The No Good Very Bad Day

    Today was pretty bad.  How bad was it?  Well, it's got me so demoralized/miserable that I've returned to my precious old friend Xanga to empty my cup of negative feelings into its bottomless bowl.

    Before getting into it, I suppose I owe the non-readers I'm sure I no longer have a brief update.  After the Germany rental car disaster, I resumed working fulltime at Breakstone, White, & Gluck, PC.  Nothing much has changed their, other than my responsibilities/expectations have ballooned under an ever-increasing workload, but we'll get to that in a minute.

    I settled the rental car shenanigans in January, 2011, a short four months after the incident.  I agreed to pay the collection agency $1000 up front with $200 a month payments for two years, for a total payment of $6,000 on the $15,000 or so debt they claimed I owed them for the car repairs.  In return, I did not need to file for bankruptcy or ruin my credit.

    This turned out to be a good idea, since, in July, Shannon and I bought a condo in the Roslindale section of Boston, MA.  We've worked extensively on it since then, only moving in at the beginning of September after completely stripping the terrible laminate/vinyl flooring from the first floor and hiring a contractor to put in real hardwood and good tile.

    Otherwise, things have been much the same.  And that leads us up to today...

    It started out badly enough.  I stuffed my entire suit and shoes into my bike messenger bag for the ride into the city (we had been at a wedding in Newport, RI over the weekend), I suddenly had the urge to poo.  Time was a little pressed, especially since I realized that the settlement approval hearing I thought I had on Wednesday turned out to actually be today.

    Anyway, so I hustle into the restroom for a quick reprieve before biking the seven miles downtown.  Unfortunately, I had a slightly more stubborn poo than usual.  With some moderate 'encouragement' I managed to get it done, and then go to wipe and discover a little surprise.  Apparently, through my exertions to extricate the stubborn excrement, I burst an unknown hemorrhoid somewhere in the region of the tail pipe down there.  That would explain why the toilet paper was awash in bright red blood.  For fuck's sake, I pity women if that's what a first period is like.  It wasn't painful, but it sure was surprising and disconcerting.  And the proverbial feet are now curled around the edge of the pool, ready to take the proverbial nosedive.

    I get to work without much issue.  Oh, except that I return to the bathroom in a fit on neuroses to determine that the bleeding had not, in fact, let up at all.  I resolve myself to get some emergency ointment from the CVS downstairs, apply, and consider it as good as it will get for now.

    I prep everything I can think of for the hearing: printing out directions, motions, pleadings, settlement documents, everything in the file.

    Not owning a car, I had to rent a Zipcar for the trip down to Plymouth.  I get in said car, start 'er up, and begin to back out.  Unfortunately, the parking wizards in the garage put a giant SUV in the aisle against a wall in a desperate attempt to squeeze in as man cars as possible.  So, not really familiar with the rental car, I do my best to back out.  CRuNcH!  That would be the back of my car becoming good friends with the front of the SUV.  I jump out of the thing to check to see if I haven't destroyed the SUV's front, the parking bounds over like a leaping gazelle, and we both assess.  No terribly-visible damage (there may have been a little paint scrapery, but what're ya gonna do?).

    Anyway, now with a bleeding ass and after crashing into another car, I finally succeed in backing out and driving the hour down to Plymouth.  I arrive with plenty of time to spare and enjoy a quick lunch outside the courthouse on the cement slabs that pass for minimalistic seats.  The client arrives perfectly on time, and I prep him accordingly for the hearing.  We get into the courtroom and wait for our turn to be called.  Once called, we shuffle to the front of the courtroom, and the judge and clerk puzzle through the papers in the file.  Where's the settlement agreement, they ask?  Hrm.  I scramble through my documents, but have no idea what they're talking about (the last time I had done this type of hearing, the agreement was signed post-approval; further, in my defense, this is one of my boss's cases that was tossed at me to get the settlement approved, so I personally worked with very few of the documents).  They say no worries, I can simply reschedule and bring it in next time.  This would be fine, except the client took a half day off of work to come down and it's not a picnic of a drive for either of us from Boston.

    A little panicked, we leave the courtroom and I guide the client down to the clerk's office.  Don't worry, I tell him.  You stay here while I figure out where this settlement agreement is and have it faxed over, then we'll run back up before the session ends.  I call the secretary at the office and she says she'll fax over the settlement agreement.  Perfect.

