That’s the name of the game

Good news for DC residents:  The DC City Council has graciously extended your curfew for another hour due to daylight savings time:

That's the message the D.C. Council sent Tuesday when it approved emergency legislation giving bars and nightclubs the option of staying open until 4 a.m. on daylight savings day, which occurs this year on March 13.

The proposal, sponsored by Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward) and Council Chairman Kwame Brown (D), is designed to clear up confusion over what time city bars have to stop serving liquor when the clock moves from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. for daylight savings time.

Since it’s a slight bit of freedom granted to businesses and citizens, you know what comes next.  Wait for it…WAIT FOR IT…

Under emergency legislation approved by a vote of 11 to 1, bars can keep serving this year until 4 a.m. if they pay a $100 registration fee to the city.

Geez.  I think I saw a movie about this once.  Next thing you know, they’re gonna use their roving band of armed strongmen to shut down your business if you don’t comply with…

The bill also includes a provision giving Police Chief Cathy Lanier the power to block an establishment from staying open that extra hour if would be "a danger to the public health, safety or welfare."

I see.

If you put that here, I am going to steal it

Fresh off of rejecting plans for a $425 million development project in my hood because some dude from the National Park Service doesn’t like the way the plans “feel,” everybody’s favorite whipping boy, Wal-Mart, is taking heat because…well I can’t even really explain this.  Just read:

Second, and I was amazed when this anxiety was aired in fully half the interviews, residents worry that the store would suffer severely or even fail because of petty theft.

"There'll probably be a lot of shoplifting going on. They'll need a lot of security," Terriea Sutton, 35, said.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk. Addressing a small, anti-Wal-Mart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn't resist the temptation to steal.

This leads to a bizarre back-and-fourth in the article, in which a DC resident and lawmaker essentially said, “Don’t put the store here.  We’re going to steal your stuff” and the Wal-Mart rep said, “No, it’s cool.  We really want to put a store there.” 

Wal-Mart said District residents needn't be so self-critical. Although security is "always a concern and a focal point for all stores, there is no more concern over these District locations than any other store locations," company spokesman Steven Restivo said.

Since Wal-Mart insists on being terrible and opening a massive store to sell goods at low prices to poor people in an underserved neighborhood, they better be ready to please the government overlords:

It's sad that people have such a low opinion of their own community. Happily, with prudent oversight from the city, Wal-Mart's arrival should be a significant step forward for the neighborhood and the District as a whole.

Although the giant retail and grocery chain has a decidedly mixed reputation, it says it will pay competitive wages and benefits, help with job training and satisfy other desires expressed by city leaders including Mayor Vincent Gray.

And Harriet Tregoning, Director of the ominously-named D.C. Office of Planning delivers a gem of a quote:

"We've had a big push to bring more retail to our city where people want to shop," Tregoning said. "We think it's great that a lot of types of retail that had previously ignored the District, and other cities, are now discovering our healthy, urban markets."

And by “big push to bring more retail to our city where people want to shop,” Ms. Tregoning means rejecting multi-million dollar development deals based on feel, engaging in “prudent” government oversight (whatever that means) of particular stores, and pressuring businesses to “satisfy other desires” expressed by various officials. 

Can’t imagine why businesses “ignore” the District. 

(H/T Cato-at-Liberty and Radley Balko).

The Story

For months, most everybody knew my story.  For starters, it was all over the internet.  The news traveled by word of mouth.  And really, it was difficult to look at me and not know something was going on.  Week after week after week, my mother would return from the grocery store or wherever and inform me that she spoke to Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so and they send me their prayers and their best wishes.  I would never actually know how Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so knew about what I was going through, although it was always wonderful to hear such news.  But word travels fast, and it was no surprise that everybody within six degrees of me knew what was going on.  I didn’t care, of course – I would rather people know.  I would rather people know what I was going through because then, at the very least, when they see me a few months later and I’m damn near normal, maybe they won’t fear this horrible disease as much as they would have otherwise. 

But now, I’ve started a new job in a new city, and there are new people around all the time.  And they don’t know my story.  I imagine this is one of the most unique aspects of being a young cancer patient.  I also think it’s a situation most cancer patients would kill to be in.  Every day now, I’m in a situation when I’m very close to people who have no idea what I’ve been through.  And sometimes, that’s troubling.  It’s sort of like you just want to grab them and shake them and say, “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I’VE JUST BEEN THROUGH?!”

