My Incentive for Finally Changing my Name

Tickets (in my married name) all set for December the second Zach and I get done with finals. I just need to get my first passport in the next week or so (hence the need for all the other new ID). For a girl who has never been anywhere international besides Tijuana and the Canadian side of Niagara Falls this is so exciting, it's been all I can do to focus on normal life and not just read travel guides and dream.

Name Change

When we were engaged we had so many, many discussions about what to do about our names - our last names. Names mean something, its part of your identity. I don't care what other people do for their name, but I do feel like when someone calls your name, it should feel like you. I wanted something that felt like us.

The idea of just chopping off my last name felt like throwing a piece of me in the trash. Zach was very understanding, but he had always just assumed that someday he would fall in love, get married and start the lovely HisBachelorName family with Mrs. HisBachelorName. And while he listened and didn't want me to do anything I didn't want, it was still a little hard for him to let that go.

So, we played with possibilities for hours. We didn't like not having the same name. It felt too much like acting like nothing big had happened, like we weren't together as family. Moving my last name to a second middle name felt like a lame compromise token move. Him adding it as a middle name too felt a little better, but not much. Our families meant to much for us to just create a new smooshed together name, plus all the possibilities felt ridiculous.

Even though it wasn't fun at the time, I look back on all those discussions fondly. It was one of our first big things we had to figure out together, and there we were trying to find what was right for us, our family, listening and respecting and working together. I love our name if only for that alone. We finally decided that we both would change our name and become MyLastName-HisLastName. Why? Well, partially because HisLastName-MyLastName sounded like a law firm, not a name. But mostly because it felt most like us, like our family. It's a bit silly, but to me it felt like neither of us were loosing part of who we were, just adding on the other person to ourselves.

After all that, almost immediately after getting married I changed my name on facebook. And no where else. Sure, our name had some wonderful meaning to me, but I'm really lazy. There wasn't any immediate need to get things in order. So I didn't. For over 2 years that was just fine. Until it suddenly wasn't and I needed new ID, with my new name, right away or else.

So, yesterday I finally went down to the Social Security Office and the DMV and got everything squared away. Word of advice? Don't ever wait more than 2 years. Things expire. As in, after two years you need all sorts of other proof of your name change besides just the marriage certificate. Proof you don't have because clearly if you had that it would mean you had done all the name change stuff and thus didn't need to be doing it now. I honestly think they let me squeak by very much against regulations because they just weren't sure what to do with me and my sad pile of all the ID I could muster (birth certificate, blood donor card, lease agreement, anything and everything). 5 hours, far too many lines, 2 offices latter and there I was, new ID, new name and all.

My new ID photo looks like a serial killer mugshot. But my new name, oh my name makes me so happy. For as long as I put it off and as hesitant as I was to change anything when we started those talks years ago, I was half expecting to feel some sense of loss or sadness. But it just felt like me, only better.

Day at the Book Festival

I can't quite put my finger on why the book festival was so fun. On one hand, we woke up earlier than we ever do on a Saturday. Crammed onto a crowded metro, only to get to a slightly less crowded series of tents. We spend about 7 hours in 90 degree weather. At least 4 of those hours were spend waiting in lines underneath the very strong sun. The remaining 3 were spent fighting crowds for seats in the slightly less hot giant tents so we could listen to people talk.

But, on the other hand we got to spend one of the last summery days of the season outside on the lovely national mall. We got to see some amazing authors and listen to some really cool insights on writing in general and their books in particular, including plenty of fun stories. There were also some really sweet questions from little kids who aspired to be writers, and some equally sweet answers. We got to spend a little time with some of our favorite authors, and have the signed books to show for it. Not good with social situations me got to be in an atmosphere were everyone was as book crazy as me. Even stuck in a line, I knew the people next to you shared a common love of a certain book enough to stand in crazy lines too, so we were able to have some fun conversations and get some good book recommendations.

