The hits keep coming

I bombed a quiz today. And by that, I mean I probably missed three or four points. Unfortunately, the quiz is only out of twenty. And even more unfortunately, the average on the quiz last year was nineteen. So I probably got the equivalent of a D. That's pretty bad. It's even worse because two of the points I missed were because I just didn't get back to questions I only partially answered before moving on. Each question asked for three things, and I put down the first two that popped into my head and got on with it. Then I went back and double-checked some stuff, the two-minute warning hit, and I didn't get back to finishing those off. Very annoying.

Then I went back to my apartment. I've been alternating between telling people I live in my kitchen and telling them I have a kitchen in my bedroom. One girl from handball is leaving for a month, so another girl asked if it was okay for her to sleep at the first girl's place while she's gone. I jokingly said she was going to lock her out, and she said she'd just come stay with me if that happened. I asked if she wanted to sleep in a sink. That's my guest bedroom. A sink.

Anyway, I knew I needed to get to school a bit early. The bookstore was closed (for lunch, I assumed) when I left, and I needed to buy the supplementary reading material for my afternoon class and take notes. It was only like 14 pages of reading, so I wasn't that concerned. However, upon returning to the school, it was immediately apparent the book store was still not open. I did what I should have done earlier, which was to walk over and look at the stupid thing, and sure enough, the hours were for Monday-Thursday. I was screwed. Plus, this was the only class I hadn't been called on yet for a response. My time was drawing near. I walked upstairs and saw a guy from my class. I asked him if he had his supplement handy, and he said sure, so I grabbed it and frantically took notes for fifteen minutes I made it about halfway through the assignment, handed it back, and went to class.

We talked about a bunch of stuff, and I was enjoying the discussion. He had called on a bunch of people in quick succession about minor details for the case we had covered before. Then it came time to talk about this new case (the only one I had gotten through in the supplement), and sure enough "Mr.... Pesch?" I acknowledged I was there, and he asked me to give the facts of the case. (It's called Clapper v. Amnesty International USA) I said that basically the problem was that the plaintiffs were concerned the government was invading their privacy, and wanted to sue for damages and to make it stop. He asked how they could claim damages, and I said they thought it met both the "imminent damage" and "actual damage" requirements for standing (this whole unit is on standing, which is a complicated thing I might go into later). They believed they were in imminent danger of having their privacy breached, and they were incurring current damage as a result of trying to prevent that from happening. He asked how that could be, when they couldn't know they were being observed (it turns out the government isn't very forthcoming about who they are conducting their surveillance on). I said it was a likelihood the plaintiffs felt approached certainty due to their resemblance to past cases, the government's obvious interest in their communications, and the government's capability to observe them.

He then turned to another person for a reason the case lacked standing on the injury grounds. She stated the court's opinion (given by Alito) that it doesn't meet the imminence requirement due to the fact they can't prove the surveillance is taking place, and theorizing about it perhaps taking place requires too many assumptions. Among the assumptions listed were: that the government was sure to be interested, that the government would pursue action under the act the plaintiffs were suing under, that the government's court for surveillance would approve their request to observe the plaintiffs, that the government would succeed in carrying out the surveillance, and that this would have the result the plaintiffs were concerned about. Now, I had only read the case for about ten minutes before class, so I was wracking my brain trying to think of a rebuttal to this laundry list of criticisms I knew were coming. In case you don't know, the case was actually thrown out based on its lack of standing, so I'm arguing for the losing side. I was drawing a blank the whole time the girl was talking, right up until the professor looked at me for my response. Then I remembered my good old philosophical training, and I'm pretty sure my eyes lit up as a light bulb popped into a cloud over my head. "Yes, there are a lot of conditions that need to be met, but a long list of likely conditions doesn't make the outcome unlikely necessarily. If each of those things is actually reasonably certain to occur, then the hypothetical situation might still be imminent rather than unsubstantiated." Sure enough, he took that and ran with it. He asked me some leading questions, like "So, Mr Pesch, how likely is it that the government would want to observe known terrorist connections?" "Pretty likely, I'd say." "And how likely is it that the government agencies will use this statute (the most current one, rather than others still on the books, but from years ago)?" "Again, I'd say that would be the most reasonable assumption." "Have you ever heard of an agency having its request to survey known terrorists turned down?" "I can't say that I have." "And would we be correct in assuming the government is capable of such surveillance?" He didn't wait for my response here. He just continued with "I think we'd all be pretty uncomfortable if the government couldn't do that." With that, class was over. I had nailed it.

Then the most remarkable thing happened. The two girls sitting in front of me (both from my section; this is a two-section class) turned around and said I did a good job. I said "I know, especially for not actually having the supplement!" and raised my notebook to show my half-page of frantically-scribbled facts. They said something to the effect of "no way!" Next, one of the smarter guys in the section complimented me, saying "Wow, he really stuck with you for a while. Nice job." I thanked him, mentioning again that I didn't have the supplement. Greg told me that he probably called on me due to my choice of clothing. I guess a shining pink beacon at the back of the room is a likely target... Then, on my way out, yet another guy said I did good, and then asked if I was going to play magic this weekend, as there is a new set coming out. I said I wasn't, and that I generally didn't play magic unless I had a bunch of free time, as it eats up both time and money. I stopped during undergrad, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to play much during law school. He said he was buying a box, and that he might get some drafts or something together, and I said to look me up for sure if that was happening.

I walked outside, only to realize I didn't really need to leave yet, so I went back into the library to type some of it up before I departed. On my way back into the building, the millionth guy in a row congratulated me. Then he asked if I was going out with the section right after class. I said I didn't do the bar scene since I didn't drink, and he said I was welcome to come hang out anyway. I made a noncommittal noise, and he let it drop. I got to the computer lab and started typing, only to have a girl come over and ask if I was going out tonight. Again, I declined. She said she figured, and that she hadn't seen me at any of the events. I told her she was likely to keep not seeing me, but to have fun. It was about 3:40 when the guy who lent me the supplement walked into the library and came over to ask if I had done the online assignment for 4:00. I panicked a bit, and said no. He asked what I was doing then, and I said blogging, but that I really needed to get that assignment done since I forgot about it entirely. I thanked him again, and was like "That sure came in handy!" He looked confused and then said "Oh, that was you?" Yes. Yes it was...

I rushed through the online assignment and forgot to print it once, but got it in with a minute or two to spare. Then I remembered I still hadn't mailed my entry in to the handball tournament next weekend. So I biked home and got the envelope. The only mailbox I knew about was most of the way back to the law school, so I returned with banana bread in tow to type the rest of this up while watching some videos online. Typical Friday evening for me after all. Computer and food. But things are certainly better than they were right after the quiz. All those compliments totally drove that from my mind, even though that was worth a grade and the participation wasn't. So that was my day. I wanted to get it all down while it was still fresh in my mind, but I have even more to type, so I'll start the next post right away. Thanks for reading!

I put pictures in it so it wouldn't look as boring as it is...

Okay, I've slept. It's amazing how that helps.

A few things I forgot to say about my weekend:

I got mango juice! At the store with my dad. And that bears mentioning because MANGOES! I like mangoes. And there were items in the box of food I wasn't quite expecting. Like whole almonds and whole brazil nuts. Which might have been okay, but I have no table, so in cracking them I was left with quite a mess on my hands... Good thing I stole that vacuum cleaner! (I mean, good thing my dad forgot that vacuum cleaner and I totally didn't remember it either for a long time as it was sitting right in front of me; whichever you think is more plausible...)

I also took a picture of the jersey I bid for the frisbee in, since it's the first time I got dirty in Minnesota and everything...

As you can see, I do not lay out like you are supposed to. It's no wonder my shoulder has constant problems. (In case you don't know, the dirt should be on the front. I lay out onto my shoulder and then obviously slide on my back.) I lay out correctly at handball, but I guess the sports just have different requirements. For instance, in handball I have to be able to get up quickly for the next shot, and I also have to be able to direct where the ball goes, generally in an upward manner. But in frisbee, the only goal is to reach as far as possible, and I feel like I reach farther with one arm stretched as far as possible than if bidding onto my front.

Also, because my dad brought me a bedframe and a dresser, the dresser took up all the space I was using to put shoes. But the bedframe solved the problem:

Should a boy have this many shoes? I'm even wearing my sandals! And I still want more shoes, too. I need brown dress shoes, for instance. And I'd like a pair of shoes to run in that aren't coming apart on the bottom, but I guess those would replace the running shoes I have, not actually add to the count...

I have a great way of keeping track of my groceries. I have an ongoing list (like everyone, I'm sure), but I don't take items off the list. I just move them down the list on the other side of a break in the list. So when I buy something, I move it down, and when it runs out, I put it back up, and then when the list on top has more things on it than the list on the bottom, I go shopping! That could be a while now, though, since I have too many things I wasn't accounting for. Like fruit, for instance. I ate three pieces of fruit with my lunch because I bought bananas and grapes, and then my mom sent me apples and pears. At least there wasn't overlap. And through some further clairvoyance, she must have seen me pick up the cashews and put them back down, since she sent me those too! My parents are great. My mom even tolerates 1:00am phone calls. And then sends me emails until after 2:00! Either she's incredibly dedicated or I scared the crap out of her. It was probably some combination.

See that? That was a segue into what happened after my crazy night of no sleep and half-depressing, half-distract-myself-with-interesting-things-that-happened post. At least, it was a segue until I ruined it. Now it's just a broken transition, going in circles like a wheeled apparatus for lazy people to drive in tour groups. That's right, segue metaphors. I'm cool like that.

