Geriatric Easter

I was the youngest person at our family Easter celebration this year. One person in her eighties, five in their seventies, two in their fifties, one forties, one thirties, and me. I had a few odd conversations that reminded me that there is so much I don’t know about life, and that being a precocious 26-year old doesn’t count for much in comparison to the slow accumulation of waking up and getting out of bed every day for the better part of a century. You see some things, during all that time.

On the car ride down my great-aunt was saying how she feels so tired all the time. She actually said she felt ready to move on. My parents, joshingly, were chiding her about not meaning what she said. But she replied, “You don’t know how it feels to get up every day.” She talked about how her husband died too soon, and how yesterday she was at his gravesite and said, “Where in the world are you, Dan?” And believe me, that shut up everybody in the car.

Later on in the day I was talking to my grandfather, who is one of the best men I’ve ever known, who is like a second father to me. I carry his name and I am so proud of that. He was giving me his standard talk (or lecture, let’s keep it real) about work and preparation and life and love and family and generosity. I actually got to tell him some things I’ve never said before to him – about how well he has done for this family, about what he has made possible – and he told me that even though he doesn’t need to work any more, he still does it out of love. How much he loves us and wants us to be happy. He talked a lot about working hard in school and making sure you have a fallback plan, general lessons for life he’s been telling me so many years now.

At one point he took a weird turn for the macho: “You don’t want to be fuckin’ cutting down trees for your life, you know?” I had no idea what to say. What was he talking about? What’s the proper reply to that? “No, I sure fuckin’ don’t”? We don’t cuss in this family. But like a Cadbury crème egg, I know that behind that crusty chocolate exterior of bumbled curse words is the warm gooey caramel center of familial duty and the love of a strong and gentle patriarch, in the best sense of the word. Then he was like, "You want to be successful in your life, and happy, and then you can decide if you want to go cut some wood, you know what I'm saying?" Actually, um, no. I don't.

On the way home my mom asked me what we had been talking about, and we laughed about it in the car. He also told me he was proud of me, very proud, and my mom said he had never said that to her. I guess that is true, and even if it is, perhaps it just shows you how much people can grow and change and learn through every one of their days on earth. It was quite a day.

Book review: "The Namesake"

This from Saturday, April 15:

Since I’ve been home for the Easter weekend, I reread Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel “The Namesake.” I started on the train yesterday and finished it this afternoon, reading on the patio watching the sun go down. Sometimes I would look up from the reading and see a robin on the roof or a squirrel by the trees – it was great.

I first read this book in August 2004 in Rehoboth Beach. L and I were trapped inside because of a storm, and it took all the willpower I had to not devour the novel in one or two sittings. This time, though, I abandoned all restraint and consumed the novel the way I had hoped to. Even on a second reading, I was amazed at the scope of what Lahiri has done – in a mere 300 pages she covers two generations of a family, leapfrogging through time but still giving the reader enough to feel invested.

I think of all the novels I have ever read (ok, since becoming an adult), I have never been more affected emotionally by a book. Sure, I’ll give a good cry at “Stepmom” (damn you, TBS, for your constant airings) but books have never really hit me at the core. This one, though, put a lump in my throat several times over. The relationship between father and son reaches into a huge weak spot of mine, and the discussion of names and what people call us and how we call ourselves is also very familiar to me. It’s funny that when I’m home I respond to nicknames so instinctually, and how weird it is to hear my parents call me by my given name when we’re out with people.

Anyways, “The Namesake” remains an amazing book. Thematic elements of family, migration, trains, naming, love, maturity, books, reading, gifts. I love it.

Bad dog

I was walking to school today along Broadway when I saw several blind people getting off a bus. One had a white cane, but three or four had seeing eye dogs. They all got off the bus and were walking along, and I was admiring the concentration and aplomb of their seeing eye dogs, who were plodding steadily forward, when one of them (the dogs) suddenly turned to sniff the legs of a mailbox. The dog stopped dead in its tracks and the blind person behind it said, "Whoa!" and kind of stumbled into the dog, who clearly had no intention of moving.

At this point I kind of laughed a little bit, which I hope those blind people with their heightened sense of hearing didn't detect. I have never seen a bad seeing eye dog before. I mean, this one obviously missed a day of training, and he probably won't last long "out in the field," as they say. Maybe he was new, I don't know. I'm sure they straightened it all out in the end.

Waiting/David Gray/registration

Right now I'm sitting in the library at school, done with all the work I am going to do for the day. It's 5:37. At 6:15 I'm meeting a bunch of my classmates at a bar where our TA is buying us drinks. It should be fun. I am disappointed to miss going to the gym, though.

I'm listening to the newest David Gray album, "Life in Slow Motion," on the Ipod. It is so nice to have new David Gray music to listen to -- I find his voice so unique and comforting, and I like the mix of live and electronic instrumentation. He puts you in a good, mellow place. His album "White Ladder" is definitely one of my top recordings ever -- there was nothing I listened to more my third and fourth years of college -- and even the melancholy and sadness has a warm tinge to it now. So I'm glad DG is back.

Well, honestly, that's about all I have to say. Oh, I registered for classes this morning. A frustrating process but now I've got Corporations, Copyright Law, International Law, and Race and the Law for the fall. I am currently tired from waking up earlier than usual, and being stressed out and angry way earlier in the usual. Who cusses at 7:15 in the morning? I do, buddy, when it's a morning like this one. But then at school today everyone was commiserating and bemoaning the fact that none of us got what we wanted, and that we were all cussing at the computer and feeling our blood pressure skyrocket as out internet connections failed and the law school site froze or expired. As a result, people were walking around with glassy eyes today whispering things like, "I have 8 classes on Tuesdays," "I signed up for medical school classes by mistake," or, "I think I accidentally withdrew myself from school."

I wish I could go home now but I'm sticking around. I can't think of any more websites to visit, and after a couple of very long blog entries I wanted to dash something off quick. So here you go. Hooray for David Gray.

A weird evening with Toni Braxton

The setting: The Nokia Theatre in Times Square, probably the coolest underground lair in all of midtown. It was like the underground hotspot at Epcot Center - undulating ceiling, subtle lighting that shifted to cover the whole color spectrum, cheerful, good-looking employees in black. Eight dollar cans of beer. The main theatre area was suprisingly small, to the point where I looked around and thought: "Oh, poor Toni." The crowd size was about equivalent to, I don't know, say, Back to School Night. There were really cool chandeliers on the ceiling, comfortable seats, and intricate shadows thrown on the walls by the lighting systems. Nokia is doing well.

The crowd: I expected it to be another buppie crowd: young black men and women, well-dressed, stylish, fit, like a Terry McMillan novel come to life, sauntering and strutting in complicated hair and suits white men would never dare to don. And there was a significant buppie contingent, as well as ... middle-aged white couples. Who I guess really enjoyed "Unbreak My Heart" for three weeks in 1996, because otherwise why are they there. It was a bizarrely diverse crowd. More immediately, we were sitting in the back near a strong group of Proud Black Women who were very fun and sang every word, and the gay dude to our left (who, tragically, came and left alone) was actually quivering with pleasure during the concert.

The opener: was a comedian, Kyle Grooms. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and was generous with my laughter, and had a good time. He had this great joke about being "fuck-it drunk": when you're so drunk, you just say "fuck it" and don't even care; that's the point when you're dancing when there isn't even any music, you're just fuck-it drunk. I need to work this into my lexicon. Anyways, the comedian was way better than the standard hack opening R&B singer, who drags you through ten songs you don't know, including six ballads you never want to hear again and vocal gymnastics you didn't ask to hear in the first place. Put the melisma back in the bag, homie.

The Toni: OK, this was kind of a weird concert. She started out with "You're Makin Me High" and "Take This Ring," the two songs I was most excited to hear, and she was prancing all around, sort of dancing. She had two white chicks as her dancers, and she made the backup singers, two tall black girls (who happened to be her sisters, she said), dance as well, although they clearly weren't exactly Madonna, or even Paula Abdul, dance-wise. (Poor Toni can't even afford backup dancers and backup singers, y'all. It's that serious.) But the performances were awesome, the choreography was hot, instrumentation solid, but then ...umm... you realized.... Toni... wasn't really..... singing. Oh, no. Oh, snap. We are not listening to pre-recorded vocal tracks for this whole thing. This is not an Ashlee Simpson concert! No!

After the opening aerobics she settled down, flipped a switch, and actually sang. The difference was clear, and then it got pretty awesome. Here's the rundown: despite her cold, her voice sounded good and she hit all the notes; she had many costume changes, but she's looking a little thick in the middle; L thinks she demanded backup dancers who were kind of hefty so she would look better, although I disagreed; she played a lot of her early stuff, and the crowd loved it. She invited people onstage to sing and dance, and she wandered through the audience, which was at first endearing and then weird. She sat on a lot of laps, received a lot of bouquets. There was a crazy skinny white bitch who security was pulling back. There was a lesbian who looked like Jabba the Hutt who brought Toni flowers before she tried to, you know, eat her. There were cool dudes and sad dudes, and a dude who brought his son onstage. It was like Toni had decided, "Hey, my career's not quite where it used to be, maybe tonight let's just get to know each other a little bit.

