All I'm Asking For Is Change

Two types of change, today:

Change One: Slovenian merchants, waiters, and the like, are really, really reluctant to give you change. Not that they want to cheat you, or anything...they just get so annoyed if you give them substantially more money than is required. I know this happens in the U.S. too, but here are a couple of examples: I bought a 2,50 € hot chocolate at a cafe and all I had was a 20. The waiter gave me a look like, "Are you kidding me?" and asked if I had anything smaller. He proceeded to dole out the change, muttering and shaking his head the entire time. Today I bought a 1,20 € ice cream. I had a two euro coin. "Do you have twenty cents?" the ice cream seller asked. "No, I just have fourteen cents." She motioned for me to give her the fourteen cents. She would rather be sold short six cents than, heaven forbid, have to give 80 cents (three coins!) in change. I wonder if this is related to the problem they're having in Argentina with monedas. Supposedly, Argentina is so short on change ("How short on change are they?"), that coins are worth more than bills of a nominally higher value. It's pretty much the craziest thing I've ever heard. Anyway, it sometimes feels that way around here.

Change Two: I'm in my new apartment! It's on the top floor of this great old building on Dalmatinova ulica. I'm in the red room (one wall is painted red, although you can't see it in the picture), and I have a skylight and plenty of space and a bed underneath a low wall, which is kind of fun:

I spent a little while this evening talking to one of my roommates. His name is Bogdan, and he's a Romanian student here for an electronics/telecommunications research internship. His favorite television show is Seinfeld, which speaks highly of him. The internet, however, blows. Supposedly it's in a slump tonight, which is good, because if it were this bad all the time, I'd never be able to watch the Daily Show again (until August).

Work today was fun...not especially work-ful, but not boring either. I spent nigh three hours chatting with another woman in the department about whether the Court acted as a positive legislator in a number of cases. That conversation quickly devolved into differences between Slovenia and America (namely that large corporate entities aren't actively trying to screw you over in Slovenia, like telecommunications companies and health insurance companies do in the ol' ZDA). Then it re-evolved into a discussion of Slovenian law in general.

I found out that Article 55 of the Constitution does indeed give women an affirmative right to have an abortion. No messing. In your first trimester, you can walk into a state hospital, and they do it for you, no questions asked. Apparently after the first trimester, you need to appeal to some government board and they have to approve you (and they almost certainly do). I thought it was kind of strange that you had to go to a board to exercise a right that's affirmatively granted in the constitution, but Katarina said nobody's ever complained. Perhaps they could use some of that American complaining spirit.

The real political battle is apparently over single women getting in vitro fertilization. The church is super-opposed to IVF for women without husbands, and since the right is much better at turning out the vote than the left, they've managed to keep it illegal. (I think I'm recalling this all correctly.) And the issue of surrogacy has never come up in their courts, but Katarina expects it will soon.

All right, moving (even across the street) is exhausting, and I need to catch some mad z's. There are more things in the news and NY Times op-ed page that I wanted to write about—people being openly critical of mothers, climate change, Ricci—but I'm tired, and the internet's too slow to call up the articles within a reasonable timeframe.

As government officials say to each other before signing their letters (which I found out today doing my proofreading duties), please accept the assurances of my highest consideration. I'm not sure it means anything, but I hope you feel important now.

LjubljanaPride2009Wooooooo!

The truth must be told: There are no floats with drag queens in feathers and boys in thongs dancing to Heather Small's Proud at Ljubljana Pride. I went out yesterday to catch the parade about an hour and a half after it was supposed to start, and my timing was shockingly good. Just as I was wondering where the parade was, standing in Prešernov trg, I heard whistles blowing and drums drumming. They slowly got louder until I realized that they were coming from Miklošičeva cesta. So I walked up the street...and there was pride! Coming right toward me! Ahhhhh! Run for your lives!

It took the entire parade, oh, about four minutes to pass. But they were loud, they were enthusiastic, they were colorful, and they had great signs, some in English. Some rhyming in English.

Yeah, everyone's better at foreign languages than we are. There was also no shortage of balloons, no shortage at all.

The spirit of pride may have been intensified this year by the crazy attack on a prominent Slovenian gay activist this week. It's pretty messed up, especially for a country that generally seems pretty moderate on social issues. They have registered partnerships for same-sex couples (which doesn't afford them exactly the same rights as married couples, but a number of political parties are looking to broaden the law), and they allow gay people to serve in their military (like, oh, almost every other decent country in the world).

The greatest spectacle yesterday actually had nothing to do with Pride. It was a big night for bachelor/bachelorette parties in the old town, and it seems like people take them much more seriously here than at home. Like, they all have matching t-shirts and stuff. The fellow below was amusing sidewalk cafe patrons all over town by land-skiing down the cobblestone streets, pulled by his friends.

The skis were actually sparking on the stone. It was kind of spectacular. And I don't know why the theme shirts all had "69" on the front. Maybe I don't want to know.

Today started off as all Sundays should: with a trip to the awesome "random stuff" market that appears every Sunday morning. Don't knock it...the random stuff is great!



I finished off the morning with a trip to a restaurant with what I can only assume is a beautiful, traditional Slovenian name.

Oh, world. You rule.

Metelkova Mesto

And to think I had almost given up on finding the cool place in Ljubljana. I had seen all of the bars—indoors, outdoors, divey, classy, casual, fancy—and I knew there were clubs, but these are all standard issue things. They're great, of course, and I will return to the cafes and bars on a daily basis. I had also seen BTC City, the enormous shopping/entertainment complex a short bus ride out of town. And so I kind of figured teenagers and families hung out at BTC, and couples and college kids hung out at the bars, and most people probably spent a bunch of time at home, too. But clearly I was missing something: What about the people who will inevitably, in any city, in any town, gravitate toward something different? Bear with me.

Tomorrow is Ljubljana Pride, so I looked up the parade trajectory and found that it ended at Stari trg (no surprise, it's the south point of the old town), but started at this place called "Metelkova City." "What's 'Metelkova City?'" I asked myself. And then I asked Google.

