Merry Jesus-Baby Nativity Day

(That's how Cara put it, anyway). It's been a good Christmas. Particularly in terms of timing: it was pushed back from our usual stockings at 8ish (during college--earlier it was stockings at 6:30) with breakfast thereafter--Eggs Benedict, sausage, bacon, EMD (early morning drinks--Reymus Fizzes in particular), juice, hot chocolate--then the tree by the time noon rolled around. This year, Mom allowed as how Dad would be the arbiter of timing. So I was rousted out of bed at the young hour of 10:45 (having been up until 3:45ish with wrapping and hanging out with Strump and suchwhat), for stockings.

Best. Stocking stuffer. Ever: Nun Bowling. Oh dear god so hilarious. Also, lots of chocolate. This is a good thing.

Other loot included frying pans for my apartment and books and the settlers expansion. And CTA token cufflinks, because that's just kinda awesome. Baron (Strump's dog, for those who don't know, a small rat terrier/manchester terrier mix who is a black hole of spaz) got a Greenie in wrapping paper. He neglected to unwrap it before chowing down on it.

Last night was Christmas Eve (I mean this in terms of the event rather than the date, which ought be obvious to anyone with a calendar or a pair of eyes and a couple brain cells to rub together for sparks), and Captain Erickson and Ben and Taylor came over for dinner (Black tie, business for those under 40--I wore Dad's 'Bah Humbug' tie, which is the lovely old thin burgundy tie with the eponymous words in small cream script repeated all across the tie). Pate and cheeses during the cocktail portion of the evening. For dinner--Crabcakes, Beef Wellington (and mashed potatoes--ironically, the dish I am closest to being responsible for that isn't dessert--and pearled onions), and dessert (homemade bouche de noel, chocolate pecan pie, 'pinecones' (dacquoise meringues stacked with chocolate ganache between and around, and some dressed up in almond slices--hence the name), and chocolate brioche bread pudding). So very very tasty. I hadn't seen the Ericksons more than a couple times (like twice) since Emily's funeral (my godmother, Capt. Erickson's wife, and one of the reasosn I left Sidley) in February, so it was good to see them again in less unhappy circumstances. Fritz (their pouffy white-haired dog, Baron's best friend in the world) came, too, and they hung out while the humans did the same.

We have leftovers for weeks. The garage is cold enough to act as a walk in fridge, which is a damn good thing.

Other than the holiday events, and wrapping (and spending five hours on or about a ladder lighting the upside-down tree that is the centerpiece of Christmas Eve dinner/Christmas breakfast. 1700 lights on that sucker), I've had two days of outings: one to hang out with the lovely Miss Liz Marquez, involving chatting and dinner and watching Love Actually, which is the only modern sappy movie my parents seem to enjoy around Christmas (rather than things involving Bing and Fred and possibly Rosemary Clooney). The other involved going out to the Leesburg outlets with Dad, to lounch (mmm... Sushi. And the Beatles on loop in the background), and then downtown to get the White House Christmas Ornament for Mom (this year's is pretty damn good). Then I went off to my coffee shop in Dupont for a couple hours to work (hah) on story (38.5k words now, but kinda don't know what to do with this section), and eventually off to dancing with Grace and various others. Five hours of dancing so happy (add to that two and a half miles walked with a 20-lb bag on my back, and you might understand how I got home at 3:30 and promptly crashed for as long as they'd let me).

That's pretty much the highlights of break so far.

Merry Christmas to y'all.

No legal quote, because it's break, dammit.

DC and the possibility of a White Christmas

I have survived! Exams are done and I think I may even have done well. But there will be no caring or concerning myself or even thinking about it until grades come out... so... not now, in other words. I have survived, my brains have melted out my ears, I have been excommunicated twice (and twice conquered Christianity in order to be recommunicated--once as France, once as the Holy Roman Empire, which it must be noted as other have is not holy, is not roman, and is no longer an Empire [but in Medieval II: Total War as I'm currently playing it, it stretches from lisbon to bulgar]). There was movie watching and playing through Gears of War II on Bergy's television of grave significance (by which I mean it's fucking gargantuan) and parties and the discovery that various of my friends have cats--which means I might be able to arrange feline playdates next term, because cats are excellent. And on the plane home I ended up talking history and philosophy and stories with a kid of indeterminate age (but pre-undergrad, as he was returning from just having interviewed for admittance to Cambridge--the English one, mind) who was vastly amusing for two hours and change.

And now, I in my harlequin-argyle sweater am sitting in my parents' house in DC doing laundry--rather, waiting for it to be done--so I have clothes for tomorrow, and chatting to people on google and allowing a somewhat heavy grey cat to lie on my lap and arm and purr as I type. I have a bed in what was my old room in which to sleep (it is no longer my room, as there is a new inhabitant who is not currently here but at her parents' house, and it is not my bed, as that is in Chicago), and life is generally lovely. Dad came to pick me up at the airport, and I will likely be seeing Miss Liz Marquez tomorrow for... something, and saturday Grace and I will be going to Remington's for more dancing with gay cowboys (because that's one of the various and sundry things I do).

I leave you, before my battery runs out, witha quote from today's crim exam, for your amusement: 'Wayne gets his kicks by setting off dynamite (assume he is not legally insane).'

Other things that amuse me

http://www.queerty.com/secret-cause-of-global-collapse-found-its-the-gays-20081202/

Also, the webcomic Least I Could Do. I just lost what could have been a fairly productive evening to that.

For your amusement:

It came from Westlaw, so it must actually have been in court:

http://kevinunderhill.typepad.com/Documents/Mayo_v_Satan.pdf

Right...

So, about that whole catching up thing. I guess I failed at it. Clearly, as I'm nearly a month behind. I think I will post my notes for the past few weeks, so you can demand such elaboration as you wish, and then elaborate on a point or two of my own. The following is a transcription, which should give you some ideas as to my mindset/m.o. Parentheticals added later (that is, now) for your clarity.

‘You’re special in your own way, but it’s not clear [that you’re legally unique in your services].’ Professor Nzelibe, concerning the legal uniqueness (which differs from absolute uniqueness, and is thus subject to degrees) and the specific performance of contracts.

Monday (11/3): Contracts Midterm--group affair. getting to Josh's place. Forgetting shit. Meeting Mama Pasquesi. Getting credentials.
Tuesday: pollwatching. Up at 3:25. Partnered with at tax attorney from Mayer Brown. Saving people's votes. Lots of food. Got home in time to hear Obama'd won. Crashed.
Wednesday: date scheduled, GING! (she reappeared), CA fucking up, Bergy w/ beer and rantiness (it was hilarious).
Thursday: DREAM committee meeting (organizing events surrounding MLK Day. I think I'm the sole white law student on the committee--joint NUSL/Med School).
Saturday: practice exam thing. DATE (Bourgeois Pig, wandering about, chatting)!!! Dancing (at Charlie's, the local gay cowboy bar).
Sunday: Meeting Andrew Drummer for [breakfast], pirate show of wtf? (seriously. It was surreal. It was for children, and yet involved a pirate chair dance) Rehearsal (Habeas). Reading, and a failure to outline.
Monday: more rehearsal. Otherwise, not much of significance.
Tuesday: clean house. Classes. Make-up of Redish.
Wednesday: Classes. Mock Interview (with wrong firm researched [unclear whose fault. Went well anyway, and was informative as well as kinda fun]). DATE! (wandering around for a bit, then pasta-cookery and A Fish Called Wanda here in the Eyrie)
Thursday: classes. Guh. Nothing worth mentioning.
Friday: skip CLR cuz useless. Accepted invitation to Thanksgiving at Chez Pasquesi, which Josh thought odd but rather funny (he was to be, and was, in Omaha with his girlfriend). Homesick and general badness and Bourgeois Pig for recuperation. (not the best of weekends, clearly. Lots of angst, as well as a distinct lack of clarity on a few points).
Weekend: Lunch with Ben (Egerman), Prop 8 rally until knees hurt. General suckitude for the rest.
Monday: LOTS of classes--make-up and exam redux. Career Center meeting. Got exam back, more talking to Adam (boy of dates). Whee.
Tuesday: Talk with Kate T over lunch, figured out about Thanksgiving and her visiting.
Wednesday: third date arranged, CLR meeting, DREAM committee meeting, Civ Pro study session for the midterm that wasn't really a midterm.
Thursday: Memo during CLR, Civ Pro 'midterm', working on memo during career night, working out Thanksgiving details. Pechous arriving, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, talking until stupid o'clock in the morning.
Friday: no time for breakfast. Alexis food ftw. Lunch with Pechous, Ellen (cousin) at Puck's in MoCA. Work on memo. Quantum of Solace with Kathy/Craiggers, Josh, Tim, Verity.
Saturday: DATE! (Museuming, walk, sushi at Niu, talk of quasi-solidified). Margaret's b-day affair, whereat I forced Michelle (and persuaded others) to dance.
Sunday: memo turn-in, shopping, reading The Man Who Was Thursday (all of it).
Monday: cooking dinner adventure (ask if you're curious--the story's worthwhile, but not being told here. It was an adventure, but mostly a comedy of errors on my part). Also, the sweet potato chili is a good option for those who like chili but not potatoes.
Tuesday: scheduling date. Cleaning apartment. Swearing at lightbulbs.
Wednesday: Kate no-show. Pechous/Teagle show (at 12:30ish). Fisher King. Again, staying up until stupid o'clock.
Thursday: Buses and trains and vans, oh my! (Thanksgiving Chez Pasquesi, which will be a post of its own at some point soonly).
Friday: tortellini and interrogation by famille Pasquesi, DATE! (Thai food, Blackadder in the Eyrie).
Saturday: non-day. The Name of the Rose
Sunday (today): similar, but with property reading.

