The Day, Part II

Curly: I’m studying to be supervisor.
Jim Craig: Studying to be stupid.
- The Man from Snowy River

Just another day, I guess. Even though it has nothing to do with me, I wish the autopsy reports had come back with some conclusive, definitive answer about what killed Ledger. We’re going to have to wait two weeks, if indeed the family even decides to share the results with the public. I now understand peoples’ unflagging allegiance to stupid happenings in the news. I always roll my eyes at people who enthusiastically follow news proceedings regarding a particular current event, but this one actually fascinates me. Perhaps it’s just convenient for my unconscious mind to dwell on death the week of my birthday.

I’m in Complex Litigation, which I have rapidly come to loathe, and the bloke sitting behind me is driving me even nuttier than I already am. I am rapidly progressing from a Peanut to an Almond and if he keeps crinkling granola bar wrappers and dumping some sort of fluid between two containers while periodically emitting irritating exclamations of “aaah,” I’m going to snap. What really raises my ire is that the professor prohibited us from occupying the last three rows of the classroom, so I’m in the last permitted row on the end; however, this blowhole waltzed in late and, totally disregarding the fact that no one else was sitting in the final three rows, plunked down right behind me. If he does not stop sighing and yawning and shaking his powdered drink I will sacrifice my portable microphone recorder to lodge it in his aorta and give him something to sigh about. Dude, shut up.

I wish I were driving home tonight, as I did last semester. This 10:30-noon class on Fridays is going to be the death of me. How annoying. And I can’t even ditch it with any semblance of regularity because three absences equates a failing grade... just what I need.

Last night I woke up about three times soaking in sweat. I don’t know why. My apartment certainly isn’t hot... I take pains to ensure precisely the opposite. Maybe it’s just my body expressing disgust that I’m so fat. I can’t believe I let myself fall apart to this extent. Now I’m 25 and totally miserable as opposed to living it up or whatever I’m supposed to be doing at this age. There was a movie starring Matt Damon and Danny DeVito based on a John Grisham novel called The Rainmaker which (according to the brief preview) centered around the happenings of an enthusiastic young lawyer. I started watching it and was so bored I actually opted for the Weather Channel. Isn’t that rather alarming, considering I’m a law student? Shouldn’t I find these types of things immensely interesting? Running with the theory that my mind is desperately seeking escapism, I rented Stardust starring Robert DeNiro and Claire Danes, and it was wonderful. I don’t really understand why it bombed at the box office; must have been a marketing fluke. Or the market is just oversaturated with fantasy flics at the moment. I guess people just didn’t really understand what it was all about - I certainly didn’t.

I’m back to rambling. Reviewing my posing habits, I had a tendency to post religiously first year and the first half of second year, then drifted off and submitted nary a word last semester. I regret that now; one day, if I make it past thirty (which I seriously doubt), I will seek to review my law school experiences, or at least revisit the mindset entertained during those years. Who am I, as a younger person, to deny my future self such endeavors? Okay, this guy behind me is going down. I’m thinking a straw up his nose might be just the thing. How many wrappers can he possibly have to unfurl? Isn’t there an unwritten prohibition against coming in late and annoying the stuffing out of everyone around you?

The guy next to me is using a Macbook. On the one hand I’m totally jealous, because it looks beautiful and I love Macs, and on the other I am grateful for his contribution to my Apple stock’s value.

Everyone’s laughing now at one of the most pathetic jokes I’ve ever heard. Lawyers, or perhaps law students, are just a bunch of stuffy, uninteresting, uncreative, habitual, excessively punctual, pompous, self-righteous, conceited and uninspiring lumps with eyes. And now I have become one of them. Joy. None of us are in shape or particularly attractive. We’ve all morphed into these indecipherable gray blobs. I am desperately attemping to recall the last time I found something a classmate said in class even remotely interesting and am failing fantastically.

It’s only 10:00; fifteen minutes until the expiration of this particular torture, and then I can rush to the restroom before the initiation of Round 2. I can’t even save my seat while I do so by leaving my coat behind because I’m so fat I can’t take my coat off. Hopefully I will make it back in time to duke it out for a decent spot in PR. I have to use the restroom so badly, though. I could get up and go now but then everyone would look at me as I left and returned and I just cannot deal with it, between my stringy hair and puffy cheeks and butt that needs its own zip code. I am so tired my eyes keep drifting shut. I did my four shots of espresso again this morning, but it doesn’t seem sufficient this time. My head keeps jolting about.

