hiatus for one and all

i feel like i should post something since i haven't in a week and if you've been checking for something i feel like i owe you something small to look at, so this is that. my memo has been swallowing my mind and face, and i figure that i've beaten that dead horse sufficiently. so rather than spend a lot of time ranting about how stupid it is (don't worry, it's still super stupid, but not in a good way like that parliament song), i've opted just to avoid the temptation. it's due pretty soon though, so i hope to be able to write about other things after it is turned in. i could probably write about those other things now, but i have a feeling a digression would be unavoidable, as this post itself sort of indicates. and most likely we'll return to a similar situation as exams begin to loom on the horizon. for alternative blog thrills, reynolds has a new blog staked out and will purportedly actually make use of it. r.j. reynolds got me a question right at quizzo yesterday. based in winston-salem, of course. if i hadn't known it, i could have just looked in my pocket. we finished a strong second (good for $20 as always) and once again won the end-of-the-month top-three spin-off for a hundred bucks. a good night, to say the least. thin lizzy got me an answer too, and it is about time they did something for me because "the boys are back in town" has been a thorn in my classic rock side for years. i don't know why so many people love that song. i can do asinine and/or cheesy lyrics and music just fine, but that track is just crap. not ridiculous enough to be good, too ridiculous to be legitimate. time to get back to work... but a quick thing: the east coast loves ginger ale. if you know why, tell me.

unabomber?