But you don’t.  And then you realize how lucky you are to be able to work or socialize closely with others who have no idea what you’ve been through. 

***

I’m used to the double-take by now.  It usually happens at work.  I was a Summer Associate for the firm I’m currently working for back in the summer of 2009.  Being a Summer Associate, you meet a lot of people.  A year and a half later, I still recognize a lot of those people.  But they don’t always recognize me.  So I’m used to walking down hallways, or standing in elevators, or sitting in the cafe and seeing other attorneys give me the double-look.  Their faces say it all: I know you, but you look different.  As one person put it Friday, “I knew I recognized your face!”

I usually respond the same way every time:  “Yeah it’s me…without all the hair!”  To them, I decided to chop all my hair off, possibly for shits and giggles, possibly in some quarter-life crisis.  To me, it’s a battle scar.

And I completely torpedoed a lunch a couple weeks ago.  I was out with another first-year associate and several more experienced associates.  When you’re in this sort of situation – nobody really knows each other – the conversation tends to gravitate toward the same, safe questions, one of which is the obvious, “So did you do anything fun after the bar exam?” 

When this question is asked, I defer.  I’ve heard my fellow first year give her answer enough times that I no longer need to hear it, and on this particular occasion, I spent the duration of her answer thinking about whether I felt like dropping a bomb on the conversation.  I sit there and hope and pray that they’ll forget that I never answered the question. That my friend’s response wont’ be followed with, “And how about you, Nick?”  Really, I don’t care who knows my story.  But I’m also not up for being “that guy.”  As much as possible, I want this thing to be blip on the radar.  And broadcasting my saga to people who don’t want or need to know is not conducive to that purpose.

My friend described her post-bar activities:  A trip of a lifetime to Eastern Europe along with cheating death by jumping out of a plane.  Well, hell.  As you know, I don’t need much of an analogy to take off and start running.  So I decided, screw it.  If they’re going to ask me what I did after the bar exam, I’ll tell them about my own trip of a lifetime and how I cheated death.  But damn, I hope they don’t ask. 

So of course, the conversation turns to me: “And how about you?” 

A short chuckle.  A long pause.  And then, “Well, about 36 hours after I finished the bar exam…”

***

I don’t like acting like a damn landmine every time somebody asks the wrong question. But I also don’t like lying to people.  Nor can I avoid the inevitable feeling of “If you only knew” every time I talk to somebody who, quite simply, doesn’t know.

But then I take a step back and think, “Really, how wonderful is this?”  How wonderful is it that, six months after I was diagnosed with a disease that kills tens of thousands of people every year, I can get on with my daily life without anybody knowing a damn thing.  Most cancer patients would murder for that deal. 

Back in July, before das shit hit das fan, I had two Major Life Events on my plate:  The bar exam and starting the new job.  I took the bar exam exactly as planned.  I started work the very day I was scheduled to start. 

But holy hell, you couldn’t conscript a gripping fiction writer to come up with my story over the past half year.  And to place it, so perfectly, between those two major life events, five and a half months apart.  I’ve stopped trying to figure that stuff out.  And it’s a good thing, because I’ll never be able to. 

So I just walk around most of the time with a sense of satisfaction. I guess this isn’t any different from the first 25 years of my life, but now I think I’ve somewhat earned it.  Because I know what I’ve been through.  And, even better, a lot of people around me don’t.

A lot of people in my situation would love to be that lucky.

It’s never over

For those of you who don’t know the special pain of realizing the last four years of your life have been one colossal, expensive mistake (kidding) (sorta), law students who pass a state bar and work in DC have to “waive in” to the DC bar.  Fortunately, this does not require taking another bar exam.  Unfortunately, the process still involves being admitted to a bar, which means two things: Hoops and fees.  During my first week at the firm, I polled some people for advice on how to expedite the process.  One of my coworkers responded that he had no advice.  It was, simply, “the most painful process I’ve known.” 