    After an arduous wait, and the client steaming silently, the fax comes in.  It turns out to be an exact copy of the *proposed* settlement breakdown that the client and I already had in our possession.  Hmm.  We head back up to the courtroom to press our luck.  Unfortunately, after the last party is heard, the judge quickly gets up and starts scuttling out of the room.  I dash for the clerk, extending the agreement in my hands.  He looks at it and just says, "This isn't what we need.  We need the petition for approval of settlement."  Okay...?  I have only a vague of what he's talking about, but we're still unceremoniously shuffled out of the courtroom with the promise of scheduling a subsequent hearing.  The client looks pretty mad, and I apologize profusely, saying it must be interoffice error and that we'll figure it out and come back.  He does not look much appeased

    On the way back to the office, my boss (who we call "mean boss") calls me: he's the one who gave me the assignment.  I tell him about the abject failure of the hearing, and am roundly criticized for my handling of the matter, which I probably deserve.  Already feeling miserable, I get to stew with my anger, disappointment, rage, and self-loathing for a solid hour on the ride back (thinking about wasting the client's time, the firm's money on the rental car and my time, etc.).

    Back in the office, I am again criticized by mean boss, and one of the secretaries tells me they had a meeting about it in one of my other boss's offices: great.  Hardly anyone looks at me for the rest of the day, and of course I feel like terrific shit (pardon the irony, considering earlier events).  I stay an extra half an hour just to make sure I figure out what the missing documents were.  Turns out I had successfully modeled this new settlement approval on an old one.  Unfortunately, whoever prepped the documents never saved them in the correct file, so they were bundled together in a single badly-scanned PDF in another part of the file.  I hung my head in shame and copied out the correct documents, praying for a quick end to the whole thing.

    Everyone else in the office is gone and the lights are shut off.  I finally begin gathering my things to leave, feeling perfectly horrible.  I put the affidavit that another client had signed and sent in, the original of which would need to be submitted to the Probate Court the next day, right in front of my keyboard.  Nursing a solid headache from the stress and what I can only guess is blood loss and dehydration, I go to finish off the last of my water.  However, in a delightfully ill-fated move, my hand knocks into the cup and spills the water directly onto the signature portion of the affidavit.

    I don't know if I can properly describe the guttural, animal sound of desperate agony that escaped my lips upon realizing what had happened to the affidavit.  It was sort of like a high-pitched moan of the purest misery mixed with a hint of "of course."  I desperately blotted the water from the affidavit, drying it as best I could before setting it on my in-box to dry.  I can only hope that when I come in tomorrow it isn't ruined.  Really, I can only hope that tomorrow just brings better luck than today.

***  ADDENDUM ***

    Hoping for a better day, I arrived this morning to discover that my fancy smart phone (which I had assumed was left on my desk last night after not finding it in my bag), was almost certainly left in the Zipcar from yesterday.  Of course the thing is out until five this evening, so I have to wait until then to check the car and try to get it.  As my old roommate Matt used to say: "Pile it on."

Vacation Disastrophe

A Strange Thought

    What if there was, in fact, a teleportation system built on Earth.  Transporting matter itself instantly between spaces is very difficult (probably impossible).  So, the way it works is as follows: a computer scans your entire body, atom by atom, and records the exact placement of everything at the origin machine.

    Next, the computer sends your body-scan information to the desired distant teleportational system, which would reconstruct you exactly as you were before, atom by atom, from a pool of resources the system has on hand.  Once successful recreation is confirmed, your body at the origin machine is then completely broken down into its base elements.  The elements that had made up your body would then be stored by the origin machine to use for receiving users.

    The person that comes out the other side is you in every way: your exact replica.  They have your memories, your thoughts, etc.  However, the ‘you’ that was at the origin machine, your specific consciousness, would no longer exist; that ‘you’ would have essentially died when your body was broken down at the origin machine.  However, to anyone else in the entire world there would be no difference, because the ‘you’ that comes out of the destination machine is in every way you. 

    In fact, if the recipient machine had a surplus of resources, you could theoretically just make the replica of yourself at the distant machine while maintaining your body at the origin machine as well, although that would be very costly and strange.  It would be like creating an identical twin that shares all of your thoughts, experiences, everything, up to the point where the clone was made (see, e.g. The 6th Day or any of the similar movies and works science fiction).  However, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics, that would be improbable, so a recycling system would be much more efficient.

    The point is, knowing that you would essentially ‘die’ as far as your specific consciousness is concerned, although as far as the rest of the world is concerned (including the ‘you’ that comes out of the destination machine) you just ‘teleported’ to a distant machine, would you use the machine?

Six Months Later: Job Confidence... or Resignation?

    It's that time again; time to apply for my final co-op at Northeastern University School of Law.  So far it's looking a lot like my second co-op: i.e. no interviews.  However, this time I'm not worried in the least.  I think it might be the infinitely more terrifying specter of unemployment post-graduation lying on the horizon.  It might also be partly because Michael Lesser, my supervisor from my last co-op at Thornton & Naumes in downtown Boston still hasn't submitted my co-op evaluation and so myself, unlike every other third year, only has two evaluations.  Anything that sets you apart from others in a negative way is an easy way to exclude you from an interview, and I may be the victim of that here.