See what I did there? Same story, different interpretations? It's lawyer magic! (Or why I shouldn't blog while finishing up a case theory assignment for law clinic.)

Basically, book festival was awesome. Even during the less than great parts, I was so excited to be there that I barely cared.

Book festival started at 10, with my first must see event at 10:30. We originally planned to show up early, but ended up showing up just barely in time to listen to Suzanne Collins, the genius behind The Hunger Games. She had some really interesting things to say about all the elements of her life as a military brat, a Mom in NYC on 9/11 and other  things that came into play and just generally how she wrote the books because she feels like we try to ignore how much war really does affect kids, we don't talk to them about it or help them process it, and maybe if we had those kinds of discussions we would all be more thoughtful about conflict. And then it was question time, and we moved immediately into tweens asking about Team Gale or Team Peeta (According to Collins, apparently Team Finnick has been getting quite a bit of support on the tour too, because heaven forbid a character be awesome outside of the context of a love triangle or square.)

Afterwards, I grossly underestimated the book signing lines, so thinking I had half an hour I moved over to the fiction tent where some time-travel scottish romance author was talking. I stayed just long enough to find out that apparently the attraction of men in kilts is "the idea that they could have you up against a wall in a heartbeat" (she has a point) before getting a call from Zach telling me that I might want to run over to get in line right this second.

He was right. I showed up about 25 minutes before signing started, and there were already so many people in front of me that I couldn't see the front. They moved the lines up in a very organized, staggered system, which mean we would just move up 10ft or so every 10 minutes. I'm sure there is a good reason for that, but without the reassurance of frequently moving I was convinced that there was no way I was going to get through. To their credit, a combination of limiting books to be stamped to 1 (she has a hand injury, so she uses an awesome stamp), being willing to stay late, and some incredible assemble line action up front meant we were all able to get through. Sure, it was a little impersonal, but still kind of a fun thrill.

Learning my lesson, I got into the next line right after getting my book signed/stamped. Meanwhile, Zach did his thing. We really didn't see each other much during the middle, just frequently checked in (bless cell phones) and briefly met up to get a drink, as we only thought to bring one water bottle and we didn't want either of us to wilt in the heat. I got one other book signed, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's not that great of a book, but I got it for $5 at Powells and there wasn't anyone speaking when she was signing, so why not. The only downside was that the line the cued up next to us was for the Author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Like everyone who was once a child, I love that book and it was disappointing to not have the time to pick up a copy and run over. I even had Zach try, but the book selling tent was sold out. Oh well. Mistakes happen. Even in Australia.

My very last line was one of the best. Blogging goddess, the Pioneer Woman. Wow. Of all the people I saw, she was by far the funniest and most gracious. I was probably only talking with her for maybe a minute, but she manged to make that feel sweet and personable. She said nice things about my name, made a cute joke and was generally awesome. Her teeth were also very white and her voice was much higher and tinklier than it is in my head. All in all, I've always liked her (or more so her recipes) but never quite got all the fuss. I get it now.

Plus, she signed my book way cooler than anyone else. Very big, bold and wonderful.

That was the last of the line standing and signing. Zach and I finally rejoined and ended up just collapsing on some empty chairs at the History and non-fiction tent for a while. We listened to the tail end of the Pulitzer biographer (journalism - always crazy) and a cute, feel good interview between an author on a book of inspirational stories of immigrants and his journalist wife. I left Zach there once I felt like I could stand again and went back to the children and teens tent for Katherine Patterson.

I don't know what it is about this woman, but I always sob at her books. Bridge to Terebithia, Jacob Have I Loved - great books, but I will only read them when I feel the need for a good cry. Apparently she can even work her magic in short doses. She only read for a few minutes from her new book about Kosovo refuges, and that's all it took for the tears to show up. Overall, she was just a very nice southern school librarian type - the perfect mix of insightful, gracious and funny. Generally speaking the festival seemed to be full of young families, a handful of twenty somethings and a whole host of women who just felt like school or children's librarians. I loved the librarians of my childhood, so just being around so many people with that vibe really made me happy. I miss the awesome mother earth types. Just generally it was nice to be out in DC with book lovers and without seeing a single suit.

