Stress over the perfect font

Today I learned that Baskerville is, allegedly, the most persuasive font.  As in, people are more likely to believe something written in Baskerville than in other fonts.  A study has found this to be true.  The firm I work for uses it whenever possible, and I recently found that it makes a nice looking font for my resume, which is my first step in applying for law school.

In other news, I'm no longer planning on applying to law school, I actually am.  University of Chicago's application is the first available (the rest will come out on Sunday, for the most part) and I went so far as to click "apply" and start reading their application requirements, as well as to start sobbing internally about having to pay $100 to apply to just one of the schools on my list, which also happens to be one of the schools I am least likely to get in to.  Christ on a cracker, I am doing this!  And it's expensive!  And terrifying!  

And there are so many little details to consider.  I'm trying to do something very big picture for myself, but to get there, I first have to make all these small decisions about which font to use, and which words perfectly describe my work experience, and is it OK if it goes onto a second page?  I will also eventually have to write a personal statement, where I will nitpick over every single word until either it's perfect or it's the day before it's due and I have no choice but to hit "send."  

Meanwhile, I am also moving this weekend--not just moving, but MOVING moving in with my favorite person (Hey you!), which is another huge step that comes with its own set of little details to consider.  How many boxes do I need?  How should we arrange the furniture?  And later on, how will we grocery shop?  How will we make sure we don't kill each other?  I feel like I'm Inigo Montoya about to storm the castle to rescue Buttercup and kill Count Rugen all at once.  They have a plan but:

WESTLY:... Now, there may be problems once we're inside. 

INIGO:  I'll say.  How do I find the Count?  Once I do, how do I find you again?  Once I find you again, how do I escape?

FEZZIK:  Don't pester him.  He's had a hard day. 

INIGO:  Right.  Sorry.

In my case, the "him" I can't pester is the universe in general, which threw me a curve ball when my roommate discovered a couple of bed bugs, less than a week before I'm leaving.  I suppose that makes this a great time to be leaving the place, but the added stress of worrying about taking them with me is not helping anything!  I'm going home tonight to start packing up my room, armed with bedbug proof mattress covers and DE powder and plastic garbage bags for my clothes and linens--I'm going to move them in bags into the basement of my new place, where the laundry is, and then wash everything before bringing it upstairs.

I have to keep reminding myself of the big picture so I don't get too bogged down with details.  The font and furniture arrangement I use will matter, but only as a result of being on this really awesome adventure where I'm going to explore law school and love and whatever comes next.

GRANDSON:  Does it got any sports in it? 

GRANDFATHER:  Are you kidding?  Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, True Love, miracles!

GRANDSON:  Doesn't sound too bad.  I'll try and stay awake. 

T-Shirt Collection

"A person--a woman--can adapt to more than she might have thought she could.  What she's unsure about is when that stops being a virtue and turns to something else, leaving you too much changed, undefined, unanchored, like a fisherman's empty boat drifting on a river, with no way to be returned to where it belongs." --from Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

 I have accumulated a large collection of t-shirts that together tell a story of how my life has been since High School.  I still have many of my Appalachia Service Project volunteer t-shirts, including then one from the summer of 2007 which I am still proud to say has "STAFF" stamped on the sleeve.   I have a couple of Habitat for Humanity ones, too.  And a few classic UChicago puns: "I Am Uncommon!", "Where fun goes to die", a dinosaur ("UChicago") stomping on a stick-figure ("My Soul").

Going through my room yesterday to fill a few boxes for Goodwill, I was sad to finally relinquish my worn out "New Orleans: You Gotta Be Tough" t-shirt, complete with a screen print of the Superdome, a gift from a coworker.  After so many washings, and a little growing on my end, it's now much too tight across the chest.

I find it oddly fitting that my Peace Corps t-shirt spells "Cuerpo de Paz" incorrectly, and the graphics weren't printed as anticipated, making the blob on the front unrecognizable as a llama if you don't know what you're looking for.  It says to me, Hi, I'm a mess.  But I'm an awesome shade of green, so you'll wear me to work out or sleep sometimes.

I just got a new t-shirt from work--my firm is running in the Race Judicata next month, a 5k to raise money for Chicago Volunteer Legal Services, and we're all going to match.   

I went to all of these places and did all of these things and collected all of these t-shirts, and that has been my life for the past eight to ten years.  

Yes, I know they are just shirts.  But then why is it so difficult to get rid of them?

