December... yes, I skipped a month.

It's closing in on the end of the month. Theoretically, that means another blog post. In practice... well, not so much for November. The first half of November was consumed by papers, largely: forty-two pages on Appling v. Doyle, and fourteen that comprised the first draft of Murder, Prostitution, and Craigslist: the Paper (MPCtP, as I later acronymed it after Bevis poked at me for always spelling it out in full). What else happened in November... I was sick a few days, which was rather unpleasant. I continued to not get hired for a job, any job. I conducted interviews of family members of those sentenced to JLWOP (Juvenile Life Without Parole) for Children in Conflict, taught by the incredible Bernardine Dohrn, who had us over to her house for dinner at one point. I got into contact with a judge to help me get employ at the State's Attorney's Office. I had an orphan's Thanksgiving hosted by Miss Laura, who cooked an amazing turkey and had stories to tell about wrestling with a turkey neck and assorted fun with giblets. There was a variety of drama, but I can't seem to recall at present quite the nature of it, or of whom it was comprised. I went dancing.

December. Finals. Study group with Frank and Lisa (where each of us had our role to fill: Frank prepared the agenda, Lisa kept us on track and actually knew things, I spun bullshit explanations that turned out to be right far more often than not, much to everyone's surprise) for Enviro. Writing the JLWOP memos and ribbing Patricia about nearly taking us to IN on the way to one of the interviews. Bergy introduced me to Borderlands after our one-hour closed-everything forty multiple-choice question justify-your-answers-in-the-margins-if-you-feel-so-moved Ideas of the First Amendment final, which I then went home and ordered from the internet. It should be waiting for me upon my return--part of why I'm writing this now rather than Wednesday afternoon. One boy from the internet became three boys from the internet, each with a promise to make life complicated. None have been actualized, but I'm hopeful with one of them. There were finals, as mentioned before, and they ended. I was a witness for two friends' trials (one ITA, one Crim. Trial Practice), which went moderately successfully, and were quite fun. There were concerts--I believe I mentioned Imogen Heap before, prior to the concert, but now, after, I can say it was unutterably awesome. Also there was Straight No Chaser with Morgan after an impromptu Triumvirate Sushi escapade, at which there was much singing (clearly). Since then, there has been home, and family, and cats, and work: I redid MPCtP such that it went from fourteen to twenty-one pages, with only four or five pages in common between the two papers. Yesterday I moved somewhere between one and two metric tons, depending on what's an appropriate average weight estimate for the boxes in question (30 is low, Strump says, but that puts me at ~2500 pounds moved). I've been once to my coffee shop, and dancing the same number of times. I've seen several friends--Liz, Dana, Cara, dancing folks, and Eric on Tuesday. Seeing Cara was most emphatically lovely: we hadn't seen each other since she left for Botswana, when we gave her the plush ebola virus. We went to Raku, where we first got date service, and succeeded in getting it again, proving that we've not lost our touch.

I apologize for being terse in my descriptions of things... it's been a busy month (well, a strained autumn, really). Looming over the whole of this all is family drama, which doesn't really bear getting into on a broadcast medium such as this. If you're curious, ask. I may or may not say.

There was a delightful snowstorm here in DC. We got 23" of snow in 2 days, most of which time I was rewriting/revising MPCtP, and watching it snow from outside my improvised bedroom. It was definitely one of the highlights of the break.

Christmas was a push, and therefore stretched and... yeah. We had one tree this year, which I was not allowed to light for fear that it would cook the tree (the last few years, I've lit the upside-down tree, a 6' tree, with at least 25-30 strands. Strump lit this one, an 8' tree, with 20. I probably would have come in at double that--cooked tree would ensue). It got decorated on the 24th, mostly. Christmas Eve was with the Ericksons at the Washington Club, and was delightful--I spent most of the time talking to Ben, and my mother to Capt. Erickson. Sadly, Strump was between these two gentlemen, with no one really to talk to until Ben started asking after the business and things toward the end of the evening. Christmas morning was stockings (mostly chocolate, although there were two salami in mine), late, finishing the tree, and an aborted brunch. Later, we went over to the Ericksons' for Christmas dinner, which was fun. Ben and I exchanged CDs. Boxing day featured brunch (for real), presents, and then me moving a literal ton of boxes (85+ boxes, assuming 35 lbs average box-weight, which given that many of them were impossibly heavy book boxes is possibly a bit light for the average--that puts me at nearly 3k pounds). Today was lunch and a bit of wandering with Cara and Strump up in Bethesda, and then coming home to move more boxes (not nearly so much, but dear god photos weigh a bloody ton when boxed up) and sorting through crap to try to get rid of some of it so it won't have to be moved.

