I Love you man.

Now I remember why I like it better when he calls me "babe." Because otherwise it's "man." Only at the end of "I love you," but still ... odd.

We just upped the confusion factor here. He apologized, and made good points.

But I'm not clear. At all.

I forgot to get dressed

It's almost 6 pm, and I'm still in the same bathrobe and pretty much the same position as 6 am. I only realized this was odd when the mailman waved hello to me about an hour ago, as I was sitting on the couch with my laptop, in my bathrobe.

Now, don't think I haven't done anything. The reason I haven't left the house or put clothes on or any such thing is that I've had TOO much to do. And I've gotten a fair amount done - though I'm always surprised at how quickly blocks of 4 hours can disappear.

I have a rough draft of my memo now. I just avoided everything hard. It's only rough and it's a page too long, so there will need to be some major hacking. But, it must sit to the side while I get some other things done.

I need another two days of sitting in my bathrobe to get caught up, but I have only one. If I do stay focused here though, I will run out of food and clean clothes for next week. Well, I have two bags of pita in my freezer and lots of jam and peanut butter, so I'll be fine. I'm thinking of just stuffing my big suitcase with dirty clothes to take to Oregon on Wednesday, the poor college kid coming home for mom's cooking. But, they won't all fit, and I'll have to go to the laundromat anyway when I get back then. And I'll be wearing sweatpants on the plane. Which I guess isn't bad.

Best purchase I've made in a long time? Fleece bathrobe. I could stay like this for weeks and never turn on my heat.

Thanks Jenny!

Last night I talked to my friend Kim, whom I met while Habitat-ing. She personifies just about everything I like about the south - friendliness, good cooking, genuine consideration and politeness, and a sense of humor. She's finishing up a nursing program in Alabama, and she's pretty excited to finish up and get through it all. When I talked about how stressed I am about my finals she said, "Girl, I told you, we claimed it! You ain't got nothin to worry about!"

OK, that's a slang that I don't really know, but I get the meaning.

It's comforting, but I'm not relaxed.

This VERY IMPORTANT MEMO due on Monday - I'm fucked. I just tried to write the section I'd been putting off, and it's impossible based on the information I have. And, the last moment to ask questions was 5 pm yesterday. No wonder she was asking me how I was doing on that section. Why on earth did i put it off? Oh my. And I was talking to a guy who got a crappy grade last time because he misread something - which is exactly what I'll be doing now. All my work will be in vain if I'm wrong on an argument.

My brain is fuzzy and I'm overwhelmed - and I MUST finish outlines this weekend because I'm leaving town and then I have to start practice tests when I get back because my first exam is December 4th - and it's the hardest one by far. OH MY SOUL.

I wish I could function on little sleep, but I can't at all. Sigh.

persona

We got in to see the lawyer - yay! And a classmate had manipulated it so it was actually the lawyer's break, but he was gracious.

A letter is in the works in response to the stupid lawyer stunt, and things may be good. I liked the lawyer and his attitude - when he says things like, "This is stupid! This makes me mad!" Yeah, buddy.

And I went to go see Beloved Professor and give him my blessing to leave though it makes me sad. What's the opposite of persona non grata? He said he'd been feeling that way all year - his name isn't in the directory at the front of the building where I tried to find out where he is. But he's persona a grata to us. (OR whatever the opposite would be.) He said it's not definite that he's leaving - that he had accepted a job elsewhere before, but he missed it here so much he came back. I said, "Yes, but you have other reasons for leaving as well." "Yes, but you never know."

Maybe what I like about him most is his unwillingness to commit to a job - I can SO relate!

So, he has been told the door is open to him until August. I would be very surprised if he comes back, and I would scold him, but I would be very happy as well. He is a great professor. And his humility is endearing. "Oh, please," he says when I tell him these things. "You get to know that you are appreciated by us," I respond.

Unfortunately, it's the class that I'm the worst in, by far. And he will take it very personally when I get the lowest grade in the class.

So, I best hit those book. The memo assignment consumes all my attention, but I do really need to buckle down on final prep. Sigh.

it's all about connections

Gomez used to say to me all the time that I knew how to network. I never knew what the hell he was talking about.

