Sweet Gracie

You've met Gracie before.

When Java died recently, I introduced you.

And somehow - it seems both unreasonable and unreal - I am here again. Writing about the loss of a dear, sweet animal who should not be gone. Who, in truth, I can't really accept is gone.

Maybe I won't until I go home again.

And yet, she is clearly gone because when I talk to my mom, there are tears and sadness in her voice, and she talks about how quiet the house is.

It's exceedingly unfair that she should have dealt with this twice in one month, and both so unexpectedly. And that my sister has lost both of her animals while she's out of the country.

Gracie had cancer. None of us knew. The vet said that's normal for golden retrievers. They're people pleasers of the highest degree and don't want to cause any trouble. They hide their symptoms until they simply can't anymore. And then it's too late. And it was.

When they found it, the cancer was in her heart and her lungs, and they said she wouldn't make it the rest of the day.

There are people who say that pet owners pretend that their pets are more human than they are. But there's no doubt in my mind that Gracie was trying to save us from the pain until she couldn't anymore.

This will hurt for a long time to come.

Coming down the pipelines

I thought that I was going to come out of this unscathed. My BigLaw firm seemed to be holding its own. But I got the call this morning that the summer program has been shortened from 11 weeks to 9 weeks. It's a blow of course, but I'm aware that I'm lucky to have a summer job, and it's a good one.

I found out a few weeks ago that I received a public interest fellowship as part of a program that the firm provides, which means that I will be spending part of my summer at an amazing public interest organization (that I'm super pumped about!) and part of my summer with the firm.

What it means now is that I will be spending 5 weeks at the public interest organization and only 4 weeks at the firm. It makes me a bit nervous for the possibility of an offer, but after speaking with someone from recruiting, I know that I'm just going to have to be really committed to doing excellent work and making a good showing (which was, of course, my plan anyway).

Law school makes nice people

Between me and the babe as we walked to the grocery store today.

the babe: i hate people who go on leisurely sunday afternoon bike rides.

me: totally.

the babe: they suck.

me: yeah, like how i hate the undergrads who play frisbee in the quad (outside the law school).

the babe: well, that one's totally warranted. law students should be able to hurt them, and if anything happens, we should be free from liability. i mean, that's just incitement.

me: yeah.

Weighing in on things I know nothing about

I don't purport to know what goes on in other people's relationships. Okay, that's a lie. Sometimes I do. I'm human, after all. But I obviously don't know what goes on in the lives of Rihanna and Chris Brown anymore than the next person. In fact, I probably know less than the next person because I wasn't entirely aware of who either of them were until the domestic violence story hit the news.

So I'm not going to make any comments about what really happened or how things should be or should've been handled. But I am going to say that I'm really disturbed by the comments of the teenage girls quoted in this article. The girls interviewed are students at Hostos-Lincoln Academy in the Bronx, and here's a little sampling of their statements.

“I thought she was lying, or that the tabloids were making it up,” one girl said.

Even after they saw a photo of Rihanna’s bloodied, bruised face, which had raced across the Internet, they still defended Mr. Brown. “She probably made him mad for him to react like that,” the other ninth grader said. “You know, like, bring it on?”

Should he be punished? No, said the girls, whose names were withheld at the request of the school. After all, they said, Rihanna seemed to have reconciled with Mr. Brown.

“So he shouldn’t get into trouble if she doesn’t feel that way,” one girl said. “She probably feels bad that it was her fault, so she took him back.”

What I keep coming up against is that the girls aren't supporting Brown because they think he didn't do it. They think he did it; they just think that it was Rihanna's fault.

Several in the magazine industry have put forth explanations for the behavior of these adolescent girls:

Mimi Valdés Ryan, former editor in chief of Vibe magazine and the one who put Chris Brown on the cover in 2006, said the defense of him by so many young girls can be understood in part because they are adoring fans.

