monday, the eighteenth of june, two thousand one
Watching: My new DVD, A Few Good Men. I hadn't seen this movie in a while, and fortunately Rob Reiner doesn't talk very much during his commentaries, so I was able to put that on and still pretty much watch the movie. And then I watched it again in French. With Thai subtitles. Because I could.

Still listening: To the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Yes, after all this time. "Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place..."

Reading: The KU Alumni magazine. It had an article about the woman who ended up being the mole on "The Mole," as she is a KU grad. Then it was highlighting other grads who had been on TV, and one of them -- a former Crimson Girl, the Crimson Girls being KU's version of your high school drill team -- was one of the temptresses on "Temptation Island."

Boy. How proud am I.

Dancing: Like a maniac. Check me out. (You know, I actually own that very outfit.)

Participating: In a an online project called Alternative Season 8. It's a bunch of people who were completely dissatisfied with the latest season of The X-Files, so they've gotten together to basically rewrite it, episode by episode. We aren't writing a completely new season (although there are groups that have done so). We're sticking with the basic premises of the episodes that were shown, except to fix what went horribly awry in terms of timeline, the mythology arc, and Mulder and Scully's relationship.

I have been on board in an administrative capacity, sort of coordinating things that need to be coordinated when a bunch of people are trying to do something like this with nothing more than a notify list and a message board. We're getting ready to premiere, though, and I wanted to do my part to promote it, so I'll be mentioning it here from time to time.

Okay, so, I totally did not mean to stay away so long. I couldn't believe that it has been 15 days since my last update. That is sad.

Of course, I have been incredibly busy. And, the medication has been making me really tired at night. But still, this journal is very important to me, and I'm not happy with myself when I neglect it.

However, from now until the end of July, it will likely be more sporadic than usual, probably one entry a week, maybe two if we're lucky. My mother arrives on June 29th, Elise's shower is July 1st, my father arrives on the 2nd, and they don't leave until the 9th. Then the Kansas bar is the 24th and Elise's wedding is the 28th.

Oh, yes, the Kansas bar, woo-hoo. For those of you just joining us, I took the Missouri bar exam last summer, a horrible, exhausting, stomach-churning process that fortunately ended in success. Because the metropolitan area of Kansas City encompasses parts of both states, attorneys who are licensed in both states are generally more marketable. And if I take the Kansas bar now, I only have to take half of it, the state-specific essay day, and I can transfer my Missouri score for the multistate day. If I waited any longer, I'd have to take both days, which would basically mean reliving last summer. Yeah. Like hell.

I've asked around at The Firm, and other attorneys who have done what I'm doing have assured me that I have nothing to worry about. One guy told me he studied a couple of hours a night for two weeks, and that was it.

Well, I'm just all about that. So away I will go to the booming capital of Kansas (that would be Topeka) on that last Tuesday in July, write my little answers, and then come home to spend the rest of the week being the best damn maid of honor anyone ever had.

Elise, by the way, turned 30 last week. She's way old.

Speaking of The Firm, things are going much better. I don't write a lot about work in here, so I can't remember how much you know. You know that I started on New York cases, right? And that those were taken away from us, and I was assigned to Mississippi? Is that ringing a bell?

Anyway, I was on Mississippi cases for a while, but then a couple of them were dismissed and they really didn't need me. So I was doing pretty much nothing for about a week. Then, another analyst quit, so now I'm taking over his caseload, back in the Northeast. The best part is that he was the only analyst on his team, so I will be in complete control of how things are done, at least from my perspective.

But the team itself is a bit scattered at the moment, helping out other teams which are gearing up for several trials that are due to start in the next few months. So currently, I'm moonlighting for the awareness team, which is the team that develops and prepares expert witnesses who testify about the level of awareness of the dangers of smoking for any given time period in any given region of the country. It's been interesting, and I'm just so glad to be busy again.

I had quite the busy weekend, but very little of it is worth mentioning, except what I did on Saturday morning.

The Firm sponsors the KC Metro Special Olympics Softball Tournament, and is completely responsible for staffing the event. A couple of weeks ago, an e-mail went around asking for volunteers, and I signed up.

I know that a lot of people are uncomfortable around the developmentally disabled, and honestly, I can't blame them. I'm certain that the only reason I'm not is because I have a cousin who has a host of disabilities caused by a premature birth. I was only about eight years old when he was born, so he's been around for most of my life, and I've spent enough time with him to be at the point where I know I don't see what everyone else sees when they look at him.

I mean, he's funny looking. He just is. His jaw didn't develop fully so he has almost no chin. He cannot straighten his arms because his elbow joints didn't form correctly. He makes noises that resemble words, but he's deaf, so you can only understand what he's saying if you know what he's trying to say. He signs, but his thumbs don't bend, so again, you can only understand him if you know his sign language.

He's very high-functioning in some areas. He used to kick my ass at Nintendo. He obsesses over cars, and used to write long, long e-mails describing every feature of the car he wanted me to buy. Every time he sees me, the first thing he asks is if I'll drive his mom's car. If I say yes, then he'll be so happy, he'll squeeze the breath out of me with his hug.

But he can't prepare his own meals, or pick out his own clothes. He is prone to violent temper tantrums that no one can figure out how to prevent because no one can figure out what causes them. A doctor once told my aunt that he believed that my cousin has just enough self-awareness to become blindingly frustrated at his limitations.

But I digress. My point is, I can see myself being extraordinarily uncomfortable around someone like my cousin had he not been my cousin. So I understand why people would choose not to volunteer for something like the Special Olympics, and that was why I did.

And I understand how people could look at those players and see something sad, someone living a lesser life. The trick is to look at them and see their joy, their happiness, their love. It's not less than ours. It's just different.

One girl got up to the plate, and she was so happy to be up there, she completely forgot to swing. She just stood there, giggling. You help them out when you can, obviously. When they connect with the pitch and the ball stays fair, you yell, "Run! Run!" And they run like the wind, or sometimes not, and sometimes they don't get anywhere near the base, and sometimes they run well wide of it and then beyond it. Sometimes they forget to drop the bat. Sometimes their own teammate, running from second to third, will stop and field the ball instead.

And none of it matters, because they don't care about winning or losing. They are just so happy to be playing.

That's not less. It might even be more.