And that was pretty much that. Well, we tried to go to dinner at a place we had a Restaurant.com certificate for, only to walk 10 blocks and find it closed. Much as I was food grr! at the moment, and ate like a ravenous wolf at choice #2 at Five Guys, it was still a great day. Oh books, I love you so.

The robot hurt my feelings

A few spam comments on old posts every now and again are to be expected with any blog. Generally I just laugh at the most nonsensical ones and delete the rest.

But today I got a comment that was clearly spam that stated "BTW, rather nice design you have at this site, but how about changing it every few months?" And then asked me to visit his robot hooker website.

My feelings were a little hurt by the criticism compliment. And then I realized I was offended by a robot.

Every now and again I get a case of crazy, unfounded envy for the bloggers who manage to attract the crazies. To me that is some sort of sign that they've arrived as a real blogger, that they have people who are so offended or upset that they must express that. But, uh, since I can't take barely sensical criticism from a robot, it's probably for the best that my little blog will always just be a nice little hobby.

Bert and Ernie before bed

Sometimes when we feel a little too stressed out to sleep, Zach and I will watch a few classic Sesame Street clips before bed. Mostly Bert and Ernie, because at times that does kind of feel like our relationship dynamic. I realized we may have watched the following more often than I realized when one of us started quoting one line, and we went on to re-enact the whole thing from memory.

The great external ID

In undergrad, I had the exceptional skill of talking my roommates into doing what they actually wanted to do, but for some reason felt guilty about. It was a nice system, everyone knew who to go talk to for when they needed permission to have fun and when they needed a push to be responsible or who could help hammer out a nice compromise. That way you would kind of make the decision based on who you talked to, but it felt like you were just following wise, neutral advice.

It's a little harder to use my power of the external ID on myself, but I usually manage. In other words, the National Book Festival was fantastic. I'm sunburned, but a full day of book signings and book talks and just general book goodness was well worth it.

Fun or Responsible?

I usually just spend my weekends at home. Maybe a grocery trip or some other errands. Which is why I'm particularly annoyed that somehow two things I would very much like to go to just happen to be tomorrow.

One one hand is the national book festival - which sounds like book nerd heaven to me. A whole festival of books, oh joy! I've never gone, mostly because I never seem to know that it's happening until it's over. Every year I vow that next year will be the year. This year, not only does the general idea of a festival of books draw me in, but there are even several authors I'd love to see and get books signed by. Ree Drummond, the pioneer woman and blogger extraordinaire! Katherine Paterson, whose Bridge to Teribithia and Jacob Have I Loved made my adolescent heart ache like no other books before had. And best of all, Suzanne Collins, of Hunger Games magnificence and my latest literary love. Plus, what better place to spend on of the last Summeresque days of the year than outside on the National Mall?

On the other hand, tomorrow also happens to be the first meeting of WeLEAD,  the women in politics training program I applied to and was accepted by last spring. I was very excited then, but now I think it was more that I was excited to be getting into something than the actual program. Plus, now that we've pretty much decided that we aren't staying in DC past graduation unless one of us ends up with a fantastic opportunity here, politics and networking are suddenly substantially less appealing. Honestly, I don't really want to go, but I already committed, it would be good to go the first one and meet everyone and I'm only allowed to miss one without being kicked out and it seems silly to voluntarily use my one shot up at the beginning. Besides, like so many things, odds are once I just go and get started, I'll think it's just wonderful and be so glad I went.

Which is all fine and good, but at the moment I not only don't want to go, I'd much rather go do something else. I really hope I wake up tomorrow with remarkable clarity, because right now my attempts to talk myself into either option are not going so well.

