If There Is a Line, I Surely Have Crossed It

This is what I looked like on Wednesday. Happy, having dinner at Citizen Smith with one of my best friends from high school, Brie, in town accepting a PRISM award, woohoo!

I will not tell you what I look like now. FINALS. I have not left the house in four days and I know I won’t be leaving it for another two. The only contact I have with the world is through frantic calls with Neeta and less-frantic but certainly no-less-whiny (me) calls with Laurie.

I might, might, have, gotten a little PUNCHY.

I might, say, after outlining the GATT, WTO, and the hubs-and-spokes approach to growing GDP via free-trade agreements and customs unions, made up a little song that I’ve been singing to myself. If you like, you can sing along! I have to warn you, though, it’s a total earworm. Don’t blame me if you’re singing it in the shower tomorrow.

Hubs, hubs, hubs and spokes
Gently grow the team
Greedily, greedily, greedily greedily
Build your rev’nue stream

After I’d exhausted the joy-producing abilities of my new anthem, I might also have taken a gander at the cats, who’d spent their day SNORING and EATING and CHASING THINGS AROUND THE APARTMENT, and gotten really bitter, and started to wonder what the hell they’re contributing to the relationship ANYHOW. And then I might have worried that I thought the words “relationship” and “cats” in the same sentence. But then I might have started to think about if I really did want them to start pitching in with the studying, what kinds of courses they’d want to take.

Cat Liability for Owner Injury

A real-world look at cat liability for injuries they cause to their owners. We’ll look at the duties, if any, cats owe their owners, liability avoidance strategies, owner sudden movement and loud noises as contributory negligence, and limitations on damages if the owners are really whiny about it.

Fiduciary Obligations of Pet Owners
This innovative course attempts to answer the question: just what are the obligations of a companion human? How much petting is enough? We’ll also look at companion human liability for cat obesity and unscooped litterboxes.

Sleep & The Law
This class will look at the intersection between law and sleep. In addition to a weekly response paper (subsitutable with nap for those without opposable thumbs), it will involve some hands-on exploration of sleeping. Mmm, sleep.

Ack. Shutup. I told you I was punchy.

Mmm, sleep.

Showing Your Cards

Today I went down to get my mail and my landlord asked me how I was doing.

My reply? Not “Fine, thanks.”

No, I said, “It’s finals. I’m unwashed, my apartment is a mess and I won’t be leaving my house for the next 5 days.”

This is a problem I’ve had for years. TMI. Not that it matters with my landlord. He’s a dad type, and seems proud that I’m making it through law school and tells me about his son’s soccer team championship.

But other times, it has mattered.

For a long time, I overshared on dates and with new friends. My sexual history, my feminism, my feelings on a unified European currency (dating myself much?).

And it wasn’t working. Guys get scared if you share too much. They think your openness is a sign of weakness, not of strength. They look for flaws. Either to ditch, if they are normal, or to exploit, if they are cruel.

Then, my friend Amber shared with me a great tip she’d received from some seminar. That you monitor your sharing. It’s a card game. You wait and see, is he sharing his 3s, his 4s, or has he moved on to 7s? And you follow suit (ha!). You save your ace for when things are safe. If you ever share it at all. Some things are better kept to yourself.

It’s so funny. Laurie has been learning to Live Out Loud, and I have been learning to keep quiet. Somewhere, there is a balance. The sweet spot.

Learning to keep quiet been a miracle worker for me. I may still overshare with my landlord, and I often regret the things I share with friends and dates even still. But at least I am no longer projecting the image of Who I Was Then, now. By sharing who you were too much, somehow you can send the message that you’re still that person — if your memories are close enough to share, perhaps they are more than memories, yes?

So I protect myself. I don’t lie. But I hold my cards close.

I TRIPLE-Dog Dare You

I learned today that one of my classmates, one I don’t know, totally hacked off his second toe for a dare of $5000.

AND, he didn’t get it reattached!

AND, he sometimes wears sandals!

That totally beats the time in 12th grade I bit into a formaldehyde-soaked crayfish in bio on a $1 dare from Trent Fallin (too cute to resist).

I really wish I knew this guy so I could get some more details. I couldn’t even listen to the explanation of how he did it; the storyteller was making gardening sheer type motions with his hands and I was lalalalalala, eyes closed. Now I am regretting this girly behavior because I NEED to know:

1. Why didn’t he get it reattached? Was it part of the dare to lose it forever?

2. What instrumentality did he use to get that thing off?

3. What on earth do potential girlfriends think when he tells them HE CUT OFF HIS OWN TOE?

Even the Cats Are Sick of Me. Also, I May Smell. But! A Limited-Time Offer!

It’s finals season again. I haven’t left my apartment in three days. For reals, yo. Even Fred & Ethel have had enough of me. By which I mean they spend at least 12 hours a day glued to my side, using my laptop keyboard as a pillow and my books as comfy perches. Very helpful. Please. Save. Me.

No, I won’t subject you to my woes. Instead I’ll tell you about LAST weekend, when finals were still just on the horizon, the sun was out, and I managed to hit two of my summer staples!

