27 April 2005

I am earning a master’s degree in procrastination. OMG. It’s not that I hate outlining, it’s that it’s so intense.

I’m not very anxious about exams this time around, at least not yet. Denial? Maturity? Who knows. I hope it keeps up.

Nice article today in the NY Times, by a local writer, about the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. Yes, there are lots of tourists, but arriving before 10 a.m. to avoid them is not such a hardship. And the prices of Frog Hollow’s giant peaches are ridiculous because, in my opinion, the fruit tastes as if it had been over-watered.

Two classes done for the year, three to go. And I never got called on in one of them! It was the most Socratic of all my professors, the one who’d just keep hammering away once he figured out that you weren’t prepared that day. I don’t think I’m on call tomorrow.  Professor Socratic gave us a nice send off, reminding us the point of all this training, i.e., to help “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

I’m still obsessing about going to Rio in August, but I’ll have to find a cheaper ticket.

22 April 2005

We’ll, it’s the two-year bloggiversary of Cunégonde. Thank you, dear readers, for all your support and comments.

I had an unusual amount of emotional turmoil this week, but I’ve cut back on one of the triggers, so the choppy seas in my head have calmed (somewhat). Insight: I'm not afraid that a guy I like will reject my overtures; I'm afraid that he'll accept.

I think I successfully avoided burning any bridges at the moot court department's Trimalchian banquet of self-congratulation and triumphalism yesterday. I’m on the waiting list for spring, so we’ll see what the summer brings. I still have my fingers crossed.

I spent today studying (mostly). I’m not in horrible shape in Civ Pro. I have a long way to go on Contracts and Tax, and I’m half-way there in Crim. It’s Friday night and all I can think about is the personal jurisdiction minimum contacts analysis after International Shoe.

And the sweet peas in the window box outside my bedroom are about to bloom.

20 April 2005

More bad news today. I have been going through the anger, denial, sadness, bargaining, etc. phases, though not all in that order and not always one by one.

So I’m not on the moot court team. I would not bother to go to the awards ceremony tomorrow (to be acknowledged as one of the best brief writers) except that my instructor is probably going to win an instructor-of-the-year award.

I did at least have a very life-affirming immolation of the written communiqués of the department still floating around my apartment. I should have trusted my gut feeling and not wasted my time on this effort. The way department handles the announcement of the new team members and the rejects leaves something to be desired. It’s funny how something I had no interest in became something I really wanted in the space of two weeks, and now, it’s like ashes on my tongue. There is a Buddhist lesson in there somewhere.

On the good side, one of my favorite classmates did get on the team, and I am very happy for her.

In other news, I have dusted off the CD player to help get me through outlining. This time it’s Mozart symphonies and piano concertos.

19 April 2005

11:30 PM: Still no news. Am I fuckt?

8:15 AM: Great dinner last night with my let’s -have-a-party-on-Monday-night friends. They’ve made Mondays the new Thursday. We went to A16. I love that place. It reminds me, in a way, of the old Vanessi’s on Broadway in North Beach. Same fancy but good-eating (i.e., bonne fourchette) clientele. An open kitchen with counter seating that you walk past on the way to your table. Great Italian food. [Vanessi’s was the restaurant that inspired the whole revival of the open-kitchen doctrine — if there’s an open kitchen in a nice restaurant in your neighborhood, you can thank Vanessi’s for inspiring California restaurateurs in the ‘70s to put one in their own places. Everybody went there — society ladies, Italian families that had moved to the suburbs (like mine), lonely college boys, tourists, locals, businessmen. I first ate there in about 1976 or 1977, when my Washington cousins came for a visit. I couldn’t find a good link that described it well enough, but you’ll remember the nice scene in Tales of the City where DeDe sat at the counter and met her new friend.…]

At A16, we started with a glass of Prosecco and a dish of artichokes, butter beans, and tuna conserva (and a little rosemary), and a plate of Dungeness crab with peas, mint, and chili pepper (OMG that was good, and you know how I hate crab), and then we had the lighter-than-air lamb meatballs in a tomato-white wine broth, with three contorni of white beans, cooked dandelion greens with pine nuts, and potatoes and celery. We also shared a plate of homemade tubetti (the little tubes your Aunt Ruby uses when she makes her macaroni salad) with lentils and tiny fava beans. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in ages. We spilt a carafe of Aglianico. Mmmh. I love how they’re not afraid to simply scoop the food on to a white plate. No towers. No fussy dots and swirls of sauce. Nothing bogus. It's good to be reminded how lucky I am to live here.

17 April 2005

I spent today studying and mostly alone. I didn’t speak to anyone until about 6 PM, when I talked to an acquaintance at the gym. I needed the quiet after yesterday’s social whirlwind.

Saturday: up before dawn again (love that insomnia). An early and quick farmers’ market, then off to my hometown for the 75th birthday party of a friend of my parents (ninety guests!), then a little studying at the kitchen table and chatting with my sisters, then back across the bridge for a dinner party with classmates, and then a housewarming in the deep Mission (I have house envy). So many outfit changes! Shoes to match each one.