So. I finished my post, went to the bathroom, contemplated going home for an hour, decided to just stay here (wardrobe critics be damned!), and went back to the library. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I must have still had a bit of adrenaline or brain-frenzy or something weird, because that wasn't happening. I waited it out, though, and fell soundly into a peaceful slumber. Or that's what would have happened if I hadn't jerked awake twenty minutes later out of a nightmare where I was sliding face-first into a wall! I don't have any context to go with that. I just remember jerking awake like in those fake dreams where you're tripping and you catch yourself by sitting up in bed. Except I was in the library and my hand had gone numb from my head being on it. The people started trickling in, and I pulled out my book and briefed a couple cases before going to class.

My classmates haven't really approached me all year. I've always been the guy who nobody really knows. The guy with the headphones in, the guy who gets to class just before it starts and leaves right when it finishes. It turns out all I needed to do was look like a dog had dragged me across town and jammed caffeine pills down my throat. Apparently I'm much more approachable that way. From now on, my pickup line will just be to not sleep at all and look really sad. Works like a charm. That's my way of saying that two girls actually came up to me and talked. Not one. TWO! And at separate occasions. The first asked if I was doing okay because I looked really tired. I said I hadn't slept, she asked if I was studying, and I had to hold back a laugh. Of course I wasn't studying. God, who would have to study? Nope, can't say that. But that's about all the filter my brain had the energy for, so I mentioned ex-girlfriend talks/troubles, and she gave me a pitying look. She asked some follow-up questions, but I was saved by class starting.

Then we had a study group session that I was thinking about skipping but didn't because we have a quiz in that class on Friday. And a girl sat down beside me (when there was an empty seat two seats away, might I add), and started a conversation. Or our practice quiz started the conversation. I'm not sure. But after I said I was up all night and went through the same routine, she mentioned she had just watched a TED talk about how sleep deprivation really messes up the neurology in your brain. I agreed wholeheartedly. Then she mentioned she saw my (recently changed) Facebook picture of me biking and asked if I did that. I said I don't really do the racing thing anymore. She asked out of the blue if I had ever toured, and I said, yes, as a matter of fact, I had done a bit of that (ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY). She said she bought a bike, and four days later she biked the Mississippi river trail from north to south. It was all a bit more than I could handle. I go from no contact to talking to a girl about actual relevant things, and it seems the only thing I have to do is tie a sign to my body that says "pathetic" and have giant rings and wrinkles under my eyes. The secret is out, gentlemen.

Oh, one other detail. I forgot my headphones in the computer lab. I must have left them still plugged into the computer when I left. That sucked, until I found them right where I left them, still plugged into the computer some fully-covered foreign girl was using. This happens to me all the time, actually. On multiple occasions I've left my Magic deck at the table after I'm done with a match. No big deal, just like $1,500 dollars in cards (minimum) sitting out there for free. On two separate occasions I've had Xavier help me look for it. Both times he was right in the middle of ribbing me out when we went up to the lost and found and they handed it back to me. He thinks I'm the luckiest guy. I was skeptical until the same thing happened with my whole backpack. (That had more money in cards than I have in money inside it.) So I got my headphones back.

I was back to myself the last two days. You guessed it: no follow-up. I was actually relieved. Headphone defense is a powerful thing. I will try not to let my guard down again. Sometimes I don't even have music playing. That's actually the best, because someone will approach you and yell a bit, and I'll give them this very confused look because I've totally forgotten I have headphones in, and they will take that to mean my music is playing so loudly I still haven't heard them and repeat it again EVEN LOUDER. Then I realize what's going on and shake my head, taking my (silent) headphones out of my ears so they know they can talk in a normal voice. That happens a lot, and every single time it is exactly the same. It's sort of like when you tell someone your name, and they repeat it back to you, and you nod to let them know that yes, they did in fact hear your incredibly simple name correctly, except then they say the last part wrong! And you've already nodded, and in the case of the guy in my class, the professor has already moved on, and that's his name forever now. Hilarious.

That's all I really have time for tonight. I have some reading to do for tomorrow. I have a couple poems started though. I also haven't posted any poems to that other blog since the first three because I wasn't happy with the edits I did. Either I didn't change stuff and I knew I wanted to, or I did change something and I'm not sure I liked it. But in going through my 6,000 emails, I found even more, so I'll try and get to putting a few up in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading!

Oh no! It's part-depressing, part attempt at normalcy! What do we do, captain?

If you A: decide to read the post turn to page (this page).
If you B: decide to flee for your lives, turn to page (any page but the other depressing ones)

Whelp,

It's 4:00. Just another one of those nights, seems like.

I just went through every email in my gmail account. That was an impressive feat. when I started, my inbox had over 4,000 messages. It now has 20. There were over 6,000 messages total. There are now 3,339. And I discovered some interesting chronological facts. There were 947 conversations with one particular lady, who I conversed with at some length tonight. Reading through, it is actually depressing how excited we used to be just to email the other person. Chat logs from when I was in class reveal snippets like "I can't wait until you get home!" and brief emails I sent her stated I would have breakfast ready for when she finished her morning class. It has been four years since we started going out. She first contacted me in November of 2008. Five years of knowing her, and tonight I was told we can't even really be friends. That there is no hope of ever being together, no matter what. I did not take the news well.

Surprising, I know, since I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and haven't slept since before that. You'd think these conditions would be ideal for handling bad news, but alas, 'tis not the case. A frantic call to my mother at a silly hour provided a much-needed voice, but it turns out that when one person doesn't want to know another person anymore, there isn't actually much recourse left. We talked anyway, mostly trying to figure out what I was missing that would help me begin to move on. I just want information, which seems to be the one thing that I can't really get at. According to my mother "people are just complicated things" and "you can't understand them." How very inconvenient.

I hate to think of it as a five-year investment. I know I wasn't just "putting in my time" and hoping to be rewarded at the end. It was actually a really good relationship for a lot of it, and despite the problems, I was always sure it would eventually smooth itself out. See, I was fairly confident I had found a girl with the right characteristics that meant, even as she changed, matured, etc. she would still be the kind of person I would want to be around. She was kind, funny, and incredibly eager to try anything that sounded fun. She was at the same time a hard worker, athletic, determined, and intelligent. And I honestly don't think these qualities changed much. What did change was our attitudes toward each other. We talked for a few hours tonight about what it was that made me less appealing to be around, and it was, in general, my complacency. My laziness.

I knew I was being lazy. I knew I wasn't living up to my potential. I wasn't the bright college student with a patent in the works, who played frisbee and handball while lifting and running, biking, and finding time to send tons of flirty emails. I was the guy who woke up at 11:00, read articles about Magic: the Gathering on his phone until brunch at 1:00, and stayed up until he fell asleep. I was the guy who watched season after season of whatever tv show caught his (our) eyes. In a row. I was no model of attractiveness. I focused on activities she didn't share (handball and magic), didn't go to school, and worked minimal hours. And I was content, because I knew deep down it wasn't going to last. And it didn't. I got my applications in to law schools eventually, and I committed to the best one that would give me a scholarship. I wasn't worried about attending, but I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it more than doing "whatever I wanted" with my time.

Well, it turns out that I do enjoy it. I feel more active in the classroom than I ever have in my life, and I haven't even spoken more than a handful of times. I've played more quality handball than I could have otherwise. I even played frisbee for the first time in a long time on Sunday. It's all been amazing, barring the breakup. What really bites about that particular thing, of course, is that now that I'm happy and feeling similar to the guy who wrote those flirty emails, who made time for gmail chats at all hours of the day, who set aside time to cook and who had the pleasure of watching her face genuinely light up at the prospect of some time together. I know that's not who we are, of course, but the contrast between then and now is harsh, especially because I can still picture the girl learning how to throw a frisbee, who biked miles just to see me and talk about music, and who filled chat boxes with <3's at the prospect of a weekend together at Mount Rushmore or in Chicago.

My legs have alternated between numb and tingling for the past few hours.
My stomach hasn't unclenched to show its hunger
So I guess, as small as it can be folded in on itself,
It's full.
And yet my head feels empty, waving over my shoulders
On a neck behaving like the playground spring toys
My too-tall sister and her good friend (My ex-friend?)
Would jump on as I looked around a bit furtively
Wondering if any pram-pushing mom's were judging us
Instead of grabbing my own seahorse, cow, or fish
And joining them for a grinning, brimming minute.

That just sort of happened. I started that sentence thinking that would be a normal paragraph, and then it didn't quite turn out like one. I don't really know where to go from here. I guess I'll talk about my weekend?

My dad came and visited me! That was really great, actually, because I'm really bad about leaving my apartment, and he drove me to go get groceries I couldn't get at the Aldi I walk to. So I have ketchup and soup and stuff now, all without high fructose corn syrup. And Bisquick! I was actually really excited about that. You know something's changed in your life when you're amped up at the idea of adding a bit of liquid and some eggs to some pre-made mix. But there you have it. My "cooking" to date has consisted of heating up various sources of protein (beef, chicken, eggs), boiling noodles, pouring milk over cereal, and eating fruits and vegetables. Bisquick is like the gourmet trial of my kitchen. I'll even have to use the oven...

We also went to Target (a store I never go to because it's more expensive than the bare minimum), where I got some decent pens, another notebook (because I can't count the number of classes I have), some cutting mats so I stop cutting on my counter, and some underwear (compression shorts as well as stock, humdrum stuff). See, it turns out that it's easier to just buy more of whatever item of clothing you have the least of than it is to do laundry. Unless everything happens to run out at the same time, I could go broke using this scheme of avoidance, especially considering the dresser my dad brought with him. So much space, and so little variation in my wardrobe... Interestingly, the underwear (normal Hanes stuff, from the look of it) is much thicker than the stuff I'm used to. This must be a recent development, since I'm sure  it wasn't the case when I bought mine only five or six YEARS ago. Man, underwear really stands the test of time.

