Shining through

Things have been a bit overcast on the home front lately. The skies have been dominated by the bleak grey that just coats everything in its heavy fog. School and life have been surrounding us, trapping us in brick by brick.

Suddenly taking three classes that require substantive papers instead of finals seems like a stupid choice. Sure, if you spread the research and writing throughout the semester, things can be less crunched towards the end . Otherwise you're faced not with cramming and regurgitating knowledge during a 4 hour test, but endless sleepless nights of research and trying to pull words out of your brain onto the page. I'm not even going to touch on the joys of the continuous job hunt and the status of applications to other programs. I don't have the strength to go there.

Usually when one of us is busy, the other one can step up, take over and keep things running. However, when both of us are straining to get by, the system comes to a screeching halt. As busy as I am, I'm glad I'm not Zach right now. He has his Comp exams for his masters on Friday, and has been burning through 3-4 tomes a day trying to prepare. Oh, plus his big, final research paper. We can't pick up the slack for the other person, when we don't have any ourselves.

It's probably for the best that our power was out for part of the weekend, as the shoebox has definitely seen better days. Even tip toeing over the worst parts isn't sufficient to ignore the crumbs on the carpet. We've become adept at kitchen sink jenga - pulling out the dishes we need to clean and trying to stack the dirty ones onto the mountain without toppling everything. I can kind of pretend that the bathroom is clean, so long as I ignore the white spots peaking through the grime. Any hope of a healthy, home cooked meal has fallen by the wayside. Last night we mustered up the willpower to microwave instant oatmeal. I can't remember the last green thing I ate, other than a very unfortunate and quickly expelled piece of bread.

But, today I woke up to sunny blue, the pink of the blooming cherry blossoms kissing the sky, and things just felt pretty damn good. I sent of an application for a job that looks amazing, I made steps towards applying for a women in politics program that looks great. Things in one of my papers started to look a little clearer. Nothing major, but one step closer to the light of freedom.

I came home with a bit of a twinkle in my eye, a silly spring in my step as I walked in the door and pulled Zach up to dance around to "I am the walrus". We laughed at the state of our fridge, ordered some pizza to sustain us for the next few days, curled up with some cheesy tv. Finally breathing and smiling.

Nothing substantive has really changed. We're still stressed, still busy, still living in a bio-hazard. But I can see the sun, and for the moment that's all that matters.

Peeps Show

It's amazing that Peeps manage to survive in the sea of delicious Cadburry eggs and chocolate Easter bunnies that abound around Easter. Even with such stiff competition, there is something wonderfully iconic about Peeps. From the once a year thrill, to the bright colors and beady eyes, they are oddly appealing. Peeps aren't that great for actually eating, but for microwave experiments or acting out gruesome scenes with chick-romorphosized neon sugar gobs, nothing beats Peeps.

Here the Washington Post has an amazing gallery of peep dioramas - anything from classic movie scenes to little slices of DC. It's a great way of enjoying a little childhood pleasure, but without actually feeling obligated to eat whatever Peeps are made of.

Nicknames

Sometimes I complain too much on here. Sorry about that. There are some bloggers out there who can write beautiful, amusing prose about the lovely bits of life. I'm not one of those. Negative things are just funnier, not to mention easier to remember and write about. Sure, I generally appreciate in a subconscious way all the niceties of normal life, but being normal they just don't stand out in an interesting way. Despite my whining, I assure you that things are generally fine on my end.

In an effort to offer something entirely sweet and positive to the blogosphere, here is an adorable picture of a kitten and a bunny. Awww.

I'm not just posting a random picture of stereotypically adorable animals. There is a point (kind of). You see, sometime towards the beginning of our marriage I started referring to Zach as Bunny, and he started calling me Kitten.

In general, Zach and I lean away from the sappy sweet. Bunny was meant as a mocking nickname, making fun of the ridiculous bobo bear honey pie sugar bunch stuff others do. And mostly it was a way for me to tease Zach. Zach hated it, I mean really hated it. He would try other similarly ridiculous nicknames for me, but he could never come up with something that would make me groan rather than giggle. After a bit Bunny became a one word punchline, but somewhere along the line it morped into something sincere. Zach's attempt at a similarly gag worthy nickname for me settled down at about the same time, and I ended up as Kitten. We now refer to each other by those names almost as often as we use our real ones, and there is a genuine sweetness about it. (In the private comfort of our shoebox of course. We still have some standards.)

I suppose I view my blogging in much the same way. Most of it is negative and sardonic, but all in all I think there is some sweetness behind the acid, something fun and good about all the annoyances of life, it'll just take some time to find it.