Escape from Kindergarten

My little sister apparently decided to escape from school last week.

As I imagine it, they called everyone in from recess. She looked at the school, where she knew she would be trapped in desk and forced to endure coloring, learning the alphabet and other horrors of kindergarten. All while being expected to sit somewhat still. And then she turned, looked at the fence and thought "I can climb that." And so, amidst the confusion, she tore away from the herd, away from the man and ran towards the great big world of possibilities. She threw her little body up on the fence, pushing and pulling, climbing hand over foot, every moment getting just a little closer. Until her cover was blown, and there she was discovered by the teacher, a lone brave soul, clinging to the fence.

But my favorite part of the story? The fences in the school all have big gaps, that anyone could just walk through to get in or out, probably without even being noticed or stopped.

Oh little sister, I feel your pain.

All by myself

Zach's interning at a Congressman's office this semester. Which is kind of cool. Good experience, good networking, all sorts of good. It's exactly the kind of thing me, the person who has been pushing him to just try something in the real world outside of academia just in case round two of Ph.D. apps this year doesn't go well, should be thrilled about.

And I was. Until I came home from class today. And he wasn't home. Unlike most days he did not plug my laptop in for me while I unpacked. We did not discuss our days before settling in for the evening. He did not excitedly show me the cool thing he had read, or show off the sparkling floors he mopped. He didn't do anything because he was out being ambitious and responsible and not being home with me.

I almost burst into tears on the spot. It's funny (ha) last semester and this summer I was going slightly mad because I felt like I never had alone time. Now between him being gone until 7:30pm days he has his internship and 10:00pm the nights he has class, I just miss him. I kept looking up to say something, and he wasn't there to hear it. I wore a really cute outfit today, and was excited for him to see it when he got home. I stayed in it, uncomfortable though it became for 2 hours because even though I knew when he would be back, it still felt like he should be home now.

When he did come home it took all my self control to let him have a few minutes to decompress, because all I wanted to do was tell him every single detail of my day and hear every last bit of his. Well, what I really wanted to do was curl up in his lap and cry until he promised to quit. Because I'm only somewhat selfish, and do recognize that this is a good thing, I only did the curl up and cry thing - but I tried very hard not to.

I'm very ashamed of myself. We are not a clingy must be together all the time couple. We did long distance for eight months while dating and were just fine. I don't know where this crazy person is coming from. I thought that I wanted this student phase to be over and done with, to start being real adults with jobs and 401(k)s. And now I have a little taste of that (minus the awesome getting money part) and it sucks. It's really nothing. Nowhere near real life. But hell if I just don't like it.

Passive Agressive

I used to live with a roommate, who was a very sweet girl, but was also much more outwardly religious than the rest of us. Which, for an apartment of girls at BYU was impressive.  Well, one thing she would so is print out various inspirational quotes from scriptures, religious talks, whatever. And then post them all over the common area of the apartment. It was kind of awkward to feel like the very walls of the apartment were constantly lecturing us. Plus, it made us seem kind of crazy and zealoty to casual guests. Which, again, at BYU is quite the feat.

So we decided to solve the problem like college girls solve most roommate disputes, passive aggressively. We all went around, took them down and placed them in a neat pile on her desk.

They didn't reappear, she didn't say anything, so I just assumed that the message was received, without any of that pesky talking stuff. Until she mentioned to a visiting friend, with most of the apartment present, how sad she was that someone would just take all of her nice quotes down without even talking to her. Why oh why did they feel the need to be so cruel and passive aggressive?

At the time I felt horribly guilty about my passive aggressive behavior. Until I realized that she had passive-aggressively complained about our passive aggressive behavior.

Fun at the Museum

At the beginning of every new semester Zach and I get this big burst of ambitious energy. Not only are we going to rock our studies, oh no. We are going to be universally awesome. Why, this time we will regularly go out and do all the fantastic and frequently free things this great city has to offer. We are going to live the life.

