I’m in Augusta tonight – I spent the weekend in Columbia for the Georgia game. Everyone showed up, tons of old friends. We had great food, great booze, great weather. The only thing that didn’t show up was the Georgia football coaching staff and players. It was the WORST football game I’ve ever been to, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ve been to some bad games. This one was the WORST. There was not a single moment in the entire game where I felt anything but sickening dread. Christy said the word of the day was Demoralizing, and I agree.
BUT, besides the game, it was an overall fantastic weekend. Friday night we had a great dinner at The Oak Table, and then we abandoned classiness for the night and drank beer at a dive bar. We showed shockingly good restraint and enjoyed a good night of sleep before the big game day. Game day dawned sunny, and warm. I ran into Curt at Starbucks before 10 am, and it was awesome to have confirmation that Atlanta and Athens people were already here and ready to go.
It was so hot in Columbia. There is a new tailgating station/park(ing) thing, called The Farmer’s Market. Someone said that they cut down a bunch of trees to built this fancy parking lot area, but I wasn’t aware that trees grew in the city of Columbia. I’ve never been to a game in Columbia where it hasn’t been full sunshine, without a cloud in the sky. Shade is a myth in Columbia, SC. It makes me really appreciate Athens. That being said, I’m not going to bash the city – I’ve had many an enjoyable night and day in Columbia. I’m just pointing out the lack of shade. Charleston doesn’t have a ton of shade either. Palmetto trees do not provide much shelter.
Yesterday was a long day of quality time with old friends and catching up, and eating barbecue and brownies. Hard to complain.
Now I’m in Augusta, because tomorrow is Columbus day, and my birthday is Wednesday, and my mom made me a cake. The cold front is coming in tonight, apparently it is already 20 degrees colder in the ATL than in Augusta, and the low tomorrow is 52!
I hope your football dreams came true as mine did not, but I am thankful for my many friends, and the fact that I have someone to cook me a birthday cake from scratch. Hooray for October!
I know it has been a while, and I feel like I have some explaining to do. I can’t believe I haven’t written in this blog in almost an entire year, but I blinked my eyes, and a year had passed. There are a few reasons why I haven’t been blogging. For starters, I spend the majority of my work day writing. I honestly enjoy the writing that I do at work, but it tends to leave me mentally drained, and the last thing I want to do when I’m not at work is sit in front of a computer. Speaking of computers at home, my laptop died a while back, and I haven’t bothered to get a new one, because my iphone is sufficient for a certain degree of connection, and as stating, I have little desire to sit in front of a computer after work. Another reason – my work computer is rather ancient, and the wordpress website crashes the browser. The last, most glaring, underlying problem is that I love to read, and I would rather read than write as a general rule.
All of these factors crept up on me, and I got lazy, and I’ve neglected the blog. The blog does not deserve this neglect, and some things have changed, and I would also like to change. First, I have finally replaced my poor comatose laptop from law school with a laptop from this decade. Second, I have been at my job for two full years, and I now will be working from home two days a week. Having a laptop that works, and the time saved from working from home, and the ability to blog at lunch, should help me find more time to blog. Because I miss documenting my thoughts and having a creative outlet. I mean, I have a LOT to say.
So let’s get back to something interesting, I’m tired of my excuses, I’m sure y’all are too.
In the past year, I’ve developed affinity for a few things: yoga, the hairpin, trader joes, my iphone, and online shopping. Maybe that last one isn’t new.
Monday night, I was playing tennis with some friends in downtown Charleston, and there was an almost full moon rising over the skyline, behind the palmetto trees on the bank of colonial lakes. It was huge, a bright squash yellow, with a wisp of a cloud. In the distance, someone was practicing a brass instrument, maybe a bugle or a trumpet. Taps was barely discernible, followed by a few scales, and then jazz music for the rest of our match. It made me appreciate why people travel to Charleston in such droves, and if you’ve never been here, you should visit. Briscoe and I would love to see you.
Football has been highly stressful and immensely enjoyable so far this season. Saturday, my Dawgs are going to Columbia to play South Carolina. I’m nervous, and excited, and strung out.
I hope y’all haven’t all forgotten about me, I’m going to make it up to you. And if you haven’t tried the ice cream made out of coconut milk from trader joes, I encourage you to rush over to TJ as soon as it opens in the morning and try some. It is literally the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted, and it will greatly improve your quality of life.
