the burden of "plain english"

 "In my house, anyone who uses one word when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard enough" --President Bartlett. 

More often than not, I torture the English language with unintended ironies (see use of "insidious" is previous post).  Also, I'm so concerned with PC details that i ignore trivial things like spelling and grammar all together.  ("Go-to...guy?  The problem with English.  Guy's wrong, gal is patronizing and person sounds arch" Leo).  The room to improve, however, is a challenge, and I'd like to think that in a society that is so content with par, that has recently added "meh" to the dictionary in a revealing stroke of our need for another word to describe that which we are unwilling to learn a "real" word for, we who care about the language can raise the bar in this area.  Our language, though useless on my legal resume' (in which i am claiming to be "proficient" in both spanish and french...heh), is amazing, and should be employed in all its variations and eccentricities.  (see "The Professor and the Madman").  Let me explain...

I finished reading Sense and Sensibility this morning, and the same thing that happens every time I read Austen is happening again.  I begin to think in Victorian-Brit prose.  I wrote a letter to my landlord this morning, and inquired as to whether the handyman who used to do some work for him was "still in your employ?" In his employ???  I'm writing this to a guy who has done his share of drugs, and then some, and the evidence of such is reflected in every conversation we have.  Usually, I say something like, Hello Mr. E___, this is Katie Campbell who lives at your property on G___ Street", and he says, "er. uh-huh??" (btw, this man drives a Porsche).  That's the end of any semblance of understanding, and I end up adopting a tone I imagine should be reserved for three years olds, if i knew any.  

Employment of thesauruses (thesauri??) is also discouraged in my current educational sphere.  I was perusing a graded assignment of mine today, and couldn't miss the word "heretofore" circled, with like a thousand lines through it, as if it was some sort of nasty racial slur.  I get that it isn't a popular word, but my motto is that for all words, there is a time and a place (a season, turn, turn), even for the most sesquipedalian among them (See "The Professor and the Madman" again, please).  Also, heretofore means exactly what it sounds like!  Unfortunately, the current trend in legal writing is to use "plain English" at all costs.  bleah.  plain english is boring, it's over-simplified, it's vanilla, it's Governor Rob Ritchie--"good for all time zones."  Why not cater our speech to the subject matter, rather than to the lowest common denominator?  Why should we, who are (supposedly) capable of memorizing the entire Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, be discouraged from devoting a few extra lines to making it sound a bit more palatable?  Must we banish art from our language, as it has been banished from all recent National Budgets? (a topic for another blog, to be sure...)

Perhaps utilizing polysyllables disenfranchises those who have not had the opportunity to get an advanced education.  Perhaps it is more generous to allow legal writing and conversations with one's landlord be accessible to all.  I think this is a worthy argument, but I also think that raising the bar invites everyone to be challenged by it.  And paying for education in those we seek to write for is surely a better plan for equality than limiting our writing to hackneyed terms and turns of phrase.

Bryce just told me that Google released it's top ten searches for 2008.  Brittany Spears and World Wrestling beat President-elect Obama in the number 1 and 2 slots.  The other seven are mostly hot women, some significantly under the age of 20, and all richer than we will ever dream of being.  What does this say about us?  Probably nothing we don't already know:  we're a broke, lazy, self-serving nation of people who all think they can be President (well, at least Vice President) passing out guns and U.S. weekly like they are candy, and eating candy like we have a damn tapeworm (i wish).  

It seems to me that America has very few options left for redemption.  Perhaps by improving our language, we will improve ourselves.  It's worked for Pres-e. Obama so far...god, I hope he keeps the thesaurus out for the next eight years.   

Redemption song

or should i say, redemption quotes.  To redeem that ill-reputed holiday, Thanksgiving.  I'm currently enduring my last week of class for the semester (hooray) and counting down the seconds until we get to leave for Abilene, and a delightful 12 hour drive, from which I will emerge smelling of sweat, cheetos, and probably dog, but I am still dying to go.  In honor of this excitement, I've decided to forgive Thanksgiving for it previous transgressions.  