First, a brief digression on cool places. In New York City, as far as I can tell, there are two ways to make a cool place: (1) You can find a more-or-less safe industrial area and carve out underground clubs, bars, restaurants, galleries, and music venues in its hidden corners until you get SoHo, or you get the Meatpacking district, or you get DUMBO; or (2) you can find an ethnic or cultural enclave, take advantage of its immigrant-low prices and safe streets, and slowly invade with post-college kids and artists until you have Williamsburg or the Lower East Side or Greenwich Village. In both of these circumstances you take something that was built to be functional and you exploit the natural beauty of that functionality. And that works for factories, and that works for middle class ethnic neighborhoods.

But factories and ethnic neighborhood can't hold a candle to 19th Century Austro-Hungarian military barracks.



Yes, Metelkova Mesto is an experiment in what happens when you let a pristine, medium-sized city's alternative community take over barracks just outside the city center and run free. And the result is, frankly, one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.













Yes, it's ridiculous. It's a mix of gorgeous mosaics that glisten in the rain and violent graffiti. It's a complex that looks like it could withstand wars but wash away during the next thunderstorm. And its inhabitants are middle aged hobos and 40 year old black men with Che and Bob Marley posters and teenagers (oh, the teenagers!), goths, punks, skaters...anyone who's willing to wear the color of the hour.



I walked over to Metelkova Mesto tonight unsure of what I'd find. I grabbed a half-liter of the cheapest beer in town (only €1,50 for a Laško;!) and sat on a picnic bench and read my newest novel. This one's the result of walking into a bookstore and saying, "Hi, do you have any Slovenian books in English?" Thus far the book is entertaining enough; we'll see how it shapes up. So I read outside for a while, and moved under a roof when it started to rain. Then I wound up talking with Thomas, an extremely drunk and high Slovenian who told me that he used to work in a Duty Free shop on a cruise ship until he got off in Los Angeles with a joint in his pocket and was immediately sent back to Slovenia.

Speaking of joints, I was shocked that it took me over an hour to catch a whiff of pot in this place. For an open-air alterna-teen's paradise it was surprisingly low on drugs. I also realized that I really like the smell of marijuana. Not because it's an especially beautiful smell (although it's wholly inoffensive), but because I associate it entirely with good things. I'm in a dorm room and my friends are smoking up. I'm at a concert on a field and people are smoking up. I'm in some crazy alternative neighborhood on a summer night in a strange town and people are smoking up. The smell of people smoking pot a few feet away from me now gives me a visceral feeling of mellowness that has nothing to do with the actual mood-altering properties of the drug. Clearly this plant is going to be more wily in its plan for world domination via relaxation than we ever anticipated.

Tomorrow: I report on Pride.

Happy Statehood Day!

Today is Statehood Day here in Slovenia, which was totally apparent from the...occasional closed cafe. Really, I didn't see a darn thing to indicate that this was their equivalent of the Fourth of July. Several times during the day I wondered if I was actually supposed to be at work. Then I remembered nobody would notice if I didn't show up for a day. And all was well.

So I spent the day finishing a Fiss article I'm reading for the paper I still have to write, eating and drinking around the town, and adding some small JJD3-recommended changes to my EL&E paper before I throw it to the wolves (read: HenHan and the Olin prize committee).

Speaking of the law paper prizes, a point of clarification: If you would like to submit your paper for the Edgar Cullen Prize for the best paper written by a first-year law student, send it to Professor Fiss. If you would like to submit your paper for the Edward Cullen Prize for the best paper written on the subject of law and sexy teenage vampires, send it to me. Papers should be a maximum of 500 words and need not have been written for the 2008-2009 academic year.

Last night I watched a few TED videos, which of course led me to the John Hodgman TED video, which of course led me to watch tons of John Hodgman videos. I have to point you to this one, which has one line that cracked me (and Jon Stewart) up more than I can remember anything doing in recent memory. So simple. So brilliant.

And it's been a great week for thinking about sexism! First, on the sister subject of racism, we got this jaw-dropper from Dick Nixon, which, as people have been pointing out, came more than a couple of years after Loving.

Then the Times published an article on a study by an overachieving Harvard undergrad exploring bias against female playwrights. One of her big results was that there is significant bias against female playwrights, but all of it comes from female artistic directors and literary managers. To me this is totally unsurprising...I am fully aware of my biases against women, and in general female-female encounters seem more, well, fraught than male-female or male-male encounters. There's just much more judgment there. It's creepy. And as Ayres mentioned in one class this semester, there are plenty of circumstances where you can observe that blacks are biased against blacks or Jews are biased against Jews to the same (or greater) extent as whites or goyim are, respectively.

Finally, there's this whole Mark Sanford scandal. While I have decidedly mixed feelings about William Saletan, I really, really appreciate his point here. The way fallen politicians treat their mistresses is completely disgusting, and Sanford should be commended for acknowledging that this woman is a person worthy of caring and respect. Sure, she did something immoral, too, but that doesn't mean she deserves complete dismissal and disgust. And then after we commend Sanford, we should boo him as "just another politician with a conservative mind and a liberal penis." Thanks, Jon Stewart. You always know just what to say.

UPDATE: Apropos of the Sanford affair, I post this link to a blog post I wrote about four years ago. My views and worries haven't changed (unless you count being slightly more pessimistic about finding a husband in the first place).

Post Post, etc.

Hey, we have a new dean! I don't have any deep, Siegelian knowledge of the ways of Post, but he's a powerhouse scholar, and the faculty apparently loves him, so he sounds like a good choice. Some have said he might not be a great fundraiser. Who cares? This is TYLS. We don't need money! Our school runs on justice! In any case, I'm sure it will all be good.

Today was very law-oriented (shockingly enough). There's the dean news, the "what do you mean I voted to grant cert?" SCOTUS decision on the VRA, and the debut of the Constitution in 2020 blog. I used my self-made lunch break to check out some of the inaugural posts. First, there's Tom "I visited 2020, didn't like the Constitution I saw, and came back to transform it via blog" Wolf's substantive welcome defining the Constitution by how we relate to it, written in that tone that only a true labor of love can conjure.

