Tuesday, August 11, 2009

living on the edge.

There are two things taking over my new life in the midwest (besides our kid, and getting settled): church and the law. I also spray painted a couple of our chairs today on a whim and it may have been a poor choice. Sigh. Anyway:

Church
An inevitable part of Moving While Mormon is figuring out your way around your new congregation. It's nice to have a fresh start, but overwhelming bc there are just a lot of people to deal with. Soon you find your scene and all is well, but the first month or so can be a little intense. This is especially true when you move to a state, nay, a region of the country in which you don't know a soul and so pray that there are some non-snickets under 75 that you can bond with and spend your time actively searching out new hangout friends. To advance these efforts, I'm experiencing hyperactivity. Not scurrying in circles with stickers on my forehead, Capri Sun spilled down my hot pink shirt while chewing gummi worms and shouting "I'm hyper!!!" Rather, way more involved in church than is normal for me. We're talking having randoms over for dinner, feeding the missionaries, going to midweek activities, the whole bit. This might be normal for you but for me, it's pretty intense. My new assignment in our ward is to hang out with the teenage girls. This means I do things like let a pack of seventh graders french braid my hair and throw tic tacs and be nervous about forgetting locker combinations. Pretty awesome.

The law
I'm trying to purge my brain of at least some of more useless law stuff I've shoved into it this summer in preparing for the bar, but to no avail. It is taking over my life. EVERYTHING FEELS LIKE A STORY PROBLEM and it's starting to get embarrassing but I just. can't. stop.
  • Last weekend, we were at a wedding with a sit-down dinner and they had fancy old-fashioned high chairs for the little kids. Without buckles! I could not stop thinking about who would be liable if someone got hurt.
  • The parking garage at the public library has NO FINE PRINT on the tickets. Isn't that bizarre?
  • I drove past a cop who had pulled someone over and immediately started thinking about what he could and could not search if it were a basic traffic stop and how he didn't have to inform them that they didn't have to consent if he asked to search their car.
  • Today I saw Azucar's update that a fly in her house had been there so long it had squatter's rights, and I immediately thought about why that wasn't technically true.
  • I can't read the news without thinking about who might be liable as an accomplice or co-conspirator.
  • I agreed to help a friend with something and then when needs changed, I immediately started thinking about whether there was sufficient consideration to make the modification binding.
  • I watched last night's Dating in the Dark (good grief, I love bad TV). Are you watching it? It's delightfully/painfully dumb and I recommend it if you feel like wasting an hour of your life feeling good about yourself in comparison to the rest of humanity. Anyway, I spent most of the episode wondering what kind of waivers they signed to get on the show bc cameras go in their houses "without their knowledge." There is NO WAY that would be allowed, would it??
This is getting embarrassing.

This is my life, people. French braids and theorizing about reality tv contracts. I know. I KNOW.

10 comments:

Carina said...

But, BUT, I am frequently not at home, which would make his claim of exclusivity far more valid.

p.s. wish you were here and could go to Lisa's wedding reception with me!

Carina said...

OK, I'm watching Dating in the Dark too, and, it's not just you. I wondered what they'd signed and how they MUST have had a clue that the production would be in their homes. So I wondered exactly what the waiver would have said to give them a clue to clean up and set their tables.

La Yen said...

The only law I know is just from living in SoCal, where everyone is litigious for sport. That is why I have a hard time GOING to church activities. Because I am always thinking of how someone would be getting sued if they lived in Orange County.

Emily said...

As usual, you made me laugh out loud. You are, really, one of the funniest people I've ever known. Thank you for giving me good things to smile at. :)

Joel said...

Isn't that just thinking like a lawyer? What are plans regarding the law now?

ebv said...

I can't get over the fact that in Utah you can begin cohabitating with someone (read: get it on all the time in the same house together without being technically married, all wrapped up in a nice lawyerly term that sounds better than "Sex Buddy") and have an instantaneous common law marriage.

You read that right. So long as you have the present intent to hold yourselves out as husband and wife to the world, share in the joys and responsibilities of domesticity, and live together under the same roof, you are a common law married couple.

Needless to say, I've proposed this to Erin.

And sad to say, the proposal was rejected.

(Note: do you remember when Prof. Thomas explained this little oddity to us by stating that Utah "doesn't want people living in sin?" Gads, I miss that man.)

Jordanlz said...

I'm just glad I'm not the only one. Although, I like to think my life is coupled with pathetic. It makes one feel good to know you can distinguish yourself.

Kathy/mom said...

So, want to know if the hyper activity at church functions has paid off? How have the dinners been? Have you met people to hang with? By the way-Grandma Cannon used to spray paint everything=Did you sand first? I think that helps.

Mrs. Clark said...

There are many, many shades of spray paint colors.

Thanks for the laugh about the high chairs, etc.!

So, is my jazzercise-mate a common-law wife because she has lived with her fiance for 10 years? Or because he refers to her as his fiancee, are they not holding themselves out as married, therefore not subject to the common-law statute? (This is in Virginia. I think in Calif. you are common-law spouses if you have cohabited for 7 years.)

Sara said...

My life = way more pathetic than yours.

I'm sick and tired of how everything has become a law issue with me the other day. e.g., this weekend, I was crossing the street (hollywood and vine actually) and this man tried to hit me in the sidewalk (seriously), I calmly told my mom, walking on a green "walk" sign in a crosswalk in stopped traffic IS NOT contributory negligence and I'd be happy to call the cops if he so much as rolled over my toe. He could wait. She was so worried he'd pull out a gun and shoot at us, and I said 'great. then we can sue him for more money.'

She was not amused.