I started hating Thanksgiving when I was a freshman in college. The dorms would be empty by noon on Tuesday, and there I was, one lonely girl with a mass of yellow hair (a disastrous attempt at self-bleaching) sitting on a pile of clothes in the filthiest room in Gardner.  My mom was working at UTMB, which didn't close school until Wednesday afternoon, and since we had our Thanksgiving in Abilene, I sat and waited (and ate, one can only assume) for 36 hours until they arrived.  Some variation on this pathetic scene happened every year for the duration of my undergrad career. 

Certainly I made this waiting period more painful than it needed to be.  I had family in Abilene, but I wasn't in a socialize-with-extended-family place at the time. (well, not everything has changed.  I'm being dragged by the poorly shorn hair to the Campbell thanksgiving this year.)   Also, it was such a relief to be free of my crazy fuck of a freshman roommate, that it was nice for the first few hours.  Well, anyway, whether or not you think this merits a full blown hatred of the holiday, it happened, and there's more where that came from.  Plus, I'm slow to relinquish a grudge.  

However, this year I am going to make peace with this redundant holiday (we have a turkey at christmas, too, don't you?  so what's the big damn deal?  I'd rather have a second drinking holiday, like New Years, or Wednesday) by presenting aloud all of the wrongs Thanksgiving has wrought upon me (um, and also the Indians, I think) and by washing them away with a cornucopia of West Wing quotations. 

Anyway, because even I can't present a ten page post of WW quotes, I'll present these Thanksgiving treats in a few parts.  The reasons I can love thanksgiving again.  

CJ, to Toby and Sam: "Have either of you heard of the Jamestown Mayflower Daughters of the American Revolution Preservation Society?"

Toby: "The Jamestown Mayflower Daughters..."

CJ: "I may have gotten the name wrong. They're inviting the White House to participate in some kind of Thanksgiving Revolutionary War Reenactment"

Toby: "CJ, let's not torture American History completely to death...Jamestown was the 16th century, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth in the 17th century, the Fathers of the Daughters of the American Revolution fought in the 18th century!!!"

CJ: "Its a festival-feast of some kind! Who cares??"

Sam: "Somebody needs to learn the true meaning of Thanksgiving"

CJ: "Reenactments and proclamations and Native American corn-husk hanging ceremonies..."

--a festival-feast.--corn-hust hanging.  har har har. 

and one tragedy from freshman year floats into the land of the forgiven...

The Beginning...

Mary Marsh: "you don't pray to any god I pray to, not any god I pray to" 

Josh: "Lady, the god your pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud"

whoever it is you pray to, be it Aaron Sorkin, god of writing, or SJP, goddess of fashion, be it Tolkien, or Rowling,  Locke or Hobbes, the inventor of Nutella or the creator of white bread (both of whom i've been devoting a lot of thought to lately), or you know, actually God, please, please submit your appeal for a new beginning for the U.S. at their feet today. and by new, i don't mean an old, white diminish-er of the estate tax and the dignity of women, gays, and ethnic minorities.  

"I am the Lord your God"--Bartlet.  damn right. 

"it's legislative gay bashing"

-President Bartlet. Seems to be a lot of that going around now, eh?

If my strict adherence to heterosexual monogamy (see evidence of such all over bhousen's comment page) is the most conservative thing about me, i feel it necessary to reclaim my forward-thinking status with a quick post on my most liberal belief, at least by the currently low standards for such things, one that even the current rash of HOPE-ful dems refuse to touch. No, it's not my devotion to PBS and NPR, though if stereotypes make us, my source of entertainment has placed me firmly in the seriously socialist camp.
(incidentally, the WW episode in which Toby defends PBS is delightful. "In the meantime, a time when the public is rightly concerned about the impact of sex and violence on TV, this administration is gonna protect the Muppets! We're gonna protect Wall Street Week, we're gonna protect Live from Lincoln Center, and by God, we are going to protect Julia Child!" **love** okay, onward...)
Last weekend, as I was giving Bryce a really professional(-ish) looking haircut in our kitchen, and while listening, per above, to NPR, i heard something that made me so mad. (Holy, righteous anger being the new theme of this blog...delightful, eh?) Some complete arse from South Dakota, or one of about twelve rectangle shaped states that I don't give a damn about, and so mentally interchange oftener than not, was speaking out about the not-rights of gays and lesbians to adopt. Unsurprisingly, there is a ballot initiative to prevent "singles" from adopting, itself a ludicrous idea, made altogether more insidious by the fact that it has been openly acknowledged to be aimed at potential gay parents. He said, (essentially, but the quotes make it look more powerful) "Gay adoption is just another tool the gay community is wielding to fulfill its goal of world domination" or some shit. He did actually say that "gays are using children to forward their radical gay agenda," and, of course, didn't pass up the chance to allude to the children being abused. If Bryce wasn't my only friend, but instead some conservative i was giving this haircut, i may have stabbed him in the neck from outrage.

