What to do if you've been discriminated against in housing or employment in WV

1. go to the West Virginia Human Rights Commission. there you can file a complaint within one year of the incident.

2. the HRC will investigate your claim (talk to witnesses, etc.) and determine if you have probable cause.

3. if your claim is what we call "PC'd", or determined to have probable cause, then it is
docketed with one of the HRC's judges for hearing in about a year.

4. if you can afford to pay a lawyer, get one. if you can't, your file is transferred to my office, the Civil Rights Division of the WV Attorney General's Office.

5. from there, we are your lawyers. we file discovery. we depose the other side. we mediate. sometimes we settle.

6. if we don't settle, we take you to hearing. several months later, the judge issues a final decision.

there is more about this on the HRC's page, and they have their own step-by-step process.

so this weekend, instead of going somewhere like morgantown or winston-salem, i stayed around here. hanging out with my charleston friends was ok, except that --and i'm sure you know the feeling-- sometimes being around people for too long, you just get tired of them and testy. that happened. but otherwise it was ok.
    eating out at chinese was good fun. lee, the resident aryan pentacostal kid, flirted with the heavily-acented 24-year-old petite chinese waitress. she was talking about surnames and given names, and he told her his name. she said "why you have chinese name?" then she told him that lee was such a common family name in china, he had 3 million brothers and sisters. :)

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    on saturday i read Elie Wiesel's Night. i've wanted to for a long time. it's powerful. the holocaust is weird. i've always been interested in it. horrified, of course, that people could do that. but how?
    since the book isn't all that well written, i kinda felt like the holocaust was in a fictional world far away. movies like Life is Beautiful and Schindler's List tend to bring it home more for me.

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    anyway, work is going really well even tho i still don't think they're sure what to give a good undergrad intern to do. they have all the judge final decisions since 1985 or so, and i've been assigned the task of reading them, determining the cause of action (type of discrimination and whether it was failure to hire, wrongful termination, a hostile work environment, etc.) and indexing them. which is cool because i get to read every decision the civil rights division has had in the last 17 years.

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    the only problems with my apartment are that it's too small to entertain much, there's no screen on the bathroom window, the air conditioning has stopped being cool, and there's a big-ass fly flying around.

    and the landlord is incredibly unresponsive. i'll call him to fix stuff, and sometimes i'll come home and it's fixed, but i sent him a letter about the static on my phone line 3 weeks ago and i've heard nothing. eh. at least it's mine.

so there was this girl i went to school with this year, sarah. she was a freshman work-study student for the CS department. basically she got to install redhat on like 30 workstations.

    but the main reason i liked her was that she reminded me of me.

todd.: got an email from sarah. mostly because i sent her one.
me: who's sarah?
todd.: you know the freshman who had a work-study job with the cs department? wore a lot of bandanas, smiled a lot?

    she dressed like i used to dress and had a similar look and disposition.
.
.
.
    but now she has left bard and is finishing her schooling in China.

    anyway, here's a link to her bard page, including a poem about oral fixations in lieu of anyone to kiss and some stuff she wrote while staying up all night. now that she's in china, she has a new journal on blogspot.

so i wish i could post why my job is so cool. basically i get to help sue racist and sexist bastards around the state. it's so wonderful.

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    i went to north carolina this weekend. we rented Bridget Jones Diary. it was ok. i can see why people like it, because before they get together, both romatic partners make complete fools of themselves every time they open their mouths. and i think most people can identify with that. but i can't really. my relationship is so wonderfully storybook right now that it just kind of bored me. "oh, it takes work and embarassment to be as happy as i am? eh."

    oh, and speaking of my relationship - According to todd's 7-year-old sister courtney, we're in love. here's how it went:

courtney: there's two cheerios stuck to your tray.
me: maybe they're in love.
courtney: ya'll are. [pointing and giggling ensue]

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    so we went to borders with his friend nicole, and we were talking about new books, and she's like "so what have you all heard is good?" and that's funny because i hardly hear of anything new, and todd gets all his info from her. so i'm like "what are you talking about? todd says 'so nicole says this is good, we should read it' or 'nicole says such and such movie is good, we should go see it' or we hear of a new movie, and 'i dunno if it's any good, nicole didn't mention it.'"

