STATUS: on Summer "break"— working for the Ppl of Oklahoma

The very last day and side effects

To be very honest with you, I have had a very sugary drink nearly every weekday that I've been back in Oklahoma. You can see it in my physique, accompanied by smile lines and the features that never change. I can feel it when I lift myself out of bed. It's been a week since I finished for good, and thus a week since my last bev.

The bev was actually a sundial for me and my friends. It was an indicator of time. I don't know if I can illustrate the sheer amount of sugar I consumed without listing it out. 

On any given Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning, if Christopher was in on time, he would call me from the garage and I'd know we would be on our way to Dutch Bros. His commute is about 45 minutes on a good day. One time there was no such bev to be had because he was implicated in a prank war between two of his roommates. They put his briefcase outside overnight in the pouring rain, and then occupied the shower for the length of his commute. I have never seen such ire in him. We got a bev the next day when he was OK. I'd never get a coffee from Dutch Bros. because I drank black first thing each day at home, but I'd get a vanilla chai from there. He'd get this thing called the Brownie Blast or the "Grasshopper" or something else crazy. And then we'd take a treacherous left turn onto 23rd and back to school.

Maybe sometime after the morning class, there'd be another bev to have. We liked this place near my house called "All About Cha," a tea-centered cafe where we eventually became regulars. I'd usually get a food item there, and at most share a teapot with them. Usually an extremely milky London Fog. I liked that place except for the fact that they only played TikTok audio music and for that reason I refused to read case law there.

Another place we frequented was a boba shop called MomoCha (mo-mo-cha, as in "peach tea"), but we pronounced it MoMō—chuh in a strange and convoluted way. It was always staffed by some nonchalant teenager working part-time, and it was really Luu's favorite among the beverage destinations. Luu has this whole thing about matcha, which I personally am like fine and OK about, but essentially she is always rating the drinks that she gets in great detail because she used to be a bobarista herself. Luu would oftentimes kid herself about skipping the bev for the day, but it was a primary motivator for her to get back to work. To her credit, she'd sometimes keep a half-finished drink in the school fridge for the next day, and almost never had a drink deficit for our many, long classes.

If it were 2PM, it would be happy hour at Sonic. Half-priced drinks and slushies galore until 4PM. That window was hard sometimes, because we had 2:30 classes and traffic was a bit heavy after late lunch. But we'd find any excuse to go, really. I have always liked, since I was a kid, a grape-flavored slushie. At Sonic they can also put Nerds on it, but I haven't ever done that. The grape alone was always perfectly refreshing. I also liked getting an Oreo Blast, which is kind of like a less robust DQ Blizzard but delicious nonetheless. Christopher and I had noticed early on that if we brought ice cream to class, we were never cold-called. Sonic's got this distinct, styrofoam cup that keeps everything cold and also obscures the drink. It was a comfort to have in hand. I mention obscuring the drink because my next go-to is called a "Dirty Dr. Pepper," which is essentially a Dr. Pepper with coconut cream and half a lime in it. It looks kind of gross when you lift the lid. 

I became fond of dirty sodas because of this place called "Swig," which I affectionately call "Swigs" because my friend Taylor calls it that. Early spring, we were merely acquainted, but had talked in-depth about random parts of our short lives. She approached me in the middle of March to ask me if I'd be her partner in the 1L Moot Court competition. I was hesitant to say yes at first, but did after she asked me four more times. I eventually caved in— if that's a sign of how persuasive she is. Over the course of March, we finished our briefs, constructed our arguments, and got knocked in the first round. I think I liked doing it, though. It's important, it's benchmark lawyer stuff, and it was nice to make a poor judge listen to me rant about this paper that I killed myself writing. I only tell this story to say that for a month or so, the bev was had mostly at Swigs with Taylor, and sometimes she'd get me Panda Express too. 

As for hard drinks? I almost never drank during 1L mostly because I was so busy most evenings with reading. I am also an anxious driver as-is. I would joke that if I were driving within the next four days, I would refrain from drinking. And anyway, the best part about drinking is the walk home. 

