Nationals Park

Yesterday, L, Hank, Henry, and I went to see the Nationals play the Brewers at Nationals Park, the latest jewel in the crown of Southeast DC. I was very excited to check out the new park, and it did not disappoint. Rather than old-timey brick and wrought iron of Camden Yards and its imitators, this park was spare and basic, a simple limestone-colored structure wrapping around the diamond. Each concourse was open to the field; anywhere inside the building you could see the grass, hear the crowd, feel the breeze. We entered from the Metro and walked towards the main entrance at center field, where you make your way through a lively promenade with plenty of options for food and drink. Between the roving crowds, and the cloudless sky, it felt like a day at the beach.

My favorite part of the experience, though, were the mascots. They had enormously-headed versions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt blundering all around the stadium. They were taking photos with student groups and making a few little kids burst into tears; at one point they were racing around the outfield, and Abe Lincoln came tearing through to take first place. I found the whole thing funny and irreverent, but not disrespectful; like the new park itself, there is a sense of levity that doesn't detract from the strong sense of history, civic identity, and even some good old Washington pride. There was a surprising number of Washington caps and shirts worn throughout the ballpark; I was really glad I had mine, too.

Wedding dance

You know what was wonderful about Ashesh and Mona's wedding, besides the marriage of two of our favorite people at a beautiful place on a lovely early summer day? The fact that L and I basically burned through the dance floor with our awesomeness.

Many of the guests at this party were Ashesh and Mona's relatives from South Asia, so the music was a carefully calibrated mix of American hip and hop and pop alongside all sorts of south Asian dance tunes. Obviously L and I were out of our seats for the American music, but as the bhangra tracks blared, and all the Indian relatives were storming the dance floor in their suits and saris, we hung around and tried to follow their lead: bouncing our shoulders, dipping our arms, keeping our hands high as we changed the light bulb or shimmied our hips. There was a fine line to walk between respectful imitation and boorish mimicry, but we did all right. Ashesh's sister told us that she had been afraid that the white people would clear the floor when the DJ called out, "Desis, this one's for you!" but she was glad to see us still dancing, and that we were putting her relatives to shame.

As the evening progressed, the DJ returned to American tunes, and he hit upon a gold mine: a sizzling mix of current hip hop and dance tracks. After an imploring look from Ashesh we returned to the dance floor alongside everyone else. Eventually, though, the other guests seemed to have filtered away, and L and I realized: we were the only ones dancing.

Did that stop us? Of course not. The DJ kept earning his money as the songs got better and better -- we were dancing by ourselves, making the most of the space, dipping and spinning and twisting and popping and shuffling and even grinding (they can't get mad at us, we're white and married, is what I thought when I briefly worried about what some of the older, more traditional guests might think). I realized that people were watching us, and even cheering and oohing as we moved around the floor. My eyes were locked with L's. We were hot, sweating. The wedding photographer was all over us, swooping around and squatting and putting himself in our midst like we were Lindsay Lohan. My fear now is that Ashesh and Mona are going to see eight hundred photos of us dancing like fools and mouthing the words to songs, and unfortunately that will be part of the official record of this wedding.

At the end of the night, as the wedding guests had dwindled to about 20 of us, the DJ gave us a special shout-out from his perch and people clapped for us. The photographer complimented us and said we had been very entertaining and a pleasure to shoot. Someone else told us we seemed so happy and carefree out there, and that it looked like L and I had a great relationship, and that we must practice all the time. I thought: actually, we do.

Thoughts on graduating

Today the darnedest thing happened: I graduated from law school. That means I don't go to law school anymore, because I took all the classes and I passed them and now I'm qualified to do new, different things, and those things don't require me to go to law school anymore. See?

I heard that both L and Mom got choked up at graduation, as the procession began and we all marched to our seats in our chunky maroon robes. I was surprised to find myself nonchalant about the whole thing. I did get nervous when we stood to walk across the stage. I didn't want to stumble, or have my scarf thing get twisted, or have some weird hair issues with the silly beret they made us wear. I really enjoyed clapping for people as they received their diplomas: my friends, people who did really well and got honors, people I didn't know but sort of liked anyway, people who made me laugh in class through their humor or pretension or weirdness or utter implacability. I also enjoyed not clapping for the people I didn't like; I felt oddly empowered to be able to deny my applause to those people.

