Tender is the Afternoon

Beckett went down for a nap around 1:30 this afternoon, and since then, I have done nothing, and it has been fantastic. Well, I read some more of Tender is the Night, listened to some Edith Piaf and Ray LaMontagne, and g chatted with P. Lovely.

And, I went for a 30 minute-ish bike ride last night, and this morning B and I went on an hour-long walk. I am so glad the eather is finally nice, humid, but nice. 

It is a damn shame that classes have start back (at least for Brandi, Caitlin, & me) on Monday. But, on the bright side, they are night classes, so I'll still be able to enjoy my days with B!   

...And Expands Again

Caitlin and I went to Trade-N-Books (at least I think that's what it's called) and I got tons o' books. I can't remember all of them, but here are a few I picked up:

A Selection of Plays by Henrik Ibsen
Some crazy book about Scientology
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
Struck and White's Elements of Style (this is a replacement, I lost mine years ago)
A book about Roman history

That's only about half of what I got and I could not be more excited.

In law school news, I have made a B+ in Torts, Contracts, Property, and Criminal Law! Turns out studying your ass off does tend to pay off :0)

The Library Expands Again...

...I love a break from school for one VERY important reason -- it gives me time to read for pleasure! (And I think we ALL know how much I love to read...)

Reading List (for now, sure to be updated soon!):

Everything That Rise Must Converge -- Flannery O'Connor

A Good Man is Hard to Find -- Flannery O'Connor

Tender is the Night --  F. Scott Fitzgerald

He is Hysterical & Doesn't Even Know It.

This conversation took place a month or two back, but it is SO good it must be recounted here:

Boo: "Beckett, what do Mama's friends call her?"

Beckett: "Betsi."

Me: "What do Boo's friends call her?"

Beckett: "Jodi."

Boo: "What do My Buddy's friends call him?"

Beckett: (thinks for a minute) "My Buddy doesn't have any friends."

And B also walked up to my car, pointed at the word "Volvo," and said, "That says 'Betsi's car.'"

Never boring with that one around :0)

Holla back 1L

So, I have 1 grade back -- B+ in Contracts. Not as good as last semester (A-), but MUCH better than I thought I would do, so I'm okay with it! 

T-minus One Day.....

One day until the Contracts final.  And I think I may actually have this down. MAY...

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision is gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be you womb

tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes its takes the darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

Anything or anyone 

that does not bring you alive

Is too small for you.

-David Whyte, Sweet Darkness

Suicide is Painless (as least in Law School)

This is for my Legally B, who I love and adore and who needs to pack up her suicidal thoughts (purely law school driven and not serious, but we've all been there, so completely understandable) and KNOW that everything works out in the end. If it's not working out, then it's NOT the end! I love you, B!

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be,

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of Wrath and Tears,

Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years,

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with Punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley, Invictus

Card After Card

So, we just made up a Property song to the tune of "Time after Time" called "Card After Card." My brain as ALMOST lost the ability to function. ALMOST. I hit the world's BIGGEST study wall today. Good thing there are 5 more days until Contracts. 

Oh, and I'm down with BFP, yeah you know me......

If You Think It Long and Mad...

Because Neruda is infinitely better than Criminal Law and Torts. Well, almost better than anything for that matter. I can only take so much product liability and criminally negligent homicide in one day...

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

-Pablo Neruda, If You Forget Me

Unstable, Vacillating, Unsettled, Wavering...

Because it's 3:52 a.m. and Civ Pro is FINISHED and because I have had 34 Red Bulls, Rockstars, Monsters, etc. and because Beckett danced around naked on the fireplace earlier singing, "My penis and my butt," and because going to sleep now is futile, here is some Shelley.

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

   How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly! -- yet soon

   Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings

   Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

    One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. -- A dream has power to poison sleep;

    We rise. -- One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

    Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! -- For, be it joy or sorrow,

    The path of its departure still is free:

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;

    Nought may endure but Mutability.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mutability (1816)

This Civ Pro Book My Prison

This week has been crazy and it's only going to get worse in the upcoming 17 days. 17 days....that is all that stands between me and 2L! Hells yes. I do, however, think that Civ Pro is going to be the death of me. International Shoe, Byrd, minimum contacts, joinder, impleader, interpleader.......

"Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

Had dimmed my eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,

Friends, whom I never more may meet again,

On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison