Screwed! And not the way I'd like to be...

You haven't heard from me because I'm studying for the bar and I'm presently scared shitless. We took a simulated bar the other day and I did not do so good.

More precisely, I am kinda fucked.

Hence I am trying to study and not blog. Because if I were blogging we might have to change my blog name to the "blog of infinite sadness".

To make matters worse I will be thirty on July 24. 30! 30!!! And July 24th is the first day of the bar. July 25th is the second day of the bar exam.

So to recap in case I wasn't clear: I will turn 30 on the firsts day of the bar, which is the hardest exam of my career.

If I am not entitled to a mental breakdown, I don't know who is.

The Female Urinal Cake?

At our Bar review location the janitorial staff seems to be reacting negatively to the students.

I have come to this conclusion because they have left what must be urinal cakes on the floor, under the sinks in the ladies room. Not only do these items have the unholy pink complexion of a urinal cake, but they emanate that pungent smell of chemicals meant to cover the smell of pee but actually smells worse than pee. Like weed, urinal cake smell is unmistakable. And revolting.

This incident reminds me of this idiot I used to work with whose Turkish girlfriend put stick-ups -which may I remind you, you're supposed to put in a trashcan- in his car. Consequently his car smelled like a trash can, due not only to the stick-ups but also his special funk, and it always made me slightly queasy to be in or around. She was apparently unfamiliar with the car air freshener. Similarly, urinal cakes in the female bathroom seem at the least a misuse of materials, and at most unnecessary.

Honestly, I know that if I were ever pregnant/suffering from food poisoning one whiff of the bathroom I must use would cause me to empty the ol' digestive track. Then it would become an endless cycle: I would need to be in the bathroom to vomit, but the smell that caused me to vomit would be in the bathroom. Thank god I'm not pregnant/suffering from food poisoning. However, I hope we can make peace with the janitorial staff.

And now gentle reader, you may ask, how is it that I know so intimately the urinal cake? Well, before I worked for the museum I was summer help at my college school of the arts in the facilities office. My duties included things like cutting locks of lockers, delivering the mail, and other assorted gopher work. My favorite activity while on duty was to read a magazine called Bathroom World.

Bathroom World was magical. Not only advertised were many different types of urinal cakes, but the ad wizards at bathroom world had thoughtfully staged a number of tableaux to advertise their products. My favorite one depicted an older wheel chair bound man chatting to a young boy in the comfort of a Bathroom World commercial bathroom. Because men of all ages stop to chat in the bathroom. Right guys?

No matter how many times I had read it, I could pick it up, open it to any page, and it would cause me to giggle. Sadly, the Facilities Manager deemed my love of Bathroom World to be slightly unnatural, and threw it out on my day off.

I was devastated.

Happy Father's Day

My Dad is, without a doubt, the greatest Dad ever. He is patient and kind, and very few people could say a bad word against him. He's even won a number of teaching awards from his university.

Because my dad is so excellent I had a panic attack last weekend thinking Father's day was last Sunday rather than this weekend and I had no gift for my father.

I was paying out at Best Buy when this thought entered my head, and I blurted out to the cashier,

"Oh god, is Father's Day this Sunday?"
"I dunno, I ain't got no father" was the terse reply.

And there was nothing to say to that other than to gather up my belongings and scamper off without making eye contact.

As though to punish me for my insensitivity, our Job-like plagues continue, and this morning I came downstairs to find our plumbing had sprung a leak and there was water all over the kitchen.

Happy Father's Day out there to all you dads, especially the ones with plumbing skills.

I Got Cruised By Hot Lesbians!

aka I went to Capital Pride.

It was Gay Pride this weekend in D.C., and to show my love and support for gays in general and EZ in particular, we shipped out to the festival today near the Capitol.

At one point we were just chilling, drinking a strawberry-banana smoothie (which is both cool and gay!) when some card carrying lesbians sat down beside us. I know they were card carrying lesbians because they were wearing stickers that said "Card Carrying Lesbian". After a bit of people watching, we walked off because I wanted to get a picture of the cop car with the pride flag (3 cheers for D.C. cops who have a gay liaison unit), and EZ scampered up to me and said "Those lesbians just checked me out," referring to himself. I looked over, and the girls giggled, and I said "hmm, maybe the one on the end is straight or something."

Turns out that EZ was actually saying the hot black lesbians were checking me (Laaw-yuhr) out. And considering my luck with men, I was totally flattered. As EZ said, "Those are some of the hottest lesbians I've ever seen." And despite being gay, EZ is quite the connoisseur of the ladies. So if I ever wanted to switch teams, it's nice to know I could do pretty well.

I like to call this last picture "Gay Thinker" as it reminds me of Rodin's "The Thinker. I initially walked past this man, then doubled back and asked if I could take his picture. His friend told him to smile, and I said "No no, just sit there like you have been." Then I took the second picture and said "ok, now go ahead and smile. I enjoy the exasperated yet indulgent look on his face. Also, he looks a bit like Santa/Ernest Hemingway.

I would like to commend the straight men who attended Capital Pride. However, they need not desperately cling to their girlfriends/wives in an effort to proclaim "don't hit on me, see, I'm heterosexual!" First of all, it's arrogant to believe you're even good enough looking to get hit on, what with your ugly cargo shorts and tevas. However, given the fact that it has been released that our military wanted to invent a gay bomb, I am totally going to cut you some slack. What is a gay bomb you ask? Why it's 7.5 million government dollars spent on the development of a bomb "that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers would become irresistibly attractive to one another." I am not sure if it is more sad or frightening. It's ludicrous either way and proves exactly why gay pride is necessary.

Not So Funny When The Shoe Is On The Other Foot

So EZ and I have both been laughed at recently, but I admit he took it far better than I did.

EZ got laughed at on day three of our new life in D.C. at the Target. My toilet had already backed up so I thought we should buy toilet plungers for all the bathrooms. I also thought it might be a good idea to get the plungers with a basin or container so that the gross plunger is not just sitting on the floor.

So we're on the bathroom aisle in and I say to EZ "Ok, look here's one [referring to a plunger with base]. What do you think of this?"
"Mmmmmmmm, I don't love it," said EZ. And a straight man in the aisle just burst out laughing.

I understand, because to him it is just a toilet plunger, not an object where one usually sweats the aesthetics. And when he laughed, EZ and I cracked up too.


I got laughed at at the hardware store. And the gay hardware store at that (located in Logan)! I went to the store to rent a drill because of the structural failure in my closet. There was a man who offered to help as we walked in so I told him that I wanted to make sure it was an 18v drill and that it was cordless and make sure the charger came with it etc. and as I'm asking this the man starts cracking up. Yeah, that's right, I know my drills.

It totally pissed me of, but EZ thought he was merely amused in that isn't-it-cute-that-this-girl-knows-drill-shit.
"There are at least two lesbians that work there not to mention the gay dudes," I pointed out, "and it's a really small hardware store, so it must not be that unusual for a girl to know about drills."
"It is for straight girls."
I was miffed, but EZ had the point because I did prance in in a black dress and red flats and so I was probably at least the "fanciest" girl he's ever had speak to him knowledgeably about a drill.

But also fuck him.


Additionally, EZ and I think that this particular plunger that we saw at Target has *ahem* other purposes.

D.C. Hates Me

Bad things that have happened since moving here from New Orleans:

1) We cannot flush toilet paper down our toilets. We didn't know that when our landlord said "You can't flush anything down the toilets" that he actually meant anything. We thought he was refering to lady products. Good times.

2) Our air conditioner doesn't work very well upstairs, actually its pretty much non-existant, causing me to have night sweats and also awful nightmares. Tiny keeps dreaming about zombies coming to get her.

3) Tiny and I got parking tickets our first day in D.C. because we didn't have D.C. plates; it was our first day in D.C.

4) My car failed the car inspection to get my parking plates because of my gangsta window tinting (which in Texas is known as NECESSARY because it is fucking hot in the summer, just like it is here). In D.C. the are under the illusion that window tint laws stop crime except that
a) it doesn't (seriously, when have D.C.'s crime rates dropped?) and
b) even if it did, SUV's are exempt and if you're gonna drive by won't it in an SUV rather than say a three door Saturn like I drive?@!

5) We have had the cable guys out twice now to get the phone/cable/internet hooked up -and yet like the Bermude triangle, our house continues to elude them. We are now going to have to pay them by the hour to install a "custom" jack. I am about to get medieval on Comcast because I have only seen this level of idiocy in New Orleans.

