Just finished my first week of classes. This year, I think, will be better than last year. My classes are fun so far and I was really happy to see my friend. I am still pissed at my school for screwing me by making me live in the dorm but all things considered I am pretty happy.

The second in my Things I Love Series may seem very mundane but it is definitely one of the things I love most. Water. I was talking with one of my coworkers the other day and she said that she dislikes the taste of plain water. I cannot understand that at all. I love water. It is the most refreshing, wonderful thing to me.
I think that may be because of all the wonderful memories I have associated with water. Being a kid out on the lawn, my hair matted to my head wearing a wet swimsuit taking a long, cool drink straight from the garden hose or plunging the garden pump handle back and forth until the water burst out onto the ground and then taking long drinks of the cool clean water.
I also have memories that weren’t so good. Once when I was about five I wanted to go to the swimming pool but my mom wasn’t able to take me. So, in the middle of the summer, I walked all the way to the town pool. Unfortunately, when I got there the pool was closed so I had to turn around and walk all the way back home. When I got to my apartment I was red faced and sweating, I went to the sink and drank about eight huge glasses of water. I remember thinking water was the most wonderful thing in the world. Another time, in the Summer also, I was at the carnival in my grandma’s town with my two cousins. They ran off and left me wandering around by myself. It was so hot and I was so thirsty but I had no money. I went to this woman who was selling soda but she couldn’t give me anything because I had no money. So she took a cup and scooped up the water out of the ice bucket and gave it to me. It wasn’t very clean water and there was even a dead fly floating in the bucket but again I remember thinking how nice she was to give it to me and how great it was to have something to drink.
That is why I love water, I guess. To me a drink of a cool glass of water is the complete fulfillment of a true need. So many times in our lives we decide we need this or that and the reality is we don’t. But thirst is a real need and water completely quenches it. I love it.

I have decided to start a new series of blog posts, in an effort to post more, about things I love. These could be any things I find; food, clothes, art, news etc. But I will love them and not have any negative feelings toward them.

This is also me effort to be positive.

My first love is this poem:
i am so glad and very
merely my fourth will cure
the laziest self of weary
the hugest sea of shore

so far your nearness reaches
a lucky fifth of you
turns people into eachs
and cowards into grow

our can’ts were born to happen
our mosts have died in more
our twentieth will open
wide a wide open door

we are so both and oneful
night cannot be so sky
sky cannot be so sunful
i am through you so I
e.e. cummings

I love this poem because of the last few stanzas. The way the language becomes so unconventional, almost Seussian, makes me think that the person who is saying those things was so lost for words about his feelings that he had to make up his own. I also love it because those are feelings I hope to feel someday. “I am through you so I”. I guess it is just a fancier way of saying “you complete me”. What isn’t there to love about that?

I haven’t updated my blog for a while. I wanted to write this post before I wrote anything else, and it was a very difficult post to write.

My mom called me at school on March 20th, which was a Saturday. She said that my cat Evil had had a stroke or something and he was not doing very well. She said he couldn’t walk or really move. Mom said that if he lived until Monday they would have to put him to sleep. I was very upset but I didn’t think I could go home. I was busy with some stuff and my van doesn’t work very well. I called my friend Jen. Jen has been around the entire time we have had Evil and she loves him as much as I do. She agreed to go with him on Monday if I couldn’t make it back.

I did decide to chance it and headed home. When I got there Evil was lying on a pillow on the couch. I could tell just by looking at him that he could not move. It broke my heart. When I got closer to him and petted him he flicked his tail. I like to think he was happy that I was there.

The next day, Sunday, was the same. I kept Evil with me all day, on a blanket, or a pillow. Finally, towards the end of the day I cleaned out this basket that he had always loved I put a soft towel in it and gently put him in. I kept the basket with me and when I went to bed I had it beside me as I slept.

Early in the morning my mom came in and took the basket out to check on him, she came back in and told me he was gone. He looked so peaceful in the basket. The same as he did before he died. I couldn’t believe he was really dead. I even pet him still even after I knew he wasn’t there anymore

We took him to the vet because she provides a cremation service. As we went home I carried the empty basket. I felt like I was just floating along without really seeing or feeling anything.

It’s been a month now since he is gone. I can’t believe it still. I loved that damn cat. He was really special. I know a lot of people say that but this one, I think anyone would see was unique.

