Apparently I had a second folder of pictures of the Minneapolis Gay Pride Parade. Woops.
We have Senator Al Franken:
Apparently I had a second folder of pictures of the Minneapolis Gay Pride Parade. Woops.
We have Senator Al Franken:
Didn’t I just do one of these week in review posts? I did. But the last review post was late. I promised to get better about it. This is me fulfilling that promise. Hi.
This week I officially became the caretaker for my apartment building. This means I have a set of master keys and get to explore all of the super-creepy storage areas in the basement.
Most of the rooms are straight out of a horror movie – spider webs, dust, filth, former tenants’ abandoned belongings…old dolls…
Lush is one of my favorite bars in Minneapolis.
I believe that Lush is a converted body shop, so the front garage-door area of the bar opens up during the summer. This means that the occasional feline visitor appears:
I really need to do these summaries on a weekly basis because I end up giving short-shrift to everything when I wait two weeks.
What happened these past two weeks? Well, there was school, dates, drag show fabulousness, illness/rice socks, music production, the Minneapolis gay pride parade, diva-dom, and mass awkwardness.
The most exciting thing that happened during the last two weeks is that I finished my first song. Here is the concise version:
This is the first batch of Twin Cities Pride Parade photos. Ta-da! Click on the thumbnails to see a bigger version.
Yesterday’s video shoot did not go as planned.
I left work and got my hair fixed in Uptown. The salon was packed with gays and lesbians because everyone needed a hair-update before pride. I almost asked for a cut similar to this lesbian, but I already had a plan for the style that I wanted.
I wait for my stylist for about 30 minutes and awkwardly avoid eye contact with one of my gay professors and his partner. This professor is visibly uncomfortable interacting with gay students outside of school.
The professor is uncomfortable.
I get uncomfortable because he’s uncomfortable.
He gets more uncomfortable…so do I…and it’s just terrible.
I am typing this with a hot, rice-filled sock pressed against my face.
I was sick for most of the week, but this morning I woke up with my eye almost swollen shut. I was convinced that my face was rotting, so I made a desperate call to the school optometrist.
The receptionist said she could “work me in” around 3pm, so my work-day got off to a very late start. I walked the krakens around Calhoun and then spent the rest of the afternoon creating beats in Ableton. The Calhoun walk was pretty, if not a little hot.
I spent the morning at the Uptown Dunn Brothers my nose in my Ableton manual. I ordered Ableton last week, but it ships from from Berlin so I run the demo version on my school laptop.
When I came back to the apartment this afternoon to find a FexEx sticker on the front door of the building. Apparently Ableton arrived! The mailboxes for my apartment are tiny, so tomorrow includes an adventure to find the St. Paul FedEx facility…which might be a disaster…
After the dog walk, I jump in my car and try to head to school, but my neighborhood is gridlocked. There are no left hand turn signals to the highway onramp, and there is a fender-bender at the intersection I need to turn at.
So I cut someone off, bypass my regular on ramp, and decide to go through downtown… except the traffic is at a standstill at the next light as well because there is ANOTHER fender-bender at my left-hand turn lane.
As a crusty rising 3L, I don’t blog about school much anymore. Law school lost its new car smell about a year ago. The pedals stick, and the engine leaks.
But I remember how useful law student blogs were to me during the summer before law school, so I feel obligated to throw some unsolicited advice out into the interweb. Grab your salt, and guard your loins.
And don’t worry. I’ll be concise. Here are 5 points:
Now, when I tell an accepted law student to read Philalawyer’s letter, I get the same response: “Oh, well, gee, that sounds TERRIBLE! But well, it’ll be different for me.”
I have three things to say to that:
Just like joining the military is preferable to say, doing meth, law school is also not a terrible mistake for most people. It may be a waste of three years of your life and a lot of money, but again, it’s not meth. You’ll be fine. Maybe.
So, for those of you soldiering on,
If you only read one thing, then read “First Impressions: What You Don’t Know About How Others See You” by Ann Demarais and Valerie White.
The most jarring thing about law school is the amount of unchecked douchebaggery going around. It’s absolutely shocking and needs to stop.
I am pretty sure that classroom etiquette sessions are part of my school’s orientation schedule next year, but the vast majority if schools don’t offer these sessions, so it is your duty not to be “that student” during orientation.
Also visit student blogs and go through the archives. Law student blogs are best orientation you can get.
Some of the classic law student blogs include: But No Thanks, Butterflyfish, and New Kid on the Hallway. But check the rest of the blogs linked on the left side of the page, and those linked at Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground.
