No time, of course, since I'm studying for the bar. But I have to keep constant tabs on talkingpointsmemo.com, as I need something to distract me, and keep me from doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Just refreshed and saw a post referring to this article in the WaPo, discussing a Rand Corp. study commissioned by the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

I haven't read the article, of course, but this quote apparently sums it up: "[Iraqi civilians] are less likely to help, the study says, when they become 'collateral damage' in U.S. attacks, have their doors broken down or are shot at checkpoints because they do not speak English."

Now, that has got to be a joke. There's no way someone wrote that sentence with a straight face, not realizing how insane it is. Our military, after four years of warfare, has just commissioned a study to tell them that it's easier to get people to join your cause if you don't shoot them. I love the fact that it says they're "less likely" to help. So, those people who are being shot for not speaking English -- they're still somewhat likely to help us, just not as likely.

History will judge us harshly.

So the bar is five days away now. Holy mozoli. I've been studying my butt off. The fussed up thing is that I don't have any idea how I'm doing. They tell me that you should shoot to get 60% correct on the multistate portion of the exam. Every time I take a practice test, I get about 75% right. But I am really, honest-to-god guessing on a good three-quarters of the question, which makes me think that score isn't a slam dunk. Then there's the essay portion. After two months of classes, I still don't have a clue how they score those fuckers. On the practice exams, I usually get a few completely wrong, a few right, and a few kind of in-between. I don't know what this means. I keep reminding myself, "Self, you're a smart guy. You've been studying a lot -- like, a whole lot. You test well, generally speaking. How could you not pass this?" I think that I really believe that, deep down. But it is pretty fucking scary. If I don't pass... well, I don't want to go into that. I don't want to get myself all upset.

Anyway, the prevailing feeling today is complete uncertainty about what to expect.

I'm studying for the bar. It's about 1.5 weeks away now, so I am studying intensely. As a result, I'm procrastinating intensely too. I just wanted to flag this. The WaPo has a series talking about four different congresspeople, whom they've each given a title to as if they were characters in a sitcom: the "conservative democrat," the "antiwar liberal," the "anguished moderate," and the "loyal republican." At the risk of being a traitor to my team, I think that (apart from just being a stupid way of reporting on politicians -- it might be acceptable if the subject were entertainment or something), the treatment of Isakson (the Republican) here is unfair. Everyone else gets a title based on their ideas about the world -- they're conservative, or liberal, or antiwar, or moderate or whatever -- but he's just a loyal republican.

Hm. Now that I think about this, though, maybe it's just accurate: maybe his whole position is just of loyalty to the president. That certainly wouldn't be a major surprise in todays republican party. Obviously, I haven't read the articles and I'm not going to, what w/ time being what it is. (To give you an idea of how tight time is, I'm typing this while sitting on the can.) So I really can't comment on whether it's accurate or not. But it is interesting.

"We've got 20-some investigations that all look good," Flynt said during a news conference at his Beverly Hills office.

"We have got some high-ranking Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and the House," he told reporters. "If I get just a couple of those phonies out of there, maybe it will be a step forward."

Flynt provided no names or details about the investigations. His comments conflicted with a press release issued by the magazine that put the number of investigations at "several."

There are of course lots of reasons to blog about this. But I'm actually just highlighting it because I'm surprised that AP believes that it's contradictory to say there are "20-some" investigations, on the one hand, and to say there are "several" investigations, on the other. That is all.

I guess now that it's been a month and a half I ought to write something. It won't be good, I promise you that, but I suppose that the future me would be curious to know what I'm feeling like tonight.

You probably know what's going on in my life already, right -- W and I moved down to our new city, into this fucking palatial house in a very fancy neighborhood; we've been here for over a month and still haven't really finished unpacking (right now that just seems like such a perfect sum-up of the way we live); I've been studying for the bar and, naturally, finding myself totally freaked out and feeling totally unprepared.

At the moment, W has been away for four days or so -- she went to spend time w/ her elderly father in Cape Cod, where he's staying by himself for a little while. She was called to duty after her brother dropped the guy off and realized how old he is and asked her to come up and keep an eye on him for a bit. So she's there. She's coming home tomorrow. Frankly, it sounds like she's having a horrible time. The old coot is a true son of a bitch. It's pretty amazing. I mean, the whole thing about him is that he's just an asshole, and everybody realizes it and acknowledges it, and yet he's quite charming at the same time. It's true. I have a whole lot of affection for him. I wonder if this is how my Mom felt about my father's mother? She was ornery -- that's the word that I think sums her up best -- and I think she was flat-out mean to my mother. And my mother doesn't have any illusions about that. But it's not uncommon for her to wax sort of nostalgic about her, and say things like, "I learned a lot from that woman." Anyway, W's up there, she keeps calling me and sending me texts saying things like, "when can I come home?" Of course, then there are these little snippets, glimpses of fun and pleasant feelings, and she'll report to me things like, "we had such a great time at dinner tonight!" And I know that that must have been one hell of a dinner. Anyway, she comes home tomorrow. I feel kind of bad that it looks like she's going to leave w/ a bad taste in her mouth. That's not good. I wish the guy could get him a fucking clue and just try to make it pleasant for her last night, so that she doesn't spend the next three months thinking he's an asshole.

