how to be nervous for this thing.

before i allow myself too much time to actually think about it, i'll return to the coffee cup stained to-do list for this week, the one with the words "HOMESTRETCH" scrawled across the top, and start working my way through wednesday.

duped

in hindsight, there was something a little fishy going on, but i just didn't put two and two together soon enough. what's more, the clues were all clumped up closely to the culmination of events, too close for me to have seen the writing on the wall. the lightening fast response when i noticed a text on his phone from his boss, the excessive hours, the shower saturday evening after "work" even though he'd taken one that morning - but before we left to have dinner at her house with her husband. i'm an extraordinary snoop - and what's more, i didn't think he'd have the patience to tiptoe around my peering electronic presence.

and so it was, saturday night, when we walked into his boss' house, me dressed a bit more formally than i thought appropriate for a small dinner party. it's why i especially resembled the proverbial deer caught in headlights when the crowd of friends that under normal circumstances would not find themselves in the same room came into focus - their smiles and shouts rendering me completely disoriented. this man has never once successfully kept a secret from me, let alone a party to which 75 people were invited to celebrate the end of law school ... including countless friends that, i'm sure, have smirked a little and winked at him in my presence without my noticing, even listened to me complain about my disappointment over him spending all saturday at work. it's why even now, a few days later, i find myself smiling and shaking my head thinking about it - not quite believing he really pulled it off.

it's why, as i stood there in front of everyone, trying to remember when my birthday was, he had to lean in and whisper, it's for your graduation. that was right before i punched him in the arm and his grin stretched from ear to ear.

before saturday, the whole graduation experience (except for the actual walking across the stage and first putting my hot little hands on my JD) had been markedly underwhelming. for some reason, the heavens didn't open and angels didn't sing the praises of my intellect, i didn't grow four inches, i'm still spending all day at the law school, and i don't yet have a house where the windows actually open and i can sit outside and drink coffee in the morning. i had found myself cursing law school me, for all those days when i'd reassure myself under my breath, if i can just graduate, it will all be ok.

i know now that in a few months, when the bar and the months off before entering the real world like a big kid have faded much like the long days spent answering phones and shooting death stares at my boss, and for a long time afterwards, what i'll remember about graduation won't be the graduation eve fight with the parents, but the moment on saturday at which i realized that man had been making all those plans and doing all that cooking to bring all my friends together for me. i'll remember the smiles on everyone's faces - both because of the satisfaction from having duped me and because of my accomplishment. i'll remember a night full of congratulations and laughter and general merriment, which is really all i ever wanted.

i'll remember that i really do have the best husband ever. and that he can be a sneaky, sneaky bastard.

you leave big shoes

i have hit a bout of writer's block the size of montana of late - and i would apologize, but i honestly believe you are all probably better off without my less-than-sunny disposition taking up space. maybe there's a post a-brewing about the potential pitfalls of counting down to an event and thinking that then, then ... then things will be ok. but this is not that post.

this is a post about tim russert.

i did not know tim russert, though i spent many a sunday morning with him. maybe i felt like i knew him. maybe i just can't imagine the election without him and his whiteboard. maybe i related to his passion for seeing how current events mesh with the fabric of american history or his unbridled glee over this election. maybe seeing someone so many people loved and admired die reminds me of my own mortality and - more importantly - the mortality of the people i love and admire. whatever it is, i am sad. watching the commentary and memorials, interviews with his son - they've all left me in tears.

so this afternoon after my mom interrupted my bar study to yell at me for being a terrible daughter, i figured - what the hell? why not turn on msnbc? why not watch the memorial service? my studying was already shot to hell, and i was already in tears. i think i caught the second half of the memorial. it was lovely. luke russert's musings on a special edition of meet the press this sunday, with aaron burr and alexander hamilton - or JFK and goldwater made me smile, but as tom brokaw thanked the crowd at the end over the israel kamakawiwo version of "somewhere over the rainbow" playing in the background i was in tears again. (how can a song be so happy and sad at once?)

i sat on the couch watching msnbc fade out to the song, ignoring my stack of bar review notes to be summarized (and learned, whatever), and remembered i had to pick up some stuff from the cleaners before they closed. wiping my eyes, knowing full well (but not caring) that i was about to go out into public not only without make-up, but looking like i'd just spent an hour crying, i slipped on a pair of flip flops, grabbed my wallet and umbrella, and headed out the door.

