This Rogue’s Town . . .

It really figures that the day after finishing the bar exam, I should be invited to join a class action lawsuit against Nerve.com.  The cause of action is a NY General Business Law violation of implied contract terms required under the (I shit you not) "Dating Services Bill of Rights".  The implied terms in question involve: i) full refund of the subscription fee if the subscription is cancelled within three days of subscription ii) notice, upon purchase, of this cancellation and refund right iii) the right to place a profile on hold for a year and iv) establishing a fair and reasonable policy for when the subscriber moves permanently outside the service area. 

The statutory language is clear, even if the general premise behind it does strike me as patently absurd.  Of course, we can all thank the Tenth Amendment for that one.  In any event, my broke ass ran out of credits a long long time ago, and if it really does look like they’re gonna settle, you better believe I’m gonna get in for some!

Commonality, Numerosity, Adequacy of Representation . . . and trolling for sex online.

God Bless America!

I must sleep.  I must self-medicate.  I must . . . I must repose myself in a bottomless pool of Ketel One . . .

Said Julius Ceaser(1),

"Treasure! . . . Bathtub! Treasure Bath! . . . I’m going to have a Treasure Bath!!!Treasure Baaaath!!!!"

So ends Bar Review Winter Edition.  We now return to our regularly-scheduled Hani. 

(1)by way of Dom DeLuise

I am scared
because I am not you
I never was and don’t intend to be
yet here you are again
here to do what you say you must
however irrelevent it may seem

I am scared
because I am not you
I am not a shareholder
or a director
neither interested nor otherwise
I am neither owner
nor possessor
nor vendor
of your title
Nor am I obligor
or assignee
or deponant
or testator
What I declare out of court is not for you to judge
or admit
or exclude
or even balance
And what slander I serve
is not qualified by any means
you’ve had it coming
but I am still allowed to be scared

I am scared because I know your power
I know you better than you know yourself
but you will never know me
you’ll never get to
I won’t allow it
I know your power to shake
to flutter to dominate
to tax
ergo, to destroy
to ruin
to deceive
to palpitate
I feel it in my heart
the way I felt it before I met you
the way I felt it after I knew you’d gone
you don’t belong in my heart
there’s no place for you there
but I know you’re all of a piece
I know your power
I know you
and I am scared

I am scared because of where you come from
I am scared because of what you threaten
I, you see, am a place you can’t know
where the only state that matters
is that of my mind
where statements need not be restated
neither once
nor twice
nor thrice
where longarms are bodyparts
and nothing more
you are mere conjencture
hypothetical
happenstance
calculation
you are not here
even though you are everywhere

I am scared because
you have only needed to see me at my worst
and it is from that you sustain yourself
so ravenously

Yet, you are not the Verrazano
standing sentry in the early November fog
You are not Fourth Avenue turning into Fort Greene
You are not Harlem welcoming the 21st mile
with gospel choirs and a DJ
It’s no matter to you that walls have doors
you are merely the wall
and who makes the door
is entirely
delegable

You are not the Gil Hodges Bridge
leading me on to forever
You are not Bethesda Terrace
after four fast miles
at the end of the day, I pity you
and I am still scared

You are not anything that’s made a difference to me
except when the difference was between
lying down on the canvas
or climbing back up
I am, you see
and you’re time is up

And I am not the Javits Center
except to pick up my number
that will carry me across to the Finish
and that is all I need from you
and then we are through
you are dead to me
and that’s the best I can do
I will end you

you will see

but I am still scared

Because I simply can’t get enough of my own navel(1) . . . and because JCA updated her blog . . . and because I’ve just about had it with the NY-DRL . . .

http://kevan.org/johari?name=handogg

(1) and neither can you, B’YOTCH!!!(2)
(2) okay, that wasn’t necessary . . .

In my book, there are few things finer than a full-on, balls-out, mid-February schneestrum, like the kind I woke up to today.  This petulant giant of a city momentarily felled by immense, all-encompassing whiteness, and my nevertheless having to trudge on down to (get this) Washington Square (!) to (that’s right) STUDY! . . .

"W-w-wait . . . Washington Square, Hani?!"

Yes

"I mean, not . . . "

Yes

"TOP FIVE?!"

I’m very sorry to say.

