pandora = love

I told Pandora to make me a station based on "The District Sleeps Alone Tonite," by the Postal Service, which is not only a song i adore but was recently voted the District's official anthem by DCist. The first song it played on my new station? "If You Leave," by OMD. Which is one of my five all-time favorite songs.

although i don't know where to find you

happy happy birthday, Mike!!

hey, wait, I *am* a lawyer!

My last rental company was an unmitigated nightmare. I lived in the same apartment for three years, which one would think is a long enough period of time to establish a decent working relationship with one's landlord. Not so with Evil Slumlords. Case in point: I lived on the second floor, and my front door opened outside, into a stairwell. The light in the stairwell was controlled by a switch inside my apartment. I thus considered that the light fixture fell at least partially under the purview of my landlord's responsibility to provide a safe premises. One day, the light bulb blew out. I asked Evil Slumlords to change the bulb. I called and wrote notes on five separate occasions, at one point notifying them that a friend of mine had tripped on the steps in the darkness and fallen. Did Evil Slumlords change the bulb? NO. The only way i finally got a new one was by asking the powerwasher, who happened to be washing our apartment one day, to use his tall ladder to reach the fixture and change the bulb (which took him, i might add, all of ninety seconds).

Now i've gotten the second in a series of letters threatening to sue me if by the end of this week i don't pay them $333 in fees incurred during my move out of the apartment. This sum is in addition to my $900 security deposit, which they retained, explaining that the carpet in the entire apartment had to be replaced and the entirety of the security deposit went to that.

This is bullshit. They've got me over a barrel and they know it; it's not economically feasible for me to hire an attorney (even my kickass litigator friend who will give me a reduced fee) over such a small amount, because after just a few hours of her work, i'll be out more than i would have had to pay just to resolve it. And i run the risk of, if i lose in court, having to pay not only my kickass litigator friend but also their attorney fees, which i'm sure would be astronomical. So in a cost-benefit analysis, i lose pretty much every way you look at it. End result: they're $1233 to the good, after having done unnecessary work to the apartment and charging me for it, as well as for things they would normally have had to eat the cost of anyway, and i, a poor debt-ridden non-profit attorney, am out $333 and must slump in shame for not having the sack or the finances to stand up for my rights.

But i'm so angry. I vacillate between wanting to just send them a check like a chump and climbing aboard my tenants'-rights soapbox and wanting to storm down to the courthouse and file my own damn complaint asking for my $900 back. (This, by the way, is the route advocated by the Virginia Office of Consumer Affairs, whose Consumer Hotline i strongly recommend.) As a compromise between my risk aversion and my furious anger, I've sent Evil Slumlords' property manager a letter outlining my "concerns" with their charges and asking for her to call off her attack dogs and discuss the matter with me before retaining counsel. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, contributions to the Evil Slumlords Takedown Fund are greatly appreciated.

best. game. ever!!

don't shoot the puppy, y'all.

HURRAY!!

I just got the following e-mail from one of my Skillz students:

"Caroline!

I’m going to be a Legal Skills TA! They’re going to give me a whole group of 1Ls to corrupt.....hahahahaha."

CONGRATULATIONS GABE!! I'm so fucking proud of him. He's super cool, on top of being a great writer and passionate advocate, and next year's Skillz classes will be damn lucky to get him. Way to go kiddo!!

animal cops

This show floors me.

It's climbing up my list of favorites. I just can't conceive of the type of strength it must require to be able to go in day after day and rescue animals from unspeakably squalid and dangerous conditions. I'd either collapse into a sobbing mess or punch the shit out of the assholes who treat their pets like that.

Heartbreaking, when they have to put animals down. But there are moments, like when a kitten that got rescued from being stuck between two parking-garage concrete walls is adopted, and they show the kitten cuddling and licking its new sister -- i could feel my heart melting inside my chest. Seriously, i had to lie down.

And the type of people who do this job -- they'll really surprise you. Don't judge a book, i guess, but they range from stereotypical butch cop types to hulking motorcycle gang looking dudes to street talking guys who will go off about an owner and then bend down all "wook at the pwetty puppy!" when they're saving some poor dog from starvation.


...right now they're rescuing animals from a "collector's" home. Four dogs, eight cats, two rabbits, a duck, and forty-two cockatiels. The house, when they showed the inside, was unbelievably disgusting. The rabbits' claws were over an inch long, and every surface was covered in shit. They've also shown a pair of mastiffs who were starving to death and would literally have frozen in the Detroit winter had they not been rescued the day they were found.

