Sad Times

Someone kicked in my apartment door and stole a ton of my stuff--including my camera--so I will not be posting for a while. I'll be back when I get a new one, but right now I am working on breaking my lease and moving somewhere else, because I just can't stay there.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Birthdays, Best Days

My parents have been here for the week for my birthday, so it's been lots of fun. I got a new vacuum as a present, and was pretty excited about it...when did I become practical? I also got my carpets shampooed, some pajamas, and a new TV! I'm in love with it and want to watch every movie I own now...unfortunately, law school stands in the way of this slacker-ish desire. But I really love film, and watching them on something bigger than a 19-inch that occasionally greens out is going to amazing.

In other news, I'm getting a little sad about the summer job hunt...firms just aren't giving interviews, so I guess I will have to work public interest part-time and nanny the rest to pay the bills. Oh well! I think it's easier to get a job second summer, and if I stay near or in the top ten percent I should be fine.

Hope everyone is having a lovely week! The weather here is amazing and I love to be with my family, so all in all this has been a fabulous few days.

Outfit: Sweater: Knitted and Knotted; Cami: The Limited; Jeans: Express; Boots: Nine West

Adventures in Babysitting

(In undergrad, I babysat three to four nights a week. I've started up again to save money for my trip...Dallas moms pay very well and generally have a beautiful house with a big TV for you to enjoy after you scoot the kids to bed. The mother I babysit for most kindly lets me bring both my boyfriend and my dog....)

Keira, 4, referring to the Witch in her Barbie movie: "And then she tried to kill them and get them all stoned!"

Hhaaaa. Actually, the Witch was throwing rocks at them, or something.

Outfit: Skirt and Shirt: Anthro; Belt: NY & Co; Shoes: Liz Claiborne via Outlet; Necklace: 16th birthday gift from parents.

Zap! Lights Out

Oh my. My kitchen light and living room light burned out today, and my air is broken, and every time I use the heater and any other appliance my breakers flip. I move every year, being quite the nomad and never satisfied with any apartment, and it looks like this year will not be any different! I also saw a man breaking into cars right outside my window a few weekends ago, so I probably will be packing up and heading out when my lease is up. I'd rather live somewhere safer and do less shopping, I suppose.

Anyway, this week was a beast, because we had make-up classes from the ice day and several papers to prepare for. But even though it was horrible, time-wise, it was actually one of the better weeks I've had in law school. I read somewhere that if you don't like the law environment, remove yourself--and I did.

I left immediately every day after class and did all my work at home, focused on before-law friends and my boyfriend and family, and felt exponentially less annoyed and miserable. I'm sure my peers were perplexed, as I turned down lunch and dinner invitations. I do like my law friends--they are interesting and funny and I don't mind the occasional outing. But for the most part, I need to keep my "law" life and "real" life separate...otherwise it's just too stressful. There are only so many hours I day I can worry about our next paper or the frustrating ambiguities of my torts professor's lectures, and I need to be around people who can put that in perspective.

Outfit: Dress: Moulinette Soeurs; Shirt: AT Loft; Patterned Tights: Target; Shoes: Anne Klein.

I love this dress! The lining is a bright pink, and you can see it peeking around the edge of the ruffle...and it also has the exposed zipper and the metal studs, which make it a little less sweet.

Thank You, Stephen King (ThreeStories in One!)

"Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that [Harry Potter author] Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and [Twilight author] Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
- Stephen King tells USA Today

Thank you, Stephen King. Because I am a bad student, I spent Constitutonal Law reading people's response to this statement and chuckling inside. I personally am quite in love with King, and while he's had some novels I didn't enjoy (Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game) and others that were just clumsy, especially in the last decade, he's still created some enduring horror literature. And while many tweens are up in arms and probably won't pick up a King novel anytime soon, they're missing out on, among other things, the psychological horror of The Shining, the claustrophobic intensity of Misery, and and the grand sweep of The Stand.

I started reading Stephen King books when I was twelve, tucked away in the library, because my mother forbid me to read them at all. Even though he's no Steinbeck and probably wouldn't sit at the same table with any modern literature luminaries, he holds his own. I don't remember the main character's name in White Teeth, or what happened to the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath, or any plot points in Song of Solomon...but I'm still afraid that Frank Dodds is hiding in my closet, and I don't like to be alone in a hotel hallway.

However, while Stephen King makes me scared to sleep with the lights off, Stephenie Meyer makes me fear for the intelligence of tween youth. So while she missed the mark on romance, she's spot on for horror.

(Last obnoxious opinion: If you can't tell, I'm not a believer that "any reading is good reading." It's probably better to watch Masterpiece Theater's The Mill on the Floss or something equivalent than read a Harlequin.)

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Also, because I am a bad student, I left the sound on on my computer and it started bawking like a chicken, rather loudly, when I logged on to play Fowl Words...luckily that professor is most apathetic about our learning experience and didn't call me out on it.

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I have also been tagged by D'Rae to show my blogspot, so here it is! The prints on the wall are reproductions of vintage fairy tale illustrations, and the birds aren't paint...they're wall graphics, which were much easier!

The view from the couch....


Ialways leave the couch covered with blankets in order to protect it from doggy mishaps.


Sometimes, I sleep on the couch...hence the bed here.

