I have been slacking on the updates hardcore. But it is my brief summer before work, so give me a break. I am in Boston for the week. I spent yesterday (Mothers' Day) with my mom. I had been traveling and had not yet procured a gift, so I warned her that I would need an hour with the car on Sunday before I could commence with official Mothers' Day ceremonies. After half an hour of sweating it out at Crate & Barrel, I remembered something she said she wanted: kitchen shears. I also got her a nice cold beverage travel container (something practical) and a set of colored porcelain measuring cups (something cute). I think I did pretty well overall. Could be worse, she could have gotten a macaroni necklace. I think she has received a few of those in my time.
Apparently the stores in the mall opened at noon, so I had to wait around for a bit before getting a gift. I clearly did not get the memo about opening at noon on Sundays. I mean, I know stores open late, but not that late. What about all the poor men out there who lack adequate planning skills and are forced to purchase presents the day of?! What about all the poor women out there who just received lovely flowers but do not have an adequate matching vase to put them in? What about all the people who need to purchase a milk frother for their Sunday brunch? Come on, think about it Crate & Barrel. You are not acting like a store of the people.

Friday I was in Baltimore for Nakul's recital. I thought he did a great job. He sang a nice little song called "If You've Only Got A Moustache," which you should totally check out. Before the recital I walked around the Inner Harbor. I got there on the Circulator, a free bus. It was around 3:30 on Friday afternoon, and there was a good deal of traffic as well as a lot of people on the Circulator. Halfway through the ride, this well-dressed man and two well-dressed women got on. It was pretty clear they had never ridden the Circulator before, and I am not positive that the man had ever taken public transportation before. He was shocked at how crowded the bus was and loudly inquired, "Don't you people have jobs?" When he realized other people could hear him he tried to play it off as a joke, but really he was just a pompous jerk. Later, I wound up next to him and the two women towards the back of the bus. He continued to comment about how long the ride took, how the bus kept stopping, and how he would certainly never use the bus again. Buddy, it's a free bus: you get what you paid for. Additionally, you look like an arrogant buffoon with no idea of how "the commoners" live. If you have such a problem with it, why don't you whip out your wallet and pay for a taxi cab. Or just drive your Rolls Royce to the Inner Harbor.

After Nak's recital, we went out to the Alehouse, where we did not pay for the bar tab. I had some good conversations, Nakul enjoyed the company of his friends, and BDP made hilarious conversation with the waitstaff (who had boyfriends, sadly for him). I must emphasize that none of the "children" (30 and unders at this point, just to be safe), paid the tab. Many of us wandered to another hole in the wall bar, where we imbibed unnecessary, cheap pints, and Stephanie consumed what she imagined to be the last olive in Baltimore (the first bar was out, and this was the last olive at the second bar).

Today I went with my mother to Woodman's, which claims to have invented the fried clam. Alright, they invented it. I don't know why I am skeptical, but I like to think it is a healthy skepticism. It was very New England, and I enjoyed it. I almost bought a small wooden figurine of a sailor from them, but I realized this was an unnecessary trinket, and I could just remind myself that I was a gritty New Englander in my mind. Super gritty. Nothing but true grit up in law school.

I did not fail Tax!

I finished "All the Pretty Horses" last night. That Cormac McCarthy sure knows how to write. Now I get to watch the movie, if only so I can say, "The book was better."

I seem to have shipped up to Boston

Here I am, back in Boston for the "holidays." I woke up early this morning to catch a MARC commuter train to Baltimore. And from Baltimore I was to drive up with Nakul. Well my karma from waking up on time did not translate into good train schedule luck. The 7:30 train was delayed indefinitely and the 8:30 was outright canceled. I managed to get on an Amtrak and get to Baltimore, which was magical in itself because I had not yet had any coffee. While on the train, I almost kicked the guy in front of me who was listening to a playlist from his phone without any earphones plugged in. In fairness, I probably would have equally vindictive thoughts even if I had coffee, but it made my attitude was quite pronounced this morning. Nakul and I ended up making great time from Baltimore (6 hours) while avoiding most traffic and bad weather.

Since I last updated I've done a whole lot of nothing. Unless you count being at the bar as something. Then I've done a lot of something. For some reason all of my classmates were quite anxious to go drinking after finishing finals. Well who was I to say no? The post-finals party was pretty epic. I will remember it for my relative sobriety compared to everyone else's complete lack of let's say self-control. The word for it is mess. Hilarious mess that I can laugh about even if no one else will remember. Some drunk 1L kept buying everyone drinks, me included. Another drunk 1L bought everyone shots. As I was leaving, my drunk friend tried to buy me a shot which I politely declined. The problem was that he didn't just buy one shot for me, nor two shorts for us to have together. Rather, he bought five shots because he seemed to think that was a rational choice at that point of the night. He spent the next ten minutes trying to pawn some off because it was almost 2 am and (surprise surprise) most people were in no shape for ripping whiskey shots.

