It's Late

It's 2:10 AM. I have to be up in 4 hours and 50 minutes. I have at least one more proofread of my memo. I woke up 21 hours ago. I was at school from 7:30AM until 8:45PM. Today, I ate: one subway sub, one Jimmy John's sub, 4 girl scout cookies, 1 Cafe Americano, 1 Regular Coffee, 2 bottles of water, one cup of peppermint tea, one granola bar, one diet coke. I'm tired, my shoulders hurt, and I want to go to bed. My eyes are blurry. My memo is mediocre at best. I am not happy right now. Don't go to law school...unless you enjoy this, which I kind of do.
Lyrics:
"And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking, dad would dream of all the different ways to die, each one a little more than he could dare try."
Neutral Milk Hotel King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1

Some Things You Should Know

• I used to like really long hot showers. Then my hot water got shut off my senior year of undergrad. No I like really really long really really hot showers.
• Touching my big toe nail will probably result in a kick to the face. I hate it.
• Fall is my favorite season.
• New England port towns are awesome. With the exception of New Haven. I don't know what is havenesque about that place. It's such a shithole.
• There is nothing that I hate more than being talked down to.
• I'll take a group of 5 or 6 over a group of 20 every single day of the week.
• Passat, condo, Whole Foods/FO and I'll be happy.
• For some reason, I really feel compelled to visit Mongolia. It is a gigantic country that you never hear about. Surely, something must go on there. I investigated using google maps, but even their pictures were shitty.
• I once read that the reason you like movies, isn't because of the actual movie but because of what the movie makes you think about your own life. Your love of a movie has more to do with your own life, and what was going on when you first saw the movie and how you related, blah blah blah. I was skeptical, but it may be the only explanation for why Rounders may be my favorite movie.
• The anger I feel towards homeless people sometimes worries me. Not worries me in the sense that I'm gonna go all American Psycho and kill one of them-more worried that some day I may become a Republican. But probably not.
• I believe that people that prefer Leno over Letterman are significantly less intelligent than people that prefer Letterman over Leno. And the people that prefer Charlie Rose over both of those, well they my friend, are our future leaders and great intellects.

Lyric

"So who's that girl there, I wonder what went wrong so that she had to roam the streets. She don't take major credit cards, i doubt she gives receipts."

The current it band: Arctic Monkeys When the Sun Goes Down

Our Endless Numbered Days

In light of my recent absence from the blogosphere (worst word ever), I decided my return should be a post significantly more melodramatic than usual. Perhaps something borderline insiteful, perhaps something some so mindbogglingly sappy that people will never read this again. So, before the melodramatic critiques come in, I inform you that I am aware of the melancholy nature of this post.

I think it was an episode of Gray's Anatomy that sparked a brief discussion between my roommate and I about death. Nothing in depth, nothing earth shattering. It was really just a five minute mention of how it makes her crazy to even think about it and how it scares her. Now of course, that small conversation wouldn't be enough to inspire a post. However, subsequent to the conversation was a listen to an album by Iron and Wine (Our Endless Numbered Days). The album is filled with allusions to death. Wait, they aren't allusions, the whole fucking album is about death. Look at the title. Anyways, I thought about it, and really, the notion of nothingness or blackness or whatever you want to call it, following death is terrifying. We don't even really have a concept of what that is like; the thought of being, well, thoughtless isn't really a comprehensible thought (lot about thinking in that sentence-you like that?). Blackness after death is a horrible notion, at least if that's what you believe. I used to unequivocally believe that there was no God and that there was nothing after death. I used to believe that science ruled the day. Hell, I still believe science rules the day. But now, now I sure as hell don't believe in blackness.

I'm pretty confused about my faith right now. I think a lot of things in my life have filled my relationship with religion with animosity. To be completely honest with you, a lot of things associated with religion completely disgust me. For example: I believe, that more than any other thing in the world, religion is the driving force of hate. I believe that there is something fundamentally wrong about blindly following a human being purporting to be a man of God. I believe that saying "my God is God and your god is shit" is absolutely wrong and incredibly misguided. These are all difficult problems to reconcile with my own morals, my own beliefs about God. Nevertheless, for one of the first times in my life I don't worry about blackness following my death at all. It's not something I can easily explain to myself. I'm certainly not a great Christian, Jew, Muslim or Buddhist. There's nothing about my actions on a daily basis that would lead anyone to believe that I'm a Godfearing human being. I really don't know whether my lack of fear is irrational or whether it is, in and of itself, faith. Faith is a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. I don't know what eases my fear, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with some illogical belief I have in God.