So, yes. There is what happened in November, in a better outline form than I have for any of my classes (fortunately, I have others' outlines, and am boiling them down to checklists, because while I am bad at this, I'm not completely stupid). I am greatly indebted to Mr. Pechous for keeping me in reading material, and Miss Julia for keeping me only as insane as I am naturally wont to be. Similarly, the mail had better arrive with what I was told was sent me, so I can in turn send it on with a Thank-you note (despite the wine having already been drunk at Thanksgiving). Soon starts exams--Wednesday is the last day of classes, and the 6th is my contracts exam. That ends the 18th, at which point I fly home and sleep for a day or two, I suspect. So I may continue to fail at blogging (but hey--I'm doing loads better than I had on LJ, so you can't all complain. And if you're ever curious what I'm up to, you can always call or e-mail me. It is, in fact, encouraged regardless)

And since I don't have any entertaining case quotes for you, I'll instead throw one out from The Name of the Rose, lent me by Messr. Peshew: "The magic of mirrors is such that even when you know they are mirrors they still upset you."

Non-Chronological

Squee. That is all.

So Far Behind...

In life as in my blog. Another Redish quote to start with (concerning slavery, and the only amendment to the constitution to limit private, rather than state entities): 'Why did they fight the civil war? It was in all the papers...'

Anyway, I'm WAY behind on this, to the point where details have gotten a bit sketchy here and there. So (fortunately, you're probably all thinking), I'll be somewhat less long-winded than usual.

So, Saturday (not this past one, but the week before's) didn't contain much of interest, as I spent the greater part of the day working on my memo. That evening, I met up with Verity, Josh, Kathy and her boyfriend (from out of town) Craig after they got back from going to an NU football game. I got there at the time they had said we'd meet--they didn't arrive for another half-hour ish, so I wandered around and talked to Blair for a while. The bar was fun, a whole bunch of Kathy's friends showed up at some point. We took the El back down, and walked back from the station.

Sunday involved finishing up my memo and studying with Matt. McClurg--despite the minor heat wave we had going on--had turned its AC to heat, so my apartment was ridiculously hot with no way to cool it down. As a result, Sunday night I got two and a half hours of sleep (this including the hour I got for skipping Contracts (and Property, too, as I wasn't about to get called on with so little sleep). On the upside, I figured out how to work my story's title into the story itself.

Monday, I went to the habeas rehearsal, and it was good. Got to Civ Pro, opened up my laptop, and watched the broken LCD screen go Jackson Pollock on me... and then the upper half of the screen reduplicate itself on the lower half all twitchy like . Fortunately, I managed to e-mail my files to myself before the laptop completely fucked itself. It really wasn't a good day. I got out of class, headed straight out to call and see what could be done (my sainted sister volunteered, despite our being in the argument equivalent of a small cold war, to send me hers). Fortunately, Matt picked up my iPod and made damn sure it got returned to me, because that might have been precisely the end of the world. I wandered around until the panel on Trans Rights (it was OUTLaw week), and got some food there, and laughed when people asked me how I was. That night I spent an hour and a half unsuccessfully on the phone with HP, who evidently thought that--due to the newness of my laptop, and something they never told me--I was trying to scam them in some capacity, but they weren't telling me, just saying that my warranty didn't exist.

Tuesday was law school the old fashioned way--pen and legal pad (courtesy of Sidley). It was an interesting experience, but not one that I'm necessarily excited to repeat. I probably took more and better notes for not having the distractions available to me by using a laptop, but... those notes are now somewhere in the morass that is my apartment. After classes, Kathy loaned me her laptop for use until Strump's arrived. There was also an OUTLaw panel, whose topic I cannot immediately recall. Various of my band of lovable idiots got together in the library that evening to go over stuff for property. I got more shit hung on my walls (this could be a never ending process.

Classes. Whee. Used Kathy's laptop. Returned it that evening because Strump's arrived in the mail (I have mentioned that my sister is a saint, right?) That evening, there was the debate in the atrium, which featured excellent food (fortunately I was in the part of the line that got some) and incredible chocolate. I ignored the debate and alternated between studying property and hanging out with Michelle and Dave Van der Laan. After the debate, Matt and Bev and I all headed over to O'Toole's for a while.

Thursday. Classes (I know, right?). There was some minor fun in getting strump's laptop hooked up to the internet at school, but that was accomplished at the cost of being five minutes late to CLR. That was the beginning of the process of my getting screwed for a partner for the open memo in CLR (in the end, a good thing, but galling nevertheless). In the evening, there was the sponsor's meeting for OUTLaw week, which was cool, after which a whole crowd of us went to the Soup Box to eat dinner quickly before heading up to Bar Review (my second), which was at Spin. Michelle and I ducked out around 11, intending to quickly return home for the purpose of work and/or sleep, and we would have done it too (if not for those meddling kids), except that we both of us were focusing more on my eye candy on the bus than on where we were, so we ended up at 400S (rather than 600N, so a mile and a quarter off from our mark). Fortunately there was an El stop right there so we took the El back. We got home at quarter to one-ish.

Friday. Midterm hell. Crim was cake, and I even did well despite thinking it so (of course... it was a group affair, but as secretary I was kinda in charge, and it also wasn't graded). Then there was CLR (which I skipped to do my citation exercises), then the Gender Blender (which was hilarious, including an M1 drag queen performing and a panel that effectively tested people's gaydar--I was 5/7). Then there was the property midterm, which was one of the less pleasant mental experiences of my life. I went home and crashed after that. That week went a good way toward killing me.

Saturday was spent largely lying in bed recovering from the week. I started reading Hal Duncan's Ink, which I'm about halfway through now (having only read bits of it since), and which is as interesting and better written--if still consciously pleased with itself and its writing style--than the prior book, Vellum. I need to read Prometheus Bound at some point, because of these books. Sunday was housecleaning and reading. I have no recollections currently of the monday. Clearly nothing important happened. Tuesday I got my computer sent off to HP to get them to unfuck it.

Wednesday I voted during lunch--it was cool. I walked about 15 minutes west on Chicago and found the building and wandered around inside until I found signage directing me to the polling place. Voted (for all the right people), got my 'DO NOT REPORT TO THE POLLS ON NOV. 4' receipt, and went to Civ Pro afterward. After class the dean held her Conversations with Sue thing, which was entertaining. Chilled with her for a while, then went to the Libe to accomplish the quasi-bullshit research project. We finished that, and it was good.

I have no recollection of Thursday and Friday, so therefore nothing except the research presentations happened. Whee. No. Friday afternoon I took my camera out for a spin after discovering the black and white mode. I had some fun with that (eventually there will be a pic post), and got a good walk in.

Saturday was memo research, and then four hours of dancing. I wasn't /quite/ steaming by the time the El came, but close. Got waltzed by an exceedingly cute guy, and had some excellent swing dances with two of the few women in the place (one of whom teaches classes there). I was multiply encouraged to go to a class on mondays, just to go dancing. I think I'm going to have to at some point. Because dancing is fun. Got home late (early).

Sunday was research and reading of cases. And for classes. And at 12:30 AM monday morning (earlier than their initial estimate of when the drive-by would occurr--3 or 4), my mother and Strump appeared outside McClurg in the van, dropped off my halloween costume, my snake lamp (now known as the Bastard Snake Lamp), as mentioned in my prior non-chronological post.

Monday was more classes, and for whatever reason I was antsy and restless--or upset about something--but whatever it was, I can't recall. So I took a walk. I think I covered about seven miles in a bit less than and hour and a half. It was very nice, and relaxing, and frigid. I managed somehow to keep my hands warm by alternating which held the iPod and which was in my pocket. Michelle and I had agreed that I would call her at a certain point in order to meet up with her for the Diwali Dinner that a couple of groups were holding in the med school. It was fun, and the Indian food was quite damn good, enough that Michelle and I tolerated having our seats stolen by a group of unrepentantly obnoxious med students. Went home afterward, read, slept.

Tuesday, I was fortunate in that I had read thoroughly for property, as I found myself on call for the entire period, excepting one question to Matt, after which he switched back to me. It was a rather hardcore experience, even though it was probably easier for me than it has been for many of my classmates, insofar as the questions directed at me were not based on the cases but rather on abstract theory-type notions (philosophy finally pays off!). There were also about five minutes of questions on amenities in apartments, and twenty minutes of 'Art Day' during which time Cameron had fun drawing all sorts of things. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it wasn't roses and rainbows, either.

Wednesday I went during lunch on a failed attempt to secure portions of my costume (wig, which ended up never happening, and fake beards both for me and for Josh, which I ended up getting and then not using myself), but failed because I misunderstood Josh as far as where the costume store was located). I also made some damn good taco gunk that night for dinner (that's a Kidney family term of art, if you didn't know). That evening, I made a trek down LaSalle to find the actual location of a costume shop, and got the beards that were needed.

Of Thursday, I have no recollection--nothing must have happened. Friday, though, was Halloween. I went to the circus almost immediately after class, down in Daly Plaza. Before I did, however, I made the final purchases necessary for my costume: a cross. I went to a cathedral, and found that due to their renovations, the store was closed and would be open on saturdays. Not helpful. They directed me to the Moody Bible Institute, to which I went and found myself in a quietly fundy-type store with all sorts of very nice, quietly judgmental Christian ladies who looked askance at me in general (iPod and not enough clothing for the cold, they thought). I walked, reveling in the irony of the whole situation, up to the counter and politely asked to see their cheapest cross. I ended up with a nice silver-metal deal, with fleur-de-lys ends and inset red glass in each leg. It looked good and just gaudy enough to work for the costume.

