Blind Prophecy

Another semester bites it. I turned in my last paper earlier today.

Since I'm not travelling this year for the holiday, that means nothing but free time until next semester starts. Well, if you ignore the jury duty in January. And the script writing I need to do for Follies. And the fundraising for The Vagina Monologues. Anyway, I may get a computer game.

What else to report? Hmm, well, not having a lot of luck with the job hunt. Got rejected this morning for a fellowship I spent 6 months working on. That was disappointing. I guess add "job applications" to the list of things I'm doing over the break.

I've been on a few dates recently. Since classes ended I've been making an effort to get out there. If nothing else, I've met a few great people and had some fun nights out.

Oh, yeah, there was that whole South Africa trip. My first time off the continent! It was a great experience. We spent two days in Johannesburg and five days in Cape Town. Aside from the work we were doing for the clinic, we got to check out the Apartheid Museum on our first day and on our last two days we took a trip down the Cape of Good Hope and then to the top of Table Mountain. So many great memories.

Filed under: law school, personal by Jere Keys
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Hey, all.

Let's pretend I still keep a blog for a moment.

Things have been going well this semester. September is a hazy memory. The Intraschool Competition for Trial Ad that I helped run went off without a hitch.  

A few weeks ago, in mid-October, I got to compete in the St. John's hosted trial advocacy competition around civil rights. It was a disability rights case. We advanced to semi-finals. My awesome team should have won the last round, but such is life.

For Halloween I went as a slutty French maid. I was planning to go as a Cheerio (Glee cheerleader), but the outfit I picked out wouldn't fit once I added boobs.

(apropos of nothing, I submitted this photo to reddit and got homophobic comments and downvotes for my trouble.)

Which brings me to November. On Saturday I'm jumping on a plane and jetting off to South Africa. As part of my clinic in International Human Rights, I will be conducting field work related to our project. My group has been working all semester on policy reports related to decriminalization of sex work in South Africa as a human rights issue. Next week we get to visit with stakeholders in Johannesburg and Cape Town to get context and test our arguments.

I'm pretty excited. It's my first time outside the North American continent. My previous travels have taken me to Canada and Mexico briefly, but this will be my first trip to a country I can't reach by car.

So, anyway, it's unclear how much time I'll have on the internet next week, but if we have wi-fi in the hotels and if I'm not swamped with clinic work, I'll try and post pictures.

Filed under: law school, travel by Jere Keys
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 No, I'm not talking about the rare east coast earthquake, which I experienced while laying in bed surfing the internet. Nor am I talking about the coming Hurricane Irene, which has the city in panic.

My 3L year begins on Monday (maybe). Assuming the subways are working on Monday, it will be my last first day of the school year.

This semester I'm registered to take Evidence, Labor Law, Psychology and the Civil Law, and a clinic in Women's Rights in Africa. In extracurriculars, I'm also, along with my co-editor Meghan, in charge of our intraschool trial advocacy competition for team placement in about 3 weeks; one of the directors of Follies; producing The Vagina Monologues; involved in the Worker's Rights Coalition and Stein Scholars; and will possibly stay in the Tortfeasors a capella choir. Yes, busy semester, but would you expect any less of me?

Since I last updated, I finished both my summer internship at the ACLU's LGBT project and my summer TA job with our class for incoming 1L students. They were both great experiences and I only wish I could have done more in the short time with them.

Most of my "free" time this month has been spent working on postgraduate fellowship proposals and the trial advocacy competition problem. It hasn't been all work, though. I've found some time to work on a few knitting projects and read. I've been reading the Song of Ice and Fire books this summer, and I'm on book 3. My goal is to finish it this weekend if the power goes out because I'm not going to have any time for pleasure reading after classes start.

I went to my sister Jeanne's wedding early this month. It was fun, but very brief. I only spent 2 nights at home. The nieces and nephews are getting so big. The reception was low-key compared to some my family has put on and the domestic drama managed to remain relatively humane... the usual passive-aggressive acts by the usual suspects, an occasional unnecessary insult, etc., but I came and left without ever bursting into tears (privately or publicly) and that's a big improvement over the last several visits.

