Oh, I could hide, ‘neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings.
The six o’clock alarm would never ring.
But it rings and I rise,
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
My shaving razor’s cold and it stings. – John Stewart, “Daydream Believer”
I know from a logical standpoint that five ante meridian exists. I know that just because I am not conscious of it does not mean that it never happens. There are many things I do not experience that still happen. Stars supernova. Life perpetuates. Clocks tick. These things I know. Still, it does not give me joy to prove five in the morning exists, especially when I wake up to see that terse message on my alarm clock. “5:00.”
I hopped over the side of my metal futon, over the pile of books, magazines and legal pads piled beneath, and clicked off the little plastic nub. Plastic pet silenced, I stumbled into the shower, adjusted the knobs until warm water steamed the bathroom, and showered. No, I will not describe specifics. Most of you can envision it just fine without help. Finish, dry myself off, brush teeth, insert contacts, and get changed into my suit. This is how a professional starts his day. Heaven only knows why I'm doing this.
The professionalism course was slated to start at half past eight. This did not mean it would start on time. These things never do; for all their attempts at organization and promptness, legal meetings tend to run at least five minutes late. Can I explain it? No. All I can do is show up when they tell me to, and zone out.
The hook-like worry that kept fishing me out of sleep was a dead car battery. The night previous, I had trouble getting the ignition to turn over, and feared that the battery might be ready to give out. Of course, as I write this a week later, that battery still powers the Lady Surfer, despite the daily need to attend work being so much more important. As I tightened my gunmetal grey tie around my neck for the sixth time (half-Windsor knots are not my friend), I kept looking outside to Lady Surfer. (She was re-dubbed after I found out naming it Silver Surfer implied masculinity, and you are supposed to name cars after females. Why? I don't know. Sure, there's some sort of rudimentary return-to-the-womb argument you could make, or some psychosocial arguments on the injustices visited upon women by men in everything we do. Or, you could say "Because," and you would probably be just as correct.)
Pockets crammed full of Nutrigrain bars, I tightened my shoelaces and headed outside. Everything slowed down, like drifting through mineral oil. Images left wavy afterimages, the frigid morning air muted every color. Even Lady Surfer felt unreal when I unlocked the door, sat down, and turned the ignition. Of course, it started up without a hitch. It always does, except when it doesn't.
I leave around seven. There is a good possibility I may have fallen asleep after five, before I woke up for real, and just do not recall. There is also a good possibility that I do not want to pay the Maryland State Bar Association sixty-five dollars. Also a good possibility I am exhausted and driving on auto-pilot. Also, that I will choose the wrong auto-pilot schema and end up anywhere but
I take Ninety-Five North to Baltimore, get off at exit fifty-three towards downtown, and park about a block away from the Baltimore Convention Center, the exciting locale where we will spend five hours learning how to be professionals. If we had not learned it by now, a five-hour class certainly will not teach us what we need to know. Consider this: if you are already versed in the ways of professionalism, the class wastes your time. It is akin to the preacher preaching to the congregation, when those absentees are the ones that would most benefit from the message. If you have crafted a master plan to cheat the system, embezzle from your clients, treat your compatriots as inferiors, and generally contravene the moral requirements that we all hope are implied in being a lawyer, how will a five-hour course move you? We numbered about one thousand strong that Saturday. Could even five of our cohort want to be professionals, yet not already learned the thrust of the day's simplistic kindergarten messages?
Now half past seven, I am half past pissed off. They are oh-so-graciously providing us with coffee and tea and donuts, but the cynic in me wonders if we have to pay for it. I stumble off, my fingers starting to crack and freeze in the cold, looking for an open food establishment. I find a Dunkin Donuts, briefly toy with going to the walk-up window, and decide to just go inside, get my bagel sandwich.
I promised to meet C.S. at eight, so we would not have to suffer through the day alone. Pain shared is pain doubled, so the saying should go. I munch on the bagel. That the cooking process could leach taste out of such diverse ingredients as bacon, eggs, and american cheese, and leave naught, save the dull, pasty flavors of neutral cardboard, shocked me. Yes, the ingredients did burn my tongue, so I knew at some point it might have been full of taste. Now, not so much.
At this point, I watch people enter the center. There is also a gymnastics exhibition this morning. It is easy to tell the groups apart. Those coming for the professionalism course are dressed to the hilt, carrying expensive suitcases and satchels and thick legal texts. Those for the gymnastics exhibition, young girls and their mothers and coaches dressed in warm up suits. A Venn Diagram showing the members of these two groups would overlap at a slice thin enough to pass through a needle's eye. I would like to meet said overlap; that might be hot.
C.S. arrives around ten minutes after eight. I marvel at his fortitude; he has trudged for twenty minutes in the arctic chill garbed only in his suit. We register, sign our names, and go into the main conference room. Before the dais up front, our kind hosts set up enough long tables to seat everyone, perhaps ten rows worth, eight or nine tables across. Beautiful thick white tablecloths drape each table, which leads me to wonder just how plywoody the tables were. After selecting seats, we go to the food aisle. They've erected several coffee services. Beneath each spigot is a small plate covered with coffee beans. I ask C.S. if we're expected to let the coffee run over the beans, then hold our cups below the plates and catch it as we might catch a waterfall. Both of us are dumbfounded at this little sign of gratuity and excess. Since the bagel threatens to tear its way out directly through my navel, I pick up three navel oranges, in case the opportunity to a) juggle, or b) peg someone in the head, presents itself. Yes, these thoughts are about as unprofessional as you get. Yes, I am about as unprofessional as I can get.
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