Then I went to the circus. The fountain had orange food coloring in it and was all kinds of special. The Midnight Circus was giving free performances, and the audience was filled with kids. It was a minorly acrobatic, minorly comedic affair--like a poor man's Cirque without fire or water and only limited musical innovation (the DJ was kinda cute, though, as were various of the performers). It was a good time. Then I went back to my apartment and dithered around for a bit (reading, in other words), and got dressed to go up to Adair's Halloween party/belated birthday party for Sue.

The walk to the El was an interesting sociological experience: I was in red robes, a black heavy cape, with a cross around my neck and iPod headphones in my ears. Pretending not to see people's odd looks was entertaining, because there were lots of them. On the El up, I had to repeatedly explain to people who Richelieu was, which was not quite unexpected, but still somewhat disheartening (and proof of how much of a dork I am). It was about a mile from the El to Adair's, and I built in far more time than I needed in terms of getting lost and stuff, so after many children missing the cross and exclaiming 'Wizard!' in my wake (and a few 'bless me father, for I have sinned')--and seeing such costumes as one decent Joker and an incredible Carmen SanDiego. I helped Adair and her friend finish the cake and wait for people to arrive. The party was great fun, and there were pictures taken and cake eaten and my costume proved highly entertaining. Eventually Sue decided we should all go to a dyke bar, and so we proceeded to T's, and passed the remainder of the night there.

Saturday and Sunday, except for a brief dinner and lamp assembly visit by my mother and sister on their way back through Chicago to Dc, were devoted uninterestingly to my CLR open memo. Whee. Now, being only a week behind, I'm going to put this one up and start another post so you all don't drown in words.

"The issue is, what is chicken?" 190 F.Supp. 116 (S.D.N.Y. 1960)

Two Quick Things (Current but not chronological)

First: yay dancing! I have a pinpoint blister on my right foot, but it was so worth it. It's possible I was steaming (literally) on my walk back to the El last night from Charlie's, after four hours of dancing. The songs were really fast, by and large, which was awesome. And I got waltzed by a rather cute boy (and danced with a few others besides). And have been strongly encouraged by several parties to go to their monday class/free dancing thing. Not this week, but soon.

Second: holy shit my family is crazy. They're driving to Milwaukee, and have a whole bunch of shit for me (movies, but no books; halloween costumes; a kickass lamp I left at home because it was heavy and fragile both--it's now known, evidently, as "The Bastard Snake Lamp," where formerly it was merely the snake lamp; and a shitton of paper I don't know about, it seems). They left DC at 1ish, and got stuck in traffic. And they're dropping this stuff off with me and then continuing on from here without stopping.

Their E.T.A.? 3-4 AM.

Holy shit. I'm so screwed. This will be hilarious.

So, about that Part Three...

I got delayed by a week from hell. So. I'd just finished friday (the friday two? weeks ago, done friday before last).

New feature: professorial quote of the post. Professor Redish (Civ Pro): ‘In the case of Grant v. Lee, the Federal government won.’

Saturday, I got up and went to the 'after party' for the SFPIF (Students Fund for Public Interest Fellowship or something like that) 5k fun run--appropriately called The Paper Chase. We sang--the same things we had sung the night before--and Max showed up and got introduced around a bit. We left, had lunch, went shopping (I brought out my inner gay man and helped suit Max up. It was fun. Also got myself a nice shirt for $15), and went back to their hotel. I went home for a while, finished my (late) citation exercises, and at some point I was called and informed that if I wanted to, I too could go to that evening's period ball--the parade down Michigan started at 8.

So I got dressed up in my suit (yay for accidentally stealing from my mother a handkerchief such that i could have a pocket hankie in my suit for evening events) and a red shirt and my leopard tie, and went off in search of ladies and gentlemen of yesteryear (Rachel, Max, and I lowered the average age of the party significantly) in period dress walking down the street. I found them, and even had time to wait a few minutes in the brisk evening air admiring the costumes (holy shit the costumes, and the hats. Oh, and the feathers. Dear god the feathers--so many, so BIG. Think Texas in empire waists) before Max and Rachel came out. Miss Carroll was fantastic in her dress, and Max looked good in what we'd agreed he ought wear. When they did, I joined them in the parade which wound for a whole two blocks round to and down Michigan Avenue and back the same way--stopping traffic and gathering a crowd. Max got called out by one of the organizers for never having read Miss Austen's work--Thanks to Dessie, I've read much of P&P (I need to go back and reread it at some point. Like, actually finish it this time), so I could honestly say that I had indeed read the woman's work when I was interrogated next. Then we were back inside and it was too hot and we met Rachel's guardian angel who had arranged for her menfolk to join her at the ball. She was very cool, though I cannot recall her name, and we four spoke a great deal in between rounds of English Dancing (to them, it's merely country dancing--but we already know what that signifies to me). It's kinda like square dancing in that it's not partnered and it's called. So the remainder of the night passed that way, except for interludes such as being swept up by one of the instructor-ladies (most of which instructors, incidentally, were Fermilab physicist types, just to continue the trope of physicist-dancers) for a dance, or watching a charming gentleman propose to his lady-friend using phrases such as 'you pierce my soul' and watching the female crowd swoon in response.

Afterward, we retired for hanging out to their hotel, and there was consumption of leftovers from Rachel's lunch (mmmm... prosciutto on pizza). Finally, Max and I tried to get his CD burner to work as Changeling is a fucking huge file (it didn't, alas, and so I am still without), and Rachel changed into one of the bathrobes they so dearly wanted to steal--with jewelry still on. It was hilarious, and so thoroughly classy. So, that was saturday. I went home with various things, including a lovely little blue dragon curled around a stack of quarters and a card from many of the folks who read this (and an office-supply dragon courtesy of Miss Teagle). ::grin:: more things for me to get framed at some point--in the meantime, there will be more scattered dragons around the Eyrie.

Sunday started off with lunch--Max and I met at Borders (Bad Max. Making enter the den of won--I mean, iniquity. Making me buy shiny things), where I bought Poison Study (fantastic), and Ink (sequel to Vellum, and better, but both are still weird books. I like them, but they're more thought-provoking than they are good as far as plot/story/coherence go--the plots are there, but as overlaid and as hard to individually discern as strokes of oil paint on an impressionist canvas). That was my book budget for the Sept/Oct. So, yes. Books. Whee. Then we wandered around, and went through every store in the mall where we were to have lunch (slim pickings for those without huge amounts of disposable income and years more than we possibly had combined. Or children. There were stores fro children, too, in this mall). This all while waiting for Rachel to be done with her thing. She eventually showed, and we all proceeded into Baisi Thai for their lunch buffet that doesn't, evidently, run on Sundays. So we had their normal food. And Rachel told us about how she had met Mr. Darcy, or at least the actor who will be playing him in the upcoming musical of P&P. And evidently he's gorgeous and with a voice to match his appearance. And evidently I surprised Rachel's handler (she had made mention of how I was looking for my Mr. Darcy, and the handler asked 'surely she meant I was looking for my Lizzie', to which Rachel responded, no, he's looking for his Darcy. Oh.). I find this mildly hilarious. In any event, we got fed, it was good, and hilarious, and fun to have them around, and by doing so dragged me out of my previous week's funk, which was good. They got themselves out of their hotel, and drove me back to my place so I didn't have to walk through the rain umbrellaless, and that was the weekend (working doesn't make for good blogging, clearly).

Monday, we didn't have rehearsal, which was nice--allowed me to get a free lunch with the democrats, and started a chain of events that led to last week's being sheer unadulterated hell (it's all democracy's fault, I've decided--incidentally, if you're in CA, vote no on Prop. 8. If you're not, and have spare disposable income, consider giving some money to noonprop8 orgs. It's important): I signed on to be a pollwatcher for Dan Seals' congressional campaign. After classes were over, I went looking for Michelle because we were going back to her place and she was going to introduce me to Brothers & Sisters. While doing so, I was delighted to find that there was free thai food in the atrium. It was delicious. And we watched B&S, and chatted, and it was good times. And then I went home and worked more. Went to sleep early.

Tuesday. Tuesday we found out that our lovely property professor had decided we when we were going to have our midterm--the following friday (ie. three days back--yet more of my week from hell). At three in the fucking afternoon. Who does that? Oh--and he knew about our crim midterm--in class, on the same day. Granted, the latter midterm was a group exercise and ungraded to boot, but even so. Cruel and unusual and not at all surprising from this man. Anyway... /rant. There was a debate party that evening, involving pizza (I was one of few to be there early enough to get pizza. Jade and I went back to her place to actually watch the debate. And completely failed to work, besides that (even though we'd planned to pretend to). She fed me naan and tomato soup, which were delicious.

Wednesday. The day shit started going wrong. Well, sorta. Anyway, after classes, went to the library t0 work, mainly because Matt and Josh were going to as well so we could all go to the pollwatcher training as a group. So we hung out and studied (mostly the latter, actually), and left when it was about time to do so, and went to get sandwiches because Josh had been raving about these chicken gyros things with honey mustard sauce rather than tzatziki. He lied about the honey mustard, and made us late by having gone to get them (clearly this makes it his fault, despite our all having bought food). Pollwatcher training was interesting, and made me glad I decided on a whim to do it. And on the way back, we took the bus. Instead of the Red Line. I regret this, because as I was turning around to sit down, the bus driver started quickly--as they are wont to do--and my bag did as objects tend to when made to by centripetal forces: it swung around me and slapped into a pole just right to (I later found out) crack my LCD screen in a progressively more problematic and Jackson Pollock-esque fashion. So I spent two hours on the phone to HP getting them to see what could be done. This night's work was completely ineffectual except that it seems to have made them decide that I was trying to pull some kind of fraud over on them, as I later found out they flagged my ticket--despite proving that I had bought their $300 I-can-jump-on-my-laptop-and-you'll-replace-it warranty--which meant a box simply wasn't gonna get shipped out to me to get this all fixed.

