theories revised

Earlier this month, I asked what the point was of loving someone without ever telling them. Perhaps that was not the right question to ask. Love might not always have a point. Perhaps it just is, like the sunset.

Fan earrings and scary pandas

I love me some earrings. Particularly fan-shaped ones! Thank you, Kel! They totally go with everything.

Also, I thought I'd share my delight with one punkish panda. Honestly if you buy this cheese you let fear win.

Just you know why.... why you and I...

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Today's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear offered an abundance of humor. Overall, the tone was pretty laid back. The highlights for me were the signs people brought. Text below:

What do we want? MODERATION!

When do we want it? WITHIN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME!

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[Back] My sign has a window in it. [Cut-out window]. You're welcome.

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I like turtles!

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Palin / Voldemorte 2012!

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My daddy says I'm too smart for tea parties! [held by little tike]

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I'm with sensible!

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The END IS SOMETIME!

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Frustrated

Arizonans

Resisting

Tea

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Toasters against Tea [held by guy in Battlestar "toaster" costume]

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Colbert on the View

Awww.... yay for Stephen Colbert's mom!

Need to learn how to use my cellphone, then an abacus

I have a first-world problem. My cellphone hates me. Twice in one phone call my cellphone sabotaged my call; first it processed my "answer" press as an "end call" press. Then it ran out of batteries as I was talking to my sweetie at an inopportune time. This is my cellphone's way of having its time of the month. I am charging it now and I hope it uses this time away from my pocket to think about what it's done. And then maybe I will forgive it.

Second, one of my favorite people in law school, a very sweet lady from Louisiana, brought an abacus to the bonfire hosted by another friend from school. I was like WHOA! and then, I was like, I don't know how to use that! Hahaha. My grandpa has an abacus that I've actually seen him do calculations on. Sadly I do not have that quintessentially Asian skill. I think I get it, but I've never actually used one. And using it for fractions and all that other stuff i've heard it's good for? Might as well give me a pair of maracas.

So what was friend from Louisiana doing with an abacus? She was bringing the abacus to the party to return it to a long-lost friend. So sweet. It looked like a kid's abacus. I've seen pros in medicine shops with their rosewood and ebony models; the TI versions. This one was scaled a little on the small side, the beads were painted bright crayon colors, and the base was a light, indeterminate wood. It was very cute. Anyway, I learned that if you bring something odd like an abacus to the party, you should come up with at least three plausible answers to the question: Why are you holding that in your hand? And then let people figure out why you really brought it.

I said to a friend earlier today that knitting was a skill I hoped to pick up before I got too old to enjoy it. I'm adding "use an abacus" to that list of skills.

Where Should I Winter?

New Orleans with the Environmental Law kids? DC? Somewhere warmer?

Where My Time Goes

Inspired by a post on dailymre, I am shocked (well not really) to see the results of my own time accounting.

It goes like this:

Class: 14 to 18 hours a week (depending on extra sessions or mandatory rhetoric workshops)
Case briefing: 12 hours a week - wtf - I could be reducing this by so much
Memo writing/editing: 15 hours a week
Office hours with various professors: 2 hours a week
Career Development / scholarship searches at law school: 2 hours a week - way too little

Other/Misc.
Recreation/Gym Time: 3 hours a week
Grocery shopping: 1 hour a week
Laundry: 25 minutes a week
Family time: 12 hours a week
Socializing with people not my family: 5 hours a week (mebbe)
Reading the news on the internet: honestly about 15+ hours a week at home

Sleeping: 42 hours a week

My resolutions for this week are to set a bedtime (11 PM), to go to the gym at least four times a week to get my granny energy levels up, and to schedule more time for career development.

Edit: So far I have upped my gym time, spent more time on forward-looking things, and yet no bedtime. Oh well. Still trying to win them all.

Miya - Not just a love kick

When last I checked in, I was looking forward to visiting my true wubs. We went to Miya Sushi in New Haven, which has a rather fantabulous menu that depends on the chef's mood. Major props for the decor and the amazing servers. It was just adorable all around. IF you like sustainable cuisine (they have a very cheeky "sustainable" section that includes such dangerous delicacies as lionfish) or just a very hip, aware, and gorgeous crowd, go.

Do not hesitate when you see that some rolls, including one with peanut butter, cost $18. The "sushi for the masses" section, with $3 rolls, is also fantastic. I had the spicy arctic char and it was the freshest $3 ever. Others liked cuter rolls, such as the squiggly wiggly (calamari) and sushi rolls with French, African, and Kosher influences. Le chaim. The results included goat, cheese sauce, brie, cassava, all manner of things being rolled up on rice and gobbled up faster than we could take photos. As I can never eat enough rice, it was heavenly.

If you go, PLEASE order the firecracker sake. It tastes like honey with a great spicy kick, with none of that burnt wax aftertaste that quality sake sometimes possesses. And if you order a bottle and can't finish it, they'll cork it and let you take it home. As a lightweight, I am often relieved to have someone take the alcohol off my hands, but I was a fan.

