toilet paper

so the next immunity is toilet paper trailing from the bottom of your shoe. i rig mine up with duct tape and enclose it in a plastic bag. i figure this will make it obvious to others that this is intentional. it becomes clear within about 5 minutes of being in the LS that this does not make things clear. so ajeet and i write on it in bright red market, "YES! I KNOW!!" it turns out this makes it no more clear to people that i know about the TP on my shoe. tho i am intially pretty thrilled to have my hands free this week, i now make a pretty annoying scraping noise every time i take a step. and if i don't make the annoying scraping noise, i have to check my shoe to make sure it's still there. as the week goes on, i learn that i attend a school where approximately 90% of people will tell you that you have something trailing from your shoe. this might sound like a positive thing, but after a few days, well it's really frickin' annoying.

candace is still skipping class. i'm getting a little bitter about it. actually, quite bitter. it turns out she had the flu last week, and even that upsets me. i have also been tipped off that she may be in the BLSA office, but she's never there either. grrrrrr. one day, she finally shows up to class. there is no toilet paper on her shoe. i approach. I CAN'T GET MY SOCK OUT OF MY POCKET AND I'VE WAITED TOO LONG and she manages to duck into the classroom where her professor already is and CURSES I'M VERY VERY VERY UPSET! so then she has her friends get her toilet paper. i loiter for the duration of class, hoping that she will just tuck the TP into her shoe, and then i will kill her on the technicality that our email instructions had told us to attach it to the bottom of our shoe and she was wearing kitten heels. so as she left class, i walked behind her and asked to see her shoes and she had attached to the bottom of her shoe and GRRRR I'M SOOOO IRATE WITH MYSELF. i learned a very important lesson about (1) killing people after class, not before, and (2) wearing looser jeans.

thru/out the next few days, she is wearing her immunity whenever i track her down. i loathe myself for having let this opportunity pass my up. i am still losing sleep.

the sports era

so then we're off for spring break, and much to the relief of my friends, i don't embarrass them by dragging anything superfluous along for spring break (ok, i took my admin book, but at least i didn't insist on wearing a wig to the beaches of aruba. (in retrospect, that mighta been pretty stupid. but i would have in the c-ville airport.))

when we return, sporting gear--a tennis racket and wristbands. this is pretty uneventful and i'm pretty pleased with it b/c a tennis racket looks really good with an aruban tan.

this week, i look for candace at a number of classes. she does not attend any of them. this sucks.

finally, a formiddable opponent

March 2, 2006

not since the days of the vegetable immunity have i had a target that made me think, “hmmm laura, you’d better think about this.” having waited outside two classes yesterday, only to find her skipping (i would look down at this fact, except i too skipped a couple of classes yesterday), i returned to the LS to await her arrival at her 7:30 seminar. most people wouldn’t have gone to the trouble on a thursday evening, but i knew that i would have sleepless nights over spring break if i didn’t give it a go. i mean, it’s been 3 days since i’ve killed someone and i’m starting to twitch. so i’ve roped a friend into sitting with me on a bench and we’re engaged in idle chit chat when she walks by. as she’s about 10 yards past us (i’m making that up, i have no idea what 10 yards is), i yell out her name (we’re acquaintances) and ask her about her hairpiece (which i’m not sure if it is a hairpiece or not, b/c it blends pretty well with her own hair). turns out she has bought my runner-up hairpiece and has my very own as her back-up hairpiece (you HAVE to respect a woman who has back-up immunity (says the girl who carried two hats at all times)). we engage in some friendly discussion about the morons wearing wigs when this “hairpiece” idea has so much more wearability. in the end, i think i managed to hide the fact that i was her assassin, but i wouldn’t swear to that. however, i have quite a task ahead of me. and i’m ok with that. now at least i can sleep soundly on spring break. and we’ve got internet access, so i can figure out a plan of attack with whatever i can find online. (haha, just kidding.) (no, no i’m not.)