Thursday was good. I called Mimsi again, as wednesday had been her birthday and I'd been forced to merely leave her a message, and we talked on my way back from getting new ID (I'm now officially an Illinoisan, and am impressed by how efficient their DMV is). Evidently she'd been a pollwatcher, too, and my mother besides. And we chatted about other things, including her seeing Chicago at some point. She evidently hasn't been here in ages (this is less surprising to find out than that I had been to Chicago before my father ever had). I bought picture frames (more, yes, I know.), and went home to call the place Jimmy recommended me about a haircut. And was asked when--that day--I wanted it. So, at 4:00ish, I set out again to go get my ears lowered. It was interesting. The guy was old and genially cranky, and was an honest to god barber. I have now had the back of my neck and sideburns done by straight razor--which itself was worth the cost, aside from being a fairly good haircut (I needed to trim a few things here and there myself, but... I've survived and didn't fuck up enough as to cause any comments, so, yeah). The evening consisted of a massive load of laundry and the abandoning of my leaking bottle of detergent to the laundry room so it wouldn't turn more of my closet's carpet blue.

Friday was the school's celebration of National Coming Out Day (which was actually saturday, but since there were no classes... yeah), which meant there was a big gay table in the atrium with buttons and skittles (taste the rainbow, bitches) and pamphlets and the Ask A Gay Box (which, sadly, no one used throughout all of OUTLaw week). After classes, various of us hung out with Sue, who was (wo)manning the table. At one point, a couple people from my CLR class asked us (the assembled gays--probably 50% of the out people in the law school at one little table) whether gaydar worked. So, we explained that some people were better at noticing it than others (had better 'dar), and other people... At this point, Bergy walked up. In aviator glasses, with a white bandana tied around his head as a headband, and a women's leopard print jacket. And was so flaming that we all just stopped explaining gaydar and how it works because, well... Bergy said it all just by existing. And there was much laughter.

From here, we proceeded to gay up campus in preparation for OUTLaw week by putting up rainbow colored posters. Bergy and I worked well together, and I mastered the art of looping masking tape with one hand as fast as he could put up posters. It required skill, I must say. After we'd finished, we wandered out, ending up at his place because I wasn't quite starving yet and he was and was therefore going to cook himself a steak. With some kind of Irish whisky and soy sauce glaze steak sauce of his own creation which itself was quite tasty, and would probably be incredible on steak itself. We talked about video games, predominantly, as well as a variety of tangents relating vaguely thereto, and he showed me bits of Assassin's Creed, declaring that I must somehow find a way to play this game (I miss computer games. It means that my nonproductive time is more unproductive because it's spent on minesweeper and hearts and the like, which are significantly less satisfying). After I finished pulling a Des (not a full three hours, but near enough), I went home and ate. Eventually Jimmy poked at me, asking if I were interested in going out with him to Greektown to check out his uncle's bar. Yes, I was. So we met up in the Red Line (which was itself amusing, because I had to watch three trains pass before figure out which one he was on and managing to get us both back on it before the doors closed on us), and went out to the a Blue Line stop (Van Buren, which is significant in what will be another post), and we ended up at Spectrum. I met various of his sisters and his cousin and his aunt, and various other people connected thereto, and Jimmy got me a couple G&Ts for no price on my part (I'm not sure he paid, either, but my protests were silenced by more than just Jimmy). I was made to watch a video about the Hellenic Student's Association by one of his relations, which was kinda funny (and there was a really cute guy doing Greek dancing, which helped). We eventually went--Jimmy, one sister, one friend, and I--to a cafe where we had dessert and greek coffee-drinks. Quite tasty. Lots of chocolate. And then The four of us headed home--I parted ways with them at my stop, and they continued up to Jimmy's place.

At this point, I think I'm going to close out (once again, only about 10 days behind!), and go downstairs to check out a reception I know to be going on. I leave you with a quote from my property textbook from a while back (concerning a hypothetical request from a hypothetical governmental entity to a hypothetical title investigator):

"Gentlemen:

I am in receipt of your letter of the fifth of this month inquiring as to the state of the title prior to the year 1803.

Please be advised that in the year 1803 the United States of America acquired the Territory of Louisiana from the Republic of France by purchase. The Republic of France previously acquired title from the Spanish Crown by conquest. Spain acquired title by virtue of the discoveries of one Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor who had been duly authorized to embark upon his voyage of discovery by Isabella, Queen of Spain. Before granting such authority, Isabella, a pious and cautious woman, obtained the sanction of His Holiness, the Pope. The Pope is the Vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, the only son and heir apparent of God. God made Louisiana."

Part Two (There could be a part three, but I might catch fully up in this post)

Monday (not this past one, the one before it--I'm a week behind, remember?) wasn't anything terribly special, that I recall. The most interesting bit about it was a sanity walk around town in the late evening, including--among other destinations--the end of Navy Pier (it was nicely cold, and there was a stiff breeze which was good, too). Probably two miles, maybe three, all told. Tuesday was similarly uneventful. Civ Pro was canceled because our prof--Redish, again--was "in New York to watch the ball drop" for the Jewish New Year. I started rereading The Lions of Al-Rassan, which was at least as excellent as I remembered it being. Wednesday, again no Civ Pro. Had lunch with Verity at Wow Bao (which, as Max said, serves bao--shock, I know--and is excellent). Met with Sam to go over our presentation for Crim (5-min between us for prosecution summational arguments of a case topical to the day's subject--Impossibility). Finished rereading Guy Gavriel Kay's abovementioned book.

Thursday was uneventful during the day--class. Whee. That evening, though, Habeas had its traditional 'Oh shit we've got a concert tomorrow' rehearsal. Three hours in Sarah Kalameris' apartment (which has awesome acoustics, and a really cute hyperactive mutt named Bisi), singing and drinking and horsing around with other members of Habeas. It was generally hilarious. I got Sarah to commit to arranging Li'l Red Riding Hood (for which solo I will definitely be auditioning, possibly with an edge due to my knowing the song rather well and having been the one to suggest its being arranged. After we finished--and got things sounding REALLY good, particularly given that one of our members had joined us for the first time that evening (we needed another tenor, and he picked shit up quite damn fast)--we watched the TiVo'd VP debate, playing Sarah Palin bingo. If the witch had said 'good guys', I would have won. Bisi kept trying to trample my bingo card. It was a good night.

Friday was Sam's and my presentation--Kathy and Steve Roman were on the defense. We all did quite well. I was terrified, but no one noticed, and I carried it off fairly well. The subject of the case was a man in jail in Mississippi attempting to murder the judge who put him there (for 40 years for armed robbery/drug possession) by way of a voodoo death hex. [I'll pause to let that sink in.] Kathy's defense (ridiculing voodoo for two minutes) was over-the-top and rather entertaining, if a bit less than perfectly effective. At the same time, it was my day to take notes for the class wiki. After classes, I went to lunch with OUTLaw alums, at CPK in the Water Tower Place, and midway through the meal I looked up, and out into the mall--our food hadn't come yet--and I saw a familiar bespectacled and bebarbed face wandering around confused-like. I hadn't expected to see him until later that evening, and started laughing. I got up and directed him to Wow Bao for lunch, and caught up with him once I'd finished my food (I bailed on OUTLaw). Afterward, we wandered slightly until I had to go home to do citation exercises (boo citation). This was, unfortunately for Max, rather boring--we talked about his mythologies and his theories of why magic sucks except when it affects only probability (he dislikes things that break the laws of thermodynamics, and objected when I allowed as how my magic systems actually paid attention to that, with corollary laws of thaumodynamics).

Then he went off somewhere and I went off to sing for alumni, which went quite well--except that no one could really hear due to there being a cocktail party going on all around us, with little focus brought to bear on us. It was fun, though. Immediately after, I bailed to go hang out with Max and Rachel--because social good, and I'd been rather in a funk all week. It was great to see them, and Rachel went off to some dinner thing, leaving me to find food with Max. We tried Gino's and Giordano's, except that--being friday at 8ish--they were way too long-lined. We tried a barbecue place--slightly better, but still half an hour. So we trekked all the way out to the brown line to find what I know to be (as they've got signs averring it in front) the best burgers in Chicago: Hop Haus. Great place. Max and I both had the wild burger trio (he had ostrich, boar, and I think kangaroo; I had kangaroo and 2x buffalo, because it's excellent). We wandered back to my apartment for more geek talk, with a lengthy discussion of New WoD Changeling, which seems frightfully interesting. Sadly, Max couldn't burn me a CD of the .pdf he'd pirated from... somewhere. We ended back up at the Ritz in their room (I was later amused to find out that Max had become Mr. Carroll for the duration of his stay), with hanging out and a people-pile on the bed. I went home with a National Geographic bag (borrowed) containing a pair of Minneapolis phone books (this was the response to my request for ~8" of hardcover or disused books to raise up my monitors on my desk so I can better survive the Blind Times in the Eyrie (I face west).

CLR's over now, so there will have to be a part three, as I've still got almost a week outstanding. I leave you all with a quote from today's pertinent court case (yay CT. Also, tomorrow's National Coming Out Day. OUTLaw's celebrating it today with a table with impractically small pins, skittles [taste the rainbow], and the 'Ask a Gay' box.):

"Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection. Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others.
83 The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry.84" ELIZABETH KERRIGAN ET AL. v. COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC HEALTH ET AL.
(SC 17716) (I know this isn't a formal cite. Get over it)

Life no Longer on Hold (1 of 2, I think): Two Weeks Past

First things first: my story got updated. If you want to, go check it out (link on the sidebar). Two short sections, one long section, miscellaneous edits (feel free to keep those coming, those of you who do), and a bit of an order switch up now that I've figured out what my story's format (as far as sections are concerned) will be.