Now I get it.

When I emailed to get an appointment with the law clinic because of the whole ex-landlord situation, I was told nothing's available until January 12. Which is ok.

But all I had to do was ask my friend to look into it, and the next thing I know I have a phone call and a 2:45 appointment for today.

Woo hoo!

I love my friends. I just have never figured out why they like me.

why I love my professor

Today Lesbian Bartender came to visit my classes, which was fun to see things through her eyes. In the third class, I went to the professor and asked if there were any empty seats. There are not, so he said to have her snag one of the seats in the back row where usually there is an absentee.

I told her to chill in my seat (right in front of him, in the second row) for a few minutes until we saw who did and didn't show up, and then I went to the restroom.

When I came out, the professor was waiting in the hallway. I got a crooked gesturing finger and I looked around. You talkin to me? I went over and he pulled me to the side, away from the gathering masses. He had a look of concern and consternation, mixed with his apologetic polite ways.

"Would you be so kind as to sit in your regular seat? If your friend is there, it will so discombobulate my brain. Could you move her to the back row so that you are there in your regular seat for me?"

"Sure, no problem."

That is why I love him. I am his Aztec Boy. He often looks at me in class, and he has near pleaded me to come to class on days when I said I might not make it - but I had no idea that it was meaningful to him.

How did he pay me back for conceding to his request? By, when he was explaining JNOV, with his back to me completely, he said, "And for you, Ms. [insert my name here], the O is ..." "Obstante. I already looked it up." Son of Deepo Provero Inventor gave me high five for quick comeback,. but his slight snideness did not phase or disarm me.

Because it's like we are in a private class and more in dialogue than auditorium. I just didn't know he felt the same way.

Charisma, as my Beloved Advisor taught me, is making people whom you don't know feel that you do know them. It's a teaching skill I mastered convincingly enough after becoming metacognitive of it. But I know the game, and I thought I was just another face to Beloved Professor here.

Nope, I'm the anchor face.

Wait, maybe that's not quite what I mean ...

time (is it on my side?)

1:30 a.m. 3:30 a.m. Unknown callers. Well, I'm glad Dayton finally has something to say to me, but couldn't he have waited until 7:30 MY time? I'm not calling back anytime soon. I'm showing my student around school and have classes and then rushing home to complete an assignment that I need 30 hours for in about three so I can go back to campus and ask my instructor yet more questions. I was already sleep-deprived and not feeling so hot, so these wake-up calls in the night before I turned off my phone have really pushed me into noncoherence land.

Woo.

One of my other students told me she was talking to lawyers she used to work with and they asked her about the prep class (she loves me) and she told them I'm a 1L and they said I was COMPLETELY INSANE for teaching twice a week while a 1L. And they don't even know about my other two jobs or the lawsuit or Dayton or health issues. So, that's a little comforting. Being a lawyer is about really long and stressful days, but if actual lawyers are saying that I"m already going through long and stressful, then I'm not worried about what the future holds.

I'm a little worried about grades. Or, a lot worried. Like this memo assignment - on the one hand, if I'd had more time I could have done better (it's due Monday but I can't ask any questions after 5:00 pm today). But honestly - I had time that I chose not to use because I just couldn't force myself to do it. I want an A. But just having more time to work on it wouldn't make that happen necessarily. I'm not ripping something out at the last minute - none of us is - and there's diminishing returns at work.

And with my prep for classes - I have always read and always briefed - sometimes a day after we discussed, but rarely late. I don't know everything and I'm especially worried about not having wrapped my brain around CivPRo because I didn't brief for that class (because he would give us the assignments only a day in advance, I generally didn't have time). So, I'm definitely behind in outlining and preparation for exams, but I might still be ok. Even if I'd had more time - only recently could I have started the outlining and prep anyway. And there are still a couple weeks until finals.

Yeah, I keep talking about it, clearly I'm preoccupied. Obsessed. I really want to do well, and I want to believe that my work habits won't prevent me from that. Time's elastic, I say, and just because I've stretched the elastic all the way out doesn't mean it's not holding everything.

