divine angst

Gosh, this is a silly thing to be annoyed by, but here goes:

I am a completely visual person. In browsing (anything: wine, books, blogs) I will often ignore text and note only the color/design of something.

Now, with wine, I let the visual lead me to a bottle, and THEN I check out the varietal. Books—I let the cover art lead me to a given shelf, and then I read the blurb.

With blogs, it’s different. Each bottle of wine (or at least, each vinyard label) and book cover has been specially designed to be distinctive. But there are a lot of blogs out there that use the SAME TEMPLATES.

So I’ll click through from Bloglines, say on a link in someone’s entry, and get to a blog I don’t usually read or am not subscribed to, and get very confused because that blog uses the same template as a blog I AM subscribed to and read regularly.

I wish Blogger made it easier for folks to modify their templates without having to know CSS or HTML. Why can’t they provide a simple, “build your template” wizard, allowing people to choose two- or three-panel designs, and then pick their colors? A lot of people use the same color scheme on Typepad also, but because Typepad allows for more customization in an easy way, I don’t usually see the EXACT SAME template on more than one Typepad blog.

I know, this is a little annoyance on my part, and always very quickly rectified when I start reading the post I jumped to and note that it doesn’t sound like the author I associate with that template. And then I check out the title and realize that, of course, this isn’t THAT blog, and all is well.

But boy, it would be nice if everyone’s blogs could be a little more unique.

It’s really happening! Law School wants paperwork: my official undergraduate transcript and a certification of enrollment. (I got to check the “I will be enrolling and I have removed my name from all other schools’ lists” option. That was nice.)

I’ll pop my transcript request in the mail today, and Law School should get it by the end of the week if the post is cooperative; I think I can email the the certification form.

In other news, I completed my other loan applications last night, so I have asked for all the money I need for the school year. I’ll have a few more pieces of paperwork to sign later this summer, but I’m essentially done even with that chore.

It’s getting more real by the moment.

We finally got some sleep last night.

Between waking up early every morning this weekend from the sun shining in, and the late nights staying up arguing, and our 8 am flight on Sunday, we were a little under-rested when we got home. The bed called out, “Nap on me! I’m soft and comfortable!” But we resisted, like you resist napping when you have jet lag, so that we could go to bed at a normal, if slightly early, hour and get a really solid night’s sleep.

And we did. So solid, in fact, that I’m pretty groggy today.

Of course, I can’t find my car key. I have the valet key, so I’m able to drive it, but I can’t find the real key. This is problematic. I just hope it’s not also indicative of the kind of day I’m going to have.

As long as no one asks me if I’ve got a case of “the Mondays” I think I’ll make it.

WhyLaw asked me to tell you about our apartment. I usually don’t write about stuff like that because, while the little details make me very happy, I am pretty sure they’re boring as hell for anyone else.

But because it’s a request, and I like to answer requests…

Our apartment is in a fairly urban neighborhood in Our New City. I originally thought I wanted to live a little further away, in a more “neighborhood-y” area, without a lot of tall buildings. But Mr. Angst wanted something slightly different. He’s never lived in an urban area before. So we looked a little closer to downtown. I’m glad we did.

One of the best things about our building is that, even though it’s a tall building, near lots of other tall buildings, it’s also on a street full of trees. I was worried about the area not having necessary amenities—like a reasonably priced and close grocery store, video rental place, and the like—but I shouldn’t have been. Three good grocery stores are within walking distance, a large drugstore is also nearby, Blockbuster is next to the drugstore, and there’s a rare bookstore a block further down the road. Also, our apartment building is a block and a half away from another street lined with local shops, restaurants, and bars. Oh, and our train stop is a block and a half away—right across the street from the nearest grocery store. Tra la!

As for the apartment itself, we wanted enough space to fit all of our stuff and we wanted air conditioning. We wanted storage and we wanted a logical layout. And we got all of that. We have a large living room with space for our dining table. We have a decently spacious bedroom. We have a large, walk-in kitchen (not a galley kitchen! hooray!) with cabinets coming out the ying-yang. We have two large closets (bedroom and hall), and we have a linen closet (rejoicing!). And, as a nice bonus, we got floor-to-ceiling bay windows in the living room and bedroom and no one lives above us (there are units on the floor above us, just not right above our unit).

So we got almost everything we wanted. I had wanted a gas cooktop, but alas, it was not to be. I also wanted more vintage details, but our building is sort of bland and featureless. We don’t yet know if we’ll be able to hear our neighbors through the walls, but that’s always at least something of a crapshoot. The elevators appear to be sort of slow, but I guess we’ll live with that. Yet I am OK with these “negatives” because we will still have a comfortable apartment at a reasonable price in a good neighborhood. I think we landed in a place where we can be happy for at least a year.

