divine angst

I played handyperson this weekend while Mr. Angst was away. The master bathroom toilet had a small, slow leak that was dripping on our floor, so we turned off its water a few weeks ago. We’ve been using the guest toilet since then and I’d been meaning to fix the darn thing for a while.

I had discovered that the leak was somewhere along the water supply line—either in the line itself, or in one of the connections—so I went to Home Depot and got a new supply line. I wasn’t sure how long it needed to be, so I got a 20″ one. This turned out to be too long and, after I’d installed it, I discovered that the leak wasn’t in the supply line or the connection after all—it was in the fill valve. So I had to go back to Home Depot.

Meanwhile, the sky outside was turning an ominous black color. It seemed that my afternoon was going to be all about water because as soon as I got out of my car at Home Depot (round two), it started to rain.

So there I am, back in the store, trying to decide between buying a whole new fill valve or just a rubber ballcock washer. (Yes, it’s called a ballcock washer and I still can’t help but laugh when I see that word.) The Home Depot guy is helping me decide when, out of nowhere, we hear a giant crack of thunder—and the lights go off.

Not for long, though—the generators kicked in almost immediately. I actually would have been pretty disappointed with Home Depot if they hadn’t had emergency generators. My faith in that place is unshaken. So the Home Depot guy convinced me to splurge on the new fill valve ($6.47) instead of the washer ($1.47), and I paid at the self-checkout.

I can see now that the skies have opened and I know my umbrella is going to be of little use. I pull it out anyway, because that’s what you do when it rains, and make a rush for my car. I’m wearing flipflops and water is already building up in the parking lot so of course I slip. My left shoe hydroplanes as I’m running to the car—that funny kind of running you do when you don’t want your feet to get wet—and I barely stop myself from falling. So my feet are completely wet, as are the bottom of my jeans, but at least my ass isn’t wet, right? (I do have a sore calf to show for my graceful recovery.)

Now I’m on my way home in the driving rain, when it actually STARTS TO HAIL. Did I mention that the sun is still out in part of the sky? There’s a rainbow in front of me, yes, but there’s also marble-sized hail pelting my car. I love spring thunderstorms, but not when I have to be out in them. Note to God: please keep me inside the next time you send a string of thunderstorms my way.

And now that I’ve typed all this up, I see that it’s not a very interesting story, so I’d better wrap it up. I replaced the fill valve with no problems, tightened all the connections, and turned the water back on. We now have a working toilet in the master bath again. And all I had to endure was two trips to Home Depot and a giant thunderstorm. Not so bad in the grand scheme of things, I guess. Maybe I should bag this whole law school thing and become a plumber’s apprentice.

I’m just not feeling well enough to post. I seem to have eaten something really bad.

Tomorrow, if I can manage it, I’ll shoot for movie posting on Be Cool, a horror story from the grocery store, and a roundup of my domestic, handyperson weekend.

This goes nicely with the previous post, because all of these things are TV or movie related.

1. I am bothered by the “celebrity” interviewers on shlocky networks like the TV Guide Channel who use “whenever” in place of “when.” Example:
   

   Now, whenever you were working on [insert name of junket movie here], did you think working with [insert name of hot actor here] was hard? I mean, he’s pretty hottt!”

   Not to suggest that my actual questions would be more trying (hey, I want to know if working with the hottt guy is distracting, too), but geez. I thought they had someone reading and composing the questions BEFORE they are asked, which I (perhaps wrongly?) assumed meant some copyediting was going on, too.

