Cashing In

So I love free things... but I also tend to horde my points or stamps or whatever gets me the free stuff. At one point, I was carrying around 6 completed Gorilla Coffee free coffee cards. But Monday, gosh darn it, I was feeling spendy. I took some of my over 80,000 frequent flier miles... and cashed them in for a ticket to New York. And then, THEN, I cashed in 1/6th of my Lexis points for a one-cup coffee maker. I am really making things happen here. Free things, the best kind.

Meanwhile, I have a first draft done of my 14 page Trial Level Brief... which has been quite the ordeal. So I am making that happen... and I guess it's technically free... but nowhere near as exciting as Memorial Day at the beer garden in Queens or efficient coffee-brewing.

Just so the internet doesn't think I am a liar:

I am the most disgusting person on earth.*




*Sorry! By special request of KBLA.

Update

1. It's been 79-80 degrees in Madison the past two days. I kind of love global warming.

2. I have a new bike post and seat. I will now keep my bike indoors, fuckerseatstealers.

3. Being far away, you may not remember my referring to mysterious jamming my thumb about two months ago. Well, today I cut off the nail. Making me, officially, the most disgusting person alive.

Today is THE Day

Boys, you know what I'm talking about. It's the day every girl wears a skirt. Except for me.

March BBQ

CRIME ALERT!

Sometime between 1pm 3/23 and 1pm 3/24, bicycle seat stolen off of mildly inoperable bike (due to being left outside all winter) south of the UW campus in Madison. Asshole responsible should know a) I hate you b) I filed a police report and c) how am I supposed to ride my bike now? I HATE you.

Seriously?

So in Criminal Procedure this morning we were talking about people pleading to crimes and the problems when they often don't understand/aren't told the right they are waiving by doing this (right to a jury trial, confront your accusing, present witnessing in your defense, that kind of thing...) Someone brings up voting-- how if you plead to a felony, in some places, you're giving up your right to vote and isn't that also something someone should be aware of beforehand? So the professor asks the class, "Who thinks losing the right to vote is something a defendant should be aware of when making their decision?" Obviously, I think, everyone raises their hands. Then he asks, "who here votes?" And nearly everyone kept their hands up. And he really seemed shocked. "Really?" Should this be surprising? No, not at all. One should expect a room full of law students to vote. But his reaction made it seem like in his experience, they don't. Anyway, struck me a bizarre.

VOTE! Wisconsin has non-partisan elections coming up (scheduled over the University's spring break... which seems fishy to me...) and so I voted absentee the other day. My decisions may have been poorly informed (I did rely on a conversation about school board candidates I overheard on the bus... but....) I voted. But just once this time.

Milestones

Go little Camry, go!

Homegrown in Minnesota...

Surly Bender...











<-- Surly Furious

Homecoming

I went home last weekend for the first time since Thanksgiving. I realized at some point life was going to keep coming and this was the last chance in awhile. It was a really good weekend, too short like they always are, but some good time with family, old friends and haircut (courtesy of The Most Annoying Stylist Ever at the Aveda Institute. Yes, the haircut was $14 and my mom paid, but seriously, if "Mariah" approaches you at the AI... those two hours of your life are worth more than a bargain bang trim.)
Friday and Saturday night I spent with friends from high school, varying in relationship-- from my wife to ones I haven't seen in a long time. At some point, sitting around the table over a "Surly Furious" (or was it "Surly Bender"? Pictures to follow of me and my namesake beers) I realized I was the only one who wouldn't be married by the end of the year. Which was a strange realization, if only because that's a sea change from these people I met in 1995... The next night we spent at another friend's, who has a beautiful and rambunctious 4.5 yr old. After some roughhousing, she put him down and we all drank, played games and chatted. Everyone else left about midnight and she and I started talking about her upcoming adventure-- moving to California to create a blended family with her boyfriend and his two young children. Wow. I mean, not only is this actually something I know about and felt I could advise on (albeit from a kid's perspective) but... JESUS CHRIST ARE WE GROWING UP. Getting married and having kids is one thing, and something that's shocking as your peers are doing it in your early twenties... but discussing ex-wives and becoming a stepparent... this, I guess, is what is a rightly shocking rite of passage in our late twenties. Late twenties, here we are.

Not so relatedly, this is a post from a blog I read sometimes, and I think it's amazing. And sums up this male-female relationship dynamic problem I couldn't put my finger on myself...