Then there's the first volley in Daniel "Not that Daniel Winnick" Winik v. Jeremy "My birthday suit was tweed" Kessler: A Roaring Cage Match Where Two Law Students Beat Each Other To Death With Branches...OF GOVERNMENT. They're arguing about whether marriage equality should come through the courts or the legislature. I tend to lean toward Jeremy's side on this—the courts are actually the appropriate place—but I'm definitely convinceable, and Dan makes some good points. I'm not sure whether Roe is a better analog than Brown for when courts have stepped in to do the unpopular thing, though...then again, maybe Brown's outcome wasn't ideal, either. It's verboten to stand for segregation today, but our country's also completely unable to discuss race in an intelligent way, and racism is still deeply pervasive. So who knows. And I agree that legislators should be doing their constitutional duty, and that active incrementalism would represent "a democratic embrace of the constitutional mandate for equality," but I find something deeply troubling about the idea of waiting to grant rights until the relevant constituency is ready to see them for what they are. (I should note here that Daniel and Jeremy are taking sides for the sake of argument and may both have mixed feelings about the issue.)

Finally, the great Adam "Donohue doesn't know it yet, but we're co-teaching Empirical Law & Economics next year" Chandler argues for randomized policy changes so we can figure out with some degree of rigor which policies work. I'm, of course, totally for this, especially when it comes to issues where we have no idea what policy is best and there's minimal risk of extreme harm from either the experimental policy or the control. I doubt there would be serious equal protection problems with this plan, especially if states/counties/municipalities consented to be in the experiment. I don't think there's ever been a case where a control group in a government-sponsored medical study has sued (certainly not one where they've sued successfully), so I think that indicates that consent would be good enough. And even if they didn't consent, I think the policy would be rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, namely, complying with the roll of the dice for the sake of a study that would benefit all future Americans.

In any event, I highly recommend checking out the blog: the four students who've blogged thus far are among the most brilliant of my brilliant classmates. They're also, if I'm up-to-date (and I may not be), four of my class's most eligible bachelors. The phrase "most eligible bachelor" always sounded to me like it should be more of an indication of availability than desirability (with six weeks to the wedding, Ray is the law school's LEAST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR), but these dudes are all catches. So, yeah, I never thought I'd say this, but: ladies, visit the unparalleled meat market that is the Constitution in 2020 blog.

And bloggers: Let me know if this is coming up in Google searches and embarrassing you. Or serving you really, really well.

My Mother Is Now A Woman

No no, this isn't some Jerry Springer story (see here @ 1:17). Yesterday my mom, along with the rest of the members of her adult B'nai Mitzvah class, had her Bat Mitzvah. She's from the generation where not too many girls had B'not Mitzvah, so she wanted to do it now. She had a great experience learning some Hebrew and learning more about the Torah, so she may continue to study. Plus, she was chosen from her whole class to read her d'var Torah (a sort of interpretive sermon) on the big day in front of the congregation. I did some editing of the d'var Torah, so in that way I got to be a part of the experience. And Natalie and I got her the bracelet that was a kind of standard Bat Mitzvah present when we were in middle school (Natalie's brilliant idea). Still, I wish I could have been there in person. It sounds like it was all very lovely.

So, I haven't written in a few days on the theory that I'd have more interesting things to tell you now, but Thursday's already a blur. I had the world's most overpriced Japanese food (€3,50 for a miso soup!) and a much better glass of wine, and I listened to a bit of the classical music playing in the Plaza. On Friday, I went to lunch with a coworker and ordered the fish. Apparently this is one of those countries where when you order the fish, you order the whole damn fish:

It was awfully bony, but besides that it was good. Friday afternoon was Marine happy hour, which was fine, but nothing too exciting. Yesterday I did some laundry—Claudio was around and generously cut short his dryer time so I could keep my cycles on schedule; no Roberto, though—finished my novel and started working on my paper. By "working on my paper," I of course mean rereading stuff I've already read and since forgotten about. I didn't make nearly enough headway on that this weekend, but what's new.

Today I wandered to the park where they had an exhibition of blown up Hubble photographs and some pictures taken by Slovenian astronomers. Generally, I enjoyed it, but then I came to this monstrosity:

What, don't see anything wrong with it? Allow me to zoom in.

Yes, that's right. An otherwise beautiful park and lovely educational exhibit has been tarnished by that typographical blasphemy, COMIC SANS. What were they thinking!?

Ah, me. Afterward I walked over to the National Gallery and, enticed by the prospect of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit, I bought a ticket. The in-museum portion of the Mapplethorpe exhibit featured his flower photographs (boo), so I went to their permanent collection. I saw lots of art by great Slovenian artists, including Jožef Tominc's portrait of famed 19th Century drag performer Leopold Liechtenberg Janežič:

Ok, I actually have no idea who Janežič was, but that seems to fit the picture best. After, I walked over to the second portion of the Mapplethorpe exhibit, which featured more of what I think of as Mapplethorpe, such as this fine photograph, on the right. (NB: If you couldn't guess, link is not even close to safe for work.)

Walking back from coffee, I was stopped by a bunch of drunk Slovenian students. I told them I only spoke English, to which they all responded "Oh! Perfect! We speak English!" They asked where I was from, and I told them New York, at which point the drunkest of them all broke out into her best Sinatra, "These vegetable shoes...!"

There's a lyric that will never die.

Red, Red Wine

We (you know, people) are not particularly good at accurately incorporating colors into our daily language. Neither white people nor white wines are anything vaguely resembling white. Neither black people nor black lights are black. And red wine wasn't red...UNTIL NOW. Meet Cviček, the Slovenian wine I had with dinner this evening:

That is ruby-red wine if I ever saw it. And it tastes exactly like it looks: very light and somewhat cherry-ish. I had been thinking "watered down kool aid," but a nice Slovenian website advises me to set my attitude straight. It was not watered down kool aid. It was gentle and fruity. So there.

I also wandered by the reworked Swan Lake that's happening nightly this week in Prešernov trg. Every time I hear that music I think of the last scene in Billy Elliot, which would cheapen it, if it weren't such a freakin' awesome last scene. Oh, Adam Cooper: so hot then, so hot now.