no, certainly not. but i am beginning to get the impression that the sort of things i would like to talk about and the way i would like to express them would have the same end result of only seeing the light of day as a force-published diatribe originating from some mid-western (only kosher with spell check if hyphenated) wilderness. i will also never rock a pair of aviator sunglasses like in that infamous f.b.i. sketch; i look silly in those. the point is, both myself and the unabomber (wikipedia article is really interesting) may have had thoughts we thought worthy of dissemination, but did not see fit to seek out and utilize the acceptable channels. if the dude would have used the right language and obtained the appropriate degree and position (specialization denies people with phds in math the outlet to be a well-regarded social critic for the most part), he probably would have enjoyed the same niche notoriety/fame of academics across the nation. he probably could have even put it how he did had he stayed on as a prof somewhere and taken classes in some other discipline. what someone has to say is oftentimes irrelevant if they do not choose the correct way to express it. and thus his writings and my own will inevitably disregarded as manifestos of malignant minds. not that i have one worked up or anything, but you get the idea.
the practical application at this point in my life is that even if i go through the charade known as legal education, i do not believe that i will be able to wrench it into anything i find satisfactory. i'm not saying it would leave me incapable of doing anything worthwhile or good; quite the opposite really, but at the end of the day nothing i personally want to do. i realize that the majority of people spend the majority of their lives doing things they would rather not do, but i am also aware that there are plenty of people who enjoy what they do, be it drive a bus or give graduate seminars in astrophysics. i do not feel like i have been backed into a choiceless (not a word, says spell check) corner; my life has been one of relative privilege imbued with a certain degree of ability. i find it problematic to value "the right thing" over one's own interest, as the result tends to be a severe degree of self-righteousness.
this need not be the result in the former or latter case, in fact there was a talk today given by people who worked in the private sector in a manner they felt allowed them to "maintain their progressive ideals". i'll spare you the details, but i think it took a little convincing on their own part a lot of the time, even if they had the ability to paint a road picture in which they were eugene v fucking debbs. they have jobs which are reasonably remunerative even by lawyerly standards, and they can indeed view it as a social positive. however, none of these things seemed to bear any resemblance to anything i would want to do for a living. in short, it seems like legal work for good or evil will have the necessary consequence of boring the shit out of me. i have also reached the conclusion that it is something i could do. i may even become decent at it through practice. but that alone cannot make me want to do it.
this is a major component to my present impasse. here i have an opportunity to get a decent job by putting up with a couple years of bullshit. law school, in my experience, is nothing but a means to an end. i know no-one who does or did enjoy the experience of "legal education", and i imagine that this is mostly because it is not education. college was education. this is the scholastic equivalent of the eliminator at the end of an episode of american gladiators, except the competition takes place in hell and has doubled its prescription for steroids. i for one did not decide to attend law school as purely a means to an end, although that was naturally a consideration i took into account.
i showed up expecting an education without a strictly defined end. i wanted to learn about the law and find a way to put that into use, either within some appealing enclave i discovered within the vast realm of legal employment, or alternative and preferably in some other field in which a j.d. carries some weight. the last few months have been bearers of bad news on this front. even appealing areas of the law are heavily if not entirely infiltrated by the dominant legal culture. so whether you're facilitating divorces, defending pharmaceutical companies, suing the federal government, or providing a wide variety of services to a needy and worthy non-profit, your writing has to look the same. the big business nature of "important firms" informs law schools and by extension lawyers in all walks of law. the point is always to cut to the chase and inform the reader. do not plan on them reading your document in any logical order. they are busy and more important than you are. they need to make meaningful decisions, and fast. to delay them is to cost time and time is money. so do not let your writings be readable to a true human being, for this is an unnecessary expense. individual expression through inappropriate forms must not be allowed, or the machine will not run properly. if you don't play by the rules, you are not a real lawyer, and if you're not a real lawyer, no one wants to hire you to pretend to be one if you don't act right. i asked my legal writing prof if what we were being taught is what would be required of us at any legal job. she said mostly yes, but perhaps i could get a job at a small job and "get right into court!". that is precisely the last place i want to be in any capacity whatsoever.
so with chances sufficiently diminished within the traditional legal realm, natural home of those holding j.d.s, i once again cast my glance toward employment outside of the field also placing value on that particular piece of paper. the purported utility of the degree is somewhat misleading. while there are certainly jobs where one is not a lawyer but preferably holds the degree, these jobs are by and large within legal trenches, i.e. legal publishing, law librarian, f.b.i., etc. in that respect, i might be forced to say that i not only have an aversion to being a lawyer, but also of utilizing that skill set in the name of furtherance of lawyerly activities. these jobs hold minimal interest for similar reasons stated above. beyond that, i had encountered several lengthy lists of things one can do with a j.d.. while these lists are long, i did not immediately realize that these were simply things that having a j.d. certainly not preculde one from, and where it may be helpful. however, you don't really need the degree. these lists are mostly for people who are already lawyers and want to find something else to do. basically a lot of you could be a (fill in the blank)... with a LAW DEGREE! Mostly studies in career changing. In fact, most people who make these lists are former lawyers who have found alternative careers telling lawyers what else they can do, a perverse parasitic relationship in my view. on the other hand, some jobs still require a j.d. and are not bogged down by proximity to lawyerly work, such as being a law professor. this was indeed a hope i held upon enrollment. guess i should have done a little more looking into things before hand. the fact that i had encountered programs at law schools outside of the most lofty echelon dedicated to training law professors gave me some hope. however, the explosion of higher education in america has of course reached this portion as well. if you want a job where you need a j.d. due to the nature of the work but that job is not being a lawyer, you damn well have better gone to one of those schools in the aforementioned echelon. i suppose one is not automatically forbidden from pursuing or obtaining such employment, but let's just say the odds are pretty good that someone who got into and made it through one of the best of the best and is more than ready to forgo an unearthly salary is probably brighter, more organized, and a better interviewer with a better resume than you will ever have. personally resolved global warming, darfur crisis, etc., while maintaining a four point and heading up the championship skulling (can't believe that got marked, it's an olympic sport!) squad. they have also written and published more scholarly text than half of your professors, and they haven't even attained such a post yet. enough of that, the point is that those jobs where a j.d. is necessary but you will not be a lawyer are pretty fucking tough to get.
