baby, remember my name...

and now, for something completely arrogant:

i've been worrying lately about my legacy at the law school. not really about how people will remember me, but what people i will remember from law school. an associate at the firm where i work recently mentioned that she'd gone to dinner with a group of law school friends. that's nice, i thought, especially since she graduated 6 years ago. i hoped i would still sup with l/s buddies in 6 years. then i realized: i don't go out to dinner with them now. in fact, there isn't even a group of them. i've made one close friend in l/s and there are some people i wish i could bond with. but mainly i hang out with an assortment of students who dislike each other quite a bit.

there's definitely a part of me that wants law school to loom large in my mind as more than a painful learning and ego-defeating experience. i'd like to remember the friends i made here. then why do i feel so disconnected? is this inherent in the law school experience--that we ultimately pursue our own studies and splinter apart? that the competition fundamentally divides us? that we become so specialized and near-sighted that it's difficult to relate even to each other?

for most of the first year, i thought this problem was specific to me. because i was terrified to go "drinking" with law school comrades, i never had those seminal drunken chats with my newfound community. i've never cried and slurred "i love you guys" to anyone at CU. for me, that's still part of the problem. an example: while studying in the library friday, a classmate started heading out to the international law society f.a.c. "c'mon, l.i.t., let's go have a beer," he said. i was genuinely surprised he requested my company. and deep in the gut i wanted to go: nothing seemed nicer than sampling an international selection of beers on the sun-drenched lawn with the shadows growing long around me. to simply gab with my colleagues and feel that "ease and comfort" that comes with a drink.

course, i can't do that. even when i stop by for a soda, it's a little awkward. i go home to feed l.i.t. doggie and later head to a meeting.

perhaps this isolation is peculiar to me. but somehow, i fear i'm not alone in it. the big cliques that congealed last year seem to have dissolved, and even classmates who find close friendships make particularly odd couples. sadly--and no offense to you guys--i feel like the blogging community is the closest thing to a "gang" i got. and we all pretend not to know each other.

since i'm determined to end this on a happy note, i'm making a proposal: let's all have dinner together. a bloggers-only event. buffs, bolder, moop, l.i.t., jaded and blue parrot. monkey law would get a special dispensation. even tim hadley could come. no one has to know. we'll break our anonymity, so to speak, but only with each other. and, maybe, only for that night.

go ahead, tell me i'm an asshole. but in my sick, romantic way, i imagine it would be fun: like a law school blind date. or, it could be a disaster.

you tell me.