more fall at the swipe of the blue polka-dotted sock

so my new victim is someone i know, and he's someone i saw earlier in the day, and i thought, "that does not qualify as a wig." bunny ears! bunny ears are not a wig! well, i ask the assassins gods and exercising very poor judgment, she says it qualifies. well fine, we'll just have to go back to creepy then. (actually, i was fairly irate about the judgment, tho it turned out to be irrelevant.)

i've got a friend who has class with him that evening. so i figure i'll wait for him to leave. AND i have a friend who has no qualms telling me what evan's car looks like and where he parks. so approximately 15 minutes before his class gets out, i go wander down arlington. i do not see his car. this gives me enough time to go thru all of the LS parking lots looking for a car that meets my description. find it i do. so i wait in the vicinity b/t the door and the car, and when he emerges from the building, well that's it for him. he clearly didn't care, as he had taken his ears off. it's like he wanted me to kill him.

so the name he gives me is one of his friends, which he has clearly had since the beginning, and i am dismayed by his lack of willingness to make a very easy kill. i have seen this guy many times w/o his immunity and tho he is moderately crazy, we have good rapport and i know he refuses to wear a hairpiece b/c we had discussed it. and the next day i see him in the halls and he dies. this is my first kill to involve no inside agents, no internet research and no stalking. my talents were wasted here.

his victim is a generic looking 3L. once again, i have friends who know him. they IM me that he is in class and tell me what he's wearing and as they all leave class, well i swing my sock at the first person wearing a blue shirt, who i think looks nothing like the lawweb photo. but it is, so that's that. blah.

but then begins my greatest challenge ever. i remember the days when i thought that tracking someone thru 2 immunities was a pain in my ass. that was nothing compared to this. ggrrrrr!

death to the generic looking 1L

so we lower the creepy. b/c i can't tell who someone is, unless they look EXACTLY like they look in their lawweb picture, i have half his tax class ID him, and then i just pounce on his way out of class. ave had been good enough to position himself behind the victim on his way out of the room, so even i couldn't screw it up.

the kill report:

Said victim died at approximately 4:15 outside WB128 at the sock of Laura X. I had been tipped off by a number of “Agent Potatoes” I guess we’re calling them, that this man was indeed my target (tho I would have never guessed it based on the LawWeb photo). I awaited his departure from Tax Class and pounced. It turned out that he was carrying a hairpiece in his hand and we had an amicable period of turning on a computer and getting a ruling as to whether it had to be on one’s head. It turns out that Tyler was a formidable competitor, but a lackadaisical reader of e-mail instructions. Death by sock to all those who stand between me and greatness!

my new target--knock knock. generic-looking 1L?

so i get my new guy. he is totally generic. i will never be able to figure out who he is, even in a classroom. i don't even want to wait this long. after spending sunday wasting time dreaming of the kill and mapping out his class schedule, etc., i decide to try to figure out where he lives. well, regular old internet doesn't have this information. but i am wily and i have ways around this problem. hurrah! so i look him up and get a c-ville address. now, i'm not quite sure this makes sense b/c he's a 1L and this info is generally from a while back, and it's also a complex where people with families live, but i figure that's ok, it won't hurt to try.

at some point, i become a little trepidatious about this plan. so i enlist lexi. we know it's trouble when you ask lexi to be your voice of reason/stabilizing force to keep you from doing stupid things. you know it's even bigger trouble when lexi thinks this might be going too far. which is what she decides when we pull my car up to in front of the apartment building.

well, i'm not letting her out so easy. so i give her the lines. i realize that she needs to take an active role b/c if he answers the door with his immunity on, i don't want to reveal my identity to him. so i give her her lines. if he's wearing his immunity, then she says something to the effect of sorry, must be the wrong apartment. if the person opening the door is not wearing the immunity, we ask if my target is home and work from there.

well, we follow thru with this plan, but quite clearly those dwelling in this apartment are not my target and anyone else related to him. they appear to be foreigners who have no idea why two loud jittery girls are knocking on their door at 8pm on a sunday night, while the one wields a sock like a weapon and wears a hat and sunglasses (i had changed into a winter hat, so as to be less suspicious, but still.)