overall, i'm driving at the fact that law school is not inherently of enormous value, and the means-to-an-end prospects are seriously unappealing in my opinion. at best my completion of the degree gains me the right to throw that on, you guessed it, the resume. and at that point one is subject to as much benefit as detriment. in my mind, a considerable number of people who get the first look at resumes would immediately think "what is wrong with this person? why is he not a lawyer? he could be RICH! something has to be off about this guy...". i suppose they are correct after a fashion. i am off in the sense that a significant part of me doesn't want to get into certain business just to make money. oh well. could put a good spin on that if i made it to an interview i suppose. whether or not i go through with all this, i firmly believe that what one does for a living does not or at least should not define who one is. and beyond that, much like the importance of how one says something versus what one says, how one does is more valuable than what one does. thank you calvin for that. and for giving me a by-and-large legitimate and worthwhile liberal arts education. it is not the fault of the believers of liberal education that we graduates don't all get amazing jobs; the market is far from their control. as a fellow believer, i am finding that out in sharp relief through this experience.
i believe it was voltaire who said "well, then, fuck them". i cribbed that from achewood. allow me to reiterate that it is good stuff and you should read it. plus then you can call me out on my bullshit when i subconsciously rip it off, dude style (i don't think the dude is fully aware of where he gets his phrases, but i think he knows he heard it "somewhere"). in any case, that is an excellent statement of a classic position, and i defy someone to deny that. also makes an appropriate conclusion to what turned out to be one hell of a vent, even by my standards. if you read it, thanks. hopefully there was some value in there somewhere, i am under the impression that there had to be. so anyway, to restate my conclusion one last time (you wouldn't believe how many conclusions are restated how many times in any given memo): fuck 'em. regardless of whether they can take a joke or not. fuck 'em.
man, i just put on a soul coughing show, which reminded me that mike doughty is playing nearby tonight and i am not going, which is a bummer. on the one hand, my favorite things about soul coughing certainly include the crazy sampling and jazzy upright bass playing which will of course be absent, but then again i would love to personally witness this guy talk or sing about anything; the delivery is fascinating and hypnotic (and only occasionally pretentious, but even then not in a bad way) to my ear. although i did hear that his solo acoustic stuff is of a somewhat different stripe, guess some of it made its way to prime time television show soundtracks, but i guess those have some decent tunes in them these days from what i'm told. either way, recent set lists indicate a reasonable amount of soul coughing material in the mix. hey, he wrote it, he can play it. although it must miss something. in any case, i am not going to find out firsthand tonight, and that is too bad. i am too busy alternating between reading a bunch of cases and writing their corresponding briefs. if i was truly a non-conformist, i would write boxers for my cases. although they usually provide less but more purely relevant coverage of the case. this metaphor is going nowhere; best result is that i declare that i write g-stings for cases. that's how you know i haven't been drinking: i didn't say fuck briefs! i write fuckin g-strings for my cases bitches! my notes are sexy as hell compared to everyone's lame ass old school briefs! back to the what is said/how is said idea...
come to think of it, that very distinction was dispositive in a criminal law case i did for today, common law looked to an accomplice's statements and his intentions in regard to how those statements were to be interpreted to determine his culpability. but i know i've had more than enough law school for one post, so i figure it is safe to assume everyone else has too.
i've switched the tunes to vinyl, billy joel's piano man. excellent album overall really, hell yes billy the kid. "ain't no crime" is on right now, and i know someone reading this loves the hell out of that song. out yourself. i really want a copy of street life serenader, that was one of my favorites as a kid, and one i curiously couldn't track down in the folks' collection, so if you happen across a copy pick it up for me if you will. surprised i haven't found a copy myself yet. billy joel has been a constant in my life, surprisingly, but soul coughing to billy joel is a weird transition. not as weird as one time where i went to him from cradle of filth in the car once though. that was just classic. this was before ipods. and i didn't even use the word "random". which reminds me, becky, invite me to the group about nothing random about your new photo album or whatever. that word has been unconscionably abused over the last decade (right up there with "plethora"), which was a real bummer for me, since i had been using appropriately for a while before all that started.
but back to music for a moment. i keep meaning to go on about how much i like built to spill, and i can never remember if i have before on here or not, so sorry if i already have, but they do kick some serious ass in my book. the vocals strike me as the sort of love-it-or-hate-it kind though, so be forewarned, but i think most of my readership could dig it. sort of in the neil young tradition in some ways. if you like wayne's voice from the flaming lips or how the my morning jacket guy sounds, it is sort of closer to that. if anyone out there digs this band already let me know so we can talk about how sweet they are sometime, favorite tracks, and maybe point me at a studio album or two to track down.
well, after all that, i think i have to admit that another distinction between me and the unabomber is that dude had better focus. and at least some doctorate. and he was smarter. and i'm loving the shit out of technology right now. and penthouse will most likely not volunteer to publish anything i wrote. even my notes which are sexier than regular legal briefs. i guess i have almost nothing in common with that dude. good thing i looked into it. i suppose this is a favorable overall result. some small things work out sometimes.