Apartment obtained! After a quick stop for bagels and coffee, we spent a scant hour signing papers and writing checks (first and last months’ rents! egad!) and walked out with a lease.

As we walked out, papers in hand, we wandered over to the historic and quaint church right across the street, just to see what it was. Turns out it’s my denomination and it appears to have a stellar music program. Better and better!

So I’m pretty excited about everything. My mom commented that everything relating to this life change of ours seems to fall into place incredibly smoothly—and she’s right. I can think of no other sign that this is, indeed, the path we’re meant to be on.

Mr. Angst and I had a very long, involved, and sometimes heated conversation with our host last night. I don’t think I’m going to write about the substance of it right now (I think I’ll follow CM’s 24-hour rule at least) but it has left me feeling sort of drained. All was resolved before we went to bed, but I still feel….touchy?

The point of THIS post is to say this: I don’t think I’ve ever realized how deeply I believe certain things. And how hard it is for me to see things rationally regarding those things. And my feelings get hurt easily when those things I deeply believe are attacked. It’s left me feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable. I want to get past that place of itchiness today, and I’m definitely working on it. After all, we’ve got the whole day left in Our New City.

I am beat.

Mr. Angst and I were up by 7 (I was awake by 6, when the SUN CAME UP. Being north is not fun in that way) and out the door by 8:25 to go apartment hunting. We met with our locator and saw three great units in three great buildings. The last was pretty good, so good that we’ll be swinging by tomorrow morning to file an application and snap it on up. The rent is right, the size is perfect, and the only real negative is that the cookrange is (sigh) electric. Even so, we’re pretty excited about the place, so send many good luck waves that everything goes through tomorrow.

After the apartment-looking, we wandered. I went by Law School to see about buying some gear—namely, a hat. But the hat I liked said “[Law School] Law School” and I am not sure I want to be that person, wandering around with a hat proclaiming that I’m a law student. We’ll see how I feel once I’m enrolled. Maybe I’ll be OK wearing a hat like that in a few months.

And we wandered some more. Mr. Angst stopped at his new school to ask a few questions of the Financial Aid office, then we stopped for a while at a Barnes & Noble for refreshment of the mind and body (fashion mags and a latte for me), then we walked some more. I bought a new pair of sandals, we had drinks at a very dark and woody pub, and finally made it back to our friend’s place. I think we’re going to crash here for a while, until he gets home from work, and then we’re off to a street festival.

If everything tomorrow morning goes off without a hitch, I think this trip will have been a huge success. HUGE. And we’re having fun. It still sort of doesn’t feel “real” but I’m getting there.

Ladies and gents, another round…

1. Which relationship will last longer, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (”Brangelina”), or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (”TomKat”)?

I hope Brangelina, but the way the world hates me, TomKat will live far beyond the limited life it deserves. I really dislike Tom Cruise.

2. Less importantly, which will have nuclear bombs first, North Korea or Iran?

North Korea. They suck.

3. What is your dream car?

RIght now, anything with a working air conditioner (though for the weekend, I’m perfectly happy without A/C or a car, being in Our New City with its wonderful weather.

More seriously, I’d love an Acura TSX.

4. What book have you read the most times?

Alice in Wonderland? The Diary of a Young Girl? The Once and Future King? Any of the Narnia books? The Susan Cooper series, The Dark is Rising? This is totally hard to answer, because I reread books a lot.

5. Are you a matchmaker?

Not one little bit. I don’t even bother anymore when people ask if I have single friends.

We are in Our New City.

Mr. Angst and our host are sitting on the living room floor poring over the air mattress instructions. I love it. I’m happily blogreading and blogging and they’re being men and figuring out the air mattress.

Air mattress figured out. Hallelujah!

The last few times Mr. Angst and I have traveled, we’ve had strange problems–for instance, not being able to use the self-check-in kiosks, or check in at curbside. Our waits at the check-in counter have been longer, too.

Today, we found out why.

One of us is on the TSA watch list.

Mr. Angst knows for a fact that his name is similar to someone on our state’s list of people who aren’t allowed to buy guns. I’m pretty sure, therefore, that he’s the one who is causing our travel problems.

So now we have to send something like 45 pieces of identifying information to the TSA to get this rectified. (OK, maybe it’s only five. Still.) We could blow it off–it’s not like we travel every month or anything–but I am not a patient person and Mr. Angst is not a patient person in airports. So it’s probably better to take care of this now.