one of those crazy late spring storms was passing, the kind where rain was coming down sideways - and then not at all - and then from the opposite direction. the umbrella was the perfect cover to lower over my bloodshot eyes, and i sort of enjoyed the rain on my toes.

i was walking back down columbia, hiding my face beyond the umbrella, eyes fixed on the sidewalk when the rain stopped. i turned to look over the adams morgan skyline, east, in the direction of the clouds. and there it was. a rainbow arching across the sky. i imagine it was about the time that most people - certainly, i hope luke russert and maureen orth - were filing out of the kennedy center.

i don't care what any of you say, i wholly believe it was tim russert, smiling over DC and thanking us all for mourning him more than i'm sure he'd ever have imagined. or maybe he had saint peter take care of it for him. he might have been busy preparing questions for hamilton and burr.

godspeed, tim russert. you leave big shoes.

i'll cross the finish line. it won't be pretty. but i'll cross it.

so you know that dream you have, where you're about to leave work on a friday night and indulge in a few cocktails and pomme frittes - and right before the end of the day, your professor's secretary emails you wondering where your take home exam is? the take home exam you thought wasn't due for another week? the one you haven't started? the one you could have easily done before if you hadn't spent your day in front of the television making baby blankets? the one that may have actually been due the previous day, and a late submission of which could derail graduation two weeks from now?

and you know that other dream you have where your cool gay landlords' houseguest is locked out with their dog, and asks to cut through your apartment to get to the backyard ... where you can't say no, but your apartment is embarrassingly messy, what with your dining room table covered in open boxes from packages you've gotten over the past two weeks, the laundry basket out of which you've been living all week sitting next to the couch, and the suitcases from a trip two weeks ago still strewn about your bedroom? and you know that despite your apologies for the messiness, he's totally going to tell them later over a pomegranate martini that their tenants are slobs?

and you know that dream where you walk out of the dressing room to show your husband the dress you've tried on, and you don't realize until you're in the crowded aisle that the back of the dress is tucked into the top of your panties? and not only does everyone see you, but a little kid says really loudly, mommy i can see her butt!

totally my weekend. ok not that last one.

but whatever, i was at the argonaut by ten last night. also, i think the landlords may already know we are have moments of slobbery.

rest in peace, friend. you will be missed.

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

-Robert Frost

peaks and valleys

i knew yesterday was going to be one of those days well before i actually knew why. when i checked my cell phone at 9am and found three missed calls, i had a feeling. two of those numbers were the mishmash of numbers i've come to associate with my brother's calling card. the other was from my mother. and she left this message.... nearly singing, really.

good mooooooorning! it's your muuuther. i don't know if your bruuuther has called you yet. if not...... you should caaaall me. i luuuuve you!

my brother's not going to iraq.

my brother got himself transfered to an air force base on the kuwaiti coast, where he'll be working as a paralegal. for the duration of his deployment. nowhere near a convoy, nowhere near a roadside bomb. he won't need a flack jacket. he might get carpel tunnel, you know, from working at a computer. he leaves thursday. i think my mom cried for almost an hour after getting this news. i didn't cry nearly that long, but i did suddenly feel like someone had finally loosened the invisible rubber band around my lungs that has been keeping me from taking full breaths ever since this deployment thing became real. and that first email i get from him once he's moved, maybe then i'll take in one very long, deep breath and really exhale.

but it was a call about another younger brother that is the real story, even as happy as i am with the news about mine.

b's phone rang at about 11 last night. he looked at the number, not recognizing it, and then looked at me. for a second i could tell he thought about not answering - but not for the usual reason, that he thought it was a wrong number or something. i think because he was afraid of who was on the other line. but he answered.

then, jonathan...

i turned off the television. and the silence as he listened, and drew in that breath so sharply that told me what i already knew, was so so heavy around us.

i've made a lot of calls for my brother in our lives together, announcing the birth of his first-born when he and his wife were still wide-eyed over the little guy being the most memorable. but the idea of having to make that call, the one telling a friend of 20 years that your younger brother is dead - that is a phone call i never, ever want to be tasked with. it's a fear that has been terribly real to me, with my brother going to iraq. and on the day i found out that won't happen, to know that jonathan is making that call for his younger brother - the enormity of that pain is not lost on me.

