Sanity Hearing

Happy Anniversary

While I will have you know I did not forget Wendy/My one year anniversary, I did forget to buy her a card.  Cards don't really seem important to men I suppose, or at least not me.  I figured there are so many different types of cards out there that it makes it hard to decide how to send your message, but given the medium, I am freed from this constraint.  Thus, here are variety of different cards to Wendy on our anniversary.  The first is above.  I call it the Dawson's Creek edition.  I am not sure why, except that it really seems like this card would have been really hip during the time period when Dawson's Creek was on TV.  I could be off on this since I never watched that show, but this card has a real turn of the millenium appeal to me.  The late 90's was not really a good time for me personally, so this card is no good.

I call this card "Nature Boy".  As a waspy preppy-type, I like the tasteful, minimalistic style as well as the sweet pink background that I feel would be a good color for a pair of pants or maybe a hat.  The downside with this card is that it looks like something that every grandmother you've ever met has framed in her bathroom to compliment the matching floral wallpaper and decrotive soap.  I seriously cannot see myself writing anything inside this card to send to Wendy.  Even if it was the most meaningful thing ever I would still look at this card and feel like my "Gran" should have glued a dollar bill to the inside.

I call this card the Patriot.  It says:  "Happy Anniversay!  It's been an amazing year of getting to know you and fighting terrorism!"  Now that I look at this card it just says congratulations, but whatever- I feel like this card could only conceivably be used as an invite to a Fourth of July party thrown by someone from Kansas.  Plus, now that I think about it some more- this card came up under a search for Anniversary cards and it says "congratulations".  That seems kind of mean doesn't it?  I am not sure whether that would be really arrogant or really condescending- like "Congratulations!  you've put up with me for a whole year!"  Hmm...on second thought this could potentially be a contender.

I call this one- new years eve wedding.  I don't understand this theme.  Maybe it's because I am too young or something, but it does not seem romantic at all.  Plus, it does not really seem to make very much sense...shouldn't there be holding hands or something, maybe some swans frolicing?  I feel like this one is like -- "We've been together X years, let's PAR-TEE!!" Moving on...

At first glance I thought this one looked kind of classy.  Then I was like, "wait a minute..."  It's two bottles of Champagne- as an, one for each person.  Basically you are saying: "We've been together X.  God, I've got to get smashed!"  Sort of like the last one, I am not very into the message it is sending.

I just threw this in for giggles since I am not Jewish.  Funny enough, this is probably the most neutral card so far.  The thing I can't understand as someone who isn't jewish though is why you'd want a card with a religious symbol on it for an anniversary.  I mean, I don't see people sending cards with crosses or Buhda's on them.  I guess it's a jewish thing.

In the end- no card is really right for what I want to say or should say to Wendy.  I don't feel like our relationship can be summed up by something I buy at CVS and write a few short lines in and sign.  We've been together for a year, which is longer than I've ever been with anyone else.  It has been a tremendous journey we've taken together.  You've changed my life and you've become extremely important to me.  More importantly, you continue to challenge me, love me, support me and I am extremely grateful for those things.

I love you and I hope that this first year is just the beginning.

Final Final

It's late and I am bleary eyed.  Diet coke, iTunes, and a dull sense of dread are all that keep me lucid.  As I write this I am in the midst of my final (in the sense that it is the last one) exam in my law school career.  It is a 72 hour take home in Partnership and Corporate Tax, a class which while interesting at time, I generally found utterly confusing.

Somewhat ironically, tax has probably been my favorite subject in law school so obviously it was with a slow disappointment that I found myself more and more bewildered by this class.  But now, I find myself in the midst of the exam for this class- perhaps one of the most challenging I've ever taken and it happens to be the last one I will ever take.

I will not reveal any of the content of the exam, but in many ways it represents what attracts me most to tax and also what I feel is its biggest drawback.  On the one hand tax is essentially a very complex puzzle.  Each code section or rule combined with its regulations are like the holes into which the peg of your particular business or situation must fit into and what I enjoy is, for lack of a better phrase- the making of that peg fit into the right hole.  On the other hand, imagine that all these holes are interconnected and have effects on each other- like the teeth inside a lock- just because a key fits some of the teeth, does not mean the lock will open.  Often the situation becomes maddeningly complex because of some seemingly irrelevant detail.

It had not really even occurred to me until I was already halfway through that this was it.  It is ultimately an empty victory given the impending bar exam, but it's something.

I pulled out my copy of Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga today during a moment of distraction.  I had promised to loan it to a friend and I relished in the excuse to step away from the computer.  Flipping through the Post Script, something rang true tonight:

I agreed and wished them luck.  I wanted no part of it- not even with a shotgun.  I was tired, swollen and whipped.  My face looked like it had been jammed into the spokes of a speeding Harley, and the only thing keeping me awake was a broken rib.

It had been a bad trip... fast and wild in some momnets, slow and dirst in others, but on balance it looked like a bummer.  On my way back to San Francisco, I tried to compose a fitting epitaph.  I wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of Mistah Kurtz' final workds form the heart of darkness: "The horror!...Exterminate all the brutes!"