this american life, idiot lawyers, fellow stalker!

have been drowning myself in NPR lately. can't think of any reason why beyond the fact that i think i find it comforting and maybe i'm a little homesick. two of my favorites, this american life and wait! wait! don't tell me are both done in chicago. also, most the stories are just soooo good. but so many are sad. i don't know.

 

but the upside is that it's inspired me to start writing. really writing. and even if i'm sucking at it (i think i am) it's therapeutic. and so i'm looking forward to finishing stuff just to hopefully get a rejection or two. i'd be honored if someone spent the time to reject me. i feel like that sounds pathetic but i just would like to avoid being that person they laugh at and toss without so much as a second thought.

 

my brother's stint in the marines and certain things that happened to him there seem particularly noteworthy. my problem is that i'm still too close and too angry i think to really just focus and get something down that isn't some self-centered piece of crap. like, some seriously fucked up shit goes on and nobody talks about it. and he told me if i wanted to put together something that he'd talk to me which shocked me because for ages he's said he wanted to leave that part of his life behind. i guess my brother has forgiven a system that wronged him. i wish i could do the same.

 

this piece by neomi rao is so banal and just rather stupid that the whole time i read it i thought, "oh, god. this person is trying to sound like a lawyer and they're really sucking at it. these are the stupidest questions i've ever seen." for example: "Should Supreme Court justices be bound by precedent? All justices sometimes overrule previous decisions. So when is it appropriate to do so?" GAH. teh stooopids! and then, THEN, i get to the end and see this dummy is an assistant professor at a law school (not a great one) but that she also worked for bush. when, really, you see some of the morons he hired just becuase they were conservative or uber-religious and then it all makes SO MUCH SENSE. monica goodling anyone?

 

this bit by david kestenbaum is so delightfully stalky and dorky. i just love it. and i'm glad he's married cause i'd kept running into things where he talked about being single. and i'm like, "please do not tell me that this cute/smart/talented/funny guy is single. because if he is, he certainly doesn't live in NYC and that would be tragic."