I’ll always love him and always miss him. So will Gwennie and Foster.

Well, I lost both rounds. No, I am not sad about that. Haha. I did really well actually. My judges had really great things to say about me. A big chunk of our score was the ranking given to our written brief and I don’t think mine was very good. Ah well. Like I said, I am not sad. While the winners get to spend their Saturday stressed out I get to spend mine sleeping. Hopefully anyway. I have hardly gotten any sleep at all this week.

It has been super stressful. Next week the State Supreme Court is coming to the school to hear oral arguments for actual cases. I am really excited for that because first of all it is great to see the Supremes at work and second, no morning class! Can I get a woot woot!

I am very happy this week is over. Whew.

I have spent the last week home for spring break. It has been wonderful! I love being home with my family and my pets and my beloved couch. There is something about a couch that I just miss so much when I am at school. I have a bed to sit on and watch tv and stuff. It just isn’t the same. I don’t feel like a human being unless I have a couch. Haha.

I spent the week mostly doing nothing. I had spent the two months prior writing a big paper for school. It was an appellate brief. What we did was the professor gave us this case file and we had to make an argument for our client based on the situation in the case. I am defending someone on a possessions charge in his appeal to the Supreme Court. The brief was very difficult to write and really wore me out. However, now is the real stress time.

Next week I have to make oral arguments in front of a panel of fake judges (fellow students, professors, or local lawyers). I have to present my case and answer any questions the judges have about my argument. Fortunately I am not nervous. Unfortunately I am completely and totally petrified! So much so that I let the entire week go by without working on it because every time I sat down to do so I felt unbelievably sick to my stomach.

The good news is that the oral arguments do not affect my grade. As long as I know my brief and I am remotely competent I should be ok. I just don’t want to do it haha.

On a happier note, here are some pics I took of the cats.

That’s Foster sleeping in a little blanket fort he made.

Gwennie got a much needed hair cut this week. Here she is post shave.

I have lived in South Dakota since I was 2 years old when my mom decided that she wanted to move back from Florida. I love it here. I have traveled through a lot of the U.S. and there is not a single state I would rather live in. South Dakota is awesome.

When most people think of South Dakota, when they think of it at all, they think of Mt Rushmore. Mt Rushmore which is situated in the area of South Dakota called the Black Hills is pretty cool. I like it fine. But the Black Hills is a very small part of South Dakota and it isn’t even a part that I really like. There are way too many trees it makes me feel claustrophobic. The part of SoDak that I love is the prairie, the seemingly endless flowing prairie.

When I was growing up I would spend a lot of my time on my great aunt and uncle’s farm. I remember standing out in the prairie land where the cattle grazed and just loving the solitude of it. No one around for miles. Just me and the sound of the grass swaying and cattle lowing.

Now that I am older and the farm is gone I get to go out to the prairie very rarely. My mother works on the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation. Sometimes I go down there with her. The drive is so beautiful and serene. It brings back those peaceful memories from my childhood. Sometimes we pull over and just walk around in the grass. SoDak has many wild grasses that grow almost as tall as I am and they all look and smell different. When you are out there you can hear the different birds calling, there are always animals around. We’ve seen flocks of wild turkeys, herds of deer, foxes, pheasants, beaver, raccoon so many different kinds of animals. When we are all out there together it’s almost like something out of a story. Just peaceful and enjoying nature. Being able to connect with nature is one of the best things about South Dakota.

For the people who like to connect with nature in a bit of a different way, there is ample hunting and fishing on the Missouri River. I personally do not hunt but I do love to fish. I have spent days probably weeks of my life sitting on the river bank fishing with my family. The river water is also excellent for boating, tubing, skiing and swimming.

The Black Hills are very popular for tourist and instate traveling. Mt Rushmore is fun to visit but there are also many jewel caves, natural rock formations and other local sites to see. For example, the Needles scenic high way, which winds through the Black Hills, is a great drive with lots of rock formations and various other sites to see along the way. Although for people like me, the Needles is known mostly as the world’s best place to get carsick.
Sometimes we go out to the Black Hills for a few days and rent a cabin. This last summer we were out there and went to the Mammoth site. The Mammoth site was really cool. At some point way in the past, many mammoths died in the same spot where the Mammoth Site building is located. They are excavating it and you can walk around and see the bones and remains of the Mammoths. It was a great experience. We also went to this place called Bear Country which is an animal park you drive through and the animals come up to your car. One time we were there and a bear actually crawled on top of the car in front of us. Those people discovered that if you have a bear on your car you’re pretty much stuck in one place.