Which usually just means we go to a museum some random Saturday and call it good until next semester. For this semster's tri-annual museum trip we decided to try and finish the Smithsonian American history museum. Because museums in general are cool (to us) and we'd only managed to get 1/3 of the way through when we swung by last year.

It was generally fun. Surprisingly enough, I really loved the America on the water exhibit. Boats are surprisingly cool, and all the little models and old boat things were kind of fun. Plus, there were sea shanties on continuous loop that we were still singing to each other long after we went home. Sea shanties are fun.

Zach, by all appearances, liked the exhibit too. That, or he just really enjoyed putting his history masters degree to good use. Everywhere we turned he had some cool little historical episode or factual tidbit to share. It seemed really fun. So, when I saw something that sparked one of my own tidbits of knowledge at the little display of Native American boats and fishing equipment, I just had to speak up.

"Zach! That salmon hook was made by the Quilette, who, as Twilight teaches us, could also turn into werewolves!"

So glad we could share our knowledge with one another.

Pet Watch

Whenever a blog I read with a prominent pet decides to do a retrospective post full of pictures of said pet throughout the years, I always freak out a little. For some reason those posts are just a little too sentimental, which I apparently automatically assume means that the pet is dead. I have to quickly scroll through to make sure the post doesn't end with something like RIP Beloved Pet 20xx-2010.

Considering I generally find pet picture posts dull, I'm a little surprised that I react so strongly. And considering I react that way every single time, I'm starting to wonder why people keep posting such faux-obituary like posts of perfectly healthy animals.

Easy A

I generally don't see movies in the Theater unless they are a special effects extravaganza. I'm usually just fien with netflixing things. But I really, really want to see this movie now. I'm such a sucker for a good teen dramedy, and this movie feels like just my flavor of an already loved genre. Sex and sanctimoniousness, clever takes on classic literature and all around general wittiness, oh yes please. And Emma Stone is just fantastic.

Movies like this make me long for a dollar theater, but it might just be worth $10 to not need to be patient. 

What I'll be doing October 30th

Over two years in DC, and I've yet to go to any political rally. I thought about going to the inauguration, but as we didn't have tickets, the idea of getting up early to stand in the cold, in a large crowd, so far away that I doubt we could have seen anything just wasn't enough to get me motivated. I sort of regret it, but honestly sleeping in that morning felt really good.

Still, a rally less stint in DC would just feel wrong, and I can't bring myself to attend a tea party, even sarcasticly.

Fortunately for me, Jon Stewart has swooped in and made everything better. I'm beyond excited to spend October 30th on the National Mall at "the Rally to Restore Sanity." They'll even supply us with signs if we're too lazy to make our own (the man knows his audience). Signs with great slogans like “I Disagree With You, But I’m Pretty Sure You’re Not Hitler,” and “Take It Down a Notch, America.”

Not to over-hype it or anything, but this might be the most political fun I ever have in this town. Or just the most political fun this town has ever had, period. Also, for once I'll have weekend plans. I can hardly wait.

Snide Answers

"I don't know. You haven't taught us yet, that's why I'm taking this class."

 -How I wish I could respond to questions the questions asked in one of my classes to which no one could possibly know the answer without either prior experience, or having the particular subject actually be covered in readings, class, or pretty much any other way than somehow expecting us to pull them out of thin air.

The not so great bookshelf re-do

Partially inspired by Zach's closet re-do, I decided to re-organize the bookshelves. Partially because new additions to the originally stuffed shelf were just haphazardly stacked on top. But mostly because I had dreams of a beautiful, color blocked bookshelf. Like this, only smaller, and on cheap IKEA shelves.

So I took every book off, organized into color coded piles and artfully rearranged them.  It didn't quite turn out like the pretty picture. Worst of all, it destroyed my careful organization system. I keep the books organized in clusters based on genre, but then subdivided based on size for aesthetics. It's a careful blend between form and function.

