Back in the Saddle

So, I’m back at school. With little fanfare, it’s back to the grind. I had law review orientation on Sunday, bought some books on Monday, and it’s been classes and occasional breaks for supermarket sushi ever since. I can’t be the only one feeling the pull, since none of my classmates have posted on their blogs in anywhere from a few days to over a month!

My house in West f-ing Virginia looks like it will finally sell this week. There’s something about making mortgage payments in two different states that sort of eats up one’s pecuniary gain from summer clerkships. Just glad to sever that last tie.

The law school had some major updates done this summer. A layer of dust covers more than just the largely abandoned books in the library. There are construction crews all over the place, inconveniently rerouted walkways, and the menace of the imminent arrival of the new freshman undergrads, i.e., crappy parking issues for a fortnight. But, it’s been nice to see all my buds, back with war stories from clerkships, Europe, and the beach.

The Little Things

The wife and I are on vacation this week. And we’ve needed it! The summer clerkships were great, but they were still work. We spent most of last weekend at a “resort” in Biloxi, MS. That was pretty cool. We went to a show one night. Watched the Eagles get smacked about by the Steelers from a couple of bar stools at the micro-brewery. And then got his and hers massages at the spa. Now, the massage was nice and everything, but not life changing. I tried to enjoy the sauna and steam rooms afterward, but remain firmly convinced that a sauna is the rough equivalent of the waiting room for the complaints department in hell.
The rest of the week has involved chasing Kim around as she interviews for her first job. She finishes residency in June. That’s been a strange experience. People keep acting like they have to sell us on how wonderful life is in Alabama. Um, I was born here, grew up here, moved away and intentionally came back. This is not a tough sell. Now, if they were trying to get us to buy those nightmare-inducing “Fitness Made Simple” tapes with that freakish self-proclaimed “fitness celebrity” in ‘em, yeah, that’d be a hard sell. The wife and I need a few basic things to be vocationally content. The list follows:

Top Ten Requisites When Recruiting Me and the Wife
10. A real Starbucks. No little kiosk thingies in Barnes and Noble.
9. Fresh Market. I mean, they have this whole little section devoted to martini olives.
8. Minor League Baseball teams are a plus. Semi-regular dollar beer nights are an upgrade.
7. A couple of good-sized “Jesus Barn” style mega-churches. I won’t actually attend them, mind you, but they make for horrifically entertaining billboards. It's "Religion Made Simple" with "religion celebrity" Pastor Pomade.
6. Sushi: It’s not just for freaking out the relatives anymore.
5. Guitar Center is a baseline. Mom and Pop shops are an upgrade.
4. A Honda dealership. Wife wants a Ridgeline. Me? S2000. But a low mileage NSX would do in a pinch.
3. Multiple Barbeque joints. Waitresses that call everybody “hun” are an upgrade.
2. Lot’s of pregnant people. Pregnant people with private insurance are an upgrade.
1. Defense litigation. A court house building with a Starbucks in the lobby is an upgrade.

Two. Dozen.

Yesterday made 12 years the wife and I have been married. We marked the weekend by enjoying substantial amounts of sushi. I wrote her a song, lyrics included below.
Today, a slightly different celebration. I made law review. We went to one of our favorite Mexican joints to mark the occasion. This place is totally tex-mex, has a cool “hot sauce bar” with like 30 different sauces. And they play all 80’s tunes. Fittingly, as I was sweating my way through a particularly hot jalapeno sauce, I noticed the lyrics overhead: “Doctor, doctor; can’t you see I’m burnin’, burnin’.” I love it when life provides a soundtrack!

OB’s
(wailed to the tune of Willie Nelson’s “Momma’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”)

OB’s aren’t easy to love, nor are gynos, I’m told,
Their hearts are warm but their hands and their speculum’s cold.
Old faded scrub pants and 50 pound lab coats,
Each on-call screws up your next day,
After some of the ugly babies they’ve seen,
They prob’ly wish more folks were gay.

Momma’s don’t let your babies grow up to be OBs,
Don’t let ‘em wear latex and pagers that beep,
Doctor’s stay up late but lawyers can sleep.
Momma’s don’t let your babies grow up to be OBs,
Cause they never come home and you’re usually alone,
While some drug vendor’s feedin’ ‘em lunch.

OB’s like goin’ in folks rooms at four in the mornin’
Checkin’ on mommies who freak out at week 25.
Them that don’t know ‘em might envy what they do,
But me, I don’t think I could take it.
They don’t treat supermodels,
and sometimes they see things that might just leave you scarred for life.

Dog and Butterfly

I played with my dog a long time tonight. I felt sorry for her. She is young, energetic, and beautiful. Her name is Dory. She’ll play fetch for hours and not gripe. She spends most of her days bored, sitting in one spot, waiting for me to get home. She is so beautiful. She is muscular, intelligent, and bred for a life larger than that my back yard can afford. But she’s fine, as long as I show her I care, once in a while, by throwing the bone, over, and over, and over.

I am summer law clerk. I guess that’s ok. I am still young, energetic, and eager to get a job. I fetch cases for hours and pretend I love nothing more. I try to convince multiple partners that I am cost-efficient, and can sit in one spot, bored out of my mind, and love nothing more than to bill their clients for quality product hours. The occasional bit of praise is sufficient to keep me scrambling to find the case they couldn’t, the statute their opponent hasn’t, the Supreme Court case they haven’t had time to read.

Oh, and although I have photographic evidence of knowing Scot Kripayne, Wayne Watson, and Mylon LeFevre, I have never met Michael W. Smith nor been his roadie. And, if you know who any of those other guys are, you are a bigger Jesus-nerd than me.