Ah, Top Five.  We’ve had our times, Top Five.  Through the dark, antagonizing days of first year, when I marveled at how hardly anybody there appeared to be doing any actual work all the way to the final cram session before my last stab at the bar, when the maintenance worker announced to everyone at the library, "WHY ARE YOU STILL STUDYING?! If you don’t know it by now, you don’t . . . "

Story of my life these past three plus years.  And, of course, there have been few constants more reliable all this time than the mid-February Nor’easter and the brilliant, audacious silence it forces on my surroundings.  First year, it brought me my first snow day since the third grade.  It almost brings a tear to my eye those pre-clusterfuck days, when my ambitions still seemed warm enough to the task.  A great picture, that was, though I’m still humored by how many viewers of the champ thought I had taken it myself. 

By Second Year, the photography was all original, and the afflictions a little more severe.  "Do I outline Corporations? Or do I allow myself to be aesphyxiated by Carbon Monoxide?".  A solomonic bargain, no doubt. 

That was a good year, for all the wrong reasons, and this time it really does bring a tear to my eye. 

And so here we are at another February, a not insignificant time of year for me. The former "National Hani Month" back in college.  1998, when I won that stupid award still standing on my mother’s cradenza.  The 22nd of February, the day I sit next for the multistate, the day the New York BCL was updated to change the rules of corporate governance.  Preemptive Rights and other options I never imagine being able to excercise.  I saw a spider again the other night, this one trying to crawl into my laundry hamper.  Sure enough it disappeared, but not before I a tried to smash it against the wall.  It isn’t there, it doesn’t exist.  So why am I the only one that sees it?

February didn’t always have spiders, which is why I don’t know what to make of this one.  Sure, I can forget about December, it’s never meant as much to me  as June.  And January is behind us too, we don’t need it, it’s gone.  But here we are again at the beginning and the end, and the white and the silence that ensue.  And all there is for me to do is to brave Second Avenue again in a blizzard to try one more time to get this right, absent the knowledge that I haven’t done so yet. 

And that is all, and that is all, and that is all I can do for now . . .

Except hope that one day I’ll laugh. 

I’d just like to draw everyone’s attention to tommorrow night’s episode of Larry King Live, where Bob Saget and Uncle Jesse will talk about saving Stephanie Tanner from her crystal meth addiction.  Ah, the always happy confluence of addiction, infotainment, and late ’80s-ish sitcoms!  But I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this earlier. Am I the only one who didn’t know?

Probably not.  But I seem to be the only one who didn’t automatically assume it was Kimmy, not that I could honestly blame anyone for that. 

And let’s not forget my freak-ass neighbors, from whom we haven’t heard much in a while.  Though the usual routine of round-the-clock screaming, thrashing, headbanging, and seemingly not having a job(1) have continued unabated, they’ve done the rest of us the courtesy of keeping the early morning doornob-smashing-by-coked-up-punk-girls to a minimum and have even finally gotten rid of the emtpy fridge they had parked in front of their door for the better part of six months.  In fact, they seem to have caught the early lead on Spring Cleaning.  Yesterday, I found Oz and . . . you know, I never did figure out her name, at least not from all those times she rang my buzzer by mistake . . . mulling over a shattered mirror out in the corridor.  "I’m making art", he felt compelled to explain as I walked by before mumbling something else incoherent , as is his wont.  Well, whatever piece de resistance he sought to pull together yesterday, he didn’t have it on display today. 

Instead, I came home tonight to find a wastebasket full of porn where the broken mirror used to be.  And, folks, I readily admit that from afar I thought it was another American Apparel ad but sure enough . . . it was really some blond chick taking it up the ass with a BRASS DILDO(2).

As Jon Stewart said last night, "It’s not that you can’t make this stuff up, it’s that you wish that you had to."

(1) said the pot to the kettle . . .
(2) heh, guess that explains all the screaming . . .

It’s always good to know that even within the dirge of everyday existance that is preparing for your second stab at the Bar exam (an experience replete with its own unique anxieties, afflictions, and so many moments not unlike the Pei Mei scenes in Kill Bill Vol 2.)(1), I can count on my friends to strike for me a counterpuntal grace note like the following:

Said: i was looking for your email address cause i wanted to forward you a craigslist posting offering a position in Amish porn.

Good to see my best interests being kept in mind.  Though sad to say, this is not the only friend of mine who believes my future lies in the erotic arts; though they’ve obviously never seen me shirtless. 

(1) Punching my way out of a coffin, I think I’ve finally found the analogy I’ve been grasping for. 

So, I was paying a rare visit to my beloved but unlamented  old blog, when the sitemeter turned up a google search for the term "handoggnyc". 

Alright, fess up now. It know it’s gotta be one of you . . .

ps-Rabbit Rabbit