Edit: I forgot to tell y’all the best thing that happened to me today. I was driving down the road to the courthouse, and a song came on the radio, and I was like, I know this song, what is it? It was MAN IN MOTION. I had to call jennifer at work and let her listen to it through the phone. Also, this comes in as close second of best things to happen so far today (besides the valentines I got in the mail! AGHHH! LOVE IT), complements of Thrill – http://smouch.net/lol/.
I like Friday the 13th for the most part, the only thing I hate about it is that they release horror movies on Friday the 13th, and I hate horror movies. Just watching the previews gives me nightmares, actually, just tivoing through the previews freaks me out. Ugh. I can’t handle the mental images. It makes watching tv less fun. And March has a Friday the 13th as well.
Christy is coming to visit today! I’m so excited! We are going to have a great time. I cleaned my house and everything. I can’t wait.
I will have five years of blog entries at the end of this month. Which means I have four past years of Valentine’s Day entries.
I didn’t watch them last night, but I dvred it, and I watched it Monday night when everyone else was watching the press conference. I care about the economy, but I spend a lot of time reading about it and was a little overloaded. I wanted to be entertained, not frightening about my future.
I really enjoyed it. I have pretty mainstream music taste, as Travers say, I have an ipod full of music that sucks. But I love the people that were nominated. I teared up when Sugarland won, and I about started bawling when Jennifer Hudson sang. Al Green appeared to be having the time of his life (and I wasn’t sure if Justin was going to be able to resist making out with the Reverend), and Coldplay seemed genuinely happy and excited and maybe even grateful for winning, which I found refreshing. I love Jason Mraz, and I really wish I had the Kid Rock album. I love Miley, and Taylor Swift is my girl. Umm, and the Jonas Brothers make me happy. And they sang two of my favorite songs, ahhhh. Stevie was slipping into the lava before he got superstitious. Even my old childhood friends (David and Charles) were nominated (TWICE!). Katy Perry seems like such a cool person. She has the word Jesus tattooed on her wrist. Her parents are evangelical ministers and her first album was a Christian album under the name Katy Hudson. She said the tattoo reminds her of where she came from and what she can always go home to. I’ve had her cd for a while, and now I like her even more than I did before. I think we could be friends.
And NEIL DIAMOND! Singing Sweet Caroline! I was instantly transported back to a karoke/oyster shack in panama city that only served high life beer by the pitcher with Sarah, Wes, Clint, Heath, and Emily.
I love Alison Krauss, I think she is a musical genius, but she didn’t seem real happy to be there. I want to believe that she is painfully shy, but she almost acted like holding the grammy award was beneath her. I’m going to go ahead and give her the benefit of the doubt because of how her music has enriched my life, but it’s kind of hard.
I think what I liked best about the Grammys was that an equal amount of respect was given to all genres of music, and how much fun everyone seemed to be having. I assume that country music has been embraced because County music has the best fans in America and Nashville is a town to be reckoned with. Lady Antebellum was nominated for Best New Artist overall, not just in country, which sort of goes to show you how big country music has become. But I think it’s awesome that the rap stars and the country stars and the pop stars and the rock stars and everyone else hang out and enjoy each other on Grammy night. I liked watching the guy from Green Day hug Alison Krauss. For some reason that kind of cracked me up. It just seemed like a happy fun event that the participants sincerely enjoyed. And that is always entertaining. I will always take Happy over Controversial any day.
Britt and I have the exact music taste, it’s actually sort of creepy. Sometimes we blast music in the house and sing at the top of our lungs. We sound awesome. Briscoe and Grayson love it when we sing.
I was in Lexington, SC watching a trial all day Tuesday, Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning. I stayed with Jennifer and Matt on Wednesday night. They just moved into a precious house with a great backyard. I have my own room and everything. Wednesday morning Jennifer and I went to Starbucks before she took Clemmie to dog school and I went back to the courthouse to be tortured by the closing arguments of the personal injury attorneys.
