It's called grammar.

The worst part about reading ads on Craigslist is the complete lack of proper grammar, capitalization, and spelling in 90% of the ads. Well, technically, that's three things, but they all fit in the same category of being able to write at a high school graduate level. How the hell can a man expect to attract a female with a sentence like this: "Ok so im tired of finding girls who are either interested on nice cars, sex and.money, I need someone who I can actually call my gf, someone to talk on the phone till late , txt , spend time with on weekends or just take a random.trip to anywhere and take a long walk and just talk about anything." I don't understand. Is it that impossible to not stick in random periods or to actually properly place spaces? And the guy is my age. When that's what is available, is it any wonder that I am single and find it impossible to find a long-term partner? Is it so wrong to hold out for a man who has read, on his own accord, something other than the sports section of the local newspaper and is also straight?

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley/An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain"

Final year of law school. It's been hell getting here. It'll be another hell from here to passing the bar. Job market's shit. Everything I've touched this semester's turned to ash. I was complimented on my writing style for the first time since starting law school by my upper-level writing requirement professor. He actually enjoyed reading my rough draft, the first piece of non-fully-legal writing that I've done here (my attempts to master legal writing leave me with short, choppy sentences and an incoherent rambling instead of a nice flow). Just another sign that, really, I ought not to be here. But, here I still am, in this Godforsaken little town, suffering through a final year, and I'll be damned if I don't see it to the end and finally get the diploma that I put my blood, sweat, and tears into earning.

Dammit, I still want to drop everything and escape. Wake up from this fucking nightmare, but, no matter how hard I pinch myself, this is the reality that I have to face. Just over six months from now, it'll all be said and done. I will have taken the bar. Then we can see if these past 3.5 years were utterly wasted or worth the trouble. The really tragic thing is that if I could go back and do it all over again, I don't think I would have changed what I did. Everything would just replay itself as if I hadn't been given a second chance. How's that for sick and twisted?

Great sex makes me go loco

So I had sex with Mr. X again. A week and a half ago. Will I fuck him again? That's a negatory. The sex was fan-fucking-tastic. However, I'm gone from where I was for the summer with no real plans to go back (it'd be ridiculously easy to go back though...he's under the impression that I am coming back in 2 weeks, though not for him [but he's allegedly waiting for me]). Plus, the problem with Mr. X is that he makes me want a boyfriend. He's a guy that I enjoy getting physical with and can have a decent conversation with. Not to mention, he's a non-judgmental audiophile. The guy I lost my V-card to was always criticizing my taste in music, total music snob. It was annoying as hell. Maybe I should have run in the other direction once we started creating inside jokes (there's 3 currently that I can think of). I even have a nickname (one of the inside jokes). That's not how things are supposed to go down when it's just sex. Keep business strictly business. People get hurt when you don't. I tried to end things, but he wouldn't let me. It sucks because I can't just slip into something vaguely resembling a casual relationship based entirely on sex, but I can't seem to put the final nail in the coffin. I need to do the latter, though, for both our sake.

Secret Diary of a Non-Call Girl

"Secret Diary of a Call Girl," the t.v. show, is a guilty pleasure of mine. I've always wondered what'd it'd be like to get paid to have sex. I don't think I could ever do it, simply because I don't think that I could actually force myself to have sex with most of the people who would actually want/need to pay for sex. I really am too picky for that line of work. That leads to the real reason why I'm posting this entry. I'd think by now that my love of Craigslist personals would be entirely evident. Now, I've actually found a whole new reason to love them. This morning, I actually had sex with someone that I met through the ad they posted on Craigslist. Let's call him Mr. X. It was not posted in "Casual Encounters," but Mr. X was still looking for just sex, revenge sex at that. From what I can gather from the very few bare facts I was given, Mr. X's girlfriend cheated on him with someone else, prompting their break-up. He's still obsessing over it in a not-so-good way, and needed to get her out of his system. Hence the need for straight sex from a random stranger (cheaper than a prostitute, and possibly safer). Lucky for Mr. X, I was bored, and I haven't had sex in ages. I responded; we swapped emails, texts and pictures; then, we had fantastic sex this morning. His place, of course. The best part about it is that because we were both obviously in it for one reason, and one reason only, there were no awkward social niceties that we felt obligated to employ. The texts fell predominantly into the category of sexting, and, when I stepped inside his front door, we got down to business as soon as I placed my bag onto the ground. Not that Mr. X is a bad person. Rather, quite the opposite. In another life, we may have been friends, but not after meeting like this, and certainly not after having the sex we had. I am the most mentally and physically relaxed that I have been since I started law school. That alone tells me that I made the right decision to take a chance on a random, well-written Craigslist personals ad. Will it happen again, maybe. With Mr. X, I'm not holding my breath.

