tire(d)

It is 3am and I have a pair of dirty jeans hung up to dry on the back of my bedroom door, I'm exhausted and I have solidified rubber cement on my finger tips.

Flashback to this morning:
I wake up in a hungover daze--my mouth is dry and the breath I'm breathing on my pillow is forming a green liquor smelling cloud around my face. I squint at the clock ...8am. As soon as my tired eyes focus, my alarm goes off -- each digital ring cutting into my fragile eardrum like a rusty knife.

After I hit snooze, my mind gives me three options:
1. wake up, shower, get coffee, and head to my 9am class nice and refreshed.
2. go back to sleep and don't wake up until the afternoon.
3. drift back to sleep, have a nightmare about the consequences of missing class, wake up at 8:40 and run out of the door.

Option 3 was chosen.

I'm sitting in the back of the classroom, probably smelling horrible. I'm sweating for no reason. I did not have time to look for my books, so I'm sharing with the girl next to me...I cannot bring my eyes to focus so the pages just look like white rectangles of light. I keep squinting..she edges the book closer. Soon I have just have book practically on my lap and I still can't read the problems we're going over in class.

11am -- class lets out. I'm still feeling horrid.

I call Jaime to see if she wants to get the only cure for my ailment: french toast and bacon.

We're in the diner, just got our hot plates put in front of us, I smile and my mouth starts to water in anticipation of the great meal to come....just in that moment, the valet walks up to our table.
I hear: "HAY Mr. Green car...your tire is flat, it wasn't my fault, just letting you know its flat"

oh..crap.

After the meal I go out to check on the situation...the rim of the tire is resting on the pavement of the parking lot, I'm screwed. The man-part of my brain kicks into action, I pop the trunk, find the lugwrench, the spare, the jack and start going to work on replacing the tire. I'm so wrapped up I forget that I left Jaime with no money, and pretty much walked out on my check.

The lugs are off, but the tire, which has a nail lodged into it, is stuck. The valet comes over and we take turns kicking the tire until it falls off. "Okay, almost done, that was easy" I think to myself.

The valet watches me try to put the spare tire on the car. It doesnt go on. He gives it a try...can't get it to fit. I look at the rim of the spare, and it has 6 holes ..and my car only has 4 prongs to hold a tire.

"the holes...eets the wrong holes" The valet says over my shoulder.

Shit. I go over my options with the valet. "I know theres an autoparts store around here, I could buy a patch kit, and fix it right up"
The valet looks at me and repeats "the holes...the holes were all wrong"
Somewhere in the conversation about the holes and how wrong they were, the valet suggests walking to the meineke across the street. I huff, but eventually agree..and grab the tire and cross the busy intersection to get to the car repair center.
I walk in and say, while catching my breath: "tire...flat...holes....fix it?"
The meineke man doesn't even look up and just says "YOU GOTTA GO TO STRAUSS, I DONT DO TIRES"
This makes no sense to me, I catch my breath...and frustration boils over "You're a car repair shop, if a car comes in with a flat tire and wants a tune up -- what do you do??"
"I SEND THEM TO STRAUSS" The man says without hesitation .

"Strauss" is the car parts store I was thinking of earlier..and its 4 blocks away. I grab the tire, and carry it down one of the busiest streets in queens. No one is giving me a second look. I guess people carrying tires or autoparts down the road is a common occurrence. Its also drizzling, the tire is turning my jeans black, and my stomach is growing weaker with all this physical activity.

I get to the store, set down the tire, and try to catch my breath. I find a repair kit (which is a jabber that you thread a sticky thing through to plug up the hole, and use rubber cement as lubricant). I'm eager to repair it but there is still the problem of the nail lodged in it. I ask the man at the counter if theres anything in the store to get the nail out "you know...like a hammer or something"
He hands me pliers. They cannot get the grip needed to pull the nail out. Me and the clerk take unsuccessful turns and he starts scratching his head. "How about a hammer?" I suggest, thinking that we could use the claw back part to remove it. "HAMMER??" the clerk gives me an intense look of confusion. Thinking that I wanted to either bang the nail deeper into the tire out of anger and permanently ruin it...or somehow magnetize the hammer to pull out the nail. After I explained the purpose I had in mind, the hammer was procured, and the nail instantly came out.

Now I'm outside of the autoparts store trying to follow the repair kit instructions. One man walks up to me
-"hay what are ya doin?"
-"fixing my tire"
-"oh ya pluggin it up??"
-"yeah"
-"this guys pluggin it up!" he laughs to himself as he walks away.

I fill the tire with air at a nearby gas station and continue to carry/roll it back to my car.

