Weird things I eat.

I must eat certain foods only when they are symmetrical.

McDonald's Egg McMuffins- The canadian bacon slice must be shifted to the other side of the egg from the cheese. Because the ham and the cheese are both mainly sweet and salty, and the egg is mainly savory and sour. So the ham and the cheese must be separated.

Cupcakes- if no one is watching, I must split the cupcake down the middle, horizontally, then put the bottom half on top of the frosting.

Other things I must eat in ways that no one else will eat them:

I eat all cereal dry. Especially plain cheerios. And corn flakes.

I eat my hot dogs plain. But I can't eat hot dogs alone, because I only like plain hot dogs when they've sat next to hot dogs with everything on them.

I add uncooked tomatoes to pasta right before I eat it.

When I get a mocha, I get the espresso on the side, down it quickly, then drink the milk and mocha syrup like a hot chocolate.


And there are somethings that I won't eat that are paradoxically similar to things I will eat.

I won't eat american cheese, ever, except on cheeseburgers, but I will eat cheetos, doritos, and mac n cheese. I won't even eat grilled cheese made with american cheese.

I won't eat fettucine, angel hair, spaghetti, fusilli, or linguine; but I will eat penne, farfalle, rigatoni, shells, and ziti. I will not eat ziti without lines, or elbow macaroni, except in mac n cheese.

I won't eat white rice, but will eat fried rice, rice pilaf, cous cous, and basmati rice (but only at restaurants)

I won't eat ham, ever. Or salami. Or pepperoni. Or balogna, but I will eat pork loin, bacon, smoked shoulder, and pulled pork.

I won't eat baked beans, ever. I will eat refried beans, black beans, pinto beans, and chickpeas.

I buy microwave popcorn, unbuttered flavor, and add my own butter at home.

I buttered my french fries in college.

Let's make a separation, kiddies.

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$1545

That's my expected yearly contribution to my legal education.
Yes, I'm poor. Very, very poor.

And this time, it makes me win.

I encountered a quote that sums up, nearly perfectly, why I'm going to law school.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-John Adams

Of course, John Adams was talking about the progressive necessity of nation-building; I'm talking about class fluidity. He meant that in order for a generation to have the freedom and security to pursue the arts, generations before them must lay more practical foundations. And his grandchildren were free to pursue the arts. And anything they felt like. Because by then, they had the connections and the economic power.

My great grandparents were laborers, nannies, prostitutes, auto-didacts and pious catholics. My grandfathers were a postman and a prolific drunk, former navy diver, my grandmothers were a homemaker and a bar singer. My father never graduated high school; my mother has a degree in education.

In order to progress, in order to be mobile, I must enter a profession. Theoretically, if I were to reproduce, then my children might have the money, and I might acquire the connections, in order for them to do things that are creative and meaningful. Or they could put it all up their noses. I'm not having kids. So law school will simply make me a nice living. But it's the only way to achieve.

I went to an elite, decadent, private college before the public brick and cement edutentiary I attend currently. The idea was that with the right education, I would end up on equal footing with anyone. If I worked hard, I would be able to do anything. I could be an artist, an actor, a filmmaker, a painter. (tapestry, poetry, music and porcelain) Anything.

Not actually. Now, two years after graduation (my class at ole' B graduated in 2004), the illusion of elevation through education has finally dissipated. The mistaken, hopeful impression given to middle class students from working class backgrounds, that they too could one day be entirely useless- gone. The students who came in, from prestigious "Day Schools" (Any school that feels it must specify that nobody lives there is obviously elite) with rich parents of rich parentage, are all working in the fabulous low-paying jobs that lead to creative, high-paying jobs. The students who came in like me, without connections, are working in administrative jobs, or dairy queen, or public school systems. The children of teachers and secretaries become teachers and secretaries in slightly more interesting cities with slightly more forgiving dress codes.

