Running Thoughts (2)

I watched a bit of the Johnnies farewell-to-Boston rally this morning at the gym. John Edwards is a hell of a speaker. I didn't pay much attention to the sound bites during the primaries since I knew things would likely be decided by the time the Texas primary rolled around. (They were.) So this morning was really the first time I actually listened closely to Edwards—and he knows how to hold a crowd. He didn't even speak for five minutes, but he's got IT, that magical ability to reach out to the whole crowd. Clinton had it (has it, actually—his speech Monday night was remarkable) and it certainly helped him reach the White House twice.

Contrarily, Kerry is just goofy. Has anyone else noticed that, when he claps, he brings his hands together in perfect alignment, like he's praying, rather than in the "crossed-over" fashion most people clap? It's like watching a small child smack his palms together because he knows he's getting his favorite meal. Very odd, and disconcerting, actually.

I admit it, I am worried about the election. Edwards's charisma is great, but he has no experience. And Kerry's experience is great, but he's such a dyed-in-the-wool blueblood. And he's goofy.

Who will counter Bushie's good-old-boy appeal? The one thing that heartens me on the Rep's side is that Cheney is really reviled by a lot of people.

"I think the key to a lot of things is getting up earlier than you
absolutely have to. I need to try it."
- a woman named Stacey

So true. So true.

This morning I watched CNN while at the gym. It was their morning show, "American Morning." They have this bit where their anchor and two other correspondents sit on a couch (this morning, referred to as a cheap IKEA couch, no less... what does that say about employee satisfaction at CNN?) and read viewer emails about some issue. They show the text of the email as they read it aloud—presumably for greater impact?

Well, this morning, they misplaced an apostrophe. Badly. The sentence was something like, "...and the Republican's will have their work cut out for them..." Erghh. Made my skin crawl. This is BAD editing on the part of some copy kid in Atlanta or New York. Because even if the viewer who sent the email used the poor punctuation, CNN shouldn't display it, at least not without a [sic].

I'm bothered by this.

My husband is bothered by CNN as well, but for a different reason. He thinks their morning show coverage of that missing pregnant woman in Utah is sensationalistic and inappropriate. I can't help but mostly agree. But if CNN's viewers really want to hear about this bizarre missing persons case, CNN will show it. Market demands and all.

This post is disjointed. Sorry about that. Getting up before dawn does that to me.

Choir on Sunday kicked my butt.

This makes me sad and pathetic.

OK, maybe not pathetic, but definitely sad. It wasn't that I had to get up early—I was awake anyway. No, what exhausted me was the act of so much singing. And that is sad.

Part of it certainly is that I sang my little heart out. It's been a while since I've been in a choir where my voice was valued. In fact, I don't know if I've ever been in a choir where my voice was valued as much as I feel it is in this choir. After all, as a teenager, the adult voices always overpowered mine. And in college, there was Lucie to contend with.

Lucie was a friend of mine, so don't think I am being hateful when I say that she was a complete diva. She had (has, I presume) a lovely, rich, full voice. And she knew it, and the choirmaster knew it, and everyone in the choir knew it, and anyone who came to services on Sunday knew it. Lucie's voice stood out, no matter how much our choirmaster tried to meld our voices into a pure, seamless whole. And that's OK—but because of Lucie, I never saw much need to extend myself.

But now, I'm singing in what many consider to be the best volunteer church choir in the city (that seems to qualify the choir a lot, but there are many churches with many choirs, and almost all of them are volunteer), and my voice is valued.

Naturally, being valued feels nice. So I really belted out on Sunday. Even on the super-high notes that I have no business attempting right now, with a voice just fresh out of a five-year hiatus. And the effort of living up to my voice wore me out.

I'm looking forward to the fall, when many of the choristers who are currently on vacation come back. Then I can be one voice among many, instead of that amazing, yet untrained voice that stands out in a soprano section of four.

As of today, I've been married six months.

Hooray!

My husband keeps joking that his warranty period runs out at midnight, so he'd better make sure I'm worth it. Haha, I say. He knows damn well he's stuck with me for good. Which is why he has arranged a special dinner...a surprise special dinner, may I say. I had no clue until he told me I couldn't go to Clare's potluck since he'd already made reservations.

I'm excited! He's such a romantic, but we've both been so uptight lately with making plans for next year that we've been neglecting the romance a little. I'm very much looking forward to a date night, and to enjoying each other.

How do you score?

"A liberal is a conservative who's been through treatment."
- Garrison Keillor (from this article)

Check out the Sloganator.

Today, I am excited because I was accepted into the very good choir at my church. It is an audition-only choir, in a big downtown church, and the choir director took me!

OK, I'll confess, I've sung in choirs before. I have a good voice. I can almost sight-read. But it's been five years since I've sung in a choir, I've never taken any sort of professional voice lesson, and I think my higher register sounds bad.