All in all, it's a working break. Unwinding will happen after I return to Chicago on Wednesday, first with Borderlands, second with NYE--hopefully but not assuredly at Morgan's--and third with retarded gluttony up north with a wonderful crew of law school idiots. Hopefully next term won't kill me--I have eleven hours of classes on Wednesdays, including three hours of ITA at the end of it. I'll have to work everything out on Tuesday, as I won't have time to do it day-of, most weeks. Hopefully coffee will also happen with a particular set of pixels.

Oh! Geekery. It's happened, and continues to occur. On one front, gaming with Max et al. has continued. On another, I've been reading Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, which is an intellectual romp concerning a cloistered society of what would happen if high level philosophy and high level physics were done by one and the same people... among many other things. It's fantastic, since the physics is all spelled out, but the philosophy is never attributed to actual people--I can figure out most of the references, though, so it makes me quite happy. On a third, I was approached over Google Wave by one Mr. Deren with an idea of something actually feasible and useful to do with the service they provide: gaming. Decentralized. Over Wave. So there will be a Shadowrun game over the internet, assuming we ever get organized enough to get it off the ground, and get backstories and characters and shit from everyone. We'll see about it--the characters are all more or less in, if not completely, and look precisely as crazy as the assembled crew of players.

I should probably be going to bed, because I'm told I will be getting up early tomorrow, for more fun moving the basement's contents out of the basement, and possibly into a POD--if we can acquire one on a morning's notice. Fun and games.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye: This Court [bangs water bottle/gavel on bench] is now in session. God save the Queen. –Kathy’s judge, reconvening her ITA jury trial.

One paper down... (aka end of October)

I just finished my third and final paper for Ideas of the First Amendment, on Darwinism and the First Amendment. This means that I have, now, under sixty pages to produce in the next seventeen days. There were seventy-plus (forty minimum for my Comment, of which I've written two, and twenty-odd for Computers and the Law, of which I've written nothing). That's what I've been up to for a while. And that's what I will continue to be up to until a) I die, or b) I finish.

There have been a smattering of concerts. Habeas sang several, and I believe I talked about those, and the Matt Alber concert I had in between. More recently there was a Jonathan Coulton concert (he did a Flood concert, because TMBG was doing the same somewhere else in the city on the same night--with Paul and Storm, his opening act, on a week's notice, and it sounded better than recordings I have of TMBG as far as musicality goes--but also did various of his own songs.), with the lovely Laura Stratford, which was just incredibly fun. There are more. Habeas will be singing again at the SFPIF auction on (I believe) the 19th. On the 24th, Laura, Morgan, Mal and I will be going to see Imogen Heap, which promises to be fabulous.

Last night was the SFPIF halloween party, which was... well, yeah. I dressed up as a vampire (no fangs, because they were hard to acquire and were passed off as retractable). There was a tuxedo shirt, suit pants (because I don't own tux pants), dress shoes, cummerbund, my red/black bow tie, studs and cufflinks involved. And it was all an excuse to wear my cape. The only other celebration of Halloween that will happen for me aside from this will be seeing Hocus Pocus tonight at Bergy's.

Before that, there was an event put on by OUTLaw--a panel discussion by members of the reasonably newly formed Alliance of Illinois Judges, a group for gay judges in IL. All in all, it was a really interesting panel, and we were told how to become judges, should we want that (I do. Oh god, I do), and we were told bits of history in general, and how each of the panelists got to where they are. One of them, when I talked to him afterward, suggested I call him soon to talk about the States' Attorney's Office, where he worked for fifteen years prior to sitting on the bench, and getting me a job there.

In other news, I still don't have a job. Working on that. Got two snail failmails today, both from firms that had e-failmailed me before. I love being redundantly failed. Really I do.

It is drizzly, grey, and wonderful out here. If only my apartment weren't borderline overheated. Now, back to writing papers--moving on from Darwinist interpretations of the First Amendment to the Duty to Defend at a state level, and how the WI AG is a tool. In the far future (after next sunday, I mean), there will be pages and pages on prostitution and murder arising from Craig's List, and the latter's liability for the former.

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964)

Shit. September's almost over now.

Ummmmm... POST!

