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30 September 2005
Goodbye, September. Hasn’t
seemed like we’ve been stuck in this month forever? I’m ready for a new one.
Happy Birthday, Truman Capote (New Orleans, 1924).
Goodbye, James Dean, fifty years
ago today. I wonder how he would have fared after Stonewall. Do you think he would still have wanted guys to burn him with
their lit cigarettes?
And hello, Howl, born
fifty years ago today. Another unreadable product of the Beats.
OK, I am slightly cranky. I’m
going to the Castro in a minute for a protest march against our unprincipled governor’s veto of the same-sex marriage
bill.
I got another ding from a firm
I interviewed with, but like the other three I’ve received so far, it was not unexpected. That leaves six who haven’t
gotten back to me. I’m still hoping for Firms X and Y. I was very disappointed (for myself, but happy for her) to hear
that Firm X had called back a friend of mine for interview on Monday, but I think she was just the exceptional fluke. I will
reactivate the ch’i in the career section of my apartment.
A good weekend to you.
27 September 2005
It’s really fall. Warm
days, cool nights. I have been buried in school work for the last four or five days. I have one more hard day to get through,
and then I’m over the hump this week.
I had my last interview today
of the on-campus interview season. Now I have to keep my fingers crossed for call-back interviews. Out of ten firms, three
have already said no (that was fast), and none have yet called me back. I’m especially hopeful for firms X and Y (one
here, one in Los Angeles).
I had a good time at Folsom,
as usual. I felt guilty about not studying, but then I got over that: 27, Puerto Rican, short (but big), and the devil in
his eyes. I will say no more. I told him that I wanted to marry him after he said that he thought I was younger than he was.
Anyhow, because of him, my reputation might be in tatters. You can refer to me as Tainted Woman from now on.
It’s late on Tuesday night
as I write this, but I am going to bed in the warm hope that Tom DeLay will be indicted tomorrow by the Travis County D.A.
Is that too much to ask for? Well, no. I’m still waiting for the indictments of wise Dr. Frist and cuddly Ms. Rove.
And I'm not sure that I was the drunkest one in that phone call on Sunday.
At least I was enjoying the tranquility of my own home at the time. Quite unlike one Frank Green, who was in
a noisy Manhattan bar, surrounded by what sounded like some very bad influences or perhaps degenerates.
23 September 2005
School, interviews, school, interviews,
work, school: my life in a nutshell. It's pretty obvious when you've landed an interview only because of the lottery process,
not because the firm has selected you. "So, I'm looking at your résumé, Cunégonde, and I can't see why you'd want to work
here. Why would someone with your background be a good fit here?" I'm polishing my spiel to get over these awkward conversational
rough patches. And I still have a nice snug apartment to go back to — no floods, no 175 MPH winds, no semi-felonious
cretins in the DHS responsible for my day-to-day safety and well-being.
I had a second touching episode
on Wednesday with little B. We'll see where this leads.We may even have a date soon that doesn't involve nudity.
I doubt I'll have much time for
shenanigans at the Folsom Street Faire on Sunday; I may not even go.
And Hurricane Rita: surely it
was foreseeable that a million people couldn't all drive out at once to evacuate
the Texas coast. Disaster planning by Intelligent Design? Maybe god hates backasswards Republicans just as much as he hates
the gays and the secularists? Or maybe they just haven't been praying enough? I'm hoping that the hurricane continues to dissipate
between now and landfall tomorrow morning. What a nightmare. Two disasters in as many months, both aggravated by a lack of
competent planning: maybe something good will come of this.
21 September 2005
In the last days of summer…
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Canaletto sunset last night as I rode home after a long day at school. The baroque silhouette of St. Ignatius before
a pink and yellow and blue sky: it’s good to live near the sea
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I’m in danger of falling behind at school—interviews, the lost weekend, and that mid-semester ennui, which
has already set in
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An interview with a firm today that I don’t want to go to (why on earth did I pick the San José office when they
have a perfectly lovely one in San Francisco?)