twenty-four and there's how much more?

the more i look at my options in life, the more i want to gouge my eyes out. i'm ten kinds of bummin' these days. probably doesn't help that it is dark by five. i've been spending disgusting amounts of time lying in bed the last couple days. tough to summon up the motivation to do a whole lot else sometimes, even though activity is the precise prescription. i cannot distract employment from my mind though. i'm so desperate for an answer that simply cannot come as easily as sitting around trying to think about it. but i cannot even come up with step one; i hardly know where to start. i know almost everyone has problems like not knowing what to do for a job to hopefully help you get through life, but most people seem to be rolling with the punches better than i have been recently. i'm really really disappointed that the notion of further education has not turned out anywhere close to the way i hoped it would. i don't completely lack interest or ability, but while the breadth of my interest subsumes legal study, the depth there does not match up with what i have taken on or would take on in actual employment, and consequently ability has become difficult to express. as painful as it is to experience a letdown like this and the social implications, however well hidden, are undeniable. it is not generally held honorable or desirable to attempt something of this magnitude without the fortitude to follow through to completion, or at least that is how i perceive things.
every time i come up with some fanciful idea, i can find some reason to shoot it down just as quickly. most things i think i may enjoy doing are either a) jobs people just don't generally get b) require experience which is difficult to obtain c) next to impossible to make a living at d) something plenty of other people do better than i ever will, and typically some combination of these four. i am willing to accept that i have a decent head on my shoulders, but this does not inhere any employable prospects on its own. a lot of people seem to think that it would be a great idea to do peace corps or teach for america, and while that is certainly a great route for some folks, i really don't have that much interest. to me, it seems like another way to delay the inevitable, with the booby prize of something to throw on the god damned resume. i don't think i could get a job based on my extreme distaste for the culture of resumes, but if i could, that is one area where i would have more passion than anyone i have ever met. here, please reduce yourself to a certain amount of page space. we will not tell you how big this space should be, but there is a good chance you will guess wrong and we will sneer and recycle your submission at the bottom of a bird cage, please enjoy the complementary metaphor. i have had a difficult time discerning whether i am a credible rebel with a time-honored notions of refusing to play by the rules or just a lazy slacker with a convenient excuse. in any event, the one thing i have to hold onto for employment is that i have strong feeling that the time has come for me to tend some bar. this i know i can do. i just need to find a place and talk them into it.
while that may not be a permanent solution either, it is a better holding pattern than what i have at present. i've been sort of hamstrung since a class a couple weeks ago. the topic was money and happiness. i am pretty sure i already knew this somehow, and i think most thoughtful people will find it intuitive, but the point is that people's happiness is generally pre-programmed. graphing happiness reporting shows pretty quick levels of normalization for people who have either won the lottery or suffered an accident rendering them quadriplegic (total bitch to spell that, not intuitive at all). a year or two ago i wound up in a break room discussion about greatest fears, and most people had answers involving violent crime or animals (fish!?!) and of course i had to really think about it and give some serious answer, but at least i was probably accurate. i said i was worried that i would never really be happy. so it was a little rough to hear that in my present condition. the good news is that those examples refer to a one-time event's effect over time, and hence leave out data on tangible changes in lifestyle. and they are of course generalizations as well. there is no guarantee that i will fail to ever be happier than i am at present, which is not setting any upward records on the y-axis, to say the least. and there is always dutch comfort: it could be worse.
for some perspective on that i got a phone call while i was writing this. someone near and dear to me signed up for the air force. she signed one dotted line, but i think she still has one chance for an out. the really sad thing is, this might be her most tenable option. she's been doing really well at school majoring in criminal justice at a four-year place after wrapping up an associates. but her living situation is absolutely unbearable, and she is literally broke. but the military... damn. may or may not work for her, but it is truly a bummer that someone who has turned her academic trajectory around over the last couple years is forced into this because of shitty circumstances. but it is a similar cusp, does one carry on with something that has visible problems mitigated by probable benefits, or does one bail and hope for the best? rough.
life is so fucking arbitrary.
after several attempts at talking with various people about how frustrated i am with my current situation and generally being a bad sport when these people were trying to help and comfort me, i am now feeling much better after a conversation that had little to nothing to do with what is going on or what should be going on. i don't know if that means that it is best to approach things in an indirect manner or just ignore the problem until it solves itself or somehow goes away (a favored and dangerously effective strategy i have successfully employed many times over the years) or what, but one way or another, this darkness has got to give. the bar was even closed the last time i tried to go. sign in the window, usual shit, bad wiring, no exit lights, no capacity posted, yadda yadda. typical shit. but we had a decent time nonetheless back at my buddy's place, saved some bucks and ate some heady takeout.
which was about the order of this evening, minus takeout plus cards. didn't last too long but it was a cool game, take-off on an older idea but eliminated possibility of a draw. no drinking game should end in a tie, after all. i think i won the last one tonight... no, i didn't, but it was close. man, i tried to go out and be sociable and have a good time, but here i am again and nothing has changed at all. i've tried to act right over and over, but i just don't seem to be getting anywhere. i got my education, and i even had a job with health insurance a couple times. this does not seem to have made any appreciable difference.
i have been told on multiple occasions that my age is deceiving. many people guessed far off base during odd plasma shop conversations. kat was shocked, and repeatedly told me i was "old for my age". even my mother referred to me as "24, but an old 24" today. what is going on here? i like to think the idea is that i have taken way too many things much too close to heart, but the end result is mostly that i am meaner, more sarcastic, and in some ways more savvy than my contemporaries. like i'm some bottle of wine that peaked before that general varietal should, and yet the verdict is somehow definitively in. i like to think that this makes me more credible in some way, but i think that all it really means is that i am more bitter and just generally more of an asshole than i should be at this point in life. unfortunately, and to return to the point, i do not think that this makes it any more likely that anyone would want to give me a job. sort of like buying an '03 car that somehow has like ninety thousand miles put in on it. i am a fucking saturn belonging to a commuter from delaware who works at an investment banking gig in philly. the only good news is that my owner loves dog fish head. but they do not know shit about automobile maintenance. alright, this metaphor has been extended beyond perceptible applicability and then some.
my only comfort now is that i have killed enough time to sufficiently end this day. i even left the house and hung out with people. i feel like this is enough. better than yesterday, where i made it out of bed for less than twenty percent of the day and went to bed earlier than my grandmother. and your grandmother too. i almost felt bad that i missed the early bird special at denny' it was so early; should have at least made it worth my while at that point, you know?
sorry, now i'm just rambling shit because i cannot get a good enough connection to just post the shit i have already laid down, and that is how it is. feel my wrath, er, boredom. speaking of which, i was really serious about achewood. i must admit that i have now viewed every strip one can access from going and looking into it. my only regret is that i squeezed it all into this past week. what am i going to kill time with now? the point is that if you were not convinced to look into it before, you should now. this is a literary phenomenon one cannot afford to overlook. i saw an interview where someone described the characters as having tokeinesque depth, and that was the truth being spoken. this isn't just characters in a novel, this is really well developed archetypes. carl jung would probably be satisfied. more satisfied than i am with this internet connection at least. hell, i could give a second-by-second breakdown on neil young's cowgirl in the sand before i can actually make this post at this point. in fact i will probably give up on waiting for this to work tonight and post this in the morning, and feel real good about the lack of typographical errors despite a moderate amount of beer consumption. i should just get a job as a copy editor. i would be good at it and i get a sick satisfaction out of writing devoid of stupid errors. now i just need to find someone to watch my cats over the holiday. or maybe i should just sneak them on board in my pockets. they're so fuckin little.