2. Is “What Not to Wear” getting a little old? I feel like I’m betraying old friends by even suggesting this, but I’m just not as gripped by it as I once was. Friday night they had the “Worst Dressed Couple” show and, as I watched it, I kind of knew they’d pick the couple who were, well, sad, instead of the couple who were possible worst dressed. (The couple they picked were badly dressed, yes, but the woman was very sad, which made me angry. In the other two couples, the woman was all about her fashion choices; in the couple that was picked, the woman actually said that she didn’t like dressing the way she did, but that she did it because she knew her husband liked it. While it’s good to give this couple a makeover, I’m a little bothered by this stereotype of a relationship.)
3. If I find “Legally Blonde” a better watch than most of the drivel on TV, does that make me shallow? I worry about this stuff. I really, really like chick flicks. In fact, tonight, as I sat at home alone (I did try to have a girls’ night, but it was the wrong weekend), I found myself seriously upset that I had somehow misplaced the (archival) copy of “Legally Blonde” I had on VHS. I would have watched a VHS movie instead of a DVD just to have been able to watch that movie. Instead, I watched “Lost in Translation,” a great movie, but not quite in the same genre. We have no DVDs of chick flicks. I realized this last night. I’m going to have to fix that, and soon. Mr. Angst doesn’t go out of town often, but when he does, I’ll be damned if I’ll be left with nothing to watch!

Watching Beaches. DO NOT tell me Bette Midler hasn’t had some serious work done.

The Mineral Palace by Heidi Julavits

I admit it, I bought this because the cover looked interesting, the backblurb was well-written and, oh yes, it was $5.

So, it was OK. The story is of Bena, a housewife in the Depression, whose husband relocates them to Pueblo, Colorado, where they don’t know anyone. They have a new baby and Bena has a thing for numbers.

That part of it seemed really interesting to me—numbers! Depression! anomie and displacement!

What it became, though, was a familiar story. Marital discord, an intriguing stranger or two, a scandal to be investigated and to insert oneself into. As that story goes, it was OK. Nothing about it, though, really gripped me. In fact, the last quarter or so, I practically skimmed, trying to get through the damn thing and figure out what happens in the end.

I think at least part of my problem with the book was the author’s tendency to play with the language a little too much. At times, I wasn’t sure if the paragraph I was reading was in the present or a flashback to an earlier event. Her cues were not strong. I appreciate innovation in writing, but the reader always has to come first. I don’t think I’m an unsophisticated reader, but I do get impatient, and her style wasn’t very appealing to me because of that.

So, it was an OK book. I might read it again, maybe on vacation sometime, when I have hours to spend sitting in the sun and relaxing. Reading it now, when I have too much going on in my own life, was probably the biggest problem with this book. My brain is moving too fast lately to be willing to slow down and pore through an inexpensive novel.

Cleaning house is hard work! I tried to go to a yoga class this morning—not my usual class, but it’s spring break, so they had an alternate schedule—and the teacher didn’t show up. I was also the only student to show up.

So I was a little bummed that I missed my weekly butt-kicking—until I set to cleaning. I’ve swept, vacuumed and mopped the entire house with the exception of the master bath (I have to pick up a replacement valve for the toilet, so mopping now would be almost pointless).

I am tired! But I still have things on my to-do list: pick up a shredder, dust the bedroom, dust the office, finish my laundry and make the bed, and, oh, um, yes, shower.

How am I getting all of this done on a Saturday, you ask? Mr. Angst is visiting a friend out of town. Ah ha!

Mr. Angst and I are not making a decision this week. Or even next week, probably.

See, I was trying to make a decision soon because I was thinking I would fly out for an admitted students’ weekend, and I had a promise of some reimbursement. But that’s, like, two weeks away, and I’d have to reserve, like, NOW, to get a good rate and get reimbursement (yeah, the reimbursement was sort of cheap, requiring advance purchase and all that…I’d rather have just gotten a number. It’s OK, I understand, but it’s not very convenient for me).

So we’ve decided that we’re NOT going to make a decision now. We’re going to wait until we get some more information—financial aid packages, Mr. Angst’s actual admissions letter in the mail, etc. I’m not going to try and make the admitted students’ weekend, but I do have an admitted students’ dinner to go to, where I intend to ask MANY questions. I will also take advantage of every opportunity I have to gather information from the people and bloggers I know about the schools I am choosing between. (Hear that? I may be emailing you soon. Yes, you.)

And, in April, probably right before my earliest deposit date, we’ll have another conversation about this, and make a decision.

I am hugely relieved. Maybe this is because I don’t have to make a decision yet—and because I really don’t want to make a decision yet. Maybe it’s because I have four weeks left to think through stuff. Whatever the reason, I feel better. I’ve been sort of shellshocked for the last day or so, feeling sort of in a rush to make a decision because of timing issues, and I’m glad that Mr. Angst and I have the time now to think through stuff without feeling put upon.

