I have something to get off my chest.

I gave myself an extra hour and a half this morning to get from the Silver Spring Metro to Union Station in order to make it to a Senate building in time for a 10 a.m. event. Due to Metro's ever-present and elusive "mechanical difficulties" that at best snarl rush hour commutes and at worst kill nine people, it took an hour and fifteen minutes to go six stops. When I finally got to Union Station with just barely enough time to use my breast pump before my meeting, I discovered that the women's restrooms don't have electrical outlets.

So I sat out in the open by the main concourse--Gate G to be exact--where there was an outlet beside a water fountain, and I attached my boobs to the strange and absurd-looking contraption that is a breast pump. Some people gawked and one person said: "Hey, gorgeous" as he walked by. I did my best to stay as covered as possible, but as anyone who has had two big plastic cones over her boobs can attest, it's not easy to maintain a dignified appearance while hitched up to motorized dairy technology.

This, people, is our nation's capital. It is where our elected officials meet to make laws, solve problems, and have extramarital affairs. It is also, as JFK said, "a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm." Outlets in bathrooms? No way. Carpet on subway train floors? Sure!

South Silver Spring: Good block parties, a bit too much freedom of religion

I took Mackenzie to a law school recruitment event at the Wardman Park Marriott on Saturday, and she made me proud with her even temper and refrainment from throwing Cheerios at people. There were probably several hundred aspiring law students there, and I spotted only one other woman with a baby stroller. The only dirty look I got was from a kid who looked like he was twelve and wearing his dad's suit, and was, predictably, standing in line at the Yale table. I picked up a lot of information and had a great conversation with an admissions officer from the University of Maryland, and as we wrapped up Mackenzie held out my car keys to her as if to say: "Hey, let my mommy in and you can have her car!"

On Sunday we stopped by the Buy Local Silver Spring Block Party where Mackenzie got her very own fireman hat and wiggled her butt to the Michael Jackson tracks that were playing at Gallery, which, by the way, has been making a lot less 3 a.m. commotion these days. (Unfortunately though, worshippers at the pentecostal church next door feel the need to set off fireworks for Jesus and yell prayers through blowhorns just as I'm trying to get Mackenzie to sleep at night. Whenever Jesus answers their prayers, I hope his response is something along the lines of: "Shut the f*** up!")

Mackenzie squealed at a couple of dogs, got her picture taken for the Gazette, and then tried to lick the ground, which I discouraged more emphatically than usual since I worry that she could lick up some trace amounts of coke left there by Gallery patrons. All in all, a great weekend!

Logic games.

I have plenty to say these days, but I just don't have enough time to say it well enough to make it worth the 45 seconds you would spend reading it.

What spare minutes I have I dedicate to studying for the LSAT, round two. I spent $738 to take the test the first time, register with LSDAS (the Law School Data Assembly Service--which is in a sordid, nasty bedfellowship with most ABA-approved law schools and demands $112 for access to their system, which functions with about as much sense and efficiency as the DC department of social services), apply to five law schools, and pay the $25 fee to fill out a duplicate of the free federal aid application, which American University requires, I suspect, because they get some sort of kick-back. I was admitted to two schools this fall and waitlisted at three others, and I decided that it would be financially reckless to abandon a decent, secure job in order to plunge myself mercilessly into debt in order to attend a private law school.

I considered giving up on this dream entirely, but after reading the transcripts of Redding v. Safford, the school strip-search case that was heard by the Supreme Court two months ago, I decided to revisit that huge, evil, revolting Princeton Review test prep book in which I have found three typos. While eight of the nine Justices cracked jokes about undergarments and marker-sniffing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only judge who decided to take her job seriously on April 21, 2009, and the only one who recognized that there is something very wrong about forcing a 13-year-old girl to strip down to her bra and panties in search of a contraband ibuprofen, which, incidentally, was never found. Lonely at the top, isn't it, RBG?

