"I totally support you peeing anywhere..."

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(I had originally scheduled this for next Tuesday 3/20 but I had two different friends/readers complain to me today that I hadn't updated in FOREVER, so here you go, a Useful Thursday!).

Soooooooooo, I totally said that recently to a friend at a cafe after lunch... and realized AS IT WAS LEAVING MY MOUTH that it didn't properly convey what I meant.  So here I will explain.

What I meant to say was, "No, I don't mind sitting here alone while you go to the bathroom because I totally and completely understand and encourage going to the bathroom whenever there is one available when you are out and about and about to leave your current location."  That is what I meant to say - but I didn't have enough time to get it out (haha, pun?) before she walked away.

Where do these sentiments come from?  What is the source of my magnanimous attitude towards my companions abandoning me to use the bathroom?  Well, that answer can be found a month or two ago.  Ooh, my transformation occurred on Sunday, January 22, 2012.  That is because Google just told me that the Lunar New Year in 2012 occurred on Monday, January 23, 2012 (also, Google calls it "Chinese New Year," which I find somewhat offensive and surprisingly inaccurate).  In honor of Lunar New Year, my dad took our family to Flushing for Sunday dinner, to get some truly authentic Asian (Korean) food, it being a "new year" and all.

As per my usual habit, I had consumed at least 4 glasses of 8 oz. of water with the meal.  I like to stay hydrated.  Also, this was a habit I developed in college when my stomach was a bottomless, ravaging pit that nothing could satisfy.  My solution to neverending hunger, at least from a financial (and somewhat calorical) standpoint) was to try and fill some of that bottomless pit with calorie-free, free to drink, water.  Unless I gulped down water any time food wasn't actively in my mouth, one app, one entree, one dessert, and one drink was NOT enough to fill me up.  And really, you can't afford to spend more than $30-50 per meal in Durham, NC.  I normally had at least one full glass before any food arrived.  Another 2-3 glasses during the app/entree, and at least one more glass during dessert.  And this is in addition to any alcoholic beverage I might enjoy.

So back to the point, I had drank a not-so-modest amount of water.  As I considered the at least an hour drive back to my house, I figured I would be fine (in terms of when I would need a bathroom next).  Also, while the food at this particular restaurant was quite tasty, it was also a bit "dive-y," and so I had my doubts about the cleanliness of the bathroom.  About halfway home, I realized my body was sending me messages and I hoped we'd get home soon.  Then something happened that made me realize God (or the universe, which may even be one and the same) wanted me to learn a very specific lesson that night.

As we were rolling along the highway, a tire blew out, we had a flat.  My dad slowly pulled over to the side of the highway, a mere ONE exit away from the one we take to our house!!!  As he got out of the car I asked how long it would take and informed my parents that I was "urgent" (in Korean, if you say you are "urgent," that is a euphemism for having to use the bathroom - I learned this after a super-crazy cab ride in Korea when I told a taxi driver "I am urgent" meaning I was in a hurry but he thought I was going to use his vehicle as a lavatory).

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Anyway, to make this already long story shorter, we got the tire fixed up, raced home, and I shot out of the car before my dad could put it in park, tore into the house and relieved myself (as us ladies are wont to do).  So, THE LESSON: ALWAYS USE THE BATHROOM BEFORE YOU LEAVE A PLACE BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT COULD HAPPEN IN TRANSIT BEFORE ARRIVING AT A NEW PLACE WITH A BATHROOM.

When the commenters are funnier than the article.

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Clicked through to read this article on K-Pop and blackface from a friend's Gchat status and then had to share it because the comments made me laugh.

I don't want to comment on the substance on the article, either to defend or criticize.  Because I could do both/either. (Maybe I will later...).

The Hunger Games. And my cultural education.

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So, I previously wrote about how tempted I was to just continue reading The Hunger Games (rather than go to bed).

