THERE’S JUST NO PLEASIN’ SOME PEOPLE


[Your indulgence, please; this is just narcissistic woolgathering, the equivalent of “and how was your day, dear?” But it was a disorienting, even disquieting, kind of day].


Admittedly, a day which I’ve anticipating to the point of drooling at the very thought of it: turning my last exam yesterday at 3:52 pm was a happy moment. Complaining about genuine privilege is in bad taste, I know—actually, complaining about anything personal in a public forum is—but, this once, because I'm getting to a point, eventually: the last six weeks were fucking grueling; nothing but a grind come April, three-yards-and-a-cloud- of-dust over and over again. The worst if it isn’t the workload, which nobody gets to en toto anyway; it’s the weight of conscience, the voice that mutters, no how matter pleasurable or productive your other endeavors, “you really ought to be outlining Contracts, you know.” And its right. So that every article read pales in importance, every sip of beer is tinged with bitterness, every bout of lovemaking winds up with Prof. S’s face superimposing itself on the visage of my vigorously enthusiastic belle du jour at the most inopportune moments and cackling “Fool, THIS won’t help you learns the elements of accomplice liability!" As though the school had wrapped its cthulian tentacles around my head.

So, sinking beneath the weight of the workload, I was beyond sick to death of my professors, I loathed the very sight of my classmates, and I found myself gagging on the endless cases. There’s nothing personal in all of that—quite the opposite: I’d go out of my way to take almost any prof I had again; in all honesty, I’ve never enjoyed working with a group as much as I did the young folks in my section, and I can’t say enough about what a terrific group they were—I felt genuinely fortunate to be among them; and there is ever-so-much about the law, even case law, that continues to intrigue. But it wears a man down: the same profs all year (in some cases), the identical group of classmates in every class, every day, and reading NOTHING BUT CASES in every course, and all with the knowledge that you’ll be judged solely on your performance on a year-end exam; another month would have been too much. What starts with giddy expectations, serious engagement with fresh texts, begins to feel more like an assembly line process. Case comes down the line: cut it, wrap it, label it, next case. It’s like spending all day squeezing handfuls of shit and hoping enough sticks to your hand should you get called on.

 But the TRULY perverse part is, I find it miss it. Yeah, like, already. I went out last evening afterwards and, after two beers, found myself crashing and crashing hard. It’s like partying after the Super Bowl: I find I take no real pleasure in accomplishment. Not the first post-whatever party I’ve slithered away from. The REAL joy is being right smack in the middle of knee-deep shit, frazzled, even borderline desperate. That’s when the real energy kicks in, the adrenaline, the endorphins—that’s when you know you’re alive, no?, every cell in your body, throbbing, all the neurons sparking, engaged wholesale in a primal state of fight or flight. Non-stop. What I’ll look back on most fondly isn’t a the celebratory IPA, but last Wednesday 45 minutes before my Civ Pro exam, tearing my hair out in the law library still trying to figure out when FRCP 23(b)(3)(C) applies. And whether to fight or flee. I mostly fought, though I quailed, first semester, before Future Interests, and ceded the field to the Fertile Octogenarian and the Unborn Widow. and, yes, those are the kind of mindfucks considered essential to making a lawyer outta ya.

 So today, I feel rather as though the rug’s been pulled out from underneath me. God knows I have a list as long as my leg of all the things that need doing in both the public and domestic spheres: if law school is one thing, it’s ALL-CONSUMING, and I’ve neglected family, who pretty much all hate me now, friends, pretty much every one of whose names I have forgotten (though I could draw you a seating chart of my class and accurately fill in the names of the 55 people in it and, in most instances, cite a case each was called on to orally brief); a slew of important causes, so that maybe I can get a glimpse of who I really am again, if there’s any of him left around; local activities, home and garden(!), you name it. So, sure, outlets for energy abound, and right away; it will be great to be back haunting the streets, combining a little street theatre with journalism and remembering my old self, to be back at the farm Saturday, to romp with my wonder-dog later this afternoon in the greening woods.

 But. This is the point: and this is the killer; this is the pure stuff, this is what gets mainlined. NOTHING in my life has even remotely approached the stimulation law school provided—mind in full throttle on the commuter rail every morning at 6:50, and still steaming away blowing circuits trying to get sleep each night at 1 am, and that’s the greatest blessing of all—because how often in life do you get that?—again, that’s when you know you are truly alive. I've had my moments of mind-blown intensity—have I ever—but never over such a lengthy interval. I’ve devoted myself to study in the past, but it was nothing like this. Crim Law! Imagine subject matter as subtle as Duns Scotus taught by the drill sergeant from Platoon—was like 4th-and-one from the half-yard line every session; that class had me literally on the edge of my seat for hours each week. Summer will bring with it lots of reading—this is the longest I’ve gone in my existence without reading a novel, or even a non-fiction book—plenty of outdoor work and traipsing through the woods, lots of political campaigning, a new and potentially very engrossing full-time internship; but nothing that carries with it the sheer no-freaking-stop, I mean no pause whatsoever, INTENSITY of what I’ve just experienced.
 And man, I miss that already.


I’m rested and regrouped. I’m ready to go back now, please.

(a post from a friend in Law School who would like to remain anonymous-ish)