Getting the Perfect Lawyer Alone, part 6 26 February 2009

“Hey has your buddy Sara come out of the closet yet?”
“If by coming out you mean started wearing black plastic-rimmed glasses.” We both giggled into our drinks. “I don’t know, Jane, maybe she’s straight.” I stirred my ice too fast and the glass tipped. “I mean how else could she reject you?”
Griffothy stepped through the [...]

Getting the Perfect Lawyer Alone, part 5 22 February 2009

First time here? Start at the beginning.

The next time I got the perfect lawyer alone was a few Sundays later. We’d planned to see some play on Bleecker Street because it starred our favorite actress from the L Word. When we went inside, though, we found out it wasn’t showing. There’d been a [...]

Getting the Perfect Lawyer alone, part 4 20 February 2009

The plan was for me to come by the perfect lawyer’s place at 7:30. Just as I was about to ring the buzzer, Griffothy sprang out from behind me. I yelped. Curly hair bounced all over his forehead.
“Did I scare you?” He giggled and stabbed the lock with his key.
We made small talk up the [...]

Getting the Perfect Lawyer Alone, part 3 19 February 2009

I waited until the following Tuesday and then I emailed the perfect lawyer about getting that drink. We decided on Sunday since the Lolita tradition had lapsed a month or so earlier.
New York was charmed that year. All the prettiest spring days fell on the weekend. The afternoon of our drink date was [...]

Getting the Perfect Lawyer Alone, part 2 18 February 2009

During the second half, Ellipses and I left the auditorium to use the bathroom. I took my bottle. She said hi to some guy in the hallway and I waved the bottle around as I followed behind.
“White wine is so much better than red. I’ve spilled it a bunch of times and it’s totally invisible,” [...]

Getting the Perfect Lawyer Alone, part 1 17 February 2009

New York was the first home I didn’t plot my escape from. I attributed my satisfaction to the city’s “energy.” But once some weeks passed without seeing the perfect lawyer, New York started boring me just like everywhere else had. When I wasn’t drunk or reading con law, I wondered what the point [...]

Funeral, part 2 16 February 2009

First time here? Start at the beginning.
To prove that my uncle had died of a sudden heart attack, and that he had not shot himself in the head, his wife had arranged for the service to be open casket.

You might be thinking that’s a violation of Jewish custom. But my uncle converted to Greek Orthodoxy [...]

Funeral, part 1 14 February 2009

I got an email from my father during crim class. His older brother, my uncle, had killed himself. So I took a train to New England for the funeral.

The town was near the coast. It was cold in April and humid eternally. For the first few minutes of my trips to New England I always [...]

Office Hours, part 2 13 February 2009

The next Wednesday an extra large crowd showed for office hours. Feldstein took us into a nearby lounge where we sat in a long oval. I took a seat on the opposite end of the room from Feldstein, and for most of the hour and a half I just watched people lose arguments to him. [...]

Office Hours, part 1 12 February 2009

Now that I was raising my hand in con law, strangers started talking to me.

“Done the con law reading for tomorrow,” they would ask, in the laundry room of Dag or in line for falafel on MacDougal.

“Great job in class today,” said one of the guys who gropes people. “You’re really coming out of your [...]