My order of My Dark Symphony and a Conception band tee just arrived (still waiting for the new album to come in the next few weeks) and my mom literally won't let me open the package until she's sprayed it with a disinfectant and let it sit outside in the sun for a while first. Every time I ask her if it's okay for me to bring it in, she's like "not yet" :) I'm dying here just waiting. I think at this point I'd risk getting coronavirus for Conception.

@despovoador NICO i hope you are doing well!!!  i opened up the messages/chat function and saw that my last message sent on here was a message to you, asking how you’re doing...over a year and a half ago... 

:|

but...the sentiment still holds?  time is relative? etc.

to the extent that anyone from my old tumblr days is 1) still on here and 2) remembers who the heck i am:

* i left for law school back in 2018.  currently am still in law school in michigan, finishing up my third year.  it’s had its ups and downs (unsurprisingly) but has overall been a good experience.  i got to spend my 1L summer in idaho doing death penalty work (fighting against it, natch).  i also went to oklahoma for a week last year (right before COVID hit) to work on probate law in what is (stupidly) still called “Indian country”--Cheyenne-Arapaho Country, more precisely.

* Joanna Newsom concert last fall was fabulous, for the person in my inbox who asked.  i was at the show in milwaukee.  sadly it was not the one where she played only skin (that was the next night), but she played a lot of my other favorite songs.  and really, it’s not like she has (m)any bad ones.  maybe the next time i log onto tumblr she’ll have released a new album.

* i would be lying if i said i missed tumblr as a whole, but i have thought of it and all of you on it.  i doubt i’ll ever be on here with any regularity, but if anyone is ever interested in contacting/corresponding with me through some other platform let me know.  i hope all of you have been doing well.

-- mary/sendforbromina

hi there ladies

i got tickets to go see 

JOANNA NEWSOM in milwaukee in the fall

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i got inspired to post here for the first time really since i’ve started school. no idea how many/if any people will see this, but even for my own benefit i thought i’d write a little update on how my semester went (i’m in the exam period now until the 21st): 

i’m doing okay. school is a lot of work, and a lot of stuff has happened. but overall, i enjoy it. my classmates are for the most part nice and interesting people (some are also incredibly annoying, but that’s to be expected when your classes have 90 people in them). i have one person i’d consider a genuine friend that i see and talk to a lot about all sorts of things, and various people i’m on friendly terms with. i’m involved with a few student organizations related to public defense/criminal defense work, and over the semester i volunteered at an adult prison and at a juvenile detention center to talk to kids about their constitutional rights. it was great. classes were interesting, though i’ll relish when i’m able to pick my schedule out entirely. this semester was civil procedure, contracts, criminal law, and legal writing i. next semester is torts, constitutional law, legal writing ii, and evidence (my “elective”).

michigan and ann arbor are cool, very hip. i haven’t really been able to explore it as much as i like, but it’s a nice town. it’s also very cold and started snowing (albeit lightly) at the beginning of november, which is much earlier than it starts in massachusetts. i love it, but i’m in desperate need of more hand cream (my knuckles are bleeding as i type because of how dry my skin is).

what i miss the most, or what i find the most lacking, is that people seem to have severe tunnel vision about law school. people who aren’t public interest-focused (and even some who are) basically spend all of their time thinking about school --> getting good grades --> getting a good clerkship --> getting a high-paying job. and that’s it. the part of me that originally wanted to get a phd to focus on more random, abstract questions about Literature has still not really been satisfied by anyone i’ve met here, because people are so enclosed in the law school universe and don’t look beyond it (at least not with me). it’s hard for me to take law school entirely seriously when i privately think we should just rip up our constitution. i also refuse to sacrifice my health/desires/interests on the alter of getting perfect grades, which is what i did in college (for no good reason).

i haven’t been on tumblr much at all, but i’ve thought about many of you many times throughout the past several months. i don’t know how active i’ll be on here honestly, partly because i’ve been so busy and partly because i think it’s beneficial for me to be off of tumblr (just the general climate of it). but i hope you all are doing well, and if you ever want to send me a message, i did try to check them at least every once in a while during the semester, so i should see it...eventually.

the place i do my food shopping sells camembert cheese imported from france, so i decided to try it because this guy who does a french travel show i watch said it’s good. the first day i ate it it tasted so bad i almost threw it out. by day 3 i was wavering: ‘this kind of tastes like stinky feet, but i think it’s at least edible.’ day 6 and i’m a possible convert: ‘the stinky feet cheese isn’t so bad actually. maybe i should get it again.’

the thing about ann arbor is that it’s really similar to cambridge...and one of the ways in which it is so is that you have this dire poverty right out there in the downtown alongside this massive wealth, and people just walk right by it (and i obviously do too, a lot of the time). actually, i think this might be even worse than cambridge. like you’ve got crazy expensive cafes, clothing stores, etc. and outside of all of them there’s this throng of homeless men and women out there begging for money. i remember reading this catholic bishop who said you should give a little bit of money, even just like a buck or two, to everyone who asks. i legitimately think if you did that here with every homeless person you would go broke...there are just so many. 

it makes me want to scream because like...we should be helping them!!! i think especially the law school...i mean, i haven’t even started yet, but it seems like you’re required to do one day of “service” in detroit, during orientation, and then you can pretty much go on with your life and study corporate law and make $180,000 a year and forget all about it. i’m sure there are lots of volunteer opportunities, but nothing else is required of you except like 5 hours on this one day. blergh.