Stupid boys and stupid crushes

So there's another summer worker at where I'm working this summer who I've developed a little bit of a crush on. This speaks volumes about how difficult it is for me to meet nice, real guys. Unfortunately for me, he's only 21 (3.5 years younger than me) and he's from South Africa (love the accent), where he'll be returning mid-July. I showed him around some of my favorite places in LA today since he's never been to Southern California before, and I had the most fun with him than I've had one-on-one with a guy in years (yes, years, and yes, literally years, not figuratively). I might as well be crushing on a celebrity because nothing's ever really gonna happen, since there's no time for something to happen. Be grateful for what you are given because you never know when you will wake up and it will be gone. I just wish I could have met a great guy who was going to be around for longer than a month. One of these days, right?

Can I trade lives?

Things have been going bad for me during the past 72 hours, including getting rear-ended on the freeway late on Saturday night. I suppose I should be grateful that I am not in the hospital, but it still sucks that my car's in the shop indefinitely. It makes what else happened this weekend and today that much worse, such as getting threatened with arrest for a DUI by the asshole (Middle Easterner whose English left much to be desired) who was the boss of the taxi driver who rubbed up against me in an intersection when my car had eventually died in the turn lane (leaving a bright green paint streak on the driver's side). I dunno who I pissed off up there, but I really hope that this all means that some really great stuff is coming my way soon. Fingers crossed!

What it means to be a nerd in today's society

I'm sitting one table over from a guy whose appearance screams "nerd" (not "geek," since a geek is generally someone who bites the heads off of chickens). He's wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with "Google" across the chest, chunky-framed glasses with rectangular lenses, and '80s style headphones that remind me of the headphones that one had to wear for the hearing tests that my peers and I were forced to take in the early '90s. His muscle definition, or lack thereof, implies that he has minimal physical exertion in his daily routine, and his hair is styled in the same manner that I am sure his mother brushed it into when he was a toddler. However, when he ordered his coffee, all of the baristas remarked how ironically cool and trendy his t-shirt and glasses were. I wouldn't be surprised if he bought his headphones from Urban Outfitters.

So has nerd become the mainstay of cool? Furthermore, is nerd's sudden popularity boost based on the millions made by Web 2.0 and the advent of the personal gadget revolution? Or have we all realized that smarter actually is better?

My theory is that people are actually just getting worse at hiding their inner nerd. It stems from the new trends of emotional purging and need for attention from strangers that have popped up in society as a result of the exposition of self provided by social media. People aren't as good as they used to be at putting up a facade and hiding certain less than desirable points about themselves. Instead they're been forced to embrace those points in order to avoid feel the pain normally associated with the inevitable mocking that comes with the territory. As a result, nerd has become commonplace, and companies now market to that commonplace nerdiness. Once there are multiple marketing campaigns geared at something, the public automatically assumes that it must be cool/trendy or the companies wouldn't waste money marketing to it.

I guess we'll never know until this period in time is taught in history courses.

You know you shouldn't be drinking when...

