--{ plotless living }------
It is a strange year, this year. I am living with my parents, in Memphis, for reasons some of you know, while others of you don't.1 I have a clerkship with a judge, a job which some of you understand, while others of you don't.2 I still do not drive.3
It is a strange year because there is very little to distinguish one day from the next. I go to work and do my work things,4 from 8:00 a.m. (ugh) to 6:45 p.m. Usually I come in on weekends, sometimes on both days, sometimes only on one. When I go home, I have dinner with my parents. Then I read, exercise, and watch television, usually all at once. My book log is growing huge, and the weight at which I can do military presses is also getting pleasingly large.
This plotless living, strangely, is nice, really nice. Or, better put, it is exactly what I needed. But by now, my strange year is over halfway through. So I feel as if I can finally write down some observations.
my relationship to memphis
I came here thinking I would be a local girl come home. Alas, this was not to be. I have spent too much time growing up away from here, and am awkward here in many ways. The most visible of ways is my lack of driving ability and my lack of desire to obtain any sort of driving ability.5 But there are other things.
I have realized how much I have become separated from Memphis. I do not like how spread out everything is, I do not feel at home in my parents' suburbia. I do not value the things that my neighbors value -- a nice yard, a nice home, and nice things to fill that nice home.
What I value is ideas. I miss the bookstore density and academia of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the frumpiness of Boston. I want the literary salons of old, upperclass New York, without the old upperclassness. I am beginning to think that Cambridge is really where home is. Where I grew up. Where I bonded with the world or what have you. I have been back there many times this year, because of the Cincinnati-third-leg deal we've got.6 I should never have left, and now that I have, I want to figure out a way back.
the life of ideas
Over the course of this year, however, I have discovered some pleasant things. I have discovered that, really, I don't need a plot for my life.
What I mean by this is that I don't need actual physical adventures. I mean, they're nice. But they're not what compel me. The whole Monday morning "what did you do this weekend" conversation has always bored me, and it doesn't bother me so much this year that I don't have so much to add to them. I hang out, I read, I work.
What compels me more is the life of thought, the conversation of ideas. The cross-sections of law and science, criminal justice reform, environmental philosophies, experimental narratives, tangential lyrics -- these ideas and more are what excite me. Not the day-to-day plots we go through. Not the "I did this" and "you did that." I've had my fair share of adventures already, and while I wouldn't mind more, I don't need them. I need thoughts.
miscellaneous
There are other things, of which I cannot go into in detail, but of which
I abstractly want to make note. They are all mushy emotional
introspections that I often procrastinate dealing with, but have been
necessary as of late.
I have discovered closeness and distance, and have reconciled myself with that. And I have made peace with most of the other things that I need to make peace with, and am well into making peace with the other thing that I still need to make peace with. I have been able to reevaluate my relationships with various people, and figure out how I really feel about them.
It has been a good year, mental-healthwise.
where to go from here
This is the best discovery of all from my year of plotless living. The boundlessness of the future. There is everywhere to go, and while I might have my near future fairly set, this near future is not a prison, but a gateway. And, past that gateway, there are great things everwhere. Ideas, and maybe even plots.
032201
1. The first reason I tell everyone is that I have the opportunity to work for a great judge. The second reason I tell everyone is so I can save money. Which are certainly huge factors. My judge is awesome. And a year of free room and board goes a long way towards alleviating law school debt. But there are other reasons: one very personal, one very familial, and another slightly political.
2. Quick summary here: a judicial clerkship is to the
legal world what a
postdoc is to the scientific world. Well, not exactly (clerkships are one
or two years, postdocs are often longer), but similar. Clerks for trial
judges often have to meet with lawyers (I think), but because I clerk for
an appellate judge, what I mostly do is research and writing. Which is
good, because I don't like having to deal with people so much that way.
At the federal appellate level, the judges make decisions in panels of
three. And because the judges themselves are spread through all the
states in our circuit (the Sixth Circuit, which includes Tennessee,
Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan), we all meet in Cincinnati every four to
seven weeks to hear the lawyers argue.
So what do clerks actually do? It depends a little bit on the
judge, but in our chambers, we write memoranda that evaluate the arguments
of the lawyers before they actually give their oral arguments in
Cincinnati. (See, the lawyers for the parties have to submit written
arguments, called briefs, to us earlier.) Then, after the oral arguments,
we help our judge write up his opinions for the cases.
Each of us clerks work with six "lawyer-handled" cases at a time -- two to
three where our judge might be in charge of writing the opinion, and four
to three where he's not. We also have to work with three-plus "pro se"
(where the litigant is acting as their own lawyer; these are usually
prisoner cases) cases, where circuit staff attorneys have already helped
find the legal arguments involved in the pro se arguments.
We also do a few other things, like evaluate en banc requests (requests
for all the judges in the circuit to examine a case that has already been
decided by an individual panel), and evaluate some motions (motions are,
er, actions to get the court to do something. They are much more common
at the district/trial court level.) Anyway, though it all actually ends
up being a lot of work, it's the kind of work I like, because there are
long-spaced deadlines rather than short rapid ones, which scare me.
Clerkships are often viewed as good training grounds for future legal
practice. It's the one opportunity most lawyers get behind-the-scenes
experience with the judicial system, seeing how individual judges make
decisions. They are also often regarded as somewhat prestigious, with the
prestige value dependant on the "level" of the judge, the reputation of
the judge, etc. etc.
3. Nor do I actually want to. And now that this year is
almost halfway over, and I'm moving to a city in which I can live without
having to drive, I feel even less of a need to learn. I used to have a
page on my web page, back in '95-96, explaining my objections to driving.
Maybe I'll dig it up. But man, I hate cars and car culture.
I get to work, by the way, by riding in the dadmobile. My father works
about five minutes away from me, and keeps the same hours. I am very
fortunate.
4. See supra note 2.
5. This, by the way, is an exaggeration. I have actually driven me and my dad to and from work -- a forty-minute drive each way. What I mean when I say I have no desire to obtain any form of driving ability is that I have no desire to obtain any form of legal driving ability. And what I mean by that, in turn, is that I really don't feel like getting a driver's license.
6. The third leg deal is this. The government pays our way to Cincinnati and back, because it's part of our jobs. But if we feel like adding a third leg onto our trips, then we just pay the difference between what it costs to add a third leg, and what the regular Memphis- Cinci- Memphis trip would've been. And because a third-leg Saturday night stay drives the ticket price down, going to another city for the weekend usually costs at most $50 to 70, depending on the city and the season. The last two times, it's been totally free.