Another thing I've come to think about a lot is the belief in a soul. It is important to understand that I believe that your soul is completely separate from any concept of religion or even a faith. Everyone, regardless of their faith or their belief in a God has a soul. This sounds dumb, it sounds corny, it sounds so fucking typical but I really don't believe your soul can die. I mean there's something different about humans and say, an iguana. There's something about us, and it's not just our thoughts. It's what there is about us that is not explainable by science. It's our irrational worries. It's our irrational faith in God, or more often our faith in each other. It's our views about good and evil. It's our views about right and wrong, our creativity, our passions. I don't know, the soul is anything about us we can't explain. Who we fall in love with (although I still believe science plays a heavy role in this). It's why movies, even though we know they are not real can touch us in ways that even real life can't. I don't know what it is. How do you define a soul? You don't. So don't try. Even if you have a theology degree. And an English degree. It's that which is undefinable about each of us. And I really believe, that this is not killable. It doesn't die like our bodies die. I have no idea where it goes, but I'm pretty sure it's not into blackness. Maybe it's heaven, maybe it's hell, maybe it's to another body on earth-that's not for me to decide. But it doesn't die. I don't think.

On a completely different note, law school is killing my soul.

Lyrics
"All these men that you made
how we wither in the shade
of your trees, on your wings
we are carried to the sea
God, give us love in the time that we have"
Iron and Wine On Your Wings
See, melodramatic as shit, just like I promised.

22?

It's strange to think that in just a few short years I may be responsible for controlling or protecting large sums of money. I may be responsible for defending or prosecuting patents, or people, depending on which route the jobs take me. Who knows. It's really strange though to think about that, quite daunting really. On the one hand I look forward to it. I can't wait for new challenges, new responsibilties and obviously that paycheck. At the same time there are definetly times when I feel too young to be doing this shit. I sometimes feel like I'm surrounded by people looking to get married, looking to buy houses, looking to have kids. People completely driven by that need for a big paycheck. Me, right now I'm looking more forward to grilling burgers and drinking Coronas on the deck in the spring than I am stepping into court or a deposition room for the first time. Right now I'm more concerned with being informed about the latest indie releases than I am with the latest Supreme Court decisions. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or destined to become a second rate lawyer. But really, it probably just makes me a 22 year old. I don't know if my lack of motivation in the job search is because of my crippling fear of failure and rejection or because I just don't want to have the kind of responsibility that may come with a nine to five. Maybe not just yet. But that's gotta change, at least if I want to have the kind of financial success required to live the kind of lifestyle I aspire to. Well, I mean really just a condo and a Passat and Bannana Republic suits is fine with me, but still, you need a job for those things. While I've never really considered quitting law school, you're faced with questions of your ability and drive every single day. Once in a while, when things aren't coming so easily, when things aren't going so well, you have to have your doubts. You're inhuman if you don't. Tonights one of those nights I suppose. This semester has been a bit more of a challenge than I anticipated. I just missed Dean's List by a very small amount which really fucking pisses me off. There's no way to lie about that or beat around the fact that it just really pisses me off. I'm not gonna sit here and say I busted my ass harder than anyone else-but I busted my ass pretty hard and to be just a fraction off blows. But, one thing did make me feel better. I'm reading a book about Justice Blackmun, and it talks about how he and Burger were such good friends. Well, at one point there's a letter from Burger to Blackman, talking about how he was struggling and how he had thought about leaving school. So, I figure if a Chief Justice can struggle, so can I. Granted, he probably made Dean's List.
Lyric
"And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me."
Neutral Milk Hotel In an Aeroplane, obviously.

Calm Down

Some days I just get so angry. Like when a cab cuts me off while I'm trying to cross the street, I just want to kick in the back door as he drives by. Or when the woman sitting next to me in the coffee shop who is crazy starts babbling about something I just want to tell her to shut be quiet, or to ask her who she is talking to. When someone asks me for change I want to accost them and tell them to stop doing crack and tell them that asking for "75 cents" instead of "spare change" is no more effective because I'm not a stupid tourist that genuinely thinks you need the money for the bus. You need 75 cents so you can be 1/20 of the way to your next rock. Don't insult my intelligence. And by the way-to all the white homeless people with the signs that say "stranded" instead of "hungry" I think it's pathetic. What, since you're a white homeless person you expect me to think that you're really stranded and not just a drunk or drug addict. I don't mean to hate, but seriously. Damnit, I need to calm down, or work out, or STOP READING. Maybe get some sleep or something.