in the end, both lexi and i conclude that it is just as well we had the wrong place, but this is probably good practice for the future when creepy becomes a necessity, not just something i do for fun. we also say we will keep this just between the two of us, but clearly that's not true. she and i both have big mouths and i just posted the story on the internet. also, i become very glad to have lexi (last name removed to protect her identity when her firm googles her) in my life. we may not make the wisest decisions, but at least someone will come along when i'm making stupid decisions. that's good stuff.

the wig/hairpiece era

well, if they didn't drop off during hats and glasses, then they most likely dropped out at wigs/hairpieces.

i myself quite enjoyed this phase. i have always been enamored by ms. toni on QVC when she sells her hairpieces. see, i have thin hair and the idea of fooling people into believing that i have thick, beautiful, voluminous hair--well that appeals to me in a way that has me staring at my television with rapt attention for like 30 minutes at a time. also, ms. toni is kinda crazy in that way that makes good tv b/c it's so awful you can't quit staring at it. she's like 50 years old, but thinks she is 20-something and has totally blonde hair and overdone nails and she calls everyone "girls." "girls, you are going to love this product! you had better call soon, girls, b/c this color is selling out fast!" (i don't know if i'm making this all up, but this is how i remember her. maybe her name isn't even ms. toni.)

anyways, on a slow weekend evening, i drag saunders off to the CVS with me and we spend us some time in the hairpiece aisle. there aren't really many options, but it is clear that a hairpiece is the way to go about this b/c it's easy and convenient and kinda blends in, but mostly, b/c once again, we'll avoid the sweaty head problem. (what can i say, i'm a sweater.) after about an hour of perusing the options at CVS, we conclude that wal-mart will have more choices, but that's bullshit and all they've got there is a crazy curly green wig for st. patty's day. which may look like a log of fun, but it's going to annoy the crap out of me pretty quickly when my head starts to sweat. so after about another 30 minutes of my debating between the two final options, we buy my hairpieces. i can hardly wait to wear them.

oooh, and wear them i did. how i loved them. they were beautiful. they were darker than my normal hair color and had these terrible little braids in them and i can't figure out why anyone thought that this would be the product they should market. but the thing wasn’t terribly noticeable in my hair, tho i will admit that the 2 times i felt stupid were (1) when i went to a hair salon to run an errand, (2) after i had gone up at the end of class to speak to a prof, he had complimented me on a good job in class, and i turned around, only to have this wig in my hair and the word “TORTFZR” emblazoned across my back. ok, so the latter was probably more embarrassing, particularly b/c we were in mass torts. but anyways.

i would carry on, but then i remembered what i did to get to my next target (lexi and i kinda swore to secrecy, but i'm going to violate that in the next post) and it totally warrants its own post.

new target

finally, a new target. rada tells me he's a generic looking 3L and that he'll be tough. miranda had spent 30 minutes flirting with him during the vegetable immunity, but to no avail in separating him and his onion. and rada's also heard a rumor that he'll be out of town this weekend. ooooooh, how wrong she is on all counts. i send an email to a 3L friend, who it turns out knows this person. i plan on going to his pong for pila match on saturday, to see if he really is out of town. if not, at least i can cheer on some friends. but even before that, i get an email from the 3L friend--my victim is in his MPRE class. so i rush over to the LS, figuring that i can lurk outside the classroom until he leaves. people have started dropping like flies since the hat and glasses immunity came about. well, i'm walking up the stairs, to begin my lurking, and who should be coming down the stairs, but a man i suppose looks enough like the picture, so i swing my sock and that was it for him.

this was the fateful moment when i decided that i loved the thrill of a kill and had to have more. it begins a most unhealthy phase in my life. it marks a turn from being creepy about people i know to being creepy about anyone who stands in my way on my path to victory.