6) Our brand new wireless router is a piece of shit and refuses to work so I have to steal other people's internet even though we are paying for our own

7) The cable idiots only hooked up one phone jack. They need to make all that shit work for free. One phone jack my ass.

8) The shelves in my closet ripped out of the wall today, not because I have too much shit (ok, that a little bit of the problem but it was really largely) due to piss poor construction. These are elfa shelves that don't have support brackets. Stupid stupid stupid.

9) I have discovered that there are large cockroaches in D.C. as well as NOLA

10) People drive here like someone is stabbing them in the eye while their pants are on fire. I've never seen people make so many random U turns in my life. I drove us to Best Buy the other day and felt like I was an unsuspecting participant in a defensive driving video.

11) my metro pass was stolen from a dressing room with $20 on it. Additionally, I tried on 3 dresses unsuccessfully while in that dressing room, all of which looked great on the hanger and made me look completely insane. I have no explanation.

12) I bought a new full lenght mirror for my room. One morning I shifted my laundry basket, which jogged my dresser, which knocked off a swiffer box which hit the mirror causing it to fall over and break on my bathroom floor into a million little shards of death. Good thing I have seven more years of this to look forward to!


More Bad things that didn't happen to me personally but also affect me because these people live with me:

1) Tiny and EZ's cars also failed the D.C. inspection. We all have to get shit fixed and/or our window tinting removed.

2) Tiny's car got hit screwing up her driver's side mirror

3) EZ has spent no less than seven hours on the phone with Comcast and Linksys to try to get all shit working to no avail.

4) EZ's ipod is "corrupted" and is now refusing to work making him unable to listen to Dan Savage's podcasts and therefore grumpy.

5) We're all studying for the bar which is like the worst part of lawschool (exam period) just stretched over two months of constant, consistent hell.

In the immortal words of Bill Paxton in Aliens "Game over man, game over!" We've only lived here 13 days.

How to Handle Your Health Insurance Company

A number of people have asked, how was I able to get the health insurance company to cover my surgery. A surgery which they had previously deemed to be non-essential - that if I wanted them to even think about covering necessitated an additional 15 day approval process.

I'd like to say that the insurance company stepped up and did the right thing, except that of course they didn't. So here's what happened.

When my surgery was initially cancelled, my doctor's office dutifully submitted the additional paperwork detailing the necessity of the surgery. I called four days before my re-scheduled surgery, and the end of the 15 day period, only to be told by the insurance company "I'm sorry, we don't have the information from your doctor's office" and said some other b.s. how it's better to fax rather than mail (even though their form says either is just fine).

In a panic I called my doctor and they re-faxed the information. The next day I called the insurance company again, and I began to ask about the surgery being covered.

"I'm not sure if your paper work has been processed."
I sat in silence for a full ten seconds, and then said "OK, well the paper work was sent in well over 15 days ago, and let me just tell you this: I have nasal polyps and I'm in my last semester of law school. Now, if I don't get treatment, this can turn into meningitis or cancer -among other things- and can ultimately give me brain damage. I can assure you that if something happens to my brain that now contains over $100 grand in education, my loan companies will be more than happy to hold your insurance company liable. And my law school education is far more expensive than my measly day surgery."
There was a brief pause on the other end and then "Ok then, please hold while I check on that."

When the man came back 15 minutes later, magically, I was approved. "Someone was supposed to call your yesterday to let you know it was all approved," he said.

Sure. Especially since the day before they claimed they didn't even have my paperwork. And people say lawyers are bastards.

It's Official: America Blows

America is the World's 96th most peaceful nation on the global index released last Wednesday by researchers at The Economist magazine (I read about it in The Washington Post though).

Sure, 96 sounds great - that is until you realize that it's only out of 121 nations. And we come in after Yemen (at 95!).

Some more surprising nations that are more peaceful than the U.S.:

Cambodia at 85

Syria at 77

Croatia at 67

Cuba and China at 59 and 60 respectively (apparently commies do do it better!)

Libya at 58

Vietnam at 35

Hungary at 18

Some two-dozen "indicators" were used to create the rankings, including wars fought in the last five years, arms sales, prison populations and incidence of crime.

Oh, the 97th most peaceful nation is Iran (we are 96 remember?). Iraq is the 121st. Do we know how to keep the peace or what?!