1) Bizarrely-Shaped Sunburns

All due to an hour on a law school bench reading about “special needs” justifications of searches without reasonable suspicion. This reminds me of a sunburn my dad once got when we went on a Hawaiian cruise and oh, that poor man. His pasty white legs hadn’t seen the sun since his Dr. Steyskal’s housewarming party in 1980, or maybe that time he wacked the weeds in record Sacramento heat back in 1984. Anyhoo, they were PALE, and we went KAYAKING. Just imagine. If your legs have not seen sun in ten years, and you plop them face-up in a kayak for five hours. Where only a little strip of them, plum down the center, is exposed to the sun. Eek. He missed two days of the rest of the cruise holed up in the cabin — pants were too painful to bear, and you can’t go lava-stalking in your underwear.

2) A Dodgers-Giants Game with Penny

At which she drank her FIRST LEGAL BALLPARK BEER! A milestone in any young sports fan’s life. Goooooooooooooooo, Penny!

Also, check out the right-field foul line marker, how battered with ball marks it is.

And Now, The Offer

And in the spirit of summer, and because I have to remind myself there is life beyond finals, I am offering yet again a summer mix CD, just for you! To be sent out in JUNE, after finals are over. E-mail me at jen@sundayundies.com with a mailing address if you want a copy!

Dear Everyone In My CrimPro Class, or at Least Everyone within a Four Row Radius

Yes, that was my stomach that emitted that horrendous gurgle the other day.

I certainly wasn’t surprised. This happens to me every semester; in the last month before finals, my stomache acid content trebles.

I was, however, embarassed at the time. I may in fact have slid down a foot in my seat and piled as as much Weinrib’s Criminal Justice and supplementary materials into my lap as I could in the hopes that it would mask any subsequent howls from my midsection.

But now? I have decided that I am PROUD of my stomach’s melodies. It just shows I got it goin’ on down there. Who knows what my intestines are up to? Perhaps they were just celebrating finding the cure for cancer. Or letting out their barbaric yawp. Or celebrating their division title v. The Spleens (surely, an epic match).

So next time my stomach decides to exercise its First Amendment right to expression, I’m going to sit up straight, look around at all those searching faces trying to ascertain the source of the growl, and give them The Nod. Ooh, maybe even a simultaneous one-eyebrow lift if I’m in the mood.

That’s right. We are loud, we are proud, we are Jennifer’s intestines. Hear us ROAR.

Spring Forward

One of my favorite Eleanor Miller paintings, Wake of Boticelli

I know we’re all supposed to be living in the moment and crap, but really, I’m only happy when I have something to look forward to. And I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. That’s one of the nice things about blogging. You learn that you’re not the only one who feels something about anything.

I can catalog 2006 via what I was looking forward to:
First my birthday, then Barrister’s Ball, then Paris, then my SF trip, now summer.

The bummer is when there’s too long a lag between things to look forward to, when it’s just too ridiculous to be planning for something that’s months off.

And right now, summer is still a bit away, but spring? Spring is in the air! Today was the first real, spring-y day in LA. I went for a walk in my neighborhood and all the West Hollywood home-owners (luckies!) were out walking their dogs, the men having dusted off their cargo shorts and given their pasty gams their first look at the sun in many moons. The women of course were still covered up — wisely waiting for the tanning booth to remove the wintery white.

I still have a month of finals hell to go through, and I’m sure I’ll be (even more) unwashed and Coca-Cola-addled over the next month, but already I hear, smell and taste the siren call of summer:

• Coconut lotion
• Laurie‘s summer barbeques
• Laying out on my patio
• Bad sunburns
• Baseball games with Penny
• Hefeweizen
• Jeff‘s‘s wedding, and his affianced’s bachelorette party in Vegas, baby, Vegas!
• Tanktops
• Kickball and general shenanigans with Gloria
• Strict, flip-flops only dress code on nights and weekends
• Nights and weekends! With no studying!
• Sun, sweet sun

I can’t wait. If only I could fast forward….

Spreading the Love to the Necks of Los Angeles

You know how sometimes it’s an appropriate form of taking leave to kiss someone on the cheek?

You know how it’s NOT an appropriate form of taking leave to kiss someone on the neck?

Yeah.

Sometimes I appear to forget this. Or rather, I forget how incredibly SHORT I am and misjudge the distance up to a man’s cheek and suddenly plant a soft one on his neck.

Agh.

I did this last night AGAIN, only I was lucky because he was a little shorter than most men I give goodbye cheek kisses to and I ended up flush on his cheekbone. Dangerously close to take-me-home-baby-neck-kissing territory, but definitely still in the friendly cheek-kissing zone.

I really can’t believe I even continue to give cheek kisses. Of the last 12 I’ve attempted, I’ve ended up on the neck about 78% of the time. What is wrong with me? Laurie claims I have a Napoleon complex, but I attribute it to whatever it is that causes my bad parallel parking and night vision. OK, and also wine.

