Legally ridiculous.

I had a two o'clock appointment this afternoon for which I was adorably nervous. I was so nervous, in fact (adorably so), that I made my boyfriend stay at my place until I got back from the appointment.

He has a class tonight at five, and an hour long commute can turn into an hour-and-a-half commute at 3:30 in the afternoon. But he stayed and waited at my place until I returned at 3:30. Now that's love. But I digress...

I got home and went upstairs to my extra-bedroom-cum-office-never-used-cum-den. He was watching a DVD. I looked at the television. Legally Blonde.

I don't know which his worse. The fact that I own not only Legally Blonde, but also Legally Blonde 2 (they came together; really, they did). Or the fact that he was watching it.

Solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Preemptive caveat: This may be offensive to some.

This is true. Happened today. Seriously. It's a lunchtime conversation at the office between me, Guy From Work and Girl From Work. The others -- Investigator, Secretary, Boss, Girl From Work, and Random Former-PD Who Was Visiting -- looked on, amused.

Me: So Chris and I were having a little debate last night.

Guy From Work: Yeah?

Me: Yeah. I showed him a letter my mom had written to The Nation about the Israeli/Palestinian thing. He was disagreeing with what my mom was saying. Which is fine. But, of course, I totally had to take Mom's side. So I start defending Israel, and Chris starts telling me that what they're doing would be like us -- the U.S. -- going somewhere, taking over, and displacing the people who already live there.

So I think to myself, hey, isn't that what we -- the U.S. already did? Which I mention to him. And then the perfect solution occurred to me.

Guy From Work: You've already told us that the solution would be to let Israel have Florida.

Me: Well, the Jews are there already. Except that we'd have to get rid of the Cubans.

Girl From Work: And the Haitians.

Me: Probably wouldn't work.

Girl From Work: Probably not.

Me: So the new perfect solution. Since it worked for the U.S. last time. Set up Palestinian reservations and grant them gaming rights.

Guy From Work: You know what game they'd play, don'tcha?

Me: Russian roulette.

Weight loss.

Disclaimer: This entry is girly and whiny and pretty obnoxious.

I am all about instant gratification. So even though my exercise/eating better program only started on September 15, I am impatient. And even though I've lost six or so pounds and a few inches from my waist, I am not satisfied.

Which makes me one of those crazy, weight/size obsessed women I hate.

The fact that I allow myself occasional chocolate or fries doesn't help my position much.

But I apparently made a mistake a little while ago. When getting rid of all the clothes that no longer fit me, I held on to a pair of J. Crew corduroy pants. I found them this morning in my closet and took a peek at the size.

Size 4.

Hell, I can't remember ever being that small. But apparently I was, because I remember buying them only two years ago at the outlet, during a shopping excursion with a girl from the legal clinic I was in.

I am all about instant gratification. And now that I found these damn pants, I simply hate waiting for them to fit. (Though to be honest, I can't imagine that they ever will).

Reason #438 to hate the Red Sox.

I preface this entry by stating that it's not just the Red Sox I hate. It's all professional sports. Baseball, basketball, football, etc, etc, etc. I am indiscriminate in my hatred. I view professional sports as an excuse for grown men to get drunk and act like moronic babies.

But today, the Red Sox really incurred my wrath.

I had a motion to suppress scheduled. This is the second time it has been scheduled; the first time, the state trooper did not show up because he hadn't enough notice of the motion (even though I filed it on the agreed-upon "file by" date). The judge granted the opposition's continuance, over my objection.

We showed up today. While one of the troopers was there, the one that was actually present when my client was stopped was missing. And why? He was sent to Boston. Because Boston needed extra manpower. For the parade.

The parade? What effing parade?

The parade for the Rod Sox.

The opposition explained this to the judge, who granted the continuance over my objection.

So the Red Sox get their parade, while my client sits in jail, waiting to vindicate her rights. Which only proves that professional sports are more important than the Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of poor people.

Go Sox.

So. Tired.

I've been very tired lately. More tired than I should be. Exhausted, in fact.

The fact that I've never been able to sleep very well for very long doesn't help much.

I left work early yesterday, told my boss I wasn't feeling well, was too tired to accomplish anything. Which was true. I spent the day looking at the world through a thick, hazy fog. I took work home with me, but didn't look at it. Why? I was asleep by seven last night.

I woke at midnight, briefly.

And again at five of five, before my alarm went off (it was set for 5:03).

I got to work at little after six to do the work I didn't do yesterday.

I printed a few motions I need to file, discovered a tragic typo on one I have already filed, and went over some material for the motion to suppress I have scheduled for today. But I'm still tired -- even though I slept last night. Too tired to even really be nervous about my hearing today. Too tired, in fact, to watch horrible '80s music videos on youtube.

Yes, you heard correctly: too tired to watch horrible '80s music videos.

Something must be wrong.

Poetry.

The truth is (and I know this may be viewed as blasphemous by some), I hate poetry. Hate it. It bores me and gives me visions of pretentious high school and undergraduate students. Even the so-called good stuff irritates me.

Or maybe it's just that I don't "get" poetry.