So. Stuff. Classes are proceeding apace--still only one scheduled midterm, even though I know there will be three. We've finished Pleadings, in Civ Pro, and are embroiled in Chain of Title problems in property (I've decided that I need someday to live in MA so I can create in my property a fee tail, just to be a pain in everyone else's ass). Crim goes in its meandering fashion--we're dealing with attempts and impossibility (at least, we were most of last week, and will continue a bit this week), and Contracts has moved on to acceptance. CLR (legal writing, for those of you who don't know), continues to suck as much as it can--I'll be doing a group research project on something involving the Fair Use doctrine, and spend this coming weekend rewriting a memo. I hate citations; the feeling is mutual. We use pseudonyms for our papers so that grading can be blind and we can still get our papers back--the first set were from the X-Files, and the current set are from the Wire. I had to wikipedia the names I chose based on phonetic aesthetics in order to figure out that I landed a villain each time.

So. Starting the Wednesday before last, because that's when events seemed significant. Michelle and I went down by bus to see Dave VDL (a guy in Habeas and my CLR section) sing at the M Lounge. He's an excellent singer, and his (three-piece: keyboard, bass, voice) band's alternate name is hilarious: Jazzhands Across America. He did a variety of Sinatra, my opinion of whom you all likely know; he also did excellent renditions of The Way and So It Goes. Much fun was had, even though cider was cheaper than water at the little bar. We ignored the two-drink minimum, and no fuss was made. Several of us bussed back up, chatting all the way--topics included, and were largely limited to, school, Habeas, and boys.

Thursday had Ethiopian food. A large group of us, headed up by Bergy and Michelle (there were seven of us in all) and her cousin (also Michelle), went North on the Red Line to not-quite hell and gone, because Bergy declared about a week prior that he wanted Ethiopian. I had never before experienced Ethiopian, but more or less managed to disguise my ignorance. First, it was delicious. Second, the honey-wine was like a poor man's Dolce (my uncle's dessert wine), but less reminiscent of raisins, and a bit thicker. Third, the meal itself was an adventure, as a) we ate with our hands (as is done), aided by the spongey, rolled-up bread (think a cross between pita and sourdough, the color of wet public-bathroom paper towels), b) the food was unidentified, and varied in spiciness from tame to mouth-burning, and c) there were bones in select portions. Michelle had to finally rip apart the baked chicken before people started going after it. Conversation and company were animated and lively. Bergy and Dan split off to head to bar review, which evidently was less than stellar, and the rest of us got off the El at our relative locations (I walked Michelle's cousin back to her hotel, with a minor detour to get lost because I am not yet a native, with interesting and useful conversation the whole way). A good night.

Friday was somewhat of a wash. I had to get up early in order to get a tetanus shot over at the hospital, conveniently two doors down from the law school because my old doctor didn't have the last one on record. Surprisingly, it was the least painful shot I had ever had (at least, the injection portion of it was... being tetanus, it started to suck shortly thereafter). Better yet, because I was a student, they decided to decline to charge me. I got the record faxed in and thereby avoided being charged $100 for lack of documented vaccinations. Dicked around after classes before going up to Joe's for a little hangout with other OUTLaw members before going over to Sidetrack for the LaGBAC (Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago) Meet the Bar event (yes. Law has lots of bar puns). I skipped out of that a bit early--handing Morgan my extra drink ticket, for which he was vocally grateful--in order to go to Michelle's debate party. I found out, only after having left, that she'd cancelled due to a few people bailing and a cranky husband. So I went home and wrote and watched the debate on my own. That marked the second time I have turned on my television.

Saturday consisted mostly of work (I think. As you might gather, my memory these days seems limited to what needs to be done soon, what necessary things were done earlier, and what significant events happened. Reading, studying, cleaning, procrastinating... none of these are significant events unless they somehow otherwise affect my life beyond preparation for class and sleep deprivation). Verity had a get together at her place, for which Kathy and I met up and walked most of the way there. We were not the first to arrive, but only one person had come before us. Thus, we got to have the bulk of her delicious food--particularly the Risotto balls (stuffed with some sort of creamy cheese--possibly something camembert-y). She also fed us chicken satay (which recipe I need), and homemade pizza. Dessert was a meringue and whipped cream concoction with strawberries involved, and was incredible. Josh and Tim showed up later, as well as a few other LLM-types. For some reason, the main topic of conversation kept coming back (aside from all the necessary talk of school) to eating disorders and bulemia. Much horrendous fun ensued. Afterward, Josh went off to some thing he didn't particularly want to go to, and Tim, Kathy, and I made our way home by the El. The U-Pass is possibly the greatest thing ever ($90 at the beginning of the term--mandatory--for a card that makes all public transportation free for the year. I will so be getting [my] money's worth out of this).

Sunday was rather quite low-key. I talked to my dear darling wife for tax purposes over in Botswana, and learned that Cara is, in fact, still alive--and now even has housing. I went over in the early afternoon to borrow a movie from Bergy, which turned into lunch as well. A good time. Came back, read for forever, and then watched the movie once I forced my computer(s) to bow to my will. The movie in question was 'The Bad and the Beautiful', an old B&W flick in three parts, each of which painted part of an increasingly full picture of a producer. The movie was well done, and interesting, and a brilliant character portrait. A bit melancholy, but thought-provoking. Still undecided on whether or not I liked the movie itself. And now I have to go get my books for Civ Pro, so I'll leave off here, only a week behind.

Professor Redish on Compulsory Counterclaims: 'What're they going to do if you don't file the compulsory counterclaim? Hmm? Shoot you? What'll they do? Make you listen to Sarah Palin's voice all day?'

Update, because I really don't want to read property.

And because I'd probably be too tired to fully understand it anyway. God, I'm exhausted. Haven't had a full night's sleep in about four days. Nearly slept through my (iterated) alarm today. Life's still pretty good. So. Starting with last monday, because there're events of significance all the way through.

Monday was class (clearly. That's pretty well constant), and starting too damn early (also constant, at least M-W). Monday was also my first rehearsal for Habeas Chorus, which takes place in a disused dining hall in a building adjacent to campus (and still part of NU--it's where they have student accounts and the bookstore and other such fun places). It's an interesting place to rehearse. The rehearsal itself went pretty well--we introduced ourselves to each other, and learned a song (since a) we've been sworn to secrecy relative to NLaw students, and b) I know there's at least one NLaw student who may be reading this, I can't tell you what songs we're singing, at least until after we've performed them). It was pretty cool, except that Property always gets out late so I had to run in order to learn where we were rehearsing.

Then there was more class (Civ Pro continues to be amazing. We're up to several left-ish leaning rants about how conservative judges are actually the activist judges insofar as they violate the Federal Rules to get the results they want, as well as two separate Sesame Street references, and a Casablanca quote).

Then, after class, there was the first general membership OUTLaw meeting, giving details about a) membership, b) organization and events and shit, and c) offering a chance at free food. This last is truly key. At the meeting, I met (well, re-met) a guy going by the name of Bergy, and we spoke of various forms of geekery--he scripted and ran LARPs of his own systemic design for friends at Stanford while there. We hung out for a while, which caused me to be late in heading up north on the El to have dinner with the lovely Miss Marquez, in town to visit (other) friends. We had dinner, Mexican food, with her hosts at a place a little ways from their house, and afterwards (the meal finished with complementary shots of Kahlua and cream, as two of the five had gotten margaritas) we went next door to a gay sports bar, where they were having trivia night. The questions were being delivered by a man in a habit with a very kindergarten-teacher voice. It was hilarious, and one of Liz's friends (as separate from her friends who were her hosts) bought us drinks. I walked back to the El and back from the El (having ridden it in between), and crashed.

Tuesday. Class. Meeting for the Diversity Coalition, mainly for the derailed promise of free lunch--it was misdelivered, and we therefore missed out. Bergy and I were the first two in line when they ran out of food (after the meeting people sprinted over), so we instead went to Giordano's a few blocks over and waited the requisite time for a deep dish pizza. Good food, good company, interesting conversation. All fairly good.

I remember nothing of significance concerning Tuesday night or Wednesday, so clearly nothing interesting happened (that could be a lie, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Thursday evening, Michelle and I hung out after the Ice Cream Social (free ice cream!) and had less-than-stellar cider on her sun deck, and then went to a BYOB thai place. This was hilarious insofar as Michelle was pre-gaming Bar Review (no free drinks this week), and bought herself a handle of Grape Mist MD 20/20 (13.5% abv), which--according to her--tasted like a bad Killer Kool-Aid, and smelled--according to me--somewhere between purple (which it was) and that sickly sweet smell usually associated with organic decay. There was much hilarity in the drinking of this, and in our conversation, which largely revolved around boys (and, touched on how stupid they are. At the moment, for various reasons, I firmly include myself in this category). There was also amusement on the part of our waitress, who was inquiring what the hell we (well, she) were drinking--and whether we needed glasses, or would be having it straight from the bottle in its brown paper bag (for irony, we took the former option).

We then headed toward bar review, even though I was not myself going. En route, we met up with Matt T., his girlfriend, one of their friends, and a guy named Jeff, all of them coming from an alum event from their collective undergrad. We all badgered Jeff into going to Bar Review with Michelle, and we split off from them. The party thinned further out when Matt's friend split off to get to her car (visitor to Chicago, had elsewhere to be that evening), and eventually we all made it back to our respective buildings.

Friday, gloriously, there was no crim, so I slept in. I needed it. CLR was research stuff, which--given that everyone involved in it was all trying to access Westlaw at once--was less than successful because the internet's tubes were severely clogged. Also, we got our pseudonyms for anonymizing our memos--all inspired by the X-Files. After class, there was grocery shopping to prep for the week (I have to cook tonight, incidentally, rather than scrounge off what was in my fridge) and in anticipation of Kathy's party--I brought cheese and crackers. Between that and a few other errands, the time I'd anticipated using for writing my memo went to approximately nil before I headed out for Kathy's.

