Back to schoool, back to schooool

As happy as I am that UT Law made the decision to get rid of the Subway-o'-Scary-Meat, I'm having trouble understanding why they haven't put any new restaurants in yet. Are we too fat? Do they want us to starve so that we talk less? Right now the only choices a hungry law student has are:

1. Candy or chips from the vending machines
2. An assortment of "day old pastries" from the coffee cart.
3. Licking the floor of that room where they have all the buffet meet and greets in the hopes of subsisting off of dehydrated barbecue sauce.

I find these options unappealing at best.

There are also a damn lot of people in the hallways. Where did they all come from? Were there this many people last year? As 1L's you tend to move in packs, but as a now-haughty 2L I'm usually walking around without a posse - I think this makes the packs of 1L's seem a lot bigger and a lot more in the way. I can understand all the glares we got last year when we all trooped to class ten minutes early and crowded up the halls. Sorry. We didn't know any better.

The most interesting readings that I've done so far were assigned with the direction "this is just general - we won't discuss in class". They were about the question of inheritance, and whether or not it should be allowed. I'd never really considered the concept of disallowing inheritance so I was pretty intrigued. And the debate centers around a conflict that I feel a lot when I try to evaluate certain issues: We don't want to perpetuate extremes of wealth and poverty, but we're a very individualist people who can't imagine taking someone's property away.

One guy (by "guy" I mean "respected scholar whose name escapes me") makes a good point that the idea of inheritance not be as natural of a right as we think. One guy suggests that you should only be able to bequeath a certain amount of money/property, and says that healthy, adult children of the deceased shouldn't get anything. I think this idea is kind of crappy, especially when taken to extremes.

Another guy says we should just make it that no one can inherit more than $1 million in their lifetime. Then he points out that his plan will never get support (then why suggest it?) bc liberals want inheritance reform that puts money into the state, where they (liberals) can share in decisions about what to do with it. He basically says that they're pushing for a very specific reform under the guise of fairness when it's really about power (for the record, I have no idea if this is true,but I thought it was interesting).

Then a bunch of these guys get to the issue of true inherited wealth, and some of them say that even eliminating inheritance wouldn't change the class system bc the primary method of class transmission happens in the form of social and formal education. So what if your kid won't get your ten million when you die? You can use it to send him to the best schools,the best college, he can travel around the world and learn 7 languages. He'll become rich on his own bc of the advantages of your wealth.

Interesting theories, eh? I feel like a lot of them are just empty rhetoric to try and justify keeping things the same, but I thought I'd share bc I hadn't read that much about the topic before.

I don't wanna

School starts in t-minus twelve hours. And what am I doing? Playing Halo baby, yeaaaahhh!

Long Live procrastination.

Eavesdropping

While many like to people-watch, only a few of us enjoy the extreme sport that is people-listening, also known as glorified eavesdropping. I qualify the act because I feel that, if you're talking so loud in a public place that I can hear you from 20 feet away, you have no right to get mad if I listen to your conversation. Today I heard the greatest comment from a girl on a cellphone:

"I mean, I totally want to be with him, but . . .well, it's not that I want to change everything about him, I just, like, want to change most things about him. But I still totally want to be with him."

Good luck with that, sweetie. Erin and I will be seeing you on Oprah.

Also, a note for anyone who frequents Fry's Electronics: If you're going to play Dance Dance Revolution in the store, in front of everyone, for heaven's sake at least TRY to move your arms when you dance. Seriously, didn't you see that Seinfeld episode about the girl who didn't move her arms when she walked? Okay, now picture that, but it's the man who doesn't move his arms when he plays Dance Dance Revolution. It just looks weird. I actually had to do an impression of what it looked like, and then Matt made me do the impression again in the HEB parking lot in exchange for a smoothie.

And now some notes for the horribly underqualified and inept waitstaff of pretty much every damn restaurant in Austin (excluding M and Z, of course):
(1) Don't take more than five minutes to seat me if I have a reservation. I will complain. The dimples are only here to lull you into a false sense of security.
(2) If you forget to order my salad, and I ask the random waitress who brought out our main course to go ahead and cancel the salad since our friggin food is here already, do NOT bring out the tiny side salad ten minutes later and mumble "I was just getting your salad - but they said that you don't want it anymore?" Do not feign surprise to cover your ineptitude.
(3) When I accept the now unecessary salad in a RARE attempt to be gracious, DO NOT bring the check with the salad charged on it and say "So, did you not want me to charge you for that salad?" That's where my patience ends.
(4) Oh, and I know this is a little late, but please take a second to COUNT the money a table has left for you before frantically chasing them down fourth street to let them know they've stiffed you, thereby forcing Nikki to give you a crash lesson in basic addition, causing much embarassment to yourself, and causing me to manifest early signs of aging due to my having to give you such a pronounced look of annoyance.

