Sopping wet and trashy

T and I just got back from camping. One week before our wedding, we were laying under a semi-starry sky talking about the things we want to promise each other on our wedding day, while drinking Lionshead and feeding pretzels to the dog. In the middle of the night, raindrops started pitter-pattering on our tent roof. The dog was a good sport about it, considering he is terrified of even the dark clouds that precede a rainstorm. The rain lulled us back to sleep. A couple hours later, with daylight just on the horizon, we awoke again to a downpour. Our tent was still dry, so we cozied back to sleep content in our waterproof cave. Not much long after that, I heard a weird scraping noise and realized the dog was standing in the far corner of the tent. Without opening my eyes, I asked T, "Is the dog licking the tent?" "Yes," replies T. "Okay," I mutter, and fall back asleep. At about 9:30 I wake up to realize that there is water coming in from all angles, not flooding us out, but slowly soaking anything on the edges of our sleeping area, including my shoes, our flashlight and the bag with my only pair of non-pajama pants. Whoops. T, brilliant problem solver that he is, quickly comes up with a plan to get us out of there relatively free of soak. Flashforward 15 minutes: I'm mostly dry (but still in pajama pants) and T and the rest of our gear is mostly wet. We're on the road.

So we just got back, at a decent hour, to our little firetrap in the Big City. Our little firetrap is on the third (top) floor of a row home, with no porch, no stoop and no balcony. Step out our front door and you are greeted with an assortment of characters waiting for the bus. In short, there is nowhere to put soaking wet fabric. Of which we have a lot.

Me, brilliant problems solver that I am, have come up with a solution! I have tied a loop of fisherman's yarn between our two bedroom windows, which overlook the street. In a kind of half-assed, fake-Seasame Street-meets-NYC at the height of the industrial era way, we now have our very own "laundry line" out the window. Which is to say, a soggy, sopping wet tent and a bright blue tent tarp sunk into the middle of a piece of string are dangling precariously close to our second-floor neighbors' windows.

Flashforward 15 minutes: T, upon spotting my brilliant solution, remarks astutely, "We look like the trash neighbors." Clearly, there is only one proper response to such an observation: "Good," I say. "This neighborhood needs to be taken down a notch."

First day post-internship

I'm not gonna lie. I just spent 20 minutes reading about beef curtains. What a weird phenomenon that would probably not exist without the internet. I need a nap.

Tomorrow T and I are supposed to go camping. It's the weekend before the wedding. We finally have our photog and our officiant (fingers crossed). That means the Big Stuff is officially done. I am now mostly just excited.

And, evidently, bored.

OMG I'm about to be married...

Okay, right about now is when I look at all the people, especially young people, in my life that are already married, and I think to myself: How did they do it? Right about now, I am wishing I paid more attention to my friends when they were getting married, at their bridal showers and bachelorette parties and last minute visits, and watched and marvelled. How did they do it and stay so calm? Or, if they were freaking out, how did they manage to keep it together?

Today, I woke up in a panic about the fact that we have less than 10 days to Pull It Together. I know what my friend O says: "It's Just One Day." I know what my friend B says: "Don't lose sight of the Real Meaning of It All." I know what my friend K says: "You won't remember half the Stuff You Freaked Out About." I also know that this is just like law school -- half the fun is in freaking out and getting excited and nervous and thinking, "holycrapIcan'tbelievethisisactuallyhappeningtome!" (In a good way, of course.) But still. It's times like this I wish I lived closer to my friends, especially my bridesmaids. I could really use some girl time.

The obligatory "Advice to 1Ls" post

Well, seeing as how school is about to start back up in the blink of an eye, I figure there must be hundreds if not thousands of eager, nervous and ravenously curious rising 1Ls scouring the internet for advice right now... No? Was that just me?

Anyway, this time last year, I was pretty much searching constantly for advice and other ways to get a bit of a head start on my law school experience. Like so many who came before me, and so many who shall succeed, I refused to believe that there was nothing I could really do except enjoy the last of my free days. Yet, the time-worn advice turned out to be true. Thus, with full recognition that I risk tainting this post with a condescending tone, I present my bulleted advice for future law students...

BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS
- Call your friends. Often. Reiterate how much you care about them. Whether you are leaving town or staying, your relationships with your nearest and dearest are about to become strained, if not estranged. Best to jump into the law school fray with your friendships on solid footing. You'll spend the next few months staring guiltily at your Facebook page thinking how you should really pick up a phone, just after you finish all your reading and get a head start on that outline....