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    i like how there's a NASCAR race called the Tropicana 400, and along the track there's these huge bottles of juice. they just showed it on the news.

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    here are some cds i want:
--the new coon creek girls
--the eminem show
--the new cd by grandmaster flash
--the new moby cd

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    oh, and just for the information of the gentlement out there, all women's restrooms should have trash cans in every stall. it's just important.

this was on the slashdot main page yesterday, but it's just so good.

here's a story: back in like the 70s or something, some composer called john cage (apprently somewhat famous) wrote and recorded a piece of music called 4'33" that is 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence. that's ridiculous enough.

so this other guy, recently, was a member of a band, and they had a hidden track on their cd. so instead of just leaving the 60 seconds between the last track and the hidden track, he put "minute of silence" or something in the liner notes, and credited himself and cage, tongue-in-cheek. but not john cage. he made up a pseudonym clint cage, and registered it with the songwriters union or whatever.
the funny thing is - john cage's record company is suing him for quoting a minute of 4:33 and recording it without permission. you may have heard this on npr tonight.

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    tonight's champion on jeopardy set a new one-day record. jeopardy is supported by an ointment that advertises, "Abbreviate your cold sores with Abreva."

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    i have noticed that many posts start out with me telling todd something. eh. speaking of that, they're trying to solve the Riemann hypothesis.

    i apologize for all today's links coming straight off the main page. but you all probably don't read it anyway.

so when i first moved into my freshman dorm last august, i thought to myself, "wouldn't it be cool if a cute guy moved in down the hall? i need a boyfriend about now." what did i know 7 months later, here i'd be, missing him like the dickens.

    when i bought my dishes for my apartment at goodwill, i found this mug. it's now holding pens on my table. it says "sagittarius, nov 22-dec 21. You are optimistic and enthusiastic. you have a tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. the majority of sagittarians are drunks and dope fiends. people laugh at you a great deal." and has a picture of a drunk cartoon frog :) the other signs can be found here.

    i'm happy the loud secretary in my office is coming back next week - i can have my own desk back then. and she'll answer the phone and do the goddamned mail log. the problem is... i just need the attorneys to give me work to do.

you know how like, when you're in the middle of a book, and you stop reading to go about your day, you're still always thinking about the characters in the book? i feel like i'm still in their world.
    so todd's friends set up this email list between them, called CollinLovesTacos (don't ask me why). whenever anything exciting happens in his life, he usually sends out an email to the tacos list. i have only met a few of his friends, but most of the ones i've met are on this list.
    today i joined and i've been reading the archives of messages. when i went to do my laundry this afternoon, i returned in the tacos world.
    shout out to tacos.

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    i bought another universal remote, and it even had a prog button. turns out the prog button was for the "audio device".

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    man, the new episodes of Friends are whack. monica and chandler are married, rachel's carrying ross's baby, and joey's in love with rachel. it's insanity.

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    so tonight someone has to do the dishes in my apartment. the fact that i'm the only one living here does not necessarily imply that that person should be me.

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    caffeine headaches suck.

so my tv needs reprogrammed to get the channels they're giving me for free. thing is, we lost the remote, there's no programming button on the tv, and the company (funai) doesn't support universal remotes (that's weird, cuz i have one working with it now...).

    anyway. a few things:

1. i watched the network tv version of american pie last night. they cut out the whole apple pie part. seriously.

2. so i was looking up the network stations online because i always forget which station has my favorite anchor girl, and i found this. apparently kuala lumphur, malaysia is right here in west virginia. hm.

    oh, and i like getting state holidays off. like west virginia day - the day lincoln signed the order to make us a state - is thursday, and state employees (me) get the day off. nice. :)

    here's a link to todd's new site. i dunno if it's had its official unveiling or whatever yet, but i couldn't resist.

so i gots me some cable and some telephone line. and some free aol for the summer. so it sucks that there's so much line noise, but eh. been watching fox all night. malcom - 70's - some show with young parents and a girl at a catholic school.