I get there, finally, and I'm greeted by my valet friend.

"eets feexed?" He asks

"well i had to go down there to the auto shop, buy a kit..." Summing what just happened

He looks at me blankly for a second, then his eyes light up... and he says:

"eets the holes..thee holes were all wrong"

Late

Recently becoming a 3L (Third and last year) in law school, a lot of things have changed...mainly my level of caring. Everything else is still the same around me- the level of school work, the expectations of professors...but yet, I'd rather eat lunch for 2 hours than read for class.

Which brings me to today:
After my Family law morning class, 2 of my close friends, Chantal and Lauren, and I were discussing lunch plans at around 12:45. We figured we had plenty of time to eat because we all agreed that our next class started at 2:50. How we arrived at the number "2:50" I'm not entirely too sure of. Being a 3L is a lot like being a senior citizen with an early onset of alzheimer's...you are the oldest person in the school, but yet you recognize no one and have no idea where any of your classes are. My first day of 3L was spent roaming the hallways with a confused look on my face, asking random people how to check the class schedule (a process that had not changed in 3 years).

So we get done with our lunch at the diner off campus at around 2, and figured we'd go to the library to try to skim the reading for that day's class. While in the library I have an online conservation with another friend who's in my class:
Thomas: what the hell is he talkin about?

me: who?

Thomas: bobis

where is this case
Bobis is our professor. Thinking my friend is talking about the syllabus, which is the only logical conclusion in my mind, I tell him about a case that is on the syllabus, but isnt in the book.
me: its not in the book

it just came out

i read it online

but theres a supplement you need to buy

Thomas: yea i dont have it

2:21 pM me: yeah its easy to find

Thomas: whats the case

me: herring v us

Thomas: oh

i read hat

i thought hes talkin about hudson

me: hudson?

2:22 pM Thomas: i thought tats what he said

he said herring?

me: yeah

Thomas: herring is on p 25

he said p 44

At this point I just think my friend is confused, and I'm only half paying attention to what he's saying.
The clock approaches 2:40, and my 2 friends and I decide to go up "a little early." We get to the classroom, look in the window... and see a full classroom. At first we think we're too early, and this is another class. But we slowly recognize people from our class, and then see our teacher teaching.

"Oh ...shit"

We recoil back in horror as we realize that class had already begun. I take out my laptop, check the start time..."1:50." We are an hour late for class.

For 10 minutes, we yell at eachother about what to do...
"We should just go home"
"We should wait for class to end and then go in and apologize"
"We should just go in!!"

Crap--Chantal made up her mind that the best thing to do is just go in now, and apologize later. After giving an inspirational General Patton-eque speech, she walks for the door.
"NOOOO" I cry, she doesnt flinch.

I can't let my comrade go in alone, I step forward. The group mentality sets in and all 3 of us file into the door.

We brave a hail of angry stares to get to random seats in the back of the classroom. We duck down behind our seating areas and take cover behind our opened laptops. My adrenaline is at its peak, my blood pressure is out of control, and I think I'm sweating. I have this conversation with the faithful leader of the group:
me: AHHHHHHH

Chantal: single most awkward moment of my life

i have no idea where i am sitting

3:00 PM Chantal: omg

3:01 PM me: omg

omg omg omg
After the 20 mins left of class we walk up to the professor to explain our situation, and how we got our classes mixed up. The 70 year old professor says that we must have dimensia worse than his, and lets us go without marking us down for an absense.

Victory...but at what cost???

A Few Good Macs

A Few Good Men--great movie, one of the finest courtroom dramas. But I caught it on TV tonight and noticed something. In the midst of the film's climax, the murder trial, where Tom Cruise and Kevin Bacon are battling back and forth over a man's innocence, a witness is called. The witness is played by Cuba Gooding Junior. His character's name is.... "Corporal Hamburger".

Corporal Hamburger is called by his name several times during his testimony by Tom Cruise. With each utterence of "Corporal Hamburger", the film loses a little bit of its seriousness to me. I mean...who the the hell is Corporal Hamburger?! Is he a soldier with a hamburger for a head and seseme seeds for eyes? Does he have a gun with french fries for bullets? When the writers were writing the script, and reached the trial scene...were they high and eating Burger King? They couldve used any last name available in the whole world--and they chose Hamburger. It might be the most brilliant name in movie history.

Reflections on the South

After completing my cross-country drive through the heartland of America, I have drawn some conclusions about the land of God's country.

