Pitter Patter!

Two things finally happened this week: We finally submitted something which counts for a grade, and it finally actually rained.

It's been raining most of the evening and I'm absolutely ecstatic about it! I knew I'd missed weather, but actually getting some actually brought it home for real. I've been laying around for a while now doing nothing except listening to the sound of it falling outside. Ahhh.... I hope it's still rainy tomorrow morning; I would love a rainy morning. But, a rainy evening is almost as good.

And, thinking about all the oil from the last however many months that is being stirred up on the highways...makes me glad I got new tires on the car today!

The item-for-a-grade was a paper. Well, a memo. A faux legal memorandum in which we offer predictive analysis on a particular claim based on a set realm of case law. We've done two much smaller ones through the semester; of course those were much less angsty because, y'know, they didn't count, and before we turned in the final versions of them we had writing advisors help us fix big ugly problems. I must admit it's more nerve-wracking basing an entire analysis on the tests you've devised when you don't really know if your tests are correct!

Beyond the memo, things are rolling right along at school. Next Tuesday is the last day of classes, then our first final is the Tuesday after that. Fun fun fun!

Still Here

Yes, I haven't posted in forever. The few days after the election when I allowed myself time to breathe on account of needing to recover, the process of recovery pretty much took most of what I had, and little was left for blogging. Honestly, little was left to say.

Once I began to recover substantially to have something to say, I remembered I was in law school and said, "Oh, SHIT." And have since been playing catchup.

So don't expect a lot of posts in the next few weeks.

But some brief updates:
- School is frantic. I'm not too frantic, but I'm not the frantic type. I'm the CT version of frantic. Everyone else, however, is having an aneurysm, which amuses me, because they're all further ahead of me in terms of work progress.
- It's still 90 degrees here half the time.
- I miss snow, and Pittsburgh, and my east people. No urgent pining or catastrophic emotional breakdown, I just miss y'all.
- LT now lives in Fullerton, which is in Orange County, where at election time there were Yes on 8 signs HANGING FROM THE BLEEPING TREES. But the apartment is really nice, and Fullerton itself has a not-bad feel to it, and LT's daily routine gets to include a train. And of course, we are happy to be relatively together again.
- The cats are doing well.
- I can't believe the Penguins are still playing hockey without me.
- Skype rocks! (HI MT!!!)
- The Cali Supreme Court granted review to determine the validity of Prop 8 (it is being challenged on the grounds that it was too substantial of a change to have gone through the amendment process, and should have instead gone through the more stringent revision process). Deadlines for various briefs and responses stretch until January 21, and word is that the hearing will likely be in March, with the decision sometime after that.
- The Steelers got the first 11-10 final score in NFL history (MGGramskyGramboski!! Hi!!) but it was cheapened because the TD that was disallowed on the last play should have been counted. Either way they won. I'm happier with the oddball score, but betting folks aren't.

That is all.

Emotion Cocktail, Mostly Bad

Last night and this morning brought a ridiculous mix of emotions, not surprisingly. Also not surprisingly, most of them are negative. I'm happy that Obama won. I used to be ecstatic, but that was before other results started coming in. Driving to the No on 8 post-election party, before I heard any real results, I was shedding tears listening to Obama's acceptance speech on the radio. Shortly thereafter, I was shedding tears for a very different reason.

I can't help but feel a sense of bitterness about the Obama celebration. All the talk of hope, inclusion, moving forward, joining together, I can't help but feel that it's not meant to be everyone joining together. How can it be, when 3 out of 4 initiatives against gay marriage passed? How can it be, when Arkansas wanted so badly to exclude the GLBTQ community that it trampled on the lives and needs of helpless kids, by passing a measure that unmarried couples cannot adopt or serve as foster parents? Do you understand that? Do you understand that hundreds of kids in Arkansas will be denied perhaps their first chance at stability in their upside down lives, and it's because people hate gay people just that much? Come on people, this is shit they do in China! How can it be meant for everyone when Obama's own words speaking out against gay marriage provided the last bit of fuel that helped push Prop 8 to success?