Wednesday morning was mild, with a sharp wind. It was one of the first real days of fall, and in celebration of Fall, Jennifer and I thought we deserved a Pumpkin Spice latte. We laughed in line about the days immediately following college where we thought nothing of spending $5 a day on a coffee (because we couldn’t be expected to make our own now, could we?), and how now Starbucks is a special treat. My new office is dangerously close to a starbucks but I do enjoy making my own coffee most of the time. But we were both excited about our coffee treat. When we got up to the register, the poor child behind the counter had a difficult time with my name and my complicated order (if I’m going to pay $4.53 for a cup of coffee it damn well better be custom made how I like it be something I can’t make at home), and by the time we got it all sorted out, he unhappily informed us that the espresso machine had just gone down. Dang it. So we ordered regular coffees, and he didn’t charge us, and he was nice and apologetic and everything he should have been. Then as we walked away the machine started working again. Of course.
Regardless, every since then I’ve been feining for a pumpkin spice latte. Seriously, I woke up this morning and knew there was no way I was going to get anything done until I had one. And since it is Friday (a day for treats), and I woke up in time, I went to starbucks. It was awesome. I asked for half the number of syrup pumps, because I can’t believe how strong those things are, and it was still extremely sweet.
When the starbucks girl handed me my much anticipated pumpkin spice latte, she said – “Here’s your cup of love.”
And I thought that was perfect.
On my way to starbucks this morning I passed two gas stations that have gas. And since they have gas, there was nothing short of a traffic jam to get near these two gas stations. I really couldn’t believe it. It was nuts. But then again, I haven’t seen a gas station with gas in a while, so I guess everyone has to have gas for their weekend plans. It’s really pretty frightening. I heard on the radio that people were getting into physical altercations last night at gas stations.
So a lot of tv show seasons started back this week, and I’ve been watching a lot of tv, as usual. And there is one commercial that absolutely drive me crazy. It makes me angry. It is a ford commercial with Mark Richt, who is basically a god around here, with a football in his hand, standing next to a big new F-150.
And the announcer starts talking about how you can get $7500 cash back when you buy a new F-150.
Okay. This is ridiculous. Especially right now. In the days of a lending crisis, where the disasterous effects of predatory lending are crashing down upon us, it is absolutely unbelievable to me that Ford is still trying to get people to borrow such an absurd sum of money. $7500 is enough to put the average american worker who lives pay check to pay check into debt for the rest of their lives. Especially at the ridiculous interest rates associated with car buying. I am offended when the cashback offer is $2000, but $7500 is just unconscionable.
So when this person defaults on their car payment, not only will they lose their truck, they will still owe Ford Credit Company at least $10,000. Or, when three years from now this person wants to trade their truck in for the new version, they will owe money on their trade in. Oh, and just as a side note, Ford Credit Company makes more money than Ford Motor Company. How does that make you feel? Ford is just a big giant credit card company disguised as a car company (although I’m sure that Ford is not the only car company guilty of this).
And I’m really not trying to imply that the average american is stupid, I’m just trying to highlight that advertising is powerful, especially when you put someone as revered as Mark Richt in the advertisement. Also, finance is difficult and confusing and the lenders don’t want you to understand it. They want to lend you money so they can charge you interest. Which is why every single store in america, from Walmart to Saks Fifth Avenue, asks you if you’d like to save ten percent and open a credit account with them. Honestly, I have been confused for years about what the commercials meant when they said – $$$ Cash Back. I could never understand why they would want to give you money to buy something from them. But now I understand. And it makes me kind of ill.
Once again, I have been a bad blogger. Taking the bar and finishing up work ended up being a little more stressful that I anticipated. After the bar I went to the beach for a few days, then came back and worked my last week at the courthouse. Then I went to the mountains with my family for a week. It was so much fun. Briscoe had a blast. I watched a lot of olympics, went on some really pretty hikes, took briscoe on long walks down gravel roads (I love gravel roads), drank champagne on a ridgeline meadow, watched the moon wax and venus move across the sky each night, trespassed in some fabulous gardens at dusk, watched the valley fill with clouds from the bottom up until the mountains were entirely hidden behind a wall of smokey clouds, consumed a great deal of butter milk pie and enjoyed quite a few bottles of wine. It was exactly what I needed to regroup and refresh.
On Monday I started my new job, which is exciting and fun. I'm still getting settled and finding a groove, but I think I'm going to really enjoy it. I like the people I'm working with and the location and the subject matter and I believe this to be a good start. I have a new travel coffee mug – it's blue and I love it. Last night I had my first junior league meeting, which I have to say I was sort of dreading but which was fun and nice, although a little long after a full day of work.