Besides the audience antics and the strong set list, Toni was right there with all her singing tics that I love ("ooh," "yeah," "Woo!"). The audience would even jump in and supply some of them, which was awesome. We were so on point. But she had some diva tendencies, though, like the two fans (machines, not concert-goers) blowing air towards her during a few of the more torchy, ridiculous ballads. She talked to the audience in a weird way, kind of like a children's tv host, or a weatherman, I don't know. When she sang "You Mean the World to Me," she had this intense "You mean the world to me! You mean the world to me! You do!" thing that was a bit much. (Kind of like Oprah's "You get a car! You get a car!" tourettic episode.) And she had one song where she made a saluting hand gesture every time she talked about soldiers, which, as a Boy Scout, I found off-putting. Speaking of gestures, though, she definitely had the Mariah Carey disease where you can't really move your limbs in a normal standard way, and instead look like your puppetmaster thought it would be funny if he made you do the Macarena. It was comical, to say the least.

But am I mad that she had no encore? Or that she didn't sing as much from the new album as I would have liked? Or that I didn't get to go up there and sing and dance for Toni? No, I am not. For all of its faults and oddities, I would never have missed it. You can't miss Toni Braxton.

Spring fling

This was the first great weekend of spring. Here's how it went down:

Friday
Law school happened, as it usually does on weekdays. I went to go volunteer with my housing group and ended up downtown at the courthouse for four hours. I needed to drop off a form for a judge, get his signature and notes, copy his notes, and return to the office. Of course, when we got there we went to the wrong office; then we learned that the form would not travel the eleven floors up to the judge for another 90 minutes; then, when we came back 90 minutes later, we learned that the judge had gone home early to start the weekend (not a bad idea, actually); then we went back down to the original floor to meet with a substitute judge. Sometimes I feel frustrated by things like this, but I figure that some things you just have to learn the hard way, and this is part of the dues-paying process for this new legal career. I mean, I did learn about "orders to show cause," and a process called "conforming," and I won't forget them any time soon.

However, when I got home at 6, needless to say I was pissed. I went for an emergency stress-relieving, soul-cleansing run and it was fantastic. I was literally bounding with happiness along the Hudson River, feeling great, strong, listening to happy music, watching the sun set over the water and the lights come on in Battery Park. It felt so, so good. The rest of the night went like this: Benny's , for dinner and a margarita; a sighting of Project Runway's Jay McCarroll walking down 7th Ave; "Inside Man," which was all right by me; and Wogie's for two buckets of Rheingolds. Came home at 4 am drunk as a skunk and loving life.

Saturday
Woke up at 10, did not leave the house until 6 pm to go watch basketball and eat good burgers. I opened the window, read the paper, watched shitty tv. Yet I don't feel guilty about this.

Sunday
Did the Scotland Run in Central Park - 6 miles at 7:48 per mile. I was pleased with my time, given the ridiculous crowd-jockeying for the first half of the run. L returned from DC, unexpectedly early, so we met James for a congratulatory burrito at Chipotle. There is something nice and refreshing about the mid-day Chipotle visit. Then we moseyed home, stopped at a bookstore and did some browsing. Then I did work, watched some tv, and went to the gym again for the awesomely fun step class. And then, dear reader, L and I scooted up the 1 subway line to go to the Nokia Theatre to see, live in concert, in the flesh, TONI BRAXTON. It was ridiculous. More to come soon.

Back from the mountain

We have returned from our big fat religious premarital counseling retreat weekend. It was a mess - I was really kind of disappointed by it. We came back to a dark city on Sunday night feeling exhausted, dirty, resentful, with L's glasses broken and my mood wrecked.

The retreat house, up in Poughkeepsie, looked like the hotel from "The Shining" - an imposing stone seminary built 100 years ago on the banks of the Hudson, surrounded by bare trees and stubby grass. It was creepy but interesting. There were 27 (!) couples there, and two lead couples who directed everything. Now, these couples are volunteers, and they are amazingly generous with their time and unswervingly open about their personal lives (over the course of the weekend we heard about their: battles with depression, mentally ill children, fertility troubles, financial woes, weight issues, troubling long-term arguments with their parents, resentments towards each other, and their sexual proclivities). They were very nice but hard to relate to - one couple was in the sixties and had an athletic team's worth of kids; the other was in their forties and lived in Connecticut. Neither pair really fit the mold of the hep-cat, urban-living, cool hipster-with-a-dash-of-metrosexual couple L and I plan on becoming (and frankly, to be perfectly honest, already are).

As soon as we got there we went around the circle of fiances and -cees and had to say one reason why we loved our partner. I turned to L and said, "I can't handle this." People extolled the wonders of their partners' sense of humor, generosity, warmth, selflessness, caring. I said I loved L's baking skills. It was that kind of weekend.

Basically the entire time a couple would give a talk to us about ourselves, our relationship, our future, the sacrament of marriage, the process of decision-making, religious family life, etc; then L and I would separate and write each other letters based on questions and things we were instructed to consider; then we would reconvene to meet in private and discuss these issues (or, alternatively, nap). From Friday night to Saturday night, we were good, and we made an honest, good faith effort to participate. L and I communicated in ways we usually don't; we were kind and open and loving in the written word in a way that is difficult to sustain when you are battling all of the distractions of daily life. So I am thankful that this retreat brought us closer together and gave us some insights about our commonalities and differences, our abiding love, our relationship with God, and the family we hope to create.

But then, on Saturday night, the whole thing went to hell. They started talking about birth control and natural family planning, and all of a sudden we had become these subversive rebels, like in "V for Vendetta," but instead of blowing up Parliament we wanted to hotwire a car and follow the Hudson back to the city before they made us write another got-darn letter. During the talk of natural family planning, the speakers were making some statements about contraceptives, and abortifacents, and the value of a child conceived out of wedlock that made L snort with derision and made me unable to maintain eye contact with anyone in the room. I thought what they were saying was insulting and patronizing, and wrong-headed. At that point, all of the day's frustrations came to head and they kind of lost us for the rest of the weekend. The next day, during what was supposed to be the spiritual highlight of the weekend, a renewal of our engagement promises, we couldn't even do it - I was not in the right mood, my mind was racing, and I just wanted to leave. It was sad.

So, over all, I think the curriculum of the weekend can be improved. I felt like it was a little simplistic at times, like they were assuming we had gotten engaged on a lark instead of getting engaged as the culmination of a process that took years. At times I felt like we were getting beat by a dogmatic 2 x 4, with an insulting lack of nuance or intelligence behind the explanations. Sometimes it was very New Agey and schmoopy, and there seemed to be an expectation of such blatant openness that I just couldn't sustain. I don't feel comfortable opening up about the dynamics of my relationship with people I don't know. I don't want to hug people I don't know. I don't want to be told what to do by people I don't know.

We were making jokes the entire weekend about our dismal plight - the monotony of the sessions, the frustration of not being able to go anywhere or really break new ground with our conversation. There weren't many new ideas introduced. L and I always took our engagement seriously, and we know the depth of the commitment we are preparing to make. But the retreat was disappointing, and sad, all the same. I tried to make the most of it, for the first 24 hours at least, so in large part it's my failure. But the resentment and disappointment and relief we felt on that train ride back to the city are not emotions I plan on bringing up to the altar.

Spiritual thing

This weekend L and I are going on our pre-marriage counseling weekend-long retreat. Around the house, we've been calling it Celibacy Weekend 2006. Yep, thanks to the church's requirement that we unflinchingly examine all the quirks and contours of our relationship, we will be talking about "us" for 48 whole hours. I don't know if we even have that much to say. I haven't been on a religious retreat in a long time, and L and I are not exactly the most spiritual of couples. I would more describe our relationship as "secular humanist." But I have high hopes for this weekend. If nothing else, hopefully we'll have some good stories coming out of it. I get on the train in two hours, and I won't be back until Sunday afternoon. Stay tuned.

RIng of power

We bought my wedding ring this weekend. We went back to Tiffany and were helped by a nice chick our age named Veronica. I was trying a bunch of different rings on, including some with decorative flourishes like gilding around the edges. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. "Well, you have slender fingers," Veronica said hesitantly. "So that ring looks a little --" "Gay?" I offered. "Feminine," she said. "Yes," L agreed. No need to go gay for my wedding, but we picked out a good one. It's gold, yellow gold, pretty plain and simple, a nice weight, a certain heft to it, but classic and unpossessing. We will get it engraved with something nice. Right now it's sitting in a box on our shelf, wrapped in paper and tied up in a bow. I have never been more covetous and lustful of a piece of jewelry before. It's kind of like the Lord of the Rings ring, in terms of its significance and power over me and the way it holds my attention, but hopefully this ring will work out better for everyone involved. Hooray for matrimony!

Women we love: that Pussycat Doll

I think her name is Nicole. She's the lead "singer." I would never have expected to really enjoy the music of the Pussycat Dolls, given that their music sounds like classic bubblegum factory pop, but it turns out I do. I liked their second song, "Stickwitu," which actually means "I want to stick with you," but they're too busy and globe-trotting to say all that. It was a pretty sweet ballad, and it had some random harmonica moments that for me really unified the song and elevated it above the Ugg-wearing dreck of your Ashlees and Lindsays and Allies and AJ's. And their new song, "Beep," is a very "My Humps"-like song with spare production, catchy lyrics, and a really awesome beat. The music comes in and out and it's unpredictable and it's fantastic.

I have never heard the Dolls' music on the radio, so I have only gotten to know them through their music videos. And that's where Nicole comes in. She's beautiful, she has a pleasant voice, she has a smile that lights up the room, and she's a good dancer. Let's be honest, the other Pussycat Dolls are window-dressing. I mean, there's the redhead, the short black chick, eight or ten blondes, and the one with the pegleg. And then there's sweet, radiant, smiling Nicole. For seeming to be pleasant, for heading up a group that I have no business enjoying, for dancing well, for misspelling "definitelty" as "definately" on her official Pussycat Dolls website blog - she is a woman we love.

