Wednesday, February 27, 2008

What Lies Behind

Remy: You are an illustration; why am I talking to you?
Gusteau: Oh, you just lost your family - all your friends - you are lonely.
Remy: Yeah, well, you're dead!
Gusteau: Ahh, but that is no match for wishful thinking! If you're focused on what you've left behind, you will not be able to see what lies ahed. Now go up and look around!
- Ratatouille

I feel like a total idiot (nothing new there...) I left the power cord for my laptop at home and because this piece of plastic only lasts an hour that means I have to drive home to get it like the total airhead that I am. For some reason the thought of entering my apartment fills me with dread. Perhaps that’s why I don’t sleep at night? It’s just so cold and dark and dreary. I don’t even know how to liven it up or fix the problem; it just is, and cannot be rectified at this point in time.

I made the mistake of succumbing to the endless assault on my inbox from the Class of 2008 Student Gift Campaign Committee and donated a little to the gift fund because no one from section A was doing so (seriously - we were at 2% participation; now we’re at 4), whereas the Transfer Students were at something ridiculous like 70% and even the other sections were blowing is out of the water. We looked like totally anti-school chumps. Then, talking with someone from my section, I come to find that our section had launched a protest on the gift campaign because we’re the only ones who were taught (“subjected to” were his words, actually) by the now disgraced Dean Hurd, and this is our way of showing our disapproval/disappointment. I was not apprised of this fact. Apparently I’m the only one who liked her. What gives? What was so horrid about her? I mean, her class wasn’t easy, but she was very nice and I always looked forward to her. She was ridiculously engaging when I saw her during office hours. I still like her, although I seem to be the lone holdout.

Listening to my classmates pratter on about they’re going to do after graduation and their current exploits and undertakings in mock trials and trial advocacy programs makes me feel horribly out of place. I don’t belong in law school. I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I’m not social or successful and I certainly have no future in the legal field. I feel like a complete... well, like a monkey pretending to be a human. On top of that, my knee is doing a remarkable job of impeding my attempts at acquiring a life. I complain not to harp upon the issue but to provide a low threshold at which I may sneer if/when I finally pull myself together at the end of the year. Yet again I didn’t sleep last night, so my head is pounding, my vision swimming, and I long fervently to just remain in a horizontal position. Seventy-three days ‘till graduation. Not a moment too soon.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Nothing, Really

“That’s the trouble with the world. Too many people grow up.”
- Walt Disney

The Oscars blew. Johnny Depp didn’t win for Best Actor (will someone give that man an award, already? What, are we gonna wait until he’s dead to acknowledge his talent?), Saoirse Ronan didn’t win Best Supporting Actress (she was brilliant for a twelve-year-old!), Cate Blanchett didn’t win anything (I don’t know whether she deserved to, because I didn’t see either movie she starred in, but I just like her on principle), and Atonement didn’t win Best Picture. Booo. At least Ratatouille won Best Animated Feature, but did you see what it was up against? What was that first piece of crap, subtitled from French? It looked like a two-year-old scribbled it. The highlight of the evening was Steve Carrell presenting Best Animated Feature - he started waxing poetic about documentaries, was gently reminded by copresentor Anne Hathaway of the pertinent category, and then gaped at the ground and muttered an expletive that I was surprised the censors didn’t pounce upon. Hilarious. Otherwise, a grand bore all around. Did anyone see any of the crap movies that were up for the big ones? I sure didn’t. And what was with all the foreigners? This was an American awards ceremony, no? But I am going to borrow a line from a clip of George Clooney that I saw: “Do I look like I’m negotiating?” Nice. If I were famous I would have worn a Ratatouille pin from the parks and then made a show of claiming impartiality. I’m immensely glad that I’m not, but it’s cool to watch the red carpet procession and accompanying broadcasts on tv and recognize all the places in the background. Even the theater, where Dad and I took a tour and we sat in about the twentieth row to ask questions and even after the guide had expressly forbade us from having our phones on, his rang while she was speaking and I wanted to creep into a crack in the chairs like an androgynous, permeable liquid.