The clothes:
The standard uniform for every blue collar white southern man is simple:
1. You start with a pair of slightly muddy work boots
2. Above those are the light denim pair of walmart bought wranglers
3. Tucked into those bad boys is a dirty t-shirt with the logo of the place they work.. or some kind of gun club--in the shade of white, brown, or black
4. all this is topped off with a dirty baseball cap, preferably camoflage

The food:
Every meal is unhealthy. If you order a potato, it must be deep fried in lard and slathered with butter. If you order a piece of chicken, it must be breaded, fried, and served with a side-bowl of ranch dressing. If you order a waffle, the batter must a half/half mixture of sugar and butter, and then topped with butter and sugar. If you order a salad or anything under 5,000 calories, you just get a blank stare.

The food though, as a result, is delicious. I'm surprised I made it out without developing a cholesterol induced heart murmur.

The people:
As a result of thousands of hours of bible study and sermons, the people are pretty nice. Eye contact is an immediate invitation to a "hello ya'll." And a "hello ya'll" back is an invitation to a conversation about the weather. Lucky, being a traveler, the kindness of these people were a valuable resource to gain information about short-cuts or the location of the best feed-hole within 50 miles.

Other things:
1. Every other billboard is about god, jesus or an ad for a gun show
2. Its extremely and uncomfortably hot and humid--I think the southern united states is 80% swamp
3. Every car is American made---and has a minimum of 3 bumper stickers...which are usually about liberals or what they'll do to drivers who ride too close to them

All in all though, it was a pretty fun place, a good experience, and an interesting insight into this county. Mix and match some clothes, some ingrained ideals, a gun rack or two, and you have anyone in the U.S.

waitor

9:36am: Sam: i gotta shower in a bit and speak with two managers for olive garden

9:36am Andrew: what?

9:36am Sam: and ramparts
about waitoring

9:36am Andrew: waitering?

9:36am Sam: im gonna waitor
if i get hired

9:36am Andrew: what?
why?

9:36am Sam: for the money

9:37am Sam: fuck i spelled waiter wrong on the applications

Dropping Like Flies

I was on the plane to Las Vegas when I heard a woman in the adjacent seat describe her family as "dropping like flies." I hear that expression all the time but just the way she said it in a know-it-all way made me think--what the hell does that expression mean?

Flies are hard to kill, unless you're the karate kid. You try to swat them and they fly away, unscathed and emboldened by the experience. And you definitely never see a group of flies buzzing together...and then dropping dead one by one right before your eyes.

So what did she mean? What this woman REALLY meant by that expression is that members of her family buzzed around a plate in her kitchen, she shooed them away, and then found her uncle dead on her window sill two weeks later.

"Yep I found Uncle Bill just curled up there behind the blinds. That wasn't as bad as Cousin Gary though.....yeah, eaten by a toad."

Sin City

I moved out to Las Vegas about 2 months ago to work for the summer. When I first got the job I was like "ok, vegas seems fun on TV... I've seen good things on bachelor party episodes of sitcoms, this could be cool."

Oh how wrong I was.

In the movies and on television, they use crafty camera angles and quick panning shots to make the city of Las Vegas seem huge and fun. Its pretty effective, especially when done to the tune of a classic rock song about partying or staying up late.

But in reality, Las Vegas as you know it--is just one street of fun things. Go beyond that one street, and theres trailers, sand, and overly tan vagrant-type people. Outside of that street everything is either a condo or a franchise restaurant. The locals go to TGIFridays for beer instead of ..real bars. Bars are supposed to be places where you have a beer with friends to have a good time..or go by yourself to hate your life...but the locals are at the franchise bars to eat Hawaiian Burgers and look at shit on the walls. Its insane to me. I've always liked new looking buildings and clean looking eating establishments, but Las Vegas takes it to the extreme. I want some variety--a dingy local pub scene once in a while, or a privately owned grimy diner for breakfast. Not shiny new everything and wait-staff with suspenders.

The entire city is like 10 years old. Before then, the people who actually lived here were just RV owners who got their trailers lost in a bad sandstorm and never left.

Speaking of variety--the scenic things never change either. You either have desert with fine sand or desert with some weird desert plant-growth. And its all hot and dry.
In NYC, you drive 40 minutes and you can get to a beach, walk 5 minutes and see a river, take a subway to a green huge park. But here, you drive 40 minutes and see a cactus, drive another 40 and see a rock, then a bigger rock. Another 5 to see a slighter smaller rock. Then 4 hours to see Los Angeles. How do people do it??

I think its out of desperation. These people moved to Vegas from California and other states to have a better life. But they work at Jack in the Box or drive the airport shuttle. How bad was their life back in their homestate?! At least I moved here and got kind of a decent paying job--but i still hate it! I cant imagine how the guy who moved away from his family and friends to work at the Lord and Taylor Outlet feels.

