101

Little did I know when I posted Emily Goo's blog this past week that it was to be my 100th blog post.  I think that it is entirely fitting that she would be the one to claim this milestone.  After all, at its inception this blog was all about navigating the uncertainties in my life as I approached something new and scary and exciting.  I have been extremely lucky to have found a friend as good as Goo to help me along as I stumbled through an alien environment, and I am touched that she wrote such a nice post for the 100th entry. 

Now that R&G is over, I will have time to return to my regularly scheduled postings (Disclaimer: there are no regular posting times.  Past frequency is not indicative of future success.).  I would like to thank all of you who came out to see R&G this past weekend- it was so great seeing so many groups of friends and family converging and overlapping.  Special thanks to Josh and Emily, who gamely agreed to wrangle various groups and introduce/watch over them when I was backstage getting ready and unable to take on those duties. 

I will post pictures from the past couple of weeks as they become available- I know for a fact I was in many of them.  Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying President's day.  I am spending my time reading up on Criminal Justice and contemplating writing a children's book on the Fourth Amendment titled: "If You Give a Cop a Warrant..."  Might make for a good study aid....

Guest Post: Emily G

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I've been wanting to write an update, but I haven't had time.  Goo said: "Why haven't you updated the blog?" I said: "Busy. You write one."  She said: "Fine."  This is the result of that. I told her I wouldn't change anything she wrote.  That may have been a mistake.)

Good morning, Friends of Mike. I am honored, chuffed and mildly mad with power to be the first guest blogger in the history of Walking Into A Buzzsaw. They call me Emily Goo. In a year where I have been fortunate enough to make many new amazing friends, Mike is the one I've become closest to by far, and I'm more or less incapable of exaggerating my fondness for him. We met during Curtains, which I used to depart from my regular identity as mild-mannered Congressional staffer by day and develop an alternate nocturnal personality characterized by showtune addiction, allowing myself to be talked into overly revealing costumes, and excessive reliance on any strain of humor that can be coupled with the phrase "That's what she said."

Mike also is one of the few people who gets me to talk about my feelings; since this is not at all my bag, I don't know exactly how he does that - possibly sorcery, maybe sodium thiopental - but to his great credit, I must confess that it hasn't been the worst thing in the world. You know how Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock is always asking the world to help him figure out what's "on his mind grapes"? Mike is, essentially, the curator of my mind grapes. Often, in the middle of a workday (whatever, I get a lunch break), I will tear across the Capitol and over to his apartment, where I drag him away from whatever he's doing to scream with me in the alleyways of Northwest DC. We also are proud to be the two creepiest people in our theater company - his is more of the creepy-hug, heavy-breathing, invading-your-personal-space-to-the-point-that-you-can't-help-but-like-it type, whereas I'm more of a prowl-outside-your-door, leave-you-on-edge-because-you-have-no-idea-if-I'm-watching-everything-you're-doing-from-a-secure-location variety - but either way, we earn the crap out of that title, both competitively and cooperatively. And no, in case this love letter to one of my dearest friends is coming across incorrectly, Mike and I really are just friends. In point of fact, we assume a tremendous amount of personal responsibility for conducting each other's romantic affairs, like some kind of unholy proxy.

Here is a picture of us at Sarah's princess party on Friday (more on that below). It explains everything.

You get the idea. You just want to know: Where exactly IS Mike right now? Well, relax - he's definitely not tied to a post in my basement with a bucket, Latin bible and a daily ration of Xanax-laced sweet tea and 16 ounces of canned beans. No, really, he's spending his entire days in class - just ask anyone dealing with the withdrawal symptoms from his usually liberal use of GChat during the day, cf. your humble guest blogger - and his entire evenings in rehearsal, since we are now less than 36 hours from the opening curtain of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. For those of you with poor retention, Mike plays the leading role of Guildenstern, where he has to really stretch his range by playing a sarcastic, wisecracking, often befuddled man wandering around a nebulous world waiting to see what happens. In all seriousness, though, he continues to be among the most extraordinary actors I've known, and as the assistant director for the show, watching him inhabit this role has been exhilarating. What? You don't even have tickets yet? How do you even live with...okay. No. We can fix this. Hie you hence to this link and reserve your ticket this instant. http://www.goldstar.com/events/washington-dc/rosencrantz-and-guildenstern-are-dead-1

There, don't you feel better? Isn't it nice not walking around with all that uncertainty about the next time you get to see Mike perform? Surely it's been affecting your digestion. I'm glad I could help.