I don't think I mentioned this the first time around, but I cried OPENLY, on the bus, on my morning commute, within the first 25 pages.  It's. That. Good.  (Sister love, it'll get me every time.  BUT NOT My Sister's Keeper - UGH.  Stupid girls who told me this was a must-read, I will get you back someday!)

Not only that, but I've been watching the movie trailer on repeat for a few weeks now.  I cry EVERY. TIME. I watch the trailer.  (Despite the fact that there are several GLARING incongruities from the book apparent in it... SIGH).

Just now I watched it, and through wiping away my tears I clicked on one of those "Related" links on the side.  It said the FIRST *10* minutes of the movie was leaked!!!  I WAS SO EXCITED!!!  Then this weird 80s looking dude starts dancing, and I go, "Is this an ad???"

My sister stared at me and then started laughing.  She goes, "You've been Rickrolled!"  I had NO IDEA what rickrolling was.  That made her laugh more.  ""Is this an ad???"" she mimicked me!!!  As we have come to discuss time and again, I have NO cultural IQ.  This is old news.  And yet it amuses her to no end whenever a display of my pathetic lack of pop culture knowledge rears its silly self.

Nonetheless, I can't WAIT to see this movie.  I'm also terrified of how they're going to depict certain scenes.  (In the end, I didn't go see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, mostly because I didn't think I could handle the uber-messed up s*x scenes.) 

The Hunger Games is supposed to be "young adult" fiction - but seriously the things that happen in there are MESSED. UP.  Especially freaking out about the "last" kill portion of the Games. 

Anyways, added a new little countdown widget - because I. CANNOT. WAAAAAAIT.  It's Gonna Be FAAAAAAABULOUS!!!!  (Read the last two sentences in an Oprah voice!!!)

Dreams and ghosts.

Tried finding the ghost from the Mickey Mouse version but this is the best runner-up

My dreams lately have all involved lengthy cameos by the ghosts of boyfriends past. Starting in high school and this latest one is from college. Leave me alone, boys. Pretty please :)

Deathly fears.

 

In the spirit of sharing things about me you may not have known: I have a death-fear of snorkeling.  Ok, maybe death-fear is a bit strong. But I really really really don't like snorkeling. Something about fish touching me FREAKS me out!!!

There IS an explanation.  The first time I went snorkeling was in high school.  We went on a family trip with another family right after school got out in 2001.  The kind guide who wanted to attract fish so that I would have more to see just threw the fish bait/food/bread right on top of me so that fish were swimming all around me. Fish swarmed all around me, inevitable a few touched me and I started screaming bloody murder. My mom thought a shark had attacked me so they actually pulled everyone back into the boat and then when they got me on board and realized I wasn't physically harmed they asked me what happened. Blubbering, I could barely get out, "A fish touched me."

At which everyone was very annoyed and just got back in the water. Needless to say, I did not. I very much enjoy swimming/floating on top of the water and looking down at nothing. I do NOT like snorkeling when there are fish nearby. The last time I was forced into snorkeling (winter 2008) I actually swam away from the group just to look at the empty clear water. Then I somehow thought about how huge the ocean is and how tiny I am and how quickly a whale, or shark, or giant current could pull me away from EVERYTHING. And then I freaked out and climbed back on the boat as quickly as I could...

Grammar fetish update.

An update to this earlier post.

I would do this.

Overheard in the Museum of the City of New York.

"It's amazing that you guys can be so cool like that.  I mean after he tried to kiss you and everything.  But you're still friends with a guy you were sleeping with but not dating, so."

- Two girls in line for The Greatest Grid exhibit.

Still trying to figure out if that was a compliment.

SCIENCE! The world's youngest mother.

How could I not?

So a few weeks ago when I was trying to find out more about that ridiculous smoking toddler, I came across another strange child-story.

This 5-year-old girl is the world's youngest mother!  (A longer article with more scientific info).

Apparently she started menstruating at 8 months old. I think it's weird and sad that they never figured out who impregnated her (b/c seriously, who gets a 4-year-old pregnant?) but apparently she was totally normal and healthy in other ways.  Also, it seems like this episode got her family to supervise her more carefully because the next time she got pregnant was at the age of 38, after getting married.

