The Corner In The Middle

My family and I are dealing with some terrible news, and I’m going to write it here because I don’t have anyone close to talk to, so dear invisible friend:

Let me preface this by saying my four year old daughter loves her grandma, like no other person except for her brother on the planet.  She talks to her all the time, she loves talking about her, she loves to pretend phone her, and she loves nothing more than the constant influx of packages and letters she gets from her in the mail (the only thing she loves more than beautiful dresses are Disney princesses).  Three days ago we found out that her grandma has terminal cancer and has about three months to live.  Dear god:  how am I supposed to tell my four year old daughter, the girl who has one heaven sent fan, that her grandma isn’t going to be here anymore?

The only person who constantly loves and sends gifts to our baby girl besides my wife’s awesome sister, is her grandmother.  My closest family (parents, brother, ect…) doesn’t even send her birthday or christmas cards for christ’s sake.  So, how do I know that she will ask what happened to nanny, well, because whenever a box or the mail comes, she asks if it’s from nanny, and often it is.  So how long can can she not get dresses before she realizes she needs to call nanny and ask why she didn’t send a new dress this month?  How the fuck am I supposed to fix this?  I feel horrible for my wife, she is very, very close to her nanny too, but she’s an adult and can grieve and I can hold her and do my best, but what the fuck am I supposed to do for my daughter?

My daughter thinks dying consists of sleeping and getting magic tears and fairy dust and everything is ok again, how do I ruin her of her lack of knowledge of this?  I don’t really expect any comments because A) I am probably not going to tell her even if there is a good way and B)most of you don’t have kids so I don’t expect you can have any idea how goddamn horrible and wrenching and twisting my heart is inside, much less any valuable guidance to help me.  I’m sorry to burden the net with my grief, but I don’t have any close family to rest on, so my apologies.  I don’t know when I’m going to write again, I feel sick and I wish the worst thing in my life was law school, and I sincerely pray that none of you have to deal with this anytime soon.

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This is in response to your email this morning, regarding stopping by your table and being one of the first 40 people to receive a certain fast food companies “breakfast burrito.”  Rather than send this to you personally, I thought I’d save myself from being chewed out by our administration for being insensitive to the needs of any company that still employs law students, I’m posting this here at the corner, and maybe you’ll even see it!

re:  Westlaw Breakfast Table:

Would that be the same “fast food chain”  that is the largest producer/consumer/seller of dirty factory farmed hormone/antibiotic manipulated cheap ground up bleach soaked mash they alone term “meat?”?  Lest we leave out the part about keeping the South American farmers it “employs” in poverty, followed by the minimum wage employees who must touch and play with it in order to get it from there to our mouth, in order to provide us with a cheap dirty nutritionally deficient meal?    It’s safer to stay home and eat the dirt from my back yard, so thanks, but no thanks.  As up and coming attorneys. I’d like to think our research companies would be a little more socially responsible.  Couldn’t you have sent that fifty bucks to someone who can’t give their child breakfast and just given us another highlighter?

So dear readers, in case you didn’t figure it out, I have grown tired of giant corporations and their attempts to market their costly inefficient high priced junk.  I have made a conscious decision to be a little more socially responsible, and in doing so, apparently, pissed off some of my peers.  Sorry, but maybe since you are in law school you should pay a little more attention to who you receive “rewards” from, not to mention the crap you put in your mouth.

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A few years ago, about 1996 or 1997, I wrote a book.  I started a publishing company called “Highway Thirteen Publishing,” and self published two books, “Burdens,” and “Beyond Illusions,” and a book of an old friend under the label.  As I began my third book, I ran out of money because my “friend” never paid me for all the copies of her book and I wasn’t able to recoup for some time (it’s not easy being an artist when you don’t have money or any financial support, much less a paying job).  I still used the logo on everything I did, such as when I tried to design logos for local businesses, and a few other projects that I could never make money at (inexperience is a economic killer).  Anyway, I have reopened the publishing company.  Why?