And here's a (too light) stormy sky shot from last night. I love the time of day/night/dusk when everything just has a blue cast. And if the sky is stormy then, it's such a nice, rich texture:

Aw, yeah.

Lend Me A Hand

Someone up there is trying to tell me to stop drinking Coke. Today, I went to my lunch place, as usual, got a Coke and a new sandwich, and headed back to the court. I opened the sandwich, forked in a bite, and grabbed my Coke. It wouldn't open. Now, as I may have mentioned, oh, fifteen times, I drink a lot of Coke. Sometimes, if I don't finish a bottle and put it back in the fridge, it can be hard to re-open. But never have I had trouble opening an unopened bottle. I used my napkin. I used a paper towel. I tried using my hand again. Nothing. It wouldn't budge. I walked down the hall and asked one of the other girls if she'd give it a try. She used her hand. She used her shirt. Nothing. I tried some more, to no avail. Yet another girl from down the hall...her hand, her skirt. Nope. Me again: Fail, fail, fail. This was the Coke bottle of doom. So finally I asked my boss, the only man on our half of the floor. He couldn't do it with his hands, but he had a real towel in his office, so with that, he managed to open the Coke bottle. Victory! And that was when I looked at my right hand.

Wow. And I promise, it looks worse in real life. "Won't forget, can't regret, what I diiiiid foooooor Coooooooke. What I did for Cooooooooke..."

Did American research for a case today. I'm still not entirely sure what they want from the quick-turnaround not-quite-memos or the long-turnaround more-like-memos. Hopefully I'll get some feedback, though. I'm enjoying having to be humble about American law. At law school, we get very wrapped up in all the economic sense these laws make, but the rest of the world seems to see things through a more Fissian lens and less of an Ellicksonian lens. "You have a 'property' right to your child's corpse? Really?" "So, if it's not in the Constitution, human rights don't matter? Really?" And of course the answer to both of those is "well, sort of." But it's still interesting. Not as interesting as Adam D.C.'s most recent case, but you'll have to talk to him about that directly.

I also discovered the joys of Slovenian ATMs today. The funny thing about Slovenian ATMs, you see, is that THEY DON'T DISPENSE CASH. I eventually managed to get some cash out of one (of six), with my back-up credit card, but apparently my debit card doesn't function in these things. Lovely.

And the apartment company pushed back my move to the place-with-roommates until June 30th. I guess that means I'll be moving directly into the good room, but it also means another couple of weeks without friends. Or Roberto's smiling face. Eh, maybe I'll hit up the marine happy hour on Friday.

Besides all that it was actually a nice day. Did some reading, had some bad pizza and beer and some good hot chocolate and watched a thunderstorm over the city right after dusk. I have some pictures that haven't yet made their way onto the blog, so as your reward for looking at my hideous blisters, you get pretty scenes of Ljubljana. We start, as always, with the river:

Next up, the view into the courtyard from my apartment:

The beautiful University of Ljubljana. I think over 20% of the city's population is university students:

Here's a great old building in the south-of-center area (which, as you can see, is a lot like South Central):

And finally, sunset over an old building behind a construction site. I love this stuff:


Eso es todo. Goodnight, friends!

Killing, Mourning

Someone in this room is going to die. I don't know where he's hiding, but as soon as he starts flying around or lands against a nice white wall, that will be the end of him. I have become a remorseless mosquito killer since I moved into this apartment. I may not own a single shoe without blood on its sole (metaphorically, that is; there's usually no blood). If reincarnation's true, perhaps I'm killing someone's grandmother. Then again, if reincarnation's true, and they've been a good mosquito, I'm doing them a favor.

Two more assignments came down at work today...I actually have a lot on my plate now, but only one due date, which is nice. One case relates to what they call the "Right to Piety." Now, if you were to read "Right to Piety," what would you think it meant? I sure thought it was some sort of freedom of religion thing...possibly the right to observe strictly even if it interferes with other obligations. But no. The woman in the office started explaining to me, "It's like this statue with Mary holding the body of Jesus." "The Pietà." "Yes. It is the translation of that." Right. So apparently what they mean by "Right to Piety" is, like, the right to have an appropriate relationship with your deceased loved ones. The right to mourn and visit their grave, etc. Yes, Google Translate tells me that "pietà" translates as "piety," but good ol' dictionary.com doesn't seem to give the definition they want. I guess "pay your respects" is the most appropriate bridge between them. Still.

Update: The mosquito is dead. Don't worry. It was quick.

This is how getting assignments at work usually seems to go.

Them: Here's a description of this case. We're wondering if there's anything pertinent to this question in American law.
Me: That actually sounds completely antithetical to everything American law is about.
(Pause)
Me: But now that I think about it, there is a lot of stuff that might be relevant. But email me the question.
Me (aside): Because I have no idea if I understood what you just said.
Them: Ok!

So I'm, in some bizarre way, figuring out what European-style rights American courts have created but given American names. ("That's not personhood! That's property!") It's kind of cool.

I should be feeling great right now. I turned in the assignment I had to do for today (still no email confirmation of receipt, four-and-a-half hours later) and had a great dinner (gnocchi with beef, chanterelles, and mushrooms and a glass of red wine at the adorable Le Petit Cafe). I'm even reading a great new novel. But I'm feeling low. I have just two more days in this apartment, and I'm having a bit of an existential crisis about my time in Ljubljana. Why am I here? What did I hope to accomplish? What is the point of leaving everyone you know to spend two months in a 270,000 person city where you don't speak their language? I guess I assumed that if you do something like this you get something out of it, but I still don't know what that is or will be. We shall see.

Plečnik's Palace

In a few minutes I will be committing mass verbicide, brutally slashing 280 words from an essay to get it under word count. But as a feast before the famine, I come here to blog, to spew out words like there's no limit. Which there isn't. Thank you, internet.

I haven't yet posted pictures of the ridiculously gorgeous building in which I work, so here are a couple of shots taken from the staircase:

It was designed by apparently-super-famous architect Jože Plečnik, Slovenia's pride and joy along with France Prešeren, poet extraordinaire. I haven't seen much devotion to good ol' Slavoj over here. I guess they're all capitalists. Anyway, the building is known as Plečnik's Palace, and it's obscenely attractive. And it even has a coffee maker that spits out €0,30 cappuccinos, sweetened to your specification! Who could ask for anything more?

