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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Image: Self-Portrait, Yawning by Joseph Ducreux

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.

I’m thankful that my family has been so supportive of me.

I’m thankful for the many opportunities I’ve had in law school and recognize how extraordinarily lucky I am to be able to go back to school in my 30s.

I’m thankful for the Ally McBeal-athon on TV right now.

I’m thankful to friends throughout the years who have taught me and loved me and challenged me to try.

I’m thankful for the few days like today when I can ignore my 6:30 am alarm clock.

I’m thankful to my internet family on the blogs and twitter for making the world feel a little less lonely no matter where I go or how far I am physically from the people who know me.

I’m thankful for goofy hats, wigs, reading glasses, bad sweaters, and scarves. Playing small games of dress-up on occasion make the long days less long.

I’m thankful for all the “J”s of my life: Jay, Jody, Jessi, Jayne, Jacki, Jeanne, Jordan, Jasmine, Jared, Jennifer, Jacob, Jessica, Joe, Jorge, Josh, Jamie, Joey, and Joseph. I’m thankful for the rest of the alphabet, too.

I’m thankful to have known some wonderful people who aren’t around for Thanksgiving this year, my aunt Julie, my Grandpa Rob, my mom’s cousin.

I’m thankful for you.

As you can guess from the lack of blogs lately, this semester has been kicking my ass. The big thing was the Trial Advocacy competition. We met four nights a week for about 2 months and made the semi-finals of our regional competition. Not bad for our first competition.

When things finally let up last week after the competition ended, I went to see Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which was a very fun show. I also went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I this weekend. And now it’s time to get back to work on the end-of-semester papers and study for finals.

I’ve picked classes next semester to make my day-to-day schedule a bit easier, only one late night class. Since I hope to do Trial Ad again next semester, plus I’ll be co-directing The Vagina Monologues and doing another year of Follies and taking on a few other extracurricular tasks, I intentionally kept my evenings more free and decided (on the advice of a professor from my most intense class next semester) to not repeat my internship.

So, anyway, that’s the brief catch-up. Obviously, there are lots of things I haven’t written about, but it would be boring to hear me ramble on about law school and there has been sadly little else lately.

Anyway, so I finished out the summer internship at the beginning of the month. It was a really good experience and made me feel like I’ve finally found the right direction for my career. The work was challenging, the people I worked with were driven and intelligent, and I felt like I was truly contributing to something. I also really enjoyed getting to know my co-interns.

After finishing at Lambda, I started working on campus with the Academic Enrichment Program, a sort of law school boot camp for incoming students. If y’all remember last summer when I very abruptly moved to New York 3 weeks sooner than I had planned, it was to take part in AEP. This summer I returned as a mentor/teaching assistant. My assigned workshop was on time management, where my goal was to impress upon the students how much time would be required of them and the wisdom of keeping a schedule (read as: scare the sh*t out of them). I also ended up playing the role of mean judge in the oral argument preview and proctor during their final exam. In other words, I was always the mean guy.

I did get to take a small group on a field trip to the Met. We spent most of our time enjoying the Picasso exhibit, then the Egyptian wing. We were going to finish our night in the Greek statutes, but a guard encouraged us to head to the roof and watch the Sunset in the Big Bambu exhibit.

The following week, I got the group to come out to a gay club in Hell’s Kitchen, Posh Lounge, where they were having karaoke night with a live band. After blowing out my vocal chords leading a group round of “Don’t Stop Believin’” I mostly watched the rest of the night, but everyone was having a good time.

Since AEP ended, I’ve been trying to get ready for school. We hit the ground running next week. I’ve already been through two rounds of journal assignments and the fall competition for the trial advocacy team is the second weekend of September. I have a paper due on Wednesday, my first day of my fall internship on Tuesday, and I’m a mentor to 5 first year students who I need to meet with.

Good thing I’ll be spending the next 4 days in Miami Beach. I’m heading down for the Lavender Law conference with about a dozen other members of our OUTLaws student group. I spent today making sure all my financial aid stuff was completely done because when I get back from Miami I’m going to be pitifully broke until the loan check clears. Even though I’m technically going down for a conference, I plan to relax as much as I can before school starts.

There isn’t a whole lot else to report. After a few months away, it was nice to start running into my friends on campus again today. It made me excited to start the semester, even if it is going to be a busy one.