St. Patrick's Day is, hands down, the biggest drinking day of the year...especially when one lives in a college town. I saw people completely tanked by noon and girls running around in club gear. Hello, the cottage cheese thighs that aren't that noticeable on a packed dance floor in a dimly lit club are painfully visible in the daylight. Ew.

Certain law school students were no different than the undergrads. I had to take care of one girl that I barely knew because all of her friends had deserted her when she was too drunk to stand up. Last I saw of her was that she was going home with some guys that she knew. Now, I wasn't completely sober myself, but don't drink if you can't handle your liquor. A smart woman knows to nurse one drink over the course of an evening.

Sometimes I think that God wants me to be a trophy wife. At the end of the evening, I found myself having a lengthy and sometimes very odd conversation with another one of those rich brats who doesn't think that any girl is out of his league because he thinks that every girl has a price. He spent an inordinate amount of time trying to seek validation from me, as they always do, showing me the stuff that Daddy bought him and reminding me that he comes from an affluent background. Like that shit's supposed to make me want you. I'm too mature and smart to be a golddigger. Plus, we disagreed on music, so that's an automatic strike-out.

Only 11 more days until my last great birthday. Damn, I'm old.

Celebreality

I just want to say thank you to Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan, and to America's obsession with celebrity train wrecks. My life has been less that idea lately, but I haven't been arrested or had my career completely destroyed. So, really, my life could be so much worse. I could be Lindsay Lohan, constantly in and out of jail and rehab, or Charlie Sheen, with everyone abandoning me left and right while trying to say anything to make it seem as if I'm not completely powerless. I think that's why we, as a society, have always loved reading about the rich and the famous. Seeing their lives go crashing down in flames makes us feel slightly better about our own lives because it goes to show that we're better off in the end by not having as much as they do. Why else would the majority of the world only care about Demi Lovato's existence when she was shipped off to rehab, or only come to know about Vanessa Hudgens' role in HSM when the nude photos of her were leaked? I'm sure that many people have said at some point, "At least I'm not as bad as [celebrity]. I haven't [gone to rehab/developed a drug dependency/been arrested/flashed a paparazzo unknowingly]." They are a measuring stick for acceptable societal behavior because they are so well-known among the masses. So long as you haven't screwed up as royally as they have, you must be doing something right. So, once again, thank God for celebrity train wrecks, for making me feel a tiny bit better about my life. As bad as it is, it isn't as bad as a celebrity train wreck's life.

When things get bad...

...the only sensible thing is to act bad.

US Embassy Urges Americans to Leave Egypt

This article actually makes me want to fly to Cairo and act Nero-esque. If I had the funds, I'd be throwing a days-long party that would make any of the Bright Young Things', or Gatsby's, for that matter, parties look like a civilized afternoon tea dance.

Speaking of the golden era of the flapper, I adore the music used in this book trailer. So much so, that I've appropriated it to be my current text ringtone.

Some of the biggest assholes I know wasted time at Harvard

Let me just preface this with saying that not everyone who went/goes to Harvard is an asshole. There are nice people that go to Harvard. However, it's like saying that there were free African-Americans in the South before the Civil War (i.e. a small minority).

Currently watching The Social Network while reading through the pdf version of the Kaplan/PMBR study outline for the MPRE. I'm taking it in just over a month because I'm currently learning all of the rules for my Professional Responsibility Class, which is being taught by a guy who went to Harvard, and not good-ol'-boy Harvard, but Harvard entering into the new Millenium, which is a whole new level of money-poor but just as self-entitled (if not moreso) "elite." This makes the whole thing a joke, as he is so very much the product of this attitude. Everything, and I do mean everything, revolves around the almighty dollar sign for him, and who he has to step on and what laws he has to "bend" to get that money as easily as possible (as in with as little effort exerted on his part) doesn't matter. The money is important because it allows him to justify his pompous self-absorbed attitude.

