Poetry Moment (all by me)

Say Something
there was so much more to say
and I let the moment slip away
And i was a coward.
I should have just said it all
and been done with it.
I hate carrying it around.
Trying to hold it down.
Trying to seem unaffected
while feeling rejected
subjected
to callous touch by soft hands
baby you are so in demand
and you answer every call
but one
but the one you will caress with words
that find no purchase in your actions
“I miss you too”
Burns my screen and my ears
But I don’t let any tears
Because you don’t mean
Those words to which I cleave
Those words which find me wide open
Pulling you deeper still
And you get more than your fill
You take everything
Leaving me void
Annoyed
Because I want to believe
That you aren’t the same deceiver
you deceived her
and I knew it, I watched it
I saw it and I allowed it
And I am her
Feelings and all
Rejecting and all
Affected and all
Being held down
Even when no one is around
By you
By words
By not saying anything

Clorox for the Soul
Writing to cleanse my soul
watch you float down the drain on suds
because I don't do duds
don't do lies and manipulation
but thank you for the elevation
for the sensation of washing a dead layer of life and choices away
so I can transcend you
when I step off this page
all that will be left is your filth
then I'll spray it with the clorox of my tears
and you'll be gone to the abyss where relationships go to die
alone.

Transcend
Everywhere I look I see you
and so I turn to God for eyes that can ignore those sights
and a heart that can withstand the aches
each second I waste takes me two hours to relive the mistakes
three to accept the goodness of you was just one side
flip the coin and find tales to which you put me to sleep
two for the deuce indeed
and I was blissfully deceived and dreamed of a mythical future
and so I turn to God who helps me see that He is the truth and the light
inseparably the alpha and omega of life
the only side of life that is worthy of my gaze
and no more seconds, minutes, hours, or days
will be wasted on fairy tales

Trends not to follow...

Greetings and Salutations from my usual study room. I was procrastinating with NewNew, Bend&Snap and Diplomatic Fashionista today and we ran across this disgusting trend on Facebook that must be addressed today. It is so appalling and gross - posting a picture of the pregnancy test to show that you are having a baby. You urinated on that and then waited 60 seconds and the first thing you wanted to do was take a picture when the second line appeared, or the space turned blue, or the words "pregnant". What is wrong with you nasty chicks? That is not "ratchet", it's gross. Simply stating that you are having a baby would be sufficient to put everyone on notice. No one needs to know that you went to the store and bought clear blue easy, brought it home, urinated on the stick after drinking two glasses of water, waited, and saw that. We can infer from a simple announcement that's you're pregnant that this might have happened. No need to show the world.
So anyone who is thinking about taking a pregnancy test, please Do. Not. Post. The. Test. just post the news. YUCK!!!! (by the way, NewNew de-friended two people behind this nasty madness. So if you halfway cherish half of your Facebook friends, don't do this. I will be following the footsteps of NewNew. Post a test, get de-friended because clearly we are not like-minded individuals)

Next...

Sending chain e-mails. I don't really think I need to elaborate, but this crap has been going on far too long. Just FYI, i delete them because it's obvious when it's a chain

And then...

Touching, without asking, the hair of natural women. Diplomatic and I were noting that people always want to touch our hair. It's just hair. Now I get it, you may to understand the Natural concept and the fact that all black people don't have the same kind of hair. And actually, that naturals can be really attractive and wild and sexy. But you don't need to touch it. I absolutely despise people who might have a mild association with me walking up and just touching my hair like I'm a dang dog. I am not. I am a woman. I have hair (ooh, surprise). And I think you need to keep your hands out of my hair. hair is a very intimate part of a woman's body. Unless I invite you to touch it, you ask and I feel like you don't have the plague on your fingers and give you permission to touch it, DON'T. Look and admire. Wish you had it. But don't touch it. Please and thank you.

that's all for right now from the girl next door. It's been just another day.