My dad also brought with him a vacuum cleaner, some food (fresh tomatoes from the garden!), and a bed frame, so no more sleeping on my ground mattress. It reminded me of my freshman year of college for a while there. My freshman year I had my own room because someone left our floor and my roommate moved out. I promptly dragged his bunk bed into the closet, pulled both mattresses off the beds, and just put them on the floor. I wasn't climbing no stinking bed frame if there wasn't going to be anyone else in the room! So I worked sitting on my mattresses at a coffee table, and slept on a mattress on the floor. It was great. This time, I had a box spring anyway, so it wasn't quite a perfect simulation, but again, I am improvising a study arrangement. I have no chair. Instead, I use a pilates exercise ball and for a table I have an upside-down laundry basket! It works great, actually. I have the book I'm reading at the time on my lap and my notes on the basket in front of me. And I'm ready to bounce into action at a moments notice.

Astute readers from last paragraph may be wondering about the vacuum cleaner. Yup, my whole apartment is carpeted. Of course, by "whole apartment" I mean my closet-sized floor space with attached kitchen appliances, but still, it means that any food dropped makes things dirty in a hurry. And there's nothing quite like picking up your noodle from the floor and wondering whether the added fuzz is a good source of daily fiber. So my parents sent me a vacuum, for one-time use, and my dad took it back with him. Or meant to take it back with him. Instead, he dropped me off after dinner, and by the time I noticed it standing there it wasn't worth returning for. Profit!

Let's see, what else happened? I played frisbee! We have an intramural team with three decent players (including me, and defining decent as I wouldn't mind playing with them outside of intramural), and a whole bunch of other people. The roster had like 18 people, which is entirely too many for two 20 minute halves per week. That's right, one game a week, timed halves, no score limit. My captain is Greg Arenson, and he's a stud. He played for NexGen (a touring frisbee team), and was first team all-region his sophomore year of college. He was probably all region a bunch of other years, but that's the only one I came across (I was reading all my emails recently and there was a LOT of frisbee-related chaff. Some of it was links to things like "Michael Brisbois: second team all region" though, and lo and behold, there was Greg's name). He said he was already feeling out of shape, but I think we all were. Oh, and we only had nine people total show up! And one of those was a girl who didn't want to play much, and one was a guy we called as a last-ditch effort when we had five people total because he was the only one whose phone number we had readily available.

We went up 3-0 to start. Greg then mentioned we should take it a bit easier on them. We did so, and the scored. He then said "screw that, let's crush these guys." And his word was our command. We rattled off like five straight points (mostly on just throwing it deep to whoever wanted to run) before my highlight reel point came to pass. I decided it was my turn to sprint deep, and Greg unleashed a monster forehand. This guy can throw! Seventy to eighty yards easily, and I missed a step because I didn't locate the disc right away. So there it was, going further than I thought, and everyone was already yelling at Greg for throwing it too far. So, I "kicked it into high gear" (aka propelled my short little legs even more ridiculously) and made one of the best bids I've ever made. I was actually full-extension, a couple feet off the ground, and it was epic, because as almost anyone can tell you, I rarely do cool things like this. I even touched the disc! No, I didn't catch it. I hit the top of it with my hand and it landed in the back of the endzone as I plowed a furrow with my shoulder. But I made a sweet play on it, and everyone (both teams) seemed quite impressed. I got up, made sure I wasn't bleeding too badly, and got back on D.

"Now we could end the story right there, but shorty didn't quit, there was something in the air. Something about it, he knew he couldn't doubt it, something appealing, he couldn't fight the feeling..." That's right, I kick, PUSHED myself into a layout D on the first throw of the next possession. I was "guarding" the handler who picked up the disc (we had stopped playing good defense a while ago), and when I saw him glance to his right and cock back a forehand, I took some steps off him, spotted his wide open receive (see citation about no defense to speak of), and bid. I got a solid D, and, being me, immediately picked up the disc like you're not supposed to. The first person downfield should never do that. It just gives them free stall counts as your team catches up with you. But Greg saw, and Greg is fast, so Greg ran into the endzone. I, needing to cap things off in style, wind up this monstrous push-pass grip and let it fly over the heads of both of the people involved in the D I just got to Greg who was just drawing level with me at the time. Of course, it hits him in stride ten or fifteen yards in front of me for the score. Highlight of my recent memory.

Thanks for reading! I'm going to end this here (it's 5:20, and I need to do my homework yet before class at 8:00), and I'll pick up with depressing things again next time.

Have keyboard, will post

Man, money is difficult. I have a bunch of things going wrong right now, and it's really frustrating trying to get them all straightened out. The first thing is that my credit card was charged fraudulently a while ago. This happened before an autopayment I scheduled, so I payed for the payment and then I filed the claim. Sure enough, a credit appeared on my account. That was all well and good, but I hadn't bought anything for the credit to be applied to, so I used the card to buy textbooks. I bought a book from the bookstore, which was twice as expensive as the one online, and then bought the one online as well, planning to return the book from the store. I did that, and was happy with the hundred dollars I saved. But now I looked at the credit card report and the credit still hasn't been applied to my account. To make matters worse, the credit for returning the book also isn't appearing. So I'm currently out over $200, which is really frustrating. I also need to go talk to the financial office here about where to send my scholarship money and to make sure that money will be okay to be received by me. I hate dealing with all this money stuff. Very annoying in general.

I should have taken the advice people have been giving me to just keep doing things to forget about being broken up with, but I didn't really do that today. Instead, I returned to my salvation in the computer lab, but even three episodes of Breaking Bad and live streaming Magic coverage from Atlanta wasn't enough to keep me occupied, and I've been feeling a bit sad. This won't be the post where I go into things in depth, but be forewarned, the storm is imminent. In the meantime, I made note of a few things worth talking about, so I'll hit those up.

The first topic is this video Sarah sent me from her beloved NPR:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/09/05/219266779/our-cultural-addiction-to-phones-in-one-disconcerting-video?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20130908&utm_source=mostemailed

If you didn't watch it, it's basically just making the point that cell phones are ruining EVERYTHING!

I waffle back and forth on this topic. On the one hand, I hate to see three people with their phones out not talking to each other, but on the other hand, I've totally been the guy up at night on his phone. I've also been part of the group of three people, and as long as nobody in that group was hoping for eye contact, that isn't necessarily as bad as the video makes it out to be. The only time it gets bad is if someone without a phone expects reciprocation (like the girl in the video is obviously hoping for). I guess it might also be a little different for me because I don't have that many friends, so if I'm in a group, it's not usually because I actually want to be spending time with each one of those people. So when I'm talking to the friend I do want to be there with, I don't look at my phone, and when that person is talking to other people, my phone provides me with an out so I don't have to talk to the other people there I don't really care about. I'm rarely even doing anything on my phone. I just have it out and look at a game I've already moved in, and it solves my awkwardness problem.

Phones are also really handy to have when you're in a conversation. Or maybe just when you're in a conversation with me, because I tend to spark controversies that need settling, and phones provide a great way to do that. When a person runs out of something to talk about, a phone provides endless topics. The only time phones really get in the way is when a person is trying to social network (which I assume is what's going on in the video). Then they are showing a preference to people other than the one right in front of them, which does seem a bit silly. I also get irritated by people constantly taking pictures to send to people who aren't there, or for later, when nothing that cool is actually happening. Remind me to tell you about the only time I've been to "the bars" sometime...

The thing about having the phone in the bedroom might be a bit different from my perspective also. See, I don't sleep well/at all/easily, and I usually stay up until I feel certain that if I go to bed I will fall asleep quickly.  Otherwise, my mind starts wandering and I really hate where it goes. Before my phone, this meant I would either have the light on, have a computer on, or be in a different room entirely, none of which were as good as having my phone. It disturbs whoever you're with to have those distractions, and not being in the room just makes both people lonely. But having my phone (or iPad), means the lights can be off and not distracting while I can be distracted, a critical element unless I want to start feeling depressed. The iPad lets me read with the light off, the iPhone lets me stream something, etc. while allowing me to roll over and sneak a cuddle or hug or other sign of companionship. I'm not saying everyone should have their phones out all the time; I'm just trying to provide my point of view and preemptively defend myself against people wanting personal contact.

The other thing I was going to talk about is how much weight I've lost! Of course, this means broaching the Rebecca topic again, but whatever; that seems unavoidable. The story is basically that Rebecca had said she wasn't feeling attracted to me anymore, and I said, naturally, that I would do whatever I could to make that change. I asked if it was because I weighed more than when she met me (I'd put on ten pounds or so since my sophomore year of college). She said that might be it, and I put myself on a diet. I didn't really know how to go about that, so I just thought of all the things I've heard of people doing and combined them. So the restrictions I currently operate under are:
1) No carbs after 5:00 and no food after dinner. This was motivated partly by the Atkins people and the people who say eating late at night is bad for you. Just thinking about it made it seem likely that carbs (that take longer to break down, I think?) shouldn't be cut entirely, but I'd heard that while sleeping the body converts a higher percentage of food into fat than while awake, so I wanted to limit the amount of work it was doing then.
2) Portion control. This was a lot more important to me when I just started trying to lose weight. I took careful precaution not to eat more than a handful of food at a time. I would only eat when I felt like I needed to, and if I still felt hungry fifteen minutes later I might have a bit more.
3) I started eating healthy. This was more challenging when I was in Ames (and in a relationship), because I don't buy unhealthy food here. One of the more frustrating things was Rebecca offering me ice cream, cookies, candy, etc. while she knew I was trying to lose weight. I guess she just didn't remember or thought I would be making exceptions for things she was also eating, but as has been discussed earlier, when I commit to something, I don't do it halfway.

