Did You Stutter?

I met someone the other day who stuttered. Listening to a stutterer causes me about twice the anxiety as speaking with someone with a lazy eye.

I am gripped by the fear that the speaker is going to give up mid-sentence, mid-word, unable, finally, to utter sound. Every moment almost touches catastrophe. I try to pretend I'm not transfixed by the stutter. The stutterer is complicit in the fiction. I wonder "I wonder if he gets embarrassed every time he stutters."

This means, of course, that I end up trying to be polite while never really understanding what the stutterer was saying.

When I was around 10, I met a stutterer. It must have been the pre-teen version of Sunday school, where, instead of playing "Ring Around the Rosie," and singing "Deep and Wide," we talked about the Bible.

The kid said something like: "I think that D-D-D-David showed that um..."
Me: (in a mock-retarded voice) "Duh-duh-duh-duh."

Then I laughed, and everyone was silent. No one acknowledged it at all. The pretty Sunday school teacher, whom I must have had a pre-sexual crush on, didn't laugh. I must have thought it was a good bet to mock the weakest kid there to try to achieve some status in the little group. That is how it was done by the kids I knew. Often to me, but rarely by me.

I was desperately abashed by the Sunday School teacher's silent rebuke of me--and from the fear that followed the realization that I had horribly misjudged the situation. To this day, I am grateful the whole room didn't turn on me at that point. I don't think I could have taken it.

The Things I Haven't Done Lately

1. Respond to emails
2. Bake
3. Return phone calls
4. Read (outside legal junk)
5. Meditate
6. Feel totally untroubled
7. Write (outside legal junk)
8. Clean
9. Work out

I admit, two of the above I never did with any frequency, and one of the above, I have no desire to do with any frequency.

I blog now because I have work to do and am not feeling it, as the youth are wont to say.

The neighbors' dog is barking ceaselessly to be let in. It is to the point where one wonders how they can stand it. One of these days, I am going to break down and go up to the roof with a carton of eggs and repaint the back of their house. What stops me is knowing that I could be arrested for such an activity, and the worry that I would break a window or hit the dog by mistake. But the day of retribution draws inexorably closer, I fear.

All our first year results are in: I did not get Law Review, but that's all that did not go as well as I could have wished. The troubling thing (as most things are at FALS) is that I am thinking of working at a law firm next summer. I would much prefer to work at a public interest organization. But one summer could pay for a year of law school. And that much off my debt now could well allow me to do more later. On the other hand, stifling careers are begun such.

Oh, how I go on.

La Misma, I am sorry I did not respond. I liked Robot Secretary and I encourage all of my readers who are not you to watch it at your site, which is linked to on the right of the page.

The picture above was unceremoniously dragged and dropped from "wing's (mostly) food blog", http://www.nimes.wingerz.com/?cat=8, because I liked it. Should word get back to Wing that I have stolen his or her artwork, I will take appropriate measures at that time.

Moving On

1L gone by, feels like an extended hallucination. So much stress. So little exposure to the world. Now the real world is returning day by day.

I hope at some point my motivation will return to me, though sleeping, watching the Yankees, playing video games and going to work an't the worst life.

Slowly Returning to Normal

1L is finally done. Not totally and completely. But no more work. Legal writing was back-breaking, finals were intense and exhausting, and the writing competition was 10 days long, working all day every day, and I still had to write the footnote numbers in myself right before I had to hand it in. That was what, yesterday? I started a new job on Monday, at a small public defense firm. That's my part time job. I don't start doing the US Atty thing until Tuesday. We only have 2 grades so far, and they were OK. Not great, not bad. Still have to wait for 3 more and the results of the writing competition. The competition is to get onto a journal. The most desirable is Law Review, for which you need to be in the top 1/3 and write a really good paper. The other journals havel lower standards (and smaller offices). But I am looking forward to law school leaving my mind for a couple months and going in and doing some real work.

Things are looking up: the Yanks took 2 of 3 from the Sox. I am 1/3 done with law school, and I just wrote a 22-page paper, 12 pages of which were endnotes.

All that proofreading experience payed off, maybe.

I look forward to experiencing a bit of the world again. Playing some video games, doing some reading for pleasure, playing basketball, and generally living the good life.

I finally got a disposable camera developed that I shot while my brother & I were on Mt. Washington last summer. What an awesome trip that was. I hope I can get out and do some camping this summer very much.

Holy Shit

That's the only way I can respond to this little news item:

Teachers Stage Gun Attack on Elementary Kids

Microsoft Attacks

Microsoft Claims Patent Infringements in Open Source Software

It's so easy to hate Microsoft. It's like hating Starbucks or McDonald's. But they just keep doing things to make me hate them. I haven't been following this closely, but, apparently, Microsoft, losing profit as companies make the switch to open source, has decided that it will not tolerate companies using open source software without paying Microsoft for it. Not that Zerox and their ilk can't defend themselves from Microsoft's lawyers, but I am sure Microsoft's ultimate goal is that every user of open source software must pay a license fee to Microsoft.

