Saturday, September 29, 2001
nothing to do with anything
Just a note to myself, really. Jen S's little brother Andy talks just like Wes. Maybe a teensy bit deeper, but, stylistically, almost the same. It is uncanny.
remind me...
...to write, when I get the chance, about my afternoon dropping by my future workplace, especially after I've been able to parse out my thoughts verbally with someone like Andy.
Friday, September 28, 2001
ohmygod
I have to have to have to try out for this. Except, goddamit, all my books are packed away. So I'll have to draft everything off books from bookstores. I know where I'm gonna be spending the next week.
tension dissipated
Apartment achieved. Ah.
the awfulness of being in between jobs...
...is that you start to forget that other people have them, and therefore have real schedules. I am in DC, and my friends are too busy to hang out. One has to do all this stuff before he leaves his current job. Another (the one who does legislative drafting for Congress) was like "uh, I've been at work late every night this week. You know, all those new bills they've been sponsoring and stuff, someone's had to do the writing." Me: "Oh yeah..."
apartment hunting
It sucks, do not do it. Find a sugar momma or daddy to treat you to a nice place, with a doggie.
Apartment hunting. It causes stress between friends, other friends, and friends' parents. What's more, it is tiring. Ugh.
I know, these are the whines of the privileged. Give me my time. I will get over it.
Thursday, September 27, 2001
another article i kinda like
This one, on the airline bailout.
Wednesday, September 26, 2001
apartment stress, and other stuff
Ugh, the responsibility of finding a place for me and Ilana, without any ability for me to actually contact Ilana, is gonna kill me.
Casey sent me a funny Modern Humorist column about irony, though.
Oh, and I hafta say, I like Sherry Colb on Writ/Findlaw (not the least because she looks kind of like this girl I should've hung out more with in law school, but was too fucked up by other stuff to deal with at the time.) This particular column of hers is rather fluffy (compared to her other columns), but good.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
the end of the end of irony, hopefully
Getting tired of the "here comes the end of irony" pieces? Check out this piece, on Salon.
Sorry, no deep remarks today. Am in the middle of apartment hunting, and it's getting me freaked out. Waiting for the 3:00 update on the Washington City Paper housing page.
Monday, September 24, 2001
learning japanese
I have discovered that I'm much more interested in learning grammar than in learning vocabulary. How sentences are formed and constructed, it totally fascinates me. Does it change how we think, whether we divide tenses up into smaller compartmentalized time-bits, or larger, more amorphous lumpy bits? Does it change how we think, having plurality be a matter of context, rather than an explicit form? All these ponderings.
One thing interesting, though, is seeing what came from Chinese into Japanese. The numbering system, for instance. A history of subjugation and detante, all embedded in a language. Neat.
realization
I don't think I expressly realized this until I was talking to Grant M (not G) last week -- this is the first time I've really truly enjoyed relaxing since that thing that happened to me four years ago. The last time I had a break like this, I completely freaked out. What a change. This is good.
On a note about that thing, though, an editorial from The New Republic, written with respect to the World Trade Center attacks, seems applicable:
---
We must not grief-counsel our fury away. The promptings of American psychology must not interfere with the promptings of American security. For our sorrow is not the only challenge that we face. This mourning is not like other mourning. In the aftermath of natural death or natural disaster, it is wise to teach the stricken the lesson of acceptance, to instruct them tenderly that this is the way of the world. Against natural death and natural disaster, it is foolish and hurtful to rebel. But the atrocity of September 11 can never be accepted as the way of the world. Against such loss it is foolish and hurtful not to rebel.
---
(Italics added.) I'm just commenting on the editorial's general remarks about the feeling of anger, fury, and rebellion, and not about their applicability to the WTC attacks, btw. I left him because he did not feel anger, fury, or rebellion at what she did. He treated it all as a natural disaster, as something to be accepted. It was not a natural disaster. It was an deliberate act of awfulness. A smaller act of awfulness compared to recent events -- more personal, more limited -- but an act of awfulness nevertheless. I left him because he did not feel what I needed him to feel.