Anyway, with school starting, if you don't hear from me again before December, it's probably not because Hurricane Irene swept me out to sea. I'm not even in an evacuation zone or high-rise building. In my neighborhood, I'm much more likely to be stabbed by looters.

Filed under: law school, Mi Familia, personal by Jere Keys
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The last two weeks have been fun and full of excitement.

This is the part of summer that seems to be filled with happy hour mixers.

The weekend before last our office had a ballgame outing. We went to the Cyclones game at Coney Island. I didn't pay much attention to the game, but had fun chatting with the other ACLU interns and staff. After the game, we grabbed some food on the boardwalk and walked down to the beach to see the fireworks. 

Then I went to see Happy Potter 7.2 on Saturday. There were more than a few tears. And cheers. The crowd at the theater went batshit for the final scene with Mrs. Weasley and Bellatrix.

On Sunday I went and sat in the sun at the Great Hill in Central Park. Lots of hot guys wandering around but sadly no photos because my camera phone decided to start malfunctioning that day.

I went to see Harry Potter again on Monday, this time with friends from work. And in 3D. The movie didn't suffer from a second viewing.

On Tuesday my summer job with the school as a tutor with AEP (which I also did last summer) started. That's going to eat into my free time a bit, but I need the cash flow this late in the summer.

This weekend was also action-packed. On Friday I went to see Captain America. I liked it a lot. More than Green Lantern, maybe not quite as much as Thor. Although the Avengers trailer that played after the credits was pure joy.

On Saturday I went to Central Park again and had a picnic of grapes, sushi and stuffed grape leaves.  Because of the heat wave there was almost nobody in the park this time.

On Sunday I got up early and headed down to the City Marriage Bureau. The ACLU had us come out to celebrate the first day of marriage for all. I got there a bit before 8:00. The Westboro Baptist Church was one one corner and across the way diagonally were hundreds of couples already waiting in line. The WBC bigots left around 8:30. They had to get to the bigger hate rallies in the other boroughs. 

I also saw The Daily Show's Samantha Bee and Jason Jones wandering around filming. Samantha Bee had amazing shoes.

They started letting people into the bureau a little after 8:30. Around 9:30 or so the first couples emerged from the other end of the building, happily married. That's when things got really exciting. Some observations:

• There were probably 4 photographers or journalists for every couple.
• I've never been in a gathering of so many gay people where everyone had their shirt on (especially considering the heat). As one guy commented "It's like gay pride without the vodka commercial."
• Speaking of gay pride, because of my clever sign I felt like a walking photo op. I imagine that must be what fantastically dressed drag queens feel like at Pride.
• Speaking of my clever sign, the trick to drawing a good Beyoncé is the use of negative space.
•  The marriage of the puppets from Avenue Q was cute. The actors playing the puppet characters were cuter.

As my twitter friends and facebook friends probably already know, my picture has shown up in quite a few news stories about the event. (That last photo was on Queerty and was taken by a photographer with name that sounds like we ought to be related if he didn't spell his last name wrong.) Having a big poster strategically blocking my gut is probably the best outcome I could have hoped for when ending up in national news coverage.

After a few hours of marriage madness I left to go to my friend Lee's birthday party at this cute steampunk bar near Union Square where I chatted with fellow nerds about comic books and movies.

Anyway, that's what has been keeping me occupied this summer. 

p.s. If anyone is a fan of Drop Dead Diva, yesterday's episode was about a lesbian couple who wanted to go to prom. The court that hears the case is presided over by Wanda Sykes and the bailiff is played by ACLU's client Constance McMillen, who had to sue her school for the right to attend prom. It was a cute episode that also included Clay Aiken and Lance Bass and (as always) Margaret Cho - it was a gaysplosion!

Filed under: movies, personal, queer rights by Jere Keys
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"I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not." ~ Tyler Durden

Over at my friends' blog Cocky & Rude, I've been selected for this week's fight club match-up. It's me against Tom & Jerry of cartoon fame. 

