Words from the burbs

Spectral Blog Post

I don't believe in ghosts. I used to, but I don't anymore. However, I do believe there is some yet unexplained freaky shit in the universe, and this is my story.

A bit of context. My pappaw owns 80 acres more or less near Corydon Indiana. My aunts and uncles, and my mother, all own twenty acres a piece of abutting and overlapping property thereto. Many Sundays, we all gather to eat delicious fattening country style food and chat. Today was one of those days (plus I needed iris starts and cow poop which I ended up'd bailing on getting, b/c I'm scared of the cows to whom the poop belongs.)

Anyway, we're all sitting around the table, and my uncle Allen asks around the table if anyone had heard a wierd noise lately. He was not specific other than to say, if we'd heard it, we would know what he was talking about. After we noted the proximity of my mom's four vocal goats, and ruled them out as a source, we asked Allen if he could further define the sound. He said "it sounds like the wind, but more of a howl."

I got goosebumps and I looked at my mom. I said, "I've heard it, it sounds like a whale/train whistle/awful noise."
Allen looked at me and said "That's exactly what it sounded like. When?" (I don't live around there, so how could I've heard it?)

I said "15 years ago, mom and I were asleep up there (pointing at second floor above our head) and some thing that sounded like that came in through the window one night and scared the living shit out of us and then it flew back out the window." No, it was not an owl. There were screens up.

My mom backed me up, b/c she was there. My sister remembers too, but she was not there to discuss. It sounded a lot like the smoke monster from Lost. Now, it could have been a bad dream, but our descriptions of what happened and what that thing looked like matched exactly. To this day, my mom, who can cut a bitch and is tough as nails, cannot sleep with her window open because of it and had to sleep with a light on for six months after the incident.

Allen said "interesting." He's heard this thing twice.

It's probably a goat. On a side note, I do have vivid lucid dreams and wake up screaming and trying to run somewhere, usually when I wake up zule is like "WTF?"

I am done!

Even though my last paper was not due until next Monday, I put a hurt on it today, and got finished. I am done with everything I have to do to graduate. Now, I just sit back and hope that I did not fail anything.

It feels a little bit like when I used to roller skate, and after I would get done, it felt wierd for a few minutes like walking on the ground gave me vertigo.

Now to find a job!

Hit Send Twice

First, on the trial I watched, my friend Dave did the opening statement. The trial was for a school superintendent charged with four counts of third degree sodomy, which happened thirty years ago. There's no statute of limitations on delayed discovery sexual abuse. My friend Dave started his opening statement by saying: "This is not a story about now, this is a story about her (the victim's) 14 year old mouth on his then 32 year old penis."
Pretty effective, I'd say.

Convicted.

Oh, btw, I'm done with law school after I send off two papers. I feel strangely bereft. I think I'm just one of those people who like having an excuse for not really participating in the real world. For example, for most of my life, I've been preoccupied with children, and school and work. I'm kind of glad to have a break now before I start the bar review.

Trial

I sat in on this trial today. Pretty damn interesting.

http://www.whas11.com/education/stories/WHAS11_TOP_Skaggs.25cbcbd.html

speculum

So, I went to my yearly physical today. Except in my case, its been four years, b/c I'm lazy and degenerate. I'm in the dog house with my gynecologist for my sedentary, smoking, drinking, stressed out lifestyle. Anyhoo, when the time came for the whole "insert foreign body" into mine, I look and the speculum has a wierd tube on it. So I say "why does it have a tube on it?" And my doctor shows me, its the cord to turn the light on. What light you ask? Why the entire speculum, with its strange beak, is a fiber optic light up speculum. It looked like a glowing duck. I said "hey, that's one of the top ten puppets you won't see on sesame street."

April Fools!

Zule got me early this morning.

My big idea for a prank was to call around from my IRS extention at my internship that shows up on caller id as "US GOVERNMENT" and tell them they'd been randomly audited.

However, since that's probably a federal crime, I didn't.

Apparently, I'm an asshole

Twice today, I was told I offended someone when I was not intending to do so. Now, I have no problem being offensive or abrasive as the case may be on purpose, but to find out I'm inadvertently going around being a dick, this is hard to take. See, b/c its not on purpose, I really can't control or predict the behaviour in the future. For the most part regarding the conversations at issue, I was hard pressed to recall at all, much less whether or not I was seeking to offend the other party.

Note to self, if someone tells me about their job, make sure not to say "I can't believe you get paid for that." Especially while unemployed and deeply in debt. No wonder I don't have a job. Maybe I should bring an asshole-to-english interpreter to my next job interview.

Kentucky's Bar Oath

I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of .... according to law; and I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.

Lawyers be trouble. Actually, the bar of the mid Nineteenth century nearly wiped itself out with duels. Apparently shit was real procedural with the Code Duello, so, there were lots of lawyers and judges involved. If anyone knows of my dueling activities please don't tell the bar.

My kids are really damn smart

I have to brag up on my kids. They are both spoiled brats, but they are truly smart. The teenage one is nearly self sufficient and is completely self centered. She took off for a field trip and took the hair dryer, which she had begged me not to bring to White Plains b/c she needed it (we had overlapping hair dryer requiring field trips). I conceded and when got back, the hair dryer was gone and the house was thrashed. THRASHED. I left her shitty voice mails until I got it out of my system. Dude, there was a bucket of rotted KFC chicken on the counter! When she finally picked up her phone today, she answered with a quavering "hheelllowww" and I was like "Oh my god, what is wrong are you okay?" I'd forgotten I was mad the day before. The truth is, for whatever serotonin reason, my rage has a half life of 12 minutes. I wished her luck in her competition.