18 September 2005
It has been a long few days.
Friday morning I got up early, studied, went to Berkeley to buy $65 worth of fresh pasta, drove back across the Bay Bridge
and through San Francisco, and down the Pennisula past the airport to Burlingame to rent hotel pans for the
lasagna, stopped on the way back at the store to buy $200 worth of supplies for it (pounds of parmesan and ricotta and pine
nuts, gallons of milk and cream, pounds of the finest Vermont butter, and liters of olive oil), and dashed home for a frantic
shower (no parking in my newly chic neighborhood); I changed into my suit, rushed to school, had my first interview (and got
asked questions in French because I had indicated that I knew French on my résumé). I then headed to the journal office and
checked footnotes against the deadline, had my second interview (with a different firm), went to the library (at 6:30 PM
on a Friday night) to check more footnotes, alphabetized the shelves of books that had been pulled for our article (in a moment
of OCD), then went home, to the gym, and did some prep work for the lasagna (putting the ricotta to drain, etc.)
Saturday: Farmers' market by
8:30 with my helper. We worked from 10 AM to 6 PM making the damn things. Four gallons of béchamel, a gallon of pesto (twenty-four bunches of basil,
three bunches of parsley, mountains of cheese and pine nuts, six big heads of garlic, and so on). We made most of the pesto
my big Vitamix blender, but I did some by hand with a mortar and pestle because of the finesse of the results. Since my kitchen
is minuscule, we used my bed (covered with an old tablecloth) and the back porch (which was a perfect 55 degrees) as a staging
area. I left for Santa Cruz, driving down Highway 1 along the edge of the Western World—just a few hundred yards of
earth, sometimes only a few feet—between me and the Pacific Ocean. It was sunny, but a wall of fog a thousand feet high
off the coast loomed like an uncharted island to the west. I arrived just as the full moon was rising over town. My sister
had a barbeque for the out-of-town guests. I had a Manhattan in my hand within four minutes of my arrival—just what
Daddy needed. I slept fitfully—weird, weird dreams. Up at 6:30 AM
to study, to help pack the trucks that were taking stuff to the party hall (all of my sister's friends are sensible women
who drive pick-up trucks), and more studying. I changed into my snappy new brown glen-plaid pants. I finished prepping the
lasagnas (with a little cream and dots of butter). We drank rosé before the meal. One hundred or so guests. With the
meal we had wine in unlabeled bottles from a famous local winery—through various connections, my sister and her
girlfriend obtained a couple of carboys full of a very nice Rhone red that they siphoned into bottles for the table. We drank
the wine from small tumblers, not wine glasses, as is the manner in my family. The lasagna was a hit—I had made tons
extra, but it was all devoured. People told me that they went back for thirds and fourths. My cousins clamored for the recipe.
I must admit: it was good—thin, suave, rich, basilly, and, most importantly,
hardly cheesy.
The party was fantastic. Once
we all gathered at our tables before the meal, my sister and her girlfriend gave very nice speeches about what they meant
to each other, and how much they valued the support of their collective friends and family. Indeed, the whole event could
not have been pulled off without the tireless and boundless help of their many friends. The walls of the hall were covered
with fantastic photos of the couple and their friends, taken over the last ten years. Two guys (a couple) sang them a very
sweet version of "Come Rain or Come Shine," which made just about everyone cry. I tried to take pictures, but I had a hard
time focusing through my tears. All the people who stayed late alternated dancing and cleaning up. It was the kind of party
that no one wanted to leave, even after the lights came up.
In many ways, it was much nicer
to go to an anniversary party, rather than a wedding reception: we all could whole-heartedly support and celebrate the union
of a couple we knew belonged together, which is not always the case at a wedding.
I feel very lucky to have the
family that I do.
13 September 2005
I'm still here. I haven't forgotten about you, my pretties. I'm overwhelmed
with school work and my other jobs. Nine interviews coming up in the next few weeks.
I went on a date this past weekend--the jury's still out. We might go on
another. I'm trying not to make a snap judgment. He might be a little
too needy for me, though he drinks tea and loves Proust.