    In fact, things are actually going pretty badly.  If I choose to stay in Massachusetts, I have to retake the MPRE, because my score was only good enough for PA and NJ (curse your more stringent ethical standards, Massachusetts!).  In addition, I still have to figure out if and how I plan on taking a bar prep course.  I'm still drastically adverse to it, mostly for the $2,000 cost and indecisiveness on where to practice.  However, the major companies have so strangled the market that it might as well be an antitrust violation.

    I had an interview at the Department of Justice and failed to get a job.  I failed to get the EPA fellowship.  Actually, things are looking pretty bleak.

    However, I am not one of those souls to go quietly into that good night.  Instead, if I can't get a job post-graduate, I'll just have to start practicing for myself.  This will undoubtedly be hard.  I don't yet know how I'll manage to make my loan payments, rent, etc. without a paying client base (I suppose that's what a retainer is for).  Man, it's hard to worm your way into the practice when you don't know much.  I suppose I could take on a law clerk from Northeastern to help (though I'd probably need an office).  Ugh, but before then I still have to take the bar, retake the MPRE, and get Mr. Lesser to also approve a piece of writing for my upper level writing requirement.  There's still a long way to go.  But first, I have to get this final co-op.  If it's a paying gig, I have a much better chance at floating along economically, at least for awhile.  If I can't get a paying job, for whatever reason (see above), then things get a bit dicier.

    However, I'm not really worried.  I think I'm done worrying.  If I have to solo practice, then I'll solo practice.  I think I've started to figure out how the business of law works.  It isn't about making a difference, it's about finding a secure source of clients from which to procure services.  Some examples from Thornton & Naumes: Mike was trying qui tam suits, Brad was trying CERCLA citizen suits, Dave was trying some new mass-tort litigation.  The point, Mike tells me, is to find the cases that make real money and to thus become an equity partner.  The nice thing, however, is that until they strike their gold, the established practices of the firm support them with a solid salary.  The firm is investing in these legal entrepreneurs.  As a solo practitioner straight out of law school, my job would be the same, but without the steady source of income coming from above.  But, as they say in business, more risk can equal more rewards; I wouldn't have to share any fees with the equity partners.  I wouldn't have that feeling of being unfulfilled or under-appreciated that Mike has, being the same age and harder-working than some of the equity partners in the firm, who only arrived at their station through luck and connections.  But there's another rub, isn't there?  I have neither luck nor connections.  Well, I have some connections, but I can't see them being of much use.  That's where the entrepreneurial spirit kicks in, however.  Making something of nothing.  I think I could do it, but boy is it gonna be hard.

Personas De Los Muertos

    Estate planning can be kinda sad.  You spend your time planning for people's deaths, carefully laying out their legacies as soon as possible in case of an unfortunate end.  I don't know why I was so moved by this, but we had an assignment where we had to read Anna Nicole Smith's will and find deficiencies in it.  The first thing I spotted was there was no default taker under the trust she creates in the event her only son predeceased her.  Turns out he did.  I literally looked it up.  He died in mid-late 2006 and she died in early 2007.  How sad.  On the website was a picture of her posing in her porn star kissy-face pose while her twenty-year-old son stood there awkwardly, but not without humor.  2006.  Come to think of it, I was twenty years old that year too.  But hey, I'm alive and this kid's not.  And neither is his mother.  What the heck doomed that family?  Was it the result of the high-life from too much money and press?  Or was it there naturally destructive personalities that led them into the spotlight?

    It still surprises me when I hear of aging rockers that haven't died off at an early age.  Keith Richards: how is he still alive!?  I guess it kind of reminds me of The Lottery, the story where a person must be sacrificed for the good of the whole community.  South Park did a good spoof on that, showing Britney Spears being sacrificed for the amusement of the masses, greatly at her expense (she has half a head for most of the episode).  But hey, she's still alive, right?  Hah, but for how long.  Maybe she'll be one of the long-lived ones.  Michael Jackson just died at 50.  An overdose of plastic surgery?  A man so lost in a quest for approval he destroyed himself with medication?  Or is the kind of person that performs a huge concert tour at 50 just the kind of person who might kick the bucket early.

    I guess I'm torn thinking about fame and its seemingly high toll on one's life span.  Why is it that celebrities seem so death-prone?  I guess the moral of this assignment is they'd better plan their estate carefully, cause they tend to have tons of money and die unexpectedly.