I am recording a music album, and have decided that Highway Thirteen was my original stride into the writing world as a solo writer, and now as a solo musician, it is fitting that I bring back that once fairly successful part of me and take my life in my own hands for a while.  I’m still going to school, yes, I am still looking for land for a farm, in fact, I have actually begun looking for land, I’m out of the research phase and hoping to get our farm going in the late spring after finals.  It’ll be a year before the farm gets “seriously farming” but it’ll be something.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on the continuing saga of law school, and as my album progresses, maybe I’ll post some freebies for my readers.  You can be sure I’ll post the link and more info when I get this done with Amazon and itunes.  Have fun dear readers, it’s gonna be a long semester…

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Grades were supposed to be in today, it’s what we call a deadline, it might also be a statute of limitations toll if this were real life and I was dealing with a case.  Luckily, I have 2 of my 5 grades in.  The other three professors, two of them are renowned for ignoring deadlines, and in fact, they ignore anything that is class work that comes at the same time as what ever they do in their spare time, because, well, students are a bother and we are lucky to have them as professors at all.  I don’t feel lucky, I could and in fact, do, learn more from the nutshell in the last two weeks of school than the whole semester, as a general rule.  Anyway…

If I pay my tuition past the “deadline,” I would be removed from class.  If I miss three classes, they administratively remove me.  But even though it’s been five weeks since finals, there are no grades in.  Of course, since I’m in a tier four law school, I should be happy to be in law school at all right?

It seems to me, that you pay a lot more money the lower your school’s ranking, at least I do, but you will not get treated better than a student at a local community college.  Maybe the local community college should get a law program. 

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If you get sick easily by reading gross things, um, TURN AWAY, I’m not kidding, this is serious, do not blame me if you keep going… 

My favorite thing about being a parent is how often the kids are sick, and how often they throw up for no apparent reason, and finally, all the creative places they do it because young kids don’t really get the whole “I better get to the crapper cause I’m gonna puke” thing, you know?  I wonder if they are training themselves to stay thin later in life (inappropriate, but I had say it because one of you, dear readers, thought it; besides, bones are beautiful)?

My daughter is four years old. 

Tonight, I took a break for reading for admin law and bankruptcy procedure, and I cleaned up what my daughter thought I think of law school.  We had pizza for dinner, she had four giant pieces, she threw up four giant pieces two hours later, barely digested, crust, cheese, sauce, ect… in the sink.  It immediately clogged the drain, so it didn’t drain.  I picked it out and threw it away, all four chewed up partially digested pieces. 

Gross.  

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I’m growing tired of the middle of the boat.  I’m cold, beside myself, wondering about the money that I feel more like I’m wasting than benefitting, and certainly too far in to get out.  I’d like to excuse myself while I try to get some perspective, but the perspective is really a pinpoint view of a shitty economy and an academic area that is making it worse.

I’m really trying to figure out why the classes that I want to practice in, and have an actual interest in, why I can’t seem to do better than barely adequate, but the classes I have no interest in, I do well?  WTF? I’m cold, so please excuse me while I warm up with some whiskey and a little self examination…

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Thanks Thomson-West publishing for stealing from me, and every other law student that is required to buy your textbooks for the semester. 

I just paid for my books for the semester.  What a f{}ing rip off.  I hate to use the f bomb, but I’m doing it.  My tab:  $954.86.  Yeah, $954.86.  Exactly.  One text for trusts and estates, was literally $180.00, without tax of course.  There is no book that a person in real life could use every day that is worth 180.00.    It doesn’t help you pass the bar.  It is full of excerpts/cuttings/rehashing of cases, the same one’s that we could get for free on Westlaw or Lexis by punching in the heading.

So, I paid more for books than I pay for rent for a month in my nice three bed room townhouse, and by the way, all of them are used except the wills text.  And, I still have to pay at least 2,000 to take the bar prep class because you can’t use your law school stuff for the bar, because it’s not real law.  Awesome. 

As of this semester I’m in debt $117,000 and I still have one more year to go after this year. At my low ranked school, with me being solidly stuck in the middle of my class, all I can say is that I hope this farm thing pays out, because it’s not looking good economically at this point.  How come plumbers make more than many attorneys?  Oh yeah, I remember, they didn’t pay for seven years of school.  I’m so glad I am going to law school today.  

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I have not been blogging lately, I have been spending time with the family.  I have also been really putting the organic farm ideas the spin to figure out how I can start before I graduate.  I don’t know if I can realistically, it’s a lot of money and time, unless I take the summer off, which I may.  What do I foresee:  a couple of short days a week at the crappy hardware store job, beach time, camping time, music time, and absolutely no law time.  Hardly a new year resolution, but worth mentioning.

Second, I am by no means slacking off the xbox.  Modern Warfare 2 is still my main game, although, I have been playing this ATV game called “pure” and am looking forward to battlefield 2, bad company.  You get to have four teams online, and there are vehicles.  It reminds me of Socom, on the playstation.  I may get a ps3 so I can play some of their platform specific games.  But I really am not sure how much I want to become a gamer, I kind of feel like I am already spread too thin.  But then again, can a lawyer ever be spread too thin?

WWHD? I know what a hobo would do, he would tell me go get an ATV and get off the games.  So, I may just do that.  WWHD?  What I would do…

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