Unfortunately, the pictures I took didn’t turn out great – and you should never try to edit photos on your phone while intoxicated – but I like how this one of me came out:

Anyway, keeping busy otherwise. I start training for my TA/mentoring end-of-summer job this week. I accepted a position on the staff of the Fordham Urban Law Journal. I have my flight and hotel booked for Lavender Law, so I have 6 weeks to get down to my birth weight for Miami Beach (I also need a new swimsuit, my current one is about 6 years out of style). It’s also, apparently, time to start updating my resume and beginning the job hunt for next summer.

Harlem Hydrant. This shot was more interesting a moment earlier, before the kids playing in the hydrant ran off.

Usually, our office is colder than is comfortable. Something about servers and computer equipment, but it’s a little odd dressing in the lightest clothes possible for the commute to and from work, but packing a hoodie in my bag to make it through the day.

Speaking of the office, it’s been a very interesting summer to work in the LGBT equality movement. While Lambda isn’t involved in every LGBT case out there, we obviously pay very close attention to what is going on. There have been a lot of high profile cases like Doe v. Reed (the state can disclose the names of people who sign anti-queer ballot petitions) and Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (school can deny funding to anti-queer groups that discriminate against people who don’t share the same values and beliefs) at the Supreme Court, building precedent that the Constitution protects the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Lower level cases like the twin cases out of Massachusetts overturning part of DOMA (Gill v. Office of Personnel Management and Massachusetts v. US Dept of Health and Human Services) and the pending decision in California about the constitutionality of Prop 8 (Perry v. Schwarzenegger). There are also less high-profile, but equally significant, developments like a ruling that you cannot fire a person based on gender identity simply because you anticipate that other people might have a moral objection (Glenn v. Brumby). Additionally, things have happened like the Obama administration’s directive to hospital that receive federal funding to establish policies that respect LGBT patients and their families. I hear that federal housing authorities may soon adopt a new, broader definition of family, which will help poor and low-income queer people who rely on government assistance for basic housing to access the system legally (under the current system, problems can sometimes come up like only members of a family may live together in government-funded housing, excluding same-sex relationships not recognized by state or local law from the ability to live together legally and receive assistance).

Sure, not all the news has been positive. Civil Unions were vetoed in Hawaii. The military study of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is a joke. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld their ban on same-sex marriage. Still, when you take a step back, the overall trend is very inspiring right now.

Anyway, I don’t know what my point is, except that I’m sometimes amazed at how many moving pieces there are to this movement: from teenagers wearing pro-gay t-shirts at school to LGBT seniors trying to find long-term assisted living.

There’s not much else going on this week in my life. Had five days off last weekend after Pride and the Kagan confirmation hearings, finished the last day of my summer class, spent most of the week skipping the social scene and trying to stay cool. To that end, it’s been catch-up week on movies I missed because of Law School. I saw Kick-Ass (somewhere in the world there is a Hollywood producer who actually says “you know who would be perfect for this movie? Nic Cage” — we should find this man and beat him senseless.) and Iron Man 2 (good enough to watch again) and Shrek: Forever After (meh) and The Fantastic Mr. Fox (cute) and How to Train Your Dragon (really cute) Youth in Revolt (likable but forgettable) and some other stuff.

I’ve found that most cities I’ve lived in, I tend to find a bar I’m relatively comfortable at and return there often, at least for for a while. In New York, that bar appears to be The Ritz. My friends and I have been there on various nights of the week and always seem to have a decent time. While the drinks aren’t the most (or least) expensive you’ll find, we typically pregame somewhere else before heading out, because the point of The Ritz isn’t drinking, it’s dancing.

In the middle of the summer, the dance floor is a sweaty, humid, uncomfortable, crowded mess. I love it. I was out dancing until around 3am last night and even ran in to Garrett, my buddy from San Francisco. I flirted with a guy named Juan for while out on the front porch area, and generally had a great time.

Anyway, I’m not really writing this blog to advertize for the Ritz, I wanted to point to one more example of how I’ve given up on any notions of privacy in the internet age. I signed up for foursquare a few weeks ago and I’m having fun with it. For those who don’t know, foursquare is a social media platform that allows you to “check in” to various venues using your phone’s GPS. It’s basically a way of telling your friends where you’re at, as well as meeting new people who are in the neighborhood.

So, if you want/need to find me, check out my foursquare profile. Better yet, sign up yourself and friend me so that I can more easily stalk you, too.