How can people treat animals like that?

consideration

So my co-worker, the pregnant one, had two visitors just now. Which is fine, especially because she was in a minor car wreck last week and this is the first time she's been back in the office (she and the fetus are both fine, so no worries there).

But. As i may have mentioned, i work in an open space with just a hastily-built partition dividing our two areas (we've only got two and a half walls each; i can't in good conscience call it an "office"). And they were so loud that after a half-hour my boss SHUT THE DOOR TO HIS OFFICE.

Muhaha. Seriously, i like chatting as much as the next office drone, but for the love of god, stop screeching and cackling. It hurts my eardrums.

like NASCAR, but with drowning

I am now a certified APBA boat racer.

Two weekends ago my family went to Annapolis to get capsule-trained, and my stepdad, stepbrother, and i are now official. Woohoo!

Training consists of, first, learning how to breathe through a regulator, and learning the hand signal for "i'm upside down in the mud and would like some oxygen, thanks" (your hands make a triangle above your mouth).

Then, essentially, i got stuffed into a tiny capsule, wearing a regulator and a helmet, but my nose and eyes weren't covered. They strapped me into a five-point harness, stuck on a steering wheel mock-up, and closed the hatch.

Then they flipped the capsule over. So i'm dangling upside-down in this teensy hatch, in a pool, and water goes up my nose, and i can't see anything, and all i could think was, Breathe in. Breathe out. I couldn't consciously think of the tasks i needed to perform to escape, but somehow, i managed, in the proper order, to do the following (relying on touch alone):

1) Pull the hatch cord and push up (down), opening the hatch.
2) Reach through the steering wheel, squeeze its collar, pull it off, and drop it.
3) Find the zipper of the racing suit, slide the right hand down, find the harness buckle and release it.
4) Push the shoulder harnesses off.
5) Pull myself out of the harness and forward-roll out of it, keeping my legs straight so as not to get massively entangled in cords and wiring.

...success!!

office space

This bitch just walked into our office and goes, "I'm just here to check out the candy situation." She proceeded to stroll to everyone's desk one by one, and, finding no candy on anyone's, left.

This shit infuriates me. Get out, crazy candy bitch! There's a vending machine on the third floor, and i know you've got fifty cents. Buy your own freakin' candy!

seven things that are making me happy right now.

With apologies to the countless others from whom i stole this idea...

1) My new pearl bracelet. It's beautiful, and the pearls have the most delicate tinge of pink. Plus, it rolls up and down my arm when i move, and i like the feeling; it reminds me i'm wearing it, which makes me smile.

2) Ryan Adams' voice. Currently listening to a scramble of Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac and Faithless Street, but i can't get his cover of "Wonderwall" off my mind.

3) The $392 i have yet to spend luxuriantly all on myself. It's the anticipation that's wonderful, like the moment before orgasm, or the sensation of holding a hot, cheesy, melty piece of pizza just before taking the first bite.

4) The package from Amazon that should be waiting for me when i get home today. It's got The Killers in!!

5) An Unexpected Light, by Jason Elliot. Because i finally finished the effing tulip book, and i am still obsessed with Afghanistan.

6) Google Mars. Such pretty colors! I haven't played around with it all that much, but the wee Martian on the Google page yesterday sucked me right in.

7) Knowing that 10pm on Friday is just a little closer than it was before i started typing this.

dear postmodernism, shut up. love, caroline.

An amusing exchange between Big and me:

ME: "Haha. I've already got tickets, son. Saturday night, 8pm. Maggie was on that shit the minute they went on sale. I'd say you were welcome to join us, but i don't think she got any extras. If you'd like, i'll let you know if someone backs out at the last minute.

As for Roger, my friend Eric almost got cast as him in the touring production, so i can't hate. That part just gets a little draggy, and they *certainly* didn't need to do any on-location filming. I mean, seriously, a mountain? Shut up, Chris Columbus.

Also, i had an interesting conversation a couple months ago about heterosexual privilege and how Mimi gets to survive while Angel is sacrificed. I'm not sure how i feel about that, although knowing Jonathan Larson, it may very well have been his intent. What do you think? Part of me feels like it's the most obvious thing ever and i am a dummy for not picking up on it earlier, and part of me thinks it's part of the same problem i have with a lot of lit crit -- people forcing interpretations on texts that weren't necessarily intended by their audience. Which has always annoyed me. But maybe i'm just small-minded.