Shoebox strikes back

Well, apparently I tempted fate by threatening to move out if we had another power or hot water outage this week. Since Friday we've lost power twice, once for almost 12 hours, and the second time at about 10pm for an hour.

Allright, you got me shoebox, my move out threat was just a bluff. You win this round.

Blog Dreaming

So last night I had a crazy dream involving people I've met on the internet while blogging. Yes friends, if we've engaged in mutual commenting action, last night you and I may have: blown something up, hid out in an old-west style saloon that morphed into a Star-wars style cantina, tried to read fortunes in a potato chip, been on a boat, talked to a lizard, and discussed why flying was impractical. There was also a dance number at some point. Costumes ranged from 80's style neon cowboy, classic film noir, relatively normal jeans and T-shirts with crazy hats, to steampunk sci-fi. A random squirrel also played a supporting role.

My head is Lady Gaga music video crazy. And I just might spend a little too much time blogging.

The Shoebox Attacks!

For as much as I complain about the shoebox apartment, I've generally accepted that we will probably stay here for the rest of law school. It's less expensive than most other places (at least in DC proper), it's in a nice neighborhood, fairly close to school, and is generally habitable. I haven't seen a single cockroach or other vermin while living here, and I am very grateful for that.

However. In the past month or so, we have lost electricity for almost a full day, twice. We've also lost hot water a few times, including today.

I really don't expect miracles from this place. I can deal with the occasional wafting scent of cigarettes. I've accepted the occasional moans of conjugal bliss that pass through our walls. I can find fun shapes in the peeling paint. I'm less afraid of the bathroom now. Some quirks have almost grown on me. I'm not horribly prissy or picky, I swear.

But I do have basic standards. More than a few hours with out internet and I get twitchy. When night falls I appreciate not trying to make my way about the apartment using a few tealights that are much better suited for ambient lighting than the practical. Quickly opening and slamming the fridge shut to avoid cold air leaking out and food spoiling doesn't make mealtime very fun.

But above all, do not mess with my nice, long, hot showers. I relish those 10 minutes of sinking back into the steam and letting go. They make me human. Trying to jump in and out of an ice-cold stream, staying just long enough to get most of the soap off is just not the same. Boiling pots of water for the saddest, shallowest bath ever is also not acceptable.

I don't want to deal with finding a new place to live. I don't want to deal with moving. I promise shoebox, I want to make this work. Be good to me, and I'll be good to you. But I warn you, one more strike in the next week, and I'm out of here. Got it?

Logo-tastic

So my law school gave me a free T-shirt today. Yay. I do so love seeing my 40k+ going to good use. And what better use is there than a low quality, baggy T-shirt that I may wear to the gym (assuming I ever actually, you know, go)?

No, the point of the T-shirt was to introduce our new logo. Because as a law school, we gain credibility not from the quality of our programs, staff, alumni, students and other things that have to do with the actual academic quality of our institution. We're clearly only ranked #45 or so because our logo looked like this:

I know, the mediocre genericness of it all is stunning. On the plus side, we are obviously a LAW school. You can tell, because we say so, twice. Once in GIANT letters.

So, in their great wisdom, the administration decided we needed something more unique, a little more flashy.

To their credit, I've never seen anything quite like this. Apparently I've been confused this whole time, and I actually attend a progressive pre-school. But at least it's a diverse pre-school. I know that all my classes have blue people, green people, maroon people, every color in the crayon box.We don't even discriminate against font mixing here (even though we really, really should.) Can't you just imagine how serious and professional a diploma with people pillars on it would look on a diploma?

Yes, there may have been a bit of a student uproar over that hot mess. Angry facebook groups, petitions, everything. I'm so used to my undergrad institution (BYU) where questioning the administration is tantamount to heresy, that I didn't expect anything to actually happen. But, students actually have a little bit of influence here, and that logo got tossed out. 

I wasn't sure what had happened in the process until I got an e-mail this morning promising free shirts in the lobby for the official logo launch. There was no image attached to the e-mail, so I wasn't sure what atrocity was going to meet me. Anything that requires T-shirt bribes can't be that good.

Fortunately I was greeted by something pleasantly generic. It just focuses on our schools main positive attributes (we're in DC!) along with an optimistic horizon type thing. And best of all, no crayon people and only one font. Now I no longer have to hide my future diploma in shame. I don't expect amazing design from my law school, but I'm glad to have my faith in their basic level of competence restored. (And yes, the free T-shirt really does help.)