Night work

I just came back to New York this afternoon, and I feel really good about my time at home. I ate a lot of good food and slept a ton, and managed to be pretty darn lazy for a couple days without incurring the wrath of my industrious parents. They work harder than anyone else - even when they are "relaxing," they are slaving away in the yard pooper-scooping or rotating the shrubs or something. I don't know.

We watched "Walk the Line" with my grandparents, which was very interesting because they were around when all of those events transpired. I wonder what it's like to see all these pretty twenty-something actors recreate an era of your youth. Is it accurate? Does it matter? How is it to see something you genuinely knew become something fictional?

I was thinking about my grandparents, and I was thinking about this amazing short story collection I just read, Judy Budnitz's "Nice Big American Baby," and I started to write. I thought about a sentence my grandma had said over the course of the weekend and I went from there. My only goal was to create something suspenseful and realistic. I used geography from my childhood and names from my family. In Budnitz's work, she takes a weird or creepy or supernatural premise and just follows it through, but in a very spare way. It's like in fashion when they try to get away with as little fabric as possible to make a dress - or, alternatively, revealing skin you never expected to see to begin with. Budnitz does the same thing with her writing: using a few broad strokes to create a frame and letting the reader fill in the rest, or placing the whole weight of a concept on a few lines of dialogue, trusting the reader to come in and add something more vivid than the writer herself could create.

That sounds high-falutin'. But basically after three nights of work I wrote a little story that I kind of like, so I'm going to spend the next few days revising it. I creeped myself out writing it, so I guess that's a good sign. It feels so good to write something fictional - to create my own world with its own characters, and to try to at least do it well enough on the terms I choose to construct it with.

Last night in bed I was fantasizing about seeing my fiction published in the New Yorker - I could picture my name in their font, I could see myself listed as a contributor. Hot fantasy, eh??

Marietta

I am in McLean now, after my whirlwind trip to Charlottesville. After a few visits back to my old haunts, I think I can safely say that I love that town, but not enough to live there. With that said, here is the weirdest and most memorable thing that happened:

One of the attendees of the big party last night was our fun friend Kim, who brought along a friend of hers from Marietta, Ohio, who, for the purposes of disparagement and mockery, I shall call "Marietta." It turns out she is married but her husband wasn't there. During the party she emphatically gave me a lot of unsolicited advice about how to be married. "Always communicate," she blathered. "You want to head things off at the pass. Make sure things are totally out there."

"Yeah, that's really important," I would say, nodding. I was trying to make eye contact with someone else, and pretending to be deeply interested in the label on my beer bottle. "Is your husband here tonight?"

"He lives in North Dakota." Marietta's husband lived in North Dakota, while Marietta, for those of you keeping score, lives in Ohio. They were married a few months ago, and he lives out in freaking North Dakota for some job-related reason. Awesome.

Later that night, around 1, several of us went to go out dancing for a few hours. In the taxi on the way there, Marietta was seriously trying to put some moves on me. She was drunk as a skunk. "Since we're both married, this is ok," she slurred at me. Her breath was like Cheezits and beer. "All right," I said, trying to extract myself. She was trying to intertwine her fingers with mine, so I gave her a platonic pat on the shoulder and sort of shoved her away. "No, really, it's ok," she whispered. It was not ok.

On the dance floor she was all over me, as well as my friend Greg. Grinding her butt towards us, grabbing at our hands and leading us in awkward turns and twists, trying to make deep eye contact and allure us with gawky arm movements and arrhythmic pelvic thrusts. "No, this is ok," she would say when violently tried t0 get away from her. "Don't you think this is ok?"

It was so gross. This was the worst married person I had ever seen. I spent the whole night avoiding her and ignoring her overtures. A couple points: 1) I did not want to dance with her. 2) I did not want to commit some kind of premature adultery to my beloved sober fiancee, L. 3) I did not want to aid or abet in the eventual destruction of Marietta's own marriage. It was really sad and horrifying.

On our way out of the club, at 4:30 in the morning, our group was gradually crossing the street in the hopes of getting a taxi. After watching Marietta assault the males all night, Kim told Kateri that Marietta actually had a husband. "Marietta, you're married?" she yelled across the street. The girl nodded and said she was married. Kateri looked incredulous: "To who?"

Time travel

In two hours I'm getting on a train for Washington, then I'm getting on another train and heading straight down to Charlottesville. Spring Break just started and I'm going back to Cville for a birthday party at Kateri's house, in honor of the 5th anniversary of our friend Jenn's 21st birthday. I feel like i'm going back in time - I'm going to see people I haven't seen in years (Greg, Kim, even Jenn and Kateri and others too), for a house party featuring beer pong and flip cup, in a town I knew and loved years ago. I won't have a car, I won't have Lillian. It feels like I'm moving back in time five or six years. I'm looking forward to it, and also looking forward to the long weekend at home I'm going to enjoy before I come back to the city.

I've been thinking a lot about why I've been so angry and frustrated lately, and I think getting out of here will do me a world of good. I'm excited to step back and take a breath. A nice train ride this afternoon, with a fresh New Yorker and a good dinner and some good beer waiting for me at the other end - is a great way to start. See you back home.

Rage

Saturday night should have been lovely. I had a great dinner with Ashesh and then came home to putter around the apartment and do some schoolwork. Next weekend I am going home, and I am trying to finagle a trip down to Charlottesville on Friday - a trip that requires me to get from Manhattan to Cville in an afternoon. I was looking online at a bunch of different websites - Travelocity, Amtrak, Expedia, American Airlines, and nothing was working. The train I was looking for seemed to be nonexistent; the customer service people wouldn't tell me my frequent flier password, even when I was patient and courteous as I was tranferred through outsourced customer service personnel from Mumbai to Guajrat. And on top of all that, the DVR that L had installed that very day had somehow messed up our cable signal, so the television was unwatchable and I had to miss Saturday Night Live. And, I had to prepare for a law school presentation on Sunday that I had to wear a suit for and do homework for on a Saturday night. I started getting angry.

"What the FUCK," I said. L was in the kitchen area and I was stalking around the living room, surrounded by old bills, hastily-scrawled phone numbers, useless television remote controls, and a deadening sense of rage. I hung up after talking to another bitchy old cow in customer service and was at that level of anger where you almost start crying. I was incredibly frustrated and made up a mental list of things I hated at that moment: 1) law school; 2) Amtrak; 3) American Airlines; 4) "customer" "service"; 5) outsourcing to people whose language skills are not quite up to par. "God DAMN IT," I hissed at my cellphone. "I hate this shit so much" -- my Tourette's outburst was in full swing at this point -- "fuck everything, I am SO SICK of this SHIT." I looked around at the shambles of my life and heard the heater barking and tapping crazily. "God, why is it so hot, it's the fucking WINTERTIME," I bellowed, ripping my fleece off. "It's like a FUCKING SAUNA in here!"

I'm not used to being enraged around other people. L actually didn't enjoy my outburst and left to go on a walk. I stayed behind to sulk and consider ways I might be a more considerate and less Hulk-like roommate. I turned the heat off. And now our apartment has a cute new nickname: "the fucking sauna."

Book review: "The Underminer"

I am currently reading a fantastic book called "The Underminer: Or, The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life," by Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan. The book takes the form of a series of one-sided conversations spanning fifteen years in the relationship of the nameless protagonist and the Underminer - a friend who is always just a little smarter, a little better-looking, a little more accomplished, yet is blindingly oblivious and completely scathing in his relationship to you. This is the friend who makes you feel like crap.

I am loving this book because it is hysterical and just so damn cutting. James got it to me for my birthday, after I almost got it for him for his birthday, and it is perfect. Because if there's anyone whose life I am sort of casually destroying, it's James. And I am sure he would say the same of me. Anyways, here's an email I sent him trying to imitate the utterly inimitable "Underminer" style. This book is highly recommended.

James?

Wow, I can’t believe you still have a hotmail email account! That’s so funny! Man, I thought like only high schoolers had those. I mean, most people I know have emails from their graduate schools or their investment banks, but that’s great. Like, my email address is at Fordham. You know, because I go to law school there. But that’s really fun that you still have a hotmail account. You were always so crazy!

So you want to watch “the Bachelor” finale tonight? I didn’t know anyone who actually watched that show! I mean, I guess I’m just more into art galleries and international fiction, but that is just so funny. I always thought it was like these illiterate fat red-staters who watched trash like “the Bachelor,” but now I guess you do too! Well, it does kind of make sense. You were always really into popular culture and following the group.

That’s so funny how you’re exactly the same as always. Good ol’ James – you were never one to change or grow or develop! So different from the rest of us!

Happy birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. Today I am sitting in the library at school getting ready to go home and I am feeling the effects of last night: I am aware of the weight of my own head. My eyes feel beady and small. I am unshaven. I am wearing glasses. My stomach, occasionally, will roil.

But yesterday was awesome. L and I woke up at 6:40 and trudged up to Central Park, and I ran in a four-mile race and was pleasantly suprised by my time of 31:00 minutes (7:45 per mile for those of you keeping score at home -- I thought I would be in the mid-8:00's, so this was an unexpected gift). We came home and weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves, since we were showered and clean and breakfast-laden and informed by the newspaper, all by 10:30 in the morning. We walked around the village in the afternoon, made an obligatory pilgrimage to Chipotle, saw Philip Seymour Hoffman on the sidewalk with his girlfriend and kid, not seeming exceptionally paternal, and went to some bookstores and bought L new running shoes.