There were (at least?) two Scarsdalians in the NYT wedding section this week. One was something of a friend in high school (very cool girl), but I haven't spoken to her much since. The other was too old for me to have known (although I knew her sister a bit), but I recognized her name instantly from The List. I know, it's pathetic. But you do something like that, too, don't you? And even if you don't, that's the least of my weird stalking of people I don't/hardly/do know. You should know that by now. But congrats to the now-marrieds! And wish me luck in finishing this thing.

Song of the day, for no other reason than it popped into my head: You'd Be Surprised

This Sweet Stone

If I come back from Slovenia weighing 300 pounds, you can either blame the all-meat/bread/cheese diet (maybe that's not fair...they have mushrooms, too) or these amazing chocolate bars. You can probably get them in the U.S., but I've never had one before, and my God, they are delicious.

Today, in the midst of my Court-structure-summarizing (if my boss ever discovers Wikipedia, it'll put me out of a job), the man in charge came in and said he wants me to start researching the origins of two ideas "that have come from this...sweet stone." Considering the amount of English that is bungled in this country (People use the word "accured" a lot. Anyone want to translate?) I would have been justified in asking for a clarification. Fortunately, I knew what he was talking about, so all was well.

Today marks my grandparents' 60th (count em!) anniversary. That's just amazing. When they got married, World War II was a more recent memory than September 11th is today (although my grandfather was already trying to block out those memories), and Korea was still in the future. WolframAlpha tells me nothing useful about June 11, 1949, because it's completely useless for anything other than graphing. But who needs it. My mom's parents met each other on a blind date...actually, it was a double blind date, and they were each set up with the other person. But they took to each other, and pretty soon my grandfather showed up at my grandmother's doorstep holding a bouquet of flowers. "Are those for me!?" she asked giddily. "Nope, they're for your mother," he replied. What a mensch. Anyway, they've been together ever since. They're a great duo...good senses of humor (sometimes punny, sometimes a little off-color), a lifetime of involvement in the arts (Bucky was acting up until a couple of years ago, and Griz is still sculpting), and tremendous affection for each other after all these years. Sure, their age is starting to show more than a little, but I admire and even envy what they have. So cheers to Griz and Bucky and their sixty years of marriage. Woot!

My Screen Is The Brightest Thing In Cafe Čokl

Which means giant bugs are landing on my screen. Lovely.

I got an assignment today from my boss, which was very exciting. Unfortunately one of the questions I was asked to research ("Could you please find some case law from this court for me?") had a somewhat disappointing answer ("Apparently that court has never actually...heard a case..."). And I have an editing assignment for tomorrow, given to me by two women in the legal advisory department, Tea and Lea (seriously). So it looks like my Slate reading is going to take a hit this week, as is my motivation to work on the non-job-related essay I have to finish for next Monday. Ah, well.

As I was researching for the boss today, Robert the tech guy came in and said he wanted to install software that would require restarting the computer. I had about twenty websites open then and was a little flustered, so he said he could come back later. "Is this afternoon all right?" I asked. "Oh, I have to pick up my wife from the hospital this afternoon, so maybe not." "Oh, ok, sometime later this morning then," I responded. Brilliant response to "I have to pick up my wife from the hospital," I know. Fortunately, when he came in later I was able to try to mend my ways. "So is everything all right with your wife?" I started. "Yeah, it was very all by the book," he responded, using his idioms well but showing very little indication of what had happened. "Did she have an operation...?" I prodded. "No, we had a daughter on Saturday." OH. All good things, then.

While the software was installing its slow self, we chatted a bit about maternity leave in Slovenia. Apparently women get a full year of paid maternity leave, and new fathers get eleven paid days and fifty-two days unpaid but with all of their taxes and social security comped. I feel like I've always thought of paid maternity leave as something of a women's equality issue, but he said that the entire purpose of the Slovenian legislation was to encourage families to have more children. According to Robert, when he was born, there were 30,000 babies born in Slovenia every year, but now that number's down to 18,000. Of the women that do have children, half have only one, and a fair number of married couples decide not to have children. He implied that these couples were choosing a more lavish lifestyle over kids (and his implication was that this choice was about money, not time). I'm not sure if I buy it, but it does seem like countries with solid economies tend to decline in population.

So, speaking of choices related to having kids, I was viscerally annoyed by this Douthat op-ed in the Times today. Part of this annoyance comes from him placing himself in the ideological group that irritates me the most: self-righteous moderates. ("Guys, guys, stop your blind extremism! Let's inject some common sense into this debate and acknowledge that both sides have a point. Let's add a little nuance to our thinking, ok?" Ugh, I could spit.) But part of it is the content. I don't think there's any actual contradiction in saying "abortion is a moral wrong that can be the right choice in extreme cases, where there is an extraordinary wrong avoided through abortion, but it's the wrong choice in all other cases." In theory that's fine. It's just the smell test...every time someone makes this kind of argument, all I can hear is, "Ladies: you break it, you buy it." It's this attitude that is entirely a comment on the moral character of the woman involved and completely divorced from the outcome of her action. There's no feeling of "I'm sorry: I know this isn't what you want for yourself, but we just can't take this life without an extraordinarily compelling reason." It's all about these selfish women willing to toss away their kid for the sake of convenience. It's just creepy.

Oh, and someone (Chayes?) needs to create a play based on the foie gras workers in today's Herbert column. There's something awesomely dramatic about the twenty-two day period of constant, extremely personal force-feeding. (The combination of "ducks" and "extremely personal" has recently taken on a whole new meaning.) And there's something horrifically dramatic about the Depression-era labor conditions. But I think Herbert's got that one covered.

The Horror! The Horror!