And bring me my Dr.Pepper. If all else fails, at least I'll be in a good mood.

UA

Over the weekend Alia came up with my new mantra: "You can't do that if you have kids." She made this statement after I was telling her about my Friday night, and how Matt and I had stayed up until five in the morning watching CSI. Earlier we'd been commiserating about the annoying phenonemeon called Unsolicited Advice. Unsolicited Advice, also known as "UA", is - funnily enough - usually given by people who don't know you every well. It also frequently involves topics that I prefer to be somewhat coy about. Really, I can't be the only one who has to fight the urge to kick something when some random person who's never been in a serious relationship decides to give me marriage advice.

Apparently two years of marriage is the point when a lot of people decide to try and convince you to give up whatever you're doing and have kids. Just quit law school and have a baby! Funnily enough, for every person who's like "You don't really know happiness until you have a baby, your marriage is meaningless without children, blah blah blah", there's someone else who's all "I had kids young and it was a BIG mistake - you should wait until you're older".

These diametrically opposite pieces of advice piss me off equally, because the basic premise of all advice is that the advice-giver is qualified to give suggestions. Guess what: just because something worked for you doesn't mean it will work for someone else. Why don't people know this? Why can't people accept that everyone is different? I don't deny that children are wonderful and unimaginably life-changing, and I certainly want to have them some day, but I think that it's really key to wait to have kids until you don't feel like it would comepletely ruin your life. Call me crazy.

I don't mind people who give advice catered to my situation, like "I had kids young and it was what I wanted, but I can understand why you would want to wait" or "Children are wonderful and it's hard to have them in your forties, but you have to do what's right for you." I do mind people who act like their mission on this earth is to convince me to run home and yell, "Forget what we've talked about honey! Let's impregnate me!".

Alia says she's been having this problem too. I feel like some of the biggest UA-givers are other Baha'i's. The Baha'i Faith teaches that the family is the most basic building block of society, which makes more sense than I can even understand. Your family is where it all begins, where you learn the basis of everything else you'll learn in life. I think that because of this, and because of the kind of anti-family trends in some parts of America, some Baha'i adults confuse being family oriented with having kids as soon as possible. I can sympathize with this, but it's not accurate. We're also told in the Baha'i writings that the worst thing a parent to do is fail to educate their children (I'm paraphrasing). Most people take "education" to mean more than putting your kids in school, but that you have to educate your children morally and spiritually. I don't think anyone is ever "ready" to have kids, but you have to at least be willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary. Why are we trying to convince people to breed if they can't take care of their kids? Why do we want selfish, lazy parents in the world?

My life is so much fun right now. So much fun. I have to do what's right for me, regardless of annoying people who project their regrets onto others. Not everyone should get married at 21, and not everyone should have kids at 24. And blogging at three in the morning? You can't do that if you have kids.

This "internet" you speak of . . .

As per the recommendation of Ms. Genious Q. Esquire (Erin) I put my first year books up for sale on Amazon and - voila! - less than 24 hours later 5 out of the 7 books are GONE baby. So if you're really hoping to read you some Civil Procedure for a decent price, I'd get on that ASAP.

The internet is great. My new favorite waste of time is browsing the "wanted" category on Craigslist. It's fun - you get to look at some anonymous blurb about what someone desperately needs and try to extrapolate as much as you can about the person posting. I mean, people are looking for some random items. For example (I swear, these are copied directly from Craiglist):

"WANTED:your non-working electric dryer..."

"I LOOKING FOR WHEELCHAIR ,MY GRANDMOTHER NEED WHELLCHAIR.THANKS."

"Luau decorations needed 4 Beach Party - Free boobs"

And that's just getting started! Another great Craigslist category is "Barter", where instead of saying "I need dead monkeys" a person can post "Will trade ten pound box of glitter for dead monkeys". Here are some of my current favorites:

"TRADE - My SCHOOL BUS for your CONCESSION TRAILER or ???"

"massage for Schlitterbahn tickets"

And my personal favorite Craiglist posting ever (I'll even include the body of the posting because it's just that great):

"Will Trade a Turkey Slicer for One Sticky Midget - Looking for a sticky midget who doesn't drink or smoke, and has had their shots. Must be Catholic and not afraid of water. Yodling is a plus. Serious inquiries only."

I mean . . .what do you even say to that?

Free boobs indeed.

