Wheels Up!

I had to leave this morning. It was an excellent flight: I took two sleeping pills upon take-off with some effervescent "Airborne" brand anti-sickness stuff and asked for bourbon and soda at the first drink service. I've never traveled with so much junk in my life while leaving so much behind. Literally, figuratively; there was far too much left behind.

After touch-down, I needed a good deal of retail therapy, a phone call from [N] or [S], whatever. Instead, I got a mile-long taxi line (in which persons were strictly admonished not to smoke), and a rather uneventful trip to Queens where I was to be the guest of my famously alcoholic college roommate. Little did I know the extent to which cigarette smoke will permeate one’s belongings when there are three smokers (two occasional, one constant) in the same apartment.

I write a portion of this in retrospect of the weekend of my arrival:
After a few rather eventful days, I trekked to the Upper West Side in preparation of a great deal of writing interposed with a subway-move to the Lower East Side. I really do live in two entirely different worlds: one pleasantly rarified and conducive to work, the other boisterous to an extent thoroughly in keeping with the marked absence of money. Admittedly, it was much fun in undergrad but now it doesn’t make very much sense. In truth, I now only visit The Land of Undergrad in fleeting episodes, such as last weekend. I fear I’ve changed too much to actually enjoy living there. Alas, college mirth; we knew thee for but a moment.

tags technorati : Friends New York Relationship Summer

Wherein we plumb the depths of law-student psychosis

I went on a mid-week urban adventure. It was a bad idea; I had a meeting with a professor at 11:00 the next morning. Needless to say, nobody actually plans to go clubbing in San Francisco when they have perfectly good reasons to stay in Palo Alto and attend to very important, very erudite, conversations and tasks.

Anyhow, through an artifice, the details of which I omit to spare the innocent, I found myself in a bar/club in San Francisco accompanied by some very interesting girls with quite divergent personalities who I had never gone out with before. Throughout the evening the character in question remained quiet and subtle, usually signs of the socially competent and conscientious. However, after apparently failing to locate members of our cadre for not more than 15 minutes, she wandered outside in a huff. When we eventually found her, she proceeded to shriek and shove at her girlfriend in a manner very much in keeping with the child-like state in which she entered law school.

Draw whatever conclusions you will from the previous sentence.

As I fled up Castro Street with my friend of many years, desperate to escape the feminine sidewalk carnage in our wake, I wondered: how do people of such emotional fragility survive three years of the most severe mind-fucking devised by the legal academy? What skills could this person possibly have that would convince anyone to both put up with her attitude and pay her US $140,000 per year with virtually guaranteed yearly bonuses and raises? That amount is several times what the typically good-natured American can expect to earn at the apogee of his or her career. Perhaps the typically good-natured American is both pathetic and stupid but that's no excuse for rewarding borderline-psychotics who happen to stumble through a torts outline.

To address the afore-posed questions, perhaps this unfortunate soul, lacking social grace or ability to just suck it up and be an adult, is a victim of the law school. Perhaps the bankruptcy professor yells too much; or the Con-Law guy made too many mean-spirited quips; maybe her partner in negotiations was a hard-ass. Any of these things could explain such bizarre behaviour--and the fact that I find it necessary to write about this. But perhaps I've too much empathy re: the whole law school mind-fucking thing; it's more likely that there's just something fundamentally unreasonable (here I intend a strict legalese usage) about people who start fights with their friends in public and commit other social torts. I suppose that since I can't sue for my evening back, I'll just put it down to a lesson learned and (hopefully) karmic currency for better adventures to grace this space.

As for the ridiculous amount of money this person is going to make, I make no good-faith complaint and only mention it to arouse the gentle reader's outrage. Hell, I've probably got the same package.

time goes by...

[S]: It was cold in Russia. People were smearing goose fat on their bodies to stop frostbite, and near Moscow zookeepers fed an Indian elephant a bucket of vodka to keep it warm; the elephant then went on a rampage, tore radiators from a wall, and calmed down only after it was given a hot shower.
-from "Harper's Week in review"


[SH]: Given the behavior of this elephant you're describing, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Indian. It's African.