Lots of things happened in september. There was Lav Law, and hilarity involved therewith (including fun and games with google maps and B&Bs, a piano bar with an unlikely visitor, and having a song entitled "My Vagina is 8 Miles Wide" stuck in my head for the ENTIRETY of a gay career fair). There was dancing, and accidental networking, and a general failure of my firm-based job search. There was very little writing that wasn't involved with school, except for a few snatches of story and character ideas and on piece of microfiction that I will not share with anyone for a long long time. There was family drama and friend drama. But all I'm going to give you now is this and a quote to make it an official blog post, because I have between now and Friday at 5PM to produce 2 pages of annotated bibliography, 5 pages of background information/pitch, 8-10 pages of outline, and a preemption check for my journal comment topic, which involves Appling v. Doyle, the obligations of state level executive agencies/officers, and the WI AG doing the wrong damn thing (likely due to the beliefs that often but not always go along with being a Republican). Speaking of Republicans, Ted Olson's gonna be speaking at Northwestern, hosted by OUTLaw. After the comment proposal, I've got a paper to produce and two concerts to sing at, and hopefully I'll be able to attend a cheese party and a concert at which I won't be singing. Now to clean the kitchen, have dinner, and check out tickets to that last concert before going off to rehearsal for the first two.

More, umm... mid-October?

"Government is a collection of bureaucrats with guns." --Koppelman, in today's class. Not sure it's original to him, but it's quite plausibly so.

I started writing this in August

So it should really count as an August update. Even if the timestamp is prepared to lie to you all. Really. It was in August.

And... things happened over the summer. Lots of things. There were parties; there was Buffy (two seasons of it... and I fear I'm actually willingly going back for more); there was Tales of Symphonia and a little bit of Kingdom Hearts (the first one); there was a trip to MN elsewhere mentioned. There was dancing, and a dearth of dates. There was the advent of journals--I'm on the Journal of Law and Social Policy, for the few of you who read this and don't know. There was OCI (with five interviews on the first day, eleven in the first week, two the following, one of which was cancelled and subsequently made up by phone--that might have been my best interview. Particularly with all the lovely brusque stationary I've been getting of late. Bah.), and now there is waiting by a phone I carry around with me, not getting callbacks. There was carpetbombing of Minneapolis with resumes, which as yet to produce results, but hopefully will soon. I hope. And there has been the spinning of much, umm... horse puckey. In a number of ways.

Also, there are classes, and fun related to that (I forgot to bid in the first round of bidding, so had much fun and point-related expense in getting my classes for this term). They started today, and I had three of them (I have a MTW schedule, and four-day weekends that will hopefully be productive). First was Environmental Law, which was actually kinda fun (I never thought I'd say that about a class where we talked about why pollution might not always be bad--or, rather, law & econ--Coase, and the Tragedy of the Commons), and taught by a very nice older gentleman with a strong muppety streak, but not the strongest of all the profs I've had. That's MTW. Then there was Ideas of the First Amendment, in which I knew how I would feel about a case when I saw the words 'Justice McReynolds concurs in the judgment,' and which produced an admirable quote. Well, a number of them. Actually, both of these classes have, but anyway: (on human sacrifice and the First Amendment) 'If you could show that the state's homicide laws were adopted purely to stick it to the Aztecs, then we would strike down the homicide laws and let the Aztecs go to town.' That is a MTW class. Finally, I had Computers and the Law, which is being taught now for the fortieth year running. Two hours, in the evening, taught by a practicing attorney who used to teach programming to students in the first couple sessions of class to show 'how dumb computers are.' He likes to talk, a lot. It will be a fun class, both because of and despite that. This class is only on mondays.

Tomorrow is Children in Conflict with the law, wherein I might be reading A Clockwork Orange (again)--unclear, because there's no syllabus yet. Again, only Tuesdays, this. This means I have four day weekends (five this coming week, due to Labor Day).

Then I went dancing tonight. And I believe Laura arrives tomorrow! I'll not see her until Wed. or so, but it is a glorious thing. And I will drag her dancing, too.

Now, though, I think I am going to go read my enviro homework and go to bed.

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3AugZ2MzNkfe8J%3Akevinunderhill.typepad.com%2FDocuments%2FOpinions%2FBradshaw_v_Unity_Marine.pdf+%E2%99%AB+147+F.Supp.2d+668&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1

(Happy now, Cara? Bah.)