If you have a moment, please go vote for me. I'd hate to lose to vermin and one of the demon creatures that gullible people keep as pets.

ETA: the contest is over and I won. Thanks for voting for me.

Filed under: personal by Jere Keys
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I'm having a pretty fun summer now that the July of 5 weekends is here. Aside from work, all of my various responsibilities are on hold, so I have free time to just relax and play for the first time in a while.

Last weekend I decided to brave the crowds and hang out at Coney Island Beach. It wasn't as crowded as I feared it would be (although I didn't really spend any time on the boardwalk or rides).

On the Fourth of July, despite the early warnings of a summer cold, I went to my friend Rachael's 35th floor apartment on the upper west side and watched the fireworks. They looked like this. 

Unfortunately, the summer cold kicked into high gear the next morning, so I took a day off work. Between the holiday, a sick day, and a short Friday because of our staff picnic, it was a very short work week. 

For our office picnic, we went to Governor's Island. Unfortunately it was kinda rainy, so we didn't hang out all afternoon. We did have sandwiches and some people played frisbee. The view was pretty, despite the haze and light rain.

So last night Rachael was having a birthday party. It was a costume party around the theme "hot mess." I wore a toga.

It was raining on the way to the party and I'm wearing flip-flops because my costume is a toga. I've got gym shorts and a hoodie on over the toga and I'm carrying a bag full of beverages for the party. As I'm crossing West End Avenue, I'm a little slower that the rest of the pedestrians crossing with the signal, but only by a few feet. Suddenly this guy driving some kind of SUV comes tearing around the corner too fast and slams on his brakes about the same time I see him coming. He hit me full on and knocked me back about 3 feet.

The guy rolled down his window and started shouting at me. "Didn't you see me? Didn't you see me?" I swore at him. Someone yelled at him from the sidewalk - pointing out that I had the right of way and pointing to the still green walk signal. The guy yelled "Didn't you see me?" again and gestured like I was an idiot. At that point I walked around from the front of the car toward the people who were yelling from the sidewalk. I screamed something back at him about him being the one who was driving like a fucking idiot and that I had the right of way. Since I was no longer physically in front of his car as I yelled this, the guy took off at the sort of reckless speed you would expect from this story. No one got his plates. I couldn't even describe the car with any detail.

Luckily I'm fine. A little bruised, but no open wounds.

Anyway, I showed up to the hot mess party like a hot mess. Then got appropriately inebriated. 

So now I'm not spending money for the rest of the weekend. I may not even leave the apartment.

I got one of those fancy new Google Plus profiles. I do like it better than facebook so far, but that may be the shiny new-ness. One of the things that killed MySpace was that it got too cluttered with bells and whistles. Compared to Google+, Facebook feels like it's full of clutter and stupid pointless apps that I can't ignore fast enough.

Filed under: personal by Jere Keys
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Filed under: NYC, Pride by Jere Keys
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The first time this happened, I wasn’t living there. But I was waiting on pins and needles, dialing into conference calls, surfing the web. I was a journalist and even though we only published biweekly, there was urgency to finding out as soon as it happened, even if it was on the other side of the country. When the news finally broke, we crouched around computers to read all about it, we huddled in the common spaces, stopped working to speculate about what this would mean for the rest of the country, how soon the weddings would begin. We laughed with a sort of nervous pride. In the weeks and months we would come to learn so much more about archaic laws and states borders and the scope of DOMA and civil disobedience by progressive governors and Constitutional amendments… but back then we had barely begun to dream about the possibilities.

Then there was California. I was working for the LGBT nonprofit organization in San Francisco. For some reason the building was unusually warm that day, which I remember because we left half the overhead lights off that day. When we heard the ruling would be out, I started refreshing the court’s website. A pdf appeared from the California Supreme Court. It was over 100 pages long. I frantically began skimming through it, trying to make sense of legal language I was, at the time, unfamiliar with. Someone turned on CNN. I read aloud to my coworkers passages I thought sounded important, or good. CNN said “no” as I reached the part where the court said “yes.” Someone brought in a cake. We took a break and celebrated. Afterward, I heard about the dancing in the streets at the Castro, but I just went home. Drained. Spent. I had things to do the next morning.