Even before my conversion away from the fanatical-blindness of my childhood, I had a firmly "liberal" stance on this issue. I remember being the only person in my sophomore Ethics course who was willing to provide the counter-argument for gay adoption; counter, at ACU, being against keeping children protected from that sinful environment. (Thank you, Dr. Trevathan, for making me talk in class...um and also for being my hero). I just honestly don't understand this line of thinking--"it alludes me" (CJ, on how a father might be embarrassed that his murdered son was gay). here's why i don't get it:

Josh "studies show children grow up best with a mother and a father" Amy: "studies show children grow up best with parents who Love Them."

Coming from a traditionally American unhappy home, I know exactly what its like to have one charming, lovely, loving, and one cold, controlling, son of a bitch for parents. Actually, this 50/50 split probably puts me at a significant advantage compared to many. Let's reimagine my childhood dreams of sugar-plums and divorce, and consider what those dreams would have looked like if i knew gays existed. (we weren't allowed to watch much tv. um, or see movies. er, or look at people with beer-slogans on their attire) Two moms? Dream come fucking true!!!

Seriously, when i think about the number of children for whom one or both of their parents didn't want them, i cannot fathom why we would not provide the opportunity for every couple/individual who sincerely wants a child, and who is willing to go through the agonizing adoption process and submit to screenings and interviews and eternal waiting periods to raise a child who needs them. I wish I could talk to this doltish-Dakotan and make him listen to reason, or better yet, to the laundry list of issues i now have from growing up in a straight, anglo, church 3-5 times a week, middle class home and see if they fit with how he imagines parenting "by a man and a woman" is supposed to turn out.

It makes me sad that our current crop of "liberal" democrats aren't doing more to address this issue. okay, aren't doing anything. When i saw Joe Biden outright agree with Sarah Palin about their stance on gay issues in the VP debate, I practically turned off the tv. ( and i would have, but it's a new kind that i don't know yet). I'll be voting for Obama, because I think he will be fantastic. Leaders--like the one he can potentially be--are exactly what will allow for change in this area. And I also know that there are many harms that need healing in the US, and he has the ability to begin that process. But i wish, i HOPE, that his administration will take the stand for gay issues that needs to be taken.
AMEN.

p.s. okay, i just looked it up. it was arkansas, which isn't so much a rectangle, as it is a stinking hell-hole shape.

update...

for those of you who enjoyed/had your blood boiling after reading "bitch?bastard?" about my delightful rapist-loving classmate, guess what: the lengths woman-hating can go have been streeeeeeeetched even further.  

Yesterday, during a (really, really fascinating) lecture on the death penalty, B/B? asked the teacher "why so few women receive the death penalty?"  The teacher explained that statistically, far fewer women enact first degree murders of the type that Texas (which represents at least 1/3 of killings per year) and the other shitty states are willing to convict.  (Note: these states are also way more likely to convict a black person of killing a white one...surprise!)  Anyhow, she? went on to say that she thinks that the reality is that "women are getting off the hook just because they are women" and that "tons" of women kill their children and they don't get executed.  The teacher cautiously mentioned that those child-killing women are mentally ill, and even the U.S. doesn't kill those with extreme/debilitating mental illness.  (on the other hand, almost every person on death row has some mental illness) B/B? seem miffed by this unwillingness to crack down.