Cities at night

I love cities at night. Both the concept of them, observed from a step back--say, from up on high--and the practice. By the former I suppose I mean the abstraction of city-at-night, where you have an amalgam of elements (all the things that comprise a city--buildings that block views of the sky and then pass behind you, streets with cars all impatiently on their way... someplace, people largely disinterested in anyone else, but still willing to look, to inspect--with darkness, streetlights, an increased sense of isolation, but simultaneously a slightly greater sense of curiosity about others and their activities added added to of that), and by the latter I mean my experience in them. It's an idealized experience, to be sure, played out in safe parts of cities and tinged by no ill happenings, but it's comforting and one I'm not trying to change.

It should come as no great surprise to anyone who reads this that I think of myself, often, as an observer. Slightly at a remove, slightly disinvolved, watching, thinking. It's likely the little furious introvert that lives in, and often takes over, my brain. Another fact that will not shock anyone is that I walk, both for entertainment and for sanity. Often not just the motion, not just the music--and between the two, a certain zen-like absence of thought--although it usually starts out that way. There comes a certain juxtaposition of observation and introspection, and it often proves unexpectedly cathartic.

Look at the world. Look at the city around you--living, breathing. See the cars all on their solitary missions out of and back into the darkness beyond your perception. See the streetlights, shining down the wide and (comparatively) empty streets, allowing a city to have vanishing points in every direction you look (well, four, anyway--and more a traffic circles). Watch the people, going to or from late night events, often in fancy clothing (or bar clothing); smile at the Late Night Dog Walker's Brigade (there are chapters in every city I've ever lived in, I swear); see the couples sitting in picturesque places, talking and kissing if they don't think there's anyone looking; laugh--quietly--at the skateboarders and other assorted packs of teenagers looking for amusement.

The world goes on, regardless of what's going on with you, personally. It may not care particularly, and it may not help at all. But to see that the world goes on, and to really think on it suggests that this, too, shall pass. This may not be the best of all possible worlds (I am neither the optimist that believes this nor the pessimist who fears it), but it's where we are, and in a sense we're rather stuck with it. So make your peace and move on with the world. It'll keep going, keep functioning, keep passing smoothly from day to night and back again. The notion of 'Let that be enough,' I suppose, is the catharsis that I come to on my late night walks. Let the city keep on as it has, I naively think, and everything will fall into place as it follows suit. It's possible I'm walking less for myself as such and more to make sure that the city is continuing.

Let that be enough.

Monthly Update!

Because that's about what it is. Although it's been nearer two months since I've actually posted. Fail. So... what's happened to me since early may.

Finals. They happened. They were unpleasant in the doing, and pleasant in the aftermath.

Fight Club (that is, the writing competition, the first rule of which is you DON'T talk about fight club). It also happened. Immediately after finals. There was a four day span in which I did not leave my apartment. I managed to distill ~500 pages of legal sources into 8 pages of analysis, having read every goddamn source they provided us with. In a perverse way, it was rather fun, except that the subject was... less than perfectly interesting and the deadline was somewhat ridiculous. So, that was Fight Club.

Immediately following Fight Club (well, that's not true: I turned my submission in a day early, and didn't start working until the following monday) I started working for my two profs--Epstein and D'Amato. D'Amato initially wasn't sure I was even working for him, and then suggested I talk to him again around... July. Then I talked to Epstein, who set me to work coding case sets for her empirical research. That afternoon, D'Amato called me up with a time-sensitive thing, which turned out to not be quite so time sensitive and erupted into a suit against a foreign republic for breach of contract which is all sorts of fascinating and relatively confidential. Those have both continued, and are still how I am gainfully employed. Not terribly glamorous (mostly cuz I can't talk much about D'Amato's project), but hey. It's money, which means that I can, among other things, pay rent and eat.

There's been dancing. You know, as happens. There's also been reading of books, as also happens.

I went to Minneapolis for Carleton's graduation, which was largely an excuse to visit folks up there. It was lovely. There was more Carnivale, there was gaming, there was watching Russell play WoW and poking around with that. I was declared the alpha geek of Pechous gaming store, due to dinner with George Takei and Skyping into gaming. There was a fair amount of hanging out with people, and leaving my phone charger at Russell's (there was also setting up my bed--futon--in Russell's new place). Graduation proper was lovely, and featured the requisite dancing (thanks, Grace!), and catching up with lots of random people and profs (yes, profs are people, but they're a separate category), and poking at the graduates I knew (I came for three people, but ended up seeing a rather few more).

