On guns and the state of continuing legal education...

I emailed the next paragraph to myself from my blackberry on Friday while sitting in a crowded, far too stuffy room while obtaining credits for continuing legal education that i had ill-advisedly put off until the last minute, requiring a 2 day 16 hour blitz...

...

So I'm sitting in a stuffy, crowded room near city hall all day friday and saturday to meet my continuing education reqs for the year. Early on Friday, just before break, I look across the aisle from me and this guy is carrying a gun on his belt. Seriously? What the hell is that about? A cop, sure. Military, I guess, but preferably they should be in uniform or on a plane. I can't figure why someone that has a job that requires them to pack heat would also require them to attend a lecture on ethics, civility, and the newly admitted attorney.

...
Also, the hall that the classes were in is intended to be a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The walls are covered in paintings of people presumably important in the history of the New York County Lawyers' Association. Might actually look impressive, I suppose, were it not for the fact that at least a half dozen of the paintings (good sized paintings, i might add) were noticeably and unmistakably crooked. I mean by a huge amount. Why take the time to have a nice big hall like that and not bother to adjust the paintings every now and then... very distracting to say the least...

Long time, no blog

I really dislike the work I'm currently doing. I mean, I usually dislike the work I do, as it is pretty boring and tedious. But most of the time, I can handle it just fine. At the moment, I'm being forced to look through lots of documents fairly meticulously searching for evidence of conduct that I'm not entirely sure I understand. There. I've just bored myself silly complaining about how boring it is... sheesh.





But, thankfully, there are a few things that make me happy right now... in no particular order:



- The new Explosions in the Sky Album, "All of A Sudden, I Miss Everyone". I've read reviews and heard people say it's not as good as their older albums, and at first, I was inclined to agree. Then I listened to it again last night and it's really fucking good. It's not as wild and dynamic as the last two (especially Those Who Tell the Truth...), but it's so fluid and beautiful. They were great live too. To all of my mythical, non-existent readers, go see them in a town near you. It's going to be a 75 minute symphony of beautiful cacophony.

- Our new couch (though we've taken the freakishly large pillows off) ... it's great. It has been quite a long time since i could sit on a couch in a reposed position and not had to adjust myself every 5 or 10 minutes because it was uncomfortable. Last night i read on the couch for about an hour and loved every comfortable minute of it.

- This person. Though she totally rained on my parade the other night - I mean seriously, daydreams about winning the lottery aren't really about the work you'll do when you get bored spending the money. I'm all about the gratuitous planning of my frivolity in spending. She's giving me grief cause I haven't started any foundations and donated the money... eventually I'd do that, but let me revel in the baths i will take in gold coins, a la Scrooge McDuck... sheesh. But really, i do love her a bit...

- On second thought, I think I'd rather throw the money up in the air while I'm surrounded by strippers, a la Pacman Jones

Reason #1 to love New York

I'm back to work on a project now, so I don't have a ton of time to update here, but I promise i'll get back to it sooner or later.

In the meantime, this pretty much made my afternoon. I really do heart NY. (from Overheard in New York... overheardinnewyork.com)

You Can Take the Woman out of Georgia, but You Can't Take the Spit out of Your Coffee

Waitress: Hi, sweetie, how are you?! Can I get you some more coffee, sweetie? Sweetie, you look like you've had a rough night, can I get you something else?
Queer looking up at waitress for a silent minute: Darling, I really hope this is your first day, 'cause clearly you are not skilled in the art of serving New Yorkers. I don't know how they do things down South, but here in the city you ask us what we want, you bring it to us, and you walk away. You don't make small talk, you don't ask what's wrong, and you sure as fuck don't call us 'Sweetie.' Get it?
Waitress: Well, screw you! I don't need to sit here and listen to some bratty--
Queer, clapping: --Yes! Just like that! Except next time, instead of 'Screw you,' I'd say 'Fuck you.' Much more effective. Now, may I please have a cup of coffee? Thanks, Georgia.

--Chelsea diner

Puzzling, or, the act of putting together puzzles

My day has flown by surprisingly fast, a fact for which I need to either curse or glorify my friend Angela - she pointed me to an absurdly effective time killer. If you are looking to do just that, go to www.jigzone.com. It's a website that makes all kinds of crazy jigsaw puzzles. My crowning achievement was spending almost an hour and a half on a 240 piece puzzle of some mountain at sunset.

And as I type out that I spent 90 minutes putting together a puzzle, I am reminded that i have the most ridiculous job ever. Really, truly, it's completely ridiculous.

Suck it up

It's as though at least one other person in my firm knows I'm starting a blog, cause they've given me something to write about.

I was in the men's room a little bit ago and this guy comes into the stall next to mine. I pay no mind. Then I notice that he never turns around to assume the sitting position (which on these toilets is harder than it needs to me... they're so low to the ground, every time I sit down, I swear my knees are at my ears... but I digress). So he's facing the far side of the stall, the side with the toilet paper dispenser. I think "Hmm, that's weird". Then I hear a single, strong, quick snort. Followed shortly thereafter by assorted noises from his mouth and noise that he was clearly trying to be discreet about. Followed by a flushing of the toilet (mind you, he hadn't actually used the toilet to the best of my knowledge). Followed by him waiting around as I left the stall, washed my hands and left the room.

The shocking thing about this is that I am pretty sure this is the first time that I have consciously noticed anyone using cocaine in my presence. I'm sure I've been around it, I'm sure it's probably been snorted while I was feet away. I just tend not to notice things like that. And not having any interest in coke myself, why would I?

Anyway, chalk it up to my first cocaine experience in the big city - only a year and a half to reach this milestone... what's next? Surely I'll be getting mugged or something like that...

Barely Legal?

Hello all (and by all, I can't imagine that there are more than a handful at most),

So I'm unbelievably bored... it's been reeeeeeeeeealllly slow at work for the last, oh, month and a half. It was great at first. Relaxing, refreshing change of pace. Now it's just dull. 10ish to 6ish every day in a windowless room, surfing the Internet and playing Scrabble. Woo hoo! So if I can do that, I may as well, you know, share my misery with others...

I had a brilliant, witty name for my blog, but it presented problems. The blog was all set to be titled Barely Legal - a reference to the fact that though I am a lawyer, the work that I do can barely be considered legal work. However, I figured that giving my blog the title Barely Legal (if Blogger would even allow such a thing) would probably generate an unintended set of visitors.

So Pleading the Fifth it is.Well, I'm going to end this post so that I can figure out exactly how this whole blog thing works (editing, fiddling with the behind the scenes stuff, etc.). Welcome to all who've made it this far. Many mediocre adventures to come...