- Read Planet Law School. While not everybody is in agreement with me on this one, I happen to think it gave me a pretty good, grounded perspective with which to approach the whole law school thing. I'll be the first to admit the guy who wrote it has a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas and whoever edited the book did a terrible job. Nonetheless, I found it gave the most practical advice and enough warnings so that I didn't go in to class on the first day feeling too naive. I wouldn't recommend buying the book, or reading every word, but definitely give it a good skim over while seated in a comfy chair at your local bookstore.

- Save your money. School starts pretty soon, so it's a little late for this one. But trust me. Every bit of money helps. The more you have socked away, the less debt you'll have to go into, and the less guilty you'll feel every time you buy your lunch rather than pack one, etc.

- Enjoy life. Every bit of it. Enjoy going grocery shopping without feeling riddled with anxiety over all the other things you could be doing. Enjoy reading a book for pleasure on your front stoop. Take a walk. Have sex. Go on a weekend excursion. Just, live. Because, trust me, you're going to start feeling jealous of people standing in line at the DMV before the next year is through.

- Buy your books online. Don't waste your money at the school bookstore. Yes, yes, I know you might not get them in time for classes. You can almost always find the casebook in the library if your shipment hasn't come in yet. But you will save yourself boatloads if you buy used and buy online. I recommend DealOz.com. It aggregates the best textbook deals all over the web. A total time saver!

WHEN SCHOOL STARTS
- Use the E&Es. In my opinion these are the most helpful study aids. But, okay, they may not be for you. Everyone will obviously have a different opinion, but seriously, these are the cream of the crop. Whatever you do, GET a study aid, no matter what your professor tells you. Nobody gets extra points for doing well in a class without using extra materials. That's just risky and making life harder on yourself. That said...

- Trust your own gut. If you don't like studying in groups, don't. Study groups aren't necessary and can be an enormous waste of time for those who don't get something out of it. If you can't stand commercial outlines (like me), don't use them. If briefing cases is sucking up all your time, don't spend so much time briefing. I'll be honest, I gave up briefing early on. Whatever your strategy, just go with it and do not (I repeat: do not!) look around at what everyone else is doing and decide you should be doing that too. That is a trap. A very powerful, at times almost irresistable, trap. Half of the people are only doing what they're doing because they see everyone else doing it. The rest are just as clueless as anyone else about what to do, they're just trying to follow their gut. Be one of those ones.

- Avoid the "How Much?" game. "How much have you read for next class?" "How far are you on your outlines?" "How many hours were you up studying last night?" "How late were you at the library last night? How caught up are you on your briefing?" How easy is it to get into this kind of conversation? As easy as running into another 1L on the train to school, in the bathroom before class or in line at the coffee shop. Talk about the weather. Talk about sports, or Lost, or the state of the economy. Talk about whatever topic you're learning in class, if you must. But avoid talking about your study habits. I guarantee it will only leave you feeling insecure. If it doesn't, you're probably getting some kind of reputation for knowing it all - which can be a problem on a number of levels.

- Get Black's Law Dictionary. I got it second semester and wished I'd had it first semester. It's just a time saver. You'll pick up words and phrases like demurrer, declaratory judgment, on the merits, inter alia MUCH faster if you have Black's Law Dictionary. You'll figure them out pretty quickly anyway, but the more time you save on little things and the more you understand a case, the easier it is to get your work done, and done well. And by the way, nobody gives you definitions in law school. Occasionally, a good case book will have some explanations, but for the most part, you're on your own to figure stuff out.

- Go to office hours. This is one piece of advice I am still trying take myself. I hardly if ever went. But I saw my classmates go frequently, and I saw how it paid off. If not in grades, at least in confidence and ease of understanding of the materials. You'll quickly start to see some of your classmates having a much stronger grasp of concepts than others after the first few weeks. It's kind of scary. The ones who "get it" are often the ones who aren't afraid to ask questions and enter into discussion with the prof outside of class.

There is probably a bunch more I could say, but I don't feel like typing out all night. And I'm no expert. I'm just one opinion of many, many opinions, all of which have something important to contribute. But anyway, I did decent in class this past year, and I'm happy to report that I will be returning for 2L year, so for what it's worth, I hope this advice has been something useful! Good luck!

the future past

i got horrendous cramps yesterday and left work early. i reallllly wanted to just hail a cab home, but decided it was ridiculous to pay $7 to be driven a mile on such a sunny day. even though i did feel like complete ass.

in order to survive my debilitating self-pity and the feeling of being punched in the gut from the inside out, i played an old game i used to play when i was a kid. it was such a beautiful day. 2:30 on a friday afternoon, sun shining bright but without the usual mid-atlantic humidity. people were walking all over the city sidewalks, just doing their thing... having cold beers at the outside table of a curbside restaurant, walking around with tourist guides and sunglasses, playing drums on a couple of overturned buckets for spare change, sleeping off a mid-day hangover on a front stoop... whatever. life, basically.