You’d think I’d be annoyed or pissed. I actually think it’s kind of funny. We asked why, today, we had been unable to self-check-in, and she very matter-of-factly said, “Oh, well, one of you is on the TSA watch list!” And I laughed. It’s so bizarre and strange that it’s laughable.

I guess when I have internet access again (I’m typing this out without access; I’ll post it later), I’ll look up what I’m supposed to do on the TSA website. Stay tuned; I’ll keep everyone informed on my adventures with government bureaucracy.

That’s my day. Short: I’m leaving early so we can catch our 6pm flight to Our New City. Full of meetings: Today is the day we have second interviews for my replacement.

I noticed in the first interview, this morning, that I am a bobble-head. I nod a lot in response to things someone says that connect with me. I think I read somewhere that law students find this annoying. I don’t think I can help it, so I hope my future classmates don’t hate me for it. I’m just a bobble-head.

One more long interview this afternoon, out of which I will duck early (how’s that for proper construction?). I’ll change clothes, pack up the last of my toiletries, makes sure the kitchen is relatively clean so we don’t come home to pests or vermin, and clean out the car enough to get our stuff into it for the ride to the airport.

Posting will be light for the rest of the day, obviously; and likely for the remainder of the weekend, depending on our host’s internet situation. I am taking my laptop with me, so we may just have to find some free wireless tomorrow so I can do Friday Spies©.

Ta!

I finally got my new phone. I can take it back within 14 days and get my money back as well as have the contract extension cancelled.

My new phone…well, I don’t love it as much as my new computer, but it’s pretty cool. It has a color screen and polyphonic ring tones, which makes it a huge step up from my last phone, may it rest in ghetto hell where it belongs.

I am pleased, though, that in buying a new phone I did not succumb to the everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink temptation. My phone is a PHONE. It is not a camera or a video camera or an MP3 player. It does have some sort of rudimentary “personal assistant” which I will never use, and it has WAP access which I will also NEVER use. But it’s basically a phone. And that is a Good Thing.

Stupid LSAC. Thanks for the nice “eff you!” to me and to anyone who applied to law school last fall or earlier.

Many of us actually PAID our $50-something to be able to use LSAC’s fancy-dancy electronic application system, the one that automatically populates all your applications with your basic data. But new applicants, people applying August 2005 and after? Nope, they won’t pay. From now on, it’s gonna be FREE.

Somehow I don’t think the system got CHEAPER for LSAC to administer. They just decided they didn’t need more money from a group of people who are already strapped for cash, what with paying hundreds of dollars to a) take the LSAT, b) sign up for LSDAS, and, oh yes, c) pay application fees.

Think they could have done this last year? Absolutely. Do you think they care that thousands of people unnecessarily shelled out money that went directly into their pockets? Nope.

They suck.

Josh is so right. This student loan stuff is too easy. I sent in a form today for some money. Mr. Angst sent his the other night. With no more effort than signing my name (or him pushing a button), we have a promise that someone will send us thousands of dollars at the beginning of the school year.

Too easy, man, too easy.

Bodies are weird things.

I’ve been having trouble with backward rolls in aikido. I just can’t manage to do them correctly over my left shoulder. I can do rolls over my right shoulder without much difficulty, and I can do forward rolls just fine on both sides. But no left-shoulder backward rolls yet, at least not without jacking up my neck.

It’s strange how “handed” we are, even beyond our hands. One of my hips has greater rotation (I can roll it out) and the other is more flexible (I can bend forward over it more). I can touch my back between my shoulder blades with one arm twisted up behind me, but not with the other. And I can’t do left-shoulder backward rolls without jacking up my neck.

I’m not as sore as I thought I would be today, but I think that’s just an ominous sign that the real pain is yet to come. Tomorrow, I probably won’t be able to move. We have some time off, though, since we’re going out of town for the weekend and will miss our Thursday night class. I don’t want to regress, so Mr. Angst said he’ll take me to the park and work with me on my rolls. He’s much better at rolls than I am, probably since he’s been doing them for so long.

I’m sad.

I stopped at lunch to get a turkey and havarti panini. It sounded so good. It looked so good. It was so bad.

The turkey was dry. The havarti was all clumped in one spot in the middle of the sandwich, totally overwhelming everything. The bread was too buttered. Everything about this sandwich was awful.

Thank goodness I also got some home fries as a side, because they were actually edible.

But I still have the taste of that nasty havarti on the back of my tongue. Blech.

Do some people get Flag Day off? Because my drive to work this morning was utterly traffic-free. The main road I live on was completely empty of cars at 8:25 am, almost unseen on a weekday.

