work product

it is not contrary to tradition to mark an event by composition of haiku;

i, too, dear reader, have tried to so seize some one thing about each job:

*

ttara haseyo:
"'Sup? What's up? How're you doing?
I'm fine, thanks, and you?"

*

double tall mocha
is that for here or to go
thanks please call again
*

repetitive stress
oh carpal tunnel syndrome
cannot move fingers

*

[template]

*

adenine guanine
crawl around circuitous
perilous word bridge

*

egomaniac
through chemistry may achieve
equilibrium

*

side effects include
vomiting coma and death
call for free brochure

*

read cases take note
then balance utilities
sleep deep and often

*

subject the statute
and facts to analysis;
dispense warm justice

*

[three bar haiku]

*

if you get divorced
you are an honorary
statistical expert

*

code those documents
fast if not well for you may
be cut tomorrow

*

pizza and beer are
in the second floor kitchen:
they are not for you.

*

unknown manager
says her ass is on the line,
demotivating

*

debit issuance
proposal draft with legal
advice appended

*

memo drafted at
counsel’s request re pending
antitrust lit’n

*

we connect the dots
its all perfectly legal
that’s how we do it.

overheard in girl talk hell

"I have thought of a wholly untapped source of hilarity: nursing homes!"

you heard it here.

in related works, i offer only the following, not particularly hilarious, reflections on an elderly couple i once knew, who were patrons of such an institution for a time:


it is final enough. to die by your own hand a mere month—is it?
or years: since she lost her mind—after the beloved passed,
suffering done at last in the crying white tennis-shoed
persistent living if you can call it that facility. final.

overheard in girl talk hell

"If [instead of reviewing assigned files one is being paid to review] you just wait, somebody else'll do them. Then just go sign up for more."*

overheard in boy talk hell

i don't do too much overheard in boy talk hell. no doubt, as a result of millennia of patriarchal tradition, boy talk hell is kind of just normative generalized small talk, though it may still veer into decidedly men-are-gearhead-nerds-from-mars realms, as with the popular notions of fishing, the barbecue, power tools and spectator sports.

but today in boy talk hell, one party said to another party, "everybody objects to paying their taxes," and, with a pointed pause pregnant with contempt, "except you." (one of the many "everybody . . . but you" statements used by said party to said other in today's boy talk hell), and i had to look (once more) at my little prototype "do not cast your pearls before swine"-sign as i turned to engage...

talk a lot pick a little more

This video excerpt, from The Music Man, is a fair facsimile of Girl Talk Hell, with the exception that, as you can see, Robert Preston is able, eventually, to go away; not an option in Girl Talk Hell.



If those men in that barbershop quartet were talking about football instead of politely singing "Goodnight Ladies," this would be exactly what the place I work is like . . . except that Robert Preston gets to go away, and my livelihood rests amid the menace.

"Balzac!" indeed.

overheard in girl talk hell

"I think I'm a good speaker . . ."

overheard in girl talk hell

"Other people's idle chatter around me at the workplace is inconsiderate and annoying."

overheard in girl talk hell

"If I had gone to a college no one had ever heard of, you can be sure I'd have gotten a 4.0."

overheard in girl talk hell

"If his behavior changes, you would be irrational to not conclude that he's cheating on you."

overheard in girl talk hell

"I don't tell guys I date I'm Jewish because there are so many antisemites out there."

(. . . so it's ok to date an antisemite so long as he keeps it a secret? - ed.)

overheard in girl talk hell

The definition of 'whipped: "When people with reliable partners stop taking care of themselves the way single people do."
(for um, "sexier" values of "taking care of." - ed.)

This unisex and otherwise wrongful statement produced a lot of argument and discussion, even beyond the traditional locus of conversation, but the Queen of Girl Talk Hell would not be dissuaded from her error . . . which, come to think of it, might be endemic to such outbreaks.

overheard in girl talk hell

"If I'd wanted to be ignored, I could have stayed home and done it myself."

overheard in girl talk hell

". . . and that's when I decided never again to leave home without putting on makeup."

overheard in girl talk hell

"OMG! Did you know, the first person to go postal actually worked for the postal service!"

graeber on debt, the history of

"...a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call 'the economy'. What's more, origins matter...."