I've been thinking about adapting, and losing my way.  Wearing these t-shirts when they were new, I was putting them on to say, this is me now.  This is what I'm doing, just like everyone around me wearing the same matching t-shirts.  Collecting them over the years and continuing to wear them, I'm proud of what I was doing or had done, proud to proclaim my affiliation with an organization or school on my chest.  They are part of me now.
  
Except sometimes I worry that I let those affiliations too much define who I am.  I can match everyone around me, blend in and adapt to my surroundings.  I can track how at almost every new volunteer opportunity or school, I had to learn how to do what needed to be done, to fit the t-shirt on my back.  My pride comes from learning new things and achieving something that I might previously have thought impossible (Remember the one time I learned how to shingle a roof?  And terrified the Harvard football players with my mad power tool-weilding skillz?).  But from all of these defining moments (ASP, UChicago, Habitat for Humanity, Peace Corps), I am also left with this overwhelming feeling that I learned how to do something, but then it ended, and I'm lost without it.  Because maybe I learned how to adapt to it, rather than incorporating the experience into me.  

This is not to say that I am not enormously grateful for all of the life experience I've accumulated along with my t-shirt collection.  But did I ever give up defining myself in favor of adapting?  How do I make sure the fishing boat travels to where it belongs?

Washington, D.C.

Is it just me, or is the lighting in the Washington, D.C. subway stations extremely erie?  Anyone who has had a childhood should know that lighting from underneath, like faces with flashlights around a campfire, creates an instant ghost story--or in the case of the Metro, a 70's sci-fi flick where aliens abduct unsuspecting passengers for study on their home planet.

Thankfully, Cam and I managed to avoid the aliens and enjoyed the almost-plush seating and cleanliness of both the Metro system and the city as a whole (at least, the touristy parts that we managed to visit during our 2 1/2 days there).  I'd like to scoff at the lack of cracked pavement and weird sewer smells (psshhh this isn't a REAL city, real cities smell bad!) but I can't help myself--it was really nice!

Something we learned, though, is that cramming as much sightseeing into one weekend as possible does not make for a very relaxing vacation.  Friday we did the Air and Space Museum in the morning, Chinatown for lunch (sadly we couldn't find any mambo/mumbo sauce, but the food was still delicious), and the Holocaust Museum in the afternoon--after wandering around near the capital building, discovering that the Botanical Gardens were already closed, and checking out the Navy Memorial, we were too worn out to do anything besides trek back to our hotel in Crystal City to shower and grab dinner nearby at Legal Seafood.  Dessert was chocolate cake and a (decaf) irish coffee back at the hotel, which put me right to sleep.

The Holocaust Museum was as memorable as it was depressing--very well done.  I'd recommend it to anyone visiting D.C., and I'd also recommend making some time afterwards to sit on a bench and eat some ice cream.

Saturday we missed our scheduled walking tour of the National Mall because we couldn't find a new breakfast place quickly enough after seeing the absurd line outside of Lincoln's Waffle House (And here we see the under-caffeinated hungry monsters emerge from hiding, stalking their prey viciously and without remorse, determined to destroy everything in their path until food and caffeine is provided...).  Eventually we ate at a french bakery with delicious omelets--at which point it was raining, so we probably didn't miss out on much on the tour.  Our morning was better spent inside at the Natural History Museum, which we may not have had time to see otherwise.  The human evolution exhibit was definitely my favorite.  Once the rain stopped, we caught a glimpse of the White House and hung out at another memorial (there are so many, I lose track...).  We met friends for a late lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl (try the chili cheese fries--yum!) before heading back out to see MORE memorials (Lincoln, Korean War, Vietnam...).  My feet are still sore!      

Sunday we let ourselves sleep in before having an early lunch in Georgetown at Tackle Box (I finally got my lobster roll!), visiting the Marine Memorial and taking a (rather brisk) walk through Arlington Cemetery.  We then spent an absurd amount of time in the airport because our flight was delayed 2 hours--I don't fly much, so maybe I've just been having terrible luck this summer, but I have never flown on American Airlines and NOT experienced a delay of at least one hour.

Today I am back at work and still trying to process everything.  I will upload the pictures on my camera tonight, after I hit the gym to work off some of the delicious food I ate over the weekend!

Overall it was a really great trip! (Insert cheesiness about getting to spend it with Cam d'awwww). Someday I would like to go back to see everything we missed--but first, I think our next vacation should involve a lot less walking and a whole lot more sitting on a beach :)