10:05; ten minutes. Zzzz . . .

(Later)

Wow, the only way I can think to describe this professor is to parallel her alongside Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter. She bears a remarkable resemblance visually to the representation in the fifth movie, and in terms of personality/practice to the conveyance so eloquently articulated in the novels. Too bad we don’t have Hermione and Firenze’s ilk around...

I woke up this morning at 6:15 and couldn’t fall back to sleep, after waking about four times in a complete sweat. Did I mention that earlier? I believe so... it just bothers me, because it has never happened before that I can recall. I don’t feel like I have a fever and it wasn’t particularly warm, but I was bundled under about forty-three blankets in addition to my comforter and fleece jacket, so maybe I just overdid it. I’m just desperate not to fall ill, and there’s such a proud, continual draft from the window in my bedroom that I had to do something to fend it off.

It kind of sucks that I’m going to go all day without one person acknowledging my birthday in person, but that is entirely my fault. I could have come here and made a bunch of friends and a nice home away from home but I chose to live with my head in one state and my body in another. Maybe I’ll go see 27 Dresses tonight as a miniature birthday party. As I read that, it sounds really pathetic. what a loser.

We’re under a windchill advisory here, and it’s so cold the parking meters would not even accept coins this morning. I don’t blame them. I’d like to shut down, too.

Your Birthdate: January 24

- For you, love is a natural progression from friendship. You are almost always friends first. - In love, you are loyal, steady, and honest. You are not a cheater or even much of a flirt. - You are likely to stay friends with your ex... and open to rekindling something in the future. - Number of True Loves You'll Have: 4 - Number of Times You'll Have Your Heart Broken: 1 - You are most compatible with people born on the 6th, 15th, and 24th of the month.

Sisyphus and the Mental State

“I’m tired of spinning my wheels...”
- Montgomery Gentry, “Speed”

I’m too sensitive. The slightest slip of tongue can shudder my sense of well-being to the depths of my consciousness and shatter my self-perception into tiny shards that cannot be realigned regardless of the efforts expended in such a manner. But by the same token, tiny seemingly insignificant observations can flood me with comfort and glee. For instance, I woke around 1:15 this morning and glanced out the window to see a slim sprinkling of snow over the ground. In a sort of serpentine pattern at the bottom of my stairwell looped a familiar pattern of small paws and larger floppy-type feet: rabbit tracks! In an instant I had returned to a USM field trip wherein we visited some outdoor hiking trail to learn to track particular animals, and one of the tour guides asked someone to demonstrate how a rabbit hops. They do it in a particular manner, and I was the only one able to do so correctly. It filled me with such pride to execute the demonstration successfully. And now, no matter what I do, I cannot seem to replicate the sentiment.

I can’t believe I’m 25. I don’t know where I thought I would be now, but it had to do with a stable mental state I thought I would be able to acquire twelve years after The Illness. Not to sound morbid and morose, but it seems perpetually beyond my reach. I’m like Sisyphus, cursed to roll my mindset toward sanity only to watch it retreat regardless of my input, and repeat this throughout eternity.

Facedown in a Memory

“Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want. Go for it.”
- Patrick Verona, Heath Ledger’s character in 10 Things I Hate About You

So I’m on the running machine yesterday, listening to my iPod and kind of half-daydreaming as I glance over the shoulders of athletes on the row in front of me to be nosy and see what they’re watching when I catch a glimpse of the guy from 10 Things I Hate About You and the text below it, “Heath ledger Found Dead at 28.” The person changed the channel immediately but I fished around in the forties until I located CNN Headline news and, sure enough, the guy was found dead in a New York apartment with some sleeping pills nearby. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I never particularly liked the guy - I found him arrogant and self-important, always speaking of his “craft” and degrading the press, Hollywood and everything associated therewith. I thought A Knight’s Tale was ludicrous, hated The Patriot and loathed Monster’s Ball, which resulted in my subsequent, unconscious boycott of every film in which he starred. But then over winter break, Dad and I went to see Sweeney Todd (which I positively, absolutely, wholeheartedly adored, and if Johnny Depp doesn’t finally acquire an Oscar we will officially know the entire awards show is a sham) and one of the previews before the film was for the new Batman movie. I have never particularly cared for the entire franchise and my fondness for Christian Bale does not extend beyond what he earned in Pretty Women, but the preview featured this Joker who seemed so pathologically insane, intense and beyond all possible reasoning that, as a former psychology major, I was intrigued to no end. I went home to investigate the film on the IMDB only to discover, with absolute and utter shock, that Heath Ledger was the Joker with whom I had so quickly become enamored! I could not believe the actor I had so callously dismissed could conjure such a fascinating psychological fulcrum. I was actually looking forward to The Dark Knight, the first Batman or James Bond film I could foresee myself voluntarily attending (instead of showing up with a cloak of interest to appease my social companions).