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2009-08-20-graeber-en.html

lawbar stress anecdotes, elicited

I really enjoyed law school.

Really no aspect of the environment was as terribly stressful as widely assumed (and often insisted upon by grads who like to seem tougher than they are). Not to say there weren't stressful times and manic people competing and stressing all over the place. There were many such and they might have been more or less the norm; I can't tell. Not a joiner to begin with, I was somewhat older than the average student (more or less straight outta undergrad) and somewhat younger than the typical adult learner. Also, I tried to adopt and exude a vibe-opposed-to-competitiveness.

When I describe that characteristic of my personality which is opposition to competition with the sentence "I'm not competitive," more often than not people try to reassure me that, in fact, I have assets sufficient to compete, and that's not what I mean at all. By opposed to competitiveness, I mean that I tried to share: while taking my daily laptop transcript of the lecture and discussion I was able to learn the names of most of the people in my classes, and note when they were absent; many were flabbergasted when I offered them the transcript.

I proofread and marked up (red pen and all) one professor's draft-book-chapters, when they were assigned library-reserve reading for his class, and was hired on the spot as a research assistant, which meagerly-paying position I held for the years of law school.

being there: 11

[Three]
that's where i am. i don't have a therapist myself (funny how a parent shrink can so depreciate the value of a paid confidant with a lexicon of norms and deviation), and i don't consult the clergy.

but i have a guru, sometimes, sort of, and i go to yoga classes in the godawful early morning before humping along to earn my daily coffee at my perfectly unisex and depersonal workstation distinguished only by my own oils and dead cells caked curiously on some and not others of the keys and a photo, pinned among the pending paperwork on the corkboard, holding an image of me appearing happy and at ease so convincingly that i could believe it but for remembering in my more honest moments how i seethed under the lens, my mug and my instant messenger and my modular unisex clerical tasks.

continue>

girl talk hell, a primer

Girl Talk Hell is a degenerate implementation of the "Congress of Girlfriends" -- itself a sometimes-admirable and apparently necessary institution which, despite the gripes of its occasional detractors, has its place in society . . . ideally at brunch, happy hour, in private, or -- as men have been being slowly and painstakingly trained (although, admittedly, often without much noteworthy success) during recent generations -- left in the locker room.

Girl Talk Hell is an efflorescence of a degenerate Congress of Girlfriends, held in an inappropriate place among women not actually members of one another's respective Congresses of Girlfriends, with no decorum or discretion, a hazardous, interminable excursion of inane chatter, noxious schadenfreude, vapid and ill-considered appeals to poorly-selected putative authorities, and bad advice, from which there is no escape.

After a few of my female friends tired of calling me a misogynist, arguing that there must be "boy talk hell" also (which I did not contradict) and actually listened with horror to the reports of the behavior of individuals in the milieu, the vile values asserted, and the absurdities overheard, they encouraged me to post an "overheard in girl talk hell" blog.

Naturally, by harping on GTH, I do not mean to condone the boy talk, or all the other talk of the caliber of television programming. I am just somewhat more inured to that irritant.

So, stay tuned for things overheard in girl talk hell.

*(i think that one mostly-nicer stanza of this might recognize a little of the value of the CoG)

picasso slept here

during a bout of chillnbill i noticed another fellow at his workstation diligently
working away with the spray paint tool, doodling perhaps, in MSpaint. it seemed
a not terrible way to spend a windfall moment to one who'd only doodled with pen.

wait, who's driving?

I was troubled, after reading several erudite law review articles
dismissing the "green card" as clumsy outmoded language for one of a set
of documents indicating immigration status, to see the green card
discussed in a June 25, 2007 Senate Republican Policy Committee
Legislative Notice comparing S.s 1639 and 1348.