I dont know--I'll update on how it is. Maybe by the end of the month I'll be brainwashed by the nothingness and start loving it. Stay tuned...

New Years Eve

I was confused, it was cold, balls were dropping...it was puberty all over again. I celebrated down south in Richmond--where the city had their own times square celebration. The city thought "we like what NY does for new years...but its just too organized." People in flannel jackets and 2008 truckers hats were drunk and groping whomever they stumbled upon.
To combat this gaptoothed mob-the city sprung for horse cops...which are cops... but on a horse---were they worried that somebody would rob a train? Aside to catching up to a moving train, theres not much a horse can do besides cripple a superman.

I dont understand why they had law enforcement on a horse---they didnt have any cops with a single shot musket, or any medics standing by with a jar full of leeches, so why the downgrade? They dont look cool, and plus they smell.

So on the top of my 2008 to-do list---is to invent some kind of smell free robohorse.

Beard

Bill- So I grew beard today

Earl- Bill wait.. you mean you grew a beard

Bill- No I just grew beard...beard is what I named this house plant

Earl- I figured..its kind of hard to grow a beard in one day--and plus youre a homo

The move to NYC

New York is the comedy hub, the capital of stand up comedy. For many years, as far as I can remember, I widely eyed watched comedians on comedy central and on late night talk shows make jokes and talk about their life living in New York. I watched Jerry Seinfeld live out that life from a Hollywood set during many seasons of Seinfeld. I worked as a busboy at a comedy club in college, listening to comics reminisce about NY club gigs together while I placed chicken fingers in front of them with such nervous admiration that only royalty could command.

-Me-"Did you see that guy I just gave extra ranch to!?, he was a neighbor on two seasons of that one show!"
-Ex-Con Chef-"wow...who cares"

I knew nobody in New York, no friends or family--I visited once when I was 12. But by the time I got accepted to a New York City lawschool, already I felt like I had lived there and knew the city for years. I accepted immediately.

My friends and family were dumbfounded that I would move from a quiet suburb in the South, to a strange, unfamilar, and extremely huge metropolis in the North. But I knew, I knew the many smells of the subway, many ways to deny a homelessman change, the traffic, the different people and different attitudes--I already knew it all....in joke form.

...and they're off!

Grades are slowly trickling in and with them comes the disappointment. The night before the Torts grade was posted our law section got together at a local bar to celebrate the end of exams. Away from the crowd, I was discussing over a drink with my buddy our high chances of receiving either an A or an A+ --- in my head no one outside my elite study group, the group that met four times a week two months before the first exam, the group that had stacks of study materials and blocks of time reserved in library study rooms could do better than us--I thought to myself scanning the rest of my classmates "hey, even if I messed up a couple of things, I could still beat 98% of these morons!"

Before I'm judged as some super competitive grade freak, let me lay out what grading at a 2nd tier law school is like: 1) Theres a mandatory curve, very very few people get A's, generally the top half of the class receives a B and above, the bottom half receive a B- and below
---the very few people who totally mess up an exam get Ds or Fs, but they are rarely given.
The Job/Final Grade Break Down
A+ --- Youre golden, any job you want you can get and get paid a lot for
A and A- --- You get paid, but not a lot of options
B+ ---Happy with what you can get
B --- Lower paid lawyer jobs
B- --- will motion for food
C, C-, C+, D, F --- Garbageman, various garbagehandling duties

Our grades are posted once a day at 7am, so that means everyday Im up early as I can be, and like Christmas morning I scamper to my computer in my Pjs and check if any grades have been posted

B-

I stared at my grade intensely-- as if my staring hard enough would somehow zap my grade out of existence.
"There has to be some mistake!"

An IM popped up with "I got a B" It was the same buddy in my group I was talking to at the bar the night before.
"B-" I type back, the grade thats a hair above that career death sentence of a C
"Dude...someone in our group got a C" What? How did half of our study group do THIS bad?! yesterday we though we were on top of the world, hell we thought we were the world!

Reality set in-- just as it probably had for all my classmates that morning. Everyone thought they were geniuses--all were top of their class in undergrad, everyone thought that they had the A, everyone knew or thought they knew all 500+ pages of the casebook, and now everyone is staring at their grade--with full knowledge of the importance of their rank and average in the extremely completive lawyer job market. Everyone now knows they have to get one of those crucial 6 A's available in each class to pull up their average. And now they know that more people than they think are capable of getting those few A's.

The rat race has begun.