Well anyway. Here's the deal with me right now: my studies have been all fucking consuming. No shit. And -- the sad part -- I really don't feel like I'm necessarily going to be prepared. Wow, that is truly sad. I think I'm working harder on this shit that anyone else I know, but

...

just got a call from W. Bemoaning her situation. Poor thing.

...

Anyway, I was saying that I'm working my shishkas off (made-up Yiddish word?) but I honestly don't think I have a handle on this. It is FUCKING NUTS. Wow. I mean. You know?

So the point is, I've been here alone in this giant house for a few days now -- and frankly I haven't been alone at all since W left her job in our old home town, which was, I don't know, 2 months ago now probably. No, that can't be right. Well, at least one month. Anyway. But the point is, today I actually finished my work at about seven thirty or something. (This is remarkable because most days I'm working 'till midnight or so.) Instead of boning up on some aspect of the law that I'm weak on (believe me there are quite a fucking few) I cracked a beer and poured some scotch. Three hours later I'm not exactly toasted but I'm feeling warm. I haven't been drinking nearly enough since we've been here. So here I am, Wednesday night, by myself, sitting in the dark (that's true -- I'm not just saying it because it's something you say when you talk about drinking alone in your giant house) listening to Niel Young's "On the Beach." DAMN that's a good album for this mood.

I got hit this afternoon with the old melancholy. It's so strange, because I mentioned this to W on the phone earlier today and I was compelled to say, "it's no big deal really, it's not like it's even unpleasant." Being melancholy -- generally considered a synonym for "sad" -- isn't unpleasant. But it's true. The old melancholy -- as opposed to truly feeling bad, which happens too -- is actually almost a good feeling. It's about wanting to be alone, have some drinks, and listen to some music. In the dark. (No shit.) But I think the real point is that... what the fuck, I have no idea what the real point is. It's about wanting to be alone, and feeling like the rest of the world just doesn't get it, and just doesn't have anything for you. But it's not bad, necessarily. I mean, everything in the outside world seems wrong when you think about it from this perspective, so that's bad. Sure, it's very bad. Like, I mean, there's nothing positive going on at all from this perspective -- everything is infected with hypocrisy and any attempt to do good is bound to fail. Yeah, that's bad. But the overriding feeling is that you have to find beauty or goodness somewhere else then. And that's what music and aesthetics and booze are for. And that I can do. I can really, really, really sit and listen to some music and hear something unbelievably beautiful, especially if I'm drinking. And I can look at something that's nice to my eyes and get pleasure from it. (I seem to want to avoid the word "art," not 100% sure why that is. I guess "art" can be so infected w/ hypocrisy and posturing too... but then so can music. I don't know... it's something about the word "art." Plus, and this might be more to the point, I include things like flowers, and reflections on the river, and the sky on a nice day, etc., etc., etc., in what I'm calling "aesthetics.") I mean, I can look at something mundane and ugly and stupid and find some beauty in it if I'm in this mood. I like unpacked houses and sitting in the dark at huge tables with no one else around when I'm in this mood. Isn't it weird?

Now, I'm not going to allow myself to go down the road that this next comment by all rights probably should take me down, but here's the comment: how fucking self-absorbed can I be? I don't think I need to elaborate much on that. Read the paragraph above this one, and I think it will make sense why I'd say that. And I think that I could go down that road, but it would just end in me truly feeling bad, to quote myself, and it would NOT end in me being any more productive or useful in this world. Certainly not tonight. So what's the point? Why not enjoy this old melancholy this evening? I can tackle the world and its hypocrisy and ugliness and debasedness and infection some other time. In fact, maybe I never will. I can try to work in small ways on making individual lives better. (Some other time, of course.) This feeling is all about how the hypocrisy and its attendants really can't be conquered.