The Old Man and the Coffee Shop (as opposed to the sea)

I spend a lot of time at the Barnes and Noble Coffee Shop on the first floor of my building at school. For all intensive purposes, the cafe is a Starbucks. The Barnes and Noble has two entrances. One entrance consists of two revolving doors and leads you into the book store. The other entrance is a conventional door that leads you directly into the cafe. When you enter the cafe, there is a large row of about 8 tables along the windows on the right. On the left side is a partition separating the book store from the cafe. This partition has what is basically a bar with stools. There are two rows of tables between the windows and the partition. The actual coffee counter is opposite the entrance. The cafe seating area is kind of narrow and the tables are close together. This makes people watching and the occasional eavesdropping optimal. Unfortunately, the eavesdropping generally (drops?) on a conversation involving some abstract legal doctrine or some stupid story about how someone got too drunk at some bar you've never heard of. In addition to the bar, the partition has two tables against it. Almost every single morning or afternoon or at some point over the course of the day, I see the same old man sitting at one of these two tables. He's always drinking a small coffee drink. He always has a small stack of high minded magazines on the table. These magazines include but are not limited to The Economist, New Yorker, Harpers, and a number of others whose titles are not familiar to me.
The man is generally wearing a large coat. He has shaggy gray hair and facial hair that makes him look unkempt, but not in the cool way. We go to school in an area of town that has a significant amount of homeless people around during the day. Not because the area is all that bad, but because there are a ton of business people-business people have money, business people don't like change weighting down their pockets, and business people tend to give this change away. At first I thought this man was homeless. I no longer think this. This sounds cruel, but he doesn't smell like a homeless person. The employees don't look at him with disgust and disdain the way they do most homeless people that wander into their beloved bookstore. He's always drinking Starbucks coffee which is not affordable for the homeless. A second look at his clothes warranted the same conclusion. His jacket, his pants, his shirt and shoes all screamed "old man," not so much "homeless!" I add the exclamation point because the clothes are screaming. Additionally, old homeless men tend to dress even more irrationally than young homeless men. His dress did not fall into this category. Finally, his stack of magazines is never excessive. Usually two or three, the amount a sane person with a home may select from a magazine shelf. They are always similarly themed as opposed to a collection such consisting of Home and Gardens, Scientific America, Field and Stream, FHM, Smithsonian, and Runners Digest (for the athletic, stay at home scientist hunter historian dad homeless person). The coherency of the collection makes me believe that this old man is perfectly sane.
A second thought I had was that maybe this man was a crazy old professor that no longer works and he just likes to hang around the academic world. Maybe he figures he can come and read the economist and some other magazines and maybe he feels like he's back where he belongs, doing something that he loves. Maybe he has some notion that his work is research, or maybe he just likes to keep himself informed. This too though, I now feel is inaccurate. The past couple of times I've seen him he's had the magazines in his hands. He's been holding them up to his face, but he hasn't been reading them. His eyes have been darting around the room. Looking at no one and nothing in particular, just observing. Not really in a creepy way, just a curious way. Nevertheless, the man is smart enough to know that if you want to look smart, these are the magazines you pull from the shelves.
I wonder though, who is this man? He's somewhere between a homeless person and a crazy old academic. I think he might just be a lonely old man, but I could be wrong. He could be some sort of weird sexual predator. He could be a former lawyer that's fallen on hard times. He could just be a guy that worked in a factory his whole life, doesn't have any family and is bored. The one thing that is certain is that the man is bored.
Today I walked through the cafe a total of four times. I probably spent around 2 hours total sitting, studying, feeding the addiction. I never saw the old man. I can't remember the last time I didn't seem him at least once over the course of the day. It would be a lie to say that I missed him. It would be insincere and it would be disingenuous. The man has not done anything for me. I don't feel all that sentimental towards him, it's really just a curiousity. Anyone, in the same position as me, that said they "missed him" would be lying. That being said, I did wonder if something happened to him. Then I thought, God I hope something happened to him. Nothing bad, obviously. Just SOMETHING. I hope his grandkids came to see him. I hope he went and visited his wife in the nursing home. I hope he went to the park. I hope he had some crazy taxi driver take him to the wrong Starbucks. I hope he had errands to run. I hope he saw a commercial for Hawaii, said "fuck it, i'm not gonna be nickel and dimed to death by Starbucks anymore, I'm going to Hawaii!," and packed a bag and left forever. That's the saddest part about being old-nothing ever happens anymore. One more thing I'm afraid of: being 75 years old and sitting in a Starbucks fake reading the Economist. I hope something good happened to him, something fun. But really, just something.
Lyric:
"There's a man holding a megaphone, must've been the voice of God."
Bright Eyes