Season Opener

As you, my reading public may be aware, my #1 favorite activity is Drinking Beer Outside. And the season opened yesterday. It was 65 degrees in Madison yesterday and I capped off a day of class, homework, powerwalk in shorts and SHN meeting with some beers at Brats on State Street. It was lovely-- divine. And made me even more excited for summer, as if that were possible. That's what was so great about the past two beautiful days, they didn't feel like freakish Spring teasers... they felt like a little window into summer and the way it will be. Can't wait.

In other news, file under "Simple Pleasures" or "Are you sure Sarah isn't a total moron?," I just discovered something-- buying stamps on the internet. Since I can't seem to make it to the post office... ever... now they'll send me stamps? I never have to leave the house? This is amazing.

Winter Olympics, Superheroes, American Diplomats, Black History, Oklahoma Statehood, Wonders of America, Crops of the Americas, Baseball Sluggers, Sugar Ray Robinson and... RONALD REAGAN? How am I supposed to choose?

Self-Indulgent

I really can't say no to myself. I mean, I could be worse... but...

Pictured is my new favorite thing to love, taken with my new camera, which I also love.

Sometimes I forget

Things I've planned or things I enjoy. Like at 18 I thought about how much I'd like to go to New Orleans, but there was no point in going until I was 21. And then I forgot about it... until Katrina and realized I'd missed my chance to see it how it was. Anyway, I periodically remember PostSecret and go there and enjoy it so much and then forget about it again. But it's kind of nice to remember from time to time and be pleasantly surprised. So, this is me reminding you to go there sometimes. And be amazed and confused and depressed and elated by your fellow human beings.

"Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world"

A blog-worthy dinner...

Arriving home from Trader Joe's, so hungry that I'd spent way more than I should have there, we set about "making dinner." Pre-cooked Rice/Quinoa/Spelt. Check. Pre-cooked Lemon Chicken Breast. Check. Bagged baby spinach and snow peas. Check.

In 2.5 minutes in the microwave, we had a well-balanced, healthful and delicious dinner. Thank you, Joe. Thank you.

Topping it off was the Dulce de Leche Ice Cream. Not healthful and not from Trader Joe's... but certainly delicious.

Walken

Ahead of the curve with my powerwalks... oh yes.

Giving it Up

I do believe that this is the first time in my life I've been aware of people around me not eating meat for Lent. I remember kids growing up giving up candy or swearing or something, and maybe they were eating fish on Fridays... I just don't remember it. And maybe by high school religion wasn't cool. And in college it certainly wasn't cool. And after college, well, I was in New York and hanging around the non-religious-and-cultural-Jews-if-anything-crowd. But now it's everywhere. Giving up meat on Fridays seems a little silly to me, but maybe that's just compared to the other two of the big three (um, Jews fast for 24 hours and don't eat pork or mix milk and meat... and Muslims, man, they don't eat all day for a month. THAT'S hardcore...) Or, because the way I understand it, we're giving things up because Jesus did? I mean, if he died for our sins, don't we owe him a little more than abstaining from Skittles for a month? But this isn't about my religious relativism. It's about how now I've noticed how the whole world is into it-- Taco Bell has special signs that tell you among others things, their cinnamon twists are appropriate for Fridays (because if they weren't... that'd be gross...) and McDonald's has taken out an ad on a street near my house bragging that the Filet-o-Fish is 2/$3 every day, "not just Fridays."
Anyway, the point of this is how out of touch I am with Catholicism. Like when I questioned the man in the bar in Peru, during the selection of the new pope, when he claimed there were a billion Catholics in the world. "No way!" I was wrong. There are a lot of them. Whoops.

For whatever reason

Be it hormones or seratonin or GASP something actually founded in reality... I spent a good portion of last week feeling like I wasn't doing it right. Anything in life, really. From school to relationships (friends, family, everything) I felt like I hadn't been paying attention and all of the sudden realized I was screwing up. But the good news is that in my own way, I think I dealt with it all and rectified it, more or less.
This was a great weekend, Thursday night we spent 6 or so hours, through two bottles of wine and two delicious pizzas (brie and caramelized onions? mmmm...) at Cafe Montmartre and saw a great show. Friday was class, and lazy and some great bargains at REI. Followed by bowling and The Wire. Saturday was some school work and party prep. Saturday night was a blowout, Mardi Gras finally came to pass in Madison.

I think we showed people a good time, definitely got them very drunk (um... I did a keg stand...?) and made about $100 for NOLA... fine, good, whatever. Today was more laziness, chinese food, more Wire and cleanup... and now, I am going to bed at 10pm because while I may have rectified most areas of life, apparently schoolwork still got the short shrift. So I will wake up early tomorrow, like a real person and get on it.

Also, I want a new digital camera. And even with the phenomenal progress I am making with Lexis points, I'm not sure it will happen in time...