the appliances in this apartment are such a mystery. the microwave down here is like...crusted over with food. to the point where i almost retch trying to clean it out. so i don’t know if i want to use it really. on the other hand, there’s a coffee maker, waffle maker, and bread machine that all seem to be in pristine condition. so i can make waffles, but not microwave the ones from eggo. okay.

in boston i feel like it’s so..different. at least in south boston. because everyone is catholic there and the whole political power base is still very much irish catholic (and now occasionally other catholics...but still mostly catholic in one way or another). so mass was more of like this political shindig than actual worship or whatever. you could go and see billy bulger getting communion and then try to schmooze up to him afterwards for a favor. you’re not supposed to be throwing yourself around all over the place guys...stiff upper lip and all...

the people who go to mass here are super devout...i dropped by the church to go to mass (actually, i wanted to do eucharistic adoration, but then i saw there was going to be a stupid mass at that time so i decided to stick around. and yes, i know calling it stupid is probably a mortal sin. sorry jesus.) and, okay, please keep in mind that this was just a little daily mass...not even the big deal on sunday. but they brought out the candles, incense, communion wine (at one of my previous churches you only ever got wine on special occasions), the priest was really belting out the little chants...

then you had all sorts of stuff going on. one woman was wearing a mantilla. people were bowing before getting communion. one guy (who only looked to be in his late 20s/early 30s) basically threw himself down on the ground. everyone was doing that thing where you hold your palms up every time you hear the words “holy spirit”. i was just like...what is going on here...

and i have to say, although the amtrak ride is not as spectacularly scenic as it apparently is when you head out west, i thought it was really nice. pittsfield MA (out in the berkshires which are massachusetts’s “mountains”) is like, stunningly beautiful. by the time we were going through ohio i was basically hallucinating because i was so tired (i had to transfer to a bus in ohio in the middle of the night, so i was really paranoid i would miss the stop and couldn’t sleep as a result) but i remember staring out the window in cleveland being like “wow, the ocean here is beautiful” then realizing that duh, that’s (presumably) lake erie...

i genuinely don’t mean this as a way of humble-bragging (okay, maybe i do, a little bit. but we’re all on tumblr, so what do we really have to brag about...), but everyone i’ve talked to out here so far thinks i’m dangerously: a) stupid, b) brave, and/or c) insane, for just up and moving out here from massachusetts all by myself without ever having been to michigan before. it makes me feel kind of cool, like i’m a pioneer woman. “you just...hopped on amtrak? you never even visited the law school? you just went?! without your parents?” yeah. i did! i’ve moved so many times since 2005 (when my parents sold their house post-divorce) that i don’t really have any attachment to a single place besides a generic, “massachusetts”. the idea of moving around is exciting to me (although now, at the ripe old age of 25, i’m starting to think i’d like to own a house so i would have a homebase that i could travel from). i still miss my mother terribly but i’m starting to feel like i’m getting into my groove out here. and if everything goes okay, hopefully my going to law school will benefit her too (more money so i can support her as she gets older).

i’m back in business with internet, ladies...

though i kind of wonder what “big trouble” implies in that context. i actually stayed behind and asked them about it because i was so curious. they said they had never heard of someone's clinical files actually getting hacked, but you’d be in “big trouble”. i mean duh. but you’re not actually a licensed lawyer, so you can’t get disbarred or anything. fail the class? can’t pass the bar? stern talking to from your professor? a girl wants to know...

i went to this laptop configuration session to install different software that you need for school (pretty basic stuff like making sure you can access the school’s wireless network, downloading the printer software, etc.) and tbh it wasn’t super helpful on that front because i’ll probably go through all the steps again myself to make sure i did them right. i couldn’t really concentrate on what i was doing because i kept half listening to what the IT people were saying off the cuff.

BUT. it was worthwhile, because one of those off-the-cuff remarks was about how they “request” that you download anti-virus software as well as a program that makes two-step log-in via your computer and phone the default when you do...something. either open certain documents, or your campus email. and what caught my ear was that they said if you take legal clinics you’re mandated to have those things on your computer because you’re handling other people’s information! if your computer gets hacked when you’re involved in clinical work you’re in big trouble!!! even though i knew clinics involved handling real work i never really thought of like...the implications of that. like they have clinics that deal with tax issues, child welfare issues, and even fr*king federal criminal appeals...and they’re real people’s issues. and like 12 months from now i might be involved in them. crazy!!!

@ivankamarietrump i dont think its strange to want companionship, i guess it depends how it manifests. if your need to not be alone is so strong that you'll accept someone shitty into your life, bad. but if you are productive about finding someone good, compatible, etc it makes sense. i'm similar to you i think, which is why i still live with family

this is a good point and i definitely agree...i feel like a lot of the articles i’ve read about this have come from a heterosexual romance perspective and the message is that those relationships in general tend to be draining for women and that you’re better off alone (which, can’t really argue with that for the most part). but they don’t explicitly say they’re about only those types of relationships so it’s just like an article entitled, “the benefits of living alone” and we’re supposed to accept that that’s true for all women in every circumstance and relationship dynamic. it’s probably good to learn to be alone in the sense of not being ‘co-dependent’...and i think you should be able to do basic household tasks on your own (assuming you’re able to). but reading about how it’s great to be able to go home and do whatever you want and have no one to answer to...idk man. i feel like i’m naturally very solitary and kind of carve out space for myself anyway even around other people. or i tend to gravitate towards people who will let me do that (like my whole family). so having other people around me is more like a nice buffer to keep me from brooding about things, or worrying too much etc. i think it ultimately adds something to my life (as long as the person is good for you, like you said).