I should stop writing, but I guess this is a glimpse of what it's like inside my head... it's not going to really stop when I stop writing... Anyway the thing I was going to say was that when I was in college -- and that's a really long time ago now (before the collapse of the Soviet Union, for the record) -- I was struck by a quote from Marx calling for "a radical critique of everything existing." Or something like that. That might be wrong, but if it is, I think it's probably better than whatever is right. The thing about it is that, everything existing is infected with everything that's wrong with this world. You can't get the stink out. And so to fix it you'd have to start afresh. In college, I was hit by this when my then-girlfriend talked negatively about someone who once gave her flowers. She thought it was gross and bad. My first reaction was, "damn, giving someone flowers is nice. Really nice." But then I understood her perspective -- it was just a part of a whole way of looking at the world that was bad. Or, it had become a part of that. It wasn't the flower-giver's fault, necessarily. It's just that giving flowers was part of, well, part of everything existing. So it was fucked up.

Okay. Here's the thing: I'd better stop writing. Because the more I write the more I sound like a college student. And like I say, I haven't been a college student since the collapse of the USSR. (Actually, that's wrong. But you get the point -- it's been a long time. It was acceptable to read Marx approvingly back then.) So, just to save myself from wanting to jump off a building when I read this tomorrow, I'd better stop.

ADDED LATER: according to Google, there's only one other guy on the web who's ever referenced this quote from Marx. Are we both wrong? It can't be that no one else thinks it's remarkable, can it?

ADDED STILL LATER: okay. Don't jump off a building when you read this, future me, but it seems that most people think the word that I'm translating as "radical" really means "ruthless." And lots of people are remarking on it, and it's even the title of an essay (For a Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing).

I just noticed that I never published this post. I'm just posting it now so it's here for posterity. It's probably not complete.

Hey --

I should be doing stuff, but I'm going to take a quick break and just make note of a number of things, since I have a moment alone.

As you probably know (I say that because you are probably me), our rental did indeed work out. We had ourselves tied up in knots worrying about the fact that we didn't have anything in writing, but in the end we got the signed lease. That was nice. Tomorrow is the big fucking day. The movers show up at our storage space at 9:00 AM. Today we're trying to put the finishing touches on packing. It's not that hard, because we really don't have very much stuff, it's just that it's so unbelievably un-fun.

And another sort of revelation that I wanted to make note of is this: I am really sad, mostly to be leaving our friends. We had a little goodbye at a local bar last night -- we sent an email out to a bunch of people saying we'd be hanging out there starting around 5:00, and anyone who wanted to should stop by to say goodbye. It was sort of funny and sort of sad how few people showed; but it was a nice thing to note that the people who did show were our real bosom friends. Of course M and K were there the whole time, and E and K came down from upstate New York and surprised us. That was a real gesture of true friendship. Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that, bizarre as it seems, I have some really good friends here and I'm sad to say goodbye.

I just noticed that I never published this post. I'm just posting it now so it's here for posterity. As you'll see, it's not complete. It ends in the middle of a sentence. But hell. Here it is.

So I graduate tomorrow. My mother and my father and his wife are coming up, and my great aunt who lives in the Bronx, and our two best friends -- M and K, who are more family to us than our family, really -- are all going to participate in the festivities in one way or another. We're going to have a lunch after the graduation, and I've been thinking I want to say a few words at lunch. It seems like a good idea to try writing out what I'm thinking of saying -- partly to help me think through what I want to say, and partly to put it down here, you know, for posterity. Not that my remarks will be earth-shattering in any way, but just so future me can have an idea of what present me was thinking on this occasion.

[Note to self -- this post seems to be being written in little fits and starts, as W walks in and out. I'm still trying to keep the fact that this blog exists pretty much between me and myself, but more importantly this post in particular should be a secret from her, I think.]

So here's basically what I think I'm going to say:

So guys -- I actually realize I have some things I'd like to say. I'm really not the speech-giving type, but I've realized over the past couple days that I'd really like to say a few things to you all as a group.

First of all, I want to tell you how much it means to me that you are all here. I really mean this, about everyone at this table, individually. I didn't think that the graduation was going to be that big of a deal to me, but the fact that you all went out of your way to be here -- and really, I

Hm. Well, I thought this was a fully-formed idea until just now when I tried to start writing about it. But maybe it's worth sketching out some of the pieces now, I don't know.

I keep the New York Review of Books in the john, and read it every time I take a crap. I've recently read a couple articles that deal with private life under communism in different ways. One of them excerpts heavily from diaries of the party faithful in Stalin's Russia; the other excerpts from poems by a guy (Zbigniew Herbert) whose family escaped Poland in 1944, after living under Stalin and then Hitler. When reading the former, I was struck with the way the diarists dealt with the unfathomable -- in this case the unfathomable cruelty being practiced by their beloved party -- by placing it in the context of the inevitability of history: "You will understand everything," one of them says of the Great Terror, "only when the purpose of all that is taking place has become clear to you." In other words, have faith. Don't expect this to make sense. Just believe.

