I Opened An Office

I opened an office.  The truth is, this was not my first choice.  I intended to work for someone, hopefully to work for someone or some organization that would provide me with health benefits, mentoring, etc. but this did not happen.  For a variety of reasons this didn't happen although I was in the running for several of these situations.  I have a sneaking suspicion that this is what was supposed to happen all along. 

The search for an office was painless enough and I ended up coming back a week later and renting the first office I had looked at.  My new office is in a recently renovated office building that was previously a funeral home, a fact that I find oddly comforting. It's on the main Oxford thoroughfare and within two blocks of four of the courts in which I hope to focus my practice.  I have a receptionist on weekdays, a nice phone system, access to print-fax-copy services, and a lovely conference room at my disposal.

I worked the rental of a nice set of office furniture, abandoned by some unfortunate entrepreneur, into my lease agreement.  I am steadily adding supplies to my space and enjoying this. I have a Yellow Book ad in process and I am in various stages of negotiation with  local papers regarding the getting of my name out. My number one concern now, however, is the acquisition of an appropriate hat rack.  It will rarely hold hats but I will need it to hold jackets and ties and possibly the occasional umbrella.  It has to be the right kind of hat rack, not just any old rack will do.  Once the hat rack is in place, perfectly in place, I will deem myself ready for whatever the Justice Gods send my way.

I feel like an eleven year old boy walking into the carnival.

Poems A Dead Boy Wrote

Last night was the final night of the Theatre Oxford production of A Streetcar Named Desire and Shelly and I were in attendance.  The babysitter arrived on cue at 6:15, giving us time to dine at Thai restaurant, Rice & Spice, one of our favorite spots.  I had the Red Curry with Tofu and my date had Pad Thai with Shrimp.  The first time I had Tofu, I was living in Martin, TN and in the same apartment building as a Japanese woman who occasionally made Won-Ton stuffed with Tofu along with some kind of Asian soup with the spongy curd.  She may have been Chinese...or Korean.  Anyway, I recognized the coolness factor of Tofu immediately and about once every 10 years, when I am at my most fraudulently hip (such as when attending a local theatre production),  I order something with Tofu.  Once every 10 years, I regret it.

The play started 10 minutes late and ran on about an hour too long.  Some of the blame for this must go to Tennessee Williams, the author whose Columbus, MS childhood porch I once sat upon, but most I assign to me, for being old and tired.  The actor (Alice Walker) who played Blanche DuBois did a fabulous job and the "Stella! Stella" of the earnest thespian (Gregory Earnest) with the impossible task of following Brando, was delivered admirably.  I haven't seen or read Streetcar in many years and I had forgotten how beautifully it is written.  Or maybe I am better able to appreciate it now that I am long of tooth and beaten. 

There are many memorable lines in the play but my favorite is Blanche's description of the yellowed letters kept in her trunk as "Poems a dead boy wrote."  I could live a whole year of my life powered merely on the beauty of that description.  As a matter of fact, I believe I will.

Gatlinburg on Moonshine.

My best friend Butch and his family invited me to come stay with them in their Chalet outside of Gatlinburg, TN this week and I took them up on it.  As I got out of my car on arrival Tuesday afternoon, I was nearly mauled by a mama black bear and a pack of rabid bear cubs.  They were standing in the drive-way of a neighboring chalet and charged me with homicidal abandon when I opened my car door.  I jumped back in, slammed and locked the door, and threw a bag of Honey-Baked Cashews out of my sunroof and into the woods. The gluttonous mama bear abandoned her juveniles and ran off after the nuts. Given the opening,  I stepped out with my 38 to ice the little nuisances but it jammed, preventing a certain blood bath.  I froze in terror as they circled and moved in for the kill.  At the last moment,  several of my gracious hosts and their dogs charged out of the chalet and chased the vicious carnivores off in shame and horror.

There were five canines and nine humans already assembled at the chalet before I made my arrival.  After the sickening rebound from the intense adrenaline rush of the bear attack hit us, we decided to stay in for the evening.  We sent out for Local Organic and Sustainable Black Bear barbeque and Ole Smoky Moonshine and feasted mountain warrior style until we collapsed on the stairway, porch, and on and under the kitchen table, amongst several other locations sprinkled in and around the chalet and adjoining grounds..  The wildest dog, Maggie, got into the Black Bear BBQ, caught a scent of the marauders, and, overcome with blood lust,  leaped off the back patio in the midst of the celebration.  The patio was at least 25 feet off  the ground but she hit the ground running and we heard her frantic barking in the distance throughout the evening.