Commit

I didn't work as hard as I could have last semester. In fact, I can name at least 10 people that worked considerbaly harder than I did. In reality, I'm lucky to have escaped with the grades I did. I mean, I'm not saying I didn't bust my ass-I did. I'm not saying there weren't a bunch of times I felt like I was losing it-because there were. I'm also not trying to take away anything from any of my friends that did better than I did. We're all smart people, and they outworked me. I went out, I slept in, I stayed up late, I watched TV, I cooked instead of always eating Subway, I worked out, I explored Chicago, I watched a lot of football, spent a lot of time on fantasy football. There were a whole host of things I could've cut out of my life in order to work harder. And that's what I think I'm going to do. See, I have this abiltiy to, if I commit to it, to work so ridiculously hard. I mean, in undergrad, I really can't name anybody that worked harder than I did. That's arrogant-but I worked 20-25 hours a week in a lab, had a full plate of classes and worked fulltime at a restaurant. And to top it all off, I drank a shitload of alcohol. So I can work, if I want to. The question I'm facing now, is whether or not I want to work as hard as perhaps 4 A's and a B would require. It will make me hate school. Working that hard will make me a different person. I'll be bitter at times. I'll be an asshole. I'll come off as antisocial. But I can will myself some A's if I have to. So, this week, I'm gonna try the working all out type deal. See how much I hate life at the end. If I think I can do it consistently, week in, week out, and keep my sanity, than I will.
Lyric:
"Sleep is the cousin of death."
The Game

Ending

Sometimes I wonder how every era of my life is going to come to an end. This past couple of months have made me realize that I live these lifestyles, work these jobs, I be this person, and eventually I just end it. I break clean. I did it in highschool. Did it in college. Did it between college and law school. I'd like to think that when I'm breaking these ties I have to certain things, that I'm unaware, that it's a slow evolution into something that wasn't intended. Or that what has ended wasn't intended to end so abruptly or so completely. But when I look back, having lived a little more life, and having some perspective on things, I know that my ending certain eras of my life is completely deliberate. It's not gradual, things didn't fade, I didn't outgrow certain things. I just end it and move on. For example: Working at Locos-I stopped working in like mid July, a good month or two before I had to be in Chicago. I went from working 40-50 hour work weeks to not stepping foot in the place. I moved back home, I lived with my parents for a few weeks. I didn't go back very often. Maybe once or twice for a night or two. I made a clean break from my life and my friends back there, and when I look back on that and how I went about things I feel like shit. There's not one person back there that I think would blame me or look down on me for how I went about things, but I could've done it better, I could've been a better friend, better person in general. See the thing is, I've come to terms with how all that ended. I've come to understand the fact that I'm happier than I've ever been in my entire life here in Chicago. I wouldn't trade this place for anywhere in the world. It sounds selfish, but I wouldn't trade my happiness here for anything back there. I really wouldn't. But still, I remember times at Locos where I thought, "you know, i've never been happier, I may never be this happy again." And now I am happier. Still, the fact that I walked away from that place so easily worries me. I mean, I thought I'd be a mess leaving everything behind-leaving such a substantial part of my life in the dust. But just like high school, I wasn't. I didn't cry, I didn't go back much, and I probably won't ever really return. That all worries me so much now. How maybe now, whatever the happiness I've found-maybe that all will fade. Maybe it's artificial. Maybe I'll be able to someday walk away from these people and this place as easily as I walked away from Sandy Creek High School, The University of Georgia, and Locos. When the hell am I gonna find a place that chokes me up when I walk away from it?
Lyric:
"I found out I often disagree. They say there is something wrong with me. I don't even listen to them anymore." Shout Out Louds Oh Sweetheart

Soundtrack to Your Life

1. Foreign Exchange- "Raw Life"- Bus ride from Lakeview to Wicker Park.
2. Ted Leo and the Pharmicists- "Hearts of Oak" - Grand and McClurg bus stop, 7am, sunrise.
3. Broken Social Scene- "Cause=Time"- Anytime, all the time.
4. Pavement- "Gold Soundz" -Confusing song for confusing times.
5. Dizzee Rascal- "Stop Dat" -For fights. Like bar fights or street fights as opposed to relationship fights. The British Li'l John
6. Wyclef Jean- "Sang Fezi"- For drug running flights to the islands.
7. Kings of Convenience- "Weight of my Words"- For when you get lost in the city.
8. Phosphorescent-"South (of America)"- Sleepytime.
9. Architecture in Helsinki- "Maybe You Could Owe Me"-When you wake up and realize just how much money you spent last night.
10. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin-"Pangea"-For when you need a line as delightfully cheezy as "Pangea, we used to be together, why'd we have to drift apart?"
11. The Sleepy Jackson-"Don't You Know"-when you're feeling enigmatic.
12. Star-"Sleep Tonight"-When you realize it's never dark here. Never.
13. The Walkmen-"That's the Punchline"-For when what you thought was a really funny story turns out to be not so funny.
14. Belle Orchestre-"Throw It on a Fire"-When things are exciting, or when you want them to be.
15. The Microphones-"The Moon"-Standing in front of my windows, looking at, well, you know...

Fifteen is good.

Lyric: "I went back to feel alone. I went back there by myself." From the last song on the list.