Sunday, April 23, 2006

Me and Betty Crocker Baking and Blogging


What a week! Why do schools think that spring break is necessary for small children? It's not like we're in ye olden days, when such breaks were required to go deer hunting, ploughing, or harvesting, right? But I'm not complaining. Lots of kids, and lots of domesticity on my part. Lots of reading out loud of "Chicka Chicka Boom-Boom," lots of flash cards, lots of counting exercises, and lots of baking. I baked two batches of my homemade banana bread, and one Betty Crocker Super Deluxe Cake from a mix (give me a break, on Saturday there are 8 rather than 2 kids). It was yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I call it "Bumblebee Cake." I am going to miss this oven (and the kids who shout "bumblebee and spatter me with cake) when I move to a graduate efficiency studio in which I will have to make do with a toaster oven. I guess I will bake two cookies at a time in the Easy Bake. Yes, I went to law school. No, a real one, you know, with books and stuff.

But I'm popping in tonight, not just to talk about Bumblebee Cake, but also to say a big THANKS to Legal Theory Blog's incredibly kind (and remarkably prolific, considering he's a single blogger) Larry Solum for his plug. 162 hits today! That is 5.4 times my normal number of hits (30)! This is big, people. Legal Theory Blog is the blog to hit every day for info about calls for papers, conferences, and "download it while it's hot!" papers posted on SSRN. I've been reading this blog the longest, and have plumbed the depths of the archives for wonderful posts from the Legal Theory Lexicon (law students: go here in addition to reading Gilbert's and Emmanuel's. I know you do. Don't lie.) Professor Solum also does an incredible service compiling a list of new entry level hires--good for people like me who went to a very good law school, but not Harvard/Yale. It's nice to see there's some room for non-traditional aspiring academics. We need all the encouragement we can get, especially by real law profs.

In fact, the response by the real law professors has been remarkably positive. Look up at the banner--I put up a few I have collected over the past couple of months. If I had room, I would have put Dave Hoffman's comment (to the Yentl post) saying "Generally, I too am a big fan of the blog." Don't you just love lawyers? Always the qualifier. I have noticed that I do it with everything, like trying to dodge the question of which child I love more. Anyway, I can't express enough how much this blog has helped me in my intellectual isolation during my exile in this SUV-driving, Track home dwelling, Republican-voting Suburbia. When you have spent a week with children licking the batter off your fingers, it's nice to feel there are those who take you seriously about this whole 'nother side of you. The one no one else in your family of dentists and engineers gets. In fact, no one in my family knows I blog. So I can't even say my mother, even if she could, reads this. Many blawggers profess false modesty by saying "hi, mom!" when addressing their readership. These blawggers, of course, have hundreds, if not a thousand readers a day. I, by contrast, am justifiably humble, and grateful for every plug I get.

So I'm very grateful for this external validation by non-relatives/friends. I don't pretend to not need it.It makes me feel less like a fake and fluke in the legal blogosphere (not to mention the real-life circle of lawyers and academics). It's nice to for the Super Nanny to take off the chef's hat every once in a while and re-don the barrister's wig.