Brings a whole new meaning to "children having children."

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Marketing that makes women feel insecure works.

Walking on sidewalk to orthodontist appointment and a sandwich board guy for eyebrow waxing looks at me and laughs under his breath. Now I'm totally self conscious about my eyebrows. Should I go in and get them done? O.o

Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqc7nnbIYCjWadGDYDgPwDrGkkmtm63YDFJ2sxkYDLk53sV27fWtadvwEcehHWd6VnPXCVsOL37Kb3uTd_s1unIvmnXu0AojnnqJJ4TPG6fvopXYAQKjMdyubspEGyy3B4n9E2jzv2/s1600/bushy+1.jpg

What is wrong with these men?

Image source

So a guy friend brought this to my attention a few years ago: the two voicemails left by "Dmitri" for Olga.

But this other crazy guy via the Internet is new to me (via intern in my office): i-banker's email about being led on.

Seriously, where do these guys come from?  What is their deal?

Their neuroses are not actually what I have a problem with.  To be honest, it sounds exactly like the post-incident super-analysis a (normal) girl would do.  WITH HER GIRLFRIENDS.  IN PRIVATE.  WITHOUT EVER SHARING THESE THOUGHTS WITH THE GUY.

The truly notable thing about these two incidents, other than the fact that they were made public and viral via the Interweb, is the amount of time and energy that the guy put into their response (to the girl's in/action).  Most guys are either "into" a girl or not.  And when a girl dismisses a guy she's NOT into, it usually gets brushed off.

You don't see a whole film genre or subset of TV shows revolving around men getting together and discussing/analyzing their love lives (HIMYM might seem like an exception but it's about one guy telling his kids about his dating life - not sitting around with his guy friends at brunch dishing about his weekend escapades a la Sex and the City).  Although I'll admit I'm seeing a lot more of "sensitive guy dealing with girl issues" in the past few years, it's usually just one part of the guy's character - the show or movie itself is not about the sensitive guy sitting around over-analyzing his girl problems with his bro-sephs (movies like "(500) Days of Summer" - albeit still at the rate of perhaps 1 or 2 films a year).

I'm not gonna get all sexist and generalize and say that men shouldn't have feelings or thoughts.  But you see things like the voicemails and email above and you just wanna say, YOU'RE A GUY.  SHE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.  GET OVER IT.

So, here's my PSA: Dudes everywhere, please don't be a creepster.  I'm not gonna lie, sometimes ladies can be confusing: some girls are shy and we're told to deflect attention or play hard-to-get.  So if you must, then please push GENTLY, ask her out once again BUT NICELY.  If she still says NO, or nothing at all, let it go.  You are not going to convince me/us/her to date you with your horribly offensive overanalysis of my mental state and childhood experiences based on our chance encounter in the street (in the case of Dmitri) or your crazy overanalysis of our one dinner date (iBanker).  Trust me, there's enough of that overanalysis going on over here from the lady's POV.

Edit: This latter example of a "crazy guy" in the form of a "JPMorgan Don Juan" was just brought to my attention - although I must say this is a quite different context, it still merits a mention (the 1st two being overcritical "Why don't you like me?" pleas after an initial contact that resulted in no followup and this JPMorgan guy being someone who is taking a breakup UBER-badly - in a lying crazy stalker way).

My weekends.

True story of my life.  Except I bake first, then sit and eat the fruit of my labor while lounging on my couch.

Teehee.  It's just a time-thing.  I'm full of energy on Sunday night and Monday, even on Tuesday and make all these grand plans for the weekend.  Then it's Friday at 7pm and I can barely keep myself awake and I slip in and out of dreams about whatever doc review I've been doing all week.

Sad, but true.

Roommates.

It's tough.


I'll admit I'm probably not the easiest roommate to live with.  But I do have a very defined set of rules and guidelines to live by.