How can it be, when the news this morning is filled with pictures of people celebrating, beaming with joy and glee, at their accomplishment of successfully stripping away the rights of millions of people they have never met, but spent tens of millions of dollars to oppress?

I'm sorry--I'm very happy that Obama won. I do believe he represents the best chance for this country to move forward and heal. From a social context, his victory is amazing, and historic, and not something I thought I would see in my lifetime; not just that he won, but HOW he won. But I don't believe right now that this party is for everyone.

Election Eve

I usually don't do this, but I'm manipulating the timestamp on this post because it most assuredly needs to be labeled under Monday, Nov. 3rd.

So here it is, sometime after midnight the day before Election Day, when Prop 8 is getting voted on. Tomorrow we're doing a massive poll visibility action, dispatching volunteers to polls across California in supportive areas, taking one last stab at making sure undecided people have their questions answered, and supportive people actually know which way to vote. I'll be one of the dispatch captains for Santa Monica. The mix of emotions is ridiculous, and even though I need to be up in about 3 hours and 45 minutes, it's tough to sleep.

Of course first up is the anxiety. How could there not be anxiety, waiting for the verdict of whether all the people who care about equality and rightness in this world...OK, in this state...are willing to get up and vote for it? Waiting to see how many people out there still truly believe that I and my queer family are inherently wrong?

But there's way more than that. There is excitement, there is pride, there is happiness, there is love, there is just plain tired. There is the bittersweet realization that after tomorrow, I will have so much more time to reconnect with my "regular" life...the friends back home who have suffered from my hectic schedule, the neglected laundry and classwork, the day to day things that just don't get to happen when you're gone from morning till night most days. (A HAIRCUT!! WOOO!!!!) That's the sweet. The bitter is that I won't have this regular connection with the amazing people I've met through this campaign.

And oh, the people I've met through this campaign...when I realize what a short time it's been in the grand scheme of things, I'm amazed. It feels like I've spent years bonding with these people; it's been a month and a half. I've met, learned from, grown to love, and been inspired by so many amazing people, I hesitate to even name any names for fear that I'll leave someone out. But if there's one thing a law student's posts have, it's enumeration, so there you go.

The No on 8 staffers, many of whom moved themselves to California from across the country to pour their hearts and souls into this work. Aimee, who's been living out of the apartment of someone she didn't know before this campaign. Trystan, who is quite simply amazing and inspiring, and a beautiful example of how you can be true to yourself and who you are, and still make a living and do good in this crazy world. Stephen, another law student who found time (I don't know how) to join the No on 8 staff. The others, Anne Marie, Elizabeth and Dale, who I don't know quite as well but who are all phenomenally dedicated and warm people.

And my fellow volunteers, many of whom are from UCLA. Russell, who never says no and was out there even more than I was scouting polling locations on Halloween night. Mikael, who pulls all the strings on UCLA campus, and ALMOST made me misty eyed at the staff meeting this evening. Erik, who continually let himself be conned into more and more, including 5 1/2 hours to do the early voting, plus another hour or so of rallying. Isidro and Jason, an absolutely adorable couple, and beautiful people who make me light up when either of them enter the room. Jen, who is a fellow new-to-LAer. Oh man...see, I knew I was going to forget people... And of course LT, who has been ridiculously patient as I basically said, "Yay, you moved here! OK, I have to go [phone bank/volunteer/vote/rally/etc] now."

Anyway, no matter how tomorrow turns out, I know that tomorrow evening will be in my heart and in my memory forever. After the polls close and all is said and done, we're all headed to a campaign celebration type thing (hopefully victory party!) in Hollywood. It means so, so much to me to know that whatever happens, tomorrow night I'll be with these people that I've worked with so much, and who I know are so dedicated and beautiful and amazing. Whether we are celebrating together, holding each other up, or both, I'm glad I'll be with them.