My optometrists are at the Mall of America Lenscrafters. I love them. They are competent and the assistants are hilarious. But the downside of going to the mall for contacts is passing this place:
The picture quality on this blog has gone down since I bought a blackberry. The blackberry camera is convenient, but I realized how inadequate it was when I tried to take shots at the Townhouse:
Although the blurriness captures the excitement of the night, I would have preferred clearer shots.
More pictures after the jump.
I discussed some of my dating prospects with Jill, a coworker, and then asked Jill if she had her eye on anyone. A law student maybe?
Matt and I are at the Saloon. I see a Hispanic guy wearing a thin white button down with a gaudy silver pattern on the back. He also has a “female” friend who made me instantly homesick for Miami – flat ironed hair, tight tank top, fake breasts, scandalously short skirt, and dangerous stilettos.
I couldn’t resist.
Me: “Oh gurl, you’re beautiful!”
Yamile: “Why thank you!”
Me: “I’m from Miami. You’re taking me back right now.”
Yamile: “Oh my god! We are from Miami!”
Physical Evidence is my only course. It is 2 ½ hours long, twice a week, and is all presentations from guest speakers.
Our first presenter was an expert on polygraph tests. The theme was that polygraphs don’t work and have no scientific foundation. And apparently polygraph testers purposefully ask embarrassing questions, like “Do you masturbate in front of a mirror?”
And yes, that was the actual example that the expert used. The expert’s theory was that virtually all men have masturbated in front of a mirror. And apparently the one guy who hasn’t is in trouble:
Expert: “If you haven’t then you’ll fail the polygraph test. You want to have masturbated in front of the biggest mirror you could find. And hopefully you feel really crummy about it! So if you haven’t masturbated in front of a mirror you’re screwed!”
It is 3am. Our group is outside of Pizza Luce in downtown Minneapolis, and an oversized bouncer is frisking us for weapons.
The bouncer pats us down, lifts our pant legs, asks for IDs, and then tells us the cover is $4. “Cover” is probably not the right word. It was applied to our pizza, so it was more like a down payment. I still thought all of this was a bit odd for a pizzeria, until I got inside…
After getting searched and charged, we stroll inside and experience the ghettofabulous scene: there were pimp suits, neon mesh leggings, candy colored stilettos, sweated-out weaves, grills, jelly rolls, folds, muffins, and zebras…. It was glorious.
We got our pizza and somehow made it to the Hotel Minneapolis without getting mugged. And although there are better pictures, I think this blurry shot best depicts the zombie-like fashion in which the guys attacked with pizza:
This summer my classmates and I are moving past law school and seeking post-graduation employment. This process involves a good deal of anger because we now realize how bad the job market is and how little our “prestigious” school actually prepared us for legal work.
It is like discovering that your “computer skills” degree from Global Flybynight University is useless, and that GFU is actually unaccredited.
Jill: “Just imagine standing over a toilet and flushing down $100,000. That’s what law school is like. And it’s horrible. It makes you chubby, and awkward, and miserable, and you actually pay for this…”
After yesterday’s 10-hour workday, I met up with Phillip at the Eagle. We ran into Shannon, who ran into a piece of gum:
It is raining. I am walking the dogs. So of course I have both leashes in one hand, my blackberry in the other, and a golf umbrella balanced between my cheek and my shoulder.
That’s when I run into my new neighbor, McDreamy, who has some sort of husky mix.
Between the phone, the leashes and the umbrella, I am awkwardly juggling too many things and trying my best not to drop anything. McDreamy wants the dogs to meet but I avoid eye contact because I need to focus on keeping Gertrude from lunging at the husky. She lurches forward and yelps. I almost drop the umbrella.
I look awkward. My dog looks vicious. It’s a giant swagger fail…and I blame her:
Tyler and I met at Wilde Roast yesterday after work. Tyler and I must be chatty-cathys because I look down at my watch and it’s somehow two hours later and I am 20 minutes late for picking up Roby at the Mall of America… woops.
I excuse myself, zip across town to the Mall, and beg Roby to forgive me for being on Miami time. Roby forgives me after a few bribes and we drive back to the city for $1 beverage night at Lush Bar.
Wednesday nights start at Lush because it has a video bar and the place is slow enough to have a conversation without screaming. So Roby and I stood and gossiped, watched Toni Braxton’s new botox video, and I had the pleasure of introducing Roby to Brett, one of my favorite people.
Roby and I then skipped over to the Townhouse bar in St. Paul.
Townhouse is a lesbian/drag bar right across from a Wal-Mart that also hosts a $1 beverage night on Wednesdays. I love going to the Townhouse on Wednesdays because the people watching …is amazing. Behold:
Roby wore plaid, and with so many lesbians in the crowd, of course he had a twin!
And, like every week, there was a tragic hot mess that we need to discuss, but the pictures are after the jump because she is NOT WORK APPROPRIATE. Let’s see…