Kathy's party was fun. A variety of good food was had, and I was consulted in the cooking of Kathy's lasagna (with sauce from Josh's mom). Wine was brought, and insalata capresce, and a kickass chocolate cake. Verity, an Australian exchange student (yes, law schools have 'em too), and I hung out mostly in the ktichen to highly entertaining effect. Particularly when Verity--as she later put it on facebook--gave a wine bottle the highlight of its night. We MST3K'd 300, which--now that I've seen the bulk of it, if mostly on fast-forward--deserved it, and then watched office space, chatting all the while.

Saturday consisted of two things: memo, and dancing. The former got done (mostly on saturday, but the rest on sunday), and is therefore unimportant. The latter took me and Kathy and Verity up to Boystown, to a bar called Charlie's. Jade and Darcy would have joined us, but one was sick and the other still had memo work to do. We took the bus up (because Kathy was mistakenly insistent that the El would not be running, it being a weekend and that being when they do construction--which they've now finished on the pertinent portion of the line), and walked most of the way to the wrong address (Yay for confusion and dyslexia), during which time we got Kathy some moleskin because her boots were a bit small and she already had a blister.

We eventually got to the bar, which was dead (because it was too early), and I danced with each of the ladies while we waited for Will, one of Kathy's friends, to show up. Kathy wasn't terrible as dancing, and Verity performed precisely as she exected to: poorly. It was still entertaining. Once Will arrived, they bailed for several reasons: they had no real interest (shock) in dancing, and Will's ex-boss frequented the place, and was evidently somewhat of an ass to him. So they left to go... elsewhere. I lost track of them, and can't really claim to have cared. Dancing, as mentioned previously, was fucking excellent.

Sunday was memo writing and hanging pictures (finally. Not all are up, but at least more now are) and reading for monday's classes and actually managing (unlike--which I didn't mention--saturday, wherein I was antsy as all fuck. I think dancing helped my concentration on sunday at least) to sit still and concentrate. Also, fog! There was fog that came sweeping into the city and covering it for a good two or three hours in the evening such that I couldn't see any building more distant than the other McClurg tower.

Monday was classes and rehearsal and faxing forms to doctors that they may not fill out and freaking out about that and various other things and not eating lunch until I got home at 5. I continued to fail at concentrating, though I did get all of today's readings done relatively early in the evening. Also spent lots of (too much) time staring at gchat hoping to talk to someone. That failed.

I went on a walk. The wind was strong, and it was lovely. I covered (yay Chicago distance-tied coordinate system!) in excess of three miles in an hour and a half--about forty-odd minutes of which time was spent chatting with a pair of women at the Bean in Millennium Park (investigating the structure and reflective--optical and acoustic--properties of its interior/underside and talking about sci-fi/fantasy stories involving cities appearing in the sky), and watching a couple of excellent dancers dance in the fountain nearby (it works, even though my description is necessarily lacking as I'm about to close this out and head to property). It was good, and got me sufficiently tired (never mind that I was mentally and quasi-emotionally exhausted, just not physically so) that I could actually get to sleep.

Then I almost slept through my alarm this morning, and I've been vaguely zombified through the day so far. I really hope I'm not on call. Have good until next week or something momentous occurs.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Yay for dancing. That is the moral of tonight. God, I needed that. Four hours of not-quite non-stop dancing, following most of the time because I can't lead two-step. There was precisely one cute boy there--a professional dancer, who had me lead him in West. That was intimidating, but it worked out well. Got waltzed by another professional dancer, which was just incredible (weird mix of country waltz, american-oid, and international... all at once, and interchanging Fucking sweet waltz, though--fast as I like 'em).

Also, thanks to Miss Teagle for being my personal Mrs. Lovett earlier today.

More, and details, when I'm not so-tired-I'm-effectively-drunk tomorrow, and done with my memo.

Arr!

My pirate name is:

Red Davy Flint

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Paranoia

Paranoia has set in, insofar as I found myself on google. I don't reallyw ant to have that large a digital profile, and as such unless there is strenuous opposition within the next, oh, week, I'm going to start requiring a login to see what I write. Comments encouraged.

Sundays seem to be the day for this...

I give up on work for tonight. I've not been productive since... midafternoon. I'm done with tomorrow's reading, and even though I have a meeting and a rehearsal tomorrow, and possibly an evening out (details on all that to follow), I can't get any farther ahead than I already am. I am hopelessly languishing in a delightful food coma brought on by a trip as the token anglo to Chinatown for the Moon Festival, and have now experienced significantly-more-authentic-than-usual Chinese food, which was delicious, and--more importantly--had some Moon Cake, which even through tea-scalded taste buds, was excellent. And really fucking dense. Once I'm done here, I'm going to waddle off to bed because I ate WAY too much.

Background: Jade published on facebook to a whole bunch of us that, owing to the festival (which actually happened, we think, yesterday, but due to rain of record-breaking proportions in Chicago yesterday no one really went out for it) we should go get Chinese food and Moon Cakes in Chinatown. The clear goal was really just Chinese food with friends and a break from studying, but any excuse becomes valid once you put enough wishful-thinking behind it, right? So we went, eight of us--and despite the broad invitation, I was the only non-Asian of the group, and was definitely ribbed a bit for it in gentle and hilarious fashion (which I brought largely on myself by broaching the subject).

As far as the weekend went, it rained. Lots. Rain still isn't pretty from 26 floors up even when you're getting an inch an hour or so. It's just an interposition between me and my usual scenery done in shades of grey and greyer. So I read. Lots. Property will become the bane of my existence as far as reading goes, but at least Marx is easier to read than Hegel (to my prof's benefit, he did come into class on Wednesday armed with quotes concerning how awful Hegel is to read, and how nonsensical-seeming).

Saturday Tim had a get-together in his apartment a block and change over, inviting several of his undergrad friends (Northwesterners, some of whom are in graduate school at that other major school in town, though none for law) as well as a number of law students over to his place for beer (I brought my own cider) and conversation. Much fun was had, including meeting Kathy's not-boy whom we've all been hearing about for quite some time, and seeing Kathy be a lightweight which was cute and loud and entertaining. His apartment, too, has significantly more character than McClurg residences do--exposed beams and brick done tastefully, and pipes besides. It looked really cool, but would only work in an old building like that with much higher ceilings than we get here. On the other hand, he had four-fifths walls delineating his spaces, so there are trade-offs.

Friday night I went to what I thought was going to be a LaGBAC (Lesbian and Gay Bar Association [of] Chicago) event--it was affiliated, but it was actually a presentation/recruitment meet and greet for minorities w.r.t. the Illinois State's Attorney's Office. So met a few people there, listened to the speeches, and got rained on coming back (and had a small amount of free food). Came home afterward and dicked around, wasting an entire evening by chatting on gmail and being in denial that I was about to start working on a Friday night (and doing it so effectively that I went to bed never having worked on anything, which was probably stupid on my part, but never mind that).

Friday proper, Crim was cancelled because our prof was off at a conference somewhere. Thinking I would be productive with my free time, I slept in an hour and a half. And got myself up in time to actually be warmed up (yay for serious shower-singing) so I could audition for Habeas Chorus--Northwestern's Law a capella (I may have to refer to it from here on in as lawcapella) group. So I got there at 11:15, sure I was in the right place and five minutes early for my audition, and... I got fucking stood up. No one was there. I waited until fifteen minutes after the audition ought to have ended, and no one was there yet, even then. So I wrote a curious e-mail to the group and went to CLR. Get a thoroughly apologetic e-mail from one of the members during CLR (I got my memo back, Matt, and it seems that my writing is fairly good, but I was a bit light on facts--I haven't actually looked thoroughly at the keyed comments, but *shrug*) apologizing and saying that she'd be there with other members after my class if I wanted to go audition, still. So I went, and I did, and I sang the first verse or so (we didn't have to prepare a full song, just a little bit) of Li'l Red Riding Hood, and sucked it up (as expected) on the sight reading of Don't Stop Believing, which has an oddly complex bass part, particularly compared to the really simple SAT lines. They thanked me and said they'd send out an e-mail at some point over the weekend, as the first rehearsal (one hour weekly, on Mondays during lunch) is tomorrow and the first concert's in the beginning of October.

I got the e-mail yesterday, and I'm evidently either one half or one third of the bass section, with a group of 18. This may be the most laid-back a capella group I've ever been in. It'll be a trip.

Thursday night was Bar Review, to which I actually went this time, because Michelle and I went to dinner beforehand (her turn to pay), and then wandered around in Barnes & Noble until the drink specials kicked in (free SKYY vodka drinks from 7-8 is why Michelle was going and I was dragged along). The place was called Elm Street Liquors, and was a weird little place--all one room, long and thin to the back, about a third of whose width was taken up by the bar, and about a quarter further taken up by recessed wall-seating. Dark, no real decor, and crappy hip-hop in the background. I chatted with a few people, got poked into swing dancing with Jade while the very back of the place was still clear of people, and then wandered off when the press of people and the heat from the same became too much for me to give a shit about appearances. Josh, among others, was surprised I came out at all--he seems to have this notion of me as a thorough recluse, which I delight in fucking with, despite it's near-accuracy in cause if not result. Left early, as I said, and had an hour and change talk with Matt B. concerning law school and life and jobs and shit. It was good to talk to him.

Nothing seems to be coming to mind for Monday through Wednesday, so clearly nothing of note happened during those days. I want my various Amazon orders (camera battery charger, SD reader drive--so I can get people their graduation pictures, among other things--picture frames) to arrive. I need to find someplace with cheap, classy frames, if such things really exist. I don't have quite enough on my walls, and many surfaces are taken up by unframed 8.5x11 papers (various drawn dragons and some of my pictures I printed out at Kinko's a couple weeks back, all arranged as they'll eventually be on the walls) and a couple 4x6 pictures Kyle gave me as an afterthought at one point.