About that last—the choir master disagreed. Apparently, I've been hiding, pretending to be an alto, while this big soprano voice struggled to be free. Apparently. I'm not sure I agree 100%, but I do know that it feels good to know I'll be singing again. It gives me something else to think about besides work and applying to law school, and I like being involved in my church.

I just read this article, and its followup and I am seriously just pissed.

Take this statement:

So the question is... Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?

Gah, whuuu?????

Seriously, this woman needs a little lesson in tolerance, and then maybe one in logic. And, finally, I think she needs to take a writing class that will purge her of the inner melodramatic score she obviously hears whenever she starts typing.

Meh.

I know, I know. David Sedaris is really everyone's favorite humor essayist. Move over, Davey-boy. I love you as much as the next fag hag, but Hank Stuever is about to give you a run for your audience.

I went to a reading/book signing last night for Steuver's new book, Off Ramp, and the only disappointing thing about the evening was that Book People ran out of copies. Only disapponting to me, really—I'm sure Hank was thrilled, along with the bookstore owner.

I've told my whole family, talked about it with friends, have the support of my husband, so I guess it's official—I am going to apply to law school.

I took a practice LSAT, figured out which section I suck at (Logic Games) and ordered some books. I've requested materials from law schools. I've started brainstorming on my personal statement.

In other words, I am way too prepared.

Seriously.

I went to a law school "event" last week (sponsored by Kaplan, which I won't give any of my money to) and UT Law's Dean of Admissions said prospective law students should really plan on spending a year getting all their application materials together. So, if you want to go to law school in the fall of 2005, start getting your stuff together in December of 2003.

I suppose if you think you might seriously tank on the LSAT and need lots of time to prepare, that's not bad advice. But I really don't think you can spend a year working on a personal statement or resume; I can't possibly imagine any professor or employer wanting to write a letter of recommendation that early, either.

The four months I am going to spend seem adequate. I'm already getting kind of burned out thinking about everything—but that's the way my brain works. I make a decision, get really excited about it, spend a week or two freaking out, and then settle into the nitty gritty work of it all. And I work hard on it.

So, OK. I'm going to law school next year. Whatever law school I can get into. Deep breaths. It's really happening!

Apparently John Edwards is being referred to as the Breck Girl.

As a member of the voting public (and a member of a key demographic for both parties, I might add), I want the candidates to know that good hair matters to me. So if Edwards is the Breck Girl, well, that's just one more reason to vote the Johnnies in.

Spent the weekend in Arizona -- Friday in Prescott for my great-aunt's surprise 80th birthday party.

Day trip to Sedona on Saturday: breathtaking.

So I'm going to take the LSAT in October.

If anyone has any advice for doing well on the thing, I'd love to hear it. I haven't sat for a test of any variety in many, many years.

I just heard NPR describe John Kerry and John Edwards as "the well-groomed pair."

So over the weekend -- the long weekend, I might add -- I suddenly got this hairbrained idea that I wanted to go to law school. I shocked myself and my husband. He suggested that I take a legal writing class or two (in a paralegal program or something) to see if I actually would like law. So I spent most of Monday surfing around to see who offers classes like these and when and how much they cost and whatnot. (ACC does, they're cheap, and they're all at night.)

But here it is, two days later, and I don't think I want to anymore.

The snob in my brain says I should just go to law school, period. Get that graduate degree, whether I use it to practice law or not. The law degree is sort of perfect because it doesn't require a strong background in any particular discipline.

The practical side of me says law school in the next three years is sort of impractical, since B is planning to go back to school next fall. The practical side says I should just not worry about graduate school and try to find something I love for a career.

And the frugal miser deep, deep inside me says I should just get a paralegal certificate so I can get a higher-paying job so I can put my husband through grad school -- and then, after working with lawyers for a few years, I can decide if I really want to get a law degree.

And all of this is sort of weird and sudden for me and I am not sure where it came from.

Part of me thinks it's just that itch I get when I've been in a job for a little while -- long enough to see what it's going to be like, but not long enough to really grow comfortable in it.

Part of me thinks it's that I see myself in a rut, now that I am married and a homeowner, and the answer to getting out of the rut is more education.

And the most honest part of me thinks it's a fear reaction. Fear of the unknown looming over the year's horizon. We could be moving out of state, selling our house, selling a car or two, leaving a comfortable social life. And my gut reaction is to make that transition easy and smooth and one of the ways I know to make transitions easy and smooth is to throw money at them.

Because, I must admit, I would be a terrible lawyer.

Is it bad, in the course of a meeting where people are discussing what they want out of a certain product, to offer a concession to others in the meeting by saying, "OK, I can live with that"?

My boss has said to me that this smacks of a certain negativism. I think it's just my way of saying, "well, I don't LOVE the solution, but it will work and I am willing to deal with it."

IS it bad? I mean, I could be saying, "Fine. Whatever you want." I'm at least being polite and open. And I refuse to lie and say, "I have no problem with that solution."

But apparently, around here, only positive reactions will do, and expressing one's reservations, while endorsing (if not wholeheartedly) a solution, is bad.