I found that remarkable because of its clear parallel in religious faith. Not being a particularly religious guy myself -- or, more accurately, not having ever been part of a religious community -- I might have it all wrong. But I've felt for years that... well, let's start with this: I believe that doing things that don't make sense is a requirement for survival as a human. Because, ultimately, nothing makes sense. You have to be able, at some point, to take a leap and say "I'm going to believe that this is the thing to do just because I am. I'm not going to ask anything more of this." If you don't do that, you'll end up going nuts. And so clearly I think that religion has the capacity to fill this role. It's all the more powerful when you accept that it simply makes no sense. When you're doing a ritual with no meaning at all.

Hm. Yeah. See, it's not a fully formed thought. Perhaps the real point isn't that you do it knowing it has no meaning, but that you do it accepting that you don't understand the meaning. But you believe that someone or something else -- be it God, or Stalin, or the priest, or the universe -- is working through you.

Well, that clearly needs some more thought. But here's the other ingredient. In the second article I read, about the poet Zbigniew Herbert, I was struck by the closing stanza of his disturbing poem about Russian emigres:

This parable is told by Nicholas
who understands historical necessities
in order to terrify me i.e. to convince me

I think this -- this idea of "historical necessities / in order to terrify me i.e. to convince me" -- is exactly what we've seen played out in the past several years, in the way the case was made for war in Iraq. The idea is to terrify people with the idea that something is inevitable. And to then convince them that it is a historical necessity that they go along with your plan, which ultimately makes no sense.

Yo, this is sad. I have to go -- I have to leave for work soon and I need to get showered and dressed, etc. So this idea is going to go unfinished. Not that it was ultimately going to be finished. Call it a work in progress. I have faith that it will be completed one day, by someone.

I think this is odd. I took my last law school exam yesterday. W is at work, so I'm alone. I like being alone, generally. I should be doing things, like playing the guitar, etc., etc., and enjoying myself. But I'm sitting here in a cesspool of anxiety. It's like, all of a sudden, everything I ever should have worried about is coming down on me at once. I haven't been able to eat, I've got a headache, I'm just in horrible shape. I should be happy -- this is like the one day I should be relaxing -- and instead, I'm possibly more freaked out than ever. This isn't right.

Okay, a couple things I want to note, because I don't want to forget them. Things I'd like to write about more but I fear I never will, so I'll just mention them here.

First of all, and most importantly, my wife contacted everyone in my family about their coming to my graduation. This was a really, really, sweet and special gesture. I never contacted them myself -- I don't know why, it's a manifestation of my craziness. I do that. I just can't bring myself to get in touch with people. Certainly part of it in this case was that I didn't want to put them in the awkward position of having to tell me they couldn't make it; another component was that our apartment is such an unmitigated shithole that I don't want them to come here, and I really can't offer them a place to sleep; and also, I sort of feel like the graduation isn't that big of a deal, since I'm already so involved in the next stage -- the bar exam, the job, etc. But somewhere deep down I wanted them to come. My wife knows me so well, and is so... how do you say this? She's so dedicated to doing the right thing for me? She's so in tune with what would make me happy, and so willing to do things to make me happy, that she got in touch with my family and invited them up. And now, it looks like, my mom and my dad and stepmother are all coming! It's very nice stuff.

The other thing is, we've put the house-hunting on hold, and are hoping to rent. We've found a place, and "applied" to get it, and were informed via email on Thursday that our application was "approved." But we still don't have a lease. Nothing is official, and we've learned that you can never trust anything that's not in writing. So we're waiting to get the lease. If it falls through for some reason, then we are FUCKED.

Finally, money is going to be the biggest problem it's ever been for us this summer, I think. Basically, this place we're renting is a palace, and it's very expensive. On top of which we're going to have the expense of moving, and we're going to have to furnish the place. We don't know for sure that we have any source of income between about May 15 and September 15. We've got savings, but those were really supposed to be for buying a house. So, honestly, I'm just not sure what we're going to do. W's boss is a douche, and won't tell her that he doesn't want her to work for him long distance, but keeps sending signals to that effect. So I feel like we can't count on that. I'll be studying for the bar, and won't have time to do a lot of income-producing work. I'll have to figure something out, though. Yee.

Heh.

I had my last exam yesterday.

Heh heh heh heh heh.

Heh heh heh ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HOO HOO HO HO HAW HAW HAW HAW HO HA HEE HEE HA HO HAW HAW HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HOO HEE HEE HEE HEE HE HEe Hee he. he.

he.

heh.

ahem.

