blueblanketblog

my not-so-temporary blog, i guess

saturday, december 1

more thoughts about this town

The best music store I've found here is DC CD. It's all right -- there's enough stuff there for me to explore my burgeoning kindercore kick. But it still doesn't measure up to the lovely concentration of music you can find in Cambridge. This makes me sad.

.: 8:43 PM .:

friday, november 30

more thoughts on cities

(Soooo many generalizations here. I came up with this at lunch, while talking to Justin, who was, in turn, talking about parties. I was thinking as usual about how I don't fit in here. Oh, the violins.)

There are introverted cities, extroverted cities, and clique-ey cities, I think. LA and Washington, DC -- these are extroverted cities. People have big big social groups, and people strive for bigger social groups. People's webs are huuuge, and thin.

Boston, in contrast, is a city in which people have medium-sized social groups that are more tightly knit. I'm thinking that New York (or at least parts of it?) is like this too. There's less emphasis on the quantity, but more emphasis on a sort of closeness/similarity that can be read as cliquishness or elitism.

I am, I must admit, more comfortable with the latter type of city, the salon-ey kind of city. I like regular meetings between a medium-sized group of friends. I like having a long history of past conversations to which to refer. I don't feel a strong need to know everyone, just to know a moderate amount of people really, really well.

So yeah, I miss Cambridge/Boston. Still.

I haven't yet figured out where San Francisco or Chicago or Seattle or any other city, really, fit into this classification scheme. I'm not sure what cities are introverted, though I think they must exist. Help me out, ya'll.

.: 3:43 PM .:

more interesting sounding articles, again

W. Bradley Wendel, Nonlegal Regulation of the Legal Profession: Social Norms in Professional Communities, 54 VAND. L. REV. 1955

James E. Pfander, Marbury, Original Jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court's Supervisory Powers, 101 COLUM. L. REV. 1515

Michael C. Dorf & Samuel Issacharoff, Can Process Theory Constrain Courts?, 72 U. COLO. L. REV. 923

Richard B. Collins, How Democratic are Initiatives?, 72 U. COLO. L. REV. 983 (okay, I just want to tell Mike about this one)

.: 11:16 AM .:

thursday, november 29

me, out of touch

New attorney training all week. Preparing all night. For the training exercises, and for this big housewarming shindig we're having on Friday. Busy busy. Email later.

.: 8:43 AM .:

tuesday, november 27

national novel writing month

Argh, I've mostly missed out on it -- haven't done any substantive writing this month at all, barely. But I've done a lot of editing, so I feel okay. Next month, I hope.

This topic (novel writing) was, coincidentally, mentioned at our division orientation today. (And hey, I didn't even need to ask, it was brought up sua sponte and everything.) According to the orientation, yes, I can work on a novel on my work computer, I just can't use work time or tons of paper to do so. Whoohoo!

.: 11:51 PM .:

monday, november 26

neighborhoods and neighborhoods

So on Friday, I walked through my old neighborhood, the U Street Cardozo neighborhood, where I'd lived for two years in law school, where I'd spend my nights avoiding other law students and drinking beers at the Black Cat or at Saloon.

Boy it's changed a lot. It's gotten much swankier now, and hipper. I mean, it was hip back then, too, don't get me wrong. Black Cat. 9:30 Club. State of the Union. Republic Gardens. Chi Cha (which I hated). But it had its neighborhoodey elements, too, like Islamabad and Saloon and Ben's Chili Bowl. And it wasn't hip in an expensive kind of way.

Now it has...it has all this stuff. Like this new restaurant (I forget the name of it) around 16th and U that's got huge flat light sculptures up front. Like fancy new housewares stores. Like a Starbucks with a roofdeck. Like Fresh Fields.

And I don't know what to make of it. I mean, when I walked down U Street last Friday night, I felt like screaming "Motherfuckers!" The neighborhood felt too different. It felt too upscale. It felt too...gentrified.

But that's what happens to every neighborhood I move to, a few years down the line. Because I'm one of those people. I am, you see, a Gentrifier of Neighborhoods.

It sucks, being a Gentrifier of Neighborhoods, because I don't want to be. When I move to a neighborhood, I move to it because I like the neighborhood the way it is. Usually "the way it is" means a bit more run down, a bit more urban, a bit more neighborhoodey but not yuppie-neighborhoodey. I like things that way, they make me feel comfortable.

But, as has been pointed out to me, I'm a yuppie, at least technically. I'm young. I'm urban. And now I'm a professional. Ugh.

And I even like Fresh Fields.

So I must be bringing it with me, this yuppiness, like some terrible Stephen King shadowbeast. I'm always one of those first to move in, before an area gets really recognized as the "next new place," before they get written up in Utne Reader as a great neighborhood (as two of my former neighborhoods have), while everyone around me is still saying "you sure you want to live there? aren't you scared?" I hate those comments, but I have to admit that on some level I like them too. Because I like being first. I like finding the place.

I just don't like bringing the change with me.

I am, you see, one of Those People.

But this time, this time it'll be different, I tell myself. I love my roommate, I love my apartment, I love my neighborhood, I don't want to move for a long long while. This neighborhood, I tell myself, will not become the next new place in a few years, this neighborhood will stay a comfortable little neighborhood with diverse fambilies, run-down corner marts, and the occasional hooker.

But who am I kidding. The new convention center is projected to be finished in the spring of 2003. The developers will be here soon, with their hotels and restaurants and galleries and shops. They will be here, with their razing and their landscaping and their much-too-high rents. And I will have to move again.

.: 3:42 PM .:

GAH!

I've just spilled massive amounts of coffee all over my new office. Three weeks -- record time for this sort of thing with me.

.: 10:11 AM .:

ooh!

kings of convenience!
death cab for cutie!

tons of music in the world, but oh i am too slow.