This morning in Trademarks, Professor Smith walked in at a particularly brisk clip and said in his trademark (sorry; couldn’t help it) expressionless monotone, “You may find this humorous, but I just got a phone call that my daughter stuck a small plastic toy up her nose. I need to go pick her up and take her to the doctor or the emergency room or whatever the situation requires, so class is cancelled for today.” Then in Real Estate, Professor McDonald said that if we wind up getting the predicted six inches of snow tonight, he won’t be able to get in to school tomorrow because (insert monotone drone here) the wind is coming from the North, which will blow a drift over his half-mile driveway and make it all but impossible for him to commute. In the words of Duckie from Pretty in Pink, do I thee offend? Is it me? Speaking of Real Estate, the girl who sits in front of me, Allison, changed her hair from dark blonde to red. It looks wonderful! I was so jealous.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

In those Hollywood Hills...

“A beagle won the Westminster dog show for the first time in its 132-year history, thus prevailing in the war on . . . terrier.
[pause]
[aside] You’ve been gone 100 days, and this is the shit you’re gonna pull?”
- Jon Stewart

I’m at the MPRE study course. It’s supposed to run from 9 to 3 but it seems very slow going, so I’m not hopeful. I’m so bored already. We have 24 pages to plug through, we’re on page 7, and it’s 11:40. Sigh.

It’s so strange to hear advertisements for the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theater. I’ve been there! I stayed at the hotel across the street! I walked past it every morning as I wandered around waiting for Dad to get ready & taking in the sights, gawking at the passerby and gaping at the endless arrays of overpriced trinkets attractively aligned to best solicit the attention of tourists eager to part with their pocket change. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to go back!

I made the mistake of leaving a can of soda in one of my many bags o’ books & it was so cold outside I came out in the morning to find the can had exploded and left brown-hued ice shards everywhere. Now all my PR books look like I spilled coffee on them. Yet another stellar display of intelligence on the part of the graduate student in the family. Sigh.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Here's Hoping

“When you grow up, your heart dies.”
- Allison, The Breakfast Club

For some reason I didn’t sleep last night. I finally fell asleep at midnight after lying in bed since nine-thirty absolutely exhausted. Then I woke up at 2, and then 4, and then 6... maybe too much caffeine yesterday? Actually, I think it was the lack of activity before I went to bed. I didn’t got to a movie and couldn’t go to the gatehouse because they were having a karaoke contest; at least tonight I’ll be able to go there. That seemed to successfully konk me out on Tuesday evening.

It’s kind of cool that I’m almost done but at the same time I’m not looking forward to moving. Tonight I have to pack a bit because Lost is on and I am incapable of sitting around watching television. I can’t find my Blockbuster card so I can’t go rent a movie...I wonder how difficult it is to apply for a card? They’re going out of business, so it can’t possibly be that complicated.... speaking of, there’s a great one coming out next Friday called The Other Boelyn Girl. It looks really good - I’m not into the romance crap but it is a historical fiction, which I like, and it stars Scarlett Johanssen, whom I adore. So maybe that’ll turn out to be the new Sweeney Todd, if it’s not oversexed. It’s coming out on the 29th, by the way, of February. Very cool.

I feel like such a moron sitting here all slouched over with my hair hanging in my face. You’d think the prospect of impending freedom would help pull me together, but it seems not to be having much of an effect. sheesh. I’m kind of worried about the upcoming weekend and how I will handle it, but I’m trying to map it out so it doesn’t mentally intimidate me. I’ll have class, Lori and then the Martina concert on Friday. Saturday I’ll go to the gym in the morning, the review course from 10-3, the gym again, and then to see Charlie Bartlett in the evening. Sunday might be the only problem... I’ll obviously have homework and stuff, and go to the gym as much as my knee will tolerate. There’s the Academy Awards in the evening to keep my mind occupied and during the day I’m going to go to the local version of Glaze to paint something. So that should take care of the weekend, right? I hope so. I pray so.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Emotional Recession

“If I had a dollar for every time someone mentioned a recession, I’d convert them to euros.”
- Steven Cobert

