Racks

It's only a matter of time.

You know you want it.

I know I do.

Mostly I just wanted to test this image uploading process.

***

I'm lazy and polygamy is not treating me well. So.

I wanted a bagel this morning, so I headed out to Panera Bread. Walked up to the counter, two workers standing behind the counter waiting to take my order.

In situations like this, I'm never quite sure who to give the order to, so I decided to stare at the bagels in the hopes one of them would walk away, making my life a little easier. As I stared, pretending to consider all the wonderful flavors, in my periphery, I noticed the two of them were acting strange, gesticulating and trading glances. Whatever, I just want to get a bagel and get out.

Finally, the blonde on my right, stage left, steps to the side. "Oh, I didn't realize you were staring at the bagels." Then, to the other worker, "I thought you were trying to say he was staring at my chest." A hand to the chest apparently means "Move aside and let the man see the bagel rack," not "Pull your apron down and let the man stare at your rack."

Not even nine o'clock and I'm a pervert. New record.

I also wanted to eat there, which got the response, "Oh, so you're eating here now." She gave me one of those come hither smiles, to which I had to look down at into. Then, when I realized me looking down made me stare at her chest, I stared vertically downward into the countertop. Damnit women, you're both very nice people, you're cute, but this does not entitle you to mock me at eight freaking thirty in the morning before I've had breakfast.

Life Partners

Virginians! To arms, to arms! What with all the evils perpetrated by man unto man in this world, surely homosexual marriages must be halted before our society descends into a degenerate orgy of loose morals, sodomite revelling, the disintegration of the family unit, and all other hosts of wild, unchecked sin.

Wait, too late.

Why is everyone getting in a tizzy about gay marriage? Those that adopt the affirmative stance (as in, let homosexuals marry), raise your hands. Right, you can’t see me, neither can I see you. But I feel you, at least, those of you that raised your hands. All of you, I understand why this is so big. You’ve chosen to live your life with your partner, you want some rights that other married people have. Maybe you want cheaper income taxes, better insurance (life, health, car) rates. Maybe you just want to express your love in a more tangible form to the world. Yes, “I love you” is a magical phrase, fraught with peril for those that aren’t sure of the reciprocation, but its basically an “Open Sesame” to your heart, and to their heart. Aside from the simple, casual, daily reminder, stated from your willing lips to their willing ears, what better way to tell the world that? Maybe you always dreamed of getting married, and though Prince Charming’s got more sets of lips than you planned on kissing, or Rapunzel’s hair isn’t the only thing hanging down, you want to live that dream. Though many conservatives, stuck in their giant conservatory, the stars that shine down light from a thousand years ago to match their ancient views, would compare you to murderers, brigands, vagabonds, “them,” I say if you are serious about it, then you go flip a coin to see who wears the tuxedo, and you love with all your heart and soul.

I hate to be cynical, but I do need a segue. And, people that hate gay marriage, consider that gay marriage will lead to increased rates of gay divorce. Don’t you want to see that? I know you do, you’re so against the gay marriage, when the first sets of (lies, damned lies, and) statistics reveal themselves, you’ll pounce on them, proof you were right. Speaking of, those that hate the concept of homosexual marriage, let me see your hands.

Right, internet. Sorry.

Not so sad to say, I don’t side with all of you. I’ve read about and heard about all your reasons against. Let me see if I can give a quick rundown of some of the more popular ones (forgive me for repetition, but we all repeat ourselves over and over again. When you get down to it, there are a set of core values which continually pop up in everything that we say, do, believe. Our lives could be distilled down into the same thirty or forty facts over and over again, so let’s just keep on listing, and then we can combine into more aggregate answers): abomination against traditional society, marriage is between man and woman, homosexuality is wrong so why legitimize it, breakdown of family unit, breakdown of morals, God hates gays (and really, God is like your grandma. God only hates when you start hating. Jesus’ entourage consisted of eventual saints, but he broke bread with sinners all the time.), excess paperwork.

Yeah, I threw that last one in for the hell of it.

What your lot is arguing is that, lo and behold, the base concept of homosexuality is wrong, incorrect, does not compute. Just as the other side is arguing the base concept of homosexuality is right, correct, does compute. As long as we’re thinking of computer processes, you might argue that computers can only work in binary (ones and zeroes), while “them” might say that there are other ways to make it work (pairs of ones and pairs of zeroes, a little more complicated, but it gets the job done). Human beings aren’t just paper airplanes, directions aren’t always to be followed, tab A need not enter slot B. Slot C for example. It just so happens that this isn’t a case of if/then. Our world of quantum mechanics sets aside a small (large?) gap within the continuum for maybe.

