I need advice.

I'm thinking of taking a swing dancing class. I wanted to take Spanish, but it's too late to enroll. And I really have no interest in wedding planning, accounting, or Microsoft Word for Morons. So swing dancing it is.

Should I? Ya think? Could be fun, right?

On headlines.

My undergraduate degree is in print journalism. But I was never good at writing headlines. On an exam, when given a story about a beer contest, I came up with:

Guinness Gives Good Head

My professor was not amused. However, it was not the worst I ever came up with. When given a story about a local teacher dying, and told to write a two deck headline with a specific character count, I came up with:

Teacher Dies
Due to Death

It was the nadir of my headline-writing career. (Note, however, how the characters line up; this was, perhaps, the only good thing about this headline.)

Fortunately, I was a better copy editor than I was a headline-writer. When people put errors in headlines, I caught 'em. Not so with my professor. Well, at least on one occasion. She told the following story:

As head copy editor working the night shift for the early edition, she was ultimately in charge of everything that was printed in said early edition. Prior to print, when the layout team was just filling space, they would put in mock-ups, or what are called "dummy" headlines or "heds." Imagine her chagrin when the following headline went to print:

Dummy Hed For Dummy Story

Quite tragically, the story happened to be about special education kids. Although my she was called into the publisher's office the next morning, she was not fired.

Nonetheless, it's amusing to see that these sort of things still happen.

Trial strategy.

I am at the office early this morning because I have a school zone case scheduled for trial today. This makes me extremely anxious and a little nauseated.

Since I've lost my taste for beef jerky, I've decided that today's trial strategy will include watching this in order to assuage my nerves.

After all, the only thing better than '80s music is fake '80s music.

Justice?

The courthouse where I work is called The Hall of Justice. It's a misnomer, which I suppose is vaguely entertaining.

What is more entertaining, however, is what is inscribed in two-foot tall letters on the front of the edifice:

Obedience to Law is Liberty.

Right. And war is peace

My type.

When I was younger -- in high school -- I found myself attracted to tall skinny-but-not-too-skinny guys. More recently, however, I've found myself attracted to a different type. Tall, yes. I adore tall guys. Six feet and taller is dreamy. (The dreamiest man I've ever known is about 6'6", I think.) But I find the bad-boy look to be sexy. I don't like bad boys, mind you. Just the look. Shaved head, ink, motorcycle-riding men. Larger built men who don't make me feel like an ogre when I'm naked with them. That's my type.

My boyfriend is not my preferred type at all.

(I must digress for a moment and state that few of my boyfriends have been my type. Serious Boyfriend #1 was 6'4", but huskier than I usually like; he looked like a wookie. Serious Boyfriend #2 was 5'9" and weighed about 230; he was shorter and stockier than I generally dig. Boyfriend #3 was my type, as described above. And Serious Boyfriend #4 was 5'8" and I'd be surprised if he weighed more than 120; way too thin for my tastes.)

Despite Chris not being the type I am traditionally attracted to, I realized something today: My boyfriend is hot.

You can't keep a good man (or sex offender) down.

Many of you already know about the saga of my sex offender. The one who plead to failing to register, and was then held on a violation of his community parole supervision for life because he was homeless. People who kept track of the story may also remember that I filed a habeas in the matter. And they may also remember that he was released the day before the hearing was to go before the judge.

Pesky little suckers. Not letting me litigate the issue of an unconstitutional imposition of lifetime community parole.

About a week after he was released, I got a call from his parole officer. "He has absconded," she told me. "He is in violation of his parole."

I haven't heard from him since his release. To my knowledge, he hasn't turned up yet.

I wish him well.

* * *

Post Script. What this means is that if he does turn up, I'll have another issue to litigate. He was already violated once. Another violation would place him in jail for six months instead of thirty days. And so the issue the next time around will be appealing the first violation as unconstitutional on the basis that the only basis for the purported violation the first time around was his homelessness.

On guns.

I have always professed to hate guns. In the abstract, ideological sense. Guns kill people. So do overzealous right-to-lifers, mind you. But guns make it a lot easier. There is no reason to own a handgun. It's not as if people go deer hunting with semi-automatics. The only reason, in my mind, to own a handgun, is to kill someone. That's it.

But damn, when they're not killing people, they're a lot of fun.

At lunch today, a colleague was expressing what a tough week she had had in court. It's true, too. From Friday until today, her job has been annoying and unfair. She's had to deal with a lot of difficult people and I do not envy her that. She mentioned cutting out a little early. To get away from it all. We all suggested she do something, some activity, to get out the negative energy.