The speakers were uniformly good, and intelligent, and concise. They emphasized the relationships and family dynamics that characterized the law school, and talked about the importance of public service and time with your loved ones amid the hectic practice of law. They seemed actually human, in a profession that can seem bureaucratic and petty beyond belief. It made me hopeful, and it reminded my that my future is a completely blank canvas. There is some fear in that, I guess, but I feel like I have an education and some knowledge and, more importantly, some people I love who are the bedrock of anything I could hope to do with this degree of mine.

I don't know how I feel about graduating. It feels like I outlasted something tenacious and difficult and angry, but somehow I'm the one left standing. I had to be reminded that this graduation is the beginning of something -- if I was on the street tomorrow, and someone asked me what I do, first I would avoid eye contact and try to move away, but if they persisted, I wouldn't know what to say: I'm a law school graduate? I'm going to be a lawyer in a few months? My occupation is studying for the bar?

One thing I really struggled with in law school was the fact that I felt like I was doing worse, and was thus perhaps stupider, than a lot of my classmates. After first year, my grades put me solidly in the middle of the pack, and I was told that firms "would not be fighting over themselves to get to me," which was a grim moment. After spending two years under this cloud, thinking I was worse than everybody else and was missing some element of lawyering that all these other ridiculous people seemed to have, I felt like a puppy that got kicked too much, just cowering and cringing in the corner when other people started talking about legal theory. My summer work showed me that I did indeed have skills that were valuable in the work place and important in real life (social skills, good humor, etc), but that law school didn't seem to acknowledge. I felt like an outlier.

But then, this year, my grades have been pretty darn good. Maybe the professors were being generous, but I worked hard and I was really proud. Perhaps I figured out the system just in time to leave it, which is appropriate -- after all, if you've stopped learning then it's time to move along. At graduation I didn't feel bitter about the people winning Latin honors, which I secretly hoped for but knew were unlikely for me; I knew I finished strong and that I was just as smart and capable as anyone else there. I'm glad I didn't end law school feeling the way I felt for so much of it: stupid, unqualified, unequipped. Looking ahead I don't think I would ever spend three years in a place that made me feel that way. And I don't think I would let something as stupid as grades have so much power over me. Hopefully I am too smart a dude for that.

*****

We have had a very busy weekend. On Saturday, as the day-long block party bustled on the street outside, my grandparents and parents drove in from Virginia and my sister flew in from South Carolina. Before meeting everyone in the morning I ran a 10K, my first run in Central Park since the marathon. Once my family arrived we met them at their hotel near the Flatiron Building, then came down to see the apartment and wander around the kiosks of the fair. L got a necklace with a small gold circle, in which is imprinted a simple "L," and I love it -- it's perfect. We had an early dinner at Stand, and then once my grandparents were safely ensconced in a cab the five of us wandered up through Union Square to Shake Shack, enjoying the early summer air below the cheerful light bulbs in Madison Square Park.

This afternoon after graduation we proceeded directly to a Chipotle in midtown, then returned to the hotel in the rain and made it back down to the apartment. We ate at Fig & Olive in the Meatpacking District and explored the streets for a little while, watching the sky turn pink as the sun sank into the Hudson and the city evening descended before us. Then everyone returned to the hotel, and L and Kels and I came back home.



It has been a great, and exhausting, weekend. I have so much to be thankful for. And I have a lot of things to consider.

Newark odyssey

9:35 am. Depart for Newark, to get fingerprinted for the New Jersey bar application. Random requirement requiring extremely random trip to Jersey. Roll with the punches. Appointment at 11:30, but leave early just to be safe.

10:15 am. Excellent mass transit karma; caught some kind of express train arriving at Newark very quickly. In final moments of the trip, realized that form required for fingerprinting was forgotten at home. No way to get fingerprints done without this form. Shit. Flop sweat begins.

10:17 am. On board train again from Newark to New York. Seem to be on the Rahway Local, chugging along like a children's book character and never getting anyplace. Train overtaken by a glacier mid-ride.

10:50 am. Sprinting outside Madison Square Garden, trying to get taxi without waiting in taxi line. Leisurely taxi driver apparently prefers to drive in the wake of truck or bus. Leg slapped, epithet whispered in frustration when driver actually yields on yellow. Minimal tip given.