helloween

I have the worst time with halloween. This is likely because there is no episode of the West Wing that addresses the holiday. I've looked. I've said I'll go to a halloween party this year, which was my first mistake, and so I now find myself at the yearly heart-pounding crossroads: what the hell am I going to be?
There are many elements about me that cause this deathly fear, not least is how ridiculous a 6 foot tall bumble bee appears; nevertheless, let's examine another of my contentions with el dio de me muerto -- The sluttiness of the costumes. I know this may be a hackneyed topic, but I have recently been made startlingly aware of just how far the skank factor can be taken on halloween. We received an ad for a costume store in the neighborhood, and here are some of the more unique examples of what i saw in the way of women's options: A virtual menagerie of lewdly rendered polyester.
Of course there's the typically slutty: nurse, playboy bunny, devil, etc, and the animal slutty: bunnies, kitties, puppies, butterflies, and something that looks strangely like a skunk. Also, there's the usual professional-looseness: Skanky military woman (ha...yeah right), doctor, chauffer, slutty baseball player (ironically, none of these professions are exactly dominated by women...maybe the cross-dressing adds kink)
But the following are true gems:
Host of historical whores: Cleopatra, Pocahontus, Florence Nightingale, Trojan warrior woman wearing less than Brad Pitt.
The Unbelievably specific skank: bavarian barmaid pre-WWII, vampiress who seems to only drink bunny blood, Gothic-neo-flapper-animagus who turns into a bat.
In the midst of the photo of all these women, there is a man wearing a banana suit. yep.

Anyway, my primary point is, HELP! I need some genuine suggestions. Thanks.

white or left

CJ: You want to lock up everybody with a white sheet?
Toby: Yes, I do! Yes, I do. Who has a problem with that?

I know my faithful reader will hear this story with relatively little shock, taking an "i told you so" posture for the rest of the blog. That's fine, because I get it, i really do, but I was shocked.

So, I'm walking home from a reception at school on Friday evening, feeling pret-ty proud of myself for sticking out a voluntary social event, and not making an ass of myself. Now granted, I abstained from both food and beer solely in an effort to kept myself from spilling, or creating any number of food related disasters that only i could produce. Additionally, I was wearing my favorite gray wool dress and would have been feeling utterly fab had i not, from effort of maintaining a cool, relaxed outward appearance, sweat right through the damn thing. In the end, I had to leave just in order to go out into the frigid cold and dry off.
As I was walking home, delighted with my escapade into the world of people-who-talk-to-each-other-for-fun-and-also-sometimes-leave-the-house-for-same, I decided to check my email. The email that comes to my phone is from my old ACU account because, while i am a sick conspicuous consumer for having a phone with email, i don't actually know how to work any of my fancy belongings.
In an email from Royce Money, esteemed President of my alma matter x 2, i gathered the following:
-Sometime this semester, in a racist demonstration, someone hung a noose in the ACU courtyard.
-ACU has not found or punished this person
-ACU has reacted by sending councilors to speak to classes and chapel.

I am shocked. Speechless (at the time, its been a few days). I know it isn't difficult to believe, because often ACU is a fundamentalist haven for "Christians" who have rejected the apathy of their mothers and fathers, who were content to be secluded from the "world" on that bless'ed hill, and embraced their first amendment right to believe that the snail's pace with which ACU has attempted to diversify is a bridge too far, shouting out like Homer Stokes, friend of the little man, "that's not my culture and he'tage!"
This act insults and offends me.
It insults the good memories I have of ACU -- i met every person i really like there. (I also met my nemeses (plural?) there, and i love having nemeses)
It makes me feel guilty for telling my 8 black students last semester that "things at ACU are getting better" and that "you guys can change the attitudes here". oh, my bad you guys. you should probably get out as fast as you can.
I am concerned that I'll never get a job in the public sector with this burning cross imprinted on my resume.
It offends me that this is just another example of Christians behaving reprehensibly, making me feel bitterer toward religion at large at a time when I think believing in something would be so lovely.