Paint with all the colors of the wind

When Matt said he wanted to go to Old San Francisco Steak House for his birthday I tried to explain about the girl on the swing, and about the brothel-like decor. But he likes to try new restaurants, and we figured it was too late to make reservations at somewhere nice like Ruth's Chris. My description of Old San Francisco didn't change his mind, but when we walked in the door and an old lady in a feather boa asked if it was anyone's birthday Matt looked like he'd just entered the Twilight Zone. My man is good at many things, but hiding his emotions is not one of them, and I think everyone at the restaurant could tell that he was in shock. "What decade is this supposed to be from?" he asked, "and why was that old lady dressed like that?".

And when our eyeliner-clad waiter rewarded out patronage with bread and that ten-pound block of cheese, my lactose intolerant husband actually did a double take. Then he whispered, "Is this a birthday joke you're playing on me? Is that why they asked if it's my birthday?"

When I pointed out that every table had a massive square of cheese and he was convinced that it wasn't some weird birthday prank, he was somewhat mollified.

But then the singing started.

The swing girl didn't have a bad voice, not exactly. She could carry a tune, and she made some brave but foolish attempts to tap-dance while singing jazzy show tunes. We giggled, but we could deal. The other patrons applauded politely when the song finished, and then someone yelled "Another!"

The piano player started up again and Our Lady of the Swing gripped her mic, ready to pelt us with song. "You think you ooooown whatever laaaaand you laaaand oooon", she crooned into the audience, "The earth is just a dead thing you can claaaaaaiiiim." Matt and I looked at each other. "Is this the song from Pocahontas?", I asked incredulously. Matt was starting to laugh, "This is totally out of place. How does this fit at all?"

The Swing Girl kept on torturing us as we giggled through our meal, but she looked affronted when I put in a request for "Baby Got Back", so we tried to keep somewhat quiet. The steak wasn't bad, and personally, I loved the hunk of cheese.

Then we headed home, deftly skipping out on an invitation to go see Dukes of Hazzard. (Why Hollywood executives, WHY?) Saturday night we went to County Line with a motley crew including the newly returned and victorious Alia and Chris, Chris's charming and extremely endearing British friends, Carla and Erik, and, of course, the Giani-Sherrill's. While waiting for a table we hung out on the restaurant's back porch, watching the turtles and listening to live music. At one point the microphone was handed over to a kid who looked about seven. He grinned as he started singing softly and his mother smiled encouragingly. We were all craning our necks and trying to figure out what he was signing when one of the British boys said, "I believe he's signing 'Complicated' by Avril Lavigne." Sure enough.

All in all it was a good, but weird, weekend. Full of random singing. I think maybe this is karma coming to get me, since last week I "helped" Matt stay awake on the drive back to from San Francisco by singing all of the songs from "The Wizard or Oz", complete with character voices for the munchkins.

Happy Birthday Husband

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair . . .

I have a confession. A shocking, sordid confession: I think I've been converted.

No, no! Not my religion, silly. And I'm still a woman, if that was your next question. I'm talking about California - I think I actually like this place. I was okay with Sacramento, with the burbs; they were pretty much just like places in Texas. But yesterday we drove through the hills and over many bridges into the bay area, and eventually parked the car along the water in San Francisco. Some parts of California may be ugly, but San Francisco if beautiful, and the cities around it are almost as beautiful. And the weather is perfect: I could spent every summer day in a comfy creation of sweater-over-tank-top that would take me from 75 degree midday to chilly evening. I could even get use to having loose, windswept curls. And I love the hills, overlooking the water, and the closeness of the homes that you can escape simply by driving a couple miles down to the piers. I love the idea of the openness that everyone says San Francisco is famous for - though we weren't really there long enough for me to find out if that reputation is deserved. I loved the hordes of international tourists that give the waterfront restaurants reason to print menus in at least five languages. I love knowing that, right around the corner from those tourist-oriented restaurants, there's some tiny, unadvertised bakery with the best food you've ever tasted.

And most of all, I love that San Francisco is a city. Austin is wonderful, but I think it'll always feel like a town to me. "City" has connotations with history, with dirty streets and downtown building facades that were built in the thirties. Austin is too new - in some respects - to give me that sense of being in a place that has deep roots. Even San Antonio, with its missions and its crumbling downtown blocks, feels like more of a real city than Austin.

I don't think I'll ever be able to live anywhere that's landlocked and dry. Being in a place with no water, even in Sacramento, makes me feel claustrophobic. Nothing is worse than being in a city that's flat, dry, and fully paved. I may not be the biggest fan of nature, but I don't think I could spent every day with so many layers between my feet and the earth that I forget the earth is even there.