Later I went to strength conditioning and step class, and because I'm such a birthday glutton, when my smooth and attractive teacher asked me how I was doing and what was going on, I blurted out, "It's my birthday!" and she announced it to the larger group much to humiliation, especially in the step part when she said, "It's Michael's birthday and I think he deserves some bigger sashays! Let's give Michael some bigger sashays, people!" I actually prayed for sweet death at that moment, because of all the things I intended to do on my birthday, I am not sure if sashaying was or should have been on that list. But if a part of maturing is not caring about what other people think and a general willingness to be embarassed, I guess that was helpful.

We had an awesome dinner at Westville, where the lovely waitress and I were both grooving to "That's the way love goes," and then we went to Buddha, where I saw a lot of my friends and had a great time, exactly what I wanted. We rounded out the night at French Roast over some liquoured-up coffee and fancy pizza, and now here I am.

I am very happy to be 26. My life is going really well and I can't imagine having any more to be thankful for or excited about. I heard from a lot of people I love yesterday and that was the best part. I didn't hear from my grandparents, which was really disappointing, but it's not something to dwell on. I don't know - birthdays for me are double-edged, or at least they have a strong shadow underlying the substance. I mean, it's a celebration and a time for assessment and a chance to think about who you love and where you're going, but at the same time, it can also be a chance to be disappointed. But beyond the birthday, my life is going really well and I am certainly aware and grateful of the good fortune of it all. I am so, so lucky.

The plan

Friends,

This Saturday is my 26th birthday, and to celebrate my lost youth and innocence, we're going out. We'll be heading to the Buddha Lounge, which is a lively, smooth spot on the Lower East Side, and I would love it if you could join. We'll probably get there around 10:30 or 11. (Address and directions are below.)

I would love to see you, as no birthday is complete without celebratory drinking and awkward, impaired dancing with the people you love. And believe me, we will have all of the above.

Hope to see you Saturday-

Michael

Buddha Lounge
29 E. 3rd St., between 2d Avenue and Bowery
Look for the sign with the red Buddha on it
(212) 505-7344
Subway: take the F or V to 2nd Ave (or walk from Astor Place)

Neighbors

Our oven hasn't been working ever since we moved into the apartment. Our landlord, Bill, has tried diligently to get the repair guys to come, but when they do, they mess around with all the dials and tubes and wires, but they don't actually fix it. Apparently this is due to union regulations, I don't know. So Bill has been trudging to our apartment sporadically to let the repair guy in and watch him fiddle with knobs, or, alternatively, wait for the repair guy to come and then get stood up by him. It's a system that works for everyone. (Although Bill did give us an awesome gift certificate to a great restaurant to make up for it, so I'm a happy camper. Plus, the only thing I need the oven for, really, is storage space.)

So last night I was in the bathroom, perusing the latest issue of Newsweek as ... you know. Right. So the intercom buzzes, and I assume it's just someone trying to get into the building, as I don't expect any visitors. (Do you see where this is going?) I continue reading an especially incisive column by Jonathan Alter when there is knock on the door. I decide to ignore it, considering I am indisposed. Then I hear Bill's voice outside and the rustle of keys. All the blood in my body hurtles to my face. Uh oh. "One minute!" I croak.

No response, and now I hear the telltale jingling of keys. The front door opens. I hastily throw the Newsweek aside. "One second!" I yell. "One second!" Shit! Shit! My body goes through a million different kinds of stress as I ... make myself presentable. Hands dripping from the sink, the magazine stuffed behind the toilet, I walk out and open the front door. There's Bill and the repair guy, Russell. "I'm sorry, you caught me in the restroom!" I say as jovially as possible. I shake hands with the men and give them a look that says: please believe that my hands aren't wet because I peed on them.

They come in and Russell goes to town twiddling with the oven. He ventured into it from the top down, dismantling the stove and then working his way in. Other neighbors pass by the open door, and Bill offers a few choice tidbits about them. The nice people who live across from me are Scientologists. So don't go to them for advil. And Bill himself has been playing piano in a jazz band for 40 years, and they play every Monday night at a bar around the corner.

After they had all left, and the oven seemed to be working, I returned to the bathroom so that my intestinal tract could try to make some sense out of the extreme psychological trauma it had been through. But as I reflected in my favorite room of the apartment, I thought: you know, this is why you love where you live - a landlord who is a regularly performing musician and scientologists across the hall. Unbelievable.

Women we love: Beyonce

I am up to my neck in the horrible process of writing an appellate brief, so what better way to prime my mental powers for some razor-sharp legal reasoning than blogging about why I like Beyonce:

Beyonce's new movie, "The Pink Panther," looks incredibly bad, the kind of bad that only Steve Martin in his latter-day "family" "friendly" mode could spit out. But her new song, "Check on it," featuring some disposable Southern rapper, is kind of awesome. It's the kind of song I didn't like at first, when I actually heard it, but when I saw the video I really starting digging it. It's got that trademark Beyonce quick delivery, and I think she even rhymes "patient" with "abrasive." The video features like eight different versions of the woman: ghetto B, switching her hips and smacking her gum; upper east side B, wearing a big ol' sweater and looking cute; B in a wig; B dancing in a dress; B dancing in jeans; etc. Plus there's this one point where she does this bizarre Matrix move where she dips back and reaches the ground with her hands. Was that an animatronic move? Or did she have some vertebrae removed?

But the best part of the song is the penultimate line in the chorus, when she says: "Dip it pop it twerk it stop it check on me tonight." You know, I once twerked it for L during an intimate moment and it didn't go well - she felt uncomfortable and I was mortified for weeks. But if it works for Beyonce, more power to her.

So, the woman had a great voice, she's got some amazing curves, she's easy on the eyes, she writes songs with quick lyrics, she is unreasonably flexible, and she offers music that makes you want to move your hips. If that isn't enough reason to love a woman, I don't know what is.

Drama review: "Doubt"

Tonight L and I saw the Tony- and Pulitzer-award winning play, "Doubt." It's about the clash between a priest and a nun in the Bronx in 1964, when the church is in the middle of the upheaval of Vatican II and this particular nun is convinced that the priest is molesting a student at their school. Suspicions and conjectures start to reflect the changing times, the clash of sexes within the church hierarchy, and the fears and horrors that no one can really bring themselves to articulate. It was an amazing play, with the crackling dialogue and a lot to consider. (Not to mention a spectacularly obnoxious audience - intermittently beeping cellphones, crumpling candy wrappers, and the woman next to L who felt the need to complete the actors' lines for them. After she loudly announced the actual very last word of the play, I leaned over and brisky asked her to be quiet. A good moment.)

I was thinking, though - between this play, an article in the current New Yorker about the church's depiction of Mary Magdalene as a whore through the ages, and a book I read by Karen Armstrong about her experiences as a disenchanted ex-nun - I am feeling a little cynical about religion. The common theme that emerges is that the men in power make doctrines that will keep them in power and ensure the status quo. A question I keep returning to is why we expect leaders of the church to make such drastic and bizarre sacrifices - to abandon elements of their innate humanity like sexuality and the need for companionship - to somehow better prepare them for spiritual leadership.

I want to refresh myself and feel good about religion as this wedding of mine rolls around, but so far I still feel pretty disenchanted with the whole thing. So much of the doctrine has been manipulated through the ages, so many horrible things are done in the spirit of people's misplaced certainties. But maybe I need to let go of some of the irony and cynicism to see beyond it. I don't know.

Put your back into it

So it's almost halfway through the month and I have yet to update this beloved blog of mine with February's exploits. I have been working hard at law school, incrementally preparing for the wedding, trying to improve the subtle aspects of cohabitation, looking for something to keep me busy over the summer, enjoying a new season of "Survivor," and considering the implications of my bday in two weeks, but the whole month maybe just boils down to:

Hurting my back at the gym.

This happened last saturday. I went for a two-hour block of manly exercise, namely, total body conditioning followed by step. (My relationship to step class is a Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. It's like going out dancing, it's like learning how to enjoy house music, it's like line dancing, it's like making a fool of yourself and not caring. I sort of like it.) Anyways, the teacher is this black chick who could easily beat me in arm wrestling and is very nice and charming. She is somewhat dreamy, and she has a crazy name that isn't even a name - I will call her "Mwa," which is close enough. Anyways, by the end of the first hour I was feeling a little burn along my shoulder blades -- during step class it became an insistent little dart of unpleasantness with each step on the board -- later that night, I couldn't lean back - or raise my arms - or slouch...

Every time I moved my arms it killed. Walking home from watching SNL with James, I actually had to stop in the street three times - it hurt so much and I could barely breathe. I felt all constricted. To get into bed I had to make these elaborate spins and loops around my room before I could bring myself to endure the vertical-to-horizontal transition. I couldn't sleep - couldn't roll over, could only lay on my back with my arms over my head. After calling my parents the next morning, I popped a fistful of advil and took a hot, hot, hot shower for 25 minutes - and miraculously, my back felt about 70% better. I couldn't believe it.