Then, my son wants to be an inventor when he grows up. He spends all day inventing shit. Now truth be told, he'll probably end up in a cubicle like the rest of us subject to the whims of marketing and upper management, but it's good to have dreams. He came out and informed Zule he wanted to make a catnip dispensor. Zule was like "okay, little buddy". The little dude took a piece of paper, rolled it into a funnel, with a hole at the bottom just large enough to let out catnip, taped the whole thing shut and taped it to my wall at exactly cat height. Its the best invention, I for one, have ever seen. (except flushing toilets and the "rabbit").

Further, my trip to white plains/ nyc was a success. Our team died in preliminaries, so Zule and I tooled around NYC, but spent a lot of time sleeping in White Plains. Never underestimate the beauty of uninterupted sleep. We were going to go to the Staten Island Ferry and go see the statue of liberty (I can't type that now without typing "statute" of. . .) but the information booth chick failed to tell us you needed a bus card to pay for the bus fare, not cash, which sucked. Also, our first greeting to NYC was some lady bitching behind us about our smoking. At first, I did not even realize she was talking to us, but eventually, four minutes into the tirade, I caught on. See, in Kentucky, shit is different than that. We don't say loud audible shit behind someone's back. We either whisper horrific rumours completely out of earshot, or go right around the front of them and challenge they ass to a duel. Overall, I got most excited by Grand Central Station. I spent a long time reading the plaques on the wall and pissing Zule off. Further, we played a game called starbucks, where if you saw a new starbucks, you got a point. Zule won, but I came back from 7 - 2 to 7 - 5 so that was good.

As I was on the plane I learned from a new Ken Follett book the origin of the word "to forestall". See in the Middle Ages, people had to pay to sell stuff in a stall, but if the lines to pay to get there were too long, then the merchants would barter illegally amongst themselves, and "fore-stall" the tax on the stall. I love learning shit like that.

My son the jurist

I have this stupid moot court, which the only thing that is keeping me from going postal is that I get to go to White Plains New York, and potentially go see NYC, which for god knows what reason, I've never visited. Anyway, I have to argue from two different positions, and to keep my son from going downstairs and bothering his sister, who is trying to sew 9 irish skirts, I asked did he want to be the judge. He responded by going and getting his clip on tie from his bedroom, clipping it to his shirt. I gave him a gavel (for some convenient reason, there was a gavel stuck in the couch and I pulled it out and gave it to him). I got through the first sentence of my opening:

Your honors, the plaintiffs have no standing. Although this a public law, a private individual must have an injury in fact, fairly traceable to the defendant's actions. The defendant's are not administering a pesticide that will cause a fish kill.

bang bang goes the gavel.

Sweatone opines from the bench: "don't kill the fish and don't put your privates in the water."

Best opinion ever.

Snow

It snowed, so I stayed home with the kids. I really did nothing but laze around all day and use the internet. My mom spent the nite last nite b/c of the weather, so that was nice. I am totally ready to get out of the house though. We tried to go to the creation museum last Sunday, but it was closed. We went to the Newport Aquarium and had a blast. The two days before that I was sick and sweatone was sick. Next week, Zule and I go to New York. White Plains. I'm going for a scholastic competition, so I hope I lose in prelims so I can spend the rest of the three days in manhattan.

What I love

I love my family.
I love my husband's stoicism, defied only by a nostril flare that I can alone detect. I love my daugher's snubbed nose and her flash of braces and her myspace profile status update. I love my small son for his continuous delusion since birth that the world is his, and only his oyster.

I love watching traffic on interstates. Each car shows me there is someone, determined to get somewhere.

I also love peas.

Internship

Everyone asked why I was doing a tax externship. Because I get to litigate me some bitches, myself, in Federal Court. I had a trial last Monday, and did not faint. That was good. Plus the judge framed his own legal issue and then all I had to say was "unconditional release" but I said "unconditioner release" and that seemed sufficient.
Further, I've been defending myself against sudanese and amish people. That's awesome.

IRS is love.

So I was walking to the green lot at school

And a random student asked me "Do you go to the law school?" I said, "Yep" and they said, "I knew it, you look like a lawyer."

Thank you TJ Maxx. Usually I look wear sweats and an angry look to school, but today, I had to go to my internship, and I like to dress the part. In fact, 90 percent of the reason I want to be a lawyer is to play dress up every day. SHOES!!

Gifts

I have gotten a gift that I don't like. The problem is, its something that the giver may notice is not prominently on display when visiting my house. I have no idea what to do. Maybe I'll say that I liked it so much that I put it in my bedroom. No one goes upstairs.

I'm the stupidest smart person that I know. I decided to wash my car at the Typhonic Touchless car wash last Saturday, b/c I'd gone to my Pappaw's farm and there was dirt all over it. So, I pay my four bucks and cruise on through the car wash. It totally blew my car magnets off. For all I know, they are stuck to the metal sprayers in the ginormous car wash robot system. I'm really pissed, b/c I really liked my car magnets. I drove more cautiously, lest my husband's company get calls about deranged SUV wielding maniacs. I suppose, if I were not a moron, I would have taken the magnets off before going through the machine, but I thought magnetic fields were strong, man, strong!