Government quacks weigh in on rubber duckie drama

At 8 1/2 months old, Mackenzie spends the majority of each day chewing on the head of one of her countless rubber duckies. She is so attached to her rubber duckies that she often falls asleep while holding one in a white-knuckled grip, oddly quite paranoid that it could be snatched from her while she is at her most vulnerable. If she throws a rubber duckie and someone doesn't promptly retrieve it for her, she howls as though she is suffering a tremendous injustice. Sometimes she gets frustrated when she cannot nurse and chew on her rubber duckie at the same time. The old saying, Don't bite the boob that feeds you, is lost on her.

Just as I don't let Mackenzie lick the carpeted floor of a Metro train, I wouldn't want her to chew on toys that were manufactured using toxic chemicals. So, you can imagine my alarm upon learning that many of those sweet, innocuous-looking rubber duckies are actually evil little tumor generators. In February the federal government passed a ban on plastic children's toys containing phtalates (DEHP), chemicals that, in high doses, have been linked to cancer in rodents.

However, researchers with the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) say the the ban DEHP-containing toys is essentially a knee-jerk reaction to concern over the chemicals, rather than any actual danger posed by the products.

Their rationale? The CPSC argues that children must suck and chew on a DEHP-containing toy for at least 75 minutes a day for it to pose any health risk. As part of a study they sent trained observers to day care centers and homes to use a stopwatch and record the length of time that children had toys in their mouths. They concluded that children usually put toys in their mouths for no longer than two minutes a day.

WTF? Who are these children? Are they earthlings? I have never known teething babies to spend any less than the majority of their waking hours with fistfuls of toys shoved in their mouths. Either the study sample was grossly skewed with freak babies, or the "observers" didn't observe too carefully.

It is stories like this that affirm my skepticism of government-generated studies of vaccine safety.

Want to see a decline in teen pregnancy? Stop having sex with kids.

More discouraging than the news that teen pregnancy rates are up are the idiotic comments that Washington Post readers leave online. Commenters blame teenage girls, abstinence-only education, Bush (Isn't everything his fault?, whines your average liberal), pro-lifers, illegal immigrants, etc.

Of course, nobody interviewed for the article and nobody leaving comments points a finger at men. No matter that of babies born to girls age 15 - 17, over 50 percent of the fathers are men over the age of 20.

Furthermore, numerous studies (e.g., this one from NIMH) have linked teenage pregnancy to history of incest and sexual abuse. Maybe if more adults could keep their pants on around on young girls we would see the teenage pregnancy rate decline a bit.

Salma Hayek milks celebrity; Congress chews the fat; women don't get their piece of the pie.

It's been a helluva week. Salma Hayek one-upped America's favorite baby machine, Angelina Jolie, by breastfeeding a starving African child in front of television cameras. Salma was candid about her reasons: 1) the child was starving; and 2) breastfeeding is becoming increasingly taboo in Sierra Leone--the nation with the highest infant mortality rate in the world--leading mothers to wean earlier, if they breastfeed at all.

It's refreshing that the latest lactating breast to cause a controversy doesn't belong to Angie. Confident, beautifully figured, and openly media-savvy, Salma projects a much healthier, more sincere image of motherhood than the majority of celeb moms. With rates of anorexia and bullimia among pregnant women on the rise, it's neither easy nor fair to dismiss that it matters what famous people do.

Furthermore, as the most recent in a string of blogosphere shake-ups over breastfeeding (i.e.; the Facebook censorship scandal; this delightful and insightful New Yorker article), this clever stunt makes all the squeamish anti-nursing types look like the assholes they are. After all, what was Salma supposed to do? Just let the child starve in the name of Puritan modesty? No decent person would suggest such a thing.

So, while Salma Hayek's ta-tas are saving the world, Congress predictably gave women the short end of the stick. The final stimulus plan just passed, and it's no surprise that the original proposed $300,000 for programs under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was cut. What remain in the plan are:

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities". WTF?!;


• Millions of dollars for furniture for the Department of Homeland Security. It's cushy there--literally; and


• Millions of dollars for television converter boxes which no doubt will add to the obesity epidemic in this country by encouraging more Americans to sit on their asses and watch t.v. all day.

Sean called to ask what I would like for dinner tonight. Anything but pork.

We can do it! (Even though it sucks.)