To give you the full experience, I'll give you a few snapshots from Mike's life in the last few days:
- This most recent Friday night, he attended a princess party for our friend Sarah's birthday. Here, have a picture of Davia, Ben, me, Mike, and Kelsey. Yeah, I know I'm front and center in this one. It's my guest blog, it is my prerogative!

- On Saturday, he blew off much of R+G's load-in, much to Master Carpenter Davia's chagrin, to show Kelsey around the town. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is not exactly true, but I don't have time to explain.  This may be a flaw in my brilliant plan to let Emily guest-blog.)

- On Sunday night, he saw Kelsey off and then had rehearsal all night. Also Monday. He also will have rehearsal all night tonight.

- Last night, for rehearsal, his detachable sleeves became permanently detached due to a wardrobe malfunction, so he was required to perform his role with a sleeveless jacket over white shirt, which lent a pleasingly Han Solo-esque quality to his portrayal of Guildenstern.

So, there. You're all caught up on all things Mike. Thank you all for having me. Tell Mike how much you adored this post, and perhaps I will be back for future guest blogging.

In Which Mike Goes Insane For No Reason

So about a week ago I had to turn in a short paper for Property class.  This is unusual in law school.  Every other class I have has only one grade: the final exam.  My Property teacher wanted to make things more interesting for us by giving us a few projects throughout the semester that are worth small portions of our grade.  The first project was a paper about a movie about a dispute about a baseball.  A baseball worth a million dollars.  Because it was, like, the 73rd one hit by Barry Bonds in 2001.  Or something like that.

If you know me, my reaction to this movie will be entirely unsurprising.  An excerpt:

"This brings to mind a question: why is it not illegal to lob a small, hard object worth a small fortune into a tightly packed crowd of slightly inebriated strangers with the directive that whosoever shall arise from the resulting scuffle wielding said small and hard object in their fist shall be the rightful owner?"

I analyzed the movie from the point of view of the various rules of property ownership that could have applied.  I was, of course, having a wonderful and sarcastic time of it.  Another excerpt:

"As the Athenian delegation in the 400’s BC told the inhabitants of Melos 

shortly before destroying them, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer 

what they must.” 1 (In this context, Hayashi’s alleged biting of the young Brian 

Shepherd in order to get the baseball was entirely reasonable as a method for 

acquiring it.)"  

(The "1" was a footnote which read: "Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 404.   It is an interesting historical note that, after the Athenians sacked Melos, the remnants of the Melians joined up with the Spartans in sacking Athens.")

So yes, I had too much fun.  Still, when I received the paper back over e-mail I was not expecting what I saw at the bottom:

Bottom left corner.  Zero.   As in- no points.  And the note, which as far as I can tell read "Is this ridiculous a general feature or limited to extreme/unusual circumstances?"  And which I first thought was relating to my thesis but then imagined might be just in reference to me in general.

The paper was out of five points, so I was, as you may imagine, dismayed.  I didn't think I had done a bad job.  Was my snarkiness finally catching up to me?  Was I going to pay dearly for having planted my tongue firmly in my cheek?  

I don't care about grades, but I do care very much when my general idea of what sort of job I did is entirely opposite of the result.  I e-mailed the professor asking, very nicely, if I could come in and have a chat because I didn't understand from the feedback what I had done so terribly wrong as to have my work product rendered absolutely worthless.  I hate not understanding.  I was distraught.

Then she sent me an e-mail saying, in part, "your grade is circled.  Let me rescan it."

I waited.  Then I got this:

Ah.  Four out of five.  Basically A-, in terms of how the scale works.  Right.  That makes more sense.

I still belong in law school!  Not a total failure!  Yay!  

Innocence Project meeting now.  

Steaklunch 2: The Luncheoning

Whereas Steaklunch is the greatest idea ever, and whereas we had not had Steaklunch in many months, it was resolved that Ben and I should Steaklunch once more.  And, like every Steaklunch, it was glorious.

Ben made mashed potatoes and gravy. 

(Steaklunch doesn't require sides, but if a side is present it must be mashed potatoes.)

When ordering our groceries for the next week weeks, in addition to getting the steak for Steaklunch we also ordered a "Bloomin' Onion" thinking that it would, you know, be sort of like a "Bloomin' Onion."  It was, in fact, bread with pieces of onion baked into it.  We added it to Steaklunch because Steaklunch can turn failure into victory.   

Obligatory shot of me making the steak.  

My eyes are sort of crazed, but hey, that's Steaklunch for you.

Remember in my first post about Steaklunch when I said that Steaklunch takes effort?

This video details the part of that effort that has to deal with our poor ventilation.