P. to the S.: A propos of nothing, new Scissor Sisters album, Night Work, is pure joy and “Whole New Way” is my pick for song of the summer. I’m totally willing to fight you over that.

The internship is exciting. See the thousands of documents for Elena Kagan’s files at the Clinton Library? I’ve been reading them. I’m also going to work on the help desk this summer and I’m on my third memo about lobbying laws in various cities and states & how they affect the organization. I’ll be marching with Lambda Legal in the NYC Pride parade in a few weeks and tabling at Harlem Pride.

How fantastic was Glee? I’m going into summer withdrawal already.

I think I’m going to rearrange my room a bit tonight. I’m not in love with how I had it set up after the initial move-in. Of course, I should be working on my closing argument for tomorrow’s Trial Advocacy competition.

Anyway, now that I’ve more or less figured out the daily commute, subway time seemed like a good opportunity to do an update.

Still, a good time was had in the sun, money was raised for a good cause, and I spent a morning pretending I didn’t have to study for Torts. The video is 5 minutes of footage I shot on my fancy new camcorder, but to get the best HD use out of the camera, I discovered I’ll need to buy some better video editing software soon.

Of course, the whole experience was frightening and upsetting. It appears that they managed to get into my yahoo account somehow (I admit, I wasn’t using a terribly clever password and it was the same password I use on a whole bunch of sites that require sing-ups), and from there they sent “reset password” requests to gmail, which got them into my facebook account. Once they got that far, they set up a dummy account and had anything emailed to my gmail auto-forwarded to the dummy account, then spammed everybody who I put into my contacts over the last 5 or so years with a hoax about being stuck in Scotland with no money and no way to get home. Then they deleted my address books before google and yahoo suspended the accounts for sending spam. By this morning I had access to the accounts again, changed how password resets work for my most important accounts, and replaced every vulnerable password I could remember.

The scary thing was realizing how much more damage they could have done if they had been patient and skipped the scam email. If they had simply monitored my accounts for a while after gaining access, they might have pieced together my credit card info, my tax documents and identity, how to access my bank accounts, my old paypal account, etc. I’m definitely rethinking how I save and link these things together. Is my convenience worth the risk of a breach?

Anyway, this morning was my first final of the semester in Civil Procedure. I think it went well. There’s never any way to predict how well you actually did on law school exams until grades come out, but I’m confident that I recognized the specific issues and questions our professor was driving at and managed to avoid a few red herrings he slipped in there. Now I have a week to prepare for Constitutional Law (next Wednesday).

After the final, I ate lunch out in the sun underneath one of Fordham’s various odd statues that sorta reminded me of how I felt after 36 hours of hacker drama and reading the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

I’m heading to happy hour celebration with the BarBri folks in a few minutes, but I only get one night off until Finals are over.

In the meanwhile, NYC friends and loved ones (plus those willing to travel), mark your calendars for Saturday, May 29. I’m don’t have plans locked down yet, but I hope to celebrate my freedom from the dorms, completion of my first year of law school, JFK’s birthday and the fifth annual celebration of my 29th birthday that night*. Right now I’m leaning toward gathering at one of the piano bars at Christopher Street and 7th (e.g. Duplex or Monster or Marie’s Crisis … so many choices for gay piano bars!), but I’m open to suggestions. Don’t forget that you have Monday off, so I’m not accepting many excuses. I’ll be announcing my plans next week and sending out invitations… you’ll know it’s me and not a scam artist because I’ll use relatively proper grammar and won’t ask you to wire me money.

* for those of you trying to do the math, remember that the first celebration of my 29th birthday was when I actually turned 29, the next year we marked the second annual celebration of my 29th birthday, and so on.

No, I’m not in Cambridge or Scotland or wherever after having been mugged by some “hoodlums.” I’m in New York and I’m about 25 hours away from my first final of the semester. I only wish that I’d spent the last few days overseas, it sounds way more adventurous than taking practice exams on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Anyway, my apologies if you got spammed.

In the meantime, my twitter is still in my control and I’ve stopped my law school email (FirstInitialLastName at law.fordham.edu) and website email (FirstName at jerekeys.com) from aggregating in the hacked gmail account for now, so feel free to reach me by any of those methods or comment on the blog if you need my attention.

Eta: I got Gmail back.

This is the last week of classes before finals begin. That doesn’t necessarily mean things have been slowing down. As soon as finals are over, we’ve got the writing competition for law review and journals. Then my internship starts. Then it’s time to register for classes. Then the trial ad and moot court teams hold their summer competitions. … You get the idea.