Would I go back? ABSOLUTELY. I will always have fond memories of Miya and now, I am going to try bottling my own chipotle-infused liquor. Five out of five noms for everything: decor, service, quality, having a founder who goes by Mama. Hell, six out of five noms for the amazingly comfy, sweet experience.

Miya Sushi is located at

68 Howe St.

New Haven, CT.

The Young Victoria and Musings on Love

Well, this has been an oddly romantic week. Not just romantic in the hugs and kisses way, but one full of musings about the nature of Love with a capital L. I'm going to be all mushy, so if that's not your thing you should turn away and not read the following musings about the L word.

Someone once said that the it is only when we lose love that we know it to be true. I think it was a French guy who also wrote bawdy lyric poetry, and apparently did not fare so well with the ladies of his choice.

A very stirring Modern Love post that my true wubs and I have read and touched on suggests that love is a rather fleeting and anxiety-inducing conundrum. Heck a lot of Modern Love posts in the Times make me feel like crying. If you only realize it's love when it's past, why then it has always been too late, hasn't it? It's enough to make one suppress that loving feeling at all costs...

But I say - if you do know, do not let love go! What is the point of being in love with someone, if you never tell them, if you never leap into the ravine knowing you may not be caught, however unwise or embarrassing or devastating that might be? Is it better really to pine not knowing? A friend of mine who discussed this with me this week said most definitely it was better to remain silent - because if you love someone and you know they don't love you back, then you should respect that by never bringing it up.

I respect but cannot agree with silence as a solution to the "problem" of love. Perhaps I'm wrong but if I am, so what? Please disagree and let me know what you feel love is, as I know that everyone has their own version. Yes, love totally wrings your heart out when it doesn't work, like a flu for the entire psyche. But I don't think that love is God's way of playing cruel practical jokes on humanity. See: PMS and male pattern baldness. Love must work, somehow. And we see that love of family and friends works beautifully when we step back and let the big picture in; it's just that eros is so much more tangled because we know who our family is and we can choose our friends, but how do you know who your other half is? And how you should treat them?

To me, love is when you have a conversation with someone, and hearing their voice causes an echo in your chest, because you recognize that voice, and all its concerns, tones, and humor, in your heart of hearts and dream of dreams. It feels like you suddenly understand every mushy, ridiculous love song that you would otherwise feel too embarrassed to acknowledge to others. Love is the feeling of terror and certainty - like walking a tight rope - with the surest point ahead of you, and the certainty that whatever lies ahead on that rope is a million times more important than whatever distance lies beneath your feet. Being in love is the luckiest and most perilous feeling, because when you are most in love, you become suddenly less certain of who you are.

There are issues of personal control and authority, of sharing an emotional space that you haven't shared before, of letting someone else hurt you (without knowing, or possibly even caring, that they've wounded you deeply). Pride certainly gets in the way, as does fear that you are going clinical and a deep embarassment, almost shame, that your heart is running away with your head on a platter.

Actually, feeling madly in love feels a lot like going off the deep end: you're not yourself. Or perhaps you are more yourself than ever. Whatever it is, you can't really explain it to others who don't feel like their chest is exploding into a double rainbow and that you cannot ever really undo this saturation of every hue you behold, almost as if you are going blind or perceiving some hidden dimension. Wooo love is scary for many reasons. Some people like to base jump; maybe that's what it's like.

Watching the Young Victoria was glorious for all the reasons that period romances are glorious: amazing costumes, political intrigue, sexy accents, all of it. But what I love so much about the Young Victoria is that it doesn't just end at the wedding of the fiercely independent Victoria and her affecting Albert with his bumbling determination to woo her. (I was glad - I didn't want the movie to end!)

The film includes the post-honeymoon nudges and fights that strain and strengthen their relationship. The way that they interact and show their love for one another, from the truly delightful tete-a-tetes to the little gestures and extravagant kisses, just feels very true to me. The characters just don't or can't hold anything back from one another, and they hurt one another sometimes because of their respective personalities, but that is the kind of love that I have always wanted for myself. Viewers know that Victoria will one day lose her beloved spouse and don widow's weeds for the rest of her life, but at least this makes her royal marriage something worth remembering, albeit in a monochromatic fashion.

I just loved this film so much; i think it so perfectly captures the story of two very young people falling in love and learning to cherish one another. But I think that kind of love, where nothing is held back, knows no age. Although I will never be as young as that again, I think one's capacity for true love does not fade as one ages; it just deepens.

Now I'm going to listen to some Stevie Wonder.

Love to all my sisters! and brothers too!

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I would like to take a moment to share my love for my sisters!

I hope that you enjoy many, many autumns to come!

Today, one of my most outgoing professors emailed our class to inform us that his father passed away from cancer last night. :< Life is so precious. Thank you for making mine more memorable. You are wonderful!