Then I got home from MPLS (yay for eight hour bus rides to read books and a several inch stack of law reviews), and promptly got death (Russell did too, and we decided to blame Max, even if it's not his fault). Bergy rocked my world by bringing me dinner and a few groceries for general survival that first night of death. Three days later (that's approximately the right time frame for these things, according to the bible), I returned to the living, just in time to go to Morgan's lake house for a weekend of water and company and alcohol. Although none of that last for me, as I was still attempting to hack up a lung, and possibly bits of other internal organs. There was kayaking and a boat and swimming and... lots of couples. Morgan and I were the men, and the singles. It was... interesting.

Last monday there was more dancing, notable because I finally got a crew of law students (Pasquesi & fiancee, Michelle, Bergy, Mal, Morgan, me) to go up to Charlie's. Crystal spent most of the line dance lesson cracking on lawyers--she was disappointed this week because no one came, and she had a REALLY AWFUL gay lawyer joke she'd learned just for our benefit. Josh was a good sport, and Stina (the two-step instructor) asked whether he was family--his confused look was a good answer.

Somewhere in there, I wrote some. I worked a bit more on my pages and pages of backstory for Paul Twiceborn (gaming character for changeling), and wrote a story for I'm From Driftwood--a blog that collects true stories from gay people, often about coming out or relationships and whatnot. It got published. The link is here: http://www.imfromdriftwood.com/2009/06/17/im-from-kentfield-ca/ I should write more, because I've had no progress on The Alchemy of Eternity within the last several months, but... I don't know how likely that is for the next while. Concentrating mostly on Paul's story. Once it's done, I'll probably find some way to put it up for your enjoyment.

Buffy has continued apace, for better or for worse. I ended up talking to Dave Diamond--my career advisor--for about ten minutes about it yesterday, because whenever he and I meet, it's usually about 25% substance and 75% fun conversation, often about queer issues. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This past weekend was Pride, and (due to being out of town for a Carleton graduation last year, and having mono the year before) was my first Pride. We (NUSL OUTLaw and Romeo) marched in the parade, which had the advantage of personal space, and therefore access to the breeze, which was lovely. We marched with folks from the ISBA (IL State Bar Association), and were the only law school to have gotten organized enough to actually march in the parade. Morgan got two marriage proposals, there were many shouts of 'I LOVE gay lawyers!' (only in the gay community, I'm convinced, is this attitude toward lawyers quite so), there was much ass-slappery/grabbery, and only the backs of my calves got sunburned--rectangularly, because we marched straight away from the sun for several hours, and I forgot to put sunblock on that area (yay for Neutragena's post-fuck-uppery-in-the-sun lotion, the application and magic of which meant I could survive jeans yesterday, and therefore go dancing).

The only other real news is that there was some then-significant drama over classes with the result that I have dropped into BA (Business Associations), and am not in Negotiation. This means I have a more agreeable class schedule and a lot more friends to be in class with. That's pretty much all I have at the moment. If you want more details, poke at me in person--that's kinda the general rule.

I leave you, as with most of the time, with a quote:

"Any golfer who has watched his partner shank a short approach knows, it would be absurd to accept the suggestion that the resultant four-letter word uttered on the golf course describes sex or excrement and is therefore indecent." ~Justice Stevens, dissenting in F.C.C. v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (Docket No. 07-582)

DONE!

So, as many of you who read this will already know by the time you do read this, I am done. DONE! I had my last exam (Civil Procedure II, source of Marticles and Casablanca jokes, and the most horribly amazing bowling joke ever) this afternoon, and during that time, Maine legalized gay marriage. All in all, a good day. The writing competition starts tomorrow evening, but no work will be done on it until Friday, because tomorrow evening will be a great big damn celebration when everyone, rather than a few others and I, has finished their finals. So, this has been an interesting (school) year, and many new things have happened. This will be a mildly contextless retrospective, mostly for my own memory, but for the selective edification of those who can read between lines well. (2 hours later) No. Scratch that, it would have been, but it consisted mostly of realizations that I'd had while here over the last nine months. So... meh.

I've still got the writing competition left (to get on a journal), and I have plans to go dance in a fountain in Millennium Park this weekend, which will be awesome. The weather has turned rainy now that I'm done, despite being gorgeous while I was occupied. Stupid weather. Anyway, I don't seem to have much more to say, despite my grand intentions. So here, for you, is a quote:

"The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified." 244 US 205, 222.