Law School Goggles

My roommate's friend recently accused her of having law school goggles. She could have just as easily been talking to me. Maybe I have "I had a boyfriend for 5 years" goggles too; those in combination with the law school goggles, woah - I am talking the worst kind of tequila/jager/beer goggles ever. Not that all the law dawgs are ugly; there are a handful of good-looking ones. It's more just that most of them are not normal. But then again, since when is being normal all that much fun anyway?

In the last few months, I have met a bunch of law school and non- law school guys, 99.9% of them I immediately discount, and not just based on looks, I swear. For example, a couple of friends introduced me to this one guy - my impression "He's too nice. Poor kid, I'd ruin him". And about another "I have enough personality for three of him." And another "He'd never know what to do with me". Clearly, I am not so normal either.

Some of my friends think there is something wrong with me - that I am way too picky. There is probably some truth to that, in the past year or so I've met a really hot guy, a really smart one, a really rich one, a really funny one, a really athletic one, a really nice one... and so the list goes on, but I haven't met a really great one. A newer friend of mine recently told me that I'd be better off going for what's reasonable but still a good option - he obviously doesn't know me very well. I've had good and I've had reasonable, and I know that's never going to be good enough, not for me. You'll probably see me at the bars this weekend, laughing at some futile attempts to get my number/get me naked, etc... even though I am fairly certain that's not where I am going to find great. But hey, I'm young and with any luck great will find me.

Welcome to Africa

You know that dream where you go to school/work with no clothes on? One of my friends just called to tell me that she keeps having that dream over and over again. I've had it a few times and am convinced it prepared me for the real life equivalent. When I was living in Ghana, my host-father asked if I wanted to go to visit his mother in a remote part of the country with him. Considering the alternative was to hang out with the rest of his non-English speaking family, I obliged. It took us a little over 6 hours to travel the 100 miles to his mother's village. Her home was a traditional compound, an open courtyard between a few mud hut rooms and a primitive kitchen with no running water or electricity.

Within a few minutes of our arrival, I realized we were not just there to visit his mother but rather to attend the funeral of an old friend. I had no choice but to follow along. I was wearing a bright pink polo, a jean skirt, and flip flops which would not be appropriate for a funeral in America, let alone in Ghana where there is a specific traditional cloth for funerals. One of my host father's sisters, without speaking any English, tried to convince me I should borrow one of her dresses. Imagine my pale ass trying on this black and white tribal printed dress (it even came with a head wrap thing, which I refused to even try on). I obviously looked ridiculous, but might have been willing to just bite the bullet and wear the dress had it not been 5 sizes too big for me. This poor woman spent a good half hour trying to pin and tie the dress tighter but to no avail; despite my rather sizeable ass, I am scrawny compared to most Ghanaian women.

So off to the funeral I went in my pink polo and jean skirt. Funerals in Ghana are held outside usually in a blocked off street or courtyard. They are a huge deal - this one had around 200 people present. The extended family of the deceased sits in a large semi circle; upon arrival each group goes and shakes the hands of those sitting - around 50 at this one. After you shake their hands and express your condolences, you sit down, and each of those people gets up and comes to shake your hand, thanking you for coming. So here I am, white as can be in my pink polo, in a sea of dark dark Africans in what look like black and white togas. I can't speak the local language yet have to go shake all these people's hands. What I didn't know before hand was that more than half of the people at the funeral had never even met a white person before, ever. The one word of their language I did know was "Obruni" which means white person (literally it means Sunday - they equate white people with Christianity). People were pretty much shouting it at me - not at all in a mean way, just completely fascinated. The older people at the funeral would shake my hand for minutes laughing and talking to each other about me... no clue what they were saying.

I go through the whole line and finally get to sit down. Then I notice my following. No joke about 25 kids were surrounding me, following me everywhere I went. Some were running off shouting "obruni! obruni!" to get their friends to come out and see the white girl. As I sat there, some kids would sneak up and touch my skin or my hair - to see if it felt different, to check if I was real, who knows really. Most of them just stared at me watching my every move, in a way a marine biologist would analyze the behavior of a new species of sea turtle or something. Every once in a while a grown up would come shoo the kids away, but they would just come back within minutes in a larger quantities. After what felt like eternity but was likely only an hour or so, we finally got up to leave. The kids followed me to the car - touching me the whole way. As we drove off they were literally chasing after us- shouting "obruni!"; my host father who hadn’t said a word to me all day just laughed and said "Welcome to Africa.”