The results have been pretty great. I lost ten pounds in the first few weeks. Since moving here I haven't been nearly as good about not eating late or right before bed. Also, I've been making bigger portions for myself, since I'm not really doing this for anyone anymore, and only because it seems healthier. I started this mission at 167 pounds, and I even saw my weight over 170 on a couple of occasions (when I came back from a magic tournament having eaten as much as possible without moving for instance). I now weigh about what I did in high school. I took this picture yesterday:

153!

I haven't noticed a huge change in my energy level or what I look like, but I put on some shorts I bought before I left, and this was the result:

I can't figure out how to rotate this!

There's a lot of extra space in that waistband, which is both awesome and frustrating, since I didn't bring a belt. And I probably wouldn't wear a belt anyway.

So I don't know which of these things to credit the most for losing weight, but I do know what seems to work for me. To be honest, it's probably mostly the fact that I just really wanted to lose weight, and I was willing to feel hungry to make that happen. Now I am less thrilled by that idea, and I seem to have stabilized somewhat around 155. But I'm also not working out as much as when I was in Ames, when I was playing frisbee twice a week and handball twice a week. But I'm starting intramural frisbee tomorrow, so maybe...

yeah, that's not going to be the same at all.

It should be fun though. I haven't thrown a disc since I've been here. I was considering playing left-handed if this situation cropped up, but I want to make my captain want to play with me, so I will be trying pretty hard for the first time and I'll see where we are after that. I should really start running again, but I don't really like my neighborhood, and I just haven't been thrilled about being in public now that I'm in a city. I restrict my time outside my room to being on campus and biking as fast as I can between the two locations. And I walk to Aldi once a week. That's it. And I wonder why I'm lonely...

Well, that's all I had noted for topics to say. I'll just edit a few more poems, I think. And if I feel like depression is about to overwhelm me, maybe I'll start complaining again. Thanks for reading!

Wheeeeeeeee!

Hello there!

I finally made my way to the computer lab in the library, and I must say, it's odd to type on a real keyboard for a change. My fingers aren't used to the work involved, and each key press makes my wrists wonder how long this is going to go on. And I'm not sure I am typing any faster what with all the times I have to hit the backspace key. I don't use that function on my iPad because its autocorrect feature is so good. I just hit the space button and usually the word I was supposed to be typing appears.

I'm writing to announce a few changes/updates to the whole blog situation. This will still be my hub of operations, but I've started yet another blog for my poetry (peschpoems.blogspot.com). So I'm gradually taking the stuff from the entries here and hopefully other places and I will put it all on there in separate posts. And I'm editing them as I do it, so they're going up a few at a time. My plan is to continue to write everything here raw, so if you like to read all about me, this is still the place to be, but in case someone stumbles across my blogs and doesn't like to read about my emotional problems, this gives them another way to access my stuff. I've added a little gadget-y thing to all my blogs (hopefully), so you can just click them on the right side of the screen over there -->

That being said, this will probably be updated pretty frequently, but I can't guarantee it will be creative-oriented as much any more. I have a bit more free time and fewer people I want to talk to, so I figured I'd just cut to the chase and tell anyone who wants to listen. So I'll write anything here, but I'll start new blogs as I feel they are warranted. I'm thinking I might start one just about law school, for example, so people searching for cases can see what I thought about them, or people interested in the experience can get an idea of what I'm doing as I go through it. But maybe that's what this is already? So I'm not sure. I just know that when I want to say something, I'll come here first and divide later accordingly. So you're not missing anything by continuing to read here.

I really like that poem I wrote a while ago called "Trouble with Chess." I just put in on my other blog, and I was going to revise it, but then all I did was change capitalization and punctuation. It even gets better when you read it twice, because the chess metaphor applies to the military so well. The soldiers are the pawns on the board obeying commands and standing there defending the people while occasionally being sacrificed. People think that progress is good, meaning that we get involved in everything, when it might just be better to sit at home and defend ourselves rather than interpreting everything that happens as a reason to move.

"Skepticism," on the other hand, is incredibly underwhelming. I added a bit to it, but I can't decide whether the correct move is to add to it or take away from it. It might be better as a shorter poem, but it might need even more in order to get to the point I wanted to make (on top of the whole I can't see God deal). I might revisit it again later.

I edited the "Church" poem to smooth it up, but I didn't actually change it to be actually satisfied with it.

I really want to write a short story, as I feel that was a cool part of my life, but I can't think of anything suitable at the moment, and I'm not even sure how I went about doing that. I guess it started differently every time, but this time I feel so lawed-out that I can't really think of anything other than court cases, and I'm not sure how much fun it would be to read about a lawyer or something filing for a jurisdictional dismissal of a case.

I've also been slowly bottling up little things I've been sad about recently, so there's probably another depressing "I'm lonely and I don't understand why my girlfriend left me etc." post coming soon. Don't worry, I'll let you know in the title if you should brace yourself. For now, I'm just staying busy trying to track down poems. I think there are a bunch on the computer I have in pieces at my parents' house, but there are also some that I emailed to myself for classes, and I'm sure I can find some saved somewhere... I just can't quite put my finger on it. Did I back them up somewhere? Anyway, I have a lot of them to keep me busy just from this blog in the meantime.

Nothing really exciting is going on as far as law school is concerned, which is probably fantastic news, since it seems some of my classmates are starting to feel overwhelmed already. Unless something changes drastically about the experience soon, I'm afraid "they" will have been incorrect again. Every single time I change educational "levels" I'm told I won't have as easy a time of it this time, I'm going to have to actually apply myself, I'm not going to have the free time I used to have, I will have to work carefully to balance life and schoolwork. The list goes on. And yet again, I'm feeling fine about everything, haven't put in any more work than I want to, finish my readings on time, have the relevant material in my notes, and have plenty of free time. I play handball for four hours a day two times a week for Elliot's sake. (I really need to meet a Pete, so I can say it for his sake. In this case, Elliot gets the honors as he's probably the nicest, smartest guy in our classes. He's already passed the bar in California!) And I obviously have even more free time on my hands than I know what to do with, as evidenced by the length of this post, if nothing else.

I've pulled two all-nighters already I guess. One because I don't respond to rejection well, and one because I took a nap in the afternoon, and I was just getting tired around 2:00 am when I got a phone call that a fellow classmate was in the library and couldn't figure out how to access his assignment materials. I wasn't quite done with mine, so I went and made sure he got everything figured out, then worked on mine even more. This turned out to be fortuitous for him, since he went to the bathroom and locked himself out of the library! So I was there to let him in, and just stuck around from 3:00 to 8:00 when class started. I'll admit, that day was a pretty bad day as far as information assimilation was concerned. So if my classmates are doing that sort of sleep-deprivation regularly, it's no wonder they are feeling overwhelmed. If you aren't operating with a fresh mind the text turns to gibberish and the professors might as well be asking you to translate enigma code. So maybe I'm just abnormally good at reading the material and getting the necessary stuff out of it, or maybe they are all drinking instead of putting even the (what I consider to be) minimal amount of time into the reading.

This post has gone on for a long time. I've been in the computer lab since just after 3:00. I was about to leave when I remembered I forgot to print off a thing due at 4:00. I also remembered I hadn't ever learned how to use the printers. So I reentered with a bit of trepidation, only to find this computer lab in the back of the library. It's delightful. I took the computer in the back corner, and I think I might never leave. I have my headphones in streaming commercial-free internet music, I have my Google Chrome account synced to my phone and iPad so I can pick up wherever I left off on any device, and I am loving it. And being able to type faster is exhilarating. Having an apostrophe key is only something you appreciate after you've been without one for years. And just in the course of this blog post I've stopped making the stupid typos that were requiring the backspace key, so that's not an issue anymore. If I was faster at thinking creatively, I'd be tempted to write things of substantial length, but even when I feel like I'm in "the zone," I think about each word I write, so typing isn't the limiting factor. For this though, I just think about a topic and the rest comes out.

I will undoubtedly write more soon. Probably as soon as my depression outweighs my new-found enthusiasm for typing. But I'm going to take advantage of this and put the photos in I couldn't with my iPad, and update my profiles places. Be back soon!

Thanks for reading!

Segue part 3

In yet another autobiographical foray into law school...

Oh wait, just kidding. I'm finally creative!

Church

The church is the biggest thing in town
Huge, hewn stone, hauled hundreds of miles
A testament to Christianity,
A monument in itself, to the rightness
Of righteous belief
For who could haul and hew
If they knew
Their questions would go unanswered
Their inquisitions, begged on bended knee
Fly out of flying buttresses,
Bounce off the belltower,
And bring nothing but silence
But belief needs no concrete
The tons of stone are enough
Their mere presence a testimony
To the belief of the builders

The unbending, balustraded nave
Brooks no bouts of doubt
It's physicality manifests harsh juxtaposition
To my infirmity
For my beliefs have have never sparked
Such superior structure
Such skyward-seeking symbology
Such arduous adoration
Never allowed me assurance to commit
Wholly,
To assert my authority over attention

You can't help but look up to it
Neck craned and cricked in stricture
You can't help but hear it
The ringing adulation of the bells
Extolling virtues in idyllic scripture
So who am I to doubt
The devout
As I wander,
Ghostly,
Unseen and un-momentous below?


