A plan

The law school announced today that classes will resume on January 9. We'll have two short 10-week semesters with just a week off in between. It's going to be really hard. But I'm glad to have a date, an official announcement, a plan.

I've been insanely lucky in all this. I think I will be able to move back into my house and have something like my old life back. Of course, New Orleans won't be the same. I expect that it will be shocking and painful to see. But I want to go back. I kind of feel bad for not being there now, as though I've abandoned my beloved.

I don't know now if I will want to stay there past graduation, but for now I want to be there.

I will be able to get financial aid for the second of the two semesters, so I won't be in such bad shape if I buy a car--which is good because I'm buying a ten-year-old BMW on Friday. I can hear the comments now about becoming a lawyer and selling out, but I don't care. It's a great car, much better than I thought I could get, and I'm going to enjoy it.

I might have the chance to go do a paid internship in DC for the rest of the fall, which would be good.

So I've been lucky and I appreciate that, despite my nonstop bitching. But I resent it when people say that's because so many were praying for me and because god has a special plan for me. Out here in the Christ-infected midwest everyone feels free to tell you things like that. It's arrogant to say, and it makes god look like a petty tyrant (as I've noted before). Lots of good Christians lost everything, some of them died. The mental contortions necessary to see god's will in this seem to me a sign of insanity. This tragedy was brought to us by the team of nature and humanity. And it is a tragedy. New Orleans had many serious problems, all of which have been highlighted in this mess, but nevertheless it was a unique treasure. There was no place like it.

I don't think god's intervention had anything to do with my luck, but it does make a difference to me to realize that people really care about me. I'm pretty introverted sometimes--I've spent a lot of time hiding out from people. I haven't always been a particularly good friend. And it's not like I have a huge circle of friends (unlike A, an odd case who is even more of an introvert than me but who has that odd charisma that makes everyone love him even when he's impossible). But there are people--and you know who you are--who I've known for a long time or a not so long time, who I might not see or speak to often, but who stick with me and persist in my life and make an effort to stay in touch and who have really been good to me over the last month. That means more to me than you know.

Friends seem so important now and romance seems trivial nonsense. I have no interest in it. I don't think about sex much, either, although every once in awhile I see someone appealing on the street or in a restaurant and I have a strong flash of desire to just press up against him, nuzzle his neck, make contact flesh-on-flesh contact.