Deal Breakers

I generally refuse to hook up with guys who have:
1. white sneakers
2. tribal arm band tattoos
3. nipple/tongue piercings
4. jerseys
5. dyed hair
6. waxed eyebrows
7. cigarettes
8. jewelry (other than a watch)
9. trashy accents
10. GIRLFRIENDS

Camden

My dad and I recently got into an argument about why I moved to Philly when I could have lived at the Victor, the old RCA building turned apartments right in Camden and only a few blocks from campus. In all fairness to the city for which the county I was born and raised in was named (and I am in the good company of the founder of Campbell's Soup and famous poet Walt Whitman), Camden wasn’t always such a shithole. Once upon a time, there were working class people who lived and worked there. Most of the blue collar jobs have since left for greener pastures, including RCA . So someone had a brilliant idea to turn the old factory into luxury lofts, after all they are right on the waterfront with a gorgeous view of the Philadelphia skyline. I think they got so caught up in the whole idea, they forgot one thing- we’re talking about Camden here. Luxury and Camden do not belong in the same sentence, ever. The plan was to sell them as condos at premium rates; an idea which inevitably failed, and now they rent the lofts to anyone dumb enough to pay $900+ a month to live in Camden, law students included (umm, no offense?). Well most of these kids are from out of state, so they probably didn’t really know any better (although I can think of one person who grew up only 8 miles or so from this oasis on the Delaware and certainly should have known better). The city is the most dangerous in America and according to Maxim magazine likely the grim reaper's favorite vacation spot. So Dad, the real question is what were you smoking when you thought this was a good idea? Hopefully something better than the shit they sell in Camden.

Bloody Mess

Nothing ever just goes smoothly for me, ever. I have been interviewing a few times a week for jobs for next summer (yes, it is absurd that we have to interview almost a year in advance). Friday I had an interview with a good firm in the area; definitely one of my top choices. I went out Thursday night (surprise, surprise) and must have cut my toe on something. So on the walk to the train and then to my interview my foot was killing me. I get to the waiting room, take off my shoe, and there is blood everywhere. Of course I have stockings on, actually bled right through them... and then proceeded to get blood all over my hands and on the top of my foot. Luckily, my interview was in the afternoon and they were running a little behind. I had just enough time to run to the bathroom and try and scrub the blood off of my stockings and my hands. Thank god they were running behind - what a great impression I would have made with blood all over my hands. The interview ended up going well despite my throbbing foot. One thing I learned from this experience - a lot of my problems have thier root at bars... almost all actually.

Cabbies

This afternoon I was late for a meeting at work, so I took a cab instead of the subway. My cab driver was much more animated than the typical Philly cabbie. After exchanging the typical formalities, he asked if I'd rather go to 36th and Market in Brooklyn rather than Philadelphia promising me he'd make it a fun trip. I assured him that University City was my preferred destination. He then said, "you seem like a very nice and educated young lady, so I'd like your advice", then asked, "how do you know when a marriage is over?" Desperately trying to hold back laughter, I explained how I am not even close to the right person to talk to about that, being 23 and not married. He said, "well you've never had a long-term relationship?" I, not really wanting to talk about any ex-boyfriends with a random stranger, tried to politely get out of the conversation by explaining that I am young and inexperienced, which only prompted a lecture about the dangers of marriage, especially one which produces children, the importance of good communication with loved ones, etc. When I finally got out of the cab, I gave the guy $10 and shouted "Good luck with your divorce!"

I actually have a pretty ridiculous history with cab drivers. In Baltimore, I had a cab driver smoke a bowl while driving my friends and I back from the bars and another go the wrong way down an exit ramp from the highway laughing hysterically at the horror we were experiencing in the back seat. In Africa, I had to take a cab to work everyday; all of the cab drivers in the city knew me by name (not really so strange considering I was the only white person in the city) and would fight over who got to drive me to work. Everyday whomever was driving me would propose to me explaining how badly they wanted a white wife. I usually tried to think of a witty response to the constant marriage proposals; usually I said something along the lines of, well you're the 100th person to ask, and I don't think I am going to go through that many husbands. But a few times when I wasn't in such a good mood, I said, "Oh really, you want a white wife? Me too. Too bad that's not legal here." Worked like a charm, so there are probably some crazy rumors among the Ashanti cabbies about this lesbian white girl, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Freckles

I am not the biggest fan of my freckles, but I guess it comes with the whole Irish thing. I think I am going tell my kids that freckles are marks that you get every time you disappoint Jesus. It'd be a good way to keep them from doing bad things, right? How crazy would that be if it really were true? I'd have waaay more freckles than I do. Just this past weekend alone, I'm sure I'd have gotten a couple dozen. I made fun of retards, disobeyed my parents, drank too much, and that is just barely scratching the surface of my indiscretions. I did have time between parties to run errands with my sister-in-law though; we made it to through an afternoon of shopping without her buying any pet accessories or kitchen gadgets, her two favorites. Seriously, Southern girls are another species... get married young, suddenly start acting like you are 20 years older than you really are, then have babies. Not to say that I am any better; the whole drink often, only have superficial relationships, act completely irresponsible most of the time thing could get old for some people - I am just not one of them.