I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The first stanza was written in my iPad as a note from when I was living in my car in Missouri. I remember when I was writing it I wanted to make an ironic transition from the devoutness and righteousness the people felt while they were building the church and their certainty in their religious and compare it to the pyramids. The pyramids were built by slaves, of course (and there are probably plenty of parallels I could draw to the mindless way people seem to follow religion today), but the sheer size of the task overshadows the churches completely. I was going to say something to the extent of "if the people who built this church did so as an exhibition of their belief and their authority in that belief, imagine how much more devotion and authority the Egyptians had. But then I wrote some other stuff that doesn't quite go with the first stanza. There are a couple of interpretations I am thinking of for how I wrote it, but I'll keep those to myself in case I want to revise it to more completely adhere to one of them.

I also found this in my notes from Missouri:

Last night was the first night it was actually cold, and my feet hurt for a while before I eventually got back to sleep. It wasn't until around 9:00 or 10:00 this morning that I realized they were numb when I tried to walk and felt unbalanced due to my lack of toes. All was well soon after, though, as the blood started moving and feeling came back. I believe I will break out the sleeping bag tonight, just in case. By the time I thought about it last night, it was too cold outside of the blanket to warrant trying to remedy the situation. I figured all that was really cold were my feet, and it wasn't worth the risk, so I'd just cut my losses. Yet another reason not to leave decisions to my tired brain. This comic pretty much sums it up:  http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2402

I'll write more soon. Just wanted to post before I'm off to my next class.

Segue part 2

I just spent a half hour or so reading old blog posts on my phone while editing a couple of them on my iPad. Then I looked up at something a person near me in the room I'm in said and realized my eyes couldn't focus at all! It was disconcerting to say the least. Then again, it did provide yet another occasion to appreciate having LASIK done. I've been taking that for granted the past couple of years, but occasional bouts of blurriness are exactly the remedy required. Not having to put in contacts every morning is still a huge deal to me when I remember to think about it.

So anyway, I found the sections of the document I had already posted, which didn't actually leave as much original material as I thought. Most of it is unfinished poetry abandoned because I wrote myself into a bit of a corner that I knew I could get out of but didn't have the willpower to think about at the time. I am decidedly less poetic these days than I was when I was blogging regularly before, and I'm not sure whether to blame it all on law school or not. I think it's mostly because I just don't read much poetry these days. The more I read of anything the more I assimilate the style. This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to writing for my legal writing class on Thursday, but on the other hand, it's sort of depressing reading my old poems and thinking, "Wow! That's actually pretty good; I wrote that?"

Further depression can be found in the subject of the poems (Rebecca in many cases, obviously, but also just being excited or thoughtful about things I no longer find intriguing). Like it or not, I have to admit I'm slowing down and settling in to who I am, which seems to be limiting my range on things I'm really willing to get excited about. Or maybe it's just my removal from philosophy, that field of thought that encourages taking the slightest idea to its extremes just for the sake of mental excercise. Right now the only things I'm really devoting that sort of thought to are finding loopholes and thinking about all the ramifications of particular legal procedure. Which is all well and good for my first few weeks at law school, but I can easily see this profession eating up my natural tendency to explore new areas of though. That's not quite accurate. Rather, my tendency to explore will by redirected solely to law, which is a big enough field that you can explore its particulars for your entire life and be quite content and stimulated mentally. But to anyone who isn't a lawyer you look single-minded, one-dimensional, and probably pretty boring. Plus, I'm not sure I'm willing to devote that much of myself to this yet, so I'm just a bit apprehensive.

With all that said, I'm hoping this will be my last purely autobiographical post for a while. I plan on rewriting a few of these poem scraps from my recovered documents, and I want to make at least a token effort to maintain some diversity in my writing style. My autobiographical stuff has always bordered on the technical and properly-phrased anyway, and being in law school will only serve as a reinforcement. If I don't try and do something creative soon, the self-perpetuating cycle of legal writing and autobiography will have taken their hold to an inextricable level.

That said, I have a story from class yesterday! I even forgot to tell my mom while I talked to her, so it's new for everyone. In my torts class we were talking about the difference between negligence and intentionally disobeying the law. The case involved a man whose horses escaped and one was killed as he was leading them all back home on the side of the road. The one struck by the car wasn't bridled, as he couldn't catch them all initially and two had simply fallen into line after he started leading the ones he had caught home. There is a specific statute governing the case that says a man can be held liable for damage in this scenario only if he placed the stock on the highway intentionally. The case includes indemnifying dialogue where the man admits being familiar with the tendency of horses to spook at cars, and he even says he has had horses killed in this manner before. Because intent is defined under a summary of law as having a "reasonable certainty" something will happen and taking the action in light of that knowledge, it wound up being a pretty open and shut case. When prompted for a way of defending the case, one of my classmates said the first thing he would have told his client was not to mention anything tht could be construed as intent. Frame the case only as "I took the horses I had secured back to my ranch, and I had no control or obligation regarding the ones that followed of their own volition. Therefore, I never intentionally placed the horse responsible for the damages on the road." This is actually a pretty reasonable line to pursue. However, when confronted with the dialogue, my classmate said, "Well, I would have told him not to spew any of that stuff about his certainty." This prompted the professor to say, "Now, I know you guys haven't had ethics yet, but I'm just going to caution you against advising your clients against 'spewing the truth' all over a courtroom." Laughter ensued.

Oooohhhhh noooooo! Curse my blind faith in updates being better than their predecessors! I updated an applications I use to watch people stream live games and now there are ads all the time over my videos. This is almost as bad as when I did THE EXACT SAME THING with YouTube. One day: ad-free, delightful viewing to my heart's content. The next: 30 wasted seconds on every video watched on my phone. I have an ad blocker on my computer, but my phone does not have that technology. As a person who could watch up to thirty or forty videos a day, this represented fifteen or twenty minutes of my life down the drain (on top of all those videos!). So I stopped watching. I didn't miss it much, but I was proud of having seen every single episode of sourcefed and a few other channels I followed closely. This is not nearly as bad as the YouTube update, as I watch these videos for a longer amount of time, so I'm losing less time as a percentage, but if I had only known...

One small step for me. One giant segue for this blog!

We only got through one case in my contracts class today. People just couldn't stop asking the most repetitive questions, which is frustrating because during orientation we were specifically told multiple times that anything we didn't get through in class would still be on the final, and that we'd just have to read hundreds of pages the week before we took the test if we didn't keep class moving along. Which brings me quite seamlessly (if I hadn't thrown this seem in, of course) to my next grievance: what was the point of orientation if we didn't learn anything useful and even the stupid little tips we did get are going discarded? I got an email recently asking me to fill out a survey about the usefulness of orientation. I really hope I win the random drawing for the gift card after putting "extremely unhelpful" or "no opinion" for every single response. Don't worry, I explained the reason I didn't have an opinion about so many things was because after realizing how useless everything was, I skipped as much of the procedures as possible. The short response section was challenging because I was asked to reflect upon something they did well. All I could think of was free pizza, but even that was sort of greasy. I doubt they're going to take my advice for how to improve it, since scrapping it will deprive the person who's ONLY JOB is to make sure this event is worthwhile and enjoyable.

So nothing interesting happened in contracts, and I have an hour to kill before my torts class. I already did some reading/briefing during my break and don't really feel like being lawyerly at the moment, so I figured I'd write a bit. But I don't have that much to write about. I guess you'll have to bear with me as I take a bit of stream of consciousness approach.

It used to be that I couldn't write very well with music on in the background. I had a couple of classical stations ready at hand for occasions such as this, but I've been listening to this station by featuring a rapper called Childish Gambino for so long at this point tht I don't even find it distracting any more. He has to be the cleverest writer I've come across, even if he's a bit too explicit for me to recommend to strangers. I never know what the rule is on explicitives these days. On the one hand, I hear elementary school kids throwing around the whole gamut of what were considered extreme when I was their age. High schoolers even swear around their parents on occasion, and frisbee tournaments are a whole conflagration of weird situations. On one side of the YCC fields the heckling and profanity rage wildly, while on the other the parents are trying to find tactful compliments that they cross their fingers and hope are relevant. So maybe there aren't inappropriate lyrics anymore, but the thought of adults (I'm obviously still not an adult) appreciating and laughing at lines playing on the concepts of ejaculation, chauvinism, "hood rivalry" and felatio still makes me grimace. But they are so clever! The artist's name is Donald Glover, and he starred on the tv show Community while also writing comedy for at least one other show. He had a brief part on the show Girls, and probably some other stuff if I bothered to look him upon IMDB. He also does live standup! It's weird, because he's a different person in each of these capacities, and yet another person in the interviews he gives.

We are starting to get into the definition of intent as it relates to tort law, and while it's not ll that different than I was expecting, some of the specific cases are a little interesting. The first we looked at was the one that was responsible for changing the definition from intending the harm to intending to commit an action that was "reasonably certain" to result in harm. This is a much broader definition. So if you intend to harm someone you are liable even if you don't succeed, and if you don't intend to harm someone, but you commit an action intentionally that you reasonably know will have that effect, you are equally liable. In case the second definition needs clarification, I found one case particularly illuminating:

A seven year old was playing in a car lot with two friends. One of the friends was on a ledge, and the little girl forced her off, after which she sustained serious injury. The little girl was certainly not thinking at the time "I want to hurt her;" she just wanted to take her turn on the ledge. But she knew that her actions could (or probably would) result in the girl being hurt. So even though we don't hold children responsible for the intent behind their actions (the reason we have an extreme aversion to assigning the death penalty), the girl was liable for the consequence of her action.