fajitas to the rescue

blah blah law school whine whine this sucks that sucks, inane shit about music you don't like, blah. what's that? i already wrote about that a bunch of times? oh, i was just worried i wasn't making things clear. today i had an exam. an exam for which i felt fairly well prepared and was open everything. i kind of assumed that since it was an end-of-the-class exam it would cover a little bit of everything we had done, you know, like how exams are supposed to work and stuff. but as it turns out, i probably could have passed just studying about options in depth. call options, put options, financial options, real options, straddles, you name it. cause that shit was not in the book but we talked about it for part of one class. so of course it comprised like half the damn test. i felt i knew enough about options, but apparently one can never know too much. if "business basics for lawyers" is that much about options, i just wish they could have been more up front about it. mostly i am chagrined that the prof repeatedly stated that the exam was not intended to fool anyone. he should have qualified that with "that is, anyone who knows a shit ton about options". i don't think i failed or anything, but i left school a little miffed and generally unhappy about the whole ordeal. but let's go back to the beginning of the day, which had already served to put me in a foul mood, more than i should have let it. i was sitting down waiting for class to start, still had a while before all that. sitting next to my original law school chum, shooting the shit about the reading for today's class. and in walks my arch-nemesis, reigning champion of least favorite person i know. she sits in front of us. let me say a few things about this broad. remember how you had an intro to philosophy class and some jackass could never shut the fuck up despite having nothing valuable to contribute? this chick is like that, except about law classes. and, being in law school, that is the only kind of class i have. and being in the first year of law school, she is in all of my classes. people generally regard her as arrogant, but i think that in order to be arrogant one must actually be good at something in the first place. if she has the right to be arrogant about anything, it is being a total pain in the ass and a human incarnation of fingernails on the chalk board of life with an appropriate voice. so anyway, i am talking to my friend about how repetitive a certain portion of the reading was and voicing my reaction of "alright, i get it already", and this girl turns around and says to me "do you REALLY get it?" in a cocky ass tone. i am not amused. this could be a poor attempt at a joke by a humor-impaired person, perhaps, so i just say that i think i do. then she asks "are you SURE?" and i arrive at the cusp of the situation. i pussied out. just said yeah, and she left to go get a coffee. part of me really wishes that i had never been forced to sublimate the aggression that was a hallmark of my youth (thanks for the therapy, now i just take it out on myself and not other people) and could have just jacked that fucking bitch in the jaw like she deserved. one of those unforeseeable consequences. anyway, i knew i shouldn't be rattled by some highfallutin' ho, but i just can't help it sometimes. violence is bad, but that would have been a classy way to leave law school. if you're gonna pick up battery charges, that's the way to do it. this isn't a violence against women thing. this is somebody who needs to be taken down a peg. so, while i didn't get to physically deck her, i hope she realized she got theoretically backhanded during the course of the class. she raised her hand and gave some asinine answer at one point. i got called on (way to wear a bright orange shirt, jackass, real easy to lay low in that) and rose to the occasion. turns out i did get it, go figure. while my school day was bookended by some bullshit, i must say i had a bitchin good time between classes. crackin some jokes, fuckin around on the web, gettin some dank cheesesteaks, talking about starting a band where our buddy with verbal diarrhea just talks over some lame jams. my buddy met the challenge (i did not suggest this) of navigating from "jesus" to "anal sex" in wikipedia using only links. the original strategy was to get from jesus to romans to greeks to anal sex, but it didn't quite work out, some dead ends at caligula, surprisingly. winning strategy: jesus to people named jesus to fictional people named jesus to lebowski to pederast to anal sex. other recent law school highlights: case where the issue was "what is chicken?" (no, not about kfc, about imports/exports and germans), the word "reconnoitering". it is a real word; spell check did not even mark it.
so i left law school feelin a little down about the exam. i just wanted to go home. so when i was at the stop past where i got on, i transferred over to the express train which happened to be at the same stop when i got there. it goes to where i was headed, just with fewer stops. so i get on and they announce the next stop, which i know from staring at in-subway transit maps that the express does not stop at. i am confused, and the subway is going even more underground than normal. the stop we are at is a stop i go through every day but it is not the way i know it looks. this is a problem. i am confused, but i don't immediately bail because hey, maybe i just didn't understand the map or something. no. i am on the weird spur of the line, headed to nowhere i want to go. so i got off at the next stop someplace i have never been. unfortunately there is no compelling drama to relate; i sort of knew where i was after walking a couple blocks and just had to walk a ways and lose my free transfer. i made it back alright, but i was feeling less than thrilled. fortunately my sister called and invited me for dinner. it was fajitas. i felt a lot better for a while. she also got me beef jerky the other day and pointed me toward achewood. she is good to me. i wonder how things would be if i had gone to new orleans instead. no way to know.
the other day i saw a big pile of tiny jigsaw puzzle pieces on the sidewalk. i imagine someone dropping the box and looking down and thinking aw, fuck it. i mean, this is doable, but really, is it worth it? do i want to bother? seems like way more trouble than it is worth. even if i get all the pieces together, am i going to take the time to put it together? did i already do this one? basically, this is how i feel about my current life situation.