[S]:yo,
Last night I was talking with my roomate, [], about the web commic WIGU which is undergoeing a transformation from a three-pannel-a-day format to book form- my contention was that the comic isn't fucking funny enough to sustain that, my roomate disagreed. The whole thing sparked a debate about narrative structures in general, and serialisation in particular, which Pat seemed to think was a bad thing. He said that serialisation was why Dickens was a worse novelist than Terry Prachet contemporary Brit fantasy humor).

I was struck dumb by this for a couple of moments. Then I pointed out that Dickens was a genius who used brillient prose trun societie's own weapons against itself, whereas Prachet was an ammusing hack who had managed to turn maybe a dozen jokes into an absolutly ungodly number of slightly funny books. [] conceded that this might be true, but asserted that Prachet was deffinitavly more enjoyable to read, and, as a consequence, preferable- he sugested that maybe it was all a matter
of taste.

Again, I was silent, this time as I contemplated the unchartable depths of imbicility, and the absolute banckrupcy of both immagination and soul that could lead someone to hold such a depraved opinion. Finally, I said that it probably was just a matter of taste, and that he was certainly entitled to hold his own opinion, and seemed to let the matter drop.

As soon as the non-aggressive and conciliatory words were out of my mouth I vividly immagined that the four of you were watching the exchange and had let out a collective "Wha???" In that moment, I felt myself grow older, and I felt the icy tenticles of death tighten their grip perceptably around my spine.

Of course, then I wennt and defeated the whole purpose by trying to explain to him how lucky he was that I wasn't screeming at him: this made him very uncomfortable, although I suspect that he still was more comfotable than he would have been if I had handeled the situation the way I would have three years ago.
fight the power,


[SH]: Yeah, [S]. I think you're dying. Which is good. In the better days, you would have tried to shove "David Coperfield" up his ass...Would it help to say that a [S] who doesn't fight, on behalf of Dickens!, is already dead to me?


[BL]: holy shit. As one who felt the icy tendrils some time ago, I can say I don't think it signals death, though it may correlate with age. To the contrary and much worse, it signals the beginning of a moral declension after which one just doesn't care about truth anymore. Death comes to us all, but it won't reach me with a clear conscience. I'm truly sorry [S], but welcome to the club. When I get to the city, remind me that we need to go shopping at Polo for your new skull and cross bones necktie.


[SH]: [BL], as usual, is completely wrong. WHEN THE FUCK DID ANY OF US EVER CARE ABOUT "TRUTH"? We only cared to prove that the other of us was dumb. The "moral declination" argument is interesting, but wrong. Think about it. Fill in the blank, if you will: "If one is DECLINING, that means that one once was..." Although, call me when you go to "Polo".


[ER]: well shit [BL] that's a bit extreme, [S] decides for once in his life not to pick a fight and now you've got him shopping at polo

your story kinda reminds me of the incredibly frustrating discussion I once had with my roommate trying to explain why scientology was crap (but whats the harm, if it works for you . . . ) I only felt a little bit better when I realized that her brief interest in scientology was because she thought that the volunteer handing out the free literature was really hot.


[BL]: well, as [S] is usually the sort to defend the truth to the death (even if it means that we're the ilk that finds its collective self up against the wall when the revolution comes), I maintain my position that this is a declension. Frankly, I'm already at the bottom of the slide so I won't be upset regardless of who comes along (even if it's [SH] - never a more honest man have I known, though with quite the unique relationship to "truth") when we get the skull and bones neckties. The great tragedy is that now our compass doesn't want to steer us off the cliff when that's exactly where we need to go.


[BL]: re: the drunken elephant in Moscow. It's the beer before liquor problem. Distilled libations are uncommon in the traditions of both continents.


[SH]: [BL] ended with: "The great tragedy is that now our compass doesn't want to steer us off the cliff when that's exactly where we need to go." Easily the most beautiful and true thing [BL] ever said.