As for the coming week, I've got another memo to write (don't know when the revisions on my first one are due, but nevermind that), this time with 70 pages of cases to draw from rather than three. That's due in a week so it's not worth freaking out about yet--I'll print off the cases (along with Twombly, which I have to read for Civ Pro) tomorrow in the library sometime. An aside: I need to break myself of the habit of calling the Library the Libe--I'm getting odd looks whenever I do it. Tomorrow could be dinner and exploration with Liz, who's in town (or if her plans aren't working in my favor, we'll be having lunch on Tuesday), or it could be more reading. Clearly I'm hoping for the former. Tomorrow is also the first general membership meeting of OUTLaw (guess what that organization represents, ladies and gentlemen), as well as my first rehearsal with Habeas, as well as returning to Property Hell. I'm so glad I bought some pork buns to nuke for lunch tomorrow. I won't have quite enough time to come back and do anything more than that (read: even a sammich might take too long).

One of these days, I swear, I'm going to take some time and type up the short-sections I finished writing before arriving in Chicago and get them all posted, along with the comments Sophie and Marion have kindly provided me (if the rest of youse are bored and wanna read my story and comment, I'd love you all the more for it. There's a link on the right, here), and ship that off to Matt for updating at his leisure.

I think that's all, now that I'm over an hour past when I ought to have gone to bed to be reasonably up for Contracts tomorrow.

'There was no reason for the Civil War, because there was no need. We should have let them go. It would have raised the average IQ enormously!' --my Civ Pro Prof. Context not remembered (why yes, I do take down amusing things said in class as a section of my notes).

Week in review

Hi again. I've survived my first week of classes, and think that it went remarkably well, all things considered. I have yet to be on call--though only one of my classes seems to do things very strictly and thoroughly Socratic. That one class, though (property)... Ugh. It's with one of the least respected (by the students) profs, who is callously Socratic in his teaching style and possessed of the most derisive pair of eyebrows I have ever had the misfortune to see used for belittling students. I do not look forward to this class, even though the experience will be quite good for me. As for the rest, Crim's going to be a blast: not only is the prof awesome, but the material's pretty interesting, too (Murder and Cannibalism on the high seas! And the prof made unintentional cannibalism jokes a few times in class, then realized she "had to be careful with [her] food metaphors"). Contracts seems like it will be both good and slightly forgiving (which is good, as it's at 8:45 MTW, and most of you know the full extent of how well I don't deal with mornings). Civ Pro (Civil Procedure--motions and pleadings and the system of the courts and how to work the same, for those of you who aren't familiar) is going to be fun, I think--it's with one of the most respected--by students, faculty, and the legal community at large--profs in the school, who has a sense of humor so dry it's musty. It's great.

The readings are thick and almost as dense for digesting as philosophy--but unlike philosophy, they must be done in order to effectively survive class. This doesn't mean, though, that I'm absolutely dead (which is good, because this was only the first week). I spent part of a class last week setting up a gchat network with a few people in my section so we can all help each other out (mostly considering this eventuality for Property) when one of us is stumped and on call. We had to write a memo for CLR (the legal writing class, which, if I recall correctly, stands for Communication and Legal Research [or reasoning, I'm not actually sure, but think it's research]), which was due this evening--probably for the best as I won't have to worry about it through the week like several other sections.

As far as non-law school things go... I skipped out on a few social events earlier in the week. I made taco gunk for dinner a couple nights as I had an excess of Costco guacamole. I am beginning to get impatient for programs that provide free lunch to start up around campus so I can acquire the same. Thursday night, I ought to have had a could-be-date (still unclear on it), but Gustav saw fit to intervene, and I was cancelled upon--with good reason, I found out later. Storms, incidentally, are no exciting from 26 stories up. Disappointingly so. I didn't realize quite how bad it was until I went out into it to walk off my frustration (during which time, I sealed the fate of my street shoes, as they were drenched irrevocably, and have now begun to grow some sort of flora/fauna). I walked somewhere between three or four miles in an hour, and returned nearly fifteen pounds heavier in water than when I had left. It was unreal to see the waves along the lakeshore coming in and pounding on/driving up the concrete. That, and it's a very weird sensation to have wind driving rain up one's nose.

Boys, as is suggested above, continue to be stupid.

Friday after classes, I went on a spectacularly unsuccessful shopping trip to Target and Best Buy, during which time I found that Target had shit for picture frames and didn't sell camera battery chargers, and that Best Buy's selection of chargers failed utterly to fit the battery that came with my DSLR (evidently it doesn't fit the universal Canon charger. Never mind that I found a $15 one on amazon rather than buy their $50 version that wouldn't have worked). I went to the southern portion of the city for this, and wandered fairly extensively in so doing. Friday night, my friend Kathy took me as a guest to a party in my building hosted by a couple of JDMBAs, which was rather entertaining, if overly beery (read: I was drinking water for lack of other options, though they did have metric fucktons--a fridge, a counter and a sink full--of various kinds and qualities of beer). Afterward Kathy and I came back down here and played Gin Rummy and talked and ate chocolate until we'd had enough chocolate and were tired enough that the rummy fell by the wayside to talking. Much fun was had.

Saturday, I went and was a guinea pig (ie. simulation interviewee) for the Bluhm Legal Clinic's training session, where I pretended to be one Mr. Jackson a (straight) man who wanted to set up a guide business for the presumptive Chicago '16 games in the same fashion as was done in Beijing, and who was concerned that a (false--the arresting officer lied about the whole thing) arrest and conviction while a minor for possession and sale of a small amount of crack cocaine could complicate my business venture, who was in the middle of a foreclosure due to bad financial advice from a now-defunct mortgage company, and whose severely ill and undiagnosed due to her status wife was an illegal immigrant who came by way of Mexico and Brazil in her flight from Robert Mugabe's regime (we me over there two years ago when I was volunteering at a clinic for torture victims as part of my church's outreach efforts--did I mention I was a big part of my church?). All in all, I made them work to reel the information out of me, though not moreso than I would have if it were really me and really my issues, and it was lots of fun. Also, I was compensated with free pizza and $50 for my time. Sadly, though, I missed Flugtag. Saturday night I was diverted from my plans to investigate Charlie's (a gay bar with country dancing on some parts of some nights--hopefully it will be a suitable substitute for Remington's, despite the lack of Grace for a dancing buddy) in order to go with Kathy and a few others to the Hangge-Uppe, a bar/not-quite-club about a twenty minute walk north/northwest from here. It was interesting. Not normally something I'd do for fun, but it was entertaining, and there was a REALLY cute guy (well, there was a fair amount of eye candy, and a few truly ridiculous people who were fun to watch and make fun of while shouting in each others' ears to be heard) there, but nothing happened except for lots of eye-dancing. ::shrug::

Today I finished writing my memo, turned it in, went grocery shopping, and did my property reading (contracts and Civ Pro were already done). I watched a spectacular sunset that turned my apartment a deep orange for about twenty minutes, and read some more of Kavalier & Clay (once again, thanks, Mssr. Pechous).

I leave you with an excerpt from one of the cases I read tonight:

"...and anyone else is quite within his rights if he puts loving and fertile lovers in a play of his own, wherever he gets the cue." Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930), Cert. denied

Twas the night before classes...

That's right. Tomorrow, I'm officially a 1L (well, officially here meaning taking classes rather than merely orientating). I'm sure that for most people that distinction is overly fine and relatively needless, but it's one I've always drawn: it's fine that one rise in class when one is already a part of a school when the prior class is no longer there to occupy it (cascading all the way down to the lowest class in the school in question), but I've never felt comfortable claiming community in a place where I've yet to have the communal experience (in schools, for those following along, that would be classes). So tomorrow I get to start being a law student. I've got three classes, each with an hour or so between them, that are MTW, and the first of which (Contracts) starts at 8:45 AM.

Frankly, I am terrified.

I've never really had to work seriously seriously hard in school before. It's never been that big of an issue: I've been smart enough to bounce and bumble along, doing what I feel I need to do and then doing more pretty well only when it interests me. And I'm used to having that be enough to carry my grades--they may not have been as good as they could have been if I'd been neurotic about it, but they were good enough to get me here. The scary bit is that first year (really, first term) grades are the most important grades in all of law school, from a job-search point of view. First, employers will want to see your grades. Second, journals have grade requirements--and since I want to clerk, being on a journal is almost a necessity.

Thursday and Friday are a bit more relaxed, with two classes (Crim, then CLR, aka Legal Writing), starting at 10:25. I'll be done no later than 3:30 any given day--at least, done with classes. I'm curious at how frequently I'll actually be able to get a free lunch, as opposed to how it's advertised (that is, it's possible to get it every day if you're a good little opportunist). There will be updates on this one.

So, that's pretty much how law school stands at the moment (except for the apparent hilarity/absurdity of some of the readings: a case on who owns a fox that was being hunted from common ground [property], a case of murder/cannibalism on the high seas [crim], a case of skin-graft surgery gone wrong [contracts], and a case of a mayor using his city credit card for video poker [CLR--our prof was actually the asst. atty. general arguing the case). Other parts of life... well, I still have one. I've been setting my apartment up a bit further.

I had an excellent excursion to IKEA last week with Jimmy and Jade, two other 1Ls in my section, wherein we were horrible people through the entirety of the largest IKEA in North America (seriously. It's dauntingly huge). I also achieved one of my lower-end lifetime goals: to--randomly and without provocation--do a forward roll in a public space, just to see how people would react. I got picture frames and bookshelves and potholders and scissors.