Even before this incident, Mr. Brown’s core fans didn’t like Rihanna, said Ms. Valdés Ryan, now editor in chief of Latina, a magazine for young women. “His posters are on the bedroom wall, the last face they see before they sleep,” she said. “They’re feeling, ‘Why is he with her, not with me?’ ”

As word of the incident spread, girls could not believe he could wreak such violence, she said. After all, sweet Chris Breezy — his nickname — even appeared in a music video with Elmo of “Sesame Street.” Acknowledging his attack would make them feel vulnerable: How could they have a crush on someone who could do that? It was less terrifying to blame Rihanna.*

Their response makes total sense. Who wants to believe that someone they love, admire, care for, adore could do something like that? It's part of the reason that violent relationships continue, that parents and friends look away, that the problem keeps playing itself out. I know the experiences of all women aren't the same - that you don't just have to support other women because you're both women. But what is happening when adolescent girls are so quick to blame a woman whose boyfriend has beaten her up? Why does a girl EVER think that's it's acceptable for a guy to hit his girlfriend?

*The article lays out several other possible reasons for the girls' behavior, including societal attitudes about men in the African-American community.

Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

I've successfully registered for fall semester of next year, and that means that I'll only register one more time before this is all over.

Sad?

Elated?

Indifferent?

Depends on the time of day, I guess.

(In)Sanity Gal Takes the Plunge

In a moment which may prove to aptly reflect my name, I registered today to run an 8K race on April 18th. My dear friend T and I decided to do it together, and last week we started running together twice a week.*

So, 8K is not so bad - that's 5 miles. Of course, I actually cannot remember the last time that I ran. I think that it was once during finals last year, as in last school year, as in almost an entire year ago.

We started with three miles. Which, in truth, seems sort of excessive for beginning, but there's really not that much time to up the mileage. And I only thought I was going to throw up for like an hour and a half afterwords.

The key exciting detail, which T pointed out to me today is this language from the race** website.

The Springburst 8K is a challenging race hosted by PGRC. The hills of Greenbelt National Park provide over 100 runners a chance to test their fitness levels before the summer racing season begins.

Hmm...it seems that in my effort to find a race with a date before finals, I forgot to read the description. The word "fun" is not in there at all, as in "Fun run for kids and adults!" Um, challenging? Test their fitness levels? Summer racing season? As in see if running in fact makes them feel as though they're going to die before the summer racing season begins? T thinks no. She thinks they're training for speed. Oh. dear. god.

I checked the results from last year, and it does appear to be the case. These people are actually runners. But...but....there were a few stragglers. So, it appears that if we can run these five miles in less than 1 hour and 4 minutes (assuming said stragglers race again and have been sitting on the couch eating cheetos since last year), then we will not come in last and I will not have to relive any unfortunate middle school track experiences.

* My dear friend E is also running with us but unable to do the race.
**Speaking of race, I think that's a misnomer. When I say "race," I actually mean "jaunt out with friends where I for some unknown reason wear a white piece of paper safety-pinned to my chest and hope not to get run over."

Warming my heart

The text that I sent my mom today as she took the big step of mediation training after many, many years away from her law degree:

I'm not sure when your lunch break is but I hope the day is going really well!!!

Her response:

I LOVE IT!!!

Sometimes you just can't help what you are

The other night after our lobby day experiences, the babe and I watched Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story.

There's a scene in the movie where Margarethe apologizes to Diane, her partner.

The babe and I stopped the movie and had an extended conversation about the ways in which we felt their communication with each other was lacking and how we thought the conversation should've gone. The babe presented her version, and then I presented mine. We were basically on the same page - Margarethe should've asked for a bit more of what she needed. We knodded our heads in agreement and turned the movie back on.

Ah, processing lesbians watching lesbians process.

The Human Face

"Defend America. Not Homophobia. Repeal DADT."

Those were the words on the shirt of the older gentleman who asked to take our picture as we stood on the lawn in front of the capital with our American flags and Freedom to Serve signs. We had just come from the first half of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Lobby Day to convince our representatives to co-sponsor the Military Readiness Enhancement Act that would repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. It was me and the babe and two other girls, one of whom is currently a plaintiff after having been discharged under DADT.

He seemed to be on his own, and I thought it was a little weird that he was so excited to be getting our picture. And then he asked if he could get in a picture with us and exclaimed, "My wife will be so excited!"