I have an idea for you Microsoft: why don't you return to your "core competency" of making operating systems that infringe on Mac's intellectual property rights. Or try and get some idiot to buy the hapless Zune. Just leave OpenOffice alone!

Congestion Pricing

Once again, finals are bearing down. I take a respite from considering the law of torts to deliver a rare post to my loyal readers. Next Moday is when the nightmare begins again in earnest. That is when I measure my knowledge of contract law against 30-something multiple choice questions and 2 essays. Then torts. Then crim. Then property. My prediction? A, A+, A-, A. I should be so lucky, because it would take a lot of luck as well as knowledge to post such grades. We shall see. All I can do is prepare. I will update as the grades some in in June. I am sure you will await my report with hungry anticipation.

Bloomberg made an earth day speech. A big part of it was his proposal for congestion pricing. London and some other cities already do it. If you travel in Manhattan below a certain street (90-something?) between 6AM and 6PM, you must pay something like eight dollars. They will employ camers that capture plates and use an EZ Pass-like system.

Great. Please do this. I have a car, but anything to encourage mass transit use and decrease congestion is welcome. The city's getting more crowded, and we must reduce auto emissions.

Predictably, the plan has fierce opponents. One borough politician thought it sounded like a secret tax on the poor. Nice try. The poor in NYC don't have cars, and if they do, they already can't afford to drive them into Manhattan to work. Parking is $30/day in midtown. Not many truly poor people can afford $150/week in parking on top of tolls and gas.

I think, rather, the people he's thinking of are his upper-middle class constituents; Those folks who can afford to drive in and pay for parking but for whom the congestion tolls would be a real hardship.

But there are a couple benefits that may make the plan attractive to those who feel they must drive to work: 1. less traffic on their daily commutes. 2. Cheaper parking. If there are fewer cars, parking rates might go down as the garages compete for fewer customers. Thus, the congestion surcharge could conceivable be substantially offset by parking and time savings.

That's all I've got.

A Picture of a Cat: That's All I Got

A cat even a Mouse can love.

Back Again

It seems like forever since I wrote. Beckett moved, and he didn't tell me where he moved. I didn't even use a computer for the whole time. I've been out of work for a few months. That means I'm living at home with my mother. I didn't think I'd be here again.

I was lucky I saw Beckett at Boston Market. Otherwise I'd probably feel like I had no one to talk to. It's good to write, I think.

I asked Beckett what he did. He works at an ad agency. I asked him if I could maybe get a job with him. He said he'd talk to the mailroom for me.

Thanks, if you read this, Beckett.

I have two goals: get a job and get a girlfriend. Then I'll be happy.

Lamest Post Ever

I admit it. This is a very lame post. A rambling update. A placeholder.

First, let me say: there are few things more annoying than other people's cell phone conversations. Their conversations never fail to sound petty, superficial and smallminded. One tough guy nearby just got off his phone, then another chap got right on his. I could sit in the library, but then what oh what would I write about. My cell conversations on the other hand I am confident give pleasure to all lucky enough to overhear them.

I have a Tibetan sounding bowl. Maybe that sentence alone will counter somewhat the tension of the previous paragraph. Just imagine it ringing now.

Ah.

What are the concerns of the day? Well Gonzalez may lose his job over these US Attorney axings, which seems a bit silly, since they are political appointments. The guy who was fired at the behest of a dsigruntled senator: that may have some teeth. Segue warning.

So I got an intenship with the local US Attorney's office for the summer. Odd work for a public defender wannabe, you ask? Well, it's all about the credentials and the experience. They are a top organization, and I'm in school for the education and the connexctions. I also signed up to do a public defense externship for the fall to balance things out.

In other small world news, legal writing is wrapping up for the semester. On track for another A- I think. I'll take it. I'll just add that I pretty much spent 2 weeks busting my ass on a daily basis to earn that A-. That's the world I chose.

The Sean Bell cops were indicted for manslaughter of all things. You would think that one who fires a gun at another is intentionally killing, and thus a murderer if not acting in self defense, but the Queens DA probably thought it would be easier to get manslaughter convictions: for that he must prove that they were trying to inflict serious bodily harm. I bet they get convicted of the even lower Manslaughter-2 reckless killing. I'm not sure what happened when the man was slain, just inetersting to see how politics inevitably shapes the way it plays out.

As I was driving to class yesterday,traffic stopped dead outside the Queens Cty Courthouse. So I looked, and saw none other than Al Sharpton leading a group into the courthouse. I think he had just finished giving a press conference.

That's all I got.