10:59 am. Dashing up stairs, into apartment, grabbing form, back out, into new cab. Ask to go back to train station; driver says there must be a rush. Situation explained. Ask the driver if he would drive to Newark (having studied the passengers' bill of rights on the previous ride). He agrees for $50. Realize that he probably comes from a haggling-based culture. Ask him to do it for $40. He says no. Fine. Then he says $50, and he'll pay the tolls. Overcome by natural fear of haggling, proceed to train station. Why so unwilling to play hardball? Question for some other day.

11:28 am. Aboard the next train for Newark. Hopes fading rapidly.

11:55 am. Arrive in Newark, again. Board the Newark subway according to directions supplied by the fingerprinting people.

12:10 pm. Disembark and study bus station map; realize directions were wrong, destination remains more than 10 blocks away. Decide to just walk rather than wait for the cartoonish trolley they call a subway.

12:15 pm. Explore vibrant downtown Newark. Previous plans to perhaps grab a light lunch at a local cafe immediately abandoned. Malaise of city now understood.

12:35 pm. Arrive at fingerprinting facility. Hear one man ask for directions for federal parole office, then head upstairs to find fingerprinting office closed until one. But of course.

1:05 pm. Shuffle into fingerprinting with twenty other felons, parolees, bar applicants, other riff raff. Immediately evident that no one, not a single employee, cares that original appointment was missed. Did not matter in any way.

1:20 pm. Begin fingerprinting process.

1:25 pm. Fingerprinting process completed.

2:00 pm. Back in Manhattan. After additional outing to pick up bib and t-shirt for Saturday's 10K, return home at 3:30. Vow never to leave apartment again.

Filled

Right now I am filled with self-pity. I just got back from the dentist's office, where I had multiple fillings done, after a two-year hiatus of professional dental care. Words cannot express my shame at requiring multiple fillings; that kind of thing happens to other people, not good, floss-conscious people like me.

The left side of my face is numb, if you include the part of your neck down to the adam's apple within the idea of "face." My lip is droopy and heavy, and my words were slurred when I profusely thanked the dentist, like a cretin, for drilling in my mouth and making my saliva spray onto my shirt and glasses. He used a variety of implements today, including: drills, the suction tube that always traps my tongue, a wedge designed to keep my mouth open, an egg beater, a staple gun, and a blow dryer. When he was drilling I could hear the high-pitched whine like a scream coming from someone else inside me. I tried to pretend I was on an airplane, but this was a failure. There wasn't enough anesthetic in my upper teeth, so I could feel the drill in a particularly specific and uncomfortable way. I was gripping the seats of the chair and clenching my butt and flexing all my leg muscles until I couldn't keep it in and grunted for help. So, I got an additional dose, which means I should be able to resume making facial expressions by the weekend.

Once again my dentist was about 14 years old; at one point I swear he said, "hold still, man," although it was hard to tell over the roar of the blow dryer. The important thing is that I'm back on the straight and narrow dental track, and have my next cleaning set up for November. My only hope is that by then I will once again have feeling in my face. Honestly, right now I could be drooling out of the side of my mouth -- what the hell, I probably am -- and I wouldn't even know it.

And then we came to the end

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on my last paper for my last class of law school. After a tiresome weekend gathering notes and rereading sources, I spent Monday sitting at the desk in the study stringing my quotations together and trying to sound coherent. When I really get into the writing process, I find that words come into my head whose meaning or spelling is unclear to me, words like compunctious or inexorable, and I have to look them up to make sure I'm using them in the right way; thankfully I was able to find this groove for much of the day.

I was about halfway finished at ten p.m., when the muscles in my neck and shoulders were tense and knotted, so I decided to stop for the night and settle in with L to watch "The Hills." But as we enjoyed the antics of those golden-haired morons, I felt uneasy. I was unsettled, my mind was racing, and I kept asking myself questions. "Why is Lo being such a bitch to Audrina?" was one question. "What am I going to do about this paper?" was another.

After the show ended I had an epiphany: I had to finish that paper. Tonight. Right now. As L went to bed, I kept pecking away at my computer in the dark study, listening to Coldplay on my headphones, and finished my paper around one in the morning.