I want Christians to quit with the feckless attempts to reproach hatefulness after the fact, and start teaching the love and peace and justice that are buried under centuries of ambition and aggression. Stop disciplining students for not confining their sex lives to "everything-but", or for being attracted to members of the same sex, or drinking responsibly, and start encouraging them to open their minds, even an inch. "Change the World" in-fucking-deed.

I began with the West Wing quote because I agree with Toby. I know freedom of speech means for everyone, about everything, but i can't help it. Leo tells President Bartlett that his belief in moral imperatives is the most horrifying part of his liberalism. Well, while it may be disturbing to some, and it certainly causes plenty of arguments between myself and Bryce, I think there are moral imperatives. Hateful acts are not okay, and war is not okay, and injustice is not okay. Though i may regret it later, I say, lock 'em up, and to hell with speech. The bastards deserve it.

reason #27 to stay in school...

i've really taken to some of the domestic chores.  when we moved to denver, i decided to be proper granola and hang my clothes out to dry.  It is really quite soothing.

today i asked bryce to put in a load of laundry.  he called upstairs a few minutes later to ask where the laundry detergent was.  geez, i thought, its right there on the washer...how typical of a man to ask that.

i tromped downstairs and pointed at the laundry detergent.  bryce said, no, that's fabric softener.  no, i reply, the fabric softener is the small purple bottle.  the big one is obviously detergent.  i pick it up to read it, and see, in tiny print at the bottom "fabric softener". damn.

turns out, i've been washing our clothes in fabric softener for three months.  awesome. 

i'll stick to law, i suppose. 

Here comes the good part...

i have a confession to make.  I've never seen Hotel Rwanda.  To make matters worse, i have never finished Schindler's List.  and as it stands right now, i shan't watch them. ever.  If you are thinking this is about to be a blog about my white-hooded hatred for oppressed peoples, please read on.  

The driving force that elicit's this confession is the same that will sentence me to 5-10 years of graduate work -- an honest and sincere passion for disenfranchised peoples, and a desire to do something about it.  It isn't the plot of those films that leads me to insist to netflix that i do Not want to see those movies, and stop recommending them to me, dammit. Because netflix knows.  It knows that every time i see President Niballa tell President Bartlet "my people are dying" i burst into tears.  But i cannot bear violence in film.  not anymore.

During my freshman year of college, there was an onslaught of films about war.  Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers, Windtalkers...you name it, and i saw it.  I don't think it was my genre of choice at the time, but nevertheless...Some time between 2001-2 and now, I became world's biggest violence wuss, and now Bryce and I won't see a movie that isn't more or less about magic, happiness, and good-natured humor. Tonight I asked Bryce why he thinks we can't abide violence in the movies, and he said that film is the wrong genre.  He doesn't want all of his senses to be exposed to such horrors (hope i'm paraphrasing you okay, boo).  well, we are book people.

I agree with this assessment, but I have a few theories of my own I'd like to throw out:

1. I'm just an ol' softie: not solely in the apparently-built-from-cylindrical-marshmallows sense, either. I've lost any tough exterior I once was able to maintain.  I basically employ one, very mushy, pattern of speech around the house now, my "bear" voice, whom I call "baby bear" often as not, and Bryce now thinks I'm losing my nerve and probably my mind.  This voice is an apt symbol of the wimp within.

2. Naseau: its not easy to stuff [massive] fistfulls of popcorn into one's mouth while watching someone's face being blown off.  I'm from the Cookie-monster school of movie snacking (the old cookie monster, before kids got so fat that he had to start pushing moderation on his viewers and eating an apple between nibbling on a bite-sized cookie...the sellout) 

3. nightmares: see post number two about my desperate need to avoid all that is scary.  And, if you ask Bryce, he will attest to the fact that the things I will not watch before bed, all of which fit under the heading "scary", include movies with battles, bad accents, religious fanaticism, weapons, mean people, bad people, ugly people, monsters (not to be confused with fantastic beasts, with whom i have no quarrel), death, depression, or an even remotely ominous soundtrack. 