If I went to (art,graduate, journalism, film, school), I would come out and work in a coffee shop. It would be just like my current life, but with more debt. If I go to law school, I will come out a lawyer. I will be employable. If I work hard, and make the right choices, someday I may own a home. I may go on vacation. I may be able to retire before my tits hit ankle level. Someday, I may do something that matters. I can spend my entire life pretending that drive, not class, determines what I can achieve, and what is a vocational rather than avocational interest.

Let's not pretend that the professions (law and medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc) aren't a traditional entree into the upper classes. Let's not pretend that everyone studies law for a love of the law.

sunt lacrimae rerum...

There seem to be times in life when the past feels closer and more vivid than in other times. I've been walking in a fog of quasi-nostalgia (know what's a fucked up concept? Ostalgie. Hey, remember the time when the secret police killed your uncle? And there was no toilet paper for 20 years?) There's no longing for times past, but the moments of years ago carry this intoxicating salience...

I can't stop thinking about times past. A thinned out mo-town themed muzak cd at work made me think of a potent time of other people's romantic intrigue. Two of the people involved will be married by the end of the year. The third, I am convinced, will beat me out for the romantic ambivalance award. Yes, it was a love triangle. And yes, I was only an observer.

My own exes aren't far from my mind, though. I just don't like to write about them as much. I had this extraordinarily vivid memory of a moment, in my old roommate's bed, when a certain person pulled up my shirt- it was the first time I had ever been alone, in private, with a person who wanted to take my clothes off. I cannot convey how absolutely terrifying and wonderful it was to realize that. Anything could have happened. For the first time, ending that moment was up to me, not a park ranger or police officer or girl scout or rattlesnake.

I'm thinking that there's something special about that moment, something not culturally recognised. We're so obsessed with virginity and teen oral sex and herpes and pregnancy, physical milestones obscure all others. Dick breaches pussy, dick breaches lips, anus, armpit. These are our markers of innocence lost, experience gained. Carnal knowledge, penetration, the consumption of one body by another.

But what about the moments, few or hundreds, where anything could happen? The sudden, absurd plenipotentiality of body heat, contained by walls and soft surfaces and a locking door and no supervision- does it matter? I don't think it's possible to forget that moment, the first time with the lights on, the first time with someone who would have done anything you let them do; no matter what the outcome, there is a line crossed.

It's for this reason I've become, for the first time in my life, sympathetic to the arguments of abstinence before marriage. I continue, however, thinking that waiting for marriage is for most people ill-advised, prohibitively difficult, and out-dated. I was eighteen, that day in the hideous dorm room with the indoor mud puddle, on my roommate's sheetless bed. I was with the man in the bed because I wanted to see what would happen; not because I liked or loved him. It was exciting. It was wrong (I had another boyfriend at the time). He would like me, love me, in the end. I would hide from him. I was cruel to him. I wish I could apologise, actually, for the way I treated him.

I wonder what it would be like to be alone for the first time with someone significant, at the precise moment of beginning something new together. To suddenly be able to take vulgar liberties, completely sanctioned, with someone else's body, for the first time- when love is a factor- would be pretty nice. I can imagine a wedding night, a hotel room, a honeymoon- a wonderful first time to be alone with a beloved willing body.

But that moment, that first closed door, doesn't belong at 28. You're too old. Men are already losing testosterone. Women's breasts are already making that long knee-ward journey. Unless anyone is willing to propose propagating a formal system of time-limited starter marriages, the wedding night and honeymoon are things of the past. I won't spend time telling teenagers that they'll regret at my old age what they are dying to do right now. They'd never listen and it's not my business to say. And that's the problem of adulthood. You're presented with an outline of post-post-post-hoc regrets, and the sudden impulse to prevent those regrets (delicious as they were at the time) in other people.

I don't know if I'd give up the years I've spent in bedrooms and livingrooms and snug in arms to recapture an unplanned moment in a dank room, in a reeking dorm, in a muddy spring, in vermont.