    so two days ago, i was walking outside the mall, and this black 50 year old dude comes up to me. he tells me that his car has broken down several blocks away, he needs to get 50 miles to his hotel and new job, and he had his wife and kids in the car (they're now in the air conditioned hospital waiting room). the part that his car needs is like $50, and all he has with him are some tools like screwdrivers and stuff because he's an asbestos remover guy (he even had some white powder on his chest) and his kid's sega genesis, and all the pawn shops are closed because why does everything close so early in this part of town? he continues to tell me he's a christian and that all the charities will give you food and beds, but no money for when your car breaks down. he offers me his drivers license, i'm not sure why, maybe collateral. he repeated this spiel several times quickly. i told him i was sorry, but i was a poor college student and could not afford to help him, but that he could try the bus station or the travel agency inside the mall.
    i thought it was just a smidgen sketch because he kept repeating his story several times very quickly and not quite looking me in the eye. but i chalked it up to the dude walking around downtown in 80 degree heat.

    then there was yesterday. i pulled up to my house. even before i could get out of the car, a white guy in his 20s comes up to me. he says his car has broken down several blocks away, his girlfriend is waiting there, his parents are out of town, he needs to get to a town an hour away, he's a christian, and he offers me his drivers license. wierd. i tell him that, sorry, i'm a poor college student, but here's some change (there was no travel agency or bus station around).

    have i been out of the city too long? is this a normal panhandling trick these days?

    and why did i give the white guy change? he had better eye contact and was closer to my age. but still.

yeah, so now i'm moved into my apartment in charleston and working a 9-5 job. but they're not going to hook up my phone line until friday, so i don't have internet until then. (whoddathunk a local phone line cost $20/mo? verizon, apparently.)

    but my job is pretty fun, except for the other intern called amy, who is a dim blond girl. she frequently gives me blank stares because, as far as i can tell, she has no idea what i'm talking about. like today two of the other secretaries were talking about losing weight (a conversation which i tire of quickly) and then amy mentioned it too, and i was just fed up, and i was like "well, you could just decide to be cool with your weight. it might be better to work on that instead of trying to lose those extra 3 lbs. or whatever," and she looked just like a deer caught in headlights. it was weird. so i just kept talking, hoping that her affirmative nods would eventually turn to understanding instead of automatic reactions. it was not to be.

    the coolest one so far is Jo, a legal secretary that knows probably more than the lawyers on staff. she's been there forever, and we had a good conversation yesterday about institutionalized racism, like how most of the serving and cleaning staff at in places like The Greenbrier and New York City are people of color. neither of us really like that. but i guess that's why we're in this office.

    speaking of my office, i work for the state of WV in an office that basically sues on behalf of people that have been discriminated against in housing or employment. we do a ton of racial discrimination cases, but also some gender, age, and disability. sexual orientation, i think, is included in the WV Human Rights Act, but i haven't found a case of it yet. it's a pretty cool place.

    woo! todd got online. happy :)

so i got an apartment, woo! it's an unfurnished one-bedroom, but oh well, it'll be fine! and it has a door onto the roof (a "balcony")! :) now i have a good job and a good place, all i need is some furniture and a cooler other intern to chill with. :)

    last night i went with a friend to a play because he had an extra ticket. it was --and i am seriously not making this up-- Shakespeare in Space. not only that, but it was a musical. with oldies songs, like "Good Vibrations", "Teenager in Love", and even "Great Balls of Fire" when they were flying through an asteroid field. at the end, they just like tacked on "Mr. Spaceman" and "Monster Mash", just for fun. no, really. no one can make this shit up, and certainly not me. it had lines like "Live Long and Prospero." for real.

    my friend is the kinda guy that really eats this stuff up. he adored the show. plus his co-worker was in it, so he cheered extra loud (he was fond of saying that we were the co-worker's claque, apparently a french term for fan club). at the end, after the cast had bowed, when they turned toward the orchestra with arms outstreched, my friend bellowed, "And the band! Hot Damn!" and he told the sound guys that they were doing a great job, even though the body mics only worked about half the time. at least as we were walking out, he said "what was the plot again?" i have faith that he liked it in the way that we all hold a special place in our hearts for Plan 9 From Outer Space or the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness series.

    i've seen a lot of bad plays in my day, but really, whose idea was Shakespeare in Space?