So, which is scarier: The sadomasochistic skeletons adorning the super-kitschy crypt-themed bar I went to tonight:

or the dolls at the UNICEF benefit I passed by after dinner:

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Not much to report today (please pray to the work gods for me, if you get a chance). I got a new wallet, which is cool. I couldn't shop for it on the weekend because stores are all closed on the weekends (brilliant business plan, Slovenia), but today I found something nice at a non-psychotic price. The change compartment on my old wallet had completely fallen apart...which wouldn't be such a big deal during the school year in the US, but while I'm wearing work clothes every day (read: no pockets) and I'm dealing with €2 coins, I need something that can secure my change. Finished reading the article I was reading, which means writing looms. Maybe I'll get to bed early tonight. Yeah, that'd be nice.

My Expensive Coke Addiction

I am a woman of many vices, but none is so great as my love of the soft drink known as Coca-Cola. Earlier this year, Matt M. was scandalized by my admission that water is not my favorite beverage. Far from it. If I am ever trapped under rubble for 80 hours and rescued, I will follow the wise ways of Xue Xiao. "I want to have a cola. I want to have an iced one." If you don't want that mantle, Xiao, I'll be happy to take it off your hands.

Back in America, Coke comes cheap. A can is $0.85 in a vending machine, a bottle about $1.25. If you're in Times Square, they might charge you $2.50, because they're evil. Here in Slovenia, however, 250 ml of Coke (which—listen up, Europe—is not a full meal's worth of Coke) costs €1,70 at the least and often climbs to €3,00 or more. This wouldn't be so crazy if every other beverage weren't super-cheap. A pint-and-a-half of beer for €2,20! A decent glass of wine for €1,90!

Coke is the most expensive drink in this town, and I'm addicted to it. Why, Slovenes, why!? I guess I will have to start drinking more wine and beer. It's the financially responsible thing to do.

Speaking of wine, I went to a Chinese restaurant tonight, and they actually gave me complimentary wine with a not-so-expensive meal. That was nice. As you can see, the restaurant is a very understated, culturally authentic place:Not much else to report today. I spent most of the day slogging my way (partially) through a law review article, and I took about an hour to reply to an e-mail from Ray responding to a video I sent a few months ago on "the moral roots of liberals and conservatives." If we argue enough, I'm pretty sure we'll find the answer to life, the universe, and everything. He insists it's 39, but I'm sticking with 45.

If only compromises were so productive.

In Former Yugoslavia, The Laundry Does YOU

Back in fabulous and modern New Haven, Connecticut, laundry nights would go something like this:

T = 0 min: I sling my laundry bags over my shoulder and head down to the laundry room, using one washer if it's a light load week and two washers if it's a heavy load week.
T = 3 min: I put in my quarters and press "colors" or "whites," depending on the content of the load. I do a little work or futz around on the computer.
T = 30 min: I retrieve my laundry from the washers and put the clothes in the dryer. I clean off the lint board thing and hope that there's no actual consequence to slightly over-stuffing the machine.
T = 32 min: I press the "delicates" button. Then I do some actual work or some very involved futzing.
T = 98 min: I pull my clothes out of the dryer and check that they're dry. Unless I've hideously overstuffed, they are.
T = 103 min: I return to my apartment and begin to sort.

The end! After about two hours, my entire laundry process is done.

Not so here.

Today, I did laundry from 1:15 pm to 7:45 pm. I borrowed a set of keys to the apartment where the washer/dryer is located—the same apartment I'll be moving into in a few weeks—and headed up to the place. When I got there, there were clothes already in the wash. I noticed the timer had eight minutes left on it, so I wasn't too concerned. I heard someone vacuuming upstairs (still within the apartment), so I went up an introduced myself to Claudio, an astronomy student at the University of Padua here through the end of June (so he'll be my roommate for about two weeks). He showed me around the apartment (which, um, didn't take long) and pointed out his room to me. "Oh, this isn't small at all!" I said. "Well, I have the biggest one. That one's tiny," he responded pointing to the room in the corner. Five seconds later, I asked if he knew which person was leaving mid-June. "Oh, she is," again, pointing to the room in the corner. Greeeeeat.

By that point his clothes were done, so he moved them into the dryer. The machine was too small for both whites and colors, so I started with the colors. On this machine, when you play around with the settings, you can see how long the load will take. I started with delicates in 30 degree water, because I figured that was appropriate for new, brightly-colored work shirts and bras and such. Fifty-three minutes. "Seriously?" I thought naively. "There must be a faster option." No no no no. Fifty-three minutes was far-and-away the shortest option there. "At least Claudio's drying will be almost done by the time my clothes are washed," I thought, but in the back of my head, I already knew better.

I sat on the spiral staircase reading, and my clothes finished after 53 minutes, as promised. There's no timer on the dryer, so I just had to wait it out. The hour rounds itself out. Then an hour and fifteen minutes. An hour and a half. An hour and forty-five minutes. And shortly thereafter the dryer gives one last shutter and turns off. I run upstairs, knock on Claudio's door and tell him his clothes are done. Hooray! He empties the trough of water (there's no actual drainage system), and I put my whites in the washer and colors in the dryer. After setting my wash for synthetics at 60 degrees (an hour and forty-five minute wash time) and setting the dryer the same way Claudio did, I headed out for a bite to eat and some walking around.

When I got back an hour and forty-five minutes later, the wash was almost done, and, as with Claudio's clothes, the dryer finished a few minutes later. I opened up the door and grabbed my clothes. You know what comes next, right? I'll give you a clue. It rhymes with "schmy schmlothes schmere schmill schmet." Nearly two hours in the dryer and they were soggy as all hell (apparently Dante got it wrong). Still, I took them out threw them in their sack, spreading them out on my bed a few minutes later. (They're still there). Guessing that the half-sun icon on the machine meant "partially dry" and the whole sun icon meant "dry" I set the whites on "I said dry my clothes, woman!" and left.

Nearly three hours later, I reached into the dryer and retrieved some of the dampest underwear this world has seen since [this is a family blog, but you get the idea].

Three hours! And still wet! My wit could dry those clothes faster.

Ah, but I haven't mentioned the best part of my laundry experience. I met another one of my roommates: Roberto. He's also Italian and speaks very, very little English. But he is a-dorable. He has a master's degree in law (currently working at the Italian Embassy), so I assume he's old enough for it to be not sketchy that I think he's cute, but he's definitely got a bit of that "Bel Ami boy" look. (If you don't know what that means, google it...while nobody's looking...and be prepared to delete your search history.) He'll be there the whole time I will. The city just got a little prettier.