4. I'm turning into my mother: Her name is Heather, her nickname is Feather, and not just because of her spindly appearance and the fact that i've knocked her over on more than one occasion with my wild storytelling gesticulations. The only movie she's been known to watch that included violence was The Last of the Mohicans, and you'd countenance violence too for shots of Daniel Day Lewis's naked torso and a good bit of old fashioned romance if you were married to Paul.

This being said, I'd like to proffer a short list of films that are welcome into my west-wing player at night, or really any time. 

1. O Brother Where Art Thou. "i'm the goddamned paterfamilias" = ecstatically happy.

2. Stardust.  If you haven't seen it, or have been passing it up at the movie store because the cover looks like some remake of an 80's Willow-esque tragedy (i know some people like it.  well, i don't like them) then stop passing and just get it.  there's magic, there's romance, there's Robert De Niro playing a delightful cross-dresser. 

3. Stranger than Fiction. so beautifully shot. so delightfully humorous.  maggie gyllenhaal plays a law school dropout who runs a bakery. my heart overfloweth. 

4. When Harry Met Sally: In 1989, the protagonist of a film was able to proposition sex in the first five minutes, then go on to be crass and crude for 85 more minutes, and still win our hearts.  hooray. 

5. Charlie Wilson's War:  some may say, whoa, whatabout the bad accent clause of the nighttime contract-- i say, you haven't lived in Abilene, TX. Charlie Wilson is a treat, and the fact that it is written by Aaron Sorkin (god of West Wing writing) means it is absolutely unmissable.  

All of the aforementioned get better with repeated viewings, allowing me to declare at intervals, and with all the alacrity of President Bartlett viewing Dial M for Murder, "here comes the good part!"

bitch? bastard?

There is a girl in my class who used to be a man.  maybe not physically, but certainly she has some strange mental link...she's channeling a good-ol-boyish misogynation in a way that is so bizarre, so unbelievable, that i am considering turning her over to Mulder (not least because i think he's super hot).  As of this moment, s/he has pissed me off for the last time, and shall suffer the wrath of my blog...damn, that's harsh, i know...

A few weeks ago, the truth began to slip out.  (ha) She stated in class that women can't be held to a reasonable person standard, which sucks for us, because its like 90 damn percent of the law.  "They (and she did say "they", not we.  hmmm...) are illogical", and basically completely addled by their own breasts.  Amusingly, the 49% of our class who are women looked fit to be tied.  Their tubes that is, in order to obtain some logic, and free themselves from the flawed reasoning created by their lady-bits.

  In an act of wild contrast (of the sort women are prone to) s/he has periodically stood up for some "women's" issues, specifically the rights of children. Don't let this assuage you...I'm sure s/he is aware of the possibility that those kids will grow up to be men and hateful wo-men. 

Anyhow, the straw that broke this hearty camel's back, and initiated this in-class posting, was five minutes ago when s/he made a passionate plea for the rights of rapists.  "how can men receive justice under a system that is so willing to convict for rape" (see previous post about truth of this statement)  Poor men, who as of 1983 could grab a woman in a park, rape her, and then if she didn't resist "enough", because, unlike some of us, this woman weighed about 85 lbs, could walk out of court and climb back into their hole. 

Besides this reactionary post, i can only hope that this liberal situs will excoriate this (bitch? bastard?) and will run her? out on a rail. 

Our teacher just ended class by saying, rather pointedly, i believe, that women are harder on rape victims than men, and much less likely to convict a rapist.  "women"...harrumph. 

Shibboleth

As I was riding my bike home from the gym tonight, standing up on the pedals, once again the conquering heroine of the lifecycle, and listening to one of my favorite sigur ros songs, attempting, rather poorly, to sing along (it was 11 pm. i'd never sing in public, but at that hour, i'm sure the neighbor's just thought it was some dog crying), I got out my phone to call Bryce.  This is my nightly routine when Bryce is away. I leave the gym, call Bryce (who lives/works 3 days a week in Nebraska) and then, while on the phone, I proceed to check the entire house for intruders.  He listens patiently as I stoop to look under the bed and the table, open closet doors, and pull back shower curtains, waiting for some lunatic to pop out.  I guess I think when this happens, I'll say, "sorry, no rape/burglary/murder for you tonight because I'm on the phone with my husband", and the thwarted ax murderer will turn tail and run.  

