A Woman in Law School

Yesterday I was having my brakes worked on, which meant I sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half. I came prepared with some reading so I was good. I did not realize that other people also come prepared to sit. In fact one guy brought his knife sharpening kit. Yeah. And sat there sharpening his knives. I'll admit I was a little freaked out, but the noise killed me! It sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Give me a break dude! I suppose I should just be glad they were knives and that he wasn't cleaning his gun, which I'm sure he could've gotten away with as well. Oh the joys of living in a red state!

While keeping up on blawgs I was happy to see that I'm not the only one cleaning out my social networking sites. Yesterday I chose to delete people I haven't talked to or who I was just lingering in their general "collection" of friends. I have been thinking a lot about social networking sites in general. I came to the conclusion that I want to use them as they're meant to be used--for keeping in touch and networking. Not networking as in, "Hey we met last night, we had some laughs so I thought I would add you." No, that just doesn't cut it anymore. Especially with the internet's ability to quickly turn the private into the public.

I've learned that I want to network the old fashioned way. You know, where you actually stay in touch and up-to-date with the people you know because you 1) want to, and 2) never know when that relationship can come in handy (need a good plumber? need a reference?). So I took a look at my friends and for the most part deleted anyone that I wouldn't or couldn't pick the phone up and call. I edited my schools to list only those I've graduated from and so that current students can't search other current students for my law school. This way they will basically have to type in my name to find my private page.

From now on I will try my best to only "friend" those that fall into the above description and remind myself that law school is not void of immaturity and competition.

I suppose this is just one of many small steps I'll be making toward becoming a more professional individual. Which kinda sucks because...

I watch movies. In fact, it's all I watch since we don't have cable or get digital reception due to proximity to the mountains. And now, once a week dear readers, you'll be getting a sample of movie quotes from films I've recently watched. Let's call them Movie Moments, or MoMo for short. So go grab some popcorn, or tomatoes, or whatever.

This week's pic is High Fidelity.

Barry: [performing at the record release party] Rob, thank you for that kind introduction. We're no longer called Sonic Death Monkey. We're on the verge of becoming Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but just for tonight, we are Barry Jive and his Uptown Five.

Rob: I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here - mostly young men - who spend all their time looking for deleted Smith singles and original, not rereleased - underlined - Frank Zappa albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them.

Rob: The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway... I've started to make a tape... in my head... for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done.

Barry: Rob, I'm telling you this for your own good, that's the worst fuckin' sweater I've ever seen, that's a Cosby sweater.
[Imitating Cosby]
Barry: A Cosssssssby sweater. Did Laura let you leave the house like that?

And this beauty of a conversation:

Craigslist amazes me. A-MAZES ME! I posted some crap two hours ago and POOF! It's NOW GONE! I think tomorrow I'll post some more crap and see how long it takes for it to magically sell. The weird thing is I posted random crap. Like crap people don't normally use this time of year and yet it's gone! HOORAY! Less shit to move next month!

The last time I tried to become a new resident of a state it took FOREVER! My application was actually denied twice. They were confused as to why I didn't own a vehicle. Certainly you must drive!--they said. No, that's what the bus is for. Then they wanted to know all this parent crap that did not pertain to me, nor my age. The whole process still does not sit well with me.

Now that I'm officially moving from this shit-hole of a state I have to start the residency process all over again. So here is what I did today, I went and renewed my driver's license for the state I live in today. It had been expired for about six months. The clerk at the grocery store was always keen to remind me when I bought beer. I played dumb every time and it became our little game. He knew what was up and I still got my beer. Now I don't know about where you live but here you've pretty much have to get to the DMV at 8am to have a chance of getting anything in under an hour or possibly that day. At 7:55 I was about the 30th person there but having mad line skillz I quickly jumped in when the announcement for "numbers" came. BOOYAH! Number 10!!

So the clerk asked me why it took so long for me to renew my license and I told her I was moving to a new state. She asked why I was getting it renewed and I told her that if I had a valid license, the new state wouldn't make me take a driving test. Yep, I was paying to avoid parallel parking. You'd consider it too if you saw my lack of skillz. She asked when I was going to get my new state license and I said tomorrow. Yep, today I got a driver's license and tomorrow I'm going to get another one! So, tomorrow after a long day of driving I will officially be one step closer to new state residency! Take that out-of-state tuition!

I just finished reading The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. I would recommend it to anyone wanting a better understanding of the Supreme Court. The book covers 1968-1975 which saw the death of Justice Black, retired Chief Justice Warren, and the resignations of Fortas, Harlan, and Douglas. Woodward is an excellent writer who made the cases seem alive even though they're almost forty years old.

It's also a fun read. At one point I was reading how Justice Douglas left the hospital (he had a stroke) and went shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch. All I could picture was an old man in the store as we know it today. I can't possibly imagine what the store was like back then.

The following conversation occurred while shopping in a crowded Deseret Industries thrift store.

Kel's sister: Hey, you want a Magic Bullet?

Kel: Only if it's a vibrator.

Kel's ma: Yeah, like YOU need one.

Kel: What's that supposed to mean?



*Deseret Industries is a Mormon-run enterprise.