I started writing some poetry just now, but it wasn't coming out right, so I switched to classical. Then I gave up temporarily and moved it into my notes section. Then I realized I have many, many unfinished things in my notes section. Then I realized I have a bunch of stuff that reminds me of Rebecca in my notes section. Then I deliberated over what to do with all that stuff before moving it to the back of my notes section because I don't have any idea what I actually want to do with it. Then I compiled all the unfinished stuff into one big document. Then I remembered I might have actually posted some of it, but also that I have some drafts of posts on my blog site still in the editing phase. So my new mission is to put those into the same big document as well, figure out which things I've posted, delete those, and then put the whole thing into production. But for now, due to having wasted half an hour deliberating and collating, I need to go. So no creative fun stuff today, but steps are being taken, never you fear!

Speaking of steps, by the way, I got a reply to an email I sent about getting access to my scholarships from Magic six or eight years ago. One step closer! (included mostly for mother's benefit-one less thing to nag about)

Eclectic insomniatic recollections

Man, I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping any of these the entries. The first is a depressing pity party, the second is legal droning, and the third is unreadable gibberish! I apologize in advance. I'll get my act together soon, I promis.

My diet is not prepared for college. I don't eat carbs after five o'clock, but when I don't sleep, when do I get my first bowl of cereal? If I were getting up early to go somewhere, I would eat it now, I suppose.
I've lost ten pounds on my diet though, so I'm pleased with it overall. And that's even through a day at the fair where I went a little crazy. I was raised on the Iowa State Fair, or course, and I was always told it was the basically the best state fair in the whole wide world. Then it turns out that the Minnesota State Fair is even bigger by attendance! I consumed the following list of items (in order):
Mango milkshake from land o'lakes
Turkey leg from a barbecue tent
Deep fried cheeseburger
Deep fried macaroni and cheese
Stromboli filled with ham, onion, green pepper, and cheese
Deep fried cheese curds
Deep fried snickers
Deep fried Reese's

The winners were the Stromboli for quantity for price, cheese curds for best idea and deliciousness, and deep fried Reese's for novelty that was actually good.

There was an official drinking night on Thursday for my first year law class. They are cleverly called "bar review." Then last night was an official party for my class called 1L dis-orientation. I doubt I'd have fun if I went, but it sucks to see people walk into class laughing together about segmenting, knowing I'm not going to be quick to form bonds like they are.

The vuelta is going on this week in Spain. It's actually really interesting, especially if you're like me and like rooting for ancient Americans! In case you don't know, Chris Horner became the oldest guy to win a stage of grand tour and the oldest guy to lead the overall of a grand tour. Then he broke his own record a few days later with an astonishing performance, climbing away from the climbing specialists and putting a minute into his rivals. Unfortunately, he can't time trial, but he's still in it in fourth place. There are so many subplots in this race though! Tony Martin had what might be the single most impressive solo ride I've heard of during an early stage. In case you don't know, he is pretty unanimously considered the world's best time trials specialist, bit because there is only one time trial in the vuelta this year, he worked on his form by attacking by himself and going solo for the entire stage. The race coverage counted him out with about ten kilometers to go, but he was within a few seconds of taking the stage. They speculated that if Fabian Cancellara hadn't given chase, he might have don it. Cancellara is probably the second-best time trialist, though Bradley Wiggins might have a bit to say in the matter. Then came the time trial, and true to form Tony Martin led by over two minutes when he crossed the line. Cacellara was down over 30 seconds stthe first time check, but a wrinkle was thrown into the proceedings with a hill. Cacellara made up over a minute on Martin on the climb and stole the stage win! Other notable occurrences: Gilbert (reigning world champ) won his first race of the year, barely squeezing it in before the world championships around the corner. Nicholas Roche is having a breakout race, establishing himself as an overall contender. And some F1 race car dude bought a Spanish team.

Girls are weird. I'm sure almost everyone is willing to accept that at face value and move on, but let me elaborate just for fun. My close friend Sarah came back from the air force to visit last week and accompanied me to the fair. (those who know me are probably nodding their heads, saying they knew I wouldn't have gone to the fair entirely of my own volition) Sarah has been my friend since high school, and we have the ability to tell each other anything. After agreeing to that a long time ago in principle, it's gotten to the point where it's actually true in fact. It all started I suppose because of our fascination for each other and our mutual desire to have an outlet when things got rough. It wasn't immediate, but we both kept testing the limits of what stories the other person would find shocking, and we eventually ran out of stories before we ran out of tolerance. And now, because we feel like nothing we say to each other really has the power to shock the other person anymore, it comes a lot easier. Rebecca was always jealous of this connection. When Sarah's dad passed away last year, I made it my job to do anything I could to help her get through it, and seeing me care for someone like that wasn't easy on Rebecca, especially because we weren't sure where we stood after our relationship had taken its most recent hit (another stint with that teammate from before) and left us in limbo for quite a while. That is what it is. I'm not going to dwell on it here, but it was obviously hard for Rebecca to see me showing compassion for someone else at that point in time. That's not that weird. When I told Sarah recently how I was pretty sure my relationship with Rebecca wasn't going well, she mentioned how jealous SHE was of Rebecca and my relationship! She recalled specifically one time we went in to the restaurant she was working at and had a meal, and she thought the way we looked at each other was so profound (or something like that), and heartfelt that she almost couldn't take it (she had recently gotten out of a relationship at the time). So both of the girls were unhappy and jealous of what they thought the other had, and I was sitting there in the middle, almost clueless! Granted, I picked up on subtle things, and wasn't entirely surprised when they told me later, but in thinking back, it just makes so little sense. I was just trying to do what I could for each of them, and in doing so, I drove myself apart (at least somewhat) from them both.

Well, it's getting light out. I guess I'll try and take a nap to make my headache go away, and them get on with me day. I have a meeting with an advisor person today at their house (I have no idea why), and I'm still trying to figure out what impression I want to make.

Hopefully the disjointedness wasn't too awful. It's hard to tie things together when operating on half a brain. Thanks for reading!

Mundanity from Mondale Hall

I read my profile on here and I was happy I got to change a couple things! The first is that I'm no longer assured of never getting a job. On a career path and everything. My mommy would be so proud (I hope none of my readers mind baby talk). The second is that my location changed. I'm sure you probably know this, but I'm going to law school at the University of Minnesota! I've always considered this a real possibility, but I'm actually here, in an apartment and everything. I'm back to the minimalist student lifestyle I actually enjoy. I guess that's compared to the mostly minimalist part-time lab worker, which may not be much of a distinction, but it's sure different to me. A welcome change, especially after my first week of classes reassuring me I'm in a place I want to be. The only other real thing that changed is I added a "law (I guess?)" to my interests. It probably still falls behind those other things, but it's gaining steam. (Watch out, cooking, it's coming for you...)

So here's a bit about my life:
One of the things I missed about being a student is the sleep schedule. I sleep whenever I'm tired. I woke up this morning at 5:30 having slept a long time the previous afternoon and did my reading for my civil procedure class as the light started coming in my window. My reading for my classes consists almost entirely of interesting cases. In my contracts class we are examining what it takes for a contract to be binding. When examining a case I have already been trained to "brief" it, a process where you boil it down to its core relevant facts. The format I use looks like this:

Title: who is suing who, year case occured, what type of court
Rule: the question the case is trying to answer, the precedent that gets set
Facts: a summary of relevant facts
Verdict/relevant commentary: what the judges say about why they ruled the way they did

Each of these things is surprising in its relevance. For instance: the type of the court makes a huge difference. In one of the early cases we were looking at the court found that the disict court had made a mistake, but there wasn't anything they could do about it because they were only an appellate court, which doesn't have the authority to make rules or law, just to say whether a court should take another look at the case. So they basically said: yup, that was wrong, and the decision stood anyway. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but the smallest facts wind up having bearing on a case. The only thing that distinguished two cases I read for today was whether or not the defendant had mailed anything BACK to the plaintiff. In the case where they did, the state court was ruled to have jurisdiction because it had a reasonable expectation of being pursued in court. Basically, because they acknowledged the contract went both ways, they gave the court of the state they were mailing into the authority to hear the case. Because the corporation availed themselves of the protection of the state by directing their attention there, they give informal consent to the state's jurisdiction. The second case, where the defendant didn't respond to a client but only mailed them their monthly trust fund, they did nothing to direct their attention there in such a manner, so the court found the state (Florida) had no jurisdiction.

My first decision predicament came up today in a case where four judges thought the verdict should be against the plaintiff for one reason, two judges agreed with the verdict but for a different reason, and three judges thought it should have been a different verdict entirely!

The facts were such:
A foreign company sold a piece of heavy machinery though an American distributor, which was bought by a man in New Jersey. The man sued when he was injured operating said machinery. Naturally, be attempted to sue the company, but the company tried to get the case thrown out on jurisdictional grounds. (we are dealing with jurisdiction in my civil procedure class) The company denied it had the minimum ties required to be held accountable by the court of New Jersey because it had no offices or representatives there. The first four justices agreed with the corporation, saying they had not introduced their product into New Jersey specifically, and so failed the test of availing themselves of the protections provided by that state. The fifth and sixthjustices said that there was no reason to go so far as to provide that reason for denying compensation, but instead just stuck with strict precedent, saying no court had ever found jurisdiction in a case involving a single sale. The sixth, seventh and eight all thought the guy should have been able to continue with the law suit because the foreign company, in marketing to the entire country via a distributor, took upon itself the burden of facing trial in any state. It shouldn't get out of lawsuits just because it took the step of selling through a distributor instead of establishing an office in the united states. If this last option sounds the most reasonable, congratulations! You're on the side of the liberal judges on the court.