I took it easy this week, liberally supplementing my diet with over the counter pain medication and taking it easy at the gym. But I'm back to 100% now, and I'm returning to that damnable class this afternoon. I will say to Mwa, "Hey, I wanted to tell you that after last week, my middle and upper back went ballistic, and I can't help but hold you responsible. So.... yeah. Let's march it out." Nothing like an athletic injury that happen in stupid ways! This is almost as good as the time I sprained my wrist in junior high during a particularly ferocious game of pin dodge.

Housewarming

We had a housewarming party on Saturday night! It was fantastic. There were a lot of people there - the main room was full, and there were people sitting on the bed, and others hanging out in the study and in the kitchen. 36 bottles of beer and 12 bottles of wine. I was running around answering the door, throwing coats into the kitchen, and getting drinks - basically being a waiter, which I love to do. I made an ass-kicking music mix that got a few complements, and I think everybody had a good time. It was weird to have everyone in the same room: our good friends, my friends from law school, friends from undergrad, people from my old work, L's work friends, her church friends, our neighbors, our old neighbors.... I ended up drinking a lot and making Hamas jokes at the end of the night. That may have been offensive, I don't know. Nice going, Palestinians.

We invited the neighbors who live around our apartment both to promote neighborly goodwill and as a buffer to prevent indignant complaints about excessive noise. A couple of them came, and the people who live behind us turned out to be a demographic match for us: engaged couple, pretty young, fun and funny. They both work in the beverage industy. [Thoughtful nodding.]

And the kicker is, our neighbor from downstairs, the one who plays the music and the one I'm sort of afraid of, knocked on our door the next day to... give us a housewarming gift. So we are back on the level. I had such a warm feeling at that moment, although since I was still kind of drunk, it could have just been the booze.

Wow, drinking sure is a theme of the last few posts. Not sure how I'm feeling about that.

I went to class drunk

On Tuesdays I have a four-hour break between Civil Procedure and Legal Writing, so I went up to Mama Mexico to celebrate the birthday of Tara, my friend and former colleague. A couple margaritas and a homemade bowl of guacamole later, I am careening back into law school. I had a coke and some cookies to sober up before class, but, shockingly, this didn't work. I wasn't obnoxiously drunk, just a little flushed and easily amused.

Once we're all seated in the seminar room (the class is only 18 people, natch) our teacher, Ross, starts telling us about our oral argument exercise. We were supposed to face off with another class and argue against them, but those plans were canceled. I was bummed. "We would've destroyed them," I muttered.

"What was that, Mike?" Ross said.

"We were gonna destroy them!" I said loudly. People started laughing. Ross said something about how I was in a competitive mood, and maybe somebody else would volunteer to go against me.

"I'll take any a y'all!" I said, pointing around the room. For a moment I slipped into some kind of ghetto persona. I hope my neck didn't swerve. My face was turning red, and in the deepest corner of my mind, the pre-margarita lobe, I thought: why are you talking? Be quiet!

Everyone laughed some more, and Ross said something else about how excited I was for the arguments. "I'm free tonight!" I yelled. They were all amused and some were looking at me strangely - that was not completely out of character, but definitely not my standard in-class outburst. The ones who knew I had been drinking enjoyed it the most.

The rest of the class went smoothly, as I sat quietly, trying to avoid attention and trying to return my face to its normal skin tone. It could have gone a lot worse, but I don't think I should make it a habit.

Movie review: "Cache"

This is a French thriller about a fancypants Parisian couple who start receiving mysterious video tapes in the mail - surveillance videos of their house, hours long, which arrive at their doorstep with crude, sinister drawings and no other explanations. Wound deep within the marrow-like cells of the videotapes are secrets - old, sinister secrets of Le Husband's past, which unlock a frenzy of violence, horror, mediocre parenting, and pretension. Snappy publications I usually trust all rave about this movie as being chilling, exciting, unexpected, gripping, and spine-tingling.

But L and I actually saw this movie the other day, and all I know is, "Cache" is apparently French for "Don't bother." It was horrible. Boring. There was no music in the film and the characters were unsympathetic. There were scenes of really shocking violence: a boy cutting off a chicken's head, and the body careening around the barnyard (which you know they could not film in the US, thanks to our paint-bucket-toting friends at PETA) and a man slitting his own throat on screen. I was fortunate to look away in time to avoid seeing the actual act, but I can tell you that I have never heard a theatre audience make the kind of noise that they made when they saw him kill himself- shock, anguish, confusion.

So basically the movie was incredibly boring and dull, punctuated by horrific violence. There was no real resolution to the story and most questions were left unanswered. The only neat trick was that as a viewer, you were never sure if you were watching the movie or a surveillance tape. But even dipping into the lives of these upper-crusty Parisians - their meals, conversations, homes - did not make up for the wretchedness of the flick. In sum: Don't waste your time.

I joined the gym

To celebrate the new year and maintain my sex appeal and overall level of health, I joined the gym for new year's. I've been pretty good about going, spurred on by L's frenzied addiction to fitness and a healthy sense of competition, in the form of making sure she can't beat me up. Besides the tv's posted above all the treadmills, the best thing about the gym is the classes one can attend. And a good thing about going to a gym in the West Village is that I don't feel the need to be a rugged macho Marlboro man in a headband when many of the dudes are gay there anyhow (although they are the kind of he-man gays who are extremely jacked up and attentive to skincare). So I am free to take classes that would otherwise be potentially embarassing, if I were, say, anywhere else. After a week and a half, here is an update:

Boxing - Correction: there are burly guys in the West Village, and they all gather here, in this class, to kick my ass. I was the only person without handwraps. The teacher was this gnarled, angry muscle with a face, and he yelled the entire time. Amid the punching, running, abwork, and "bear crawls," I adopted that sad face you see on people who exercise, the face that's two-thirds misery and one-third orgasm, the face that is really unattractive. But afterwards he said I did well and I promised to come back (but I didn't because of a class conflict. So I look like a punk).

Total Body Conditioning #1 - Pretty good, fairly hardcore. No cardio work, all muscle. I need the structure of a class to make sure I get a balanced workout and this did the trick. I had three sets of weights, a mat, a bench, and something called a "body bar" that I jabbed into myself intermittently through the session. But it was what I wanted.

Total Body Conditioning #2 - Like the last class, but way gayer. The teacher had apparently just gotten off the trolley from Fire Island. He played this Elton John techno megamix, so we were pumping out to "Your Song" and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight." It did the trick, though. But this class was a bunch of lumberjacks armwrestling compared to...

Step - Ok, I was asking for it. But I was curious. This class was honestly pretty fun, although it was the least strenuous. We learned these complicated moves and routines, and it turns out there's a whole lot more to step than stepping - we were mamboing, shimmying around the benches, going in front of and behind them, spinning around. It was fun the way line dances are fun. I laughed when the instructor started barking, "Arabesque! Arabesque!" But there was another guy in the class, and he had been there before, and I did better than him, so that was rewarding. And, the instructor said I did really well for a first-timer. I thought about challenging him to a danceoff then and there, to establish alpha-male status in the step studio, you know, but I declined.

Recruit

I went to a reception last night hosted by one of the big law firms here in the city. They invited 1L's to come by and say hello and begin the recruitment process for summer jobs. It was really weird. Strutting up Park Avenue in my suit, looking purposeful, I felt like a fraud. When I finally made it into the conference room where the reception was taking place, there were only about ten other people there. The students had nametags with green writing, and the lawyers had nametags with red writing. So you spent a lot of time craning your neck to see who you should bother talking to, because what's the point of sharing that funny anecdote from Torts class with some schlub from Cardozo? It was like a frat party where the girls hadn't arrived yet. So some girl came and talked to me who recognized me from undergrad and we hung around for a bit.

It was really bizarre. The same awkward conversation repeated twelve times over, or spinning some conversational gold out of nothing. Awkward silence, then "how do you like law school?," countered by "how long have you been at the firm?" And then you're off to the races. There were attendants passing around gorgeous hors d'oeuvres, little flaky pastries and kabobs and these juicy lamb chops, but who would eat a lamb chop at a professional mixer like this? I had one beer and after 90 minutes had hit my saturation point.

As I was walking back I thought about how this life of wealth and comfort seems pretty darn close, in a way. And also how these firms are like the Cheneys of the legal world. Product liability cases, when a medicine makes people sick and they die? The firms defend the pharmaceutical companies, and they win. Environmental cases? The firms defend the polluting industries, and they win. I don't know if I can do that.

Defending the castle

Fifteen minutes past seven this morning. L and I are in bed denying the existence of the alarm, the somber NPR people depressingly offering the news. Then, like clockwork, it starts: the music comes rumbling up from the guy downstairs. I clearly hear Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" as well as that wretched "I'm blue, dabba dee dabble die." Later, he plays Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love (Babe)." This happened yesterday, too - he played music nearly the whole day and I heard it muffled through the apartment floor. One bad thing about the new place: thin walls.

I am getting angrier and angrier as I lie in bed. At 8:15 I pull on shorts and a tee shirt and head downstairs. In passing I notice that I look like hell - bed head, mouth crust - but hopefully this will illustrate my point. Downstairs I knock on his door: no answer. The music still plays. I return upstairs.

Sometimes he plays mellow jazz, which is nice. Then he plays a club anthem, which sends me back downstairs for the second time. This noise is incessant, beginning at 7:15 am, and this from a man who clobbered at his ceiling to get us to quiet down from assembling the bed at 11:30 pm.

When I knock a second time, I have brushed my teeth, but I still look like a wreck. He answers - a short, slightly rotund but trim gay man. Good posture. His face is expressionless. He is too old for this kind of music.