i imagined myself the way i imagine my old age to end up... me in some nursing home bed, staring out some window at a brick wall or the tops of trees, just remembering. remembering the time i lived in that big city, back when i was in law school and we were just starting out, about to get married, still trying to figure out our careers, excited and in love and young and all that. remembering so hard, its like i'm almost there. and then, suddenly, i AM there. i am back on that street, walking in the hot sun, my knees and legs and eyes and heart all in perfect working order, on my way back to that tiny little apartment, to the dog i used to have, that sweet little E. i look around in wonder, back in a memory. there, the shoe repairman has his rubber soles mounted on a display case. here, Shank & Evelyn's diner is about to open up in its new location downtown, out of the neighborhood. there are little hearts taped up on the window of that store. a little boy waits with his mom for the bus. and it's all so beautiful.

...and voila! life is no longer taken for granted. cramps, forgotten, if only momentarily.

rhymes with pronfession

confession #1: i have no idea why my last blog post looks like it does. i wrote what i wrote in a text document, then decided i might as well post it on the blargh. for some reason it copied and pasted that way. i thought it looked cool.

confession #2: i am worried about a loved one having a drinking problem. i'm not sure how to deal with this, as it's a problem i've never had to deal with before. anyone out there? experiences with this?

confession #3: i cried on the phone with my dad today. this was after a big fight we had as i was leaving virginia last weekend. the tears took me by surprise, but out they came. big, fat and hot. i felt better.

confessions aside, i've been doing farmworker outreach for the last couple of days. i would write more about that, but the tenor i'm getting from the blarghosphere is that i shouldn't. so i won't.

t and i spent the night, as we promised each other we would, plotting out the ceremony details. all sorts of things that The Knot timelines say to do months in advance (you know, back when we were getting engaged), we're just getting around to doing. like, finding someone to perform the service. still looking for that special photographer. could it be you?

in other news, i am working on reading the new testament. i figure, i gotta start somewhere on this 30 before 30 thing. i really want to get out and take some film pictures with my ol' SLR, but i am gonna wait until i am done with my job after next week (woohoo!) to do that. last night, i read my single chapter aloud to T, who said, "borrrrrringgggg..." and i said, "i know!" but then the jealous king killed all the little children under 2, and i remembered hearing that story when i was a kid, and i thought, "how tragic! how violent! i wonder what happens next?" i am trying to psych myself up. ah, agnosticism!

summer city breeze

i turned off the air conditioning and opened the window overlooking my desk. now a summer breeze is blowing in softly, and i hear

the soft rush of cars pulling up, stopping, moving on. beautiful, gentle city noises. like the hum of a fan or flourescent ceiling bulb. i

remember when we first moved to richmond, that very first night that we laid in our bed on patterson, and we listened to the noises all

around us. it felt so loud, with the bus pulling up and announcing its stop, with the occassional car honk in the distance, or drunk

patrons walking by from the corner bar. the sound of neighbors beneath us, beside us. we had gotten used to our own house. a yard

with a grassy buffer. a small southern town without cars whizzing by. greenery. even though it was small, richmond was city. and so

too is this.

i've gotten used to the noise. it is a different kind of breeze, a different kind of calm. it's the peaceful nights of my childhood stays at

my grandparents' apartment in Mclean, when i would lean on their balcony railing and stare at the tall buildings lit up in the

distance. they were only office buildings, part of the Tyson's Corner suburbs, hardly urban. but they were romantic, and their

shinning distances told stories of adventure and thriving life. somewhere, just off on the horizon, the world was alive, thriving and

awake even at 11 o'clock on a summer night. as a child, i dreamed of that elusive place. i couldn't wait to see it, but i was contented,

safe, cozy in knowing it was just out there, just over the edge of the balcony, just up the road, only a few years away. i settled into my

grandma's soft couch, turned off all the lights, and switched on the eleven o'clock news to turn the whole room a deep blue. i watched it

for the stories, and for the routine, the familiar faces and voices. and what i remember most was the city scape behind the weatherman's

forecast, with all those happy smiling suns or cheerful clouds. the monument, or the white house, or the capitol. but always, the city,

my ever present, strong and silent companion.

being here in the big city on a night like this, alone with my thoughts, with the summer air blowing and shaking the little green plant

on my desktop, i feel comforted. its nights like this i wish i had a t.v. in my room, so i could turn out all the lights, paint the walls a

glowing blue and be soothed to sleep by the jovial chatter of a couple of anchors with pearly white teeth and perfect hair.