Five hours later we were awake to go to the gym, and my mind was immediately alert and engaged, thinking about the paper and the slight changes I wanted to make. It was odd to be awake so early and yet feel so attentive -- like a fighter pilot or something. After the gym I read the paper one more time and was pleased with myself; it's definitely not the worst 31 pages I've ever written (sadly, that title probably goes to the short story I wrote about Star Trek: The Next Generation in eighth grade).

Then I went up to school, printed it out, and submitted it. I sold back three of the novels we had read for the class for a grand total of ten dollars. I cleaned out my locker. I bought a diploma frame. Then I came home and went to Chipotle and bought myself lunch with the ten-dollar bill I had received for my books.

And now here I am, finished with law school coursework, sitting in my sunny apartment as the sun shines and the birds chirp nearby. There may be a nap in my future, maybe some reading for pleasure. Right now I'm not thinking long-term.

Three for three

Today I finished my third and final law school exam! Then I came home and discovered that L had all these balloons waiting for me in the kitchen! After my heart started beating again, and my brain realized that it wasn't an intruder waiting to bludgeon me in my own home, but in fact a festive display of congratulatory balloons, I was really happy!

Thank you, L. One more paper and law school is a wrap, and then I can focus on what really matters: preparing for the bar, and getting over my new balloon terror.

One down...

Two to go. I just finished my first exam and have two more, tomorrow and the next day. Today I had New York Practice, and it was fine. Whenever I take exams my brain always puts on music in the background, so as I'm flipping through my outlines or trying to make an argument there's a part of my brain listening to Danity Kane singing about taking me to ecstasy. Today I found myself going back to Mariah's new album ("Touch My Body", "O.O.C.", "Migrate"). I was trying really hard to find my notes on the relation-back doctrine and the difference between impleader and interpleader, but the only thing I could think about was:

If there's a camera up in here it's gonna leave with me when I doooo!
If there's a camera up in here I best not catch this flick on You-TUUUUBE!

The oddest part, though, was when my brain started singing "Fields of Gold," by Sting. Where did that come from? I don't have or know that song; I can't remember when I last heard it. But I definitely took time out of my exam to think about the fact that my brain was singing it, while I'm trying to graduate law school.

Now I am back home, about to go eat lunch with my best friend and confidante, The New Yorker, before the studying continues. Wish me luck. Touch My BODY!

Last day of class

Today was my last day of law school class, ever. I knew it would be a good day when the guy sitting next to me on the subway this morning took out a sheaf of clean white papers and started sketching a guy standing nearby. He used a Sharpie, drafting quick dark lines as his eyes darted back and forth from the guy to his papers. I had been slogging through a dullish New Yorker article but quickly dropped any pretense of reading and just watched him sketch. When he decided he was finished, with a drawing of this random guy covering two sheets of paper, he turned to me to see what I thought, and I nodded appreciatively. Then he reshuffled his papers and started sketching the disheveled old man sitting across the way. "The mustache," he said loudly as he drew the man's mustache, causing him to look up from his newspaper at his portraitist. I wished him a good day and went to school.

In my first class, the professor had lunch for us and we talked about the class. It was her first semester teaching here, and she told us we were a great introduction to the school -- we were smart, energetic, and fun. No gunners among us. She sounded genuinely appreciative of being able to teach us (obviously this was a completely new idea to us), and at the end we all clapped and smiled warmly at ourselves. I thanked her for a great semester as I left, and although we shook hands, I swear that I think she almost went in for the hug. Almost.

My second class of the day -- my last class, ever -- was as mind-numbing as it's been all semester. Yet when the professor began wishing us well, and told us how he'd try to get us special treatment at the courthouse when they swear us in as attorneys in a few months, the class melted. It was like everyone sighed, and clucked, and were filled with a bizarre kind of warm, lawyerly love. Then, when he put a pile of his business cards on the table and invited us to stay in touch and let him know if we ever needed anything -- it happened again! The sighing, the clucking, the surging of good will. At the end of class, there was thunderous applause. I was amazed. This class was horrible! I wanted to yell. What are you people doing? "Loved you, hated your class," seemed to be the message.

I came home to find a jubilant L waiting on the steps to welcome me home after three long years of law school coursework. We went for a walk. I got myself a cupcake. I went for a really glorious run by the river. And now L's coming home, and we're going out to dinner with some new friends in a few minutes.