get your slack on

no, not your slacks. slacks usually imply one will somewhat ironically not be slacking. although this is not always the case. a buddy of mine showed up at school wearing suit pants (kinda like slacks, especially this particular pair) and it was mostly as a direct result of slacking and thereby running out of other suitable pants options. but i feel like i've been slacking here, sorry. i was gonna type up some shit last night, but i wound up on the phone with mando for a long time and that was way sweeter for me. and honestly, i looked a list of shit i had considered writing about here, and it was kind of shitty (no spell check mark on that). not that it matters anyway, since most of what i type on this is shit that results from extended rambling based in some sketchy ideas. but anyway, on the slacking front, i have recently begun to enjoy two great time killers: online networking and a good web comic. i got a facebook (marked, thank god) page so i could check out some pictures. that was worth it. i'm just hoping i don't get sucked into sitting around on it all day, which is one reason why a touch and go internet connection is sometimes an o.k. (won't take ok or okay, what is o.k. supposed to be an abbreviation for?). managed to find a workable non-name after a bit of wrangling. i don't understand why it gives you so much shit about what you make your name; one could easily make up a passable name of john smith or anything really, so why not just let me be metal if that is what i want to be? more people could probably find me that way as it is. isn't this supposed to be a networking thing for people who go to school? aren't a lot of people better known by nicknames as it is? ah well, what's done is done. the other great distraction in web comic form is achewood. i really can't believe i didn't get into it sooner; my sister had even showed it to me before. i guess i wasn't as actively looking for something to distract and entertain me then as i am now. anyway, it is pretty fucking sweet, and if you haven't already checked it out, you should. takes a little time to get into it, but the page is set up nice so that you can read a couple of story arcs to get what is going on (i recommend "the great outdoor fight" as a starting point, as good as any i guess) or you can read the wikipedia article, which is really pretty helpful. if you've checked it out before and didn't get into it, maybe you should give it another go like i did. if you have been into it already and dig it, we should talk about how great it is some time.
other than that, i don't have a whole lot in the way of major updates to offer. i'm still in law school and it still sucks ass, but for the time being i am in "feel like this is a doable thing" mode", for no particular reason; i didn't exactly spend all weekend working on things. which is not to say that i didn't put in some hours, but as always, feels like there is more to do. earlier in the week, the travails of school led one of my buddies to explore the possibilities of mixing whiskey with all he had available, namely, tea. if you haven't ever had a whiskey and tea, well, let's just say you don't have to bother. this is not a good thing to drink at all. he had a handle of banker's club, and i already had to drink that straight once as a result of school, and i don't know if that is better or worse. during one of my more intense stretches during this past week, i was reading about the waterboarding debate while i should have been doing something else, probably paying attention. but i thought to myself, shit, i would rather be waterboarded than do this school thing straight up. if law school is legal, i guess it just isn't fair to rule out waterboarding. but once again, i am paying to be waterboarded. and i don't even have any information to confess. on the brighter side of things, i did discover that work-study funding is available for first summer law school bullshit jobs, which is great because all i knew thus far is that they were pretty much all unpaid. it isn't totally encouraging, but on the other hand i am glad it is possible for me to maybe be a research assistant or something and get enough money to hopefully live meagerly on. my buddy had an interview with merck or someshit already, and i'm glad i don't have to think about that. as if it wasn't bad enough that they're a huge pharmaceutical company, they are even currently making headlines for being egregiously shitty for marketing vioxx and more or less killing a bunch of people. with the shit i'm doing in criminal law right now, it is a wonder that actual people within the corporation haven't been formally charged with some sort of homicide crime. school, for all of my problems with it, has helped to bring into relief the fact that i still have some serious deep-seated moral and ethical positions. like not working for the united states government, which unfortunately precludes me from working a bunch of what would otherwise be pretty excellent and interesting gigs. social justice is a fairly unattainable end to valiantly strive for, but shit, even i've got some standards. so it goes. i'm still willing to give it a go round for the time being. i recently discovered that paul simon went to law school. extremely briefly. things worked out pretty decent for that dude. unfortunately i do not possess overwhelming songwriting talent as far as i am aware.
today was pretty good, featuring the return of quizzo. we sneaked (spell check takes sneaked but not snuck, confused about that, always thought it was snuck) into second in the last round after a fairly dismal outing. there was some controversy, but at the end of the day we walked out with another gift certificate. and i personally walked out with a couple of the mystery prizes from the bonus round at the end from being the first to answer the name of the bi-monthly publication of the jehovah's witnesses and the name of daria's sister (watchtower society and quinn, respectively, if you were curious). took a good walk earlier in the day and did a little bit of grocery gettin', no cart this time. unfortunately i will still have to go pick up a bigass thing of cat litter sometime soon; didn't realize we were gonna take the trolley back or i probably would have grabbed up on one today. ah well, i can always use a walk and the exercise it entails. what i don't think i could use is a three hour criminal law session in the morning, but that is what i have to look forward to for now. the waterboarding thing is sounding like not such a bad option again.

