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."