completely non-assassins post

what can you get with 15,000 lexis points or 10,000 westlaw points? whatever it is, i'm almost there. i'm thinking a small nation. really, i'm wishing you could buy supplies for an insulin pump, but that seems unlikely.

hat and glasses time

so the new immunity is a hat and sunglasses. for many, this is a pain in the ass. for laura, this is an occassion to be a) trendier than usual, and b) the birthday girl for a week. i borrow translucent sunglasses from tiff (the better to wear indoors and still be able to see. laura did not bump into things that week.) and buy fun red spotted birthday party hats (thereby eliminating the sweaty head problem.) i am very proud of myself. people ask me if it's my birthday for about 3 days and i kinda like it.

finally, a kill report

at approximately 12:47 am, Jenny X met her death at the sock of Laura Y. having lurked in her boyfriend’s roommate’s room for three hours last night and failing to make a kill, i learned that the ante would have to be upped. today, i lurked in boyfriend’s closet. i waited for them to return from feb club, checked her reflection in the window as she walked in to the closet to put her hat away, and SMACK! that was it for Rada. a kill befitting a champion. or at least a creepy stalker.

[note: i am kinda upset when this kill report is not submitted in the day's "tales from the crypt." i then realize this is probably a wise move made on the part of the game administrators, so as not to force everyone else immediately into submission with the thought, "WTF?!?! this person could be lurking in my home?!?!?!" i figure this will only give me the advantage down the road.]

all the creepy, none of the killing

Wednesday March 22, 3:31 am
subject line: who doesn't brush their teeth b/f going to bed (with someone else)?

TARGET #2

you can’t tell her about this tactic, but i’m telling you the story anyways.

i went over there at 12:30 to lurk, waiting for her to go wash her face b/f going to bed and not take the zucchini with her. but it never happened. (i did witness a huge-ass blow-out fight.) but no leaving the room at all. with or w/o zucchini. and i thought about going in after they had gone to bed and taking the zucchini and leaving the sock on her, but spencer thought that was going too far and kelly morrison was online and agreed, and i can’t figure out why darby wasn’t online b/c i thought he might tell me that was ok.

and i wasn’t tired and i was kinda willing to wait for hours [and i had learned just yesterday that being a timid assassin and respecting the space/word of your friends is no way to win this game], but since i was hiding in someone else’s bedroom, i felt like a bit of an imposition at that point.

so after 2.5 hours of lurking and about 15 minutes of wondering if they slept naked or clad, i’m back home w/o my kill.

i am really bad at this game.

(oh, and lest you think i am stupid, i had parked about 6 houses away so they would neeeever know i was there. oh, and i’d made spencer communicate across a room by writing on notecards. )

my second failure

we're now on the vegetable immunity. within the first few minutes of walking around the LS, i think that wearing a vegetable around my neck may actually hurt my dignity. (i had never even known i had dignity. little did i know that over the next few weeks i would learn that it was clearly not the vegetable that would hurt my dignity. actually, over the next few weeks i come to learn that i don't have dignity.) but i warm up pretty quickly to wearing a stick of celery around my neck. it may actually take more of a toll on the dignity of my friends. by the time i attend a basketball game with friends in from out of town, it doesn't bother me at all. maybe it didn't bother them either. i suppose that when you're friends with me, those things don't really surprise you. (really, if you're friends with me i make you say these things are "endearing." if you don't say it, i put the words in your mouth. i also make it clear that if you don't say nice things, i will make you regret it. most likely with whining. or really rapid-fire chatter about things you don't want to have to listen to.)

anyways, it's during the vegetable immunity that i learn that i am too timid an assassin. rada was quite an immunity wearer, but i see her walking to ivy as i was walking from class, i don’t see immunity, mention it to her b/c i’m a moron and she does know that i’m who’s supposed to kill her, and she says that it’s in her pocket and she’s on her phone. well that was my chance, wasn’t it? not visible = can kill? dammit, i’m a moron. well, and i had left my sock in last night’s coat. still, a moron. this would haunt me, and would become the first instance of needing to redouble my efforts and triple my creepy in an attempt to kill someone who had thwarted me b/c of my own shortcomings.

the first kill--Eli

It all begins at midnight March 15. I have been sitting for over 24 hours, thrilled that I’ve secured an easy kill—someone I know AND someone who sleeps with his doors unlocked.