Now that I have books in one of the bookcases (I actually didn't have enough to fill more than a few books into one shelf of the other, so it's just waiting for the law books and few fun books I buy for non-law reading to fill them), my apartment has really come together. Having books--organized books, on shelves, rather than merely in boxes or piles--is something that not only makes me happy, but makes me feel comfortable and at home. So between shelved books and a few more things on walls, my apartment is really home, now. I've decided where the three posters I'm going to put up are going, once I find cheap frames for them that don't look positively hideous (where does one go for cheap frames of the 2' x 3' variety, or--worse yet--for the 18"x24" variety?). I got a couple other frames so some of the printer paper sized things (Free Lawyers, Lawyers for All!, Defenestration) are up.

I've decided on a name for the apartment as well--I had last time too, as noted by the title of the blog, but I failed to explain it last time. I'm on the 26th floor of this building, looking out onto a city, and the apartments central themes seem to be IKEA, books, and dragons (with a few gargoyles and one plush Cthullhu as additional mythological oddments). Discounting the first as necessary to cheap life, and the second as necessary both to me and law school in general, it really leaves an apartment full of dragons. Eyrie is defined as either the nest of a bird of prey (in fantasy, it's usually extended to gryphons and particularly to non-cave dwelling dragons as well) or as a high-altitude living place. My apartment seems to qualify on both counts.

Last week was a lot of meet-and-greet events, or else someone had organized some sort of bar-thing. You who read this know that meet-and-greets tire me out, and that I'm really not much for bars. The only worthwhile of the former type was the professorial meet-and-greet, where they were stationed in small groups around the law school with food tables and bars nearby and the students wandered around getting into conversation with them--or watching them hold court, in some cases. I was greatly impressed with all except for one of my profs as I went around and met them--once again, it was Property that caused me reservations. The prof in question was as outgoing in the evening as he had been dull in the prior morning's presentation. That wasn't the problem--the problem was his living up to his reputation as a Jekyll & Hyde type insofar as he was freely badmouthing the other professors teaching my section's classes. This really failed to impress me. As for the rest, there were a few entertainments as bars went--a polish dive bar (where I was drinking water rather than beer or chancing the grass-filtered vodka that reputedly tasted of cinnamon) at which I met a Carl from the class of '05 of whom I had never heard, had never seen, and for whom the same was true of me. It was rather a shock. He's a good guy, and better yet, in my section.

Yesterday I finally took my camera out for a thorough spin around Chicago. It was great. I covered probably five, maybe six miles of pavement on foot, and got a few pictures printed at a 24-hour kinko's way the hell over by the Brown Line (the Red Line is the nearer El Train line, about a 10-minute walk west. The Brown line is about twenty minutes farther west, but is where the Red is rerouted during weekends because they're adding a third set of tracks to the Red, have been for some time, and will be for the foreseeable future as far as I know), one of which--a naked tree on Farragut Square with a variegated cloud background in winter--is now up above Kyle's picture of the observatory in one of the good frames. I took some 70 or so pictures, mostly of architecture (because it's what I do) and reflection--I got a couple cool shots of tall buildings looking to sway and distort because of double-hung window reflections, as well as some nice shots of passing El trains. Mostly it was nice to be out, walking, with music, and not in the company of people forcing me to make small-talk. I'm so tired of having to come out--implicitly or explicitly--over and over that I could just scream.

On that note, however, there was an OUTLaw barbecue on saturday, which was great fun. Small gathering--two men, seven women, which was itself minorly noteworthy in my admittedly narrow experience. Good food, good conversation, and lots of meat jokes during the distribution of excess food on the way back (because I ended up taking home the excess brats, in someone's spare Lambda Legal bag, which I will now be using to get groceries). At the moment, OUTLaw and Habeas Chorus (the a capella group) are really the only student groups I'm terribly interested in dealing with. I was pleased to find out that Habeas graduated its basses last year. There may be hope for me.

Also, since Nik asked about why boys being stupid was worthy of note in my last post, here's a quick explanation. Because I failed to know people in DC, for the most part, and because I failed at the traditional ways of getting to know people in DC as well--from work, from established friends, from organizations, and from bars/clubs--I decided to join the wonderful world of internet dating (ha). It was mostly my being bored and finding that the site I'd gone to for years to take weird internet personality tests had turned itself into an internet dating site that (unlike eharmony.com, for instance) actually acknowledged that gay people exist. So I decided to give it a shot. Recently, I had started talking to a guy who was quite interesting, and cute, and intelligent, and so on. And who, it turns out, lived not in Chicago, but Cincinnati. Thus boys are stupid (him for living so, and me for not having realized it sooner). On the other hand, I ended up talking to another guy the night before last on IM for about three hours. So there's possibly something there.

I could be that stupid 1L who tries to start (rather than maintain--I'd say 40% of NU Law students I've met have been married or otherwise relation'd) a relationship while being 1L.

In any event, it is now 11, which suggest I should try going to sleep so I can get up at 7 with enough time to get to classes with breakfast and coffee from the starbuck's across the street from me (which, incidentally, is surrounded on its two interior sides--it's a corner shop--by a single Dunkin' Donuts amoeba). G'night, all. More when I have the time, the inclination, and the news.

Also. Those of you with blogs that are not LJs--could you comment with your blog's URL so I can post it up in my sidebar if you're interested in my doing so? Thanks.

The Past is on my Walls

Hey all. I'm in Chicago. It's lovely. Like... really. I'm halfway oriented (as far as NU Law is concerned), and was just about the only white guy at yesterday's diverse orientation day (clearly there not due to ethnic diversity, me). It's been a mild mid/late August here, which is perfectly fine by me. We have lockers in law school, because--as I've heard repeatedly--law school is like high school. Not having experienced 'real' high school, I think this one's lost on me. But it's kinda hilarious--orientation, that is. We met our profs today, which was cool. I'm only worried about one of them. Property. The prof sounds dull. Not merely what he says, but even his voice. Dull. Ah well. The other four (Crim, Civ Pro--the prof with the best sense of humor of them all, so I'm actually mildly excited--Contracts, and CLR aka Legal Writing) seem to be headed in good directions, as far as the profs go.

Haven't found dancing yet. Haven't really seriously looked. It's on my hypothetical to do list for once I get my apartment fully set up. I need to find a whole bunch of classy-looking yet cheap frames, both in the 8.5x11 (or 8x12 for non-printer-paper deals) and the full-on poster size. In the two years of living at home, I seem to have outgrown the notion of pasting posters to walls and calling it home. Odd, huh.

At the moment, what little is on my walls is history. I've got a few posters that need frames and as such are waiting to go up. I've got a wall scroll from Cowboy Bebop, half hidden behind my perpetually open bedroom door (yes, my bedroom has a door. That was the apartment's chief selling point--not the 26th floor, not the city [non-lake] view, not the 647 sq. feet. The door to the bedroom). I've got another wall scroll, bought in a village near Stonehenge with celtic scrollwork on it just outside the kitchen. I've got my Welsh flag covering the open doorway where the sliding glass doors define the apartment as a convertible by connecting the bedroom space to the living room space. It's hung properly this time: there will be no mounds of duct tape. I've got a drawing that Joey did to put on his door his VIth form (my IIIrd form) year at St. Mark's, which I acquired at the end of the year and have had since, now in a nice frame I had to fold it a bit to get it into. It's temporarily above my desk, until I find a nice tacky cheap frame suitable for Out Damned Spot's 'Lawyers! Free lawyers for all!' sign to go there. Then it'll be moved, probably to my bedroom beside the three calligraphy characters I was given as a going-away present when I was in Japan. I have my neighborhood crime watch sign up behind the left monitor (of desktops) on my desk, to the right of Joey's Fire Goddess drawing. I have a picture of the observatory Kyle took and had printed and gave to me for valentine's day senior year at Carleton above a dresser in the nook outside the bathroom, which will at some point soon be joined by a picture I took of the chapel at one point while visiting him (and various others) the year following (once I get it printed out either at home and sent, or at Kinko's. Will choose strictly by economy). There'll be the subway poster, the cathedral poster, and an odd-sized piece of artwork a Hiep (another of my St. Mark's Seniors) did for her AP portfolio and ended up not using). I'll possibly be using the dragon I've had for forever. Not sure--it's not in the greatest of shape... For planning purposes, I need to acquire another white board, to put on the other major wallspace by my desk.

I also have a fair amount of furniture, but less of which is really worthy of description (inherited couch/chair/bed, my grandmother's teak end-tables for the couch, a table from boarding school. Miscellaneous IKEA stuff including the all-important bookcases and a kickass wrap-around desk that takes up a significant amount of real-estate in my living room). Since today involved a field trip to IKEA to get miscellaneous shit (and bookshelves, on my part. Jade got miscellaneous shit and furniture, and was the main reason we went. Jimmy drove us, and got pretty much nothing except entertainment at how horrible Jade and I are as people. Jimmy (Dimitrios, his full name, which actually makes sense to shorten it to Jimmy in Greek) is my locker buddy. This entertains me no end. Lockers, that is. Makes sense, though, when this term's books (required ones only) clock in at ~30 lbs.

Tomorrow's tasks include getting bookshelves--now that I have sufficient shelves, because IKEA's never come with enough as such but more must be bought--filled with books, which also means I'll finally get the various shit I've got on my apartment-wide window sill off it and into them, along with the books (yes, I brought books from home. Don't bug me). Once that's done, and I get another load of laundry run through downstairs, I think I'll be pretty well entirely set in.

It's pleasant. I'm going to love winter. Most of you who read this and find yourselves in Chicago at any point may be expected at least to come see me (and the apartment). Staying may be an option, but is not compulsory--I have an aerobed and sheets, though. I've run myself out of computer games (and WoW. Most importantly, WoW), which is both good and intentional. I wish boys weren't stupid. I miss dancing (particularly the marathon of 20 miles walked and 20 hours danced in four days of my last week in DC).