time oft stretched

In a new series, adaptable to many different locations, I’d like to point out reasons why where I am is great.

So, #1: On an afternoon run along Rock Creek Parkway, I hear sirens, look to my left, and there’s the presidential motorcade.

I’ve really been enjoying the latest Antennagate, brought to you by Apple’s long-anticipated iPhone 4.  In one singular word, I find it hilarious.  It isn’t because I hate Apple or want them to fail (I own stock in them, after all) or because their phones are too complicated (I think my phone is just as smart, thank you) or I’m a PC loyalist (here I am, typing on my “hardy” 2006 MacBook).

It’s just bitterness.

But today, my HTC Incredible arrived.  So here I am, chuckling at antenna-caused call drops, with a phone that is by all accounts just as cool.  So here’s my apology: poor Steve Jobs.  You’re so tired.  I’m sorry I took pleasure, schadenfreude-style, in your LITERALLY ONE marginal failure.  Forgive me.

And then suck it for signing an exclusivity contract with AT&T.

I was asked a few times in recent months what I would do with my life if, for some reason or another, it wasn’t the law.  I talked about publishing, editing (love words), journalism, but didn’t have a really super-serious answer because I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since…a very long time ago.

I’ve given it some thought.  And while watching various rockstar music videos (haven’t done that in a while), I realized that that’s really it.  I would 100% absolutely be a hardcore musician.  I’m not talking classical piano (see last entry).  I’m talking blaring beats screaming chords dark eyeliner chuck taylors electric guitars that tear your soul apart in a good way.

I lived at the 9:30 Club during high school.  I went to live shows all the time.  But I didn’t go so that I could see hot rockers sweat and swear onstage — indeed, I didn’t know what most of my favorite bands even looked like until I saw them live.  I went to feel, and to feel with other feeling people.  And I’m not talking about emoting (though, of course, most of the music I loved in my teens was of the emo variety), I’m talking about feeling the drums thrash in your chest.  Moving with music.  Almost seeing choruses crash around you.

So, if I for some reason could not be an attorney, I would be Hayley Williams (et. al.).  I’d want to lead the movement onstage and channel the passion.  It wouldn’t be for adoring fans, but for people who would feel with me.

A lot of my current acquaintances don’t know this, but ten years of my life were dedicated to serious classical piano training.  I remember like seven times I threw 9-year-old temper tantrums (acceptable, because I was actually nine years old) about how much I hated practicing and I wanted to quit, this is stupid, I hate it!

Every single time, my parents didn’t allow it.  All the while I picked up the clarinet, put it down.  Picked up the trumpet, made first chair in 8th grade after teaching myself, put it down.  But from the keys I never strayed, because I literally wasn’t allowed to.  Thank god for that.

When I finally started practicing in high school, I started loving the piano — my one way of direct expression, angst spun into productivity, my 88 steps of sound only sounding better with bad feelings and adolescence.  When I was fifteen, my parents took me to a piano store and helped me pick out a jet black Yamaha baby grand.  When I was sixteen, piano time was one of the three things I couldn’t live without.  When I was seventeen, I flawlessly executed Chopin’s Impromptu in C sharp minor, and never felt more elated.  When I was eighteen, I quit — college came, and not being a music major at my large university, I didn’t have access to practice rooms.

When I face my glorious Yamaha now, I am literally embarrassed.  Four years cold, I am reduced to the level at which I played in 8th grade, and, living in an eleven-foot-wide townhouse with shared walls, I know the neighbors hear (though, of course they don’t know the peak from which I’ve slipped sans grace).

Stopping now.  Or, starting now.  Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 in C minor, I’m gonna get ya back.  The end the end, to new beginnings.  Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, tuning up.

It’s tinted assumptions, I figured you
were a package deal tied
neatly with twin-twisted twine and
straight thoughts in neat rows like cornfields

My new boss is Dutch.  The Netherlands are in the World Cup final on Sunday — he’s excited.  I can’t picture Amsterdam being much crazier than the redlight beerdrinking marijuana standard, but I think it will be.

In general order of importance, then:

• China
• Thailand
• Sweden
• Netherlands
• Italy
• Cambodia

Why can’t teleporters exist yet?  Isn’t it about time?

The Nine, Jeffrey Toobin

I decided that, as I am a forthcoming 1L, I should brush up on Supreme Court knowledge.  Also, it’s the most incredible job this country has to offer (talk about leaving an indelible mark, immortality in legal books, memories).  It got great reviews, so nothing I say is new.  It is…for lack of better words…very awesome.