As always, Ben approaches his Steaklunch with the most serious of intention.

After Steaklunch I took a lovely walk around the Capitol with Goo.  I am mentioning this here just so that it can serve as a permanent placeholder/reminder for me that I promised/threatened to do something about 25 years from now.  So there.  Now it's on the blog.  It's permanent.  I will never forget.

Brain Full. Head Hurts.

I have such First World Problems.

I didn't get to go to any parties this weekend because I needed to memorize things.  All the things.  ALL the things.  I missed out on a party for Trevor at which there was:

1.  A dinosaur theme
2.  Cider
3.  Jurassic Park
4.  Bacon-wrapped sausage
and
5.  Volcano Cake

As you can imagine, I am distraught over this.  I will have to make up for it in the future.  Somehow I will get a bigger Volcano cake and... bacon-wrapped-bacon, or something.  I don't even, truthfully, know exactly what was meant by "volcano cake."  I just know I want one and I didn't get to try any tonight.

That's okay, because I memorized a closing argument and Act 2 of R&G.  I didn't make the mock trial team (probably mercifully, as I should not do more things- roommate Ben has started joking that I belong to every organization here, for some reason), but I learned a lot in preparing for it and I'm looking forward to taking some sort of trial advocacy class next year.  I told Davia and Noah, who helped me prepare, that if I was going to make the team then I was going to do it my way.  They informed me that my way was really snarky and I was not going to make the team if I delivered my speech in any way like myself.  They were correct, but it was worth it because I got to say (paraphrased for context and clarity, emphasis added): "Why would my client only shoot Judge Tu once if she really wanted to murder him?  She didn't run out of bullets.  She had plenty of bullets!"

Ben and I have also planned for the second official Steaklunch on Monday.  I'm really excited about that.

With any luck, I will memorize Act 3 tomorrow.  And, you know, do homework....

P.S.

I have been told by the treasurer for GGSS that I should send out information about program advertisements for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  So here is that information.  I am in no way saying that I want or expect anyone to do this, but I told Kiera that I would make an announcement of some sort.  You can e-mail her at klbloore@gmail.com.   It's like, $10 for a business-card sized advertisement, $25 for a quarter page, $50 for a half page, and $75 for a full page ad.  So if you want to, you can make up an advertisement that says pretty much whatever you want and force our audiences to see it.  She needs to know by Monday, so after Monday ignore this.

Pinochle is Not Normally Played with Cocaine

This week I'm working on round two of mock trial tryouts.  Again, this is a terrible idea, but you know I can't resist.  It's basically acting, but without any character development.  This Saturday I have to do an eight minute closing argument and a seven minute cross-examination of a witness.  Hooray for fifteen more minutes of things I need to memorize.

Speaking of things I need to memorize, this weekend I am committed to doing almost nothing besides learning my lines for R&G.  This is sort of necessary, as it is coming up swiftly.  I really shouldn't be doing anything else.  Like writing blog posts.  Oh well.

I had my first brush with extreme investigatory disappointment yesterday.  I was researching a guy for my Innocence Project case.  He was a potential witness and he had written our inmate just a few years ago saying that he had talked to someone else who wanted to recant his statement.  I found him pretty easily using the whitepages, and then I did some more google sniffing: I found out his wife's name, his address history, his employment... and THEN I found out that he had been murdered in 2009.  So that was... neither happy nor helpful.

Classes continue to be a lot of fun.  I really love Constitutional Law.  We're going line by line through opinions from the early 1800's and for some reason that works for me.  I don't know why.

In Criminal Justice we continue to go through the 4th Amendment and its application.  The more cases I read the more I realize that the Supreme Court is mostly just applying the Vampire rule to homes.  You know- the one that says if you don't invite a vampire into your home he can't enter, but if you're outside you are fair game.  If you take that concept and replace "vampire" with "warrant-less searches" then you've pretty much got the idea.

Also, if you are engaged in an illegal activity but you also are engaging in a noncommercial social activity, you may be able to acquire the "protection" of the house you are in.  Hence the title of this post.

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature

It's a good thing I typically enjoy being busy, because that's what I've been and I see very little end of that in sight.  

First off, I would like to say how lucky I am that I really enjoy American history.  My Conlaw professor (who is a really really big deal and is aware of that fact) likes to ask people questions that are just outside the range of what someone would be able to answer only having read the material once.  This has resulted in a lot of "maybe your neighbor can help..." transitions in class.  On Wednesday it was my turn, as he looked up into the seats and said "you in the blue shirt."  