Classes are over, and although I have some finals to knock out, now I'm on my own time. I wore my Fordham Law t-shirt today, even though it fits weird (too short, sleeves too high, neck too wide) because I felt a surprising wave of nostalgia this morning. And it seemed like a number of people were rocking their Fordham gear today, which was nice to see. As the day progressed, as we all said our goodbyes and thank yous and looked back on one last semester of reading and lectures and talking and boredom and learning -- I began to feel happiness, and even some pride, after this seemingly endless sojourn up at Fordham.

Not us

At the restaurant with the best of intentions. The waitress has seen this before, she knows immediately from their posture, their averted eyes. They speak to her with false good cheer, unusually chipper voices as they promise that their meal and everything else is fine. But when she passes their table, bringing other people plates or shuttling empty glasses to the kitchen, she sees them sitting quietly, with blank faces, as the silence grows between them.

She feels sympathetic, though -- she herself has been in their shoes countless times, occasions with boyfriends or parents. When their own good intentions couldn't overcome the worry and the fear that they dragged in the door behind them.

It was her professional opinion, of course, that sometimes people felt a certain unspoken need to be in public, to face each other across a table even when they did not know or understand what was to be said. It was the sight of other, happier people that reminded them of how, or who, they usually were. A part of them hoped this reminder would be enough to pull them out of the morass, and some nights, maybe it could be.

She felt for them as she worked nearby. They ate quickly, without speaking, as the restaurant whirled around them. Yet their good cheer was unflagging when she offered more drinks, and they insisted that the food was delicious.

Later she bid them good night as they left, quick smiles dissolving below down-turned eyes as they walked back into the night. Yet as they left he put his hand on her shoulder, drawing her in, and from the brightly lit center of the restaurant the waitress could only hope that some kind of change had passed.

It's coming

I picked up my cap and gown today. Three more days of class. Three exams. One paper. Then, freedom.

("Freedom," of course, means eleven weeks of intensive bar exam preparation, propelled by the butt-clenching fear of failure and the prospect of professional humiliation. But then after the bar we're going to Asia for a month, so I'm not complaining.)

MKD Hot Mix 2001

Remember back in 2001? Not the terrorist attack and our ongoing national existential crisis, but before then. It was a frivolous time -- we had our jovially incompetent new president, and we were all worried about Gary Condit and shark attacks. Back then, the internet was basically nothing more than a computer hooked up to a clock radio. As a college student, I had downloaded a few songs from the internet, but I ended up asking my tech-savvy friend James to gather me a certain set of songs for a mix I wanted to create -- a mix known then and now as the MKD Hot Mix 2001.

I was thinking about the Hot Mix on Saturday, when I was half-heartedly studying and looking up old songs on YouTube. After enjoying a couple Lucy Pearl and En Vogue songs, I decided to go digging through my cd collection to unearth the Hot Mix. I found it and was once again blown away. This was definitely one of my favorite mix cd's and I think time has borne out the strength of most of these songs (ok, maybe not Da Brat) (but Shaggy? Come on). So here, for your own enjoyment, is the carefully selected playlist of my 21-year old self:

1. 112, "It's Over Now"
2. Jennifer Lopez, "Love Don't Cost a Thing"
3. Ja Rule and Lil' Mo, "Put It On Me"
4. Shaggy, "It Wasn't Me" (note: I karaoked the shit out of this song in Myrtle Beach once)
5. Da Brat and Tyrese, "What U Like"
6. Chante Moore, "Straight Up"
7. OutKast, "Ms. Jackson"
8. Common and Macy Gray, "Ghetto Heaven"
9. Koffee Brown, "After Party"
10. Madonna, "Don't Tell Me"
11. Lucy Pearl, "La La"
12. Tamia, "Stranger in My House"
13. Erykah Badu, "Didn't Cha Know"
14. Carl Thomas, "Emotional"

Spring fever

Since L got ferociously sick on Thursday, my normal husbandly duties have been replaced by my efforts in my new role as a home health aide. Is she comfortable? Does she need a blanket? Would she like a sad little peanut butter sandwich made of one piece of bread? Should I discreetly move into the other room while she yaks into the toilet?

