TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE

I saw this headline in the Wall Street Journal Magazine and about shat my pants.

"Palin's workout, eating habits."

The article includes such gems as "And I always wear sunglasses. My kids tell me to put them on so I don't freak people out when they see me with a goofy hairdo and no makeup."

IS THIS A JOKE?? The mainstream news media responds with this when a female VP candidate is announced??

Can you imagine if we saw an article like that on Sen. Biden? What do you eat for breakfast, Senator? How do you keep the baby weight off, Senator? What's your biggest diet pitfall, Senator?

Whatever you do, do NOT write anything SUBSTANTIVE about a she-candidate, and as the candidate, do NOT talk about anything that could take attention away from the riveting and relevant issues like your hair, makeup or fitness level. I know, maybe it's partly bc there's not a lot substantive to say, but seriously, workout and eating habits?!? Is it Teen People's Ashlee Simpson special? Arrrrgh.

I'm on the top of the world...

If you'd told me my first day of law school that in two short years, I'd bring a computer bag AND a diaper bag, I'd have laughed in your face. But WE DID IT!

Yesterday was the first day of school and the longest day of my life except for childbirth and maybe the first couple days in the MTC...I brought our sweet baby to school and it was quite a production with the carseat, stroller, my books, diaper bag, computer bag, blanket, sink. Ok, not the sink. Generally I'll only bring her one day a week but this first one was intense, not just bc it was a long day but bc I didn't know what to expect spending the whole day with her out of our element. I spent most of each class period really tense, praying "Please don't flip out. Please don't flip out." Not that she's a flipper outer very often, but I was worried that everyone around me was sighing in annoyance, that she'd poop everywhere and we'd be 45 miles from home, that I'd run out of enough clean clothes for her (or me), that I forgot the wipes, that my computer would melt down, that I'd get called on while she was tugging on my earring, that the stroller would break, blahblah.

WE DID IT!

By the numbers:

90: miles we traveled roundtrip
3: classes she (mostly) behaved through
2: meetings she smiled (mostly) through
billion: people who opened doors for us as I felt like I was pushing an SUV around the law school
2: kind classmates that switched me spots so we could sit in a stroller-friendly part of the room, one just on his own when he saw me walk in with a look of panic on my face as I realized the only available seats were down a bunch of stairs.
2: profs who welcomed my cute baby to the class; one of them I was expecting to hate but instead, he actually timed out during class to smile at my cute baby and welcome her, saying something like "We're glad to have her, a visual aid for family law, don't feel bad if she fusses. Any lawyer worth their salt needs to learn to speak/think over substantial distractions, thanks for this opportunity to help us focus, blahblah." I wanted to hug him.
11: hours we spent at the law school
20: miles we were away from home when my car died on the freeway in the dark.
0: number of my lights that were working, INCLUDING HAZARD LIGHTS, on the side of the road, with my cute baby, after one of the longest days of my life.
1: husband that saved the day.

WE DID IT.

Cue applause.

Ahem.

Exercise your veto power

I spend a lot of time looking at various items and thinking a glorified version of WTF, "Who DIDN'T VETO THAT when they had the chance?" and I'm hoping you do too. Mostly ads, but also horrible TV shows, bad movies, and gross clothes. For example, the "Plant both feet when you cross the street" campaign. Is that even possible? Or how about any dialogue from The Mummy. Or Transformers. Or P.S. I Love You and the unbelievably retarded: "I know what I want, because I have it in my hands right now. You." Some shatty dialogue is so cringetastic you have to wonder who the crap wrote it, and if the initial author actually typed it out and didn't immediately erase it and think, "I will never show that to another," how did the editors let it through?? WHAT DID THE EDITORS DECIDE TO CROSS OUT INSTEAD? And what actor looked at the script and instead of saying "I have standards and this is a line of lame I shan't, nay, cannot cross," said "I will now say that aloud, on film, for all posterity to mock." And the producers?? WHAT IS EVERYONE THINKING? Similarly, painfully awkward and/or disgusting engagement pics...if that's the pic you chose to send out to everyone you know and it's gross, what the freak did the other ones look like? What went in your "no" pile? Do you HAVE a no pile?? Conversely, sometimes I make decisions and I WANT people to know what was in my "no" pile, e.g., I know you think by looking at me that I have no standards, but you should see the outfit I decided against wearing. You just don't know how much worse it could be.

Discuss.

thought salad

Last week, one of my hilarious profs spent a good hour raging about what a waste of time interviewing (in general, but particularly in the law/business world). "What do you do in an interview? You bullshit. Study after study shows interviews aren't an accurate predictor of success on the job. Guess what the best predictor of good job performance is? PAST job performance! Interviewing is a colossal waste of time and money, AND a diversity reducer, because people like people that are like them. So whoever's doing the interview hires people exactly like him. Colossal waste."

When I was a 1L I mentioned to a classmate that I had an intense fear of becoming a corporate bastard, getting sucked into the business world and never actually helping anyone. He rolled his eyes and said he could help more people by making a ton of money, saying something like "I can hire others to help. If I pull $300 an hour, it makes more sense for me to make that and hire 6 other people to help the poor for $50 an hour." I was appalled. I was fresh home from my mission and a firm believer in the person-to-person, voice-to-voice, one-by-one we make a change school of thought, and was shocked that it didn't occur to him that maybe HE had something to learn from THEM, that throwing money at others to help poor people robbed HIM of an important reality check. Not to mention he sounded like a total douche.

I thought of all that yesterday in RS yesterday (as usual) we had a fantastic lesson, this one about becoming Zion, "of one heart and one mind." Yeah, we talk about "cherishing differences" but when it comes down to it, most of the time our hangout friends are just like us. That's part of what was so hilarious and awesome about the mission, sitting down with people that I would NEVER in ten thousand years meet on my own. Can we help the poor if we don't know them?

Husband showed me this from Speaking of Faith the other day, talking about how Jesus wasn't in charge of the poor, he WAS poor. The author talks about how charities function as "brokers" between the rich and poor so we never see each other, and the wealthy can "pay off their consciences" bc without these "carefully sanctioned outlets, Christians might be forced to live the reckless Gospel of Jesus by abandoning the stuff of earth. Instead, thanks to charity, we can live out a comfortable, privatized discipleship."

The first paragraph talks about how this rich man wanted to be like Jesus so he got a 24 karat gold cufflink made that said "WWJD" on it. Funny, right? But maybe there's not much difference between that guy and me waxing poetic while I type about the poor on my freaking laptop.

One of heaven's most glorious creations

The McGriddle.

Discuss.