I hated the new color coded blah immediately, but tried to force myself to just get used to the new way. It didn't work.

So I took everything off. Again. And put everything back. Again.

But this time I just breathed a big sigh of relief when I saw my bookshelf back again, not pretty or trendy, but mine, with all my crazy book organizing quirks and all.

Messy Dining

I really love the whole foods brand tomato soup. It's been one of my go to easy lunches for a while now. Tastes great, seems reasonably healthy and best of all, just a quick shake and a few minutes of microwaving to prep. Easy peasy.

At least it is, so long as you make sure to keep your finger on the little spout when you do the shake step. I do this so often that I don't even think anymore. So when I gave it a firm shake this afternoon, it was like a slow motion horror sequence as I saw all my fingers on the side, none on top and a giant cascade of tomato headed right towards me. It went all over my face, my arms, my clean shirt that I had been looking forward to wearing today. I'm still finding little spots of dried tomato soup in odd places (in between my toes, behind my ears, etc). Only my pants managed to largely avoid the carnage, just a few easy to sponge off drips.

I finally managed to stop the soup dripping off of me, and moved to put the container back in the fridge. Which meant moving a giant container of greek yogurt. And yes, I did drop the yogurt, it's flimsy lid went flying. My pants weren't so lucky this time around.

An outfit change and a few hours latter it was time for my next meal. Come dinner time I was a little wary of anything drippy, so I though I would play it safe and just have a nice salad for dinner. Lots of hard, non-liquid vegetables. What could go wrong? Nothing, at least until I decided it needed a little more dressing. One firm shake to mix everything up again and of course the lid was just placed on, of course it flew all over me. Again.

Horsecycle

Source

How awesome is this?

Together Today

Almost every blog post I've come across today was about 9/11. People talking about why it still matters. Remembering where they were when they first found out. Remembering those who were taken. Just remembering.

To me, there is something beautiful about how such a horrible event somehow managed to unite everyone is some small way. Sure, everyone had their own perspective, their own experience, but there was still a little current of commonality, community, running through them.

And while I can't quite put my finger on why, that comforts me. Sometimes its nice to feel that there are still a few things in which we're all together.

Source

Corgi

There are corgis everywhere in my neighborhood of DC. They are rather ridiculous little dogs, but after 2 years they've started to grow on me. Something about them looking like "real" dogs, but with itsy bitsy legs. Either way, I've decided that a corgi would make a great first apartment dog, at least when we move someplace where a dog would be feasible.

So today in a fit of daydreaming I started looking at corgis on pet rescue sites. I now love corgi mixes, mostly because they have the face and coloring of the non-corgi dog, but on the long corgi body and itsy bitsy legs. The sheer ridiculousness really appeals to me.

Like this corgi/husky mix. It's just too cute. 

Dating Advice from Law School

Law school teaches important life lessons.

For example, today in Evidence we not only learned the federal rules of evidence, we also learned the importance of  checking out romantic partners.

Consider the following hypo. You've been dating a girl for about two weeks. Things seem great, she seems fantastic. One night you're just hanging out at her place, and she runs out to pick up a pizza, leaving you just hanging out. You're sitting there, watching TV, when you notice that there in plain sight on the coffee table is a journal. A journal with a lock that is very much unlocked. So, class poll, who peeks at the journal?

Most of us (myself included) raise our hands. The response?

"All of you get to live! The rest of you are dead!" Mass confusion.

"She's a psychopath! You open that up and it's all gee, that's the fourth boyfriend I've killed this year. I love the taste of blood. So you high tail it out of there! the rest of you? Dead."

Upon one of the people with moral scruples and privacy concerns raising their hand  for a question  -
"You can't ask questions, you're dead!"

After some more class discusion,  "how many wouldn't at least google them?"
To the 5 still raising their hands.  "I ought to kill you myself!"