So. It’s another month of waiting, sort of, but the good, necessary kind of waiting. The kind of waiting that provides some space. We’re lucky to have this time.

Psuedo-inspired by Soup, I am trying to come up with a new AIM moniker.

My current screen name is, basically, my maiden name. That’s fine for using with the people who know me in person, but not so good for using with people who DON’T know me in person. Likewise, I do have some variation of “divine angst” but I never use it—and I probably won’t. What if I want to message folks I know in person who I also don’t want to know I have a blog?

What I’d like is a screen name I can give to all the people who know me in person as well as all the people who read my blog, that won’t reference either my real identity or the blog. Yes? Make sense?

Any suggestions are welcome and, in fact, encouraged. Help out a girl. Give her a new AIM screen name.

Update: What’s the opinion on LawofKristine? I kind of like it. It’s fun. It’s catchy. It suggests that I rule the world.

Update 2: dancinKristine?

With Mr. Angst’s good news of yesterday, we are in exactly the position I feared we’d be in: we are both accepted to schools in both of our target cities. And now we have to decide where to move.

Part of me had been hoping all along that the decision would be made for us by some admissions committee somewhere. It certainly would make things easier if that had been the case. Instead, though, we have to be grownups and choose between our options ourselves.

So we’re composing lists of pros and cons. Which I do a lot of, but hate. In this case, I particularly dislike the pro-con method of decision making, because my pros and cons are so very even for both locations. Essentially, I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I would love to go law school in that cold, windy city. But I don’t want to go if it means I’d never see my husband, who would be in class at night. I know he would love to be a student in our nation’s capital, but I am still ambivalent about the law school I’d be going to there. If only we could fold time and space and put the two cities together. The best of both worlds!

I feel like I’ve been trying to prepare for this moment for weeks now, only to realize that I’m not prepared at all! I feel completely adrift. What do I want? What does Mr. Angst want? Where will we be happy? Where will we be successful? Who makes the bigger sacrifice?

Expect more of this kind of musing in the days to come.

1. Who is an author whose work you’ve never read, but want to?

I’m not sure I can think of any authors like this; usually if I want to read something, I read it. I will admit that part of me wishes I could say I’ve read Ulysses, just because it’s such a bear of a book, and I think that will impress people. But the Joyce I’ve read doesn’t make me really want to read it, I just think it will impress people.

But I’ll pick someone. Today, I’d say Chuck Palahniuk, because my friend Emily constantly raves about how great his stuff is. Even Mr. Angst liked Fight Club (although he said he thought the movie was better). If not Palahniuk, then Kerouac. I know, it’s awful, I’ve never even read On the Road. (Sorry, SG.)

2. Can men and women be friends?

I used to think so until my two best guy friends from high school stopped calling me. In both cases, I suspect their girlfriends had a little something to do with it, but I can’t say that with 100% confidence. It may be that they, having girlfriends, decided they couldn’t be friends with me on their own. I honestly always thought I’d be friends with those two guys forever. Now I can’t even find them on Google.

I do think men and women can be friends, but I think the situations where that can comfortably occur are not common. It is true that the sex thing does get in the way, so it’s probably easiest to be friends with a member of the opposite sex if you’re both involved with someone else—seriously involved, like married. I think that makes it easier. Which isn’t to say that two unattached people of the opposite sex can’t be friends, but it’s probably harder to maintain. And then, if either of them does meet someone, the new significant other will invariably have a hard time understanding the friendship. And then you get my two best guy friends ditching me after a decade and a half of friendship.

So, maybe.

3. If you could choose to live in a different time period, would you? If so, when would live and why?

I’m not sure I’d want to live in a different era. I think I fit into this time period pretty well. I think life in Victorian England would be interesting to experience, but I seriously doubt I’d want to stay there. Ditto for the American West in the late 19th century—interesting, but not a place I think I’d want to live forever and ever. At least in the latter, I’d have some freedoms as a woman, freedoms I could just forget about in the former time period.