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    i got sunburned at the beach last weekend - now i'm starting to peel. that means that it's healing, right?

this is under the AOL logo because it's prolly what i'll be using all summer. as you can guess, i won't get to control the internet.

    so i left bard for the summer. i packed up my room and put most of it in storage even though i was coming back to that same room in september. i left a toy in a desk drawer - i wonder if it'll be there when i return.

    i packed the rest of my room in my car with all of todd's stuff - he's so awesome that it fit. we drove down to morgantown for a night. then to charleston where i got a job at the Attorney General's Office (Civil Rights Division, woot!), then to Winston-Salem, then to Myrtle Beach. lots of driving. but it was all good, except the part where i had to leave him in winston while i went back to charleston. and not quite having a place to live here yet. but the latter is a minor detail.

    so i just wanted to update you all, and say that i hadn't collapsed or anything under the weight of finals. :)

i think it's beneficial to have everyone in your dorm on your buddy list. people think it's fucked up, cuz you know, they're just down the hall or whatever. but i say, if it makes socializing among people you see every day easier, then it's all good. i think RAs should make a list of screen names at the beginning of the semester. it's so easy to IM someone and be like "you wanna go to dinner?"

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    i registered for classes today. i got African American Lit, and Public Opinion and Democracy in America, which is with a new professor that is replacing one of my favorites. i dunno if he'll be so good. the guy we're losing is awesome. Plus Real Analysis and Senior Project.

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    for some reason, our local multi-plex is showing the first star wars at noon tomorrow instead of midnight tonight. go figure. anyway, we have tickets. :)

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    a few days ago it was really warm here. i decided that what i needed was a flowery dress to wear in the warm weather. and then payday happened, so i took todd to the mall to buy me something pretty.

1: walmart. they apparently have no flowery summer dresses.
2: target. swimsuits are on sale, so i can get a top and bottom of two different sizes. cool. i try on dresses, and none of them flatter me.
3: i swallow my pride and go to Deb. if anyone has dresses, Deb has dresses. but there is a problem: I thought I was a size 14. the Deb size 14s won't even zip on me. I get depressed, buy a teenybopper faceplate, and go home. (apparently they also have accessories. Now Todd says my Deb-ified cell phone looks like it belongs to a 12 year old. it's shiny purple with silver buttons. is that so bad?)

    when we went to get star wars tickets yesterday, i stopped by the mall again to look for more dresses. i was convinced someone had to have something. So I go to Sears. i pull a size 14 off the sale rack and take it to the dressing room. to my surprise, i swim in a Sears size 14. after returning it to the rack, i notice that there's a conspicuous plus-size section at Sears. Walmart has one too. I support these sections. then i start to recognize that most of the women i see in the mall, in sears and elsewhere, are much larger than me. what right do i have to feel bad about maybe being somewhere between a size 14? most american women are not only overweight, but obese. so i'm just going to shut up about my own body issues, and hope when we go to the beach next week, todd will be with me, and i'll wear my new bikini. but why can't stores all be sized the same?

today i tried to get high but it didn't really work. annie ended up spilling blue on my blanket. blue koolaid, blue juice, blue drink, blue powerade, it's all blue. then todd and i went to play whiffle ball at blithewood, but that didn't so much work either.

    we do have some star wars breakfast cereal, tho, with Jango Fett and Ewan on the cover. the marshmallows are yoda's head, jango, R2D2, two ships, and two different colors of ligh sabers. apparenly Mace Windu has a purple one in the movie.

    this weekend i have two brunches at two different professor's houses. that's cool.

    look at this picture. Where did the hole come from?

    also, here's todtris. Unzip it into C:\Program Files\todtris, and play away. current high score is 2258, set by Tony.

oh, Todd has finished Todtris. Since it's in Scheme, he's not sure how to make it into an executable. Otherwise I'd post it.

    And the arcade games are free in our game room today, so I got a score of 449,000 on the real Tetris. That's more than I've ever gotten in my life.