Tomorrow: I write about strange price discrepancies. Don't let me forget.

American Law: Let Me Research It For You

Today: A miracle.

I was getting ready for another day of background reading, when I heard a knock on my door. A woman I didn't recognize came in, looked at the other desk, and said (as I'm used to hearing by now), "Oh, Urška's not here?" Nope, she's out taking finals. "Well, I was coming in to see you anyway?" MOI!? (I didn't actually say that.) "I just found out about you! My name is Tjaša. I'm currently researching a pending case on Topic X." (where X is a topic I'm super-interested in. I won't say what it is exactly, because I assume this blog is the foremost source of inside information for litigants in pending US-RS cases.) She explained the case and told me that it looked like German, French, and British courts hadn't spoken directly to her question, so could I think of a relevant U.S. case? I couldn't. But! I could tell her basically what the landscape of cases would look like, and I told her I'd do some research and send her what I found. "Don't spend too long on it," she said. Oh, I would be so happy to spend too long on it.

Actually, it only took around four hours, especially since it wasn't a formal memo and the cases that were most likely to help her weren't really going to hide themselves. I also got to explain some basic stuff about American law, which made me feel very knowledgeable. (I wrote to my boss about our admittedly ridiculous Supreme Court cert system a few days ago. "It is all very...mysterious," he said, appropriately.) Above all, it was real work. I got to research and analyze and summarize and generally obtain and communicate knowledge. I'm hoping I will now be the go-to person for all legal advisory department questions about American law.

And I did finally get to meet the infamous Urška. Who is awesome. First, and not to be underestimated, she speaks English fluently. Almost everyone here speaks English proficiently, but that is not to be confused with fluently. And she has a British (with a touch of Scandinavian/Australian?) accent, although she's only lived in Slovenia and Luxembourg. She's also a little funkier than most of the office...hair dyed that sort of slightly purple red and thick-framed glasses. And she's energetic. Overall, I'm excited to have her as my office-mate-to-be.

Tonight, I missed my bus to the movie theater (I actually got there about 5 seconds before it, but it was at the back of a bus line and I didn't see it until it pulled away), so no Star Trek for me. Instead I'm back at England (have I mentioned that it's great to have a pub with wireless next door?) drinking Laško, blogging, gchatting it up with a newly married old friend just back from his honeymoon, and going through Nerve.com's "Twenty Sexiest Ugly People." (Danny Trejo is the perfect choice. Sandra Bernhard's pretty good too.)

I can use a little low brow. I finished up the (middle brow) Middlesex last night, which I highly recommend for anyone with some extra time feeling a little generous with their disbelief suspension. It's one of those books that you either buy into or you don't, and if you don't, you think it's self-indulgent and ridiculous, and if you do, you think it's beautiful and engrossing. I was feeling it, so I really enjoyed the experience and would recommend it. And last night Alexandria and I had a good (highish brow) gchat about how cancer does what it does. It's a really interesting disease...it pretty much operates entirely on the principle of "If I can replicate quickly enough, I can evolve my way out of anything!" My feelings would be a trifle more positive, however, if it weren't going to kill the majority of people I care about (and hadn't already killed a few). Right. (Speaking of otherwise exciting things that kill people...cars! There was a red Aston Martin DB6 on Šubičeva ulica yesterday. Too hot.)

Oh, and I just have to get this on the record: While some of you know I'm, er, intrigued by a certain YLS professor, this sudden Wikipedic transformation is not my handiwork. But I must say, I'm impressed.

Later, dudes.

How Much Is The Fish?

The first time, I thought I might have been dreaming. Here I am, in Ljubljana in 2009. It is 6:53 on Tuesday morning. I am woken by my radio (which is 7 minutes fast; hence the 6:53). First, I hear the tail end of some pop song. Then, I hear a techno intro. "No, it can't be," I think. A voice speaks. Then another line of techno, this time with words. "But it is!" The voice interrupts again and another line of techno plays. "Yes, yes, it absolutely is!" Here, in Ljubljana in 2009, I'm hearing clips of a song (interspersed with heaven-knows-what) that my sister and I listened to in Madrid in 1998. It is the great/awful German techno group Scooter, singing their hit song, How Much is the Fish? This morning, at 6:53, it came on again. It was real.

If you didn't pick up on it, that link up there goes to the music video of How Much is the Fish?, which Natalie and I watched constantly on Canal+, and you should absolutely click on it. Considering the video has nearly 3 million views, maybe it's not so strange that it's showing up as intro-outro on the radio. One of the great features of the song is that its first line (of many nonsensical lines), "Transforming the tunes," sounds much more like "Transforming the Jews." Oh, Germany!

I went back to Salon tonight. I think it could be my place. I like the server there...he's a stern-looking muscle-bound fellow around 30 who doesn't condescendingly speak to me in English whenever I stutter out "vroča čokolada s smetano" or laugh nervously and try to work with me. He just leans in, eyebrows furrowed, and I repeat it, and he nods gruffly and walks away. Then he brings the hot chocolate (or Irish coffee, as was the case tonight), and I sit in my ridiculously comfortable leopard skin chair and read. Tonight I was sitting next to a group of 20-something girls and trying to pick out their language. It's possible it was an extremely non-nasal Portuguese, but I think it might have been Catalan. Which is kind of awesome.

Maybe I can start wearing my leather jacket at Salon. I stopped wearing it after a day and a half when I realized if I wore the jacket, people assumed I was Slovenian, but if I wore my North Face fleece (yay for the serendipitous North Face outlet in freezing-cold Berkeley, CA a couple of weeks ago), people assumed I was American. Having someone speak to you expectantly for 20 seconds before you can tell them you don't speak the language ("um...angleško?") is kind of embarrassing. So I'm sticking to the fleece for now. I tempered my wearing of the jacket in New York for different reasons...the first day I ever wore it, I got hit on by these two women as I walked from the subway to work. And not just flattering hit on: if-they-were-men-I-would-have-called-the-cops hit on. Blocked-my-path-as-they-walked-with-me-for-two-blocks-asking-if-I-had-a-girlfriend hit on. If there's one thing I enjoy less than telling people I don't speak their language, it's telling people I'm not interested in going out with them. So, depending on where I am, the jacket makes me look either native or gay. It is a very powerful jacket. Don't mess with it.