The interesting bit of this opinion is actually how we interpret the case as far as precedent goes. First instinct for me was to just say the plurality ruled and go with the decision reached by the four judges. This, however, is not how we do it. When there is no outright majority, the court uses the narrowest construction that agrees with the verdict. So because the two judges assert the least interesting thing, there's is the opinion we use when evaluating whether a future case will have a chance of success! Weird...

In what used to be the case for jurisdictional precedent (a case called Pennoyer V Neff) a man was only able to be tried by a court if he was served with a summons in the state or if he had property in that state. This led to a case where a man was followed onto a plane knowing the plane would be passing over the state in question at a given time, at which point he was served with papers.

Anyway, in case my yammering on hasn't given it away, I'm finding my classes engaging and pretty interesting. The professors are all pretty good. It turns out that because they all have probably been lawyers, they both know what they're talking about and want to be there. In case why they want to be there isn't immediately clear, it's because they've already made money! They're done with that bit, so they're not in it to get tenure and live out their lives on a measly salary. They are still practicing if they want money. A number of them still consult on cases, so they're current and invested in the field.

I had seven cases on the jurisdiction of courts that I read for today, and I only thought two were tedious. That is a much better ratio than most other topics I can think of studying. I haven't made up my mind about constitutional law. I really like studying the constitution because I think it's an incredible document to have been written to stand the test of time. The class is off to a pretty slow start though. The professor has a method of teaching where he calls on people for the answers to questions based solely on a roster, which is fine I suppose, except that he sticks with the person he called until they say the thing he was going for when he framed the question whether they know it or not. This process of him leading them by the nose can take a long time depending on how obtuse the person is being, to the extent that he sometimes tells them the specific passage he is thinking of and waits for them to read it through before moving on. Ugh. I've never had patience for this sort of thing, and watching a girl whiff on the judiciary branch as the one with the power to interpret the constitution for five minutes was almost more than I could handle.

The last class I have is called torts. The professor has a good teaching style, and the class seems decent enough, but I haven't quite gotten as into it as my other classes yet. I'm actuall in the middle of answering a question in that class though, since we had to stop due to time while I was talking about the barometric set by a court when it comes to the care a person needs to act with in order to avoid being sued for irresponsible action. In my case a man is beating two dogs (which are fighting, so it's not just plain cruelty; it's maybe almost justified cruelty) in an attempt to separate them. In doing so, the dogs move toward him and he takes a step back and in doing so hits a man behind him in the eye with his stick. The man sues him, and the first court says he should have acted with particular care given the situation. The supreme court disagrees, saying that the standard of care is one "any man would deam reasonable in the situation as long as the action was a necessary one." Under this revised definition the case is sent back for a retrial so the jury can use this new definition in evaluating the case.

That's all the case law you can stand, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I can already go on and on and on about this stuff. And it's only been a week!

Other than classes I have had two required lectures about citation already. Apparently it's a big deal around here, to the extent that if you italicize a comma after a citation they might not let you into law review. If you abbreviate the citation though, you have to italicize the period. Just so you know. Real important.

Another reason I was excited with my change of venue is the new group of people I have to play handball with. I showed up last week Tuesday and spent the day getting used to the courts and making friends. I made sure I didn't win a single game, and just got to know people and who was notable in the group. Most of the games were close (21-19, 21-17 etc), and I didn't feel like anyone was really better than me. The courts are nice. They have eight courts with glass back walls and two of those have glass side walls. They are fantastic in that they have tinting on the inside to make it slightly more opaque, enabling me to see the ball without looking straight through to the things on the other side of the glass. This tinting can't be seen from the outside. Shots felt a bit more dead off the glass than I was expecting, which led to me letting some shots drop behind me I thought I could get and then me looking like an idiot. But whatever, right? The worse I am, the easier I am to talk to, I hope.

Sure enough, I get invited to go out drinking after handball. I decline, and also decline their invitation to the fair Thursday afternoon. In what seems to be a theme for my experience in Minnesota, I pass on easy social experiences because of my personal restrictions. So no handball on Thursday because they are at the fair. Tuesday rolls around and I show up right after my class gets out, meaning I'm an hour early. I warm up and work on my shots for forty-five minutes, and I'm feeling pretty good about things. Sure enough, I beat the best player to show up (a couple didn't come for whatever reason) 21-12, 21-3, 21-6, 21-4. We stuck around after everyone else left because he wanted to play a third match, and then he was unsatisfied with the result and demanded a quick fourth. Neither went his direction. Thursday was a different animal. Four good players showed up in addition to the people from Tuesday. I played three of them, winning two easily and losing to the third 21-20. I have an excuse at the ready though, never you fear. I forgot my eye protection! So I borrowed someone's backup pair of glasses ( I never play in glasses!), which, as they were the backup pair, were scuffed and not quite transparent. And because they were glasses and not strapped on, they had an annoying tendency to slip off my nose and hang on like an annoying mustache during some of my more ambitious shots. This was not helpful.

I played a new style of three-player game, which was kind of cool. It's one on two, game to seven. The single player serves first, and if they win, it becomes a game to fourteen instead. If they win that it goes to twenty-one. If they lose, the next player plays one on two. I liked it. It's a hard challenge as the single player and as the doubles team you are fighting for your chance to play singles, so there's a decent incentive to win quickly.

Here's a picture of some of my notes for today:

Back and badder (worse) than before (skip if you don't like pity-parties)

I told some people this would start up again after I went to law school. Well, it just so happens that is is the first real chunk of free time I've had since that happened. And lo and behold! The improbable occurs. I'd bring you all up to date, but I'm not sure where that would even start, so let's assume that because you're reading this, you probably know me. (This isn't edited and it's typed on a laggy, autocorrect-happy iPad with bad Internet, so either comment or just tell me sometime if it's awful. Grammar-wise, that is. I already know the subject matter is nigh-unreadable...)

That only leaves current events. Surprisingly enough, I've got a bunch of those too! Unfortunately, one of them includes my official newly single status. It sucks having to say I told you so when I know it means I'm going to be in pain, but I have to say I called this shot a month or two ago. I even went so far as to tell her mom not to get her hopes up. (Wow, that sounds really weird and depressing when I think about it. Trust me, there's context: she was saying how she was glad we were working through things and I was in the middle of feeling rejected, so, knowing that Rebecca moving away would be exactly the impetus required for her to end things, I said I wasn't so sure and that I couldn't make Rebecca do anything she didn't want.) Her mom just said she was sure we'd make it.

I'm still in a bit of turmoil over the whole thing, not only because I don't handle rejection well, but because I still don't quite understand all of the issues cited by the other party (I think I used to talk that way before I came to law school? Maybe not? It will all blur together soon enough I'm sure.) I suppose the second thing might easily be subsumed into the latter, so calling it a different problem could be a bit overreaching. Anyway, when one of the two people in a relationship doesn't feel "the spark" anymore, there's really nothing you can do. I feel justified in saying I tried, though there are certainly two sides to every story. From what I gather, from her side I am frequently underhandedly insulting, incredibly obstinate (no contention there), and simply uncomfortable to be around. I'm not sure how much of this is a product of me as a person or simply the way the relationship turned out, but there seems little point distinguishing between the two. Whether it is our history together that makes it uncomfortable to spend time with me or a fact about me as a person makes no difference in this case.

The biggest thing I took away from our most recent discussion is a fundamental difference in how we go about our lives. I (as I'm sure at least a few reading can attest) tend to make a decision after thinking about as many of the facts I can under whatever time I have to consider them and then stick to that decision as hard as possible. If new facts present themselves, I might briefly consider whether they weigh in enough to change course, but having taken a particular path carries its own weight (probably because I hate admitting I did something wrong, more than anything), and I rarely change. One advantage to this is that I almost never regret a decision. Having chosen to do something, when I look back I know I did it for reasons that at the time I felt justified it. The action may, in hindsight, not have been the optimal one, but I almost never feel that there's a good way for me to have known that at the time. The only things that I immediately regret when thinking back are things I was unable to consider rationally when I decided them. One of those things is quitting tennis in high school. The other is yelling at Rebecca that she didn't know what the $&?! she was doing (half the time). I think I said half the time. I don't know for sure.

To be perfectly honest, I feel more comfortable with the second example. Not because she just broke up with me (I hope), but because I had even less time to think before I said it. We were in the middle of an argument, as I hope would be obvious. If I were to go around yelling things like that out of the blue, I could hardly feel justified in my current unhappiness. I was incredibly frustrated because from my perspective I was correcting her out of concern for her safety, and from hers I was overbearing as usual. Obviously, my line of reasoning should have been a bit more refined than the shouting of expletives, but in hindsight, I said what I felt and had reasons in mind for saying it. I later explained these reasons (because that was obviously going to help the situation). That actually didn't help the situation. Odd, I know. She was forgetful about wearing her helmet, she flatted her bike often, had recently ridden recklessly through traffic, and on this particular occasion she was riding rapidly at night right at the back of a person I wasn't sure she had seen as we entered a pedestrian tunnel (which said to dismount if on bicycles). I told her to slow down. She did not enjoy that, as it comformed perfectly to her idea of me as an overbearing individual. From my perspective, I had let the past three things I noticed slide, and just really didn't want something bad to happen here. She said she had seen the guy walking and I didn't need to treat her like she didn't know what she was doing. After a bit of back and forth, kabaam, I blew it.