Well, I just finished my deposition in my Witness course. The professor randomly picks our names out of an urn at the beginning of class. I was drawn fourth out of the five students that are picked every class period, the rough equivalent of the first post position on a rainy afternoon at a sloppy racetrack: meaning, my co-counsel has (in their collective sixty minutes of inquiry) expended all the easy questions and left me the tough stuff. At the end she commented on each of our performances, and as she was critiquing my three predecessors I kept thinking, oh crap, I did entirely the wrong thing. Each of them had passed their time posing specific questions they had dutifully prepared drawing upon their backgrounds as trial advocacy participants. The only edge I had on them was that, of all sixteen students, I was the only survivor of a Patent Law course (with a good grade, I might add), so I figured that’s the angle I ought to play: use any edge you have, right? So I went up and, without the benefit of any unconquered territory left to mine or experience from whence to draw, pretended I was a patent attorney and asked him to walk me through each of the pertinent patent claims line-by-line. Ultimately during the so-called critique period, the professor said she had been waiting for someone to do that. In the course of his explanation, the expert witness we were disposing had actually stood up and started drawing diagrams on the board. I was the only person who got him so engrossed in his explanation that he actually did this, which she said was an absolutely great thing - “The things you learn once you get them drawing...” So I suppose it wasn’t an absolute disaster. Could’ve been worse. At least I’m free until April, by which time I ought to have myself physically pulled together and accordingly infused with confidence. But Mom got me a Martina McBride ticket for Friday. Hooray! Something to look forward to!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Perfection Found . . . and Lost

“The wind of Heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.”
- Arabian proverb

I rarely remember my dreams, so when I do they bear recording and repeating. I dreamed that I just happened to show up at the horse show where one of my old friends Carrie and her mother Dorothy rode. By sheer chance I walked past Carrie leading Winfield all decked out in travel gear (polo wraps, bell boots, fuzzy halter) toward the trailer - he had been sold. I protested vociferously, and after phoning my parents to procure the necessary voice of financing they allowed me to purchase him. I was so excited I led him back to his stall and unwrapped him and generally spent a lot of time preening over him. Then I walked into the tack room and two of the other girls who were tacking up their horses for a lesson and one of them sneered, “You just don’t get it, do you?” I gaped at her blankly. “There’s a virus going around. It’s a horrible flu, highly contagious.” I continued to stare at her stupidly, and inquired, “So?” She leaned in and hissed at me, “Your pony’s a carrier.” Then she backed away, “Good luck.”

That evening I went to stay with a young boy and his grandmother. I didn’t really notice that every portion of the apartment complex was partitioned off by glass. Around two in the morning the grandmother flew into a frenzy because she found the boy in a coma sitting upright in his chair, presumably thanks to the flu. She gathered him up in his arms and tore out of the apartment. I stood there and wondered what to do, whether it was too late to call my mother and solicit advice.

Now here’s the analysis. A generally-accepted, longstanding theory is that dreams are nothing but an anagram of images and experiences from a person’s daily existence. According to a prominent scholar who operated under the moniker of Evans, every time we go to sleep our brains disengage from the external world and use the time to sort through and organize all the information that was taken in throughout the day. So here’s what prompted each portion of the night terror, per my own analysis:

(i) the horse show:
I fell asleep reading The Other Boelyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, the portion where Mary is sent away into hiding from the king and spends her day puttering around on her mare and hanging out in the barn.
(ii) Carrie & Dorothy:
As an attempt to put myself to sleep, I have started painting jumps for model horses. When I was sick in the hospital, they made me this beautiful red brick one.
(iii) Winfield:
I think of him constantly.
(iv) the travel gear:
I have replaced the Gilmore Girls with this ABC Family show called Wildfire, which in the last episode featured a horse with a bum leg wearing a wrap on it. It really stuck in my mind because they only put a wrap on the bad leg, when everyone knows what you do to a leg on one side of the horse you must do to the leg on the other side as well.
(v) the virus/flu:
the “law school plague” is spreading around the school, and our Witness course professor mentioned it last week Wednesday in class. I am dreading this evening’s class.
(vi) the mean girls:
last night they had a promotion at the movie theater called “bring your own container.” Loads of young, thin girls were bringing these giant Tupperware containers to be filled with popcorn for fifty cents. I could not believe they were shoveling this stuff in without a care.
(vii) Winfield being a carrier:
I keep fearing a visit to him because I’m terrified it will throw me into a depression. I suppose there’s nowhere to go but up, though.
(viii) the young boy and his grandmother:
I have no idea... maybe because I fell asleep to the Gilmore Girls, and the last scene I remember was Rory visiting her Grandmother and asking to stay in the pool house? But that’s a stretch.
(ix) the boy’s coma:
(I gather this “flu” is something like a quick-onset bubonic plague that lapses you into slumber before you succumb) this has to be prompted by Heath Ledger’s recent overdose on sleeping pills, which slowed his breathing to the point that he lapsed into a coma before dying)
(x) calling Mom:
I head a knock on my door last night, another phantom knock, and seriously considered calling Mom because it flipped me out so badly.