These are the questions that haunt you, as a home health aide. Poor L has been convalescing on the couch for multiple days now, sleeping fitfully on the bed and in the living room, watching VH1 marathons and trying not to do anything that hurts (like swallowing, moving, or breathing). They say it's a virus, and in my expert opinion, it's disgusting. L made me look in her throat, twice, and there is quite a battle raging down there. Her gland is really swollen and is protruding from her neck. Although she has been on antibiotics for a couple days, there is not much improvement going on. So like any happy newlywed couple in Manhattan, we thought we'd spend this Sunday afternoon at the ER!

Going to the emergency room really puts things in perspective. L has been a trooper during this whole process, trying to stay out of the way and heal and put up a strong front. For almost three hours today we watched the ER buzz around us, as the IV dripped fluid into L to rehydrate her. We saw some guy come in for a cocaine-related issue. We saw a woman come in who was so tanked on drinks or drugs that the doctor was threatening to have her stomach pumped (which I was secretly hoping for, since it would have been more interesting that figuring out how many milliliters of fluid L had received). We heard all about an old man's rectal temperature. We heard another old man yell forlornly from behind his curtain, "Hello! Is anybody here?" to which no one ever responded. We saw one very large woman shuffling around in multiple hospital gowns, draped around her front and back like a sandwich board. And we heard a lady have a frank discussion with her doctor about her stools and their qualities (she also discussed her extensive list of medical woes, her menopausal state and her active sex life). And, in a moment that made me want to strangle myself with the IV tube, we heard a nurse ask an old man: "sir, are you trying to urinate or defecate right now?"

Indeed. After they discharged us we hustled out of there as fast as L's withered legs could go. We went to Tasti D, then picked up more supplies at CVS, and now we're home, so L can convalesce in peace and I can return to my nursing responsibilities.

Wednesday night

A really good night -- I'm tired of complaining about law school, so I want to note some good things that just happened tonight.

I went to an event sponsored by Fordham called "The Law Reporters: America's Next Top American Legal Journalists" or something like that. I don't know, I'm not a details person. But at this event were: Adam Liptak of the New York Times, Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News, the peppy and wonderfully named Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, and Jack Ford of what used to be Court TV. They all talked about being lawyers and journalists, and writing about the law, and helping people understand what the law means. This was the first time in a little while that I was happy to be entering (this phrase sounds incredibly lame, but it's how I feel, and feelings can't be wrong) the community of lawyers. I'm excited to have this body of knowledge and experience, to know these things and to be able to share it. Since the idea of writing about the law for a more general audience is definitely one of my secret career plans, I thought this event was very encouraging. And it was at a swanky lounge at Time Warner, which I studied intensely as I sipped white wine at the pre-event cocktail party and talked to no one, since everyone was about forty years older than me.

Then I came home to discover that L made brownies from scratch. They were fantastic.

And John and Anna came over and we watched a wonderful episode of "Top Chef," and in the last five minutes about eight contestants got into a big argument, and they were cussing and stalking around and kicking over chairs, and because it was edited in that bizarre reality TV style, where people's statements seem to be taken out of context and strung together in a life-like but not quite realistic way, it was all a hilarious disaster, and that's what I look for in television shows.

And now we're on the brink of Thursday, the best day of the week. I have to get up at 6:15 to get to the gym and I could not be happier about it. Goodnight.

Always on a Sunday

Tonight we ate lavishly -- L made fettucine alfredo with some spinach pasta we bought at the farmers' market yesterday, and she made the cream sauce herself, from scratch. She made a salad with thick carrots and cucumbers and yellow bell peppers (all from the farmers' market) and that bitter kind of lettuce, the purple kind. She steamed up some beets, too, which we picked at with forks while their dark purple juices stained the bowl.

I have been feeling full and distended all night after this meal -- maybe it was my inability to not eat all the pasta in front of me, or the excessive amounts of dairy I consumed (you don't really need milk to complement your alfredo sauce, I've learned). We just came in from a stroll around the neighborhood and I felt unusually jumpy and anxious -- every passerby was a threat, every dark storefront a sight to be avoided. Usually I'm not like this, usually I embrace the nighttime and the natural rhythms of the city, taking note of the restaurants winding down and the busboys taking out the trash and the drinkers stumbling into cabs, but not tonight.