Hm. Chortle.

Oh. Are you still here?

Do excuse me....

Ahem again. Yes. Ah. Anyway. What? You didn't say anything? Hm. Okay. Yes. Hi. Huh. I thought... well. Okay.

Anyway... oh boy. Shit. Damn. Well, okay. I guess I have to start thinking about other things now, huh. Like, I don't know, paying off my loans. Having somewhere to live. All that fucking crap I've been putting off thinking about. Man. Is it me? It must be me. It sort of seems like there's never any opportunity to relax and enjoy something.

But right now, it's 9:45 and I haven't done shit today. I'm drinking coffee still. Reading blogs. I really need to do a few things. I need to check on my student loan deferment, and I need to figure out about whether I can take the bar class in Newark, just in case we aren't able to move to our new city in time. Also, I really should call everybody in my family to say hi; and I need to mail them tickets to my graduation. And there's a little matter of finishing my part of the habeas petition I've been working on for my capital punishment clinic. Whew.

But first, I think I'll have some more coffee. Maybe catch up on talkingpoints, I've been out of the loop lately.

Why was I writing about an "eating plan"? What is an "eating plan"? Does a question mark go inside or outside the quotation marks? That has been plaguing me for years, actually. Maybe I'll try to figure it out right now, instead of working on my Crim Pro outline. (It's Saturday, the exam is on Monday, and I basically just started the shit.)

...

Okay, according to the first three results on Google, question marks in the scenario above go outside the quotes. Good for me. If they were part of the quoted text, like if I were saying:

• He asked me, "What's your eating plan?"

...they'd go inside.

Problem solved, in about one minute, after worrying about it for years. Time to go back to studying.

You know that "eating plan" I just mentioned? That shit doesn't work at all. I just ate a huge pile of couscous because I was so hungry after having a pretzel at 2:00 and some cookies at 3:30.

Want to know my eating plan? Here's what I try to do (though I never succeed). I don't eat right away when I get up. Instead, I wait till like 10:30 or 11:00, and have a small breakfast, like a bagel or a bowl of cereal. This is supposed to tide me over until like 2:30 or 3:00. (As I write this, it's 12:57, and I'm starting to get hungry. So, just, take that into consideration too.) Then I have small lunch, like a piece of pizza or a half a sandwitch. This is supposed to tide me over until regular dinnertime, like 7:00 or thereabouts, at which time I eat a regular dinner. See, the idea is that it keeps me from eating too much or spending too much on food. I also keep some mints or something around to keep my blood sugar up when I need it; and of course I take advantage of every single opportunity for free food that presents itself. E.g., at my work, they have cookies every Friday in the afternoon. I tend to stock the fuck up.

Bye

Here's an email that I just composed to our realtor. It kind of sums up where things are right now as far as the whole house-hunting project. A couple things: I was actually trying to write in W's voice, because she's been corresponding w/ the agent, and I'd kind of like to limit emails from me to the very businesslike -- like, I'd only write if I were saying, "you're fired," or "we're taking you to court," or "we have to figure out how to fix this or else you're fired." But the message here is, "I'm upset and I'm trying to figure out whether you can help me" -- appealing to their emotions and desire to help a struggling young couple. Oh, another thing: I haven't sent it, not sure whether I will.

~+++ ~

Hi P,

Thank you for your frank reply. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to work through my feelings about everything that's happened here. I'm confused and dumbfounded, really, by what went on with [the house we were buying]. Every detail of it seems odd to me. Here's the rundown from our perspective -- keep in mind, we've never bought a house before and are 100 miles away, so it's all very foreign to us:

• the seller's agent makes an offer to the buyer's agent orally; she does this, I assume, knowing that someone else is coming to look at the house that night. Why wouldn't she just wait a couple hours to see what the other prospective buyer did? If she, the seller's agent, didn't know someone was coming to look, that seems awfully weird too, particularly given that the seller was supposedly out of town, so he couldn't have arranged for the person to see the place. Anyway, presumably somebody knew this guy was coming to see the house, but they made us an offer anyway. Were they planning on backing out of any agreement we made if the other guy made a better offer? Please tell me that's considered unethical.
• the buyer's agent, knowing that this seller has in the past made offers orally and later gone back on what she said (i.e., "oh, our offer of $395K wasn't really an offer, that was just the agent talking"), doesn't try to get this offer in writing ASAP. Why not? I gather from your email that, had we worked out the details and faxed something over right away, the seller's agent would have had to get the seller's signature that night. Why weren't we encouraged to work it out right away?
• even though the offer is not in writing, the buyer's agent congratulates the clients on finally having a deal, despite knowing from experience that this seller had no compunction about going back on oral agreements.
• then, the guy who looked at the place apparently unbeknownst to the agent makes a full price plus offer with no inspection contingency -- this despite the fact that the place is a hundred years old with an open sewer line in the basement and two salvaged wood beams holding up the kitchen. Why would anyone do that?