4. Have you ever sold anything, bought anything, or processed anything as a career? Have you ever sold anything bought or processed, or bought anything sold or processed, or repaired anything sold, bought, or processed, as a career?

Probably.

5. They’re going to make a movie about your life. What’s the theme song?

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Stones. It’s the rest of the chorus that keeps replaying in my mind lately: “But if you try, sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” Yeah. That’s my life right now. I am trying to get what I need, despite all the things I want.

Thanks for the questions, Fitz-Hume and Milbarge!

Mr. Angst. got into his program in DC!!!

I am so excited for him!

Now we have to make some decisions.

I suggested to Mr. Angst that we have a drink in celebration, but I think we’ve already done that today. So we’re NOT drinking in celebration!

I LOVE THIS HOLIDAY!

As a child, I went to St. Patrick’s Elementary School. Because St. Patrick’s Day pretty much always falls during Lent, almost every child in the school would have given up candy and wouldn’t have been able to have any on St. Patrick’s Day.

Except that the pastor of the church, Msgr. Higgins (no, I am not lying, that was in fact his name), would always declare that, because we went to St. Patrick’s School, St. Patrick’s Day was our feast day, and therefore a “day off” of Lent. He basically gave us all a Lenten dispensation.

And he would dress in the green vestments of Ordinary Time, borrow miter and crook from someone, and come around dressed as St. Patrick himself. He’d hand out candy and tell us about the great saint himself. And then the school would always have a big supper and a parade.

Many moons ago, I told Mr. Angst about St. Patrick’s Day not being part of Lent. He’s Irish, or at least part, so St. Paddy is his patron saint, too, sort of. So now he takes the holiday off of Lent. Since he usually gives up beer, St. Patrick’s Day is usually bigtime happy fun for him.

So enjoy St. Patrick’s Day! Read some St. Patrick’s Day jokes over at Scott’s place. And grab you some of the luck of the Irish!

OK, so I’m not really being recruited per se, but I have been getting some attention:

• Midwestern College of Law (MCOL) sent me information on an admitted students’ dinner here in my own town of residence. It’s at what is arguably the best restaurant in town. Mr. Angst is invited. We are stoked.
• In-State Law Center (ISLC) sent me a letter from the Dean today, in which he strongly encouraged me to accept my offfer.
• East Coast Law School (ECLS) had an alumni in my state contact me this evening to rave about the school and its opportunities and how much he enjoyed it. Mind you, he graduated when Truman was in the White House, so I imagine things have changed some since then, but he was very nice and terribly enthusastic about ECLS.

It’s nice to feel wanted. Doesn’t make the choice any easier. But it’s nice nonetheless.

However, I kindly request that all schools now send me actual SWAG. Or money. Preferably money. That will really show their interest. Yes. Excellent, Smithers.

If I’m a bit punchy, it’s because I had to actually leave work early due to lack of sleep. I’ve just awoken from a nice long nap in which I dreamed vague things about law school and law students. I still feel refreshed, so perhaps it’s not the law school dreams that are wearing me out.

Mr. Angst informs me that his online status check at his school in DC shows that a decision letter has been mailed.

We should know something more concrete by Saturday, I think.

This might be too much for my nerves to take. I might need a nap.

We saw our neighbors move a few weeks ago.

Or we thought we saw them move.

It now appears they did, in fact, leave the domicile. But they also appear to have turned it over to a group of college kids. Who are also loud. No, they don’t have the news turned up to 11 in the evenings, and they don’t (yet) appear to scream at each other all morning. But they’re definitely college kids. (And at least one of them appears to be a relative of the old neighbors. I guess they’re renting to their nephew or cousin or something. This might be against the HOA rules. Not that I would turn them in or anything. Probably not.)

Anyway, these kids (and it does feel sort of rude to call them kids, but they are) talk loudly, late into the night. I heard them last night. And I heard them the night before. Well after midnight. They were noisy. Mr. Angst banged on the wall, to no avail. We contemplated going over there in the middle of the night to tell them to knock it off. They are college kids. No one else in our condo complex is that young, and no one else in our complex has that many people living in their unit. (Hee! I said “unit.”)

