Get the Suit that Fits

To prepare for work this summer, I went outlet shopping with Enoch and Reza all the way out in Leesburg. Where? I don't know, I hadn't been either, but it was pretty nice. I got a few things: a couple of shirts, socks, a spatula. But the big purchase was a suit at the Joseph A Bank outlet. I had my doubts, but the fast-talking salesman assured me the suit would be easily tailored to fit me. I forgot a cardinal rule: never trust the fast-talking salesman. Upon returning to DC, I took my newly purchased suit to my local Joseph A Bank for tailoring. The tailor and the salesman took one look at it on me and pronounced it the wrong size. For a minute or two I was fairly unhappy - I was either going to have to work something out with the tailor or I was going to have to go all the way back to Leesburg (where?) to return it. I was mentally trending towards the latter option when the salesman thrust a correctly sized suit in my direction and told me to put it on. I did and expressed my regret over owning the wrong size when the salesman said he was just going to "exchange" the suits. There was roughly a $300 price difference between the purchased suit and the suit that was my actual size. But this did not stop the (slow-talking?) salesman - he was happy to help me out by "exchanging" suits while bemoaning my initial incorrectly-sized one. He did everything but admonish the first salesman. To this second salesman, my hat is off. I certainly thank him and I put in a good word for Joseph A Bank (which may be slowly going out of business), although not for its outlet.

I do not put in a good word for Calvin Klein's "Body" line of dress pants. Reza described the pair I tried on as looking more like tights. What's your deal Calvin? Are you designing clothing for starving Russian peasants? Most normal shaped men, plus me, cannot fit into those without looking foolish.
Another negative from the trip. At the Levi outlet, I was unable to continue my shopping due to the multitude of foreigners with vastly different conceptions of personal space. A man literally stepped on me without noticing while trying to buy jeans. How do you not notice that? How can you be so self-centered that you refuse to see or in this case feel other people around you? Sometimes I wish I had an airhorn to announce my presence. Or a personal lighthouse. Ships would never crash on me that way. How's that for a superpower!?

I went to the Nats game tonight. In an epic battle between two bitter rivals, the Washington Nationals shocked the Pittsburgh Pirates with a come from behind victory. There was plentiful sarcasm.

Coincidence?

Yesterday I ran tons of people around town who I haven't seen in years, most notably my two favorite high school teachers (separately). In the morning I decided for basically the first time ever to run outside on the street. I picked a street that I'd turn around at, but when I finally got there I decided to go another 2 blocks before turning around. By pure coincidence once I got to the newly decided upon street I saw a high school teacher of mine driving with his window down. I yelled to him and he stopped and talked for a little bit. What are the chances that on that day I would run outside, decide to go the extra distance, and he would be driving by with his window down for me to flag him down?
In the middle of the day I ran into about 3 people from high school whose names I remembered to varying degrees.
Then when I was out to dinner at a restaurant I ran into my other favorite high school teacher and talked to him for a while. What are the odds of that happening? Come on, something was going on yesterday. Something magical. Or just coincidental. Both of my teachers were pleased to hear that they were inspirational to me and help effect the trajectory of my life somehow between being a philosophy major and going to law school. The first teacher taught my high school ethics course in senior year. The second made sophomore year history basically into a history of ideas class - I read my first Immanuel Kant that year thanks to him, as a confused 15 year-old. Kant, Edmund Burke, Freud, and Marx to name a few things we read. As sophomores. In high school.

That dinner last night also happened to be the second time I've ever sent food back. I got salmon and it was pretty severely undercooked. Ms. Chef, you gotta throw that bad boy back on the grill. For about an hour after the meal I convinced myself that my stomach hurt and I probably had food poisoning. Maybe that's like med students thinking they have diseases they read about.

The Celtics need to figure this out. Immediately. (As I write this, it is the middle of Game 2.)

Tomorrow is the first day of work. I'm a little nervous. First days are always awkward. Where do I go? Where do I sit? Do we shake hands or kiss on the cheek? One of those I know the answer to! 1 for 3 - not bad if this is baseball. I'm actually nervous about writing legal memos and whatnot. Its just not something I'm incredibly confident about. To bolster my confidence, however, I am suiting up! Suit up!

Dopplegangster

I just cooked bluefish for the first time. Come to think of it, I think it was the first time I can remember eating bluefish. I kind of thought it would taste like blueberries. That was clearly a dumb thought, they taste like fish. Next time I cook bluefish I am going to try to devise a way to get them to taste like blueberries. Maybe marinade them in blueberry jam and garnish them with Berry-Berry Kix. Kid tested, mother approved.