I don’t know why his death bothers me to such an extent. The only movie I liked him in was 10 Things I Hate About You, which he has repeatedly and openly renounced as a brainless teen movie he only took part in to crack the LA threshold. I guess because sleeping pills, to my mind, would be the way to go. Just figure out what they don’t mix with, fall asleep and never wake up. An overdose of them inhibits the body’s ability to breathe on its own, so you’d enter dreamland like Nemo and never return. The only disturbing thing is that he was found naked at the foot of his bed. Dr. Something-or-other on CNN stated that this is not an uncommon occurrence. Are you kidding me? I’m 24 and I’m trying to think of one time I have spent more than a split second exiting the shower unclothed... I cannot come up with one. Normal? Really? Maybe for Hollyweird, to borrow a Savage term.

Okay, It’s 8:14am and I’m sitting in my Complex Lit classroom and I just checked my e-mail and class is cancelled. She just sent the e-mail at 7:29 this morning. I could still be in bed. Thanks a lot, lady.

But, you know, they deem this entire event “tragic,” yet it’s the Marlon Brando versus James Dean thing. As Neil Young says, “Better to burn out than to fade away.” Now Heath will be forever young, and probably remembered for what might turn out to be his best role ever, as the Joker.

Jeez.

Here We Go Again

Antony: I meant no harm!
Judge: Your meaning is immaterial.
- Sweeney Todd

I’m in Real Estate Finance now. I showed up at 12:45 for the 1:30 class and one person was in the massive classroom, sitting in the center of the front row (totally non-prime real estate as far as I’m concerned). I did get my seat. Hopefully he’ll pass around the seating chart today so I don’t have to repeat this process on Monday.

The drive this morning was awful. First the dog wanted nothing to do with going outside, eating or partaking of any activity that would even remotely resemble helpful behavior. I actually picked him up to drag him over for some chicken/food and he attempted to show his teeth at me! We had to have it out over that point.

First I hit traditional downtown traffic. Then I hit the Illinois border traffic, which did not deteriorate until I reached the freeway change. I thought I was home-free at that point (because really, who would be headed to southern Illinois on a Tuesday morning?) but we hit standstill traffic that eclipsed even that which which I contended in Chicago. Eventually, on the other side of the freeway, I saw two towing vehicles pass with FedEx trucks attached, A lot of people who were expecting packages by 10am are going to be verrrry disappointed!

So here we are again. Another week, if a truncated one. I can’t believe I’m going to be 25. I’m having a quarter-life crisis. But at least Sweeney Todd is playing at the local theater, so I will still be able to partake of my evening slumber.

The Final Semester : Day Four

LORELAI: How dark is it?
LUKE: How dark is what?
LORELAI: The cumulus nimbus hovering over my head.
LUKE: Huh?
LORELAI: The black cloud. Was that a drop?
LUKE: What are you talking about?
LORELAI: I have some very bad news.
- Gilmore Girls

Here goes Day 4. I arrived for my 9 o’clock class at 7:45 because, as previously stated, I am a pathological idiot. BUT there was one bloke who arrived before me, so I’m not entirely insane. He had perched in the back row on the far left yesterday and occupied the same spot today, so he apparently has the same partiality I do toward the back corners. Hey, as long as he leaves my corner alone, we’re all good.

Today starts courses with the Professor From Hell, or so she is heralded. I wonder. I sure hope she’s not as horrendous and imposing as her reputation indicates, although all reports and evidence thus far has been to the contrary. It does not look promising.

The biggest challenge today will be staying awake. I mean this in all seriousness, because I just did the “sitting-up-but-falling-asleep thing” and jolted awake to find that I had typed “nerent natreo” in my notes. Any ideas? Anybody?

OKAY! I went through all the pain and hassle of arriving insanely early only for the professor to apologize that she forgot the seating chart today. Forgot? Forgot?! Are you kidding me?