A little touching to report too, so no complaints in that department (it
wasn't with the date).
And then somehow, I said I'd make lasagne next week for 130 people.
More later once I get over this week's hump.
7 September 2005
It should be clear now to everyone, even the red staters, that the emperor
has no clothes.
Meanwhile, a still life of fruits and vegetables from the farmers' market:
4 September 2005
The White House must be glad
that the new vacancy on the Supreme Court might change the subject a bit from its disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.
Let’s see what cretinous troll (or she-troll) Chimpy proposes for Chief Justice.
Farmers’ market report:
beef, farm eggs, della Fattoria bread, Bronx grapes (a seedless, blush-colored
grape with a light Muscat flavor), tomatoes, a big white heirloom cucumber, various peppers (corno de toro and a few others
I don’t recall), Romano beans, lilies of a bronze-and-red hue, and another flat of O’Henry peaches. The peppers
are a sign that late summer is finally here. The evening light is changing too.
I cooked last night at the restaurant.
I made twice-baked corn soufflés and served them with a little buttery basil, chive, and corn ragout, crème fraîche, and caviar.
The soufflé was light and delicate—just the right foil for the intensity of the other flavors in the dish. It was a
Party on a Plate, as I like to say, and it went over well in the dining room. Cooking gives me a feeling of accomplishment
that trade school never will. My hands were sore this morning at the gym (shoulders
and biceps) from all the unaccustomed work of husking cases of corn, grating kernels from dozens of cobs, lifting heavy pots,
chopping herbs, and so forth.
After the gym I went to the bookstore
and read Brokeback Mountain. It’s not long, and I didn’t want to pay for a whole book just for the sake
of one short story. So I stood in the shop a half-hour until I had absorbed it. I can’t stop thinking about it. Courtesy
of Towleroad, I found the trailer for Ang Lee’s movie. The cowboy patois dialogue didn’t bother my inner ear as I read the
story, but the fake, actor-y cowpoke accents are going to take some getting used to. Now I wish I had bought the book so that
I could read it again (and again). I knew (and loved from afar) guys like that when I was nineteen and just starting to become
gay.
And the shirts. . . For years
after he died I kept the leather jacket Steve was wearing on the night we met. I used to put it on once in a while when I
needed to have the (almost) sensation of being in his arms again. I’d put it on now if I still had it.
2 September 2005
The federal government’s
response to Katrina is shockingly inept. Could this really be the best we could do? Chimpy is so clearly not up to the task
that I’m almost embarrassed for him. And the Puppet Master (Cheney) has yet to see fit to return from his vacation.
And on Thursday, on the fourth
day of the disaster on the Gulf Coast, we find Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on vacation in New York. She attended a
Broadway comedy, shopped at designer ateliers, and was spotted spending thousands on shoes at Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue.
She's
the number three person in the Administration during the worst natural disaster in our history, and yet she still has the
sang froid to select just the right heels to go with this season's new frocks. It must be great to have so much time one's
hands.
Et quant à moi, I’m
overwhelm’d with schoolwork, but seem not to be making headway. Trying to work part-time during the school year is a
good financial decision, but not a good one for my scholarly life. It doesn’t help that my most time-consuming and busy-workish
tasks (the Appellate Advocacy class and the law journal) are the most boring and the least rewarding. I finally met a few
more members of this year’s journal staff. Much nicer than I expected, and somewhat better organized than I had been
lead to believe. One of the members is arrestingly handsome, so much so that he often keeps his eyes down (to avoid startling
people?). I think he’s straight and attached.
I went on a little and unexpected
date last night after the gym. A chatty attorney. We had a long dissection of Condi Rice’s shopping spree (“Of
course, her husband wants her to look nice…”), which lead to a delayed workout, and then pizza afterward. He’s
going away for a few days, so we’ll see what happens when he gets back. Good signs are that he’s a tea drinker
and well read and likes to eat. The bad sign is that he’s talkative.
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