It just feels to me like something's not right. I have no idea what it is, but it all seems so weird. But whatever -- that's in the past. I'm just trying to make you understand why the whole thing bothered me so much, besides the fact that we were left with nowhere to live.

I suppose I shouldn't have used the word "serious" to describe our offers in my email. I didn't use the word in the sense of being "able to compete and win," obviously, since they weren't. I just meant to highlight that they weren't frivolous. Two were over 95% of asking price -- after you told us personally that we could expect to pay about 90% of asking -- and yes, the third was a sort of a hardball approach, but remember, it actually resulted in a deal. A deal that the sellers backed out on, but a deal nonetheless. If their offer had been in writing, it would have resulted in a sale.

I appreciate that you felt bad for us, and I know you mean it. The main reason we wanted to work with you -- even after you begrudgingly admitted to us that you actively try to hide the fact that you're also a teacher from your clients, and even after we realized that you guys didn't tell us up front you were selling a house in the neighborhood where we were looking to buy -- was that I really feel like we understand each other and get along. So I know you mean it when you say you feel bad. I guess I was surprised that, after all that had happened, you guys just seemed to fade away, stopped sending listings, didn't really express any regrets about what happened or offer to help out with the aftermath. It seems weird to me that there haven't been any listings, given the time of year, but I'm glad to know that that's the market, not you guys. At this point, we've done a lot of hustling to get rentals but are still struggling; we might ask for your help if that's something you think you can help with. One of us will be in touch with you in the next few days about that if we do need help.

Anyway, thanks again for your reply. I do hope you guys are doing well.

~+++~

So that's it. I really just post it because it sums up some facts about our house-hunting situation and gives a clue as to the feelings that have been swirling around lately. We're really having a hard time, honestly.

UPDATE: So, I showed that email to W and she was like, "well, this obviously isn't my voice." We decided to send it, but I sent it from myself, not her. Hm. I wonder if that was a dumb move. The thing is, though, we're pretty much beyond all the fucking role playing at this point. They know us pretty well by now. I'm not fooling them anymore. So I might as well just let it all hang the fuck out.

I want to write this down before I forget.

So, as I've mentioned a few times, our friend L died a few weeks ago. I believe she committed suicide, but honestly I still don't know. Anyway, I had a dream about her that I don't want to forget. It was pretty incredible.

I dreamed that she wanted to die, and the way she arranged to do it was to have one of her friends shoot her. So all of her friends -- all the people who'd known her over the years -- gathered on this rooftop. She gave somebody a gun, and then she just sort of started baiting them, trying to get them pissed off enough that they'd be able to do it. It was all understood ahead of time what was supposed to happen. At some point, I ended up with the gun. I was standing there, and L was yelling at me, getting me more and more upset, and then she threw a cup of coffee on me. Instantaneously, without pausing or anything, I shot her in the head, point blank.

All of her friends then gathered her up and took her downstairs, to a bedroom somewhere inside the building, where we were going to sit with her as she slipped away. We sat around her, all looking at her, listening to her reflect on her life, for a long time. She was taking a very long time to die. Slowly, people began leaving the room one by one. They were getting tired of listening to her talk about herself, and they had other things they wanted to do. But I was the one who had shot her, I couldn't leave. It just wouldn't have been right. I sat with her for hours and hours more. Eventually it became clear that I hadn't delivered a fatal wound -- she wasn't going to die. But she did have this hole in the back of her head, and she was hurt pretty bad.

Well, that's basically the dream. At some point during the dream, I realized that L had finally gotten what she wanted: she was the center of attention, all eyes were on her, she was getting to talk about herself and everyone would listen. It was so sad when people started filtering out.

I don't know what else to say about this. I hope that you, dear reader, will understand. It's weird. Sad. I think this dream is full of commentary on, not just L, but on myself and my weaknesses. I often have dreams where someone is taunting me or mistreating me and I lash out violently and make them sorry. Obviously, this is something that never happens in real life, and I think I fantasize about it a little in my sleep. I think this dream had an element of that. But there's also an element of my feeling that I can never really make anything happen -- I can never "pull the trigger," as it were. So I shot L, but I didn't kill her. And then I was stuck in the mode of the killer sitting with his victim, for eternity it seems. And there was L as victim. That's the way she lived her life, and that's what she frequently was. So in this dream, despite having arranged the shooting herself, she is the victim. And there's the obvious comment on what happened in reality -- something that W pointed out to me -- everyone had written her off, but when she died, there they were at her memorial. Giving her the love and attention she'd wanted all her life. Oh, but it was so sad in that dream when they tired of her again and started leaving the room.