My sister sent me the picture below with the following comment: "hahahahaha instantly reminded me of you"

Last picture at 20 Hysterical Roommate Notes

I will say that my law school roommate was probably one of the nicest, most cheerful people I've ever met but we didn't quite see eye-to-eye on how to keep a house.


I finally started leaving her notes - nothing quite so clever as this - although I wish I had.


I did start something along these lines:

2nd pic from 20 Hysterical Roommate Notes

My note said the following:

Original work (c) ChristineisPink

My mom said: "You might be right, but no one's gonna like you."


Ahh - the price of being self-righteous...

Wrong foot forward.

Via Flickr (adorable at her age)

I wore my Tory Burch Revas yesterday for my commute.

I've never found them as AMAAAAZINGLY comfortable as people rave (not enough arch support for me) but yesterday I was surprised at how uncomfortable they were.  They were fine for the morning commute.  But the after-work commute back home was pretty uncomfortable.  My feet felt pinched in all the wrong places.

Today, I wore them again.  Realized I wore them on the wrong feet yesterday...

Now, I've gotta say, a shoe that you can wear on the wrong foot and merely feel mild discomfort and not get the obvious feeling that something is wrong is quiet impressive.

Or... I'm just dumb.

How to love a child.

(And in complete contrast to last night's post about a totally classy, family- and values-oriented college athletic coach...)

In light of the recent Penn State scandal surrounding Jerry Sandusky, I wanted to share some advice via a cute but (I believe) practical image I had saved.  (There are definitely more "journalistic"perspectives out there but this is one from a point of view that I appreciate - a blog that loves sports - but doesn't protect its own).

Apparently, in an interview with Bob Costas, "Sandusky was trying hard to paint himself as someone who “loves” young people, but “isn’t sexually attracted” to them while saying he didn’t realize showering with a ten-year-old was wrong." (Quoted from TAH)

For anyone else who's not sure how to "love children/young people,"

Freak.

Source.

Just got out of the elevator.  I was in there with 3 adult men.  I was heads and shoulders above all 3.

I felt awkward - like I was offending the other 3 men by being taller than them and should apologize...

Is there something wrong with me???

Am I a GINORMOUS freak?!?!

Or is there something going on with men, where it's like, somehow genetically beneficial for them to be smaller?

Bizarro boss.

I've posted at least once before about how much  I love Ask a Manager.

But she got this one question that seriously has me scratching my head in a WTF manner.

Like, seriously.  Your boss goes THROUGH your desk to steal your food?

SO WEIRD!!!

Reading stuff like this reminds me of how lucky I am to NOT be in that situation.

But also, SERIOUSLY!?!?!? Who steals other people's food? ESPECIALLY when they know it's YOU?!?!?  And are doing things to try and prevent you from stealing it (putting it in her desk)?!?!?!?  AND YOUR STEALING IT PREVENTS THIS PERSON FROM EATING AT ALL????

OMG.  There are just so many things wrong with this boss, I can't wrap my head around it.

Voices in my head. Please hang up and try again.

Source.

At first I thought I was crazy. I felt like I could hear a fuzzy voice somewhere in my office. Then I thought someone was playing a prank on me. Like they had hidden a small radio somewhere in my office and left it on so I would keep thinking I was hearing voices. But then I remembered I don't have any work friends like that. So then I just decided I was crazy again.

Then I realized I had knocked my phone off the hook and the operator voice was repeating over and over and over and over again, "Please hang up and try your call again."

T.G.I.F.

Oh, Canadaaaaaa.

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I went to a cocktail mixer for recent alumni of my law school last night (classes of 08 through 11 seemed to be there).  I met a Canadian LLM who graduated in 2011 (same year as me) and he was just delightful.

Something that stuck in my head is his perception of how rich and colorful US history is compared to Canadian history.  For example, he said he was learning about the (US) Civil War in middle school and then they went on winter break before finishing the unit and all he could think was, "What happens NEXT!?!?"  He had no idea how the Civil War was going to end/ended. 

