Greetings, Earthling.

I can't write much on this blog these days because all the thoughts and things passing through my mind are the kind that I prefer not to blog about publicly. I am still alive.

Night to myself

I was at the law library until 1 a.m. yesterday.

*Cue Pinnochio voice*

"I'm a real, live law student!"

That's how I felt, and exhilerated and satisfied, as I rode the $10 cab ride back to our little firetrap in the middle of the night. I told my best friend this morning over g-chat about it. The conversation went something like this:

JE: Sorry I didn't listen to your voice mail yet. I was at the library until 1 a.m. working on a paper last night.
JE: I was the last person leaving to leave the building.
BFF: Aww... you're such a good student!
BFF: Or... If I know you as well as I think I do...
BFF: You just procrastinated.

Leave it to the best friend to keep it real. Ha!

Anyway, having put out that mini-fire, I recieved a text from T this afternoon: "I completely forgot I have a game tonight." Meaning, he is going to an NBA game, because he and Best Man and another Dude Friend bought a 6-pack of tickets a while back, well before they realized "their team" was hopeless. At least, that's the impression I get. I really hate non-NCAA March Madness basketball. Bo-oring!

I'm chipper because T's game nights mean JE's quiet evenings at home. It dawned on me that if I had been keeping up with the assigned reading in my Immigration Law class, I would be on course to finish the entire 1500-page book by the end of the semester. Seeing as how I gave up trying to read a long time ago (around the time I realized his lectures were a verbatim recitation of each assignment, with no expectation in student participation) I am starting to panic about how I can possibly prepare for his exam.

With that in mind, here is a list of the things I'll probably do tonight while T is at the stadium bar stadium(!):

* Eat an avocado. There's one sitting on the microwave oven begging to be peeled and consumed.
* Watch old episodes of the Office or 30 Rock.
* Read the syllabus for my two classes tomorrow.
* Think a lot about starting to reading for my two classes tomorrow.
* Check the sales on Gilt.com obsessively.
* Try to earn some quick change on Mechanical Turks
* Nap
* Check my friends' status updates on Facebook.
* Read the first case for Corporations right around the time T is getting back from the game.

Ahhh... so restful.

tee hee

T is out with some friends from out of town. I skipped Trial Ad to do research for a paper I have due on Tuesday. It's been a productive day.

My reward? I just went here [nsfw] and bought a fun surprise using a code for 50% off any item that I got from listening to the Savage Love podcast. Don't you love fun surprises?

Tee hee.

Free from guilt or blame

Suffice it to say it's been a long and utterly bizarre day.

How many times over in one day must I be reminded how lucky I am for the things that I have, for me to finally Get It. At least three times today, I've nearly broken down in tears. Once was at the end of a speech given by the 100th person to be exonerated from death row. He ended his tale with this anecdote, which I can only paraphrase:

When I walked out of the prison gates, the warden shook my hand. Because I happened to be the 100th person to be set free after facing death row (not the 99th or the 101st), there was a crowd of reporters waiting for me to do an impromptu press conference. I answered all their questions and mentioned that I had slept with a Bible under my pillow every night.

Then, one of the reporters in the back called out, "Hey, Ray, how can you believe in a God who would put you in prison for 10 years for a murder you didn't commit?"

And I had just walked out and was seeing the light of day, essentially for the first time in years. I was stunned. I stood there silently for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. And then the words just came out of me, out of nowhere. I said, "Maybe it's not about what happened those last 10 years. Maybe it's about what I do in the next 10."

And then he urged us to do two things. First, when we are facing struggles and feel like we've lost hope, to remember his story and to never stop fighting, or think that it's all for nothing. Because we never know what our purpose might be. And second, when we go out into the world as attorneys, as prosecutors or defenders or whoever, that we never lose sight of our integrity and our values. That we don't trade those values in pursuit of fame, money or credentials. That we keep fighting to make our legal justice system the best in the world.

Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip...

Hooray for healthcare reform! I will be watching how this affects things in real life, cautiously, since one of my best friends from high school has a daughter on Medicaid. This friend is right now petrified that her daughter will lose the coverage that has enabled her to receive life-saving treatments, therapy and other interventions. It's easy to be excited (and I am!!), but I am at a place in my life at the moment where my personal stakes aren't so high. I understand why many people are skeptical still.

With that little colloquy, and a reminder to anyone who can't get enough Lost to check out this hilarious blog, I am off to read for Crimes & Immigration.

Hope is believing a new day will come.

Two things I would like to see before the end of the day:
1) Maryland over Michagan St. because that's the last (and most attenuated) personal connection I have to team left in the tournament.
2) 216 (or more) votes for health care reform.

My thoughts today, however, are also with my friends from North Carolina, who are on the National Mall today reminding our President of his promise to address comprehensive immigration reform. May health care pass, and may my friends have a path to citizenship.

So last night...

I went to quizzo with T and some of our friends from the neighborhood. Nobody else showed up to play, so the seven of us split into two teams. We drank while we waited for other teams to show up. We drank while we trash talked each other through six rounds of trivia. And when it was over (my team won! T's team lost!), the bar owner came around with shots of Jim Beam, one for each of us.

Yeah.

Well, I thought I was just drinking regular beer. I picked the Sixpoint Righteous Ale off the draft menu because it sounded good. Then, because it actually was good, I had another (two). Three beers and a shot of whisky is a big night, especially for a Wednesday. But T was matching me drink for drink with his Stella Artois. So why didn't he wake up with a killer headache? Why was I the only one incapable of facing the day until noon?

Turns out, it's because those beers I was drinking? Turned out to be fancy 7.4% ABV (high-alcohol) beers. Whoops.

I'm not gonna lie. I wanted to go big last night. After having it casually dropped in a phone conversation with my parents that my dad had a biopsy done of a recently-discovered lump...meanwhile we're still waiting for that mass they found in my mom to be removed... and then there's the family dog that apparently they expected was going to up and die yesterday, before he made yet another miraculous recovery (at 15 years, he's had quite a few). I mean, at least I was being intentional and all. But I didn't quite intend to go as big as I went. And I paid for it this morning. Ughhhhhh.

And I'm paying for it now, too, as I catch up on all the reading I should've done last night, for the classes I should've gone to today. (Just kidding. I made T help me cook pad thai for dinner, then we took the Myers-Briggs personality test online after the 10-question 2010 census didn't quite live up to T's great survey expectations.)