Ready or not, time to start the day.

gaydar

When I emailed my student about bringing her to school tomorrow, I included a line about how there aren't many hot guys so not a lot of eye candy to admire while there.

Why?

For this: "Everything looks amazing on the schedule, but the question is not if there are attractive men, but rather brilliant and attractive women. I'm gay so the guy comment has kept me laughing for the last 20 minutes. Thanks for thinking of me anyway."

I have yet to find a good way to get people to out themselves to me. So, look at me - resorting to heterosexist speech to elicit it.

Not my apex of diversite encouragement, but hey, at least she got a laugh. And my gaydar still scoring pretty high. Though not so good with boys. I always assume they're gay - and maybe they are but repressing.

sleuthing

I think I figured out who "the girl" is that is taking away our beloved professor.

Here are the facts:

• The dean's wife told me that Beloved Professor has had a VERY long-term "girlfriend" and that's why he's leaving us, to be with her.
• I looked at the name he wrote in the "to" of our textbook.
• I compared that to the first names of people at the school he's going to, cross-referencing it with co-authors.
• I found a winner. And I like her picture - she seems very nice.

But here's the part that kills me. They graduated from the same (the best) law school in the same year, ALMOST 30 YEARS AGO.

I've waited for Dayton almost a year and a half, and I think that's too long. She waited almost 30 years!? And in her picture, there's no trace of bitterness. I hope that she hasn't really waited that long, and that they were friends for a long time through other relationships. But, regardless ...

Wow.

As I said, he is our Beloved Professor. One of my classmates asked him to prom, another offered to marry him if he'll stay. Every single day somebody else says to me how much they love him - male and female. He's not hot or particularly charismatic. I don't know why we love him so much. But we do. I think it's because he can make us not feel like idiots, and we know he really listens to us and really cares about our learning. Or maybe it's what one classmate described to me today - the shuffle dance that starts his dash across the front of the room as he's explicating another Federal Rule. Who knew one could get so excited about personal jurisdiction?

Well, that school is really lucky to have him, as is "the girl." Even if no man is worth waiting 30 years for.

cross country skiing

That may be what I miss most about Alaska. In both Fairbanks and Elim, to just step outside my front door and strap on some skis and head off - that is a special kind of bliss that I just can't find here in the South.

Today I was making what is probably a not atypical Texas-bashing statement to my Contracts neighbor, and we got to him saying, "Yeah, but nobody lives in the vast openness of Alaska." "Oh, but I did and so do some others. Just because you can't drive there doesn't mean there's nobody there." I miss nature. No, it's more than that, because I can find nature at a park. I miss wilderness. Wildness.

And life in Alaska, like everywhere now as I age, would be better if I were loaded and working at a big law firm.

I toy with the idea. I toy with trying to find a job on the west coast this summer. I like the south a lot in a lot of ways, but I don't feel a compulsion to live here forever. Nor does that idea repulse me. I'm pretty open, but I want to make major bank.

What's still open is the status of my relationship with Dayton. But leaning towards over. But we do have to decide pretty quickly and it needs to be a permanent decision - because if he's NOT coming here, then I'm going to try to find a job this summer (the rate for the big firms is $2400/week) elsewhere and I'm making all sorts of other changes to what's going on for me.

I've waited almost a year and a half for him, which should make me able to wait another few days for him to finish thinking things through before we talk, but I think that's the point. I've waited a long time for him, and I'm over waiting. It's happening or it's not. I do understand that he's of a refugee and African mindset, that things move more slowly for him and he's afraid of losing the security of where he is now after suffering so much. I do understand that, and I'm not angry at him now for moving at a different pace than me. But I need to be fair to myself, too. If he can't move at my pace, then we need to move to separate tracks, and it needs to happen now. It will break my heart irreparably, but I will survive. I like things determined, and I like action - I'm like a top that must spin or I fall over (or like a beagle that dances in circles on its backlegs, going nowhere). (Except of course, that I DO go somewhere, always, even if it's just to ski around the mountain.)