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Outfits tomorrow...I will not be too lazy to take a picture! Hopefully a small goal like that will be attainable.

Self-Control Needed

Hmm. I really want this bag at Francesca's:

It is a knock off of this Miu Miu bag I really want but cannot afford and would not buy it if I could, as it's the cost of a plane ticket to Europe:

Disclaimer: I do not watch Gossip Girl. Much like with Twilight, I'm incredibly bothered by the message the books and the show send out to their target audience of overly susceptible teens. I watch a lot of smut reality TV, and enjoy shows like Sex and the City despite their ridiculousness, but those were grown women and it was primarily good-natured. Gossip Girl, the premise and the characters, are just...nasty. And I don't like things that make me feel ick inside. (Obviously, my future children are going to be annoyed at all the excellent TV I won't let them watch....)

Anyway, should I break my ban and buy the bag? I do love it...and I don't really have many purses.

Slothful Sundays

Outfit: Dress: Macys; Tights: Target; Sweater: AT Loft; Shoes: Impo

Oh, I love Sundays. Blissful alone time to run errands, clean my apartment, and oh...do the week's work so that I can spend each night reading interesting books and watching TV.

Everyone on Facebook is posting this meme, and since I don't have anything else to say today, here it is.

25 Random Things About Me.

1. When I was three, a little boy tried to hug me and I jerked away, and he accidently broke my arm. I didn’t cry or say anything, and it actually took my parents a long time to notice I wasn’t using it. (I am not that tough now.)

2. I’m super-afraid of heights. If I have to climb things, I get about three feet off the ground and start to panic. When I was six, I somehow got on the top of the jungle gym and was too afraid to jump off. My entire class went in without me and the teacher had to come back out and find me, huddled at the top. When I was 12, I climbed two rungs of the pole at the challenge course and almost passed out. I had to lie on the ground for a little while. It’s bad.

3. Also as a child, my little heart was quite loyal…I was madly in love with the same little boy from kindergarten to about seventh grade.

4. I can remember whole cast recordings from musicals and passages from books, but I have to leave my PIN number written in my wallet.

5.I leave the same CD in my truck for months at a time, on purpose, because when I fall deeply in love with something I can’t bear to listen to anything else. Chris Isaak’s Forever Blue album holds the longest spot, but things by Sondheim usually play forever, as well.

6.I find law school insufferably boring and it’s a chore to make myself pay attention. Anyway, if I was independently wealthy I would be studying Victorian Literature at the Royal Holloway University.

7. See above; I am being a lawyer so I can afford to travel the world. I want to safari in Kenya and wander through a rainforest in Peru and walk across the moors at Haworth. I want to see everywhere.

8. I hate to wear the exact same thing twice, and I rarely do. I have a lot of clothes, having stopped growing somewhere around age 15.

9. I really love movies and books and shows about mobsters. The Sopranos, The Godfather, Goodfellas, etc.

10. I am an honorary Mexican, by right of my long association with the Valdez family. (14 years!)

11. Most of my best friends haven't even met each other. But I really couldn't do without them.

12. I am an only child. I used to tell my mom that if she had another baby I would throw it out the car window.

13. I have also had a ton of different jobs. I have worked at a Sunday School, Ann Taylor, a magazine, the library, a publishing house, a camp for underprivileged kids, a kids’ consignment store, an advocacy center, the campus newspaper…and probably more I can’t remember.

14. I procrastinate in an odd way. If there’s an assignment I don’t want to do, I do every other possible assignment that’s not due right away. And then I finally start the dreaded paper, or whatever it may be. So I’m always both very ahead and woefully behind.

15. I have intense road rage.

16. I'm a picky eater. I HATE barbeque, any sort of meat on the bone, most meat in general, corn, even the smell of Chinese food makes my stomach turn, seafood, beans of all kinds, cold pasta salad-type things...the list goes on. However, I do have a passion for squash and most fruit and cheese enchiladas.

17. I own hundreds of books. My bedroom here and at home is packed with them, and I also have a pretty big corner of my mom’s storage shed dedicated to my collection. I love them and can’t part with them. When I have a house, I want the walls lined with all the novels and memoirs and fairy tales that have moved me, changed me, amused me, or intrigued me. I want that good book smell wafting through every room.

18. I fell deeply in love with Wuthering Heights when I was 13. I read the book at least once a year. I still am in love with Heathcliff, even though I realized with the wisdom of years that he is a sadistic, abusive sociopath with few redeeming qualities. But hey, he's brooding. And that's hot.

19. I fell deeply in love with Christian Bale around the same age. Jo, what was WRONG with you? Turn down Peter Lawford, and by all means Douglass Montgomery, but...Christian Bale? PAH.

20. I have a bad habit of just chopping people out of my life if they're consistently not supportive of my dreams and excited about my successes. Or maybe this is a good habit, as I have a core of friends who love me just as much as I love them.

21. I'm a joyously solitary little person, and I'll usually choose the couch and a book over a bar on any given (actually, every) day.

22. I like standardized tests. I think they're fun.

23. I'm secretly competitive. I let people think I'm lackadaisical about my studies and then I crush them. Buwhahaaa. This did not go over well with some of my peers this semester.

24. This is the age I will be in 10 days!

25. I will be greatly pleased if some of my other bloggy friends do this, because the posts where others give me little insights into their lives and personalities are always my favorites!