I'm a reader in a wedding this weekend, which should be fun, I'll get to see some good old friends. Then next weekend football starts!! Yippee! I'm so excited.
Okay, I'm going to go try to learn how to do my new job – hopefully when I get more settled into life I'll be better about keeping you updated.
I apologize for leaving such a dramatic post up for so long. I’ve taken the south carolina bar exam, my car has broken down, and I’m trying to recover. I’m really tired, and I’m in hiding right now. I have to go to work tomorrow. Here I go again, being dramatic again.
I’m actually so relieved. I thought the bar was ridiculously hard. Three days was a long time. I really hope I passed.
I love television. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to say sometime in the near future. I’m making no promises, but I’ll keep you posted.
If only there was some place to send the error report. I’m losing it. It isn’t just that I’m tired of studying. I am tired of studying, but if my panic attacks were confined to studying, I would be coping much better. But the stress of the bar sets off a chain reaction panic where I remember something at work I didn’t do that may end up ruining my life (this is honestly not in the realm of possibility, but that doesn’t change how I feel about it), or I remember something I said at the bar the other night, or how I never picked up that prescription, and how I never took that book on tape back to pilot gas station and how I can’t find a certain pair of pants and maybe I dropped them off at the dry cleaners long ago and never picked them up and now they are lost forever.
Then I do coordinated things like pinching Briscoe’s fur under my chair (I didn’t know she was sitting DIRECTLY beneath me), and spent two hours feeling HORRIBLY guilty because my dog hates me. She let out the most pathetic yelp. To be fair, I don’t think I actually got any skin, but she moved to the other side of the room and chewed on the spot for twenty minutes. What a drama queen.
I’ve researched being a federal court translator (I don’t speak another language), getting pet insurance, how much cars cost (I have no intentions of buying a new car), gone through a case that is on appeal that I forgot to do something about on friday (the guy has already exhausted his rights in our court, he just likes to write letters demanding things), finishing the novel I was reading, played quite a few games of free cell, and I check the weather channel compulsively hoping it will rain just to have something interesting happen. It looks like it is getting cloudy outside. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
I also spend a lot of time searching the internet for south carolina bar exam questions.
Yesterday I watched batman begins in the morning, studied, then went and saw the dark knight with my dad. It was really good. I find stories to be such a great escape.
I’m in my parents cottage, which was inhabited by a renter until about about a month ago, when she got married and moved out. It has a window unit air conditioner which is blowing on my neck right now and about to drive me nuts.
And the worst part? I know what would make me feel better. I would feel better if I would just focus and get though a lot more material. All the procrastination just makes me feel worse, but for some reason it is paralyzing.
Look at that, it is raining. Yay. I don’t know why that makes me feel better but it does.
Yesterday, on my way home from work, I stopped at the neighborhood liquor store. Elizabeth and I had consumed a couple of my mom’s bottles of wine in the past few weeks and I thought it might be nice to at least replace one or two, and maybe buy a bottle for the weekend. Or some beer. I hadn’t really decided. I ended up getting wine and beer.
As I pulled into the parking space, I noticed my 4th grade school teacher in the adjacent spot. She and her husband are in the same crowd as my parents, and her kids, although not my age, are around my age. We waived. Once inside the store, we politely avoided each other as not to crowd the other’s decision making (it isn’t the largest store).
We both ended up at the register at the same time, we spoke, Hey, how are you, good to see you. She asked me about the shoulder surgery my dad had undergone the day before, she had heard about it the day before at the vet’s office – the vet happens to be my dad’s best friend (his Ireland travel buddy). We spoke of our dogs, and how we were glad it was the weekend. One of the town drunks (who was purchasing his own weekend provisions) offered to help her carry her purchases to the car. She declined.
I got into my car before she did and I drove off before she got out of the parking spot. As I pulled out onto the street, I saw my brother pulling into the liquor store. He lives about two blocks away, and after all, it was 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon. He made the hand motion of spinning his finger around – the TURN AROUND signal. So I turned around immediately and was back in the parking lot as my former teacher was pulling out. She stopped – rolled down her window and said –
LOOK AT THE PAINE CHILDREN -BOTH AT THE LIQUOR STORE!
the thin line between optimism and delusion... 