blog review

i went back and found a couple of my favorite posts, and both of them were fairly recent. what really struck me was no one commented. c'mond, those were the best!! low spark of high heeled boys from early october and dumpster derby from a couple weeks ago. that was some of the most worthwhile shit i've had to say. other than having my cats occupy a tiny baby kittens section if they lived in the zoo, of course. yeah, this is my second thoughtless post today. life is kind of slow if you don't want to hear about hockey and. more law school. or how great neil young's 'harvest' album is. res ipsa loquitor. it is not my responsibility to enlighten you about that if you don't know.

readin' and briefin'

in a drunken state, and i'll be briefin' my cases from here to hell's gate. well, i don't know about all that and i usually wait to drink until after briefing is finished, but sometimes i wonder if some things would make more sense if i didn't wait. is it worse to recognize psychological cycles than to simply endure them unknowingly? because i've only been at this thing for a couple months but it already seems to have a definite pattern swing between despair and confidence with the same detours and incidentals along the way. i guess it would be better if at the peak i actually liked what i was doing or thought that it was a means to a particular desired end. if lawyering is anything like law school, no amount of money would be sufficient to keep me doing this kind of shit. i'm sure there are significant differences; i just wonder how strong the commonalities are. all of which begs the question of why, if i wouldn't be compensated to go through something like this, would i pay someone else to put me through it? sheer masochism? i don't think so. no, the issue here is that i didn't fully grasp what i was signing up for, and that's my bad. i have come to the realization that i am psychologically incapable of walking away at this point. my notions of how other people would perceive it if i did quit play a role, but i think really that is mostly me projecting my own feelings outside of myself. i could not continue to exist as a similar person, and so rather than endure that pain i stick with what i've got. and that is the only viable option at this point; i don't have any great ideas about what else i should be doing to further myself. one of the most important things i have learned, to put it simply, is how the smallest parts of our personal realities are dictated by possibilities we can and cannot think for a wide variety of reasons. i feel like this is a reality i have some how consciously foreclosed to myself, which is an odd result because normally if something can't be real-ized by an individual it is because they literally cannot think it. i've thought about saying fuck it all, but i really do not believe i could do that without widespread ramifications to my own personhood.
blah, blah, what a load of shit. i don't know why i'm not deleting it.
especially since i now typed it over a day ago. oh well. i still hate law school, but let's have some good news. i had a go in the proverbial hot seat (no, not keyboardist for the dead) in torts the other day. i didn't think much of it other than the fact that my stay was rather extended. i felt alright about it. but a lot of people commented to me later that i had handed it to the prof. i still don't know about all that, but i will say that it felt really good to hear other people have nice things to say. it doesn't really matter what they think and it is kind of pathetic to care, but i can't help it for some things. a good chunk of my identity involves other people regarding me as intelligent (which probably relates to the psychological inability of not finishing this hell ride i attempted to articulate above and my perceived need for academic forays that led me to where i am now) and landing someplace where people do not know anything about me except how i look made me more insecure than usual. thus, this was a welcome experience. but that was a week ago, and life moves fast. torts today brought a practice exam. i feel pretty damn decent about it, but the level of feedback to be expected is unclear, ranging from "ungraded" to "check, check plus, check minus, maybe a 'see me' if there is some issue requiring particular discussion.." well whatever. i wrote it; it's done with now.
i'm worried that i am getting old. over the weekend a got a call from my brother when i was in bed and he was having a hell of a good time in chicago. the hour difference is one thing, but he called me again at like four something my time (didn't pick that one up). it is one thing to be asleep when someone calls and miss it, it is another to be lying awake in bed when the phone rings. well, i guess it was just one night. and i'm glad he was having a good time seeing one of my favorite bands for his first time. he was probably the happiest person in the whole crowd; only one digging the opener (clutch) and the headliner (coheed and cambria). no one has offered a satisfactory logical explanation for this touring combo. in fact, the snack food known as combos is probably better thought out, with more pleasure per penny perhaps. by the time the tour makes it to philly i'll probably need to save that thirty bucks i could spend on a ticket to buy enough peanut butter and bread to feed myself for exams. which means i'll have no booze money during exams, which means i will undoubtedly lose my mind. whoever visits me in the institution first can have my records; they're not gonna let me out.
cash concerns coupled with other logistical problematics kept me from making it to the railroad earth show this past weekend. it was at some venue that has, like many places throughout the country, become "the fillmore". i want to know why the fuck that happened, and if bill graham is rolling in his grave. i wonder if his estate had a claim on the name. it just seems ridiculous to call venues in denver and detroit "the fillmore". what's next, a winterland in indianapolis and orlando? the greek theater at bowling green university? i would really like to see the marketing data regarding the name change for all these venues now calling themselves the fillmore. i would suspect that it hasn't made a huge difference just yet, but i'd be very curious if it does have an effect over the long term. someone probably got paid for that shit, and i would wager clear channel fits in there some place too (did they just get bought by something else?). anyway, railroad earth is a solid band, look into that. as with just about any band i get into, they have copious offerings on the live music archive. they usually get sold a little short as a bluegrass band, because that is the backbone of what they do, but i see them as an americana kind of act because they work in a lot of other stuff as well. think old wilco with bluegrass instead of country as a springboard. speaking of which, i still can't get enough of this uncle tupelo show. in the tradition of admonishing people to download things they won't, this show has been on etree forever and still has like seven seeders; you could probably download it in fairly short order. the sound is incredible, direct into a dat from the soundboard. i still don't always follow all of the notations in a show's (spell check marks a possessive for show?!) recording and conversion, but i can tell you that much.
picked up a new beer today, really hoppy amber from magic hat, called roxy something, don't have the bottle at hand. damn good. this is the second amber/ipa love child i've come across, and i hope the trend continues. troegs makes the other one i've had, hop nectar or something like that. the nice thing is that rather than just getting bashed in the mouth with cascade grapefruit, the hops not only seem to be better thought out, but the malty character inherent in amber stylings (spell check also does not think that is a word, but will accept the singular) provides a more nuanced and satisfying balance to big league hops.
so after much badgering from one of the few people i would let get away with it combined with other purported benefits i have attempted to sign up for the face book. i have not been successful just yet. is that shit really gonna shake my real name out of me? i'm more leery than a reader's digest subscribing senior citizen about putting my name on the internet. it will probably be just one more reason why i'll never get a decent job. i go through enough effort being vague on here, in my backwater corner of the interweb (spell check still marks that, but for how long?).
speaking of jobs, as always... i attended a "panel discussion" of pathways to a career in international law today. it was comforting to see the diversity of approaches people could take, but on the other hand it was just some people talking about what they do. and what they do is pretty sweet and all that, but knowing what someone else does for a living doesn't really help anyone else get a job. (break time) awwww dip dip dip dip dip dip dip dip boom boom boom boom boom boom get a job, sha na na na, sha na na na na na na. still the best of doo-wop if you ask me. (spell check marks doo but not wop; is that the spelling for the ethnic slur against italians? doesn't mark whop either... or any other racial epithets i tried, apparently they don't need capitalization). anyway, illustration has no inherent value to others. my only conclusion was that the turkish woman was smoking hot, confirmed even by a good straight female peer. and there was free pizza. was poppin' some pills and all the alcohol was free (gratis? oo, also not marked by spell check). wait, that last part is not true. would that it were. they owe me at this point. fuck free ipods, schools should give out free psychoactive compounds as part of scholarship packages. "we are pleased to offer you the leary fellowship, full tuition and ten thousand mics of bear's finest" until then, i guess i'll compile my resume as a set list theorist and hope for the best.