The reason why, besides the pasta and the milk sloshing around my belly, is because it's Sunday and we're on the brink of another week. I'm really struggling to get through these last few weeks of law school, and I don't want to go to class. I try to come up with reasons to skip class, but it's never worth it, so I end up going and I hate it. I want to remember what this feels like, this feeling of hating what you do during the day, so I can never get stuck with a job that feels like this again. Although "dread" feels like it shouldn't be the right word, I guess it is -- that sense of knowing you have to do something very unpleasant, and although you know you're going to do it, you still fight it tooth and nail, in your utterly useless state of petulance and stubbornness. I'm trying to maintain a positive attitude, and really soak in these last hours of academic learning, but it's not working very well. This is no way to get a graduate degree.

Wisdom of age

Recently I learned that John Krasinski, one of the stars of "The Office," is my age, 28. This is dispiriting news. Like many people I've always assumed I was a child prodigy, or at least some kind of genius, and if my obvious talent hadn't emerged by now, well, I'm still young enough for some kind of brilliance to come tumbling out of me any moment now. Yet as I continue my voyage through my twenties, more and more people are starting to appear in our culture who are remarkably talented, intelligent, successful, charismatic, gifted, and younger than me.

I always tend to assume people on tv, and the writers I read, and the doctors I see, and government officials, and musical artists, are all at least two or three years older than me, which somehow perfectly explains the fact that they are where they are. Obviously I will be there too in a couple years. Unfortunately, this already shaky world view can't quite handle people like John Krasinski, who is my age yet is somehow also on my favorite tv show and apparently funny and decent. The worst thing of all, of course, is the people who are younger than me: Many R&B artists. Most Olympians. Everyone Diddy picked for "Making the Band." Those kids from "High School Musical." And the list goes on. Sometimes I think about Justin Timberlake, and the fact that I've actually had even more time on earth than he has, extra time when I could have been establishing my own wildly fantastic musical success, and it makes me want to puke a little bit. And I'm not sure if this situation is going to improve.

Men about town

True, we may be old and married and sporadically boring, but we're not dead yet! Last night, in honor of their impending marriages, Ashesh, John, and I set out for a night on the town.

I knew I looked excellent: I was wearing this cool new blazer I got recently, and my shirt had a nice crisp collar just waiting to be popped. Ashesh and John were dressed to kill, as usual; we were like a gang of multicultural yuppies on the prowl. We started out at Miyagi, this sushi place on 13th street; then we made our way to Otheroom, a nice little bar on Perry, which happened to be full of exotic beers and unfortunately homely women; then we went to APT, which was the big hotspot in the meatpacking district about five years ago, which means it's now just ripe for our attendance; then we had some burgers at Five Guys, where the cashier told me I had nice teeth and gave John his drink for free; then we met up with the ladies (who were no shrinking violets themselves, having drunk their way through several night spots and even fallen on the floor of a lesbian bar) at Wogie's for a final, completely unnecessary beer; then we went home and hit the sack at 3:30.

It was good to feel young and rich and carefree, although we sort of aren't any of those things. There was an amusing sense of panic as we worried about getting into bars, since we were three dudes wandering the village on a Friday night with no ladies among us. It was fun to act the part of three single guys setting their sights on the nightlife ("D-bags on the town," perhaps) before retreating to the familiar spots and the women we love. A very good night.

Choose your own adventure

Well, we bought the guidebook, so it looks like it's settled. The other day I went to an information session on the bar exam and exactly how unpleasant the preparation process would be. They told us we could have some semblance of a life in May and June, but that once July hit we would be studying as much as possible. They told us we would be driven by nothing less than the fear of God. They said we need to be selfish and take care of ourselves. They said if we were in a bad relationship, just break up now, rather than then. It's that serious.

Yet they also said that after the exam ends, we should go on the best vacation of our entire lives. Thinking about the multi-week trip we will be taking in August (we're taking three to four weeks here, really), L and I have been bouncing around a few ideas: a road trip through Latin America, hiking Kilimanjaro. Asia has always been in the back of our minds, but I was deterred by the fear of running into law school classmates on the beaches of Phuket or something (Does Phuket have beaches? Time will tell). At some point, though, I told L that southeast Asia was the most exotic place I could imagine: a completely new culture, beautiful beaches, mountains, non-western religious sites and architecture, food I am not entirely comfortable with. Bodies of water I've never seen or touched. L's excitement for an Asia trip sealed the deal.

