I like Steve Kerr.

If you have not heard, I've received an offer to work for another firm and I'll be accepting it. This is yet another example of why I find life so confounding (good word Wayne, I used it in a brief). At the new firm, I'll be working on "better" cases, paid more, and provided with--I assume--a nicer office on a higher floor with a more scenic view. But this is not something that I actively sought out, nor do I feel as if I deserve it, at least in the sense that one should expend a lot of effort to obtain an advantageous result. Contrast this with the six months I spent on my butt between law school graduation and my first job with the state court which, in my more indulgent moments, I bemoaned as kafkaesque. There was no reason for why I could not get a good job then, and there is no reason for why I've landed an even better job now. But I'll certainly take it.

Who hasn't spent a month or two of their life making random ass purchases on ebay? Mine was in law school, when I had ample time to putz around and collect mlb showdown baseball cards. Very neat stuff--like magic, dice, and baseball cards all rolled into one! Well, not so neat in retrospect and certainly not worth the couple hundred bucks I blew on them. This was before I understood the value of a dollar (70% of the cost of kfc mashed potatoes, which I used to reserve for special occasions back when I was on my government employee budget). I also own a piece of parquet flooring with Steve Kerr's autograph on it. There has to be an after-market for that. In one of Sam Smith's books on the Jordan-era Bulls, he recounted an incident in 1995 during Jordan's first return from retirement. Jordan had a reputation for haranguing his teammates and being generally difficult towards those who had not earned his respect. Kerr had not played with Jordan in the 1991-93 title run. During practice one day, Jordan and Kerr were scuffling under the basket for a rebound and things got testy (why was Kerr even in the key?). Kerr did not back down and Jordan ended up punching him in the face. After that, Jordan--in a prime example of the irrationality of locker room machismo--warmed up to Kerr, who went on to hit a title-clinching jumper in 1997. Kerr's father was also a professor at American University in Beirut during the 1980's. Malcom Kerr was shot in the back of the head by an islamic militant during Steve Kerr's sophomore year at Arizona. To make a long story short, I've always liked Steve Kerr who, whether accurate or not, has always conveyed a strong sense of decency during his playing days and his present job as a color commentator for the NBA. Getting back to ebay, I just bought an hk film called Infernal Affairs. I haven't seen this movie or read any reviews, but it was apparently very well-received and as an added bonus for Claire, Andy Lau is an attractive man.

Unenforceable for lack of consideration.

One of my recurring mistakes in life is making the assumption that I have reached an age at which there is nothing left to be learned about how to live life because I’ve “seen it all.” This, quite obviously, is a very naïve thing to think. But the notion persists and I don’t really know why. In any case, my current ethos on life is that happiness is an affirmative act, rather than something that must be obtained. Or, put another way, we can choose to be happy. This sits well with me, because it remedies something that’s always been my biggest sticking point about life--there are things about life that we cannot change, and many of those things are bad, or hurtful, or tragic. Call it anti-objectivism if you want, but I’ve never been convinced that the careful application of reason and an unbending will are sufficient to shape the world into whatever you may want it to be. But this is not a problem if you can accept the bad along with the good, and upon final consideration, decide that the good is enough to be joyful about. With that in mind, my past week was plagued by a faint, but relentlessly nagging feeling of shittiness. I don’t understand this. By any objective measure, it was a profitable week. I saw friends. I saw family. I played poker. I celebrated a marriage. I interviewed well. But it was not enough, so a word of caution: choosing happiness may be easier said than done.

I love you.

Ecstasy has recently been on my mind. I haven’t given it much thought over the past two years. Nor have I tried to impose the experience on others; I found no takers and after awhile, this stopped bothering me. Lastly, with time and the objectivity of hindsight, I now understand that it probably was not a good idea for me to use it as much as I did. But in any case, ecstasy remains the most emotionally consequential component of a long course of substance abuse that I like to call my twenties. Although many of you have heard this pitch before and may not understand why (1) I felt the need to tell people about it in the first place; and (2) persisted in telling people about it even when it became clear that no one was interested in it, bear with me--for whatever reason, this means something to me.

But first, a few caveats. Ecstasy is a controlled substance and violation of federal and state law is an unavoidable consequence of its use. While unlikely, getting arrested for possession is not personally or professionally beneficial. Second, it’s bad for you. For those of you who have seen Eternal Sunshine, I believe the line goes: “Are there any side-effects?” “Well, yes. It’s technically brain damage, you know.” This is subject to dispute, a recent study suggests that claims of irreversible damage to memory and concentration are overblown. But from my experience, it does do subtle things to your thought process; for instance, it’s harder for me to type now. Ecstasy is also mildly habit-forming. Lastly, just to make things clear--do not read this as a pharmaceutical circular, I am not advocating that you use this drug. I could never in good faith let my brother, my girlfriend, or anyone else in my family use ecstasy. Should you decide that this is worth trying, that is your own personal decision, a decision that you should make after weighing what could be a severe array of consequences.

In spite of all these drawbacks, I remain thankful that a friend persisted in getting me to try it, and that I eventually capitulated. I have never felt as alive as I did when I was under the influence of mdma. It was transcendent. I simply cannot accurately convey this feeling of euphoria to you because it’s so physically unnatural--nothing in your life would have produced the serotonin levels that mdma achieves and as a result, it’s unlike anything you’ve felt before. And I don’t mean to cheapen life, because life is full of things that make you happy. But for me, happiness is something pleasant, or fun, or relieving. Unadulterated bliss is much rarer, and ecstasy basically takes that feeling and pushes it to a level well beyond what God intended. I often thought that if heaven is anything close to what e is like, it may be time to mend my ways. It’s just qualitatively different.