Fucking momentous.

I just finished my last law school class... ever.

Fuck yes.

I am sitting, alone as I am wont to do, in the bar near school. Dark as hell in this motherfucker, like I like it. It's a beautiful evening outside (it's about 8:45) but at the moment this is where I want to be. In a cave, alone, anonymous. Listening to music and getting a little tips... A Guinness and a Maker's on the rocks. This place plays good music almost all the time. Right now it's Peter Tosh singing "I-man are the bush doctor...." And it's nice that they have wireless. And there's an old Clint Eastwood western showing (no sound of course).

New song. Now it's "Come on Eileen." This is one of those songs that I used to like, like really love, back in the days that I went out dancing. It's still a good song, but it's a little played for me now.

But damn! There's a table of loud people back here. It's just me and this one other table -- a total of four other people -- back here, and I can barely hear the music. The guy was just stomping his foot because he was laughing so hard! Maybe one day something will be funny enough to me that I'll want to stomp my foot, but that day has yet to come.

New song. "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats. No Peter Tosh, but not bad.

Dude -- the stomping guy just leapt out of his seat out of excitement. He's sitting again now. Still
yelling, though.

No way -- new song: "Jump in the Line" (or whatever it's really called) by Harry Belafonte. "Okay! I believe you!"

Dude!!!! My man is screaming. Literally -- you know what "screaming" means? Where your voice gets high and breaks a lot? That's what he's doing. Seems like this one guy is the whole reason for the loudness.

New song. This one is still, like, basically good, but it seems like the trend is downward... "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Ai ai ai. So many god damn things to worry about. I called W to tell her I was going to grab a drink before I came home. Our conversation inevitably turned to the various things we "aren't going to worry about right now" -- in other words, all the things we really have to worry about, but are going to try to put out of our minds for the evening. Here's the list: (1) we don't have a place to live in our new city. (2) We don't have any real source of money starting in about a week. (3) We are ...

just wanted to note, my man just stood up and stomped his foot... he's still standing, out of sheer excitement...

...anyway, number three was that, while we're hoping to buy a house, it seems that all the houses that have been languishing on the market are now under contract, and no new places are going up. Well. Personally, I'm resigned to the fact that we're renting for the near future. So what's happening now is that supply is declining -- and demand is probably increasing due to the time of year. So things are not looking good for buyers in the current, say, three-month period. But that doesn't mean that it will be terrible for us in a few months.

That said, of course, it really does look like prices are steadily increasing in the neighborhood we're interested in. And interest rates are going up too. So shit does not exactly scream, "just wait!"

Whatever. Can't fight reality. We will do our best. We have submitted an application to rent a place. If we get this place, it will be the shit -- it's hands down nicer than any place we've ever lived, with the exception that the neighborhood is a bit weird. Not scary -- not at all -- more, touristy. It's right next to the big museum in town. But anyway, my point is, maybe we can stay in this place for a little while, and simultaneously look for our dream house -- a Victorian somewhere in the not-too-distant suburbs. I'm sure W won't love that idea, in that it entails waiting. I don't blame her one bit for that -- she's been waiting a long fucking time. But it might be the right thing to do.

And -- among the things that we're not worrying about tonight -- it's far from a given that we'll get this place. We've submitted an application, which shows that we don't have any income to speak of at the moment; the place is very pricey. We'll see what goes down. If we don't get the place, we'll have a lot more worries.

Meanwhile, the loud table has left. The music has changed, and frankly it's bee a bit hit or miss. I think it's the Police right now, not sure. I told myself I'd order another drink if the waitress came over, and she has been pointedly ignoring me. Maybe it has to do with the way I'm back here in the shadows looking shady. But I suppose this is the good lord's way of telling me to go home to my wife.

For the record, by the way: when I do this, I always get one beer and one whiskey, and then head home. Because of tonight's special circumstances, I was considering having something extra -- a little celebration, you know. But it's not to be.

Ooh, it's "Hey Jude" now.

See you later.