This comes down to a difference. Basic difference, significant difference, but nothing less, nothing more, than a simple difference.

Sometimes, I get the impression that a lot of people feel homosexuality is contagious, like the common cold. They may not say so, and I can’t prove it (“Hey, do you think being gay is contagious?” “Are you calling me gay?” “Not as such....”). Still, at some level, there’s a fear? confusion? hate? Could it be a social holdover from when Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome was known in the colloquial as the “gay cancer,” and no one was quite sure how transmission occurred? Homosexuality is still misunderstood, and people fear what they do not understand. That doesn’t mean that it is something to be feared, that coming into contact with it will spread it. You’ll still like the opposite sex.

Sex on the receiving end can be emasculating; by definition, females, as non-masculine as you can get, are on the receiving end. It’s men attracted to other men, but being homosexual doesn’t turn off all your inhibitions. Just because you pass a gay man on the street doesn’t mean he’s secretly wondering how to jump you in the alley. If anything, if he knew what you were thinking, he’d probably stay away.

At some point, I shifted into a mindset of all homosexuals to specifically men. Maybe this is because those in power tend to be men, and despise male homosexuals more (Secretly lusting after lesbians. Yay numbers.). There is nothing to fear. Repeat, there is nothing to fear. We are all trying to make it in this world, why should you make someone else’s life harder?

Then, there’s the issue of the definition of marriage. Some people hang onto this definition as if it were pure gold. Husband and wife only. Well, marriage has multiple definitions, for one thing. It can also mean “to unite.” Then, there’s the issue of changing definitions, changing times. For example, once upon a time, “gay” meant “happy.” Now it means “homosexual.” “Bright” once meant luminous. Now, well, it still means luminous. (There are atheists attempting to shift the definition to mean “atheist,” but you can’t give yourself a nickname. Look at Rucker Park, where names are given.) Words change. Definitions change. Times change. Let go.

From an economic standpoint, won’t homosexual marriages spur the economy? How nice would a large wedding between two women be, what with the catering at the reception, the progressive celebrant, the crowds of people in attendance, proud to be there, rather than hide behind legal fictions? Think about the decorations, the photographs, the money spent. More weddings, more money. What’s wrong with that?

These are two consenting adults. They are old enough to make their own choices. Preventing their marriage smacks of Big Brotherism (from nineteen eighty-four, not two thousand and four). No one is being hurt. There are reasons for preventing underage marriage, inability to consent, to fully comprehend your actions. Here, we are talking about two adults. Yes, two. Yes, this should lead to workable legal polygamy. Bunch of adults, free to make their own choices, let them combine as they will. Even if I don’t see the evils of same-sex marriage, you ask, can I not behold the evils of polygamy? Then, however could I allow same-sex marriage, yet forbid polygamy?

Uh... We’ll need a little time to deal with that. I need to formulate some half-assed responses to that. The quick and dirty is that that is currently beyond the scope of the issue at hand and will be dealt with if it becomes a big enough concern. Also on deck is such situations tend to be akin to slavery, which is clearly outlawed? I've thought much more about gay marriage than polygamy.

Methodology

I hate Socrates. Nothing personal. Socrates lived roughly two thousand four hundred years ago, he never had a chance in ancient Greece to impact me directly, but his “dialectic method of inquiry” leaves its sticky-fingered prints on my mind. At least he went out like a champ. Hell, one strange night I almost went out like Socrates. Doesn’t mean I want to live with his method.

It doesn’t help that the Socratic method comprises the historical backbone of everything law school stands for. Alongside case study (the primary method of learning the law), “we” (lawyers) learn by question and answer. Professors question, we answer, professors question our answers, professors give right answers, professors move on. Though nowhere near as grueling as army boot camp, I like to think of this legal training as the pure mental equivalent: it breaks you down then resculpts you in the image of what the professors (and the profession in general) want of us.

Some of our finest moments come in the spotlight. All alone, sweating in your seat, frozen on a stage of one, the only people in the world you and the professor, struggling for answers, stricken with a peculiar strangling of the throat and that odd swimming feeling inside your head, like you’re paying for coffee with straws, sweat pooling beneath your palms, eroding at your laptop hand rests, the human brain casts peculiar revolutions in its tiny orbit, and the strangest voices, strangest words, emerge from your cottony mouth. Just as often as not, you crash and burn, but once in a while, the flames catch but they don’t consume, and you burn bright, brighter than justice.