Giants: Take Two

So of course the day after I resign myself to posting a vaguely-recognizable picture of the Alps, they show up crystal clear, glistening in the sun:

That's what I'm talking about.

Not too much to say today. I'm feeling a little blue this evening...I think it's that classic combination of hormones and children dying in front of their parents in the novel I'm reading. Does it every time.

Also, I'm beginning to get nervous about work. I heard those fatal three words from my boss today—"...whatever interests you..."—that mean there's no work to be done. Too much more of this and I'm going to start reforming their certiorari system. (The Court handed down decisions on nearly 2000 cases last year, whereas SCOTUS heard 88 this past term. And we have 150 times their population.) And as with every summer of schooling, I'm starting to worry about "grades." (They weren't always in scare quotes.) I don't think I studied enough for my finals...gah.

While I'm kvetching: Have I mentioned that my shower gets exactly five minutes of hot water? I'm used to luxurious 20 minute showers, so this is a big change for me. I mean, that's barely enough for one full sing-through of Surabaya Johnny.

At least I'm loving my book (despite the death), and walking around an old city, landing in every bar/cafe I can find, is definitely one of my favorite ways to spend an evening. Tonight was the tastefully tacky Salon, where I got a hot chocolate as thick as pudding topped with whipped cream. And this afternoon I watched the pilot of Glee, a new Fox show, off of a faked US IP address. I accomplished that by connecting, via a VPN client, to the Yale library network (which I usually use to access library internet resources from home). Hulu only lets American computers download videos, so I had to go incognito. I fooled Hulu. I fooled Google (which finally let me go to google.com instead of google.si). But I did not fool Fox. They were too...savvy.

There Are Giants In The Sky

Before I came to Ljubljana, I looked at a picture of the city, and in the background were the Alps. I had thought Ljubljana was decidedly south of the Alps, but I said to my mother, "Mom, I think Ljubljana might be kind-of-sort-of in the Alps." She confirmed my original thought that it was South. Here is proof (shot along Slovenska cesta, Ljubljana's main drag) that (a) Ljubljana is indeed south of the Alps, and (b) I wasn't crazy for thinking it was kind-of-sort-of in the Alps:

I understand that distant mountains can sometimes look like clouds, so I've drawn this helpful diagram:

I'm not sure how well it comes across in those snapshots (I'm still using the PowerShot that I keep in my messenger bag; I'll break out the SLR at some point), but those mountains are...rather large. I'm not sure whether they're the Julien Alps or the Kamnik Alps, but either way, they look almost surreal at the end of a city street. I've always had a sort of visceral reaction to enormity—things that are very tall but even wider, like cruise ships—so these mountains sort of stop my heart.

More reading today at work. I think I'm going to view this as an educational experience for now. I get to learn about European Constitutional Courts—how they operate, what issues they face—and maybe I'll get to help one out while I'm here. By the way, the Slovenian Constitutional Court would never let this happen. The oath the judges take is: "I swear that I shall judge according to the Constitution, the law, and my conscience and that I shall strive with all my power for constitutionality, legality, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms." Yes, the judge's conscience and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms is put on the same plane as the Constitution itself (although some might say that the order matters here). Our judges say: "I, ------, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ------ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God." (23 U.S.C. § 453) Ok, so our oath isn't so bad (although how the 'so help me God' would fly in a town that's one-fifth atheist is anyone's guess). Still, there's something awfully appealing about a human rights override.

Robert the Tech Guy asked me today how Ljubljana is different from what I expected. I think he was surprised by my answer ("Fewer chain stores"); he'd expected me to say it was more modern or cosmopolitan or something. I told him I'd browsed around before I came and realized that most bars and cafes had decently-designed websites, which I found to be a pretty strong indicator of a city's modernity. As a tech guy, he appreciated that.

Until tomorrow, friends.

And So It Begins

My short holiday is over, and now it is time to work.

God willing.

I had my first day, today, in beautiful Plečnik's Palace. I thought I was getting there before the crowd to meet the boss at 8:30, but apparently he works the 6:00 - 3:30 shift. I will not be getting in at six. Eight thirty I can do. Six is ridiculous. And when I tried to leave at 5:30, I realized I was locked in. (A visibly irritated guard who was leaving let me out.) So 8:30 to 4:30 it is...I guess?

My boss seems like a great guy; talkative, knowledgeable, helpful, and generally sunnily disposed. He's the only man in the entire division (and, by my count, one of three on the entire floor). I'm slightly weirded out by that; I tend to get along much better with young men than young women, but hopefully I'll get to know the gals on the floor and like them. Although one of them did describe the Court as "lonely." Right-o. My office mate is out for the month, finishing up her master's degree, so I have a fairly large office to myself. It's a great space, but now I have to fill it with work. Work!

I spent today getting oriented, which will probably be my task for tomorrow (and the rest of the week?), reading random things about Slovenian government, the Slovenian Constitutional Court, Slovenian human rights legislation, and the Slovenian National Anthem. Yup, their national anthem and coat of arms are proscribed in the Constitution itself. (Shout out to the city of Ljubljana's awesome coat of arms.) Also in the Constitution are such guarantees of rights as "Everyone shall be free to decide whether to bear children." I haven't yet asked whether that just means "To hell with you, Oliver Wendell Holmes: The state can't sterilize people," or whether "whether" is actually "whether or not." Still, it's kind of crazy.

In any case, that was all fine, and I'm good with doing that for another day or two...but I really hope there's work after that. Apparently a LOT of the stuff they do is in Slovene. When they need to do comparative con law, I'll be all over that, but I'm not entirely sure how frequently that happens. Well, worse comes to worse, I'll just tell my boss I want to prepare comparative reports on issues that we think are likely to come before the court. Like gay marriage (they already have civil union-type things) or transgender rights or something else with that Mosque that still hasn't gone up. Ideally, however, there will be real work relevant to pending cases. Wish me luck.