When the idea that she may have wanted you to read the journal is suggested - 
"Who plants a journal unlocked for you to read? sick, needy bastard"

The supposed point of all this was to introduce the propensity rule. What I got out of it was a hilarious class period, and a renewed curiosity about Zach's journal.

Unwritten Rules leave you sad and cookieless

In marriage, never, ever assume that something is an unwritten rule.

For two years, two full years I have always assumed that we had a standard dessert protocol. If one person makes or buys a delicious dessert dish, the other person is free to partake but not to finish! So when Zach makes some pastry, I have more than a few pieces, sure, but never, ever, the last one. Always. And things always went the same way with my treats. I just assumed it was one of those normal things we had just settled into. You didn't explicitly say, hey don't eat the last cookie. It was just understood, the same way we just naturally assume that I always get the mail and Zach always takes the trash work. You just do it because we both know that's how things work.

So this morning I went over to a plate of cookies I'd made a few days ago. Last I checked, there were quite a few left, but apparently Zach had enjoyed them too. But, per our custom, the last cookie was there and waiting for me. I made an after dinner date with that cookie and went about the rest of the day looking forward to it. It wasn't that great of a day, so once dinner wrapped up I was looking forward to that cookie more than ever. I poured a glass of milk for dipping and pulled open the curtain on the shelf where the cookie had been sitting on it's plate, the last of its kind. Only to find no plate and worst of all no cookie.

So I come out of the kitchen, dessert plans foiled and splattered in a mug of milk that had been deprived of its cookie dipping destiny and had to be carefully poured back into the milk jug, and ask Zach why oh why he ate the last of my cookies? The cookie he had so sweetly saved for me? He just stared at me like I was a crazy person. So I told him the previously unspoken rule. He had no idea what I was talking about. None what so ever. Apparently it is just sheer luck that he's never gotten the last bite before now. 

He was just completely flumoxed that I had some sense of ownership over a cookie. Why didn't I just eat it if I wanted it? Because I didn't think I had to! Precedent told me that we both understood that was my cookie.

So now I have a nasty case of betrayal hiccups, all because someone didn't understand the rules. Or because we never actually said anything and I relied on assumptions and an awful lot of apparently coincidental precedent. But since he got a cookie and I didn't, I think it's only fair that he gets the blame.

The Blogging Blahs

Last night I was almost asleep, when I suddenly remembered that I hadn't blogged yesterday. So I groggily stumbled over, typed something up and went back to bed, grumbling the whole time.

That's been happening more and more, the blogging not because its fun or I have something to say, but because I feel obligated. I scrolled through the last month or so of posts, and even I, the person most narcissisticly interested in my life was bored.

I didn't originally intend to be an everyday blogger. I'm not really sure what I intended on accomplishing when I started blogging. I just liked reading other people's blogs, and felt it was only fair to expose myself a little. Still, initially I only blogged sporadically, no one really read and the whole thing started to feel like a waste of time. So I decided that for one month, I was going to blog every single day, just to get in good habits. But after one month, why not two? And then, why not six? Until suddenly I had a goal of one full year.

I haven't missed a single day of blogging since February and have a little under 5 months left to meet that goal. It was great at first. It was good to have something forcing me to think and write. I would pen posts whenever I had an idea, anxiously planning when to publish them. I even started doing things beyond my apartment partially so I could have something to say. Best of all, and somewhat unexpectedly, my blog started to be a place of actual interaction with some amazing people I consider friends. I felt better about myself. I had something concrete I had made that I could look at and tell myself how funny or insightful I was. I had comments showing up in my inbox to tell me that other people thought I was awesome.