Just say no! to the sub-par replacement for Coca Cola

I'm a Georgia girl. I know I lived in New York (which I loved and fully intend to either end up there or have some massive apartment in The Dakota that i escape to on a whim) and I lived in New Orleans (which I HATED....i might nope, won't even dream of it) but one thing has always been constant. Coca Cola. I don't do pepsi. It is disgustingly sweet for no reason and it really bothers my heart that when I tell someone I want a Coke, that they might actually come back with the sub-par replacement. There is no replacement.
Which brings me to the atrocity that is Papa Johns serving pepsi products. That is just beyond unacceptable and whoever ruined Coca Cola's contract with them needs to be fired. WHY!!!!!! Groups at the law school have events and of course they order pizza (for the not-so-swift, this is because it feeds a lot of people for not a lot of money). Last week, I noticed that where there was typically Coca-cola, there was now the sub-par replacement. I immediately had a fit (on the inside) and refused to drink any of it. How disgusting! So I asked a friend of mine and he let me know that Papa Johns no longer serves Coke. BLASPHEMY!!! I object to this cruel and unusual punishment. And while it's absolutely funny that now, barely anyone drinks the beverages offered at these events because no one likes this crap, I would really like the school to just stop serving Papa Johns, or just keep a reserve of 2-liters of Coke products in a storage closet so that we don't have to be subjected to the pain of eating delicious pizza with the sub-par replacement. Coca-Cola Forever!!!! Down with sub-par!

Time Out

It's time for a time out. I'm placing myself in the corner so the I can get work done and stop letting myself get distracted. Now is not the time for people to start trying to enter my life. And it's certainly time for some people to get on out. So this law school thing has a two very hectic and stressful points: the week before a paper is due and the month leading into finals. We are in the month leading to finals and I really have to focus. This means that blazer boy has to be expelled from my mind. So long to you and your lies and manipulation and the good memories that taste sour to my delicate memory buds because you just couldn't be the good man you pretended to be. (release one)

And goodbye to Phat Farm, because I'm not taking on a project to teach a guy etiquette when on dates. I'm pretty sure I don't have time for any projects whatsoever. Either you come with batteries includes and all the key components already attached, or don't come at all. (I'll write an entire blog about Phat Farm in the future. But to get the gist, you could jump back a few days to What to Expect on Dates). (release two)

And goodbye to being even remotely concerned about the fact that no one is available to go abroad for my birthday. All I wanted was a trip to an island for my thirtieth birthday and so I can have an excuse to have on my bikini and lay in crystal clear waters. Perhaps I'll get married there and then I can convince people who said it was too expensive to come off the dime and go. (release 3)

So Time Out to all of that. It's time for this girl next door to get down to the business of not giving a * about everyone else and anything else. Ice Queen...maybe not. I'm just not built to be that cold. But certainly the cold shoulder is good enough. Time Out!

Study Schedules and the Quest for Personal Time

Well, it's April. It is really April. It is April. Sorry to keep repeating myself but it's like a scary realization that the first year of law school is nearing its end. Before I know it I'll be in New York working for the summer. Then it will be fall and the class grind will start again. Saturday was admitted students day and I was giving tours, not going on a tour. I was suddenly the expert. Can you believe it? Well, I guess you can because you don't know the type of craziness 1L year entails, but whatever.

It's April and I just made my psychotic study schedule meant to get me finished with outlining a week before the first final. I will be studying about 18 hours a day during reading week. Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Property. Monday through Friday. Non stop starting today. (le sigh)

Sometimes I wonder where my life went. I used to go out on weekends religiously. I was at Bridge Lounge in New Orleans drinking my raspberry mojito and complaining about the kids and their antics. I was at La Phare dancing the night away on Saturday or eating dinner at ridiculously delicious restaurants. Friends were friends of different occupations and we'd sit around to complain and laugh and plan out what we were going to wear for Zulu Ball. And when I was in New York... so amazing that I can't talk about i or I might burst into tears. And now what? Now I get to hope I can steal five minutes to complain to myself about how sick I am of reading about Products Liability and determining whether a plaintiff can intervene. I lift my hands to the sky, pray, scream, curse myself for this torture I have signed up for. Then I'm good and it's back to studying. Or I call T and we'll rant for about fifteen minutes. But once again, it ends.

