fat tuesday

i was half-tempted just to repost some of my love letters to south louisiana today. mardi gras always makes me miss my gulf-coast homelands. it's the biggest example of why the gulf south, in all its glory and splendor, is so special and important to the character of this nation. it's also radically and vitally different from the non-gulf south, a difference that should be kept in mind at all times. mobile is NOT selma; new orleans is NOT memphis. anywhere the gulf of mexico touches in this country is just... not quite the same.

gulf coast kids have a different way of looking at the world. chris rose got it just so, so right with his world-class introduction to louisiana, and it applies in varying degrees to the rest of the gulf, too. we appreciate our food, our culture, our surroundings. we love life, we drink it in no matter what. we raise our glasses (probably a touch too often) to good and bad. we know that jimmy buffett is smarter than he even realized when he told us, if we couldn't laugh, then we would go insane. changes in latitudes always bring a change in my attitude. in other words, you can tell when i've been home; i come back a little bit more free than i was when i left.

so on this mardi gras day, i celebrate my gulf coast heritage. i got to the home of mardi gras (founded in mobile, alabama, in 1703, a solid century before new orleans!) by accident, by chance, and it's the greatest bit of serendipity imaginable. my gulf coast home gave me so much: friends, culture, azaleas and magnolias (!), crawfish and pralines... and the great love of my life.

laissez les bons temps rouler, chers. ain't no doubt, bebe.

alma mater

this is your soundtrack. this is my alma mater. i miss this place more than i could ever imagine.

"where stately oaks and broad magnolias shade inspiring halls,
there stands our dear old alma mater who to us recalls
fond memories that waken in our hearts a tender glow
and make us happy for the love that we have learned to know

all hail to thee our alma mater, molder of mankind
may greater glory, love unending, be forever thine
our worth in life will be thy worth, we pray to keep it true
and may thy spirit live in us...

forever LSU."


GEAUX TIGERS.

sweet southern moon

[this all started when i found this picture while listening to this song. heard the song again today; hence the renewed nostalgia...]

i have one exam - one long, stupid take-home exam for a professor i, frankly, detest - standing between me and freedom for fall 2010. senior-itis (LL.M.-itis?) is hitting me hard. and with winter like this hitting the metro area as hard as it can, i was in the right frame of mind to get knocked sideways by a four-minute pop song about driving the river road in baton rouge.

yeah, i was never so sweet on baton rouge when i lived there. i love, love, LOVE the fact that i hold two degrees from LSU law center. i am proud as hell of that. GEAUX. TIGERS. but the town itself? meh. it's funny, though, how experiences twine themselves around your heart when you least see them coming. i find myself realizing just what i had when i lived there, and how, well, perfect LSU was for me.

i'll hit the road myself in a few days, heading back south for a series of amazing reunions with people all over the southeast, the family and friends who, frankly, got ignored for too long while i was living the old life, the one that wasn't me. but when i'm here, though i am blissfully happy with my surroundings, a shockingly intense twinge of longing for, say, boudin balls at the chimes whipsaws through me. i have no idea what causes this, but there it is.

this is an old habit of mine. for most of my adult life, and even when i was a snotty little college kid, i found it remarkably hard to just light somewhere. (to translate the southernism: light somewhere = be still and settle.) i spent my last two years of college constantly driving back and forth across the commonwealth of virginia. i always want to move, to go, to do. i am almost never at my house. it makes me wonder if it's the place i miss, or the action, the motion, the other-ness? interesting question, i guess. the time will come, very soon, when i put down roots for real. i've made commitments to this place, ones that i am not at all interested in breaking. the pliability that accompanied some of my old life choices is no longer available - the people involved in my decision-making process are adults, with lives and responsibilities of their own. balancing all of this inures towards staying still, being present and breathing for once in my life.

so the old strains of that silly little song, which really does sum up nights in baton rouge better than a thousand descriptions i could write, still tug at my heart. but when i'm done having some brews and marinating in that sweet, sweet southern moon, i'll get in the car and come back here, back to the arms of my love, my city, and i'll curl up in the comfort of home. the roots will grow. they're small, but they are most certainly there.

regrets, i've had a few

i love a lot of things in my life: family, boyfriend, friends old and new, etc. but one thing i do not love, sadly enough, is my dream graduate program. i mean, it's brought me some great people, and it's getting me a REALLY valuable credential that will help me get where i'm going. it's certainly not a waste of my time, and i will come to appreciate this. but my god, this is painful. not the academic demands - i've been challenged before, i'll be challenged again. child's play. it's the... worldview, i guess, from which the people who are teaching me this body of law approach their jobs as lawyers and advisors. let's just say that this little baby lawyer is turning into a world-class rebel.

i went to law school not to chase the atticus finch, law-and-order dream of the crusader. hell, i study tax law; it's a different ball game. but i did see, firsthand, the good work you can do with some knowledge of the tax code and an aptitude for helping people. you can get out there and help farmers keep their land in their families. you can set up a plan such that the teacher and the insurance salesman won't have to put mama in a cut-rate home when she's too frail to live with them. you can write a will so airtight that there's no way that the spiteful sister can step in and take granny's brooch from the dutiful sister. you can make sure sissy and bubba get the home on lake verret when daddy dies.

i did not go into tax and estate planning to help the scions of the top 1% shelter their inherited wealth in foreign trusts and family LLCs so that their scions' scions can continue to live off of never-ending streams of untold millions. those people don't need my help. noblesse oblige is dead; these folks, by and large, only give to charity to the extent they can write it off on their taxes. they perpetuate their wealth at the expense of their daddies' employees. i am not interested in that kind of service.

the longer i have to listen to my old-money professor, who winters in foreign country A, summers in foreign country B and works as a hobby, refer to laws passed to catch tax cheats trying to hide their money in secret bank accounts as "witch hunts," the more i become the second coming of huey long. i grew up the daughter of a man who worked, HARD, to give me what he could. i busted ass to help put myself through college; what my brain couldn't get me, my feet did. i've worked hard all my life. i have funded all four years of my legal education by myself. no one gave us anything. to sit here and listen to these people talk about tax problems from the perspective of the uber-rich? yeah, forgive my lack of sympathy.

it's ridiculous. i don't want to be that kind of lawyer. i want to help, y'know, REAL people. let the psychotically wealthy either figure it out on their own or - gasp! - own up and do their civic duty as recipients of untold privilege. i'll seek a career path doing what matters to the 99% of us who don't have our opportunities given to us with no effort. that's what being a steward of the law is all about. meanwhile, i'll slog through the rest of this elitist foolishness, and i'll gladly take the credential. i'll just use the knowledge i gain to do good, not to recklessly, shamelessly, and - yeah, i'll say it - whorishly chase money.

my daddy raised me better than this.