I was thinking about the after effects of such gluttony over the past school year because my period was delayed by about two months. I hypothesize that it was mostly the incessant stress, but my diet towards the end certainly did not help. So to be very honest, I have officially marked the end of this chapter with the return of my menstrual cycle, because as much pain as I'm in at the moment, I feel like I have been washed clean of everything as of yesterday. 

The final bev was on Thursday after our final. Christopher got a large Dirty Dr. Pepper, I got a medium Dirty Dr. Pepper, and Luu got a small Dirty Dr. Pepper. Like in Goldilocks. 

Love y'all forever and I will be seeing your asses in court.

Andrea

Thanks to me, Bill Clinton got to smell soggy old wings in the trash can

Went to the NGA (2025)

Zoe had a busy Thursday so I pretty much fucked off for like 4 hours after we had lunch together. She works much closer to the museums nowadays, so I went to the NGA to kill time and wear out my legs. I quickly looked up what was on display, and went straight to a particular exhibit, leaving in three weeks, "The 70s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography." I was blown away. 

I took note of each artist by opening a Safari tab on my dying phone for each one. This is everyone I liked, in order. Many of these are part of a series, but I'll only show here what was on display and otherwise link to the artist's portfolio.

First, Jim Goldberg's "Rich and Poor" series, which I liked for its handwritten captions. Each piece's title is the name of whoever is pictured. So the pieces displayed here are called Clyde Norbert and Vickie Figueroa respectively. I encourage you to look at the rest of it too.

 

I really loved this picture by Tseng Kwong Chi, from a series called "East Meets West." You can see the remote capture wire but he looks pasted on there!! And of course I'll always love a picture about New York. More on his site here.

These two are from a book called Rimbaud in New York 1978-1979 by David Wojnarowicz, which reminded me of this awful movie that depicts Arthur Rimbaud's malevolent relationship with Paul Verlaine called Total Eclipse (1995). Both young gay artists, Wojnarowicz saw himself in Rimbaud's works and life. In this series, Wojnarowicz becomes a modern Rimbaud using a mask he made by himself...

 Arthur in beloved Coney Island:

 

 Arthur in a NY diner:

I loved the color in this one, called Greenwood, Mississippi. William Eggleston had three pictures in this exhibit, but this deceptively simple one was my favorite of them all. This is the highest resolution image that I could find of it, but it cuts out a sex poster on the bottom right that's usually partially in view :(

 

 The scale of Conical Intersect is insane to me, but I loved how it was captured at the National Gallery. Gordon Matta-Clark cut a vortex into two adjacent old houses to offer passersby a view into the forthcoming demolition site to make space for a neighborhood-wide "renovation." I found a neat film about it on YouTube, where you can see him actually making the hole. From a puncture in paper to a cavernous entrance, you can feel each strike and smell the site just from looking at the rubble. And when it's done, you can see how it looked from the street— a portal into time. What can be displayed of this gargantuan Parisian project in a museum faraway in DC are two scans of the photographs, film borders intact:

 

Oh! And they had a Nan Goldin on display too, which was nice. Hers was the most familiar name to me after seeing All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) a couple of years ago with Winnie. This one's called Christmas at the Other Side, Boston.

 

Overall a fantastic exhibit, especially having learned way more about photography in the past year. I wish it were on for longer. 

Oscars grade— 32.6%, I will be taking summer classes😔

 I did two guesses as a fail safe for some categories, gave myself a half-point for getting either one, and then totally forgot to make guesses in five categories!!!!!!! To cope I say it was a lower-stakes Oscars for the fact that I was bad at movies in 2024. I stopped going to the theater as much when school started, and opted for whatever was on streaming. I am partly becoming what I hate... but whatever. In a way it was the highest stakes Oscars because I want Ariana Grande to be EGOT and this was like her only real chance of getting the "O," like even Gaga barel(EGOT) an Oscar for A Star is Born. So maybe no one in this world but like 27 people in human history can do all that. 

Till next year!