I've been through a lot personally since I last posted. I don't have the time to go into it all here. But here's a quick summary: W, after the episode I described a few days ago, fell into a horrible depression -- literally staying in bed for three or four days, with the curtains closed, and taking pills like they were cough drops and drinking. It was nuts. She began slowly coming out of it on Sunday, I think. Then I had another meltdown, this time of a different variety: I was washing the dishes, and W made her way out of bed and came into the kitchen and hugged me. This was a very good thing, a wonderful gesture. She was quietly crying -- but she'd been crying at different volumes for days on end, so really that meant very little. But then I started sobbing a little. I tried to hold it back, because I want W to know -- or I guess I should say I want her to think -- that I'm okay, I'm in control, I'm taking care of things. She can freak out, and I'll still be strong and holding shit down. But I was completely incapable of holding my tears in, and then I just started crying like CRAZY. I don't know if I've ever cried like that before. I kept saying "oh my god, oh my god, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I didn't want to cry in front of her, and I realized that I was so sorry that things weren't working out. I just felt like, I have FUCKED UP YET AGAIN. I've failed my wife -- again. I put her through three years of waiting, put us so deep in debt I can't even think about it, and now when it's time for her payoff, I can't give it to her. And I cried for like twenty minutes, or more. I made my way to the bed, and was lying in the fetal position with my hands over my eyes, just sobbing. And W was comforting me, and telling me that it was all okay with her, and that she loved me.

Now, this is what I wanted to post about. I realized, thinking about this episode and its effect on W, something. I know she doesn't want a man who is vulnerable and needs taking care of (at least I'm pretty sure) -- she wants the guy I was trying to be, who will be strong and handle things, and take care of her and pamper her. But I think it is good for her when I show her my vulnerability. Because she pulled herself out of her horrible depression, to be strong for me. And ever since, she's been coping. Don't get me wrong, she still cries on the daily and breaks into bitter tirades about how horrible things are. And actually, the day following my meltdown she went even further than ever before, telling me that she seriously wanted to commit suicide. That's something I can't forget or ignore. She came to me, as if she wanted to propose this idea to me -- what if I killed myself? Everything would be so much better for everybody, she said. I sat with her, for hours -- basically all day -- and held her, and told her how much I needed her, and told her everything I could think of -- that I would be furious with her, that I would be completely helpless and lost without her, that I love her and need her in my life. And eventually she came out of that too. I have to remember this though. That's not the kind of thing that just goes away. She will raise that again some time, and I'll have to be ready.

Anyway -- having reminded myself of the timing of that episode, maybe I need to rethink my idea about how it's good for her when I am vulnerable. But the point is, I want to write this idea down so I don't forget about it, and so I can build on it if it makes sense to do so.

UPDATE: this is a few weeks later. I've been thinking about this. It seems completely crazy for me to say that she reacted to my breakdown by being strong and coping, when the following day she actually told me she was planning to commit suicide. But for some reason, it still seems true. I can't quite figure it out. Possibly -- and listen, this is so fucked up sounding -- possibly she said that to me to sort of even things out between us. I'm sort of picturing a scale here, you know, two pans. She had been very far down for days. When one of us is down, the other one goes up, to balance the other out, and to be able to take care of the other. Then I abruptly plummetted, and she went straight up. But her position, being up, didn't reflect reality at all: she was feeling absolutely horrible, and that fact didn't in itself change. Some part of her knew that I couldn't be allowed to languish at the bottom, because she needed me too; so I wonder whether she came to me saying the awful things she said as a way of evening out the scales between us. I sound like I'm accusing her of some horrible manipulation, but I'm not. I don't suggest she did this consciously at all; I just think this is the way our relationship works. I mean, I'm actually saying she has intuitively learned the lesson that I was just figuring out when I first wrote this post -- that by showing vulnerability one of us can be the catalyst for the other's recovery.

Something else that I'm not suggesting is that she was somehow lying to me when she said those things. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that she was feeling the horrible things she said she was feeling. But I think she came and sort of presented them to me as a way of saying, "look at me, I need your help, I need you to be there for me." And that's exactly what I did. And the fascinating thing is that we've both been coping ever since. Barely. Just barely. But we've been coping. And she's been strong for me.

i have made everything 100,000 times worse

I just want ot apologie to her and tell her i'll leave and she can be alone here. and that i love her and that i'm her friend and i'll take care of her and that i would never do that. and that she's not alone. i love her.

but here's the thing: after something blows up -- after an arguemtn, or even a particularly tense conversation -- i have a tendency to balme myself and get all caught up inside my head worrying about what i did. I mean, this even happens when a conversation wasn't tense, when i it just occurs to me that maybe something I said was rude or offensieve. so am i doing that now? and it always makes things worse when i try to apologize, etc. if I do that, apologize, basically beg her to forgive me and tell her i'll do anything, if i do that, will it make things worse?