Later he came up to the babe and me.

"You know, somebody told me that military nurses...I know someone who is one...and I guess they're probably mostly women...anyway, someone told me that about half of them are gay."

The babe and I agreed that didn't seem all that surprising.

"What do you think would happen if they just got up left? Just weren't there anymore?"

I complimented him on his shirt. I could see that it was homemade.

He told us that he carried a little notebook with him and wrote down these t-shirt ideas when he came up with them. I wondered if he was just somebody who loved causes, who liked to go to rallies and fight for things. I was very curious about him.

I learned that he used to work at Circuit City until it went bust, that he was jewish, that he had 3 children - 2 boys, one married and one not, and one married daughter. That his daughter was married to a Japanese man and that it had been very difficult for his wife to accept her choice.

He talked about the horrors of discrimination, the idiocy of hatred.

He told me about the experiences that he and his wife had as they traveled around Maryland putting up Civil Marriage is a Civil Right signs.

Finally, I asked. "What brought about your interest in gay rights?"

He seemed surprised by the question.

"My brother. He was the smartest guy you ever met - 4th in his class at Harvard. He almost finished his degree at MIT, but he stopped to take some time off. Everybody knew there was something a little bit different; we talked about it. My parents always seemed really good - like they didn't really have a problem with gay people. But then...well, they just went crazy. It was awful. Anybody else, but not their son...

Have you seen Prayers for Bobby?"

I told him that I hadn't, that I hadn't heard of it.

"It was on lifetime about a month ago. It was about a boy who killed himself, threw himself off a bridge. His mother was really religious and just wouldn't accept him. She made him feel awful about himself... It's a book too. I bought it used for five dollars. I could send you a copy if you want."

I wrote down the title and assured him that I would find a copy of it.

The first speaker came up to the podium, and the rally began. I told the gentleman to have a nice day, that I needed to head back over to my friends. He wished me a good day.

I watched him walk around and take pictures. I realized that I didn't even know his name.

Pregnant lesbians are more fun than law school

I was going to write a post about my spring break trip to St. John in the Virgin Islands. Or maybe about how much I hate it that I'm not still in St. John. Yes, the latter is probably more likely as I seem to have gone the way of many law students in that I seem to find nothing more interesting than my own incessant whining.

But you've been saved.

Thanks to my dear friend T who clued me into the goings on of one Iron Chef America star (whom I've never heard of) Cat Cora. From this article, I've learned that she's a lovely blond lady who's gay and having a son with her partner. So what, you say? Not only is she pregnant with a son - so is her partner. Big deal, you say? Not only are they both pregnant - they're carrying each others embryos. Of course they live in California. (Hi Virgin :))

T thinks this is the way I should do it.

Calm down. I won't be having children for a while.

But I'm thinking first about two women married to each other being pregnant at the same time. Hmm... That seems to me not the greatest idea. I mean, the babe and I struggle going through 1 month of exam prep and exam taking together. 9 months of pregnancy? Labor? Recovery? They're doing theirs 3 months apart, so they have a little window, I guess. But who's there to go out for pickles and ice cream if you're both pregnant? Maybe their sperm donor is a really nice guy and he'll make the craving runs and do the back and foot rubs and run the warm bath. But what if he's asleep?

Isn't that the whole great thing about having a spouse while you're going through that? So that there's someone there to take care of you when you're feeling all fat and tired and cranky? I mean, obviously you wouldn't exploit it. And the benefit of a lesbian relationship where both women carry is that both women get to be the giver and the recipient of those kindnesses. But at the same time? I don't think so.

But I do have to admit that I'm drawn to the trading embryos business. That way each woman gets to feel like she's part of the pregnancy and birth. Although unfortunately for me, I'm imagining all sorts of legal issues if the relationship ends. Ugh. Oh, there I go with the law school whining again.

There's another part of me that thinks it's best to go as natural as possible - no taking embryos out and putting them anywhere else. Just shoot the stuff and let things happen.

Meet me back here in 3-4 years, and I'll let you know what I decide.