The Final Semester : Day Three

Well, on one hand, I was the only 3L insane enough to arrive at 7:30 for a 9:00 class. On the other hand, someone beat me there - a 2L preceded me. Yes! My inane behavior has company! I hope to God she passes around the seating chart today so I don’t have to do this tomorrow. The only good news is that my class this afternoon, the use of Expert Witnesses, is in a classroom with a course that ends fifteen minutes before I start, so I don’t have to arrive insanely early.

This evening I have a seminar course on the use of Expert Witnesses: learning how to cross, direct, recross and redirect under examination, how to select them, etc. It’s a three-hour course but it’s taught by the same professor who helmed Insurance Law last semester (and whom I adored), so I hope it won’t prove as imposing as it sounds.

I look like hell rolled over by a car. I must have taken out my rollers at some point to improve my chances of sleeping so my hair looks like I thrust my little finger in an electrical socket. I didn’t want to take the time to fire up the ‘ol hair straightener this morning lest I miss securing my spot, so.... here I am. Struggling to keep my eyes open. I could use some toothpicks to pry them open; anybody have any? Anybody? last semester I could comfort myself that I only had one more night and then I would be home but I have two more nights and no prospect of sleep on the horizon and at this point the prospect of a one-way ticket to an inpatient mental institution has a rather alarming appeal.

The Final Semester : Day Two

“Anyone read the case? Do we have volunteers or do we want dental extractions?”

“So the Court consults the dictionary to determine the ordinary meaning of words. This is right next to Judge Friendly in terms of wattage, I must say...”

Professor Smith: And what does the court conclude?
Student: That ‘fish fry’ is a useful term for describing fish fries.
Professor Smith: The profundities continue.

I screeched out of a dream this morning with the alarm at 7am, only to roll over with a moan right into a nice big glob of my own drool, produced in involuntary droves by my mouthpiece. Somehow I managed to arrive at the gym and greet the person who scans us in, although I do not recall doing so, before pushing myself through an hour on the elliptical machine (the simulated runner, since my knee STILL is not cooperating and every time I catch a rerun of Scrubs I am sorely tempted to enlist Turk’s assistance in simply hacking off the blasted, stubborn, inoperable pain-in-the-tail appendage....)

Anyway, afterward I was going to stay and do some sit-ups before arriving at school around 10 because the class before my Trademarks course did not end until 10:15, but something told me I ought to leave immediately. I am big on signs and such, so I adhered the prophecy and left early. In the absence of a parking spot I had to emulate my father’s practice of occupying a no-parking zone, but I entered the building just in time to discover that the class prior to us actually ended at 9:45, so my arrival at 9:50 was absolutely unintended and positively fortuitous. Only one kid had arrived before me, and he occupied the seat directly in front of me, while I was able to procure my preferred spot on the back row on the right-hand side. Phew! And now we’ve officially signed the seating chart, so I’m all set.

Only one course today (and yesterday) because our Real Estate Finance professor is out of town this week and his courses won’t start until the 22nd (we have off for MLK day).

I am sooooo tired, I keep falling asleep. That almost never happens in Professor Smith’s courses (he’s teaching Trademarks) because I find him absolutely hilarious and he’s two steps ahead of everyone, so you have to pay attention to catch the humor he obscures in a seamless monotone. I fell asleep around 12:30 last night, woke up around 1:30, went back to bed at 3, and got up at 7, so I guess that’s five hours. I should be functioning. I am contending with a fervent desire to down my traditional three shots of espresso, but I don’t want to undertake any activity that could undermine my attempts to engage in some semblance of slumber this evening.

Zzzzz.....

The Final Semester : Day One

Day 1 uneventful. Of course I was the only 3L insane enough to show up at 7:30 for a 10:30 class but, hey, I got my seat. As he was running role, he muttered, “Are there any other courses being taught at the law school this spring?!” He passed through about twenty names before seamlessly answering himself, “I guess not...” Then he opened the class by saying something to the effect of, “Obviously, my reputation as one of the most cantankerous and ornery professors at the law school has not sufficiently spread throughout the relevant community, so I will do my best in the next hour or so to convince you all of that fact and if you would do your part to spread the word, I would appreciate it greatly.”

My typical second class of the day, Real Estate Finance, will not begin until next Tuesday because the professor is off partaking of some unspecified activity at an unnamed location. Hmm. The Firm, anyone?