I begin by securing a ride with Eli and Rada. Eli does not bring his immunity, I promise that I will bring him a stuffed animal to school the next day, knowing full well that he will not live to see 12:02. At 12:01, b/c I’m a compulsive freakshow, I kill him. He gives me his target. It is Rada. Rada and I have both been talking about our immunity all night and we put them on together at 11:55. In my enthusiasm, I try to kill her anyways. Of course, that doesn’t work so well and now she knows who I am. And I am quite vexed b/c Eli could have killer her no problem had I just waited til the next morning.

No one is shocked to discover that I am bad at this game, least of all me. I will learn thru/out this game that I am bad at keeping secrets and I am slow on the draw. I am also an agonizer about opportunities missed. This is the first of many nights this game will keep me awake.

ok, so i've decided

i'll start by posting a few things about the early days of assassins. i will bring you up to date over time.

now i remember!

i don't have an in between phase. i have crazy obsessive and totally disinterested.

now i'll have to post every 3 minutes.

haha, no no, i'm just kidding. i don't have anything new to say.

fine, so we'll try this again

ok, so i don't really think that this will be much of a return, but i'm going to return. mostly b/c people tell me that i should post my assassins stories. but since i send those to a listserve of 20 people with every creepy move i make, i'm not sure that serves a purpose. also, i refuse to do so until the game is over, lest anyone learn my creepy secrets. tho i am very proud of how creepy i am.

anyways, i was talking to ave about my PA app and was thinking about what i wrote last year for the app i never completed or submitted and described it as the piece of writing perhaps most filled with "tone" in all the world. so here it is---b/c i know that you love nothing more than reading random crap i wrote about a year ago and am not cutting and pasting here in my effort to perhaps (but probably not) revive my blog. also, i think that blogger has missed me b/c it just took me like 20 minutes to sign in and that was a pain in my ass. also, i was just going to post and say that i'm not the sort of person who believes in talking about long absences and lapses in friendship; i'd rather just gloss right over that. except that making that remark obviously makes it not true.

anyways, now for a trip down memory land and for the most tone-riffic thing ever---

Oh softball, how cruel you can be. I’d like to start by saying that I’ve always had a severe aversion to team sports. I’m not exactly the most athletically inclined person and when you combine this with a sense of Catholic guilt, team sports just aren’t for me—I feel single-handedly responsible for anything that goes wrong. It’s not pretty.

But I wanted to be a part of this whole UVA softball legacy and I didn’t want to be the girl who refused to play and I’m all gung-ho Section I and all that. So I sign my liability waiver and show up to our first lunchtime game, playing Section H. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play. Only I’m not really. Caveat: when telling this story, I always have to give my excuse before I give the embarrassing part, so here goes with the excuse. I’m diabetic and one of the things that happens when I’m hypoglycemic is that my muscles freeze, especially when I try to move suddenly. (We can all see where this is going, right?) Anyways, my bloodsugar is probably about 40, but I don’t want to disappoint anyone, so up to bat I go.

Well, I hit the ball. I’m still proud of this fact. And then, I start my lumber to first base. Only I don’t even manage to start. Rather, my legs freeze completely and I fall flat on my face in the dirt right in front of home, my feet still on the plate. (Other people in my section have fallen while running the bases, but they’ve all at least made it somewhere on the road to first.) Meanwhile, my sectionmates, well aware that I’m going to be thrown out at first, have all turned to watch me show up; they can’t figure out why I’m not arriving. At which point they see H’s catcher helping me to my feet as we both laugh hysterically at what a clod I am. Now I make it clear that I’ll play if we’re short on girls, but I’d be way more comfortable wearing my flip-flops and cheering the team on from behind the fence.