I think the ultimate analysis, which would be proffered by everyone from Jung to Freud, is that I miss Winfield. What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and ride a Medium Pony Hunter Over Fences course one last time... meander out the gate and listen to Jill’s comments on what I did correctly or should do for next time... taking his saddle off and fishing about the ring box for a curry and a soft brush to chisel away at the inevitable girth mark that would be left behind... walk down the aisle to our barn’s area and see his bright, freckled head, inquisitive eyes and positively perfect ears flicking about as he watched me approach before nuzzling about for a treat. Popular science and common knowledge states that, regardless of the depths and extent to which a person searches, no one will ever find a perfect yin to seamlessly complete their yang. I have evidence to the contrary. He was the textbook definition of perfect.

Blogthings

What Ashley Means

- You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection.
- You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive.
- You have the classic "Type A" personality.
- You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.
- You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.
- You are truly an original person. You have amazing ideas, and the power to carry them out.
- Success comes rather easily for you... especially in business and academia.
- You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow.
- You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily.
- Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is.
- You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone.
- You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together.
- At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together.
- You are a free spirit, and you resent anyone who tries to fence you in.
- You are unpredictable, adventurous, and always a little surprising.
- You may miss out by not settling down, but you're too busy having fun to care.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A Two-Thirds Panic

“It’s supposed to be hard! If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” - A League of Their Own

Well, it’s Tuesday. I guess that is self-explanatory... but the big thing is, that means tomorrow is Wednesday. This is also self-explanatory, but of paramount import: it’s the first evening we’re doing the “exploratory” portion of our Witness course. I am dreading it beyond belief. I mean, I cannot go on to tell you. There are no words. I am trying to comprise a list of things I would rather do than sit in front of sixteen people and interview a stranger and am coming up with, as you might imagine, a remarkably truncated list. I am so tired. I kept waking up last night and I think it’s directly proportional to the time left before the Witness course. How am I going to survive this all semester? The good news is, we only have to do it once this month, and then we’re off the hook until April. So five people will be randomly selected tomorrow - I have a 33% chance of having to endure hell. But, a spit of dialogue from The Bourne Ultimatum comes to mind: “I hope for the best but plan for the worst.” So, even though there’s a two-thirds chance that I won’t be called on tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and flip out anyway. I am so tired, have I mentioned that yet? I can’t believe it’s only 11:15 in the morning and I have like ten hours yet to go in this horrid excuse of a day. Sigh. “Take a load off... Take a load for free...”

I can’t believe they cancelled Gilmore Girls, yet programs like Big Brother and Dancing with the Stars are allowed to remain. I don’t understand things like Gray’s Anatomy or House, either. And don’t get me started on The Biggest Loser - how about the biggest piece of crap show in the history of television? They all seem like crap to me. Predigested, un-thoughtprovoking mush precariously balanced and manipulated and masticated to proffer the maximum appeal to the mindless masses... and I lost my thunder. It just collapsed. And there you have it: I’m so agitated about tomorrow I can’t think clearly. Or I need sleep. Likely both.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Catch a Cannonball

[seeing Rory making her hour-by-hour exam week agenda]
Lorelai: Hey, could we move your chill session from four o'clock tomorrow afternoon to right now? That'd be great, thanks.
[later]
Rory: There is no chill time scheduled for four o'clock tomorrow, and the one thing I really don’t have time for are your jokes, missy!
- Gilmore Girls

Made the mistake of watching the Grammys® last night... and I do emphasize the word “mistake.” What a joke. So many questions, no sufficient answers. What happened to music? When did we flush quality down the toilet? What happened to pop? When was it swallowed whole by R&B and regurgitated as some Mariah Carey-esque excuse to grind a semioperational voice up and down randomly-selected scales spewing semi-decipherable lyrics? What the hell happened to Beyonce’s pants? (Mom said, when you look like her I guess you can stand to leave them behind. I think pants and skirts are obligatory in most societies for a reason, but that’s just me. I’m sure the male half of my species disagrees.) What tasteless idiots decided to give Vince Gill “Country Album of the Year” over George Strait’s infinitely more deserving and quality-replete It Just Comes Natural?

