Library of Dust

8.09 pm

In a strange place, a "I've just eaten sushi while talking to an older gentleman who said he was best buds with Justice Kennedy and might actually have been telling the truth" sort of place. Which I suppose isn't really so strange after all, given that everybody in the world is only six degrees apart from everyone else. As Gary was telling me about his good buddy Tony, I was trying to think of the sort of famously witty remark that would make its way back to the justice himself, and failing miserably. Which, probably, is a good thing, as witty remarks alway sound better in my head than on my lips.

Finals season and the start of the racing season. Which means that while boy and Dusty are on the boat, I shall be locked in a large classroom trying to disgorge the past three months of classes. I do wish sometimes that I wasn't such an overachiever, because then I could simply show up on exam days with an outline and the book. Instead I shall be studying, and taking practice tests, and doing other sorts of things which don't teach you anything about actual lawyering at all.

Right. Books, now.

On knives and missing dogs

7.44 pm

My boyfriend bought a new knife Friday night. I've always been somewhat skeptical of $100+ knives. As long as it has a pointy end and an edge it cuts, right? We got home from the knife shop, and he told me, once again, that my knives were scheduled for an appointment with the trash can. I told him that my knives were perfectly good.

He gave me his new knife and told me to cut a very thin slice of tomato. I gave him the "you've got to be kidding" look. He pointed to the cutting board and the knife, so I picked it up and cut a respectably thin slice. Then he handed me my knife and told me to cut another slice. The knife all but bounced off the skin of the tomato.

Global knives, you have a new convert.

7.50 pm

The dog escaped today. I was sitting in the living room, doing homework, the door wide open to get a breeze or two. He was curled up at my feet, pushing his nose into my lap every time every time I stretched out or changed position. I heard some keys jangling outside, and he got up and poked his nose out the door to investigate. I didn't worry because he's such a mellow dog, and he never runs away. Then the rest of him disappeared, and I put on my sandals and grabbed the leash and the keys, figuring he'd be just down the bottom of the steps. By the time I made it outside he was gone.

Did I mention he isn't my dog? I went down to one end of the block, looked around all the corners, and didn't see him. I went down to the other, did the same thing. Still no dog. This is when I started to panic and think that maybe he'd decided to do like the dogs in "Homeward Bound" and find his boy. I was trying to figure out how to explain to my friend that I'd lost his dog because I hadn't been quicker out the door after him when the phone rang.

"Where are you?" my friend asked.

"I'm outside your apartment," I said.

"Someone just called me. They found my dog."

He was more surprised that the dog had gone out than anything else, and the dog hadn't made it more than a few doors down - which was why I hadn't seen him when I'd gone out looking. Moral of the story: when you're watching someone else's dog, keep the door closed or the leash on.

9.09 pm

They just posted the course offerings for next fall. Now comes the fun part - figuring out what to take and when. The idea of stacking my schedule so I have a three or four day weekend makes me almost giddy with joy. So does the idea of taking classes where the readings are more philosphical than nonsensical. I know there's a limit to how much can fit into the first year - but instead of only hearing "this is the law because it's the way we've done it for hundred's of years" I'd like to be able to ask why. In some ways, I'm upset that I'm only in school for three years. There are so many things that I want to do, I'm not sure how to fit them all in. I'm not particularly thrilled about having to graduate and go into the "real world", either.

9.20 pm
J tells me I'm a born lawyer. I'm not so sure about that. It's words that I get excited about, the possibilities of the blank page. The way my fingertips think faster than I can type sometimes, so that I find my fingers flying over the keyboard, in danger of tangling themselves. The novel is calling for me to come out and play. It wants to know why it's been stuck in a binder on my bookshelf for almost a year. It wants to know why I never spend time with it anymore. The problem is, Knightly may well be right. I'm not sure that lawyering and writing fit well together. Law school and writing don't, at any rate.