Where do you take what might be the best vacation of your entire life? In the most exotic place you can imagine. I can't wait.

Sweet sweet Virginia

Yesterday I got back from a really pleasant weekend home. The temperature seemed to be a good fifteen degrees warmer the whole time. I ate like a starving person the entire weekend. On Friday night my parents and I were enjoying one of my favorite meals (pecan-crusted trout) at Artie's. My mom asked me about something, so I launched into an extremely detailed and interesting explanation of, say, the bar exam, and then my mom interrupted me to say: "You have little ears! Aren't his ears small," she said, turning to my dad. I think this kind of weird attention to bodily detail is the kind of thing you only get with parental love. And you know what, I appreciated it.

On Saturday L and I met her new first cousin, once removed: the consonantly named Lacy Day, daughter of Kristin and Ryan. Lacy was a delight, and is quickly moving from the Yoda stage of infancy (where babies are three parts adorable and one part raisin) to the stage of cherubic cuteness. The fact that the three of them are moving to San Francisco is sort of depressing, since they are the kind we need on the East Coast and especially at in-law gatherings (Ryan being one of the few to fully comprehend the joy and wonder of entering the Lacy clan mid-stream).

That night we went out with Trish and Matt to a wine bar in Clarendon, where we ogled the cheap prices of everything and basked in the presence of other Virginians. There is just something about how people dress and act and carry themselves -- it's different from New York, and it feels completely familiar and reassuring. For the girls, it's a certain way of wearing the hair, and maybe some make-up combination, I don't know, but I call it "Virginia-cute," and it was good to see again.

Sunday we ate like pigs at a trough at an extremely classy brunch place. After we dropped off L to return to the city I went to join the Easter festivities at Kateri's, and later on we drove to one of the few Noodles outposts open on Easter night, just so I could get one last fix -- that's how good my parents were to me.

It was a lovely spring weekend. I was happy to be home and spend some time with my parents. Callie, the older dog, is getting extremely old, but she is still as regal and proud as ever. The other funny moment with my mom occurred as we were driving around and L mentioned seeing those "1/20/09" bumper stickers people have to celebrate the end of the Bush administration. My mom is a die-hard W. fan, but she was initially unclear on the stickers, so when L mentioned them my mom started pumping her fist in the air joyfully and crowing, "Go! Goooo!" We explained that the stickers are for people happy he'll be leaving office. My mom didn't miss a beat: "Oh," she said, with her fist still raised. "Bad! Baaad!"

"How you gonna fix it, fix it, fix it?"

MTV has worked its magic on me yet again. This song, "Damaged," is by Danity Kane, one of Diddy's groups on "Making the Band." After watching the show on Monday I downloaded this track on Tuesday morning, and right now I can't get enough of it. It's the kind of song that I repeat as soon as it ends, stabbing the back button on my ipod to not waste a precious second.

Why is my appetite for this song momentarily insatiable? Let's break it down. The first thing that got me was the electronic stutter in the verses. Then the background vocals are harmonious yet dissonant, driving you to unexpected places. Yet with all the sophistication of the arrangement and the future-is-now production, the call and response of the chorus (repeating "Damaged" a million times) reminds you that this is nothing more or less than classic girl-group pop. Then, moving into the last minute of the song, the beat drops back, adding perhaps a note of poignancy (maybe I'm reaching here), along with Diddy's sort of philosophical, sort of unnecessary mutterings. I love it. The last segment really reminds me of "Last Night," Diddy's smash last year with Keysha Cole, and I like to sing the chorus of that song over the last thirty seconds of "Damaged" -- believe me, it can work.

Visually, of course, what more could you want? They look extremely good. I love the fact that they go from metallic pink sex goddesses in their funky spaceship, dancing up a storm and arching their backs in their pods, to pretending to be the staff of an operating room. Way to keep it literal! And plausible! Although I think some of the dancing is not as sharp as it could be, there are some transcendent moments, especially from my girl Dawn (the black girl with the long hair). And I like how the girl singing the second verse sings out of the side of her mouth. Work with that.

Also: the woman's voice at the end of the video says "Stereotypes" because that's the genius who produced this song, and the note at the end of the video reads "Tired of the damage - DK." And really, who isn't? What a great song.