Those things are all still true, but so often I feel like I have nothing to say. So the clock ticks by, next thing I know it's time to go to bed so I freak out and throw some words onto the internet to keep up the trend, not because they have any value. It's even leaked into reading blogs, something I've loved for years. Now I get stressed out if I think I'm not commenting enough, or well enough, or if my G-reader gets backed up. Like I've failed at my half of the blogging covenant or something. I want it to be, it should be, about friendly interaction, but more and more it's not. I don't like that something that has made me so happy now feels like an obligation. 

I'm still going to finish up my one year goal. I'm still glad I'm blogging, its been a big deal for me these past couple of months. But at some point I need to figure out how to get back to why I like doing this. I don't know if that means being better organized and having a pile of posts pre-written for blah days or trying to figure out how to do one great post a week and not stress about the rest, or something else entirely. I don't have answers right now. But one of the whole points of this blog is to just talk to people honest and open, so I'm going to count this as a post in the right direction.

Fun Reading

I think it's cute when my husband, he who usually reads very thick, very serious non-fiction books, gets really into a YA fiction series. I've never seen him so much glance at any fiction book before, but after seeing me get engulfed in the Hunger Games trilogy last week, he decided to give them a try. 

Everytime I turn around, he's been curled up with them. Earlier, I got up to get something from the kitchen, and when I came back, sure enough he had taken advantage of those two minutes to get a few more pages in. I don't know why I find that so endearing, but I really do.

Also, he was so shocked when I told him that I had taken pictures of him reading, without him noticing. He's a little paranoid of my stealth paparazzi camera skills now. But not enough to not finish the last book.

Mystery Neighbors

At times I almost wish I knew my neighbors. If only just so I could understand what on earth they are doing in there.

At least once a week, usually on a weekend when we're trying to sleep in, we're woken up by a banging noise right above our heads, the kind of noise you would expect from someone hammering in a picture. Only people usually don't hang pictures for an hour straight. The hammering is the most common, but there's also noises that sound like sawing or scrapping. Once it sounded like they were spraying the wall with a high pressure hose.

Construction noises aren't that odd in a nice suburban neighborhood, but in studio apartments without so much as a balcony I just can't imagine anyone having enough space to live and make things.

At first I just assumed that they had just moved in and were getting settled. That theory lost viability after about a month, and the strange banging and sawing noises haven't let up.

It's not so much that the noise is inherently annoying (and oh, it is) but by now it's mostly just about the mystery of it all. I just want to know what they could possibly be doing!

Please Shut Up

To the old man on the bus who really bummed me out:

Ok, I'm sure you think of yourself as a friendly person who just enjoys striking up conversation with random people. But when the people (or person, or me) avoid eye contact, including moving their head like a sea sick flamingo, that is a sign that they do not want to talk. Answering questions with a "uh huh" and only saying more when forced into a direct question, and even then with the tiniest amount of words possible is also a sign that the person wants to just sit on the bus unmolested by fake conversation.

But if you feel compelled to burst my anti-people east coast bubble, please oh please just talk about the weather. Or even your colon. Anything but how my future is hopeless.

You knew I was a law student. That was the first question you asked. Worse, you knew I was a 3L standing on the cusp of the real world.

So why did you decide that a great topic of conversation was how this is the worst hiring environment you've ever seen, how even your best and brightest students can't get jobs? (Oh, yes, you're a professor. You should know better.)

Don't do that to us! The horrible economy is not a surprise to us. We know, oh how we know. It is not helpful information. It is the stuff that haunts our nightmares.

And when you don't know someones grades, talking about how B students are just extra hopeless is just extra cruel. I know my grades (It's a B+ average! The + matters!). I know how they look to employers. I know the soul crushing fear that comes every time I look at me and look back out at the cold harsh world. But I take a deep breath, stay calm, gather what little optimism I can and keep trying to be even more awesome and find potential employers to demonstrate my awesomeness to.

That is much harder to do when random strangers decide to verbally punch me in the gut.

So, please of please, if you ever see me on the bus again don't feel compelled to inform me how 3 years of my life was a horrible, debt ridden mistake. Thanks ever so much.