monday, the eighteenth of june, two thousand one
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.
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.