and so here i sit, mozart's requiem and the smell of roasting potatoes filling the apartment, my bell's appropriately at my side, and tears in my eyes. i'm thinking of our best friend, again on a hastily-planned flight from ethiopia. i imagine him staring out the window, unable to sleep, trying unsuccessfully to push down his grief with wonderful memories (isn't that what we're all trying to do?) ... i'm thinking of jason's parents, of his wife. i'm thinking of the army of friends that have marched to the front lines of his hospital room, only to stand helpless before him. but i have to tell you, i can't stop thinking about jonathan. my grief, b's grief, pales next to the reality of bittersweet beautiful moments in jonathan's life he'll see without his younger brother. it's a reality i've occasionally, briefly considered in the middle of the night, peering over the edge of that cliff from my bed, b sleeping soundly beside me, hoping i don't wake him with my crying. it's a terrible, terrible reality.

last night, though, that's not what i did as b slept. instead, i pressed the side of my face, cool and a little wet from tears for jason, against his warm back. i could hear his heart, and all i could do was softly, in rhythm with its beats, whisper adamant directions - don't stop. don't stop. please heart. don't stop. don't ever, ever stop.

my laziness has clearly permeated even my blogging

i kind of have senioritis with my life right now.

because i can't seem to piece together a funny blog on my own these days .... this is a recap from my gchatting in elder law class this afternoon. enjoy.

Joe: amazing that bea arthur came out of retirement to teach this class
me: HAHA! you're going to get me in trouble!
Joe: "you're a pal and a confident!"
"thank you for bein' a friend!"
schuster [a male professor] looks kind of like betty white, no?
sally is rue mclannahan
and tom osbourne as "granny"
me: JOE!!!
Joe: ma!
"my stan had a reverse mortgage"

...
Joe: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jkubicek/bea_arthur_rotj.jpg
me: that was mean
also, hilarious

...

Joe: yeah - one was this chick who strained so hard when she was giving birth that the veins around her eyes are now 100% visible - it's like something from x-men
sorry - that was meant for another window
me: now you're just testing me
Joe: ;)

****************************************************

ej: i congragulate you on having one of the weirdest facebook status messages ever.
me: thank you. i appreciate your recognition
it's not actually bea arthur.

...

ej: omigod, the exit to "big beaver road" is #69
http://wonkette.com/375146/thrifty-senators-husband-only-spends-150-on-prostitute
me: HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT
you didn't know that?
ej: no!
me: they're not even making that shit up. that's for real.
ej: hahahahahahha
this is awesome.
me: the hotel where we had our guests stay for our wedding and our wedding reception - both on big beaver. i thought people would think my wedding map i included in the invitation was some kind of sick joke.
"take exit #69 and make a michigan turn to go west on big beaver"
ej: HAHAHAHAHHAHA
me: i toyed with adding language like - you'll go down on big beaver for 2 miles ... but ultimately my good manners go the best of me.
ej: on your wedding invitation! love it!
me: and if THAT doesn't make your tumblr, i will be mightily offended.

******************

if only i could gchat with my blogging self. that would be funny. and it might indicate some sort of mental illness.

the only way to punish a newspaper for baseless, degrading and irresponsible journalism is to hit them where it hurts. that's why, friends, i am canceling my years-long subscription to the washington post today.

there's no eloquent way to respond to a piece of garbage that reads more like a 15-year-old boy's rant than an opinion piece to be run in any newspaper, let alone the washington post. there's no way to argue against bold-faced lies about clinton's campaign. there's no way to refute the scientific facts that allegedly support the premise that women are an inferior breed when those facts aren't presented. oh, except that part about how women are in more, though significantly less serious, car accidents. and i don't even think she represented that study accurately.

even if i could refute it, who cares? does the post really care if a bunch of people are yammering online about how irresponsible they are? it does get people talking, right? and reading the newspaper?

i think everyone who was as shocked by charlotte allen's dribble as i was should cancel their subscriptions. hold this newspaper to a higher standard. frankly, they've not even risen to a standard i would have expected in rural michigan 20 years ago. let alone here, now, from this paper.

doesn't this speak to how our society has still not moved past gender stereotypes that we've long since decided were inappropriate based on religion or race? doesn't this deserve the same outrage we'd give a similar article making these gross generalizations based on religion or race? doesn't this deserve an end to whatever patronage you provide to the washington post?