I have a theory that most people don't get poetry. They just pretend to in order to sound deep and smart.

Much like the people who claim to enjoy the film "Lost in Translation."

On rehydrating beef jerky.

We were supposed to have pizza at work on Friday. However, the natives were getting restless before lunchtime, and I was very hungry. Guy From Work and The Investigator were in my office when I decided to pull out my emergency bag of beef jerky. Lo and behold, someone had forgotten to seal the re-sealable Ziploc-esque seal. My jerky had gone stale.

"My jerky has gone stale," I announced.

"Jerky can't go stale," Guy From Work said. (He's a real know-it-all sometimes.)

I disagreed with him, and we got into a discussion on the merits and downfalls of stale jerky. Somewhere along the line, we decided to attempt to rehydrate the stale jerky.

I took a small piece of jerky, ran it under water, wrapped in a piece of paper towel, and put it in the microwave for twenty seconds.

The jerky did not rehydrate. It started smoking.

On grammatically incorrect graffiti.

In the public restroom on the second floor of the courthouse, the following is written in black permanent marker:

Susie sucks more cock than whores on a Friday night

Argh!

I mean, come on. If you're going to insist on defiling an already-disgusting public restroom, at least do it with proper grammar.

On sex (in the context of long term relationships).

My friends all seem to be getting married or divorced.

The folks in their late twenties to early thirties are getting married. The folks in their mid to late thirties and early forties are either getting divorced or have been divorced.

The ones in between... Well, the newlyweds are all happy in their townhouses and condos. They're still glowing with recent post-marriage bliss. They're planning on squirting out children. The ones who've been married for a while mostly bitch about how they're not having sex. (It should be noted that my newlywed friends tend to be women, while my friends who have been married for some time tend to be men.)

Based on this, I've become hesitant towards marriage. I've found few people who are married and happy. The general trend seems to be married or happy. One of Chris's professors even told the class that once a couple gets married, it's all over; there's nothing to work towards anymore, and so the romance dies. The marriage is the end result, and children are apparently a reason (maybe the reason?) to stay together.

This seems a sad commentary. Especially for me, who feels neither the need, nor the desire to reproduce.

The lack of sex in during marriage seems to be epidemic. I hear it from everyone. I hear it from the divorcees as well as from the married-for-a-while folks. And so I ask them: How often do you have sex? How little is not enough? The answers always astound me: once a month. Once a month!

I don't understand. I mean, sure, I can see the novelty wearing off. I can see sex becoming routine, or even perfunctory. People have to work at keeping things fun and lively and exciting. That's just the reality of long term relationships. But once a month?? Hell, once a week is too infrequent for me.

As if that weren't bad enough, I am now hearing of people in long term relationships (non-marriages) who have sex infrequently. Friends who have lived with their girlfriends for less than a year are having sex twice a month. I am simply aghast.

I mean, sure, I'm the girl who has stayed in dead-end relationships just because the sex was good and plentiful. But twice a month? After having lived together for six months???

Which made me start thinking about Chris. I adore Chris, but he claims that he never had exceptional sex prior to our relationship. Whether I believe him entirely... well, I've not decided yet. But I don't want him to move in and then get to the point where sex is a chore. I don't want him putting out only once every week-and-a-half and then being resentful that I'm asking for too much. (I know he's a guy, but this has actually happened to me before.)

I just don't get it. I don't understand why people stop having sex. I don't understand how people let it get boring. And I really, really do not want to become one of them.

Tea and soldiers?

My boyfriend, Chris, wrote me an e-mail this afternoon describing what he wants to do this weekend. At one point, he said, "We'll make tea and soldiers."

I became confused. Tea and soldiers?

At first I thought that perhaps "soldiers" is a euphemism I'm not familiar with. Or, perhaps, there was some obscure definition. So I looked up "soldiers" in the dictionary. And there is an obscure definition:

A sexually undeveloped form of certain ants and termites, having large heads and powerful jaws.

For some reason, I don't think that's what he meant.

So it was off to Wikipedia. Nada.

With that depressing result, I realized I had to do some further research.

First, I turned up a comment on a political blog:

And to think, our founding fathers went to war over some taxes on their tea and soldiers sleeping in their barns. How much will we put up with?

I mean, sure, the sentiment is kinda cool. But I have not found my answer.

Next was some more history from Peter Parley's Universal History, On the Basis of Geography, by Peter Parley, Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne and Nathanial Hawthorne. Page 474 reveals the following:

They made so strong an opposition to the Stamp Act that parliament was forced to repeal it But a tax was soon afterwards laid on tea and soldiers were sent to America to enforce the payment of the duty.

Oy. That can't be it, either.

My final discovery was a thread having to do with childhood memories. In one, a woman talked about cooking with her mum. Her final fond memory was:

Staying at Grannie's and having half a grapefruit, boiled egg, tea and soldiers in her little kitchen.

Hmmmm. She did say "mum." Which means she must be British. Chris did live in England during his boyhood. Hmmmm. Interesting. It must be a whacky English thing. That's it!

Of course, I still don't know tea and soldiers entails. So help me out and let me know.