I looked around.  I was surrounded by a group of people wearing blue shirts.  We were all looking at each other.  

"The Georgetown Law shirt," he added.  I looked down.  I was wearing a Georgetown Law shirt.  "Yes?" I said.  Then he started asking a series of questions from the reading.  The reading that I had only skimmed over because I had over a hundred pages of reading for Wednesday that I did in just a couple of hours on Tuesday.  Fortunately, the reading was about the First Bank of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.  What I knew about that came mostly from my reading of a biography of Andrew Jackson (the charter renewal for the SECOND bank of the United States was a major source of contention) but it covered the general idea well enough that I could fish back into my mind for answers as to "What would James Madison say in reply to Hamilton's assertion that the Constitution clearly didn't allow for the incorporation of a bank?"  So... hooray for lucking out.

I forget entirely everything that happened on Thursday.  This is why I should write posts more often.  I know I had a meeting with my team from the Innocence Project and we wrote our client a letter.  Oh, and I met with Tim, a friend of David's who works for the FTC.  He was awesome and we both shared great stories about David in addition to talking about what it's like being a real lawyer and having cases instead of classes.  

On Friday I wrote and memorized a five minute opening statement for Mock Trial tryouts.  My biggest challenge was not talking like Rod Serling and not appending "... in the Twilight Zone" to the end of every paragraph.  This wasn't my intentional doing- it's just the way these things have to be written (or so I've been told).  Examples:

Were it not for the medical attention he received, Paul Tu would be dead....  in the Twilight Zone.

...once you see the overwhelming evidence you will have no doubt that Ms. Richardson is guilty.... in the Twilight Zone.

After that she threatened that she would make him pay... in the Twilight Zone.

...as he closed the door the defendant fired the gun, delivering what would have been a fatal wound... in the Twilight Zone.   

My speech came in at exactly 4:59, and I pretended as though that was on purpose.  It was just lucky.

My direct examination portion of the tryouts did not go so well.  It is difficult not to ask leading questions when you know exactly what the other person knows and you're just trying to get them to say it in the correct order.  I'm not going to make the team, certainly, as there are many people who I'm sure prepared to the point that they actually knew what they were doing, but it was a lot of fun just trying out.

Friday evening was another delightful Emily Goo cast party.  As always I expressed shock and awe that she had appetizers set out on real serving plates.  Very fancy.  Highlights included getting to spend time with Kelsey, who came up from Williamsburg for the weekend, and trying to convince Noah, who plays Hamlet in R&G, that I didn't hate him (which he thought because apparently he has been talking to me once or twice and I have walked away, in his mind, mid-conversation.  I don't remember it going that way, but I'll take his word on it).  

Saturday I went on a run and to the American History Museum with Kelsey, then got lunch with Ben "how about we talk about the reasons I'm awesome" Leatham.   In the afternoon I had two interviews: one with a place in Miami and the other with a place in Philly.  I would prefer to stay in DC, but neither of those would suck, certainly, so I tried to interview well.  

My first interview, Miami, went well because my interviewer had originally gone to school for music education.  So we talked about music.  Score.  

My second interviewer broke one of the cardinal rules (I think it is, at least) by asking me, immediately after I sat down, to tell a joke.  "Jokes" are extremely context-based and the choice of joke depends highly on the personality of the person sitting across from you.  I went with the following:

*Smiling, jovial face*- "Alright- so a duck and a penguin walk into a bar.  The bartender looks at them and says: 'What is this, a joke?'" *SUPER SERIOUS FACE*

It's not a very good joke, but the delivery got a sustained laugh.  I liked the interviewer, because her followup question was an incredulous: "why do you want to work for poor people?"   

I walked back most of the way from the GW campus (where the interviews were held) to my apartment because it was such a nice day.

Today I built more cubes for the show.  I also learned from Steph and Trevor that there had been another very fun game of Beertrek at Josh's place (wish I could have gone- was way too tired).  Also, Eric, the director of Curtains, was in town and helping the paint crew.  After I arrived he asked a question about musical theater and I said "I thought we were done with trivia," to which he responded "welcome back... to hell."  I missed him.

The set crew came up with a number of slogans and sayings.

"Is it 'ish'?" - as in "Is this exactly 24 inches?"  "Ish."  "Close enough."

"It's a paint problem." - as in "paint crew, you can fix this, right?" 

"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"  - as in "This door overlaps the top of the box by a few inches."  "Well they need a handle if they're trying to open it from the outside." Thanks, Trevor.  

What a great set crew.  And a great weekend.  Okay, back to work.