(Ahem, excuse me, I'm referring to the war that is known as "The War of Northern Aggression" in some circles.  In some, Southern, circles.  My freshman year roommate from Georgia told me this is how she learned it.  By the way, she was what we currently call, African American.)

Anyway, the LLM was just amazed that we had this whole history of slavery and owning people and fighting wars about it.  Apparently Canada has had none of that.  And he was just enraptured by it.

This led into a discussion of the dearth of cases on the "tortious interference with chattels."  Apparently, he had to look up cases on this (made relevant today by the issue of people using GPS tracking on OTHER people's phones to stalk them or otherwise invade their privacy).  The problem was, there were NO prior cases about the tortious interference with chattels.  With someone else's chattels (chattels = property that is not real property where "real property" = land/homes).

Oh, but wait.  There were a FEW cases.  A few OLD cases.  The ONLY reported/published cases documenting the legal history of tortious interference with chattels was about SLAVES.  About people messing with their neighbors' slaves.  And he was just not going to cite those to prove the point that it's wrong to mess with someone else's stuff. 

And somehow, in the space of a few paragraphs, this post has gone from being about "Oh, Canada" (SMH) to "Oh, UHH-merr-kuh" (SMH).  (Where SMH = shaking my head; and Uhh-merr-kuh is how my sister pronounces "America" when we are referring to something shameful, or backwards, or super-red-statey about our great country).

Example of things that prompt "UHH-merr-kuh":
1. Overweight/obesity/morbid obesity epidemic (TV shows like "Heavy")
2. People who think the sun revolves around the earth
3. Anything related to Palin/Bachman
4. Anything about American stupidity in general (especially geography)

I'm sure you can think of more...

7 billion people.

I read this New Yorker article on my morning commute about estimates that the 7 billionth person will be born on October 31st (next week! Halloween!).

And just now I read this op-ed piece on the same topic in the New York Times.

The New Yorker article seemed more like a factual, "oh well this is gonna happen so let's just wait and see what happens" of seeing where the limits of earth's ability to support X billion people.

The Times article looked a little more at finding solutions and making changes to improve quality of life ("prosperity") and changing how we measure the "success" of the species.

I don't know how I feel exactly or what my response is. 
A.  I'm glad I'll be dead before the end of this century and won't have to fight 12 billion other ppl for a mouthful of food.  Probably.
B.  I sure hope we figure out a sustainable balance b/w food/materials/housing and people so we don't end up with a mandated baby limit/policy.
C.  Is this what happens when science ruins everything?  Remember when famine, wars, disease, and other natural disasters were able to limit and control our numbers?  Now that we're able to outmaneuver a bunch of those "natural" clearing-outs, what're we going to do with the "too-many" people?

I don't think I'm making sense.  But I feel like this is an interesting discussion topic.  I just don't have an opinion or stance yet.

Justice Beaver and the Beaverization of America.

Great news story

At first I had no idea what Justin Bieber was and why comedians and the Internet kept making fun of him.  Then I downloaded some of his music (legally, of course - I'm a pre-lawyer for goodness sake).

And although it's a bit flat and predictable - his songs are catchy and quite palatable/inoffensive.  I have a whole playlist called "Justice Beaver" (tips stylish lady hat to the writers of The Office).

But now, I have a pretty mild and age-appropriate crush on Justin Bieber and GET the jokes about him (and I like when there are jokes about people who don't get the jokes because that's (the old) ME!!!).

My two all-time favorites (the only two I got and laughed at):

The Office

And from Modern Family:

Jay: This stupid kid’s been in the business about ten minutes, he barely looks at my proposal, and he says he wants more “wow.”
Gloria: What does he mean by more “wow”?
Manny: It’s the Bieber-ization of America.
Jay: What do beavers have to do with anything?
Gloria: The beavers, they build the dams all over the country so there’s no floods. Is the beaver-ization of the Americas.
Manny: I’m finding there’s less and less we can talk about.

This kid's (Justin Bieber) name has kept a bunch of great TV show writers in business =)