A Dream of a Better Life

What a dream! I am back in Austin, but this is not one of those old ‘I wish I could have another shot at law school’ type of dream. My subconscious seems to be well over that by now, thank god.

In this dream, I am still washing out of college, but this is far from the forlorn experience as we knew it twenty years ago. I am not coming home. I am anxiously settling in Austin in the university area, getting ready to begin my post-student life.

I am trying to nail down a job to pay for my apartment and groceries, looking to be an independent adult. The most remarkable thing: I am a social person! I have a social life. I have friends. And I seem to be on friendly terms with just about everyone. We talk and smile and kid around. I am a real part of the community.

In one snippet, I am seated at a bar with a table of friends. We are spending a serious night drinking. But I know I cannot spend my money recklessly, and so I get out my wallet to budget and to set a limit as to how much I am going to spend drinking and carousing. I have some money. I have a fifty-dollar bill, along with a twenty and some smaller currency. I decide that I am going to limit myself to twenty. I have rent to make.

I almost forgot. I have a roommate. A woman. Oddly enough, it’s Sina, my blogging buddy. It’s funny. We hooked up back in the Blurty days, but we have always been somewhat remote from each other. This is no Sugar or Gabe experience, nor even an Antilapsarian experience. We have exchanged the odd comment through the years, and even a couple over this winter, as she is one who continues to drop in every once in a great while. We’re not lovers in this dream. We’re friends and roomies. I seem to be a naturally sociable person in this wonderful dream-world. I bought her a gift. I cannot recall why. She is sincerely touched by it. It’s all smiles in this dream. I feel like it’s a picture of the life that maybe I might have had, if I were a little more fortunate.

Reading Life

“Read in order to live.”

-- Gustave Flaubert

Funny, I seem to have that backwards.

February 8, 1991

March 4, 2012

We will do this Old Journal entry from February 8, 1991 in a more exegetical manner. It’s not an easy one, and I have been able to find more pleasant tasks, like cleaning my toilet or having a tooth pulled. But I am now ready to get it out of the way. And, no, no tooth was lost. That was a joke.

In my big black binder, I have reached the notification letter from the law school informing me that I have flunked out:

I regret to inform you that, according to our records, your cumulative average through the Fall Semester of 1990 on 50 attempted hours is 1.76 under the new grading system and 62.51 under the old grading system. According to the Law School Catalogue, a student who has received grades on more than twenty hours and whose average is below 1.8 under the new system or below 63 under the old system is dropped for failure. Therefore, you have been dropped for failure effective the end of the Fall Semester of 1990.

Coming upon this letter after twenty years, rather fresh, I am amazed by how I just barely fell under the floor. Remember, I did not bother showing up for any of my final exams that semester. My mastery of the classes was very poor, but if I had the pluck to show up, it looks like I might have been able to play through, or so I can think. I’ll go ahead and type out my entry from that day.

_ _ _

I finally received the ‘drop’ letter from the law school. I became filled with self-doubts. It seems more clear that I wasn’t ‘kicked out’ but that I just left, that I needed only to show up and I could’ve kept my student status and my lawyerly ambitions.

I have not forgotten the crippling feeling of ‘not belonging’. My race, physical inferiority, virtual poverty, academic inferiority, and introverted personality are not elements that easily find a ‘home’ at the University of Texas (especially its law school). Nevertheless, my doubt concerns whether I should have just forced myself to be more brave. Did I let social immaturity cost me the biggest mistake of my life?

-- February 8, 1991

_ _ _

At this late point in my life, coming fast on forty-seven, I am confident that the difference between where I am now and the middle-class lawyerly job I had in mind rests on much more solid ground than on merely my decision to quit and walk out.

I just don’t have it. My intellect and energy is much too middling to be even a below-average lawyer. My best hope, realistically speaking, was to be an office clerk, and, frankly, I prefer what I am doing now, living at home and blogging.

the Kindle

Pop was having trouble setting up his satellite radio on the patio, and I offered him the Kindle, so that he can use the Pandora music service. This also has the advantage that his country & western music won't be overwhelming the big room, as you really have to use the headphones to enjoy the music.

However, he sits out there all afternoon, and here I am eager to get on with "Heart of Darkness". But at least his commitment to the Kindle is deepend. I am growing attached to our new toy.