Impulse Drives

Tonight I went to Bar Review. For those not familiar with the world of standardized law school humor, law review is the weekly law student excursion to a local bar. This gives law students who spend half of their waking life with people they secretly hate an opportunity to spend a further evening each week with the same people they secretly hate. The most entertaining part is watching people who are so immersed in The Law try to think of non-law things to talk about with their law school students:

"So... Ummm... I hear there's... a sport... that's played this season... How about that team that's doing well?"

"Yeah, the, um, Mets, I think, are going to play the... Ah... Forty-Niners? Is that right?"

"Sounds right."

"Should be a good game... So... How about that Rule Against Perpituities?"

"Oh, man! Don't get me started on the RAP! We had this amazing case where a guy who was 80 years old tried to leave his estate to 'his wife,' and..."

I haven't gone to Bar Review since Legal Methods, the three week boot camp before real classes begin in the first year. There are a number of reasons for this. First, I'm not very social. Second, I hate my fellow law students. Third, why cart myself all the way to the Upper West Side to go to an over-priced, over-crowded trendy bar overpacked with people I hate when I can just go to the gay bar around the corner and get all-night indian food while I'm there?

But I'm trying to be more social lately, and socializing with law students is like training wheels for socializing with real people. So I treked down to 80th street and went to the sports bar that was selected for this week's venue. I managed to stay about 30, maybe 40 minutes.

The problem is that alcohol is a bad thing to give me when I'm trying to be social. As you know, Bob, I am profoundly weak sauce. I get notably tipsy after a single pint of beer. You are, perhaps, expecting that my problem is that I get drunk fast and do or say things that I feel embarrassed about later. You would be wrong. The problem is that my short attention span leads me to grow quickly disinterested in the bar scene. When my impulse control disappears, as it does half-way through my first beer, it isn't long before I'm gone.

Thus, this evening I arrived, scouted around a bit, then went to the bar. I found a friend I hadn't talked to for a few months and we chatted for a while (her father's the mayor of a large town in the South. He recently won his primary, so things are good in that regard). We had beers. We parted afterwards. I found a friend from the board game club. We shook hands. I was alone again. I looked around.

It is more or less at this point that my Id said to my Ego "Hey, I've got an idea: Let's go home and play Megaman!" Had I not drunk that beer, my Superego would have replied, "No, we have to stay here and socialize. It's for our own good. We need to learn how to talk to people informally and have fun in an extroverted fashion." Thanks to the pint of beer in me, my Superego instead replied, "Hey! Megaman! Fuck yeah!" I didn't realize I had screwed up my master plan for the evening until I was sitting on my couch at home in sweatpants, fighting for everlasting peace.

I don't have a snappy ending to this story, so I'll instead relate a conversation I had earlier today with the school's Director of Student Services! She posted a couple of weeks ago on the law school discussion board that she had some CDs she was selling dirt-cheap. I took her up on the offer, and went into her office today.

Director: Well, I've got this Sleater-Kinney CD that I found. I already have a copy of this, so you can have it for $5.

Me: Oh, cool!

Director: I'll throw in this CD by the Doves and this one by Beth Orton. I just cleaned out my office last week and found these under a pile of papers. I didn't even remember I had them. But I already bought myself replacement copies, so they're yours.

Me: Oh, thanks! I guess some things you lose, some things you give away...