[. . . forgot to add a thing, so i sent a second e-mail]

...aaand by "audience," i meant "author." and now you know i read over e-mails after i've sent them. because i am teh lame. i'll shut up now :-)"

BIG: "...teh?"

It's good to be appreciated.

FREE COFFEE FREE COFFEE FREE COFFEE

...free coffee!!

granted, it's Starbucks, and usually i hate that shit. But who am i to complain when the COFFEE is FREE!!

lighten up, it's just fashion

Project Runway, y'all.

Santino was robbed! I just watched his collection again, and it's just, in a word, magnificent. The colors really tie the whole collection together as a whole (as do the hot, hot T-straps); the fabrics are lush and flowy and friendly to the body; the designs are creative and interesting and detailed without the ridiculous Santino excess that made many of his PR designs unpalatable.

Tim Gunn actually made an interesting point in his blog: as marvelous as he found Santino's collection to be, he prayed for him not to win, because then PR would become Welcome to the Freakshow. Ladies and Gentlemen: Jay McCarroll in this corner!

On the other hand, Chloe's collection looks like cupcakes. The seaming was lovely, and the clothes fit their models perfectly, but: cupcakes. Big, fluffy, frothy cupcakes, suitable for feathered hairdos and hurled martinis. So many puffed sleeves! So many shrugs! So much stiff, shiny satin!

I can't understand the win here, unless the judges went for the clarity of vision and the pieces' relation to each other. Which, i honestly think Santino's collection was more interestingly put together, because the connections were more subtle, whereas Chloe's banged you over the head with Look! A Collection! I liked working a little for Santino's story.

And then there's Daniel V. I thought some of his pieces were seriously beautiful, most of them actually, but i agreed with the judges that there was not enough holding the collection together as a whole. The pieces were easily the most ready-to-wear, which i suppose is both a blessing and a curse. The ivory coat in particular had an amazing neckline, and the pieces were all well-made. But there was nothing as spectacular and outstanding as, say, his orchid piece.

I mean, Santino wrote his clothes a song. Robbed!!

out of place

So i just went up to the third floor to fill up my water bottle. Standing in front of the water machine was an enormous bald-headed dude, gasping and wiping his face with a paper towel. I thought maybe he had just come out of the bathroom, which is next to the water machine, but he was sucking down water from a paper cone. I tried to steer around him on my way to the tap, but he decided he wanted to strike up a conversation.

He introduced himself. I said, hi, i'm Caroline. He asked my last name (which, awkward to begin with). I told him. "Clemmons?" Er, no. "Oh." he said. "I guess my hearing's not so good after that run."

Y'all, it's 2:25pm on a Friday afternoon. Who the fuck goes jogging during LUNCH?! I expressed my surprise and he shrugged and said, "well, you gotta do something."

Yes, freak, but do it on your own time. Nobody in your office wants your bald ass to drip sweat all over their TPS reports. Also, while i will give him the benefit of the doubt this time, i suspect that come July, he's going to be one funky motherfucker, and i for one do not care for the waft of BO on a sweltering afternoon. IN MY OFFICE.

the bluest skies

Today, it's already in the sixties and will hit 75. All weekend: Blue skies and sunshine! And warmness!!

And when i turned on Pandora for an editing soundtrack, the very first song it played me was Sweet Child O'Mine.

Woohoo Friday!!

Currently listening: Rites of Spring, by The Bravery. Dedication: Will.

what do i know about security anyway.

1) The online order form at Mr. Chen's is NOT secure. No https, no little padlock in the bottom corner of your screen. Plus, they're happy to take orders over the phone. Don't put your credit card number on the internets! Call instead. Hot, delicious fried veggie dumplings can be yours. Mmmm, fraud-proof deliciousness.

2) Bank of America. Fucking Bank of America, man. First MBNA ate up Wachovia. Then the resulting hybrid got chomped by Bank of America, creating a nigh unstoppable credit-card behemoth that engages in three separate levels of security when you try to pay your bill online. Which means, first, that you have to remember not one but two separate random codes, one a "passcode" and one a "SiteKey ID," and if you forget either you have to actually call them to reset it. Which, i suppose, is reassuring if you've been identity-thieved. But if you're me, and you've called them eight times to change your billing address and have still not received a single paper bill in the mail since SEPTEMBER, it just makes you want to slam your laptop down in disgust and vow never, ever to bank with Fucking Bank of America at any time, for any reason, even if you do have a friend who works there giving out sweet mortgage deals and even if they do have that super cool "round up" deal where your change automatically goes into your savings account and they match it and ... fuck you, Bank of America, is what i'm saying.