Some of the happy highlights of the last few weeks:

• I was named Education Chair for the OUTLaws board next year.
• I also volunteered to organize a weekly run through the student group dedicated to health issues in the law next year.
• I signed papers to rent a room in an awesome rent-controlled apartment in West Harlem, just 3 blocks from the Apollo Theatre and right across the street from Morningside Park. I move in Memorial Day weekend.
• Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back! Glee is back!
• The last few weeks have included no shortage of end-of-the-year gatherings. Section dinner, Follies cast party, OUTLaws alumni dinner, law firm mixers, birthdays, etc. I’ve got to cut myself off until after finals. Conveniently, my birthday is two days after the end of the writing competition, a day after my apartment move, and two days before my internship begins. Stay tuned…

Not so happy:

• Thank you all for your kind words about my aunt’s passing. She will be missed. My family went over 20 years between the deaths of my uncle Timmy and Grandma Lu and the recent passing of Grandpa Rob and Julie. I suppose in a family as large as ours, that kind of survival rate (without any accidental or truly unexpected deaths since Timmy) is luckier than we have any right to expect.
• End of semester also means end of the loan funds I lived on all semester. After writing the deposit and first month rent checks, I’m feeling the pinch in the bank account. My summer funding should be here in the next 3 weeks, but no more expensive cafeteria salads for lunch when I’m perfectly capable of packing a lunch.
• Speaking of salads at lunch, apparently my year of regular running has resulted in a pretty rigid weight loss plateau. As an added bonus, if I don’t run for a few days, I start gaining weight really quickly unless I’m super strict about my calorie intake. If I had some of that socialized medicine I would ask the commie doctor to see if I’ve got a thyroid problem or something not death-panel worthy.

Sigh… back to learning the “legitimate policy justifications” behind why we make it hard to sue drug companies for making Phen-fen and Vioxx.

Fordham Follies.
March 26 & 27.
Featuring the braying musical talents of moi!

The photo above is from today’s “Rami Day” rehearsal with our music director/conductor/one-man-band. If you’re a non-student bloggy friend and want tickets, I’ll make arrangements closer to curtain time. But with an open bar, you won’t need to be a Fordham Law student to get the jokes. Okay, that’s not true, many of the gags will make no sense to the uninitiated, but we sparkle! (In a gay musical theater way, not in a crappy Stephanie Meyers vampire way.)

Since I try to do my distance runs on the weekend, I decided this morning to set out southward and see how far I could go. I ended up at the western edge of Battery Park staring at the Statue of Liberty before turning around. The GPS on my phone was experiencing a hiccup, though, so I couldn’t track my mileage live time. When I got home and checked it against the map, I jogged between 11 3/4 and 12 miles in just under 2 hours. The last 20 blocks were very rough, but I did it. This means that I could easily reach my half-marathon goal (13ish miles in 3 hours) even if I had to limp and crawl the last mile.

I’m not having the same success in making progress on my appellate brief. Even though the first (of two) issues is based on a previous assignment and our professor doesn’t think we need to do any new research on the issue, she changed enough facts in the new problem that I’m researching every proposition for law that better fits the facts of the case. This means I write at the pace of a paragraph per hour. It’s going to be a long week (the assignment is due in 9 days).

For those who don’t follow my twitter account, my father had a major health crisis this week. He was admitted to the hospital and the ICU ward early this week with kidney failure (I was told there was another heart attack, but now I don’t know). He’s doing okay now, as far as I’m up-to-date, but I’m not especially sure what’s going on.

Between first semester grades, the not-gentle beginning of the second semester of law school, the summer job search, family crises, and a general feeling of isolation, I’m not sure that I’m in a good place right now. I’m spending some time with my cousin tomorrow, which is good, but I’m not okay. I’m really not. I’ve been disappointed in myself and in the people I thought were my friends in the last week. I’ve also been touched by a few people who turned out to be better friends than I expected. Nevertheless, this blog is the closest thing I have to a diary, so for the historical record, this has been a bad week. Don’t worry, this isn’t a cry for help and I’m way too full of myself to hurt myself in any way. At the same time, I never admit when I’m hurting, so I’m trying to do that now in this strange personal/public forum that is my blog.

(Don’t be surprised if this entry disappears in the next couple days… summer job hunt… professionalism… blah, blah, blah…)

So, yeah, I went out tonight and got a little intoxicated. I posted some embarrassing comments to twitter (I still don’t have the courage to look at the replies). But I’m home (alone) now and hoping that next week is better.