This isn't actually that big a deal in the whole grand scheme of things, but it is the most-cited example of hers for how she was unhappy, so it is quite prominent in my brain. And I deal with things in my brain by writing them down and hoping that makes them less of a problem. It rarely does.

Tennis, though! I have profound regrets to this day. I almost never think about what might have been. I love that about my system. But I had committed to tennis. I was getting good, it had only been a few years, and then I came to the "realization" I probably wasn't going to go to school on a tennis scholarship. This deflated my enthusiasm. Then my coach told me something I didn't want to hear, and rather than doing ANY OTHER THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, I chose to say I quit. And because I had been thinking about quitting before the altercation, I let myself think I had made an informed decision (albeit impulsively), when in reality I just wanted to let everyone know I had other options and that they were lucky to have me playing their game. I ran varsity track instead of playing tennis. I was fine. I ran a 4:42 mile, cracked 4:40 once I think, and still felt like that justified quitting the sport I enjoyed far more. I sure showed them!

This is not unlike my decision to quit frisbee my senior year of college. Again, I wanted to show them a lesson. I wanted them to come and ask me to play, to offer to change something so I'd come back. Instead, they went on with their lives. I would have felt almost as bad about this as tennis except for the fact that Rebecca cheated on me over winter break with one of my teammates, and after that I wouldn't have been able to show up without doing something very irresponsible and likely would have quit anyway. So that mitigated some of the guilt for opportunity lost.

Perhaps this is why I can't handle rejection. It wasn't my decision. I don't carefully consider the factors and decide this relationship was over. I saw that it was over, acknowledged tht Rebecca wasn't going to be happy with what I had to offer but that doesn't make it hurt less, because it wasn't up to me. I just agreed to abandon the sinking ship, as any logical person would. Or in a more fitting analogy, I scrambled up the perpendicular deck of the sinking ship, perched myself on the bow, and kept waving and shooting flares until my toes, then ankles, then knees got wet, and finally found a life raft. Of course, I haven't quite gotten to the "finding a life raft" bit, but hey, I can tread water for a while.

All of this and I still haven't explained how my decision making is different than Rebecca's (again with the caveat that I operate with imperfect knowledge). She is much less confident about her decisions. And did you know the best way of remedying that ISN'T to tell someone to just do what you do and stop feeling anxious? Well now you (and I) do. Most recently this manifested itself when she said she felt like I was preventing her from being the person she wanted to be. I, of course, told her to be whoever she wanted and I would embrace it. She responded with the fact that she didn't want to do things she thought I would disapprove of because it meant I would think less of her. She knows I don't drink, for example, and being the frisbee player that she is, she attends a lot of parties where that is the norm. She has recently decided she likes alcohol. I have not reached the same conclusion because no new facts have been brought to my attention since I made my informed and logical decision years ago. Does this mean we could no longer be happy? I, of course, can say no, since I no longer have to abide by that assertion. I know plenty of people who drink copious amounts of alcohol, and I don't let that diminish my opinion of them. Of course I factor it into my opinion of them, but only to the extent that I know it's something they do that I don't relate to. What I did have a problem with was when Rebecca would lie to me about whether or not she had been drinking while away at tournaments or at other parties. Obviously she was trying to spare my feelings, but that only works when you can be sure I won't find about it.

The other thing she mentioned that she liked and I didn't was being part of a large group of people. I balked a bit at that, I admit. Strangers hold very little appeal for me. I was about to write that she could have just invited me along and I would have gone as long as she promised not to forget about me (true). But you know what? Perhaps she's right. Maybe I don't want to attend parties where I don't know people and everyone is drunk. If that's really the kind of person she wants to be, or is seriously considering that concept and not just looking for things that she thinks she wants to do just because she knows I don't want to do them and she feels I've been holding her back, I probably wouldn't be as happy as I would otherwise. I think in the back of my mind I wasn't quite giving her enough credit. I just assumed she wasn't going to be that person, that it was just an experiment she wanted to try before being the person I know her to be. But I obviously can't say that, especially after today. I have to accept I don't know her after all, and that it will just plain hurt for a while.

It's not often you get to see a person pass through the stages of their emotions on the written page, but I think it just happened in that last paragraph there. Now I'm just bitter. I'm bitter because I still don't know what I did wrong. I'm bitter because I'm smart, clever, ambitious, athletic, determined, responsible, logical, and hopefully one or two other things I can't think of at the moment, and I don't know what she's looking for if it isn't me. I'm the one who got her started biking, then playing frisbee. I had her read my books. I put myself into the relationship, like I do with everything I decide to try at, and I failed. And I hate failing.

So there's the bitterness. I'm bitter because I did try. It may not have looked like it. In fact recently she said she didn't like the fact that I wasn't nice to her dad when he didn't understand frisbee. The funny thing is, I was about to cite that as an example of when I was nice! See, he had no idea what he was saying, but he yammered on anyway. He said things like, "they can't let that guy throw, he keeps turning it over!" when the turnovers were caused by other factors (handlers not making good cuts, receivers dropping the disc, unexpected miscommunications, etc. Or "come on, don't let him throw that!" to throws on the force side when it was a breakdown downfield. The examples were endless, trust me. And I didn't chime in (as I am so wont to do) with a snide actually... You're an idiot, and here's why. I just grimaced to myself (I even made sure he couldn't see it! (though apparently Rebecca could)) and watched the game. The point is, my efforts at nicety were probably not obvious.

Wait.

Hold it.

That's it!

I think that's what she's looking for. After two years with me, I can't even blame her. She's looking for a nice guy. Not a guy who will do things for her because he wants to make an effort and likes to see her smile (how I flatteringly characterize myself for this self-pitying diatribe), but a guy to whom that stuff comes naturally. I honestly can say I can't give her that. Being nice isn't easy for me. I'm probably just too arrogant or something. What else, then, can I honestly not do? I can't overlook mistakes. I've never been able to do that. I can forgive them, but by golly do I point them out. I do this for two obvious reasons. The first is that I don't like inefficiency. If there's a way to do something better, I want you to know about it. The second is that I want to let you know what to change if you don't want to unwittingly repeat whatever mistake it may have been. A corollary to both of those things is that I know if I don't say something, it will only lead to more frustration in the future, because although I can bottle things up pretty well, I am pretty darn good at dwelling on them. Source: the part where I exploded about her bike stuff. Another source! This whole post! (Citing sources is very important in the legal profession. More on this later.)

So, and I've jabbed at her regarding this very thing, she just needs a nice guy who either overlooks her mistakes or doesn't realize she's making them. I'll do myself the nicety of imagining her with an unintelligent hillbilly for the time being. (This will naturally make it hurt all the worse when I see her playing frisbee with the best, most beautiful boyfriend the world has ever known, but I can only hope it helps enough in the short term to compensate.)

My sister just called and derailed my train of thought. Luckily, we didn't talk much about the current state of depressing affairs. We almost went down that road, and I actually felt myself choking up a bit, but she did me the good service of asking about school, which I was able to answer with only a minor hitch. (Sarah, thanks for calling. I know you mean well. Sorry I wasn't up for a heart to heart. I don't know if you could tell how close I was to crying, but that wasn't what I wanted to do, especially not on the phone with my little sister (big sister if you insist), so thank you.) It seems I can't quite muster up the bitterness required to maintain the velocity of this tangent. So without further adieu, or segue for that matter, here's everything about law school:

Just kidding! I didn't really realize how long this already was. So that stuff is in a new post. So you didn't even have to read this if you wanted to avoid depressing things and only here about my new life at school. Haha. Fooled you, sucker.

But really, thanks for reading.  It means a lot. Hopefully I'll gradually move back into some creative writing in addition to autobiographical angst, but this is what I needed at the moment.

No title for some reason

Skepticism

The clouds could open up
revealing the face of god
and I would attribute it
to a phenomenon of weather
an odd congruence of wind
and stratospheric distortion

So ready am I with explanations

"I feel Him when..."

When your endorphins kick in,
when you can't stand alone,
when mass reassurance
is the most volatile form
of peer pressure.

A man could walk across a lake
his glowing halo hazy
in the morning mist
arms outstretched as the blind
drop their canes
and the homeless cluster
around wine-spouting
water fountains,
and I'd say,
"just another copycat illusion,
a Criss Angel-style wannabe."

Poem:
Yep, I'm jaded. But also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBQLq2VmZcA

What are you supposed to believe these days? What would the second-coming have to do in order to get people to actually notice? A few willing conspirators and some special effects, and you've got a miracle.

Observation:

There is a sign at our local food store Fareway stating they ID anyone under 40 years of age. I thought this was an okay idea at first. That way they don't have to actually ID the people who are obviously over 21, right? Like the ninety year-old lady who wants cigarettes. Sure, that makes sense. But think of the other complications. Like the prematurely balding 33 year-old. This guy walks up, hand in his pocket already grabbing his ID, which he pulled out from his wallet with the expectation of flashing it quickly, only to be rung up and sent on his way, no questions asked. The worst part? Maybe he's so focused on the sequence of events he's expecting that when the cashier jumps straight to asking for cash, he is thrown off, fumbles, and bumbles, and now not only is he feeling prematurely ancient, he's clumsy too. That's sort of the obvious drawback of the ID sign. It doesn't prevent you from offending people by asking them for their ID, it just shifts the demographic of people you upset.

I guess you have to weigh your options. If the sign says you ID everyone, will the old people be mad? And will they be more mad than the 43 year-old guys you make a mistake about and who aren't ready with their ID's? And the 37 year-old ladies you just implied looked older than 40 by not IDing? I think they should probably err on the side of universality here.