This time, it was a slow build. I remember last year, sitting in the cafeteria of the Law School watching the live stream as the first Republican “swing” voted no. Then the second. Then a democrat. Then twitter was declaring it a loss. Fast forward to the last few weeks. The calls to my senator, the emails. The calls to other senate leaders. At my internship I was asked to look into the legal impact proposed religious exception language would have. I have some small sense that somehow my analysis reached the ears of people who needed to know, to decide, to negotiate and politic.

This week, the live streaming video in an open tab on my browser. Listening to that chamber music all day as I researched other projects at work. The day the debated the definition of “sippy cup.” Sweet corn became the state vegetable. Waiting. Watching the twitter stream for updates. Refreshing blogs. Day after day of “maybe today” and “maybe tonight.”

Tonight we had a rooftop party in Brooklyn, we interns from the ACLU. It was foggy and misty, but we could see the City, the river, the dim outline of Lady Liberty, the building where we worked. We laughed and talked of other things, or pop stars and law school woes. I checked my phone for updates. Sunset. Checked my phone. “Guys, they’re voting now!” Cheers. Pizza arrived. Checked my phone. “They’re voting on the amendment – and it sounds like they have a 32nd vote.” “They passed the amendment” Cheers. High-fives. Someone urged emotional caution, not counting chickens or something. “I wish I had my computer, it sounds like someone just bitchslapped Diaz back to the Bronx.” “Wow, sounds like we just picked up another Republican vote.” Checked my phone – there were the numbers. 33-29. The exclamation points. I flipped on my phone and held it out to my co-intern at the LGBT Project. “Chris, look.” He was talking to someone. “Chris, look. They did it.” Someone I didn’t know, a student from our host’s school, tapped me on the shoulder – did you just say they passed it?. Now I had their attention. “33-29. Everyone find yourself a same-sex partner, because New York just made it legal for us to get married!”

Cheers. People congratulating each other. High-fives. The lights of the city looked blurry through the mist and fog, from our rooftop in Brooklyn.

I hear they’re dancing at Christopher Street. But I’m in Brooklyn. I just go home. I have things to do tomorrow morning. But Sunday I will be marching. And even though I’m not engaged, have no special someone with whom I have waited and waited for this day, I will still be especially proud as I walk the streets of Manhattan.

Filed under: NYC, queer rights by Jere Keys
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Image: Self-Portrait, Yawning by Joseph Ducreux

Filed under: personal by Jere Keys
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With the Trial Advocacy Summer Intraschool Competition over, I have free time in my life again. I already brought myself current with the broadcast schedule of the Doctor Who universe and all the other TV shows I care about, finished all three Hunger Games books, and ran out of convenient ways to distract myself. So yesterday I cleaned my room, like really cleaned, for the first time since before the school year began. I also decided it was time to trim down my wardrobe. A lot of stuff went to charity, some went in the trash, and then I made a pile of t-shirts…

Tonight, I took that pile of t-shirts I was unlikely to wear again outside the gym, but which represented an activity or project I had worked on, and turned them into part of a quilt. I’ll need to go get some durable fabric for the back and sides, but I’m rather proud of this little project. It feels very personal, but will serve a practical purpose, too. Part of me wants to cannibalize more perfectly fine t-shirts that still see occasional use before I finish this off. Maybe I’ll just hang it up until I’m ready to chop up a few more shirts.

It’s shaping up to be a fun few weekends coming up. We have a bar night for Trial Ad tomorrow night. This weekend is the release of Green Lantern and on Sunday I’m probably going to check out both Folsom Street East and Broadway Bares. Next week we have an attorney reception for the ACLU and then, of course, Pride Weekend (I’ll be marching with the NYCLU group this year). I feel like I’ve barely had time to see any of my friends (who aren’t on Trial Ad) since my birthday and I hope that changes this weekend.

Filed under: personal by Jere Keys
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