Feeling Fall

Labor Day Weekend. Fall about to begin. This is the best time of the year, my favorite. I love the changing of the weather (that hasn't really begun too much here yet)—when the nights get cool and the days warm and crisp and sparkling sunny, with leaves turning and falling to the ground and the air smelling so fresh and clean w/out the smog (and humidity) of summer. It's wonderful. But it is also hard, because it means returning to school, to class, to reading, to taking notes, to juggling schedules in very different ways from the juggling that goes on for most working people. It's not worse or harder, it's just different, and the adjustment takes time. I have not yet adjusted. I've read about 30 pages of the roughly 200 or more I've been assigned so far, I have a "pre-emption check" due for the journal on Monday, I have a half dozen things to do for different student groups (the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF), the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG), and GW Law Democrats), and something really must be done about getting a budget around here before I wind up in the poorhouse. (Does anyone have any good recommendations for a simple but efficient Mac money manager?) So much to do, and all I want to do is go hiking. (Click "more" for a blow-by-blow of the weekend's festivities and some notes on nostalgia.) I have very little to complain about, though, having spent all day yesterday sightseeing and hanging out with some of my best and oldest friends who have been in town this weekend for a wedding. We enjoyed tapas on Friday night at Jaleo in Bethesda, followed by drinks at the Barking Dog (which I don't recommend—loud, young, and they served raw chicken tenders, which is always a bad thing and tends to outweigh other factors in determining the quality of a place). Yesterday included a nonconventional trip right past the mall—we almost religiously avoided monuments and "must-see" sights—to the peddle boats in the Tidal Basin. L. and I pedaled our little four-person craft and quickly became exhausted and soaked in sweat. The weather was warm, partly cloudy, and deathly calm, so out on the water we just sort of baked in the heat. Needless to say, our paddle was short, but we did get some nice views of the Jefferson Memorial. I recommend the paddle boats in later September or early October when the weather is much, much cooler. The paddle boat excursion was followed up by a drink at someplace on F street called "The American Grill" or something similarly uninspired (I don't recognize it on this list of DC cigar bars). It was decorated in a mountain cabin motif and it turns out it was a cigar bar, complete with banks of personal humidors where the regulars kept their private collections of stogies. When we asked for a table for four we were asked, "Are you aware that this is an all smoking establishment?" We weren't, but we didn't care all that much at that point? "Does that mean we're required to smoke?" I asked. The answer was no, and thankfully the place was pretty empty and no one else was smoking, so it was a nice place for a beer and a few minutes watching Michigan trounce Miami Ohio. After a terrific bottle of wine back at our humble abode, we dined at Meskerem, a great Ethiopian place on 18th Street where I learned that Ethiopian custom is for everyone to eat from the same plate because those who do so will never go to war against one another. It may not be true, but in case it is, I think we should definitely change the customs at all meetings of international bodies and political leaders. We migrated from there to the Brickskeller (because, since I first visited a couple of months ago no one will now be allowed to visit me in D.C. w/out having at least one drink at the Brickskeller!) where we were joined by another great old friend. That triggered a mini-high school reunion with all the rummaging around in the cupboards of the past that such things can involve. We moved the reunion on the Childe Harold in Dupont Circle, and finally to the Big Hunt (what a bad bad name for a bar!) for a shot of Goldschlager (don't ask, except that, ok, they were right, I was wrong, it is real gold!). Nothing like topping off the night with something both viscous and sparkly! But, and so, the work awaits. And I don't want to do it, though I know I must. While fall is a beautiful time to be alive, all the beauty (and probably also seeing old friends) reminds me of all that I'm missing in this world and in this life as I work my way toward a J.D. I'll spare you the ruminations, but suffice to say that two more years like the last year sound very very unappealing right now. It was beyond words wonderful seeing old friends and seeing them seem so happy with their lives and what they've done and become in the many years since I saw them last. But the experience also brought on a bit of nostalgia about the past and also raises all the old questions of What am I doing in law school? And why am I doing it? And is this really the life I want to be living? I don't have answers to those questions and I feel pretty well past the point where I can entertain them seriously, anyway. But spending the weekend w/non-law friends also gave me an idea of why there's a stereotype that lawyers are boring and that is that they typically work too hard on things that they can't really talk about because of confidentiality reasons, meaning that since they can't talk about their work, and their work is really all they do, lawyers seem very boring to people who aren't lawyers. It's just a theory. YMMV.

Posted 08:10 PM | Comments (3) | life generally