I smile charmingly. "Hi, my name is Michael, we just moved upstairs, and I was wondering if you could turn down your music a bit in the early morning."

"Ok." He pauses. "If you stop stomping around upstairs."

"Oh, I didn't realize it was a problem. Will do. Thanks."

A curt nod, and the door closes. The music is turned down. But he was kind of a prick - he didn't even apologize, he didn't say anything nice. I tried to be really friendly and nonconfrontational and neighborly, and he just tried to be a dick. I want to have good relations in the building, but his music was really loud and obnoxious, and I think it's better to go downstairs politely and say something face to face, rather than bang on the floor or just run a cordless drill arhythmically from 11 pm - 2 am, screwing things into the floor just so hopefully he will be unable to sleep. Because that is my next step. Don't mess with my home.

The first morning of the new year

You know what it took to make this new apartment into our home? Drunken New Year's eve dancing. Enjoying our favorite songs of the year as well as Mariah Carey's Fembot-boob-powered performance in Times Square, clutching a bottle of champagne, and all of a sudden this new place fits exactly right. Sure, Mariah had a great 2005, but she needs to stop eating paint chips and dress more appropriately for the cold weather. I was praying for a wardrobe malfunction, but no such luck. Surely a bittersweet beginning for this awesome new year.

Not everyone is cool enough to be at home on New Year's eve, but I was, and after a survey of the major Times Square broadcasts (NBC with dork-laugher Carson Daly, ABC with poor Dick Clark and the insufferable Ryan Seacrest, Fox with the disoriented Regis, and MTV with a gaggle of drunk twentysomethings) I can say that they all stink. Lip-synched performances, soggy banter, bad transitions, boring interviews with two 300-pounders from Illinois enchanted by standing for twelve hours in Times Square surviving on Sbarro's and Roxy sandwiches. Someone at some point remarked that they were suprised that 85% of the lunatics waiting in the cold in Times Square for the ball to drop or to be targeted by terrorists or whatever are actually not from New York. Of course they're not.

2005 - she was a good year

2005 was a really excellent year for a lot of reasons. When the year began I was in Costa Rica. I knew I was going to get engaged this year, and I knew I would go to law school. But I had no idea where I would live or where I would go for school. New Year's eve last year, in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica, was just full of potential, which is how a new year's eve should be. To be able to look back on the year and just be thankful that things have worked out is an amazing feeling. Here's my 2005, in a paragraph:

Costa Freaka. "It's this 1 thing that's got me trippin." Scholars and Fellowships. Mariah Carey. The Great Saunter, 30-some miles. Italy and Sicily. X & Y. San Francisco, Yosemite. "Will you be my first wife?" Goodbye, Columbia. August adventure: Six Flags, Nashville, Cracker Barrel, Rowan Oak. "That beautiful river." A wretched half-marathon. Eric Benet and Coldplay. Fordham Law School. Toni Braxton. 77 Barrow.

...And now here I am on New Year's eve, typing on my computer while I sit here with my unmarried cohabitant, L. 2006 is going to be an amazing year and I can't wait for August 12th. After the wedding I feel like there will be nothing to talk about, but I am enjoying the anticipation. If 2005 felt like a year of such promise and fulfillment, I can only imagine how life will feel on the cusp of 2007. So much to be thankful for! Happy New Year.

Best picture of the year

Continuing our midwinter film festival, L and I saw "Munich" last night. I thought it was outstanding, and it had almost everything I love about movies: exotic locales, a gripping story, good performances, strong relationships between the characters, and questions that are not easily resolved. This movie was a drama and a thriller and took place in this shadow society below the surface of our civilized, governed culture. The characters talked about societies making compromises with themselves, and about people and groups operating at the intersections of secrecies. In a way, the entire movie was about falling through a crack in our well-ordered culture and then digging deeper and exploring what you find.

The historical truth of it was sobering. Steven Spielberg made a strong statement at the end about September 11th, which was challenging. This was a strange topic for him, in that you usually expect a Spielberg film to have a certain humanistic worldview, a world of mercy and love and families at the dinner table and anthropomorphic aliens on bikes. This was a departure for him in a sense, and it was a brave and confident move, and I think this was the best big movie of the year.

...The only other thing I love about movies that "Munich" lacked can be found in one scene of "The Family Stone," where Sarah Jessica Parker's straight-laced character gets drunk and works her inner Carrie Bradshaw, happily dancing and singing to her favorite song without a care in the world. I love it when people break it down in movies, I think it is so realistic but pretty underplayed in film.

...And no points for our lame waiter at Cosi before the movie, who was late with our food and messed up our drink order. Me: "Excuse me, we ordered two Cokes and a water and this [the lone beverage he brought to our table] tastes like Diet." Him: "Yeah, I heard Diet. They ordered two Diet Cokes at that table over there." Thanks a lot, Erick.

A beginning

We have been living in the new apartment for a few days now and it is great. The walls are painted, and what could have turned into some kind of Key West Horror is a nice palate of green, yellow, and a weird salmonish color that sort of works almost if you walk through the room quickly and squint. There are no poltergeists so far and the plumbing seems to work. This is definitely the honeymoon phase of things - integrating book collections, shopping sprees at Bed Bath & Beyond, thoughtfully debating the merits of a picture hung here or there.

My parents and sister came up with us to help with the move and it was extremely stressful. In fact, yesterday I learned that they had a big fight yesterday afternoon, as soon as they arrived back home. I have noticed that I feel completely exhausted most of these days, and I think a large part of it is from the stress of moving. We all got so short-tempered and angry from the logistical hell and the pure physical strain of moving my 18 tons of shit from one apartment to another. Finally on the night my parents left my new place for the last time, L and I went to the window to wave to them as they drove away. Yet as we watched from the apartment, they turned on the car but didn't go anywhere. My parents were looking for something in the front seat. My sister called me on the phone and told me that Mom couldn't find her gloves.
"Can't they just fucking leave, " I thought. Good lord. We watched them search for a little while, and the gloves weren't in our apartment. After a couple minutes we moved away from the window and took care of something or other in the apartment, and by the time I went back to wave to them as they drove away, they were already gone. No waving goodbye. This was the kind of weekend it was.

I need to go home in a few weeks, once all of this blows over, and have some quality time with them. This was just too much.

L and I have been having fun. We saw "The Family Stone" a couple nights ago, and caught a Hitchcock double feature at Film Forum last night ("Suspicion" & "Spellbound"). No cable til tomorrow, so we are enjoying a nice midwinter film fest.

You know those people who sit at tables on the sidewalk with the empty water jugs, asking for money for the homeless? What the hell charity are they from? I think it would be funny if they were from some group that gave music lessons to homeless people. I can't imagine a more well-intentioned but useless charity purpose. Unless the really good ones started a band, and then moved off the streets because they lived in a tour bus. That would be a real success story.

Endings

I had my last final today. I am done with a semester of law school - only five left. I feel like an empty vessel, everything has been poured out and I am just the same green old clay jug I always picture when I hear the words "empty vessel." After the exam, on our way to the bar (of course), everyone was chattering excitedly about the end of finals and the start of winter break, while I mulled over possible errors and omissions in my exam, clenching my teeth and furrowing my brow. "I will be excited, I just need a minute," I said to someone's question.

This is also my last night in the apartment. At the bar today I learned that one of my classmates (a decent guy, I never talk to him) lives on the same block I do. I am excited about the move but I am sad to be leaving this apartment - I was only here for a year, but it was a momentous one and I was really thankful to live here.

The transit strike is over, too, and not a minute too soon. I was angry at the strikers, and I think they're being selfish and greedy. The walk to school took exactly an hour, 50 blocks north and three blocks east. I enjoyed it, but not that much.

So tonight I am just puttering around the apartment cleaning a little bit and thinking. I wish we could move immediately. I am not yet ready to deconstruct this place, but I am also very aware of every minute passing - as in, "this is the last time I'll be in my place at ... 6:56 pm." This is not healthy or constructive. I think I might step out for a bit, grab a bite, go to a bookstore, walk around a little now that I've changed socks since my five mile walk today.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Christmas shopping

I don't enjoy the shopping process: the crowds, the merchandise, the process of picking something up, frowning at it, running through the mental rolodex of people you're shopping for, and then putting it back down and scowling as some fat man edges you into the display racks. Today I made two - TWO - discrete trips to The Strand today, where the clerks were full of holiday surliness. I bought a few books and unsuccessfully searched for a book I could read (I'm giving up "Pride and Prejudice" - the movie was great, but the plot is still very familiar and the book is not keeping my attention - I'm not in the mood for 18th-century subtleties).

Then I went to the holiday market at Union Square, where I picked up a picture frame that has a small sculpture of a woman sitting on a toilet (for my mom, of course). And a watch for my sister that is expensive but kind of trendy. Among the assorted Manhattan weirdos currently staking out Union Square, they had some animal rights people roaming around with actual cats draped over their heads and upper bodies. I laughed out loud when a woman working at one of the kiosks said loudly, "Those people have cats on their heads! I don't want to know them. I don't even want to know them." It was hilarious.

As I walked home, thinking about how much money I had spent in just 90 minutes, as if I was on a madcap shopping spree (when I was young that idea seemed so grandiose and appealing - for 30 or 60 or 120 seconds, you just sprint through a store with a shopping cart and get to keep whatever you can dump inside! Even the shopping cart?), bemoaning my poverty, I came across three dollar bills in the street.

I don't know what it is, but for the last few months I have been finding money all over the place when I'm out on the town. This is either a karmic reward or an insistant signal that my wallet is about to be stolen. Merry [holiday]!

Finals dispatch

I have not been blogging because I've been studying for exams and trying to freak out on schedule with everyone else. My first exam is tomorrow morning. I honestly believe I reached the peak of my intellectual capabilities last night, around 9:15 pm (where were you at that moment?). Studying today has been plodding and slow. My hand can grasp a pen in only the most rudimentary way, my handwriting has slackened out to broad strokes crossing line after bluebook line. Torts torts torts torts torts I love you I hate you torts.

Winter time is here

Here's another potpourri of information. I know everyone loves these.

The "Carol of the Bells" is one versatile Christmas song. It has a sinister edge to it - the ever-increasing number of singers, the rapid pacing, the rising tension. It always seemed slightly creepy to me, but in a good way, haunting and eerie. And now, thanks to a striking new set of ads from Victoria's Secret, it's erotic as well! There are these insane ads out with exotic leggy women lounging and writhing around bedsheets saying things like "Give me Rrrrap-ture." It's awesome. As the song builds and builds and the bells are ringing, here comes Gisele prancing down the hallway in a teddy and Tyra contorting herself 'round the Christmas tree. Instead of the Grinch stealing Christmas, it's like a supermodel in garters and heels is going to come down your chimney and hump the shit out of it. Get your Vicky's for the holidays, y'all.

Law school finals, like a python or quicksand, continues its slow invasion of my life and personhood. I am actually giving up major chunks of my own autonomy, as evidenced by the law school dreams, word associations, and boring conversations I keep indulging in. It should reach its peak around December 13, and then I will be fully submerged until the 22nd, at which point (if we go with the python idea) I will knife open its belly and stagger out into the winter merrriment, covered in entrails and gasping for a newspaper.

I saw an ad where the Honda chorus people sang what sounded like "We wish you a happy holiday" instead of "We wish you a merry Christmas," and I was working myself into a nice red-state Christianist fervor over the decline of American values when I realized they were probably just singing "Happy Honda days," which embodies the spirit of commercialism and successful branding that really define the holiday season, so I was ok with it.

Had some fun quality time in the daylight with L yesterday, an all-too-rare occurrence: a random movie ("The Dying Gaul") at a random theatre (Village Cinema), a great wintry walk, intensive browsing through two bookstores. One of my favorite things in the world is escaping a cold winter day and going into a movie theatre. It's pretty much the only occasion where I actually prefer the sharp sweet taste of Pepsi - something about the contrast between the cold outside and the comfortable warmth indoors, the shedding of layers, the relaxation, the knowledge of a few hours' solace before you face the elements once again. I love it. Love winter. Resent pea coats, but deal with them as I can. Law school may take my life but they cannot take my freedom.

Gender wars

Tonight was ridiculous. I went to see Times columnist Maureen Dowd, the scathing, intelligent, beautiful, curvaceous, well-facially-structured, name-dropping, thiry-minutes-late-arriving, nickname-bestowing, witty, erudite, urbane, Blue State queen Maureen Dowd, at Barnes and Noble in Union Square.

The discussion was to start at 7, and I arrived at 5:45 and dumped my bag in the seat beside me to continue reading a case for class tomorrow. I had spoken with James on the phone and knew he was coming. There was an announcement from the Book Clerk Nazis, the frustrated writers whose only chance for real literary success is through osmosis - thus the smock and nametag at B&N. There was to be no saving of seats, they said. It was packed.

I thought long and hard about this rule. I thought it was dumb. I thought Maureen Dowd could never love a man so gutless as to succumb to such a rule. So I kept the seat for James, refusing to acknowledge its unoccupancy. It's not a free seat, I would think. It's James', he's just not here yet.

A woman in a turquoise sweater sat down on the other side of the empty seat. "Are you sure he's coming?" she asked after another barking reminder from the Book Clerk Nazi. I did not appreciate her concern. "Yes, he lives two blocks away," I said quickly, pleased and dismayed at my ability to lie effortlessly. Finally he arrived and I smiled curtly to Turquoise, reasserting my honesty and ability to handle my business. Thanks, amiga.

Twenty minutes later. Mo is nowhere to be found and the seats are packed. People are restless. Suddenly a woman walks up and starts speaking to the man on the other side of Turquoise. The order of people is: Woman (in the aisle), me, James, Turqoise, Man. I couldn't bear to look up, so here is the exchange as I heard it (with some corroboration from James):

Woman: You didn't save me a seat?
Man: No, I had to give the seat up! They didn't let us save seats.
Turquoise (clearly sitting where Woman should have been): [Silence]
Woman: So I have to stand in the back alone? It's packed back there.
Turqoise: [Silence]
James and me: [dawning realization of what is happening]
Man: They wouldn't let us save seats! Should I just meet you afterwards?
Turqoise: [silently plotting the dissolution of another marriage]
Woman: I can't believe I came all the way here for this.
General Audience: [suddenly interested]
Woman: Look, I'm just going to go home, I'll see you later (she makes a dismissive swatting motion with her hand and walks away).
Turqoise: [silence]
Me: [daring to look up and around me]
Man (pathetically): We couldn't save seats.
Turquoise (turning to Man): ... So are you a big Maureen Dowd fan?

What the hell. As soon as wifey left, Turquoise launched into a discussion of their respective careers and apartment living on the Upper West Side. There were so many chances for that encounter to have ended correctly: Turquoise could have volunteered her seat, Man could have switched with Woman or joined her in the standing room only area. And yet, she ended up stomping away while Man weakly sits there with Miss Turquoise Wrecks-a-Home as she licks her chops and enjoys the spoils.

The rest of the reading was awesome. Like every other reading I've been to, the cranks came out and asked obnoxious, selfish questions, and were booed into submission. Maureen handled herself with grace and aplomb, responding to aggressive questions directly and in a take-no-horseshit kind of way. She is my number one Washingtonienne.

All in all, it was a great experience. Human drama, a beautiful woman speaking truths and cracking wise, and another motley group of New Yorkers pretending to get along. Love it.

Visitation

This evening I got to hang out with my friend Russell today. He's a born-and-bred New Yorker but he lives in Colorado Springs, where he works with USA Swimming and goes all over the world for swim meets - Korea, Australia, the Olympics in Greece. I hadn't seen him for a couple months and it was awesome to catch up. But really we only had about two hours to catch up, considering the work I have to do and his plans for the evening. I'll see him in January, which is terrific, but I was disappointed that we didn't have more time to hang out. There's a difference between catching up with someone and sharing new and common experiences, and usually we strike a good balance. Like tonight, we hung out at Boston Market and fleshed out the stories we've traded over email and blogs (I know, right?) and then caught the tree-lighting holiday extravaganza at Lincoln Center. But I miss the kind of normal, unexceptional contact that makes a friendship and tacitly reminds you what exactly is so great about a person.

So I felt kind of melancholy tonight - bummed that I get to see one of my good friends so rarely, when I consider how few people in this world exist in that orbit and how much I rely on them, and disappointed that it was my stupid studying schedule that cut things short. I know this time in school is an investment, but damn - this is one hell of a rate of return. I feel like I'm on a treadmill and not moving an inch in any direction. My life is circumscribed between W. 4th St. and Columbus Circle 59th St. And right now there's hardly anything to show for it - and nobody wants to talk about law school, myself included, for good reason.

But anyways. The key points would be: Russell is quality. I get to see him rarely. That is a bummer.

Thanksgiving updates

Thanksgiving at home was awesome. It turns out I was deeply exhausted by the time I made it home, so I slept for eleven hours the first night and about ten hours over the next several. We hit all my favorite restaurants, and I finished "In Cold Blood." My sister turned twenty. Here are some random tidbits from the trip:

At Thanksgiving, L and I were talking to my aunt-by-marriage's brother, whom I had never met. He lives in Richmond, is a banker, has a friendly wife. He was wearing a sweater vest and talking to us about networking and working in the legal field. My uncle walks up. "Take off that fag vest," he says to the guy. "You need to take off that fag vest, I don't know who's making you wear that." Whoa. Red state moment. "That is one fag vest," my uncle reiterates, helpfully. "I don't know what you're talking about," the guy says, "it's just a vest." My uncle meanders away as I make eye contact with L. Many phrases pass between us unspoken. "Don't worry, honey," the guy's wife chirps merrily. "After eighteen years of marriage, I think I'd know if you were a faggot!" I take a sip of my drink and consider how to extricate ourselves from this situation.

L and I watched "Pride and Prejudice," and I really enjoyed it. It is true that a girl who can be witty and sly and smart will always distinguish herself. I think back to all the women I've known who are able, in the midst of some dull conversation, to inject some barb or joke that makes you pause and reconsider her in a whole new light. This is one of the major charms of women, in my experience.

On the ride back to New York, I sat next to this young asian guy who was friendly and talkative. Turns out he goes to Princeton, and we went to the same high school. I didn't want to mention it - this fact that always springs to mind when discussing high school, this fact that signifies one of the most earnest and sincerely happy days of my life, one of my major life achievements before moving out of the house - but he left himself wide open. "So, uh, were you active in school activities, like Homecoming?" (This question indicates the quality of our conversation up to that point.) "Actually," I said, as evenly as possible. "I was Mr. Jefferson. 1997." "No way! That's awesome!" His face honestly lit up and he was impressed. The power and the glory live on. Rafael at Princeton, thanks for some good in-flight conversation.

The Plot Against America

I just finished Philip Roth's novel, "The Plot Against America." Definitely my favorite book of his, and one of the best books I've read in a long time. The story imagines an alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh (the aviator, bereaved parent, and Hitler sympathizer) beat FDR in the election of 1940. After signing pacts with Germany and Japan and watching the war creep across the continents, the Lindbergh Administration slowly starts making moves toward a final solution of its own - creating on Office of American Absorption to de-Jew the Jews, and forcibly relocating Jewish families from their long-established neighborhoods.

On top of all this grim alterna-history, which is fascinating in itself, is a simple and touching portrait of the narrator's family, the Roths - his admirable older brother, his hardworking and smart mother, his tireless and decent father. The narrator, Philip Roth, is the autobiographical duplicate of his creator, and the narrative voice has an adult's grasp of the language (better than an adult's grasp, he's Philip Roth for crying out loud) and a child's simplicity and moral clarity. I was engrossed in the Jersey neighborhoods of the 1940s, of the extended social networks that were dashed and the conflicting impulses that echo in the public discourse today - about the willingness to stand up for our beliefs, about the fear of death and war, about the fear of strangers and the fears of our neighbors.

This books was so profoundly good. It was worth the wait for the paperback version. I devoured it in four days and could not put it down. I thought about it in class. It was fantastic. So I recommend it to the greater blogosphere.

Happy Thanksgiving - flying back home tomorrow, will return on Saturday to face final exams in a little over two weeks.

Let's not do this again/Ominous

It was a hell of a weekend. I have a big paper due tomorrow. Thursday I was in the library the entire day tapping away at it. Saw some classic episodes of "Survivor" and "The Apprentice," and then did some more work. Friday I worked all day in the library and went straight from there to see my old buddy Harry Potter, whose school years sure have a strange rhythm to them, with an appearance from the most evil creature in the universe happening with shocking regularity near the end of each term. You'd think someone would set a trap or something once the snow started to melt. Friday we were up until five drinking wine. Saturday I woke up, had some brief time with L and returned to the library for eight hours. Came home, ate a burrito stuffed with pathos and self-doubt and did more work until SNL. Eva Longoria was awesome and awesomely good looking. Then I was up til three. Today I woke up and went straight to the library. Worked for 8 hours, had dinner with law school peeps at Boston Market and came back home in the dark, and I've been working since then. And now the paper is done, I think. That's what it took.

Here' s what I didn't do this weekend: Go running. Go grocery shopping. Get a restful night of sleep. Have fun in the daytime. Spend enough time with anyone.

On the plus side, this kind of weekend is rare and this won't happen again for a while. But the next few weeks, with exams approaching, are going to be tough.

My favorite place

At school, in the men's room, there is the typical industrial-strength toilet paper dispenser mounted to the walls. A thick, black plastic cocoon enclosing two massive rolls of gritty, angry TP. The manufacturer who makes the cases for my law school is called "San Jamar." So I often find myself thinking about "San Jamar, " and even uttering it under my breath if no one is around.

San Ha-marrrrrr....

In San Jamar, there are beautiful white-sand beaches. Palm trees sway gently from the breeze cresting off the lapis lazuli waters. Girls in coconuts offering drinks in coconuts. Dry air, warm sun, the cry of the sea birds, the lapping of the waves - bienvenidos a San Jamar.

And yet - here I am in the men's room. In November. Surrounded by linoleum and plastic and buzzing, unforgiving fluorescence. Wishing for San Jamar, my mythical paradise found only in the toilet paper dispenser.

...Everyone else thinks about this, right?

Off topic

We got the place! This morning L and I met with the broker and the landlord and signed all the forms. It's so awesome and I'm so happy! Here's what I'm worried about: it's a free-market apartment, it's not rent-stabilized or anything. And what my budding legal-beagle mind wants to know is: then why are they renting it cheaply? Are they going to jack up the rent next year? Or are my fears of a subterranean demon whose sole portal into this earth happens to be in the through our toilet or something really valid? Assuming I survive exams, we will move in after Christmas. Of course we are paying rent as of December 15, so for that ten days or so I will merely consider the new place as our western bungalow. So that is all well and good.

I do worry, though, about the money we put out. Going to school, getting engaged (and then presumably married) and moving to a new place within the span of a few months is a lot to do. It's like fourteen young adult novels wrapped into one, or two episodes of "One Tree Hill." Which I've never seen. But I liked that girl Hilary when she was on Mtv. I don't know. The point is, the money is moving and shifting all around me, from a variety of sources, and what can I do but think of it all as an investment that will blossom and explode into an adulthood of happiness. Honestly, I can't let myself think about this. This topic I think is a weakness L and I share, mutually cringing at the financial terriers nipping at our Achilles heels. Wow, two metaphors in one - you are getting your money's worth tonight, dear reader.

I have a long memo due on Monday - ten pages, synthesizing 10-12 cases. I have read 10 cases and have 6 more to deal with to make sure I hit the mark. I feel like I am about four days behind everyone else, and I attribute this to my conscientious decision to have fun on the weekends and to watch tv in the evenings. But I have to, or else I will become pale and baggy-eyed, like Gollum. Except "My Precious" becomes "My piece-of-shit Vaio laptop that doesn't have wireless internet because I can't afford the card, and the clips on the prongs of my ethernet cord have snapped so I can't maintain a decent internet collection, Precious."

So that's where we stand. I was treading water in law school for a long while but something is churning under the sea. It could be a shark, it could be tsunami, it could be killer bees or a manatee with a shotgun. But something is down there.

The worst part are my friends who I have neglected in the last few weeks or months. The calls I haven't made, the emails unwritten. I think of you a lot. I hope you would be happy with what I'm doing - this premarital cohabitation can be a dicey subject, and I hope I'm balancing my time well, and I hope I'm handling my money in a way that wouldn't make Suze Orman lunge from behind her CNBC desk to swat me on the head with a lapel mic. And I hope I can see out of my self-centered cocoon to wish you well, too.

And yet it's 12:00 am, I should make my lunch and go to bed, but I feel like I should read another case, since tomorrow I have to read everything, make an outline, and do my criminal homework for 2:30. I don't know. Time for an abbreviated dance hour and some quality time with the new yorker.

You know what song I'd like to hear right now? The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood." I don't think I understand it, but the tone and the melancholy are something I can understand right now. Goodnight and good luck.

The hunt

Last night was a very significant night in the apartment search. At L's request I met with a broker to go see an apartment on West 3rd. It was on a nice block, tucked behind Washington Square Park, with some markets nearby. The apartment was on the fifth floor of a walkup and the entire building smelled like Chinese food. m The apartment was cramped and cluttered with the previous resident's stuff. Too many dishes in the sink. They had put up a wall dividing the bedroom in half, which left room for only the bed on one side and a dank, crabbed office area on the other. I knew within a minute and a half (I knew walking up the General Tso stairway) that this would not be the apartment. But I felt obligated to look around anyway, thoughtfully examining ligh fixtures and room dimensions and muttering about the moulding.

Next the broker attempted to show me another apartment, this one on the ground floor of a building on a rowdier part of West 3rd. It was crammed in between a sandwich shop and a Chinese massage parlor. Walking through the entryway you saw a poster of the human body with all of the major muscles labeled - it was really educational. The interior hallway was painted a medicinal mint green. Sadly enough the tenant wasn't around, so we couldn't see the actual apartment. But we went ahead and ruled it out anyway.

Then! But then! I met L and another broker at a beautiful place in the village. Spacious, old, well-kept, charming. I really loved it. I'm afraid to say too much, but we spent the rest of the evening pulling together application materials and copying our financial documents. We are contacting our guarantors, trying to pull things together, trying to figure out how the hell we can afford to pay a broker's fee. But it's very exciting. I would love to live there, I really hope we get it.

In law school we have been talking about property that is jointly owned by married couples or non-married co-habitants. Most courts refuse to recognize relationships that are between non-married people in which sex is the defining factor - as the courts say, "meretricious relationships." Basically the courts don't want to acknowledge prostitutional relationships, but it is interesting to see all of these different ways of living and being sliced and diced into neat judicial categories. This new place in the village would be a great place for our non-married, soon to be married, and eventually married relationship (which is obviously extremely not meretricious).

Chips on my shoulder

I have been kind of a stress case lately. At school they are ratcheting up the pressure. I was there at 8 pm last night (Saturday) and talked to some of my bleary-eyed classmates who were talking about how they had been there all day, how they had so much else to do, etc. And my only questions was: Why? There's no reason to spend the entire weekend in the library. We already do that during the week. If you can't have fun at any point during the week, there is a problem. This I learned from my mother. So this weekend I made a conscious choice to exercise, to sleep, to have fun, knowing that it's back to a constant grind during the workweek. I won't let these law school masochists get the best of me. I'd rather be happy and well-rested than a Law Review editor with pasty skin, an ignorance of pop culture or current events, and atrophied muscles.

The other stressful thing is apartment shopping. L and I are moving in together. Isn't that great! Or is that not great, since most of our friends are not the kind of people who really embrace premarital cohabitation. But we are getting married. And we want to do this, and it makes sense for us pragmatically, financially, relationally. It's funny, I'm really excited about it but I'm a little hesitant to tell people. What will the priest say? But our parents are happy for us, and it will be great. I am just nervous as things barrel to a climactic finale in December: what happens when your exam schedule slams right into the end of one lease and the beginning of another? We'll find out soon.