Patent Law sports a roster ten weak (could we really be considered strong?). Professor K.C. (from here on out, in honor of Herman Edwards’ new charges, we shall refer to her as The Chief) throwsback to the glory days of Socrates’ dialectical method, choosing a subject and asking him or her questions for fifty minutes at a time. We have not been questioned so since those halcyon days of First Year (bow your head when you utter its name, foul sloth! You sully its name with your unworthy lips, shall you also show disrespect?), especially Torts and Professor D.G.

Professor The Chief herself could best be described as severe. Her clothing is prim, smart, well-ironed, and the latest fashion from Puritan society. The bun she binds her hair in is so tight it is a minor miracle it doesn’t rip right out of her scalp, though if it did, there would be nary a blood stain. Her face is functional. Attractive without being gorgeous, features all in their proper place, nothing out of the ordinary. She comes in on time, leaves on time, and glares like an old streetlamp if you come in even thirty seconds off of her schedule. Severe as a third degree burn.

You see where this is headed. Patent Law on Mondays convenes for two hours, with a ten minute break halfway through. After the break, and a brief introduction to the concept of utility, Professor The Chief decides to ask Mr. [T] some public policy questions about the utility requirement. (As part of the professional training, the hardcore professors refer to us by last name only. This creates a strange juxtaposition in my mind, as ofttimes I’m accused of being old enough to be a freshman in high school, yet the pseudo-respect afforded me at this institution belies such accusations. Strange.)

Mayhaps I have not conveyed this environment well. This is a serious business, and we are professionals-in-training. Understand that more often than not, when we get going, lives are at stake. People’s well-being is at stake. There should be nothing funny about this, given what keeps the scales in balance.

Yet, because its so morbid serious, we should inject levity into the proceedings. I for example do so by getting low grades, which are just funny in general. Sometimes, when the mood strikes me, and I know the next fifty minutes will be filled with naught but my thin voice quavering into the intellectual abyss, I crack jokes like eggshells. And so did the hour begin.

Refer back several paragraphs. Professor The Chief, like so many, knows not Momus’ light touch. So it was when the good professor asked me about the benefits and drawbacks of patenting nonuseful patents, I tried to give an example via a combover patent. Perhaps my delivery was off, the timing was all wrong, I don’t know. Cracked not a smile did the good professor. At that point, we launched into our discussion of Brenner v. Manson and In re Brana (see section II). Therein spread the scorching desert, therein had I lost my mind.

After the cases, Professor The Chief described in brief the Juicy Whip case. She mentioned the immorality of beverage dispensing facades, then asked me a question. I threw my hands up and cried out, I can’t answer, I’m so distraught over learning about this. Utter befuddlement painted her face with a frown and a questioning glare. I broke with social mores, and the reward was slight confusion. Thus do I reclaim what they take, Here do I nudge the line in the sand with my toe. Soon after, she drew a comparison between this and the Santa Claus debate with kids (Real or Fiction? More at eleven.). To which I raised my hand and asked, “Santa Claus, what do you mean?” At last she got the message, smiled an awkward smile, coaxing long-dormant muscles into action, and told me she would explain it after class.

One of the worst things about law school is that suspicion that, no matter how hard I try, I would never have been, I will never be, a good law student. Maybe I topped out at twenty-one, and intellectually it is all downhill. Fine. But as long as I go here, they will ask me questions. So long as they ask me questions, I will crack jokes. Learning is a two way street. Their job is to teach us something about the Law, but in the process, I can manage to teach even Professor The Chief to smile every once in a while.

Run, Walk, Balls?

Escape plans stud the walls of the law school and the legal library. Note that the most efficient plan would be to never enter, but in lieu of this, they provide us a multitude of maps with which to find our way out. Within the library’s third floor, there is such a sign, my favorite one. It states: “In Case of Fire:” above the plan itself. Then, “Run like hell to the nearest exit... and don’t forget your laptop.” Anonymous wag, I love you. Hope you’re pretty.