I would probably be more bothered by this (and I am bothered, not to mention VERY TIRED), but we’re selling our house. I know this because we signed a bunch of paperwork to that effect last night. It goes on the market next week.

Now we just have to figure out where we’ll live if we sell quickly. Gotta find a month-to-month, I guess.

Update: They are not living there, they are just squatting during Spring Break (I think they’re here for some festival). In three days, they’ll be gone and our evenings will be quiet again. Thank God.

Our financial guy’s office is just down from my office and everytime we have to pass one another in the hall, he grins at me and says, “Port to port!” Every single time. It’s so funny.

Via Shelley

Congratulations! You’re 146 proof, with specific scores in beer (120) , wine (116), and liquor (86).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 88% on proof
	You scored higher than 99% on beer index
	You scored higher than 95% on wine index
	You scored higher than 92% on liquor index

I’ll have you know that I avoid 151 whenever possible. Vodka is better.

Our house is neater than it’s ever been. (I won’t say cleaner, since I didn’t have time to dust and vacuum yesterday, but that’s just around the corner.)

Did you know that it hurts when you inhale cleaner with bleach? I ensconced myself in my bathtub yesterday, determined to rid it of soap scum and mineral deposits from our hard-ish water. It was perfectly acceptable for me as it was—I do clean somewhat regularly—but the realtor is coming today! So I doused all three walls and the sliding shower door with Clorox Clean Up^©. And I began to scrub. And then I felt a strange feeling in my nose and mouth.

I coughed. And kept scrubbing. I coughed again, and noticed that the back of my throat was burning. I coughed again and again, and then I thought I was going to vomit. It was all I could do to pull myself out of the shower and lean over the sink, just in case. (I did not vomit. Thank God.)

But I kept coughing. I breathed and could hear myself wheeze. Oh no! Clorox^©-induced asthma! I thought. I went downstairs and drank water, I sat down, I watched my hands tremble. And when I felt better, I went back upstairs to my bathroom, crawled back into the tub and repeated the adventure ALL OVER AGAIN.

After the second round of violent coughing, I decided I’d leave it be for a while. And I cleaned the dining room instead. Did you know Endust^©; can make a scratched-up wood surface look less scratched up? I have an antique buffet that was in my grandparents’ house. It needs to be refinished, but I have neither the time nor the money for that, so I use Endust^© whenever possible to make it look less battered.

Once the dining room was clean, I went back to the bathroom where, thankfully, most of the airborne Clorox^© had dissipated. I finished scrubbing. I cleaned the sink, the mirror, the toilet. And then I moved onto the other bathroom.

Our bathrooms are sparkling. They look like hotel bathrooms. They are nearly empty, in fact, which is sort of depressing. But they are clean and neat, and that’s all that matters.

In combination with our very neat but much emptier bookshelves and my sparkling kitchen, our house is probably ready for our realtor to look at. I expect to hear him say we need to paint (which I have no intention of doing, our paint is fine); I expect to hear him say we need a thorough cleaning (which I will be happy to pay someone to do). So I just need to get to that place where I feel like we’re actually doing this. We’re actually selling our home.

Not to offend Fitz-Hume, E. McPan, or any other West Texans out there, but I find it slightly absurd that Southwest Airlines’ featured “destination of the week” is Midland/Odessa, “where you’ll find warm hospitality, family fun, and Texas-sized savings!”

Look, I respect that Nikki Cox has a fine pair of tatas. But could she PLEASE, in just ONE EPISODE, COVER THEM UP?

And oh my GOD, she’s YOUNGER than me. That’s just depressing.

Got my GULC letter today. They do not want me. An outright rejection.

Honestly, I was expecting to be put on the waitlist.

I’m not upset; that’s not the right word. I’m disappointed, a little surprised, sort of annoyed. But I wasn’t really all that excited about Georgetown. I spent a lot of time rehearsing the reasons I could be happy there in my mind, but I’m not sure I ever believed myself.

I’m glad all my decisions are in, and that I am not on any waitlists. I’m glad our decision-making process won’t be strung out any longer than necessary, as it might have been had I hit the waitlist. I’m glad my part of this grand life change is over. I know what schools I can choose between so I can start seriously considering what’s important to me and what isn’t.