I do not have Flag Day off, needless to say.

I know names go in cycles—you only have to pop over here to see that. There are some names, though, that surprise you when they show up in your life over and over.

I don’t mean names like Paul or Michael or Anne or Kate. I mean names like Wayne.

When Mr. Angst and I were getting married, we needed to find out everyone’s initials for some of the wedding party gifts. Turns out TWO of our groomsmen had “Wayne” for a middle name. How odd! Especially at our age. (Wayne as a name peaked in the 1940’s.) I also work with two Waynes, but at least they were born in a time when the name was more common. Still, that’s four Waynes in my life. That’s a lot of Wayne for someone under 30.

I don’t want to offend anyone whose name is Wayne, I was just thinking about this today. I found this site, and it sort of sums up the thoughts I was having about the name Wayne.

A little searching on Craigslist today has proven fruitful; I’ve emailed a few people about apartments and even gotten a response from one. Yes, this effort is largely about keeping our options open, but I don’t feel I’ve wasted any time on it, particularly because it’s getting me excited about our trip.

Up till now, I’ve been looking at this weekend jaunt as a housekeeping measure—a chore, if you will, something to be endured. Now, though, four days out, I’m remembering that this is, in fact, a mini-vacation, and to a city that we both love.

I’ve been checking the weather, and it looks good for the weekend—rain is predicted for Thursday, but we’ll miss that by a few hours, thankfully, and the temps Friday and Saturday should be very mild. We’re staying with a friend (who just bought a place and hasn’t yet bought furniture….so we’re going to schlepp our own air mattress with us). He’s even offered to pick us up at the airport, so chances are good we’ll be able to head out for dinner right off the plane.

I want this weekend trip to jump-start my excitement. I am still excited about the fall, starting school, and moving, but as the tedium of the summer wears on, those changes seem so far away. Maybe a little peek into the future will pump some life back into my veins.

So this is the week we go to find our new apartment home in Our New City. I am crossing my fingers for much good luck—that we’ll find the perfect place on the first day, that we can start our lease on the day we want to, and that it will all be totally affordable.

Yeah, my optimism might be getting the better of me here.

So I’ll also be doing some looking on Craigslist and some other, similar, websites this week. I want to have some backups in hand if we need them.

Looking for an apartment long-distance is a pain.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The book was good. Having seen the movie, the twist was a little ruined for me. Mr. Angst tried to fake me out by saying, “What if I told you the twist was different in the book than in the movie?” but I was already far enough into the book at that point that I could easily see that the twist was the same as in the movie.

Mr. Angst saw me reading this and told me this was the one book he read that he thought was WORSE than the movie made from it.

I don’t know if that’s fair; I just think the movie was a really fair representation of the book. I mean, it’s a short book, so there’s not a lot that gets left out in the movie, and Palahniuk writes in a very terse, clipped way that I can see lending itself to a screenplay adaptation.

So I guess the best I can say is that I enjoyed the read mostly because it was a refreshing shift from the other book I’m currently reading (a Pulitzer-Prize-winnning biography of Hirohito). The story was good, if not a new story to me, and the writing was clean and easy.

I’d recommend this as a summer read. Sure, the story is sort of bizarre and graphic in places, but it was still a good poolside book.

I went to the pool today. I sat on my pink towel and read my book and sweated the week’s toxins out of my body. A team of small birds played tag around the pool, first sweeping from the tree, around my back, one occasionally dipping a wing into the pool, and back towards the parking lot and the tree. Some of them seemed to have blue tail feathers—the ladies, I’d guess, running from the boys.

While I was out there, I noticed a paper sign taped to a wall: “Spring Party, Saturday, June 11. 3 pm to whenever! Music and a keg by the pool!”

Sure enough, around 2:15, people began trickling out to the pool. Not many, but a few. I was all by myself until Mr. Angst joined me; then out came the 40-year-old man with mahogany-tan skin and a speedo (and sir, even if you have the body for it, you shouldn’t wear it unless you’re at a swim meet and competeing). Then a gaggle of girls came out, followed by the bicyclist whose sliding glass door faces the pool (I think he was the party organizer, because he seemed to be on the phone with whoever was in charge of the keg), and they converged around a cooler and drank beer from glass bottles.

The last person at the pool was a girl by herself in an odd swimsuit: a bikini with letterman-jacket-style decals affixed. On the top, the letters spelled out the name of our state (and the common term for the local Big State University); on the bottoms was the athletics logo. But, again, these were the stitched or ironed on type of decals, puffy and strange on a string bikini.