4 am is not a good time of day to be awake for. Next time I think its a good idea to play beer dice after closing down a bar, I need to think again.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have not slept well in a good long while. Between regular sleeping issues, a month of finals studying where I have problems shutting down my brain, bar nights, and early mornings, it has been a long haul. I am looking forward to at least three good nights of sleep this vacation. That's my goal. And if my cats wake me up, I will give them the crappy cat food for the entire time I am here, so help me. (Good threat, right?) Three nights - think I can do it? I am honestly not sure if I can. It's a wonder they don't make game shows out of these situations.

So much meat. For serious.

Last night I headed up to Baltimore for Nakul's birthday. It was my first time being in Baltimore and to appropriately prepare for the occasion I emptied my wallet of all non-essential items and brought only things I would be alright with if they got stolen. Turns out that wasn't necessary - I didn't even get mugged. But really, from what I hear about Baltimore, you are just playing the odds. Actually, Baltimore was a nice city from what I saw of it. It had some lovely architecture. It also had a place for bail bonds. That was a little disturbing. But Nakul's apartment is quite nice, and he enjoyed rubbing it in my face that he pays far less for far more.

His parents took us out to this Brazilian restaurant that serves...well...meat. They give you a little thing that looks like a coaster, one side is green and the other is red. When you want meat you flip it to green. When you no longer want meat you flip it to red. After grabbing a little bit at the extensive salad bar (they had incredible sun dried tomatoes, if you were wondering) I flipped to green. And immediately roving waiters holding large sticks with various types of meat on them descended on the table. They offer different types of meat and different cuts. So good. Sirloin, fillet, fillet wrapped in bacon, lamb, lamb chops, pork chops, chicken wrapped in bacon, to name the ones that I remember eating. And multiple servings of many of them. Everything was good, the fillet and the sirloin were nothing short of incredible. **Bad pun alert** To find meat that delicious is rare. All in all I ate two plates of salad and a whopping six plates of meat. I am absolutely certain that I gained weight from that one meal. I also clogged some arteries and raised my blood pressure. And 22 hours later my stomach has still not forgiven me. "Why did you put so much into me?" It wants to know. "Because the meat was so delicious, stomach. And because I don't eat things that good...ever. So stop complaining and start digesting." But seriously, eating today has been an issue. I'm still recovering and putting down the revolt that my stomach is attempting. Also, working out today hurt really badly. You ever get the meat sweats? While I was actually sweating because of the running it felt kind of like the meat sweats. Gross. I haven't had that much meat since eating at a BBQ restaurant named Bullocks in Durham, NC after the Duke Invitational.

After stuffing ourselves, we had the courage to go out to a bar. Nakul got bought a number of drinks. He ended up having what appeared to be a fantastic night. I ended up arguing about Zionism with one of his friends, who I then befriended, while drinking National Bohemian: the classiest beer of them all. And this morning I have an inexplicable and invisible bruise on my left arm. Is it a bruise if it's invisible? I don't know. But something hurts.

And the first week of law school contained 3 cancelled classes, with only one make up class. That's just fine with me. Property looks interesting, which is good because I feel like that class has a huge potential for sucking. Thursday in Property, with about four minutes left in class, the kid who last semester in Civil Procedure basically advocated racism said something really dumb about the inherent rationality of the free market which, for some reason, included the sentence "If God wanted, he could have made the moon black." I couldn't tell you exactly what his point was, but it was something Milton Friedman-esk about how we shouldn't interfere with any decisions that the market makes because the market will always do what is best for itself (untrue, in fact at the time we were discussing a case where a company made the economically irrational decision to exclude a patron at random - just to prove that it could). Ok, he said something dumb. That kind of thing happens all the time. But after class two separate people came separately came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed watching my face while this kid was speaking. Apparently my expression was full of obvious rage and disbelief at the inane crap that I was hearing and they were amused by this. The funny part is that I wasn't even consciously making any face. I certainly was thinking about how wrong he was, but I didn't try to outwardly manifest anything. I suppose I am very expressive, particularly around morons. (Almost typed "mormons" there by accident. Whoops.) I should probably make sure I don't do that in important situations. But for now, I'm glad to be of some entertainment value.