On Wednesday morning we called the Game and Fish Commission on the bears and headed up the mountain to commune with nature at the Chimney's Picnic Area.  We needed two picnic tables but we couldn't find two together in the whole picnic area.  We found one with a fairly vulnerable looking bunch on the adjacent table and then we broke out the shine and got busy.  Thirty minutes later there was no sign of the interlopers so we spread out like royalty. We had Brazilian Steak, Paraguayan Corn on the Cob, and Giant Irish Potatoes smothered in Lamb Butter with  plenty of Organic and Sustainable Sea Salt to go around.  It was perfect.  Around nightfall, several car loads of Park Rangers (Not that many, the poor guys are driving Prius') descended on us and they suggested we leave.  We were out of hooch anyway so we saddled up the Palomino and headed into town.

Ole Smoky Moonshine opened sometime between 2007, when Zoe and I last visited the strip in Gatlinburg, and last Tuesday when they loaded up on Clear in anticipation of my visit.  The moonshine is distilled in an open area where you can see the vats and stills through genuine screens.  There are huge padlocks on the entrance doors and snipers overhead.  They have flavors such as peach, cherry, and apple and then the two I like, the two that will get right on down there and get the job done - Clear and Smoky.  They have a tasting booth but I skipped that part and went right for the jars. I have a hazy memory of riding up the ski-slope beside a giant, lip-stick-smeared, stuffed black bear.  Toward the end, I remember seeing my and Butch's reflection in the plate glass window of Ripley's Believe or Not as we walked by.  I had on full Indian regalia and he was wearing nothing but motorcycle chaps and a coon-skin hat.  The women had abandoned us long before and the young adults had split off for the Hard Rock Cafe  "when we got that gleam in our eyes."  I came to before sunrise on a bench outside the Aquarium with a recently diceased Sting-Ray on my lap.  Butch was leaned up against me, wearing a pair of binoculars and holding a map of the Appalachian Trail.  We rode the Trolley to the base of the Chalet Road, hiked up and they let us in.

I intended to head back early Thursday morning but thought better of it.  We stayed in bed until noon and then spent most of the afternoon in the hot tub on the back porch, drinking straight from a water hose.  We swore off Moonshine forever and mapped out our workout and nutrition plans for the immediate future. We were sufficiently rehydrated by the time of the debate but they still weren't saying much to us in the living room so me and Butch sat out on the porch and watched Newt Gingrich dominate on my laptop until the Bat showed up and things started getting interesting again.  That's a story in itself and is best saved for later. 

I can't find a job so I am starting a blog.

Contemplating the Juris Doctor

In 2007, I was in the car business and I was unhappy about my career.  I fell into the car business while buying a car in Texas in 1991.  I had dropped out of an Experimental Psychology graduate program at the University of North Texas in Denton for a variety of reasons and I had gone to work at a Circuit City in Dallas.  I went to buy a car when the air conditioner on my worn out Toyota Tercel would not come on despite my pounding on the dash - a tactic which had always worked before.  They offered me a job at the end of the deal and I was so flattered I took it (a recurring theme).  I made $6000 my first month and I thought I was The Natural.  You can be a ne'er-do-well and do well enough in the car business and although I fell out of love with the business quickly, it paid the bills.  That is, it paid the bills when I applied my check to bills rather than to the exploration of altered states. I could never predict what was going to happen when I got paid.  After I stopped drinking, several years later, I moved into more responsible positions in car dealerships but I was never comfortable with the work.
 
Along about 2004, people I knew began dying at an alarming rate.  My friend Craig was one of the first and this period culiminated with my step-son and my father both dying in the same week of May, 2006.  I suspect that all this dying triggered the excessive ruminating on my own death that I did during this time. Sometime in early 2007, I specifically wondered how I would feel if I found out that I only had one month to live.  Although my life looked pretty good on the surface (sober 10 years, running marathons, beautiful teenage daughter, nice home, etc...)  during this time, I was terrified when I considered this prospect.   I was living a lie, at least  two-thirds of my life was past, I was definitely going to die at some point regardless, and  I was working in a job that I was ashamed of and not taking any real steps to change this.  From that point forward, I knew that my car business career was "dead to me now" and I scheduled a trip to NYC for my daughter and me while we still had an income. 

We saw Mary Poppins, Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line (all excellent) and a Mets/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium among other things.  I ran a 5 mile race on Father's Day in Central Park.  We stayed at a cool little hotel (The Pod Hotel) around 51st and 3rd and we rode the subway everywhere and walked in the neighborhoods.  While running along the East River early one morning I decided I was going to go to law school and move to New York City.  Just like that. 

I graduated from law school in December, 2010.  Some other things have and haven't happened. I'm still thinking about New York City.