Monday: I realize that after wearing jeans and sweatpants for six months, I am no longer accustomed to the discomfort of pantyhose. I put them on under my “new” Anne Klein black wool skirt ($4 at a thrift shop), kiss Mackenzie and Sean goodbye, and head towards the Metro.

I tell myself that I won't cry today. At least not before lunch. But when I pick up the Post Express, the picture on the front page is of Mandara—a 26-year-old gorilla at the zoo—cuddling her newborn baby gorilla. The caption says that Mandara won't let anyone get close enough to determine the baby's sex. Good for her, I think.

The day goes fine, despite my awareness that I can relate better to a gorilla mommy than my human colleagues.

Please check back later!

Sean and I have been leeching off someone else's internet connection for the past two years, but suddenly it wants a password. I'm really depressed about this, and I will be on a blogging hiatus until I get a job and can pay for internet.

First things first

Sean, Mackenzie, and I just trekked to and from Philadelphia in one day so that I could go to a job interview and Mackenzie would not be deprived of boob for 10+ hours. With several interviews in various cities and the urgency of our financial situation, we feel that a big change--hopefully for the better--is on the horizon. We've been having a lot of serious conversations these days. So, after an exhausting but great day, we sat down together this evening and had this discussion:

Me: "If you could punch any celebrity in the face, who would it be?"
Sean: "I don't know. That's a tough one. There are so many."
Me: "Yeah."
Sean: "What about you?
Me: "Barbara Walters."
Sean: "Why?"
Me: "Because she sucks. She's awful. She talks trash about breastfeeding and acts like it's a personal insult when a fellow passenger on an airplane nurses her baby. And she has that snotty, pinched little face. I hate her. So, what about you? Marky Mark?"
Sean: "Nah..."
Me: "Toby Keith?"
Sean: "I'd like to wallop him. But I don't care about him enough, really."
Me: "Then who?"
Sean: "Leonardo DiCaprio. And if you need a reason, well, then you just don't understand."

The five best things about Election Day 2008

5) I only waited ten minutes in line to vote. That's a major improvement from the 8 1/2 hours I waited during the 2004 presidential election.

4) Sex education opponent and homophobe Tommy Le and and violent, racist thug Stephen Abrams got told to take their carnival sideshows on the road. These two really epitomized what Mark Twain was talking about when he said: "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."

3) Bake sales at the polls.

2) Yesterday is the last day that canvassers for Obama will be out crowding the sidewalks and bothering me while I'm trying to juggle a fussy baby and approximately three tons of baby gear. "I'm already voting for him," just wasn't enough for these people.

1) That shit-for-brains prodigal son can go back to his stupid ranch in Texas, where he's spent a huge portion of the past eight years, anyway. That was going to happen no matter the outcome, but I'm thrilled that a sensible, literate person and his endearingly wise-ass VP are taking over the White House.

When the going gets tough the tough get creative.

Jessica over at APISS has some great suggestions for penny-pinching in the wake of corporate gluttony. I, too, am trying to save a bit. Here are some examples of how I stretch a dollar these days:

1) Have a free snack at Whole Foods. Whenever I'm in downtown Silver Spring and I have the munchies, I go to Whole Foods and [sort of] inconspicuously take more than my fair share from the free sample displays. The chocolate Bundt cake they had out today was to die for.

2) Make your own baby toys. For Sean's birthday, Mackenzie gave him a set of *hand-crafted* flashcards that he can use to teach her the words for his favorite things, e.g., books, flannel, France, whiskey, Rolling Stones...

(Generous family and friends gave us plenty of hand-me-down toys. Nonetheless, no matter how hard I try to get Mackenzie interested in safe, colorful playthings, she is always much more eager to reach for plastic bags and steak knives.)

3) Buy wine in DC, not Montgomery County. For some absurd reason or another, Montgomery County excessively regulates alcohol distribution and sales, and the result is that most local restaurants have crappy wine lists and shitty beer selections. (See the Washington City Paper article from February, "Pain in the Glass".) Many liquor stores on the other side of Eastern Ave. have wider selections and cheaper price tags than in MoCo.