Somehow, the idea of shooting came up. And so, five of us left a tad early today and went to the local shooting range. We had a minute long lecture of gun safety and operation. For $28, we could get a shooting lane, a gun, and a box of .22 caliber bullets. We purchased four lanes and had at it.

I was paranoid at first, paying more attention to safety than shooting. But it soon became evident that I wasn't going to shoot off my hand, and I began to relax. It was at that point that I realized that I am a crappy shot. I hit the ceiling more than I hit the target. Nevertheless, it was great fun. For me, it wasn't a power trip. I didn't feel powerful. Quite the contrary, I felt foolish. If given a gun in an uncontrolled environment, I'm way more likely to shoot my own foot than to ward off danger (or kill a would-be rapist or murderer before he raped or murdered me). But it was, quite simply, great fun.

I have always professed to hate guns. Guns kill people.

I just wish they weren't so much fun to shoot.

Part II: My boyfriend is a nerd.

I quit smoking yesterday.

Of course, it doesn't really count as having quit since it's only been forty-eight hours. Quitting smoking is merely a lull in smoking and is not actual quitting until ninety days have passed. Anything short of that is the inchoate stages of quitting. It's pre-quitting. It's not-quite-quitting.

I digress.

I got home today and brought in the mail. Among the pieces of junk-mail was an envelope with only my first name written on it.

Ah-ha! Chris is at it again, I thought to myself.

I went into the kitchen and took the bottle of water I take to work every day but don't drink out of my bag. I saw an envelope on my kitchen table propped up by the salt shaker.

I carried both envelopes upstairs with me to my room. I wanted to change out of my suit before I read anything. And then I saw another envelope on my bed. So I took the three envelopes into my office/den so I could sit on my couch and read 'em. There on the coffee table was another.

He left me cards again, encouraging me to keep not-smoking.

He's the best.

On smoking.

I had my first cigarette when I was fourteen. But I didn't really start smoking until my freshman year of college. I was shy and it was an easy way to meet people. "I can stop whenever I want," I told myself, in my moronic eighteen-year-old fashion. I was wrong.

When I graduated from college, I decided to cut back, rationalizing that I would eventually quit. I went from a pack a day to about a half a pack a day, give or take, and than remained my cigarette intake for about two years (give or take).

Then, the summer prior to law school, I moved in with my parents for three months (something I swore I'd never do), worked out five days a week, lived on something nearly as absurd as nine hundred calories a day, and quit smoking. I didn't smoke for two months shy of two years. I currently smoke as few as two cigarettes a day and as much as eight cigarettes a day.

I decided on Thursday that I would quit on Monday. Someone in my office quit back in June (had a brief relapse, and I think re-quit) and did the patch thing. We heard a lot about it at the office -- heard about the quitting and about the patch and all that jazz. I know that for some people, it's easier to talk about it. But I don't wanna be that person. I'm not doing the patch or the gum or any of that stuff. I'm just stopping.

So like I said, I decided that I would quite on Monday. I had one (one!) cigarette yesterday. And since I'd not smoked today, I thought to myself, "Self, why bother smoking at all today? May as well quit a day early." I had two smokes left in my pack, so instead of throwing 'em out, I ran 'em under water and then threw 'em out. I knew if I didn't do that, I'd be the pathetic person taking them out of the trash.

And now? Now I wish I hadn't watered 'em down.

Calling all the ladies.

I was talking to a friend of mine about going to the gynecologist. I hadn't gone since November 2002. She was appalled. When asked why I hadn't gone, I explained that I hate being told how unhealthy I am. And I hate being weighed.

She explained that going to the gynecologist isn't all that bad. She explained her last visit. How her lady doctor (and I don't mean lady parts doctor; her doc is a woman) warmed the instruments before inserting them. She held them under the light and them ran warm water over them. She made the trip to the gynecologist like a spa for the pussy. She probably even sprinkled my friend's vagina with tea tree and lavender oil, too. They do that sort of stuff in Crunchy Town, where my friend lives.

And then the lady doctor inserted her finger into my friend's rectum.

This has never happened to me before. No one has ever digitally violated me at the gynecologist's office. I always thought that they were separate parts, and that the gynecologist had no business going there. She got me all paranoid that I'd be getting something shoved past my most southern sphincter during my doctor's visit this afternoon. I am happy to report that this did not happen.

My question to all you ladies out there is: Is it normal to have a digital rectal exam during a regular maintenance trip to the gynecologist? I'm curious as to what others have experienced.