10.55 am
The bedroom looks like Halloween exploded into it at some point in the wee hours of the morning. Costumes scattered across the couch at the foot of the bed, keys and ID's and credit cards and makeup scattered across my desk. As the boy put it, I stayed out way past my bedtime last night. I'll blame some of that on BART (running one train an hour isn't really all-night service - have you people ever been to New York) but mostly it was because we were having a good time.

He bought tickets to an event at the Glas Kat, but we never made it that far. Instead we met up with friend, and friends of friend, and a random airport security agent ("I don't care about the drugs you're carrying. I'm looking for the person who wants to die today." Nice to know our government has its priorities straight.) who spent the night on a bar stool warming our coats. Sometime after midnight the boy and I ended up at a little taqueria, where I got nachos that probably wouldn't have been as fantastic if I had been sober.

10.55 am
Finished with my read through of the morning paper and ready to start the day. I'm torn between whether I should consider the paper a necessity or a luxury. Necessity because knowing what's going on in the world - whether you world consists of the small rural town you live in or the affairs of political leaders across the globe - is an essential part of being a citizen. A luxury, partly because I must confess that at times I'm more likely to read 'human interest' stories than hard news and partly because my days always flash by much too quickly.

Today I shall mostly spend writing, I think. Having finished a first draft of my writing requirement, I've been rewarded with suggestions for the next draft an an imperative to get that next draft done quickly. I shall also, if I can convince myself it won't take to long, go down to the new library and, for the first time in over a month, get new books!

3.58 pm
Back from new library, which is rather spiffy. There's an automatic book return - you put your book in the slot, barcode facing up, and it goes onto a conveyor belt that then deposits the book in the right bin. The librarians love this because it takes away most of the hassle of returns. I love this becuase I am naturally suspicious and paranoid and can now get a receipt verifying that I did, in fact, return my books on time.

The downside of getting new books is, of course, that I would rather be reading than doing homework. So instead I shall procrastinate by blogging. A happy solution for all.

10.30 am
Curled up on the futon with my blanket wrapped around me and the front door wide open. A delicate compromise between warmth and fresh air. On the agenda today we have corporations (it would be rather nice, for once, to have an actual reading assignment rather than guessing), reading through precis' for my writing seminar (although I claim hall pass on reading them if they come it at 9 pm on Sunday night again) and reading for my development seminar (which, because I am writing a paper, I view as somewhat optional). Then there's the MPRE, and I will know whether or not I should be worried about it after I do some practice questions this afternoon.

10.53 am
(I began a long diatribe on the CA bar charging outrageous fees, but it ended up on Nuts & Boalts instead)

Having now spent 23 minutes typing instead of reading, I shall now be a good sheeple and go do my homework.

9.08 am

When the phone rings before 9 am, it's usually because one of the boy's cooks has failed to show. He was tugging on his chef's pants and stuffing clothes for tonight in his bag almost before he had hung up the phone, then rushing out the door. I somewhat like when he leaves early because it gives me more time to get work done during the day, but the house is rather empty when it's only me here all day.

10.43 am

I am armed with a cup of green tea and ready to face the day. The boy left at 9 am this morning to go to work. It has taken me nearly two hours of newspaper reading, email and facebook checking, and showering to accept the fact that it is morning and I am awake.

On the to do list for today:

• Homework. About 65 pages of reading for crim pro - we're doing Miranda this week. Plus the articles for my international development and law class, which I pretty much skim through anyway. And papers/precis for the writing workshop. Ditto on the skimming.
• Webpage editing. The boalt.org server is finally cooperating. Agenda for today is getting the articles archive straightened out and putting up blurbs about the articles for the next edition.
• Brower. I didn't realize how much work was going to go into editing that thing. At this rate, I'll still be working on it next year. Which is bad, because it probably needs to be ready for the printer by December. Eeek!
• An hour of noveling. This is a must. Nathan Bransford's Stupendously Ultimate First paragraph Challenge had caused me to realize that: 1) there's no point in winning an agent critique if you don't have a manuscript ready and 2) manuscripts don't write themselves while they're stuck in the proverbial desk drawer. Although they may get up to other sorts of mischief, which is neither here nor there.
• I'm sure there's something else I'm forgetting. There usually is.
  

11.55 am

A word cloud of the blog, powered by wordle.net

5.13 pm

The alarm went off at 3 am this morning and boy rolled out of bed and turned on the computer. I stayed in bed for about half an hour before giving in to the inevitable and moving to the couch, where I wrapped myself in a blanket and dozed off to the sound of NASA geeks. One of them, after informing us that the bombing of the moon was dedicated to Walter Cronkite, said he hoped that this mission would inspire a new generation of kids to grow up excited about exploring space.

Seems to me that people landing on the moon is a somewhat more exciting than a rocket detonation that fails to produce the expected "cloud." On the other hand, perhaps we're getting that much closer to Luna Colony. Cue catapults, lunies, and Revolt in 2100. I've already told my parents that when they become aged, I'm shipping them off to the moon. One sixth gravity makes it a lot easier to get around with those hip replacements and bad knees.

liveblogging my corporations reading

4.28 pm

Home from a nice bike ride up Redwood (hills are friends, not food) and showered, so that I am no longer a sweaty, grimy mess. My reward: settling in to read Corporations. Joy.

4.34 pm

I am currently feeling a bit like Emma: if I were to make time for all the things I ought to do, I would be quite accomplished by now. Sadly, learning Spanish and writing a novel and working my way through cookbooks seem to be somewhat incompatible with law school. Bike riding is easier for some reason. Perhaps it's because conjugating Spanish verbs doesn't quite give the same adrenaline rush that racing down a hill at way too fast does.