The Hills, as we call them, also has Sturgis and Deadwood. Sturgis is the site of a massive motorcycle rally in the summer time. Huge amounts of tourists come through. There are musical events and bike contests. It is a huge event in SoDak. Deadwood is a resort type town known for gambling and its connection with Wild Bill Hickock, who was killed there. I am not much for gambling but I do love the museums and the reenactments the town has pretty much every day. They also have a great Oktoberfest and book fair ever year. The area around Deadwood has this cowboy history thing going for it. You can tour an old mine and do other tourist stuff.

Native American culture is very important in SoDakm specifically the Lakota culture. There are many powwows and ceremonies held. Some are open to tourists and some are not, but I still count them as an awesome part of the South Dakota experience. My favorite is the Buffalo Ceremony. You go out to the prairie where the buffalo are and the dancers perform the buffalo dance which calls the buffalo to them. And invariably one of the buffalo will separate itself from the herd, approach the dancers and is then killed as part of the ceremony. Then everyone who participates eats the buffalo as a way of connecting with the Spirit. It’s very powerful. Anyone who comes to South Dakota should go to a powwow. But if you are only a tourist go to the ones where tourists are invited. Otherwise, it is kind of inappropriate because they are religious events.

Two other important places in the state are Wall Drug and the Corn Palace in Mitchell. I can’t tell you anything about these two places because I have never been there. But people say they are cool so I am going to count them.

To me, the touristy stuff and the stuff to do is not what makes SoDak awesome. I love the prairie, nature and the people. South Dakota is a great place to live because it’s just so amazingly beautiful. I used to live up on the Standing Rock reservation and there is this stretch of land up there that is, I think, the most beautiful place on earth. You come up over this hill and it’s like the whole world opens up. Off in the distance, and it is like you can see forever, there are many hills which in the spring time are all covered in flowers and sweet smelling grass. Then you can see the river snake it’s way over the land, horses and buffalo graze, all around you is clover and the sky is a blue that I have never seen anywhere else and I can’t even describe. When I was in high school I went on a trip to Europe. While I was there I was amazed at how different the sky looked, it was the same sky, but it looked completely different. Knowing that I was thousands of miles away from that beautiful blue sky and amazing prairie in South Dakota made me so homesick it was unbearable.

A lot of people need the go go go of constant activity and endless opportunities for instant gratification. South Dakota is not for those people. But for people like me who prefer the peace and quiet and beauty of nature, it’s like heaven.

Law, Like Love

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.

Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.

Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.

Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I’ve told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.

Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.

And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.

If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,

No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyvay:
Like love I say.

Like love we don’t know where or why,
Like love we can’t compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.

WH Auden

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
- W. H. Auden,

I took one of our dogs, Sissy, for a walk in the snow today. It was quite the adventure that tired us both out and we only made it around the block. I am happy to say I only fell in the snow bank twice. That is a major victory.

This holiday season has made the State of Confusion live up to its name. After a grueling two weeks of law school finals I finally got to come home. My mom and I decided to give out baked goods as presents this year so we spent about four days, six hours a day, baking. It was a recipe for disaster really.

My mom and I love each other very much but we need down time from interaction which we did not get this week. On Wednesday I could not take the strain anymore and really exploded at her. It was horrible. It was a flash back to the worst rage fits I threw as a teenager complete with screaming “I hate you!” and slamming doors. I was so ashamed of myself. But it has past and all is well.

My sister’s friend had her baby on Christmas Eve so that made my mom happy. It also, maybe, made up for her twenty-six year old daughter acting like a fifteen year old.

We opened our presents Christmas Eve and I got everything I asked for.

350 gb external,
The Tudors season 1,2
Dexter season 3,
Up,
Burn Notice season 2,
Ratatouille
Star Trek,
Transformers 2
Psych season 3
An adorable bento box
some nice blouses for school

I am very pleased with my presents, as I should be, because they are so awesome!

We just finished our Christmas duck dinner and we are just going to veg out for the rest of the day. That is Christmas tradition I can get behind!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday and has a Happy New Year!