In any case, thank goodness I live in LA and not Paris or Moscow, somewhere where there is a LOT of cheek-kissing. At least here my humiliation is confined to a handful of confused and wetnecked men, not everyone I know.

Bunnies and Turnips

Santa Cruz, partial site of weekend retreat to/from bunnies and turnips.

First, my apologies. I try to write happy stuff, but it is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip these days, and we all know what that is like! Oh, wait, we don’t. Hm. Anyhoo, bunnies! Turnips!

I am GRUMPY. I have been grumpy for a couple months now. Glenn-Close-boiling-bunnies GRUMPY.

OK, I am exaggerating somewhat, but really, I am GRUMPY. See my chart. Also, see bunnies! and turnips! later on in this post.

WHY am I so grumpy? See “Inexpicable ennui: source unknown.”

I’m not really able to put my finger on it, but here you go:

1) Can’t figure out how to link text in the images from Excel spreadsheets I create. So you will never know about the time my father had heart surgery, I was Lone-Ranger’d, and 200 pages behind in Con Law.

2) The bottom of my foot is bruised from walking the Mean Streets of SF. Can’t believe I used to walk those hills all the time.

3) I was recently dissed by a date.

4) I took on a new, “prestigious” (pres-tee-gious for those of you who grew up like I did, pres-tih-jus for those of you who didn’t) position on a law journal that involves an hour a day of being someone’s Excel bitch and am having flashbacks of being someone’s admin in NY. p.s. I am almost f–king THIRTY.

5) There are only three weeks left before finals. Hari-kari, anyone?

6) I still haven’t sent out thank-you notes from Christmas. I am a horrible person.

At least I got out of town for the weekend. And got to spend it with Gloria, who has already posted a bizarre, embarassing video of me and this bunny:

I met our bunny (Gloria has her own) while having a SIX-course drink-a-toriam of dessert wines at The Hidden Vine. Yummy. I love me some port and muscat.

Then, I got to see Ursula, her husband Mike and debonair brother Carlos. At Santa Cruz’ only (not exaggerating) non-dive bar, The Red. Go Banana Slugs!

And of course “turnip” was one of the words I tried to fool Gloria with during our road-trip home tournament of “fruits and vegetables” Hangman. To no avail. p.s., can you believe that girl tried to pull “pluot” on me. Pluot???? Who has heard of a pluot before?? Cheater.

Only. All this time away with good company? Just makes you wish things were less bunnies and turnips at home. Grump. Grump. Grump.

A Plate of Random Crap

Since Paris, my life has been void of anything interesting enough to amount to an entry. So I give you: A Plate of Random Crap.

1) The Great Darkness of 2006
When my mom stayed here, watching my cats while I was in Paris, somehow every lightbulb in my apartment went out. In slow, painful succession. I say somehow, but really I know exactly what happened. I just have to harken back to The Great Darkness of 2005, when it was finals and I was working by the two remaining lightbulbs left in my apartment for weeks. And then finals were over, I made a celebratory trip to Target, and replaced them all. And my poor mom was here for their progressive death. I kid you not, she had to replace NINE lightbulbs. That’s right, she had to get up on chairs or stools (she’s even shorter than me), NINE TIMES. Nine times? Nine times. I am a horrible daughter.

2) Retro Chic or Just Crazy?
Tonight I accidentally went down into my laundry room with PEGGED PANTS. I was painting my toenails, and to prevent any smudging, I pegged my pajama pants. After the last coat, I remembered my laundry, freaked out that my clothes had been in the washers probably MILDEWING or getting STOLEN, and booked it down there. Still with pegged pants. And of course, even at 11:00 at night this dude was in there. BUT he had checkerboard Vans on, so I really think he probably thought I was pegging my pajama pants ironically, a little old school throwback. I mean, really? If you saw a woman in pegged red polka dot pajama pants and a blue sweatshirt frantically stuffing her wet clothes into the maw of the dryer, you would totally think retro chic, right? You certainly wouldn’t think, WTF, that woman has PEGGED her PAJAMAS?

3) In which Iwantoquitmyjob
When I worked at the bank with Laurie, often I would think to myself, “I want to quit my job.” It became quite a mantram. I’d be in the shower, the car, or taking a run, and in alternate breaths it was: “Iwanto. Quitmyjob.” These days, in the shower, I’m thinking: Iwanto. Quitmyjob. Only? I HAVE NO JOB.

4) Lazy or just efficient?
I never completely unpacked my suitcases from Paris. This is totally acceptable because I am heading up to SF soon, non?

5) Senorita, I’m Lovin’ It, Cry Me a River Like I Love You
Justin Timberlake, I am really sorry. Back in 1999, when I was a freelance writer, I wrote a not-very-flattering review of your *NSync (sp?) show. But you know what? Numero Uno on my task list tomorrow is transferring Justified onto my iPod before my trip because no road trip is complete without a little “Cry Me a River.” Also, dear road trip companion Gloria? I am really sorry if you are not a JT fan, but I cannot pass through that damn heinous dairy farm right before the 5/580 junction without a little JT. He Rocks My Body right. By which I mean, somehow, he masks the smell of cow shit.