After two days of searching I bought a suit yesterday - with a little help picking it out from Shaked. It's navy blue, two buttons, and smells like fresh morning dew on a brilliant summer morning. This is why I don't write fiction. I got it from a store called Miltons, but I also looked at Macys. What an unhelpful experience. The first day at Macys we got there a little less than 30 minutes before closing time on Sunday of a three day weekend. No salesperson even looked at us. Right before closing, I get it you don't want some crazy customer making all sorts of demands on you, keeping you at work late, or further ruining your already terrible day. The next morning, however, I expected service! I was disappointed. After mulling around the suit racks for fifteen minutes without so much as a glance from a salesperson (mostly because the salespeople were largely absent and apparently uninterested in selling clothes, being helpful, or generally doing their job) I tried a suit on. On the way back from the dressing room we had succeeded in flagging down a saleswoman who did not work in the suiting department. She found a woman who did work in the suiting department and pointed her to me as I held a Calvin Klein suit that didn't fit quite right.
Her: "Yes?"
Me: "I'm looking at suits."
Her: "Ok."
Me: "...ummm yeah, suits, I was wondering...."
Her: "Ok, we have suits." Noticing the suit in my arms. "Do you want to try that on?"
Me: "I just did."
Her: "Ok."
Me: "...It didn't fit exactly right. Do you do alterations?"
Her: "Oh, no we don't do alterations here."
Me: "Alright then. I think we're done here. Would you take this back for me?"
Way to be helpful lady. She could not have been less enthused or less knowledgeable. Do you want a commission or not? Apparently not. Later on the first saleswoman who had found the unhelpful lady apologized profusely to me and asked if I had found everything I had been looking for. I told her I was pretty done with the suiting department at Macys. Immediately after Macys I went into Miltons and within literally ten seconds of walking through the door I was asked if I needed any help. Stark difference. Macys suiting department, you get low marks and have now been placed in the doghouse.

There is a book out there called "Dopplegangster." It is trashy fiction and if it cost six dollars less than its sales price of seven dollars I would have bought it. I gathered from the back cover that a former-actress/current-stripper and her magician friend must save New York from a mob war that somehow includes dopplegangers. Also, an attractive and likely Hispanic man named Lopez is involved. How could you go wrong with this book? Once I'm done reading "Tender Is The Night" I might have to look into "Dopplegangster" - they are probably close to the same level of literary greatness.

Suit Up

This weekend was Suit Up weekend. On both Saturday and Sunday I had to suit up. It made me realize I probably should own more than one suit. If only I had money...Anyways, Saturday the suit up occasion was a job fair, aka an exercise in being pretentious and figuring out what people can do for you. What an awful idea, as a general rule. But then again, beggars can't be choosers (someone should tell that to the homeless guy outside CVS in Dupont), so I have to try everything I can. I did table talk with some recruiters, and handed out a few resumes. Of course those resumes are now invalid, having since received a new grade to affect my GPA (still waiting on one) and a new accolade (more to come on that front, see below, but don't hold your breath). There was one woman who I got a nice conversation going with from the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Doing policy advisement for the White House? Yes please, sign me up. I got her business card ("I got her numba, how d'you like dem apples?") so that's a good sign. I'll follow up with her this week.

Today was Suit Up Sunday for the ADR client counseling competition. ADR = alternative dispute resolution. ADR covers client counseling, mediation, negotiation, and arbitration (and maybe some other -ations). The competition format was basically that you and your partner are lawyers meeting with a client for the first time and you have to discover what his story is, what he wants, what the issues are, etc. There isn't a good way to prepare for it. It's mostly picking it up on the fly. It's being a pretend lawyer. Think mock trial (Sustained! Sustained!) only not about litigation.
But anyways, I did well enough (top 30 out of...a lot I think) and I was chosen for ADR Board. What does that mean? In descending order of importance: 1) I did better than people in a competition. 2) I get to put this on my resume. 3) If I choose I can participate in other school-wide and inter-school ADR competitions. Not too bad for about 2 hours of work total. A great low-risk, high-reward situation. And I get rewarded. Because I won. Competitive much? I think so.

The weekend has clearly been law school intensive. Most of the weekend that wasn't spent suiting up was spent writing this brief. I am currently pretty much done with a draft of it, but rewriting a section of it to decrease word count and increase clarity. I'm going to end up with two versions of that section and have to choose. But I have two work products! This is like making me choose between my children! Or not. I'll just choose the one my that fits the format my professor wants. So I guess it's like choosing between my children if one of them cured cancer and the other was a ne'er do well, and not even the good type of ne'er do well, but a fat, slovenly, boring one. No agony there. Perhaps I shouldn't have children, or at least children who turn into fat, slovenly, and boring. So they probably shouldn't take after their father. Hey-oh. I just zinged myself. Oops.

On Friday I had a Bulgarian waiter at a Mexican restaurant. It was odd. And my enchiladas weren't the best. Coincidence? I don't know. But, like the rest of the world, I have no problems pointing fingers at the Eastern Europeans.