***

A Starbucks opened up one block away from the law school. I walk there some mornings and get a beverage, either plain green tea or giant caramel frappucino. Yeah, life is a study of differences. Anyway, there’s a barber’s shop almost equidistant between the school and the Starbucks. Despite it being the year two thousand and six, the millenial year, two thousand, figures prominently into the name of the hair-cutting establishment. Now that’s planning ahead.

Within the window is a small eight and a half by eleven paper display, an advertisement for a company called DNA. Now, this is not an abbreviation for DeoxyriboNucleic Acid, as one would be tempted to expect. No, this company adopted the moniker Daddy Needs Answers. Yes, for one hundred and fifty dollars, and two to seven days, you too can get answers to the questions you have.

***

Kept a running diary for the Denver-Pittsburgh ball game on Sunday. There is a reason why I keep no running diaries, football or otherwise. My problem in analyzing football is that I still approach from a fantasy perspective, i.e. follow the ball. This of course is an offshoot of my legal education, wherein several teachers played hide the ball. Therefore, literally and figuratively, when there is a ball to be followed, I follow it with all my heart.

Yes, I know that if you replace the word “ball” with “balls” and pretend I am talking about testicles, the previous paragraph becomes twice as funny. We’ll reproduce the foregoing with the change, slightly edited: Kept a running diary for balls. Denver-Pittsburgh game on Sunday. There is a reason why I keep no running diaries, balls or otherwise. My problem in analyzing balls is that I still approach from my fantasy perspective, i.e. follow the balls. This of course is an offshoot of my legal education, wherein several teachers played hide their balls. Therefore, literally and figuratively, when there are balls to be followed, I follow them with all my heart.

Balls.

Crying Till You Laugh

http://sptimes.com/2006/01/22/Floridian/In_his_own_defense.shtml - I want out.

***

If you were to split my chest open, and if the human heart were more than an essential muscle which drives the human body, then you would probably find a little boy, not more than five years of age, walking in the rain, shoes too big for his feet, drenched and crying. He’s trying to wipe his eyes off with his sleeves, stretching over his hands, but no matter how much he wipes, he can’t ever get them dry. Seems like this boy is oh so close to home, but he just can’t see it, because it’s raining too hard. This rain, it hadn’t halted in over a month. Still the skies hang overcast with clouds, but at least the rain has started to lessen. I’m just human. I can’t control the weather, out there or in here.

***

Commercial Law runs from six post meridian to eight post meridian on Mondays and Wednesdays. Good Professor M.v.A. (Hah!) must be powered by a nuclear reactor. His boundless energy and patient enthusiasm make me regret not having taken his classes in the past. Not that the slow process of law school would be rendered easier, safer, less stressful by that one act. On the contrary, I expect Commercial Law as painful as my latest dentist’s appointment.

(Not that the experience caused me physical pain. Aside from a hilarious fifteen seconds when the good doctor attempted to fit a mirror beneath my upper lip and my upper lip kept snapping back, no pain. No, what caused distress was the lack of communication. From when I entered the office proper, to when I left, no one spoke to me. Not the assistant that cleaned my teeth, not the doctor that administered the cavity search. When the assistant wanted me to close my mouth, she took her thumb and index finger and pressed my lips closed. Never once did she ask, she just kept closing them and closing them.

The worst component of the experience was being kept in the seat, waiting in rapt impatience, not knowing that at any time I could have left after the doctor concluded the cavity search. Several minutes I waited, as dentistry individuals walked past the open office. Finally, the assistant walked past, I flagged her down, she took my question, then walked away again. Two more minutes pass before she returns and answers in the affirmative. Yes, great. Another place I don’t want to return to. At this high-paced rate, I will live forever in my Civic, stopping at drive through restaurants for sustenance, modifying the front seat with a large hole and/or septic tank.)

What makes Commercial Law so entertaining (on the scale of general entertainment, two or three. On law school scale, eight or nine.) is the incessant movement Professor M.v.A. executes to and fro. Back and forth, back and forth, expressing himself and the world of Secured Credit, going to the projections to point out relevant schema. At one point, the Good Professor passed the lecturn, only to do a one-eighty while still staring at the assemblage, nearly impaling himself upon the corner of said podium. Wouldn’t you know it, I barked like a geese, half-laughing so loud that I had to catch myself and duck down, while strained, quiet laughter filled the room.

And I don’t even like the Three Stooges.

Constipated

Well, not really. I'm calling an end to the regular posting thing. It sucks. We'll start updating again when V.P. starts updating his blog. Peace out.