Weekends are really weekend except to say that I don't have class and will get to study nonstop from 7am to 7pm. Somewhere in there I grab food, more chai, perhaps an espresso.

And then it's the day of the final and it's truly some strange rush of adrenaline akin to fight or flight and we all decide to fight and claw our way through a three hour typing frenzy. Exciting!

But I do still long for my personal time. I can't wait until May 11 when it's all over and I can try and find my place on a beach somewhere wearing my white bikini and getting sun-kissed all over. I might actually finish reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter which is taking me a remarkable two months to get through despite how good it is.

Okay, I'm going on and on, unfocused. Perhaps I'm still suffering from the jitters of the four cups of coffee I had last night before bed which had me so wired that I couldn't sleep until around 1:30. I stole some personal time then. I did read some more of the book. I wrote in my journal. I wished for a glass of wine, though I gave up alcohol for lent so water had to suffice. This is what will happen during finals as well. Some late night will suddenly turn into the personal time I wished for earlier. It will be unplanned, haphazard, and seemingly unwelcome until I'm in the middle of it and finding the anxiety of law school slip from my shoulders.

And it will be just another day for the girl next door.

Soy Chai and my Love Hate relationship with Law School

Right now, I'm sitting in my favorite coffee shop, Starbucks. I love this place. The heaven of my dreams is a giant Starbucks where I can sit and enjoy a hot cup of Chai with Jesus and talk about everything. I know, it’s ironic that we would be drinking chai and not some really intricate, psychotic flavored coffee. I just prefer chai and so that’s what we will drink. I'm sure there's probably some website that can tell me what liking chai says about my personality. The fact that I get dog instead of regular or skim milk is probably an indicator of some self-righteous idea about health despite the fact that soy milk is likely just as fattening as regular milk. Starbucks actually using Vanilla soy in chai. Extra, extra fattening. But it's delicious, so that's what I'll drink with Jesus.

I love this place because it’s calm. I can sit in my corner of the room and study Torts without any trouble. People come in, grab their coffee, and suddenly all is right with the world. They sit down in comfy booths or chairs and pull out the Sunday Times, though I guess since this is Georgia they are pulling out the AJC, and just enjoy the world. This is where I’ll be on weekends from now on, more than likely. This is around the time that the library is just too stifling and the study room becomes an unproductive vortex of talking about everything but law school and how in the world we’re going to make it through this closed-book Civ Pro Exam.

For example, I ended up in two very long conversations about relationships on two different days this past week. Why? Well, because no one wants to accept the gravity of being five weeks away from finals. We’d rather talk about everything else, including our lack of a love life, dismal prospects of a getting a love life while in law school, and the ubiquitous “why do men cheat” issue.

oh yeah, I’m a law student now. I left teaching, the profession where everyone said “God Bless you” every time I said I was a teacher. Now, I’m entering a profession where everyone inherently thinks you’re a liar – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And yes, there are those here. Blazer Boy is exhibit A. But that’s not important. So I’m in law school, and it feels like I drink more chai than the law should allow. This year has been hell on wheels. I feel like my emotions have gone up, come down, been flipped all around and then back again.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, we get the work done. We accept that having been number one in every other arena is the elusive status reserved for one of the 250 of us and we move on. And in the back of my mind, I love it. I love the challenge. I love the anxiety. I love m professors. I love my classmates. But as with anything you love, it’s a very thin line between that and hate and I tend to fluctuate back and forth between the two, especially when I get called on.

But chai and Starbucks make it all better. Starbucks encased in a white cup with black scribble on it: Soy no water chai. And I can focus. I don’t worry about the gunner who seems to know it all and apparently did last semester given the scores. I don’t have to worry about the people who study 24 hours a day while my body gives out after about 16 hours. I get it done here and in my own space and time.

And it’s just another day for the girl next door. Drink Up.