bowlinger qua bowlinger

I had my first post-exam professor sighting. After the fact, I realized what I initially took to be a bizarre grouping of individuals actually had a common trait - they’d all clerked at the Supreme Court.

JL looked as fantastic as ever. She was probably saying something intelligent and witty.

GS gestured emphatically. The others seemed to eat it up. Typical.

RP was a bit of a puzzle. He stood silently in one of my favorite electric bass player postures - feet spread about a yard apart, knees locked, torso upright and twisted towards the audience (or in his case, his colleagues). His head was nodding up and down (to the beat?) as he listened to GS. He also had his hands on his hips, adding a superhero element to his pose.

I think RP was the one who really made me lose it. I was choking on laughter for a half hour after seeing him. I know - I’m pathetic. But I haven’t been exposed to anything as amusing in A2 since the undergrads left. I did see an amazing 6′2″ transvestite hooker in Detroit a week or so ago, but that memory can only sustain me for so long.

You know when you end up watching a really horrible movie over and over again - maybe it’s a staple of the “Sunday Afternoon Movie” or it’s a featured presentation on HBO one month? I did this once with “Dude, Where’s My Car?” The only redeeming fact there is that, if I remember correctly, the person who I had originally seen the movie with was re-watching it at the same time I was. She then called me (or I called her - memory is a bit fuzzy here) to tell me she was watching it again. Even though the movie was pretty dreadful the first time I saw it, there was something entertaining enough about it that I and another sat through it again.

Sometimes, though, re-watching an awful movie is less voluntary. When my mom was in the hospital last fall, they had “On Demand” movies. She selected the classic Robin Williams flick “RV.” I blamed her decision on the morphine or whatever they were giving her at the time and sat through it without complaining too much. But just last week, I was forced to watch portions of it again, this time at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security. At that point, I felt pretty violated. “RV” is seriously the worst movie I have ever seen; to be forced to watch it twice crosses the line of good taste. And we all know when measured against my standards the line of good taste is practically non-existent.

Lately, I seem to get everything confused - replacing “Verdana” with “Veranda” is really just a sign of a more systematic problem. I almost always transpose syllables between adjacent words when speaking. Any derivative of “hypnotize” causes a sure fire phonetic meltdown. But my errors in ordering of letters and symbols have now transferred to a lack of general comprehension. Last week I noticed every time I saw “shift” on a road work sign, as in “lane shift ahead,” I would think it said the four letter swear synonymous with poop. During my last gig, I kept playing individual measures backwards instead of forwards. And at work this week, I numbered things with 6’s instead of 5’s. I used to be so meticulous and orderly. I guess old age is creeping up on me. Good thing I learned about conservatorships today.

(in chronological order)

1. Apparently, two of Judge Posner’s favorite fonts are Century Schoolbook and Veranda. I was not really surprised by the first, but the second was a bit mind-blowing, especially since he used Veranda specifically for manuscripts about intelligence reform. Intelligence reform is no nonsense and brutish and whatnot. Veranda looks too fluffy for the subject.  The name even sounds wimpy - Veranda is more Gone With the Wind than Economic Analysis of Law.  Then I realized that all my typed notes for the last year were taken in that exact combination - Veranda for the header and Century Schoolbook for the text. Creepy.

2. Never, ever, ever assume anything. Just ask, even if it makes you seem stupid or pesky or whatever.

3. Don’t make chili while wearing a white shirt. This is self-explanatory.

I am sure I’ll learn more later this evening - the night is still young.