Farmers’ market report: asparagus, English peas, spring onions, purple artichokes, blood oranges, beef, and green garlic.

The week ahead: a new pope? did I make it on to moot court team? will I finish several outlines? will I get called on in the one class I haven’t been called on all year? will I find true love? Will De Lay resign and then light himself on fire on the steps of the Capitol?

12 April 2005

All school news today. No touching to report. I’ve been cloistered with books and briefs.

I survived my try-out for moot court. I wore my new suit, my best cufflinks, and my new lucky shoes. I even shaved. My parents and my sisters have been very supportive and have called every day for updates and encouragement. I hope I didn’t look too foolish during oral argument. I can’t help but obsess over the mistakes I made. I at least got across the fact that I knew the law underlying the case. Keep your fingers crossed for me until next week, when they make the announcements. Mercury is no longer retrograde, which could only help. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll try for law review as a consolation prize.

It feels like Friday. I’ve done more work in the past few days than I usually do in a week. I’m very close to being called on in two different classes, so I have to brief everything very closely. So time-consuming and inefficient.

My sly plan for classes next year appears to be working. I figured that most of my classmates would use their first round slots to sign up for Con Law 1 and Evidence, and that the third-year students would swoop up all the good electives. I knew that there would be more than enough slots in both Con Law and Evidence, so I instead used my few chits to register for the electives I really want: Comparative Law, Maritime Law, and California Civil Procedure. If I get on the moot court team, I’ll have to drop Maritime Law. I won’t know until we finish registration next week whether my strategy worked.

10 April 2005

Lots of changes since the eclipse on Friday. No, I’m not dating anyone. My moot court instructor convinced me on Thursday to apply to the school moot court team. I had completely ruled it out, since I don’t care to subject myself to more oral argument. When I found out that the team has slots for writers, I decided to apply. The application was due the next day at 4 PM (questionnaire, résumé, writing sample, and passport photo), so I scrambled to get it done. Next up is preparing for a short oral argument on Tuesday. “May it Please the Court” again. About 200 people apply for maybe 40 slots. Since I only want to write for the team, not argue, I’m hoping I have a good chance. I’ve already picked out a shirt and tie to wear for the argument on Tuesday. I hope French cuffs don’t make me look too glib.

Farmers’ market report: blood oranges (Moros), avocados, stinging nettles, asparagus, prunes, and organic chicken legs from Hoffman (the best chicken ever).

The rest of the weekend: After cappucino at Caffè Trieste, Saturday was taken up with dilatory efforts at studying. I remembered too late that I hadn’t yet paid the rent. Whoops. I got up early on Sunday, brought the papers in before they were snatched from my porch by miscreants, went to Peet’s in the Castro for tea, where I read more tax (“ordinary and necessary” deductions), and then I hit the gym, and had a hypomanic episode (abated now).

I studied until 3 PM, when it was time to go to El Rio. The first time this year. It was packed with the usual suspects. I spent most of the time catching up with an old friend I haven’t seen in years. We met 11 years ago when we both worked on South Park. I avoided tequila, didn’t dance to the salsa band, and came home after an hour or so, set the chicken to braise (red wine, tomatoes, anchovy, bay leaf; brown the legs, then braise them covered, skin side down for 45 minutes; uncover and continue braising, skin side up for another 45 minutes, or until tender but not falling apart), and studied some more. For the next 5-1/2 weeks I will be studying diligently and productively. Studying diligently and productively. Studying diligently and productively. If I make it an affirmation, it might just come true.

7 April 2005

I won the award for best appellate brief in my class.

Hmmh.

So there.

4 April 2005

If you're obsessing and you know it,

Clap your hands!

If you're obsessing and you know it,

Clap your hands!

If you're obsessing and you know it,

Then your face will surely show it!

If you're obsessing and you know it,

Clap your hands!

Stomp your feet!

etc.

Blood oranges: the top two egg-shaped ones are Sanguinellos; the large one on the bottom is a Tarocco, and the little one is a regular old tangelo. The Sanguinellos and Taroccos aren’t always as fully colored as the more common Moros, but they’re tastier. They were expensive, but it’s almost the end of the season, so I snapped them up.

After the tumult of last week, I had a perfect Friday night: I did school work until about 5:30, moved furniture at home (!), went to the gym, where I sat on the exercise bike and read the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, had a nice shower, got my groceries at Rainbow, came home, made some pasta, had a glass of red wine, read the new issue of Gourmet (with special attention to the Calvin Trillin article on R.W. Apple’s 70th birthday party in Paris), reviewed the tax consequences of alimony payments, and went to bed early. No touching to report.

Something big in my life is changing if I was able to move furniture on my own. I’ve never been able to do it without a friend present for moral support. It just fills me with angst. Yesterday, however, I was the model of brisk efficiency as I took all the books of a seven-foot bookshelf near the front door, arrayed them in piles in the front room, dismantled the tansu in the front room, moved the bookshelf, installed the tansu in the front hall, and reshelved all the books. The tansu is now like an altar with my favorite photos and a vase of ranunculus on top.