Why the hell do i do this?  I would not describe myself as a fearful individual.  I mean, in other circumstances, I don't conjur images of death and disaster all day.  I typically picture myself impervious to such harms, a privaldge that is jusitified by the fact that I am one half Amazon, and at least a quarter Wolverine (the healing powers, you know...).  Nevertheless, I find that my typically bear-like sleep cycles can be invaded by the sound of a squirrel outside or the faintest gust of wind against the window.  

In my criminal law class, we've just begun a chapter on rape.  Let me summarize what I've learned so far: In our society, which has condoned, and even encouraged, male aggressive behavior, a woman who has been victimized has traditionally had to prove that she used every means available to fight off said attacker, and if there was a telephone in the room and she somehow didn't contrive to excuse herself from the rape-in-progress and call the cops, she is probably lying, or even more likely, invited this action.  In addition, apparently men cannot interpret signs of reticence, and more often find statements like, "no thank you, no, no, no" to be coy demurrers from clever seductress (see Mr. Collins proposal to Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice).  Oh, and the condescending title "date-rape" is really used to indicate legal suspicion that the woman should have had a few less tequilas.  

Studies indicate that the number of victimized women on college campuses could be as many as 1/2.  (studies vary widely on these numbers because the nature of rape is such that it is much more painful to confess than victimization by any other crime). Maybe this is why my fear has increased over the years.  Now that I've been in college for half my life, it seems that my chances are getting worse.  I don't mean to make light of this, but I do need to be able to sleep tonight.  

Is it possible that men need some kind of Shibboleth, a test that indicates when a woman is telling the truth? Do we really need to start saying, "oh yes, please, I wholeheartedly commit to this excellent prospect" in order to begin creating helpful legal distictions? Is it even feasible that our legal system supports this kind of thinking, making women out to be some kind of sphynx, speaking in riddles that baffle the minds of would-be attackers?  Can we really not hold rapists accountable for speaking a 3 year old's level of english? 

My main question is, how will being a lawyer allow me to allocate justice for the things I most want to change, when the current legal bar has been set so low, i can't even look at it (Leo). 

the voice of the people is the voice of a dog...er, god.

I am beginning this blog after three years and at least two new year's resolutions declaring my intentions to do so. I'd like it to be an accounting of my years in Denver, and, obviously, to create an outlet for my incessant west wing references.  I think Bryce will be relieved.  As I am sure that the only people who will read it will be those who have a legal duty to care about what i think (Bryce, Audrey, Heather), I don't plan to have a purpose...it's just for things i think are funny/absurd and the occasional political/social rant.  I'll begin with some brief vignettes of my life here, which can be summarized thus: Bear, pie, Bryce, school.

School: I was afraid it would be hard for me to make friends at school. I've lost any social skills I may have once had, making my first days of orientation terrifying, and I doubt that my post-depression puffiness and constant air of standoffish-ness was doing much to ingratiate me with my peers.  In addition, this (relatively, i know, i know...) f-ing cold climate has manifested in a sublime pallor that leaves me looking perpetually ill, a fact which led to the following:

Today, as I walked into school, still sweating from my four minute bike ride, swinging a bag that weighed more than Bear, and paler than ever, I conjured an image of how horrifying i must look.  Horrifyingly frightening.  This, combined with my status as the only person in a class of 300ish who went to an evangelical christian school led me to imagine the students scampering out of my wake because, to them, I looked like some sort of bizarre granola-albino (chacos, beatles  tshirt, freshly highlighted white bangs), coming to the law school to mete out some Da Vinci Code-esque retribution on this hub of liberal academia, with my timbuk2 bag full of stones to impose the lord's wrath upon them. 

I know it's a weird image, but it has been making me laugh all day.

An amusing quote from today:

Hillary (in a grocery store): agh, some child is screaming in the next aisle.

Me: that's what happens with kids.  They lure you into thinking they are cute, and just when you might consider having one, they turn around and bite you in the ass.

Hillary: Well, i've decided that it's only the annoying people who have annoying kids.

I suppose its as good a justification as any.