There were two legitimate highlights of the evening. One was when Kanye West, whom I despise, accepted an entirely undeserved award for something-or-other and the orchestra started cuing him to wrap up his speech by piping music over his words. Without missing a beat, he muttered, “It would be in good taste to turn off the music now.” They did, the audience cheered, and score one for the antiestablishment movement! For once, I agree with the guy on something. The other was Amy Winehouse’s performance, so highly publicized throughout he evening that I thought for sure they had set the poor girl up for a letdown. But she was wonderful! She retained the slightly dazed/drunk/stoned demeanor permeated by passionate lyric renditions that served as the trademark of her pre-rehab performances and provided the highlight of the evening via satellite.

I just heard Daughtry’s newest single and Dad was absolutely correct: every single song sounds the same. Like he recorded one sixty-minute song and the record company partitioned it into three- and four-minute sections for the purposes of track naming and radio release.

We had a meeting about graduation today. They handed out these sheets summarizing our law school career (“graduation reports” they’re officially called, but they bear a strong resemblance to unofficial transcripts as I understand them in the common vernacular). I am so tired. It’s strange to see the last three years of my life neatly summarized in eight-point New Courier on an Excel printout. Hopefully it was not time wasted.

We were talking about “band leaders” in Trademarks and that got me thinking about the proliferation of strange band names I’ve encountered over the years of writing bios. Then I started thinking what I might name a band were I to found one. Perhaps Beyond the Great Divide, a nod to The Band? Or perhaps The Load Out, in honor of Jackson Browne’s incredibly insightful tune? It’s tougher than it sounds. Cannonball, in honor of The Band’s “The Weight”? You know, “catch a Cannonball to take me on down the line...”

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Phantom Knocks

“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.”
- Mark Twain

I got home last night, put my laundry in the washer, cooked some zucchini and sat down to watch the latest qualifying round for Spruce Meadows, which I had DVR’d earlier that day. As this beautiful dappled grey was pummeling toward an oxer, I heard four sharp raps on my door. Being the calm, cool and collected creature that I am and dealing as adeptly with crises and novel situations as I do, I acted completely rationally and froze, with just my eyes flicking about. Honestly, if I were an Animagus from the Harry Potter novels and used a spell to turn myself into an animal, my alter ego would probably be a rabbit. Anyway, after about thirty seconds someone knocked again. I still did not move. In retrospect I should have crept over to the round window and peered out to see who it was, but I was too freaked out. Who even knows I live there? Who would know to come knocking? If it were someone from the maintenance staff, they would just let themselves in after knocking to no response, so I did not feel obligated to open the door.

Nothing happened for a while, so I resumed my business. I called Mom just as I was ready to leave to see a movie (I was considering Juno instead of Sweeney Todd, just for a change) and she volunteered to stay on the phone with me while I put my coat on and walked down to my car. Not ten seconds after I set the phone down to grab my purse and coat the knock came again. I called out “Who it it?” three times to no response, but in all fairness we had a major storm last night, so the person probably did not hear me.

Anyway, wound up staying home last night and cleaning. I put in a Gilmore Girls DVD and listened while I cleaned. I picked the episode where she starts receiving her college acceptance letters and gets in everywhere - Harvard, Yale, Colombia, etc. I had a friend who went to Duke. He’s in China now, or somewhere overseas, doing who knows what. A German history major in China; am I missing a link in the logical connection there? None of my business, I suppose.

It is absolutely torrential outside; just pouring buckets. I suppose it’s better than the hail we had Sunday or the cut-it-with-a-knife fog of yesterday. I am so tired I cannot even verbalize it. I feel as though I could just put my head down on the seat next to me and be off forever. In one of the lecture rooms we have two giant painter’s buckets collecting drips from the ceiling; good to know our tuition dollars are going to good use.

Published another article in the Illinois Business Law Journal called “Careful Where You Click” about the legality of shrink-wrap licenses. Rubbish.