It's a phenomenon that I've found to be unique to Harvard. There are a few at the other Ivies, but Harvard seems to draw these people in with a magnet. How have I come about this conclusion, having not attended an Ivy myself? I've been surrounded by alums, current students, and future students all my life. My father would routinely drag my brothers and myself to a "The Game" party at which there would be multiple tvs broadcasting "The Game" because, if one thing could be said about my father, it is that he is a proud Yalie (mind you this alone does not make me biased against Harvard). Naturally, there would be a number of Harvard grads there as well, some nice, but many were not. Many of my peers (both from high school and crew, which was a club sport and therefore attracted teens from schools other than my high school) went to the Ivies, and the Chair of the History Department at Brown even sent me a nice email when I was a senior in high school asking me to consider applying to Brown (my parents thought that I would hate going to an Ivy and thus forbade me from even applying). My least-favorite cousin (the one who once chased me around her house with a hammer while trying to hit me with it when we were very young) went to Harvard (and she's just as evil now as she was then). Finally, even though I try to avoid meeting new people my own age who went to an Ivy (as it puts my mother into a "You should try to marry him" state of mind...having married a Yalie makes her biased), I still run into them from time to time, mostly at events that my parents drag me to. So I know the kind of people they are as a whole group based on an objective opinion.

Why is this? Who really knows. Point is, thank you, Harvard, for essentially giving us a way to weed out the self-absorbed pricks in America. Saying that you have spent time at Harvard or, worse, that you graduated from Harvard is a quick way for the rest of us to immediately figure out that you're not the kind of person that we want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Of course, the damn shame of it all is that those at and from Harvard take pride in this attitude. Mind over matter, if you will. If they think that they deserve all that comes with this self-entitlement, then they blind themselves into believing. And, of course, Harvard, the institution, fosters this blindness because it refuses to be seen as what it really is, the dumping ground of the Ivies, where those who are too conceited, too unfocused, and too lazy due to having mommy and daddy pledge their support no matter what happens or what they choose to do with their expensive educations are allowed to act as if they have never left junior high...scratch that, the first kegger that they went to in junior high. Harvard hasn't done anything remarkably beneficial for the world since it got rid of Bill Gates, which then freed up his time so he could eventually give us Microsoft.

Sick of the frozen white stuff outside

Once again, it's that time of year when I wonder why the hell I chose to come to this town of my own free will. It's as cold as fuck outside and I'm looking at another weekend stuck inside my room, where my insanity runs the risk of manifesting itself thanks to cabin fever. Last weekend the "Feels Like" never got above zero degrees Fahrenheit according to AOL.com. And, of course the only activities within walking distance in town are eating, drinking, going to the library, and shopping at American Apparel and Urban Outfitters. So, as you can see, there's loads to keep me occupied.

I know, I should use this time and idleness to continue my fruitless job search, or to be creative. At the very least I could copy down lyrics into my notebook from the scraps of paper that I have stashed in various bags, "songs" that I had written while on holiday travels.

Instead I find myself growing increasingly paranoid about dying a spinster. Realizing just how pathetic my spinster aunt currently is has frightened me. I do not wish to die alone and unloved. Yet I cannot bring my heart to settle just yet. Give me a year, and perhaps I will have grown desperate enough to marry whomever will have me. I also blame this dread on Valentine's Day, which is fast approaching. Lord knows that I'll be spending Valentine's Day as I usually do, watching romantic movies alone while scarfing down a heart-shaped box of chocolates.

My impending 25th birthday also has me running scared, as I feel incredibly unaccomplished. By the time that my mother was 25, she was married with 3 children (I was born 5 days before her 25th birthday). That I don't even have any marriage prospects at the age of 25 (unless I happen to meet Mr. Perfect in the next 2 months) makes me feel incredibly behind the ball and a failure as a woman because I have yet to reproduce.

My one solace is Persuasion. In it, Jane Austen gives 27 as the doomed age at which women are too old to have any chance at marriage. Yet, the heroine in the novel still manages to get married to her soul mate and live happily ever after at the ripe old age of 27. By that calculation, I still have 2 years of being a marriageable age, meaning that I may still hope to find someone to marry.