And I sat on my chaise lounge and read and drank my vodka-tonic-in-a-water-bottle and felt my skin brown. (My new goal: be the most tan person in my 1L class. It’s important to have a goal.) I noticed that I have two small red moles on my tummy, and if you played connect-the-dots with them, they’d join right up with my bellybutton. I listened to the radio brought out by the party-makers and wondered if my feet were burning. Every few minutes I adjusted my straps hoping to avoid major tan lines that would show in a strapless party dress.

Such is Saturday.

This is just nifty!

Bloglines has a feature now that lets you track a package. You enter your tracking number (UPS, FedEx, or USPS) into a particular field, and it adds it to your list of feeds to watch.

When updates happen—”package scanned” or “on truck for delivery”—they show up like new posts.

I can see this being helpful for those packages coming by slow ground service (I am currently waiting on my new bag, for instance, via UPS Ground), where constantly checking the delivery service website gets tedious. But for overnight, next-day, and the like, I imagine you’d just check on your own.

Still, nifty!

(I really like Bloglines, despite the problems they are currently having with the blogroll script. All entries are showing up with some random text next to them.)

I was just thinking to myself how, three months ago, I was still waiting to hear about my last application—to that really big school in our nation’s capitol. And I remember thinking that I would probably end up on the waitlist, but that I wouldn’t be too upset by that. And that we’d probably end up going to that city anyway, so I could always switch enrollments at the last minute if I got in off the wait list.

I’m so glad that’s not how things happened.

I’m glad we know where we’re going, that we are free to go find an apartment next weekend. I’m relieved to know that I am going to My School and not to Some Other School. I am, if not happy, at least satisfied? or, again, relieved, to be applying for loans to My School knowing that I won’t have to scramble around at the last minute getting loans to Some Other School.

Basically, last fall, when I started all this, I had no idea how it would turn out. I had high hopes. My high hopes didn’t completely pay off, but in the end, everything turned out the best way it possibly could, I think. My School is a good fit for me. Our New City is a good fit for us. Even Mr. Angst’s school is a good fit for him. Everything fell into place the way it should have.

I can’t discount the possibility that things seem to have turned out so well just because we are both pretty flexible people and were willing to go where we needed to go; or because we are both pretty optimistic people and have spent some time getting excited about the schools we are attending. Even given those personality traits, though, I think things still turned out pretty well. Almost pat. (Not too pat—after all, Mr. Angst will be in class at night, which is still not an ideal situation. Just a little wrinkle, though.)

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had one of those nostalgia moments, if you can call the emotion nostalgia when you’re remembering things that were only a few months ago. I was thinking about our house, our home, and how comfortable it was and how easily we could have stayed there. (I think these things a lot at night as I’m lying in bed. I’m not sure what about lying in bed provokes this sort of thing.) And I felt twingy, anxious almost, that we’ve really turned our lives upside-down.

But the morning light makes it all better. And more exciting. This is probably a pretty boring post, because I think I’m repeating things I’ve written before, but this is what’s on my mind right now.

Without fanfare, here are Friday’s questions, courtesy BTQ:

1. What is the earliest movie you remember watching in the theater?

Honestly? Triumph of the Ewoks. (Oh, wait, that wasn’t the name of that movie? You want to know what’s saddest about the fact that this was the first movie I clearly recall seeing in the theater? It was the fact that, besides the Ewoks, of course, the biggest thing I remember was Luke and Leia finding out they were siblings. Isn’t that a weird thing to remember?)

2. If you could strike one word from the English language, which word would you choose and why?

See, you ask these questions, but I never can come up with these sorts of answers on the spot. I’d be more likely to scream out a shitty word while driving in traffic or watching Everybody Loves Raymond. Still, I guess I should pull an answer out of…somewhere. How about smegma?

3. If you were a superhero, what would be your kryptonite?

Bad grammar? Putting apostrophes after plural non-possessives? Misspelling the name of a major award?

4. Would you rather win an Emmy, Grammy, Tony, Golden Globe, Oscar, Pulitzer, or Noble Prize? What work would you win it for?

I want the Noble Prize. For being noble in the face of overwhelming opportunities to cat on someone or something for doing something tacky. Or for using bad grammar. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I’ll rack up a tremendous record of NOT snarking on people for inflicting me with bad grammar, poorly used apostrophes, and misspellings. And my nobility will impress the world and they’ll give me the Noble Prize.

5. What is your catch phrase? Don’t have one? Then make one up!

Well, at work, they used to think it was, “I can live with that,” but I was asked to stop saying that because it sounded “negative.”