and i missed all the reformation day parties

because i was busy procrastinating. my plan to not have fun instead of work was successful insofar as i did not have fun so much, but i didn't really get the work done i had hoped to. that just meant i had to do it today. which is what was bound to happen, despite my earlier bargain with myself to work thursday on my normal day to have a good time and have a good time on wednesday. at least i got the fun part of that one. but before i get there, i am desperately afraid that my current assignment about libel has permanently warped my appreciation of what may be (or have been?) my favorite dylan tune: idiot wind. "they're printing stories in the press..." and all i can think is libel law. terrible. but i did have a good time on halloween. went down near south street and caught a free outdoor concert/costume contest. the whole day is apparently some event in the neighborhood celebrated as the day of the dead, in many different sense of the word. hence the band was a dead cover band. they were really good; been doing that gig for like ten years. called splintered sunlight, after a lyric in box of rain. these dudes busted out a better feels like a stranger than the actual dead ever did, no joke. the guitarist had the tone thing down to a science, and while no one could ever be jerry, some talented people like this guy can emulate him pretty well, play about on par with a decent 80s show with some great moments. and the dude looked remarkably like midas. spell check did not mark midas. sweet. the costume contest was also truly excellent with obvious time and effort expenditures even beyond pecuniary considerations. my personal favorite was this bizarre giant frankenstein (spell check accepts that if capitalized). this costume was about ten feet tall, and the head was more than four times the size of my torso. and the guy piloting it made it look like he was in a cage the frankenstein was holding onto (and yes i know it is technically "frankenstein's monster"). overall, very credible. i was also amazed by a skeksis costume that looked like it must have been procured in some manner from the actual set of the dark crystal. a well-done marge simpson with an outstanding hair rig won the contest, i believe. lots of other wild shit, trannys handing out fliers, a long conversation with someone dressed up as jesus, which oddly contained almost no discussion of religion, my own uncharacteristic writing on the wall in some bathroom, someone giving a long confession to the guy dressed up as jesus, something i thought was supposed to be a hummingbird introduced as a psychedelic falcon or something. overall, a worthwhile experience which also included a nice evening walk, and i treasure those when i tread new streets. old city was particularly nice; the weather was incredibly comfortable for the occasion.
right now is the time where i have to limit the urge to return to the discussion of lily rosemary and the jack of hearts. i have conducted more research, and have been pleased to find no comprehensive line-by-line analysis. no one really has it pinned down just yet.
i got to walk again this evening and it really helped me get my shit together for what i needed to write tonight. got more done in the two hours after walking and getting dinner and a good beer (surprisingly aggressive variety of red hook ipa) with my sister than i had gotten done in the ten hours i had spent earlier in the day. so go take a walk, it'll be nice.