Well it’s damn close.  I’m going to put it somewhere between “nausea” and “bone pain” on the chemo side effect scale.  And since this blog is about sharing my horribly depressing and painful experiences with the world, here are some highlights to brighten up your Monday:

I give DC props for throwing “Fees” in at #2. Lets us know what this is really about. Anyway, don’t be fooled into thinking that you only have two fees to pay here.  Sure, the section marked “Fees” lists two payments (although #2 sends you to another document – apparently they couldn’t bother to put the amount you have to pay on the front page).  There’s a third fee you have to pay.  It goes to the recipient of fee #2 but must be made it out in a separate check. A separate check that MUST NOT HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE LESS THAN ONE YEAR.  Because we seriously might cash your check in 2012. 

“Upon proof of good moral character as it relates to the practice of law.”  Because seriously, we really can’t get any more broad than that.  Or we won’t have any lawyers.

Obvs.

  I can only imagine how this happened.

Bar Application Reviewing Employee #1, typing:  *Processing time may take approximately six months.*

Boss:  ARE YOU @#$@#& CRAZY?!  ARE YOU ^$%&$%& INSANE?!? SIX MONTHS TO REVIEW AN APPLICANT WHO HAS ALREADY FILLED OUT THE EXACT SAME APPLICATION IN ANOTHER JURISDICTION?!?!  AHHHHHHHHH!!! *Boss brutally murders employee #1*

Boss: Anybody else feeling ambitious around here?  (Crickets).  Didn’t think so.  Aw hell, I broke the “backspace” key. 

Then we’re treated to the actual meat & potatoes of the application.  I won’t bore you with screenshots. Basically we have to assemble four documents:  Law school certification, MPRE scores, MBE scores, and a certificate of good standing from another jurisdiction.  Three of those things we have to assemble on our own.  If we attempt to assemble all four on our own, it presumably voids our application.  Details. 

Then you get to the dreaded “job” and “residence” sections. These things will say something like “list every job you have held since 18” or “list every place you have lived for at least one month in the past 10 years.”  These sections are NOTORIOUSLY incompatible with real life.  I know the people who run these things don’t deal with law grads in their mid to late 20s very often, but a lot of us have, you know, worked a lot of jobs and moved around a lot over the past decade.  So thousands of applicants are put in awesome situations, like trying to track down an employer that went out of business in 2005, or trying to figure out the address of that place you crashed at for a month back in the summer of 2003.  You know.  So we can protect the public.  Or something. 

I can definitely see myself losing this instruction sheet and cowering on the floor of my office in the dark, hours before the deadline, rocking back and forth, screaming, “WAS IT FIVE COPIES WITHIN THREE DAYS?! OR THREE COPIES WITHIN FIVE DAYS?!!?”

In case you forgot why you were here, the instruction sheet reminds you with a second “Fees” section (actually, this one is FEES – we’ve turned on the bolding and allcaps for this one). This one gets a little bit closer to telling you how much you have to pay – it actually mentions the hidden fee #3.  But we’re still not quite there with the amounts. 

If you try to turn in your application with a grey binder clip, I hear they take it off, chew it, and spit it back in your face. Oh and you don’t even want to KNOW what happens if you use two staples.  Pardon me, “STAPLE”!

F U TREES!

For what it’s worth, the whole thing boils down to looking at my Maryland Bar Application, transferring my answers from one application to another, paying $725, and waiting about 8 months.  Assembling all the required outside documentation takes a ton of time, and you get to sweat for another eight months hoping your former employers and references are all responsible enough to dig what might appear to be junk mail out of the daily haul, fill out the forms, and send them back in a timely fashion.  And it’s pretty cool to be a young lawyer who can’t even carry his own business cards because he’s not yet admitted to practice in DC.  Definitely helps out with “networking” and “please take me seriously, I’m really a lawyer.” 

I get that this is part of the profession, I (sorta) knew this when I signed up, there’s an ostensible reason for it, and everybody has to do it.  I know this.  But it doesn’t validate the process.  Accepted stupidity is still stupidity. 

Oh, and if you’re one of my references or former employers, I’m supposed to inform you that sometime in 2011, you might get a letter from the DC Bar Examiners.  So, make sure you’re on the lookout for that.  Thanks.