4) Recycle coupons. Stick a nail file in the little coupon disposal bin at the Giant self-checkouts and see what kind of savings you can pull out. Despite Mackenzie's marathon pooping, I always have a $1 off Pampers coupon when I need to buy her diapers.

We've gotta get out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do.

Sean and I will be officially broke by the end of January, and we've come to realize that to live above the poverty line in the Washington area we both would have to work full-time while simultaneously acquiring advanced degrees. So, we're probably going to be relocating somewhere that has an actual middle class and where home ownership is not as distant a goal as walking on Mars.

There are plenty of people here we would miss terribly, but I can't say I would miss the surroundings. Several things about living in Silver Spring that are grating on my last nerve these days:

1) All the damn construction. Sometimes I have to cross the street twice in one block to get around it all. I've grown alarmingly accustomed to the sound of jackhammers and the smell of latrines. Furthermore, trying to navigate a stroller over torn-up sidewalks and wooden planks is making me develop mannish arm muscles.

2) County vehicles parked on sidewalks and in front of garage exits. People laughed at Marion Barry when he promised DC residents "a police car on every sidewalk", but clearly Montgomery County thinks it's a good idea. That said, I've only seen a few cop cars on sidewalks; more often it's those white pick-up trucks with the County seal on the driver's side door. Because of this audacious parking trend, I often have to go a couple blocks out of my way so as not to push a stroller in a lane of oncoming traffic.

3) The neighbors. Our apartment building is lodged between the Gallery Restaurant and Lounge ("lounge" being a euphemism for "stinking cesspool of crack-whores") and Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal la Nueva Jersualen...two places that attract the noisiest, most obnoxious people on earth. Anyone who has ever spent three hours trying to get a crying baby to sleep can appreciate my hatred.

What's all that racket that sounds like a church revival in full-swing? Oh, it's the club trash throwing a party in the parking lot. What's all that screaming and yelling and car horn-honking that sounds like it's coming from the mouth of hell? That's the churchgoers out in the parking lot at 2 a.m., totally ignorant of the fact that even God himself is trying to sleep.

The only way to tell the difference between the two causes of pandemonium is to look out our window at the vehicles in the parking lot across the street. If they're tricked-out SUVs and overcompensatory sports cars, it's the nightclub patrons. If they're 12-year-old minivans with Yo quiero Jesus bumper stickers, it's the Jesus freaks. The disquietude is otherwise indistinguishable.

A year or so ago, when some Gallery patrons got in a fight that resulted in someone getting stabbed, my first thought was: Great; that's one fewer Gallery toolbox making drunken noise outside my window on Saturday nights. Surely this makes me a bad Christian, but I'm too tired to haul my ass out of bed early on a Sunday morning (read: normal churchgoing hours) to go and repent.

They don't make farms like they used to.

October is awesome. It has my birthday, Sean's birthday, and Halloween. And it's Attachment Parenting Month.

Last weekend, we took Mackenzie to Clark's Elioak Farm in Ellicott City, where instead of milking cows they milk you for every cent you're worth. All I wanted was to get my girl a pumpkin, and we somehow spent $11.50 in the process. They charge for admission, hay rides, and even to feed the goats! Good thing not everyone who goes to this farm is as broke as we are, otherwise those poor goats would starve. Nonetheless, we got a priceless picture of Mackenzie with her pumpkin:

You betcha.

This morning, I asked Mackenzie about her foreign policy credentials. She responded: "Aaah ooooh [gurgle] daaaaah!" I'd say she's more qualified to be VP than Sarah Palin, and more articulate.

Finally, a Date Lab that didn't suck.

I've been disappointed with WaPo Magazine's Date Lab for months now. They put these two together simply because they're both Jewish, when clearly they had nothing else in common. This one was boring, and so was this one. (Anyone who puts "going to the gym" as an interest they'd like to share with a romantic partner is dull.) The woman in this one is so snobby that she makes Paris Hilton look like Mother Theresa. The poor guy they stuck her with should get a do-over with someone else.

This week was great, though. Both parties didn't take themselves too seriously (how un-Washington!) and they both love country music. For the first time in a while, the matchmakers at WaPo put down their crack pipes and made a sensible match!