Euphoria probably is a bad word to describe it, because the sensation isn’t overwhelming, or even exciting (unless external factors make it so). Many enjoy rolling in clubs, but I hated it. It’s too much--I feel like it deadens the experience. Again, I can’t describe the sense of tranquility that I once felt, lying shirtless on my lawn while staring at a starless sky. It certainly wasn’t a pretty view--I was in a city and the clouds were ugly and red. But I was cognizant of every single blade of grass on my back, the breeze on my chest, a drip of sweat running down my forehead, the glint of street light reflecting off our metal gate, and other minutiae that I would not otherwise notice. Everything was still, precise, and for lack of a better word, correct. It was as if an inconceivable number of natural and historical events, each contingent on what came before them, had united to produce that one inexorable moment, a moment in which everything was exactly the way it was meant to be, but which so easily could have been unimaginably different. I have never felt so glad to simply exist.

If you’ve seen movies that play e for laughs, many of them have scenes in which characters indiscriminately express their affection for others while under the influence. This is fairly accurate. But I think it depends on the user. I tended to be selective with who I lavished attention on while rolling, and generally limited myself to close friends and significant others. There have been a couple notable exceptions, one being a friend of a friend who was a newbie when we rolled together. I don’t know exactly what it was about this guy, but I just liked him. It may be because he understood that rolling was much more satisfying if you made it an introverted process. Some people talk a lot of stupid shit when they roll. The guys that I most enjoyed rolling with were those that, like everyone else, talked a lot of stupid shit (we were on drugs, this should not be unexpected), but at least tried to convey something meaningful while doing so.

Anyway, I was rolling with a relative stranger (nice guy, but no history on which to base a friendship), and since it was his first time, my buddy and I were trying to nurture him through the process. We decided to do this while straight, but once the mdma kicked in, what was originally an act of courtesy snowballed into something much more profound. Don’t laugh--three hours later I came to the realization that at that moment, I loved this person. I really did. And it wasn’t even the kind of love that I’ve employed in my romantic relationships (i.e., WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?); instead, it was selfless. Nothing meant more to me than this guy’s happiness. You’d think that this would be a disconcerting feeling to have as a heterosexual male, but it was not. Although I understood the inauthenticity of the situation and knew full well that this feeling would soon pass, for the first time in my entire fucking life, I felt like a good person instead of some closeted asshole who only did nice things so that nice things would happen to him.

Well. That's why I loved it so much. I can’t say that I miss it. Nor can I say that you should try it, because it may not be worth your while. But that’s my story.

My two dads.

Under the federal constitution’s full faith and credit clause, legal relationships formed in one state must be acknowledged in all others. This is useful because, for instance, contracts are a matter of state law and most would expect that a contract formed in Illinois remains enforceable even after a party to that contract leaves the state. Likewise, when a deadbeat dad moves from Missouri to California, child support orders entered by a Missouri court must be recognized and enforced by California courts. If that were not the case, a mother would have to go through the whole judicial process again in the father’s new state of residency, with no guarantee that the father wouldn’t just pick up and move a second time. But marriage happens to be a legal relationship, hence the growing national debate on same-sex marriage.

In November of 2003, a one-vote majority of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided that any prohibition on gay marriage violates the equal protection clause of the Massachusetts state constitution and gave the Massachusetts legislature 180 days to bring state law into compliance with its holding. In a subsequent advisory opinion, the Court further instructed the state legislature that providing homosexuals with a civil union alternative would not suffice--gay marriage, and nothing less, was mandated by its decision.

With this in mind, if the full faith and credit clause of the federal constitution operates as it was generally intended to mean, the law of Massachusetts on gay marriage (gay marriage, yes!) becomes the law of the land (consensus is gay marriage, no!). Homosexuals would marry in Massachusetts, then take their new legal relationship elsewhere. This result turns majoritarian democracy on its head. Five Massachusetts judges have decided, by judicial fiat, to embrace gay marriage. This is all well and good. Gay people probably should be able to get married. But the point is, five individuals have made a decision which: (1) binds the entire country; and (2) is indisputably disagreed with by a strong majority of the nation. On the other hand, it’s not entirely clear that this has yet happened. In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which purportedly allows a state to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages occurring in other states. I say purportedly because the full faith and credit clause appears in the US Constitution, and DOMA is just a federal law. If the two conflict, the constitution wins out because, by definition, DOMA is unconstitutional. The Bush administration has made a lot of hay with this and I don’t blame them--it’s a good issue from a political standpoint because America just isn’t “ready” for gay marriage. What I take issue with is how Bush has turned “judicial activism” into a perjorative.

It was not so long ago that “rampant judicial activism” ended southern segregation in the face of an unflinching white majority which favored its continuation. No state legislator would have anything to do with the issue because then, as now with same-sex marriage, popular opinion ran contrary to social justice. The same was true of state laws criminalizing interracial marriage--it took an activist judge to do what state legislators (and their constituents) would not. And to bring things home for those of us that aren't gay, black, or into people that are a different color than us: I don’t know this for a fact, but I suspect that Japanese-American internment during WW2 also enjoyed broad support from the Northern-Pacific community. But on the other hand, I don’t believe in enlightened despots, which is to say that five people elected by a fraction of our citizