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.