You might notice that I’ve removed my list of schools from the sidebar. If you’ve been reading, you know where I got in (if you haven’t, you can always look it up). I think I’ve decided that, when we decide where we’re going, I’m not going to disclose the name of my school. Obviously, if you’ve been reading, you’ll be able to guess pretty readily (if you haven’t, you can always search). I’d like to hold on to whatever shred of anonymity I still have, at least until I settle in wherever I land.

If you’re pre-law and tired of the admissions nightmare; if you’re a student and tired of classes or exams, or you’re out in the “real world” and you’re just tired of the daily grind, take a gander at this post about a Senegalese wedding—written by my friend Clare who is in the Peace Corps over there:

However, I’m very relieved that it’s over: those were two days of more being stared at, asked for everything ranging from money to clothes to my headlamp, and called “Whitey” in my own home than I’ve had to deal with in the past two months. And while I can appreciate the cross-cultural absurdity, shall we say, of having a circle of two dozen girls staring at me as though they expected purple monsters to sprout out of my head, or of making babies burst into tears of abject terror by simply looking at them… it’s still. gets. tiring.

I like Clare’s blog because it always brings me back to earth. She is having an incredible experience, half a world away, and she’s not just getting through the cultural experience but she’s also getting work done (or trying to!). My worries seem sort of unimportant compared to being felt up by a small girl who is astonished at the color of your skin—and who probably also keeps calling you “Whitey.”

HL1440 has a nice little post about deadlines and seat deposits and it’s making my stomach hurt.

We don’t have all our information yet. We can’t even begin to have a serious conversation about where we’re going to end up until we both know where we can end up.

It’s looking more and more like I’m going to have to deposit at more than one place, unless a miracle happens and we get all of our information TOMORROW. (Psst: if our schools are listening, please send stuff NOW.) I admit I’m in a better spot than HL1440—he’s still waiting on many schools’ decisions whereas I know my decisions have been made. But Mr. Angst isn’t, and that makes things a little trickier, since there are two of us. (In HL1440’s case, there are two of them, also—his girlfriend is going to graduate school. But they seem to be entertaining the possibility of being in different places this fall. We’re not.)

Why do schools extend their decision-making out for so long when they know students have to send in seat deposits? They have to know that stretching things out for so long means more students will double-deposit. Double deposits may mean more money for the schools, but only at the expense of having to deal with more paperwork when they have to fill a late-summer empty spot. (It also increases student anxiety, probably not a good thing.) I also don’t understand, really, how the waitlist thing ever works. I simply cannot imagine changing my entire plan a week before school starts. That’s maybe just ME, but yeesh! Once I make a decision, I’m going to try as hard as I can to be happy with it. Pinning my late-summer hopes on getting off a wait list seems like a BIG waste of energy.

So for now, I’m ignoring the (short) stack of deposit slips. Instead, I’m getting up early to clean our bedroom and make the bed, empty the garbage, give the kitchen a once-over. Focusing on the house is so much easier. I should have switched my attention weeks ago.

What’s up with all these old 90s sitcom actors getting hour-long dramedies?

First John Stamos is some Valentino wannabe, and now the guy from “Wings” is a private eye?

Well, I guess, good for them and their careers. I wonder if they have the same agent?

Also: “We’re one Supreme Court nomination away from overturning the Bill of Rights! Go red states!”

Today I watched two girls dig through stacks of my books. I watched them decide which ones were worth something and which ones were just going to be donated. I listened to them ooh and ahh over some of the more unusual books, and occasionally I volunteered an answer to a muttered query (”I see Millenium Approaching, but where are you, Perestroika?” “I never bought Perestroika, it’s not in there.” “Oh, OK. Well, I think we have a copy of it, so yours will still probably sell.”)

It was hard. As they gave me my receipt for $55, I let my gaze linger on the piles they’d created, eyes wandering over familiar titles and cover art. So many good books. I know I don’t need them, I know they were just taking up space, I know if I ever want them again, I will have no trouble finding copies of them. But I still felt that twinge of sadness at saying goodbye to old friends.