5.37 pm

I've closed the front door - too much wind and not enough sunshine coming in. Curled up under the boy's Snoopy blanket and wishing we had a fireplace. Homework reads quicker when there's fire nearby.

5.57 pm

So far, the most exciting case was from the 1930s and involved night games at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

6.19 pm

Seven pages to go. If I put dinner in the oven now, will it be ready when I'm finished? Ah, the existential thoughts of a hungry law student.

6.48 pm

Dinner: three cheese tortellini with truffle salt, oregano, and parmesan. Desert: editing.

Peter at 32

2 am – the after
after party – and he’s down
in the Village
with a smile
and a corporate expense account, still dressed
in standard office-wear:
trousers and a Eurotrash
button-down;

“Darling!”
he says
to a girl in a
mini-skirt, air kisses
above
her cheeks, putting
a hand on her ass
and guiding her out to
a cab. He blanks on the directions to his loft
a moment – third

street to the left? – but the cabbie
has a GPS on the dash.
She will leave before
he wakes up,
and he, head pounding, will lie
back against the pillows
and clap.

11.02 pm

Opera high is quite unlike any other. It puts you in a quieter sort of place. Not the wild bursts of energy that come from the staying up too late high, or the sustaining, could do this for miles that comes with runner's high. The mellow, contented feeling from sushi high comes close, but it doesn't quite get there.

Jodi wears a hat although it hasn't rained for six days. She says a girl needs a gun these days, hey, on account of those rattlesnakes.

I walked home past the Somerset House, which I've glanced at in passing a few times, and realized that what I thought was the entrance was really a giant courtyard that leads down to the Embankment. I saw water splashing around inside and went for a closer look. One of those fountains set into the cobblestones of the courtyard, a square of about 7 jets on either side. Each had its own, different coloured light at the bottom, and the size of the jets changed heights. I briefly considered dropping my bag and playing tag with the fountain, but the water never quite went all the way down entirely. Most likely to keep people from myself from doing silly things.

She looks like Eve Marie Saint in on the waterfront. She reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance.

I think the thing about the opera - really, the thing about any kind of performance - is that it allows you to step into that state known in the creative writing universe as the willing suspension of disbelief. That is, for the span of a three hour performance, we all agree to pretend that what is happening on the stage is real. Perhaps you take this as a given. Isn't that the point of going to shows, to escape reality for a bit?

Sure. But this collective ability to ignore the real world takes on a different sort of meaning when you're sitting in Trefalgar Square in a crowd of about 10,000 people, and you've all agreed to share the same collective fantasy.

She's less than sure if her heart has come to stay in San Jose, and her neverborn child haunts her now, as she speeds down the freeway. As she tries her luck with the traffic police, out of boredom more than spite, she never finds no trouble, she tries too hard, she's oblivious despite herself.

The Royal Opera House had run a contest for amateur opera singers, the grand prize being the privilege of singing in Trafalgar Square during the intermission. They looked so young, both of them, and the expressions on their faces as they finished singing and heard the crowd begin to applaud were a combination of shock and amazement and pure joy.

Jodi never sleeps 'cause there are always needles in the hay. She says a girl needs a gun these days on account of those rattlesnakes.
Opera high is restlessness. It is wanting to walk the streets of London until the sun rises. It is wanting to sit down at the piano by St. Paul's and play Beethoven's moonlight sonata under the stars. It is wanting to hold onto that feeling of being completely alive.

4.00 pm

I could be in any park, in any country. The open stretch of lawn is surrounded by trees, their broad leaves providing a welcome canopy of shade. I hear half a dozen languages around me. Italian. French. Indian, I think, and something that might be Russian. I’m not in any park, in some far off and exotic country. I’m in London, in England, sitting in St. James Park with a laptop, a guidebook for London, and a book I bought this morning by an up and coming young novelist.

The reason I am in the park, instead of out in Brighton or Oxford or pub-crawling with my mates from the office is that I’m starting to realize that I am losing myself working at this law firm. One of the others summers told me the other day that I don’t really seem like a Berkeley person. That I don’t really seem like a hippie. I can understand why he would get that idea, of course. I come into the office in a suit most days. Largely because if I don’t wear a jacket, I sit and shiver in the extreme air conditioned refrigerator that is my office. I work mostly with the arbitration and litigation teams, defending corporations facing white collar crime investigations and the big energy and oil companies investing in foreign countries.

There was an incident at the office yesterday involving a very, very unhappy woman who had worked there about five years ago. It was clear that she was rather upset, and while I won’t presume to know what was going on with her, I’m fairly sure that it wasn’t just working at the office that had gotten her so ticked off. Still, it’s things like that which make you question your own choices. Will I end up that miserable in five years? I certainly hope not.

4.10 pm

Rather depressing thoughts for what is, on the whole, a glorious Saturday afternoon. I think I shall go find an ice cream stand and see if I can get through the whole thing without dripping on myself. I fear the chances of that actually happening are rather slim, though.

6.29 pm

Went on for a walk in the park. Saw a girl in a gold-coloured polyester princess dress and a tiara, which made me smile. And a creep who tried to hit on me, which didn’t. Then I ambled over to Hyde park, where I caught the opening bit of what I think was the Neil Young concert before the sky began to make threatening rumbles.

I made it to the Tube station before the rain and found myself in a sweaty mass of over-stimulated tourists. Transferred to another line immediately. Reached St. Paul’s as the sky really began to open. Big, fat drops of rain that left splotches the size of quarters on the pavement. Am now sitting in my living room with the windows wide open, letting the fresh rain scent blow in.

7.46 pm

And, I should add, a hauntingly beautiful tribute to Michael Jackson in black sharpie on a wall of the National Gallery.