Sunday, September 23, 2001
irony is alive
The Boston Phoenix has some article this week on how the World Trade Center / Pentagon attacks has ended unbridled irony. Yeah, sure it has. The Coolidge Corner showed Cannibal Holocaust, a movie which featured the WTC, and which the young, goth audience laughed at. And just last week, Andy and I rented Dr. Strangelove. It's not even like we're detached individuals -- Andy's a Middle East studies buff, and me, I'm weirdly fascinated with national security issues. No, it's just that irony is still alive. Irony is how we deal.
a dream
A not-so-odd dream last night, really rather predictable, given the way I've been feeling these days. I have to give kudos to my subconsciousness -- it was pretty realistic. The reactions, the physical sensations, even the occasional surprising behavioral bits. Everything was within a realistic scope of surprisingness. The dream was all about attempting to make out with someone, but getting interrupted by an aunt. The aunt part was random. I feel like this could be turned into a story somehow, with more aunts floating around, but I'm not sure.
Friday, September 21, 2001
thoughts about naming things
For awhile, I was thinking that I was the only person who keeps thinking "David Foster Wallace" every time the name for the new aircraft mobilization operation gets mentioned. But apparently Timothy Noah on Slate has noticed the connection as well.
Thursday, September 13, 2001
what to say, what to say
There's little, really, to add to all that has been said. We are all expressing the same emotions -- horror, fear, sadness, anger, shock, though at different objects -- violence in general, our perceived enemies, our hypocrisy, potential backlash, the loss of life, generalized evil, war.
Me, I am mostly thankful that my friends and family all seem to be okay. I have been watching the news like crazy.
One touching moment -- this gathered moment of silence we had at the Boston Language Institute, where I'm taking my Japanese language class. People of all ethnicities, nationalities, and faiths gathered together to mourn, pray, and comfort each other.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
the events of the day
Everyone is saying something about them. I don't know what to add. Been glued in front of the television most of the day, just watching. Everyone has their fears, everyone has their expectations. Lots of people are taking sides. Me, all I've got is unknowns and uncertainties.
But to add a substantive comment to all of this, the only legally relevant thing that Bush said was ''We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.'' The rest, the rest was all formalisms.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
in boston
Hey! I'm in Boston now! (Okay, I already said that in my last post.) Life is good, the Japanese language class is good, being able to walk around is good. Have decided to limit my book purchases only to those that I can give to friends here when I'm done reading with them. Right now, the book of the day is Sunstein's One Case at a Time: Judicial Minimalism on the Supreme Court because, well, I love this stuff. It goes to Andy when I'm done.
I'll be slow about email because my internet connection is not always stable, but hey, at least I'm back in touch with the world again.
Sunday, September 09, 2001
pathetic
So here I am, in Boston, pretending to be a BU law student so that I can log in at the law library. Very sad.
Saturday, September 08, 2001
reminder
Of a law review article I want to read, once I've got, like, a location and stuff. Michael Lewyn, Campaign of Sabotage: Big Government's War Against Public Transportation, 26 Columbia J. Envt'l L. 259 (2001). The author, btw, is a self-identified Jewish Republican, which only highlights to me how sprawl and public transportation shouldn't be the partisan issues that many make them out to be.
Speaking of public transportation, I just want to note that I have successfully survived a year in Memphis without ever learning how to drive. I had a lot of help from the dadmobile, though. But hey, it's harder to be a pedestrian in Memphis than a vegetarian. Especially when one has to live way out in the burbs (ugh) with the parents to save money. So. Here's my pat-on-the-back for myself. (Oh, and here's my best wishes to Kevin, too, who's going to try to live carless in Memphis next year.)
Man, I can't wait till I'm back in a walkable city again.
done
I'm done packing! Hurrah. Now it is off to Boston, to take that Japanese class and to hang out with old friends, walk around town, go to concerts, do all those things I didn't do much during my year of immobility.
Friday, September 07, 2001
ugh
There are people out to eliminate gossip? Here's to hoping they fail.
Wednesday, September 05, 2001
whew
The final episode of Murder in Small Town X was tonight. Finally, that embarassing episode of my television-watching life is over.
ugh
My stuff. It's like it never ends. How the hell did I accumulate so many papers in just a year? What to save, what to keep, how to organize? Ugh.
Monday, September 03, 2001
moving
I hate packing. I really hate packing. This is all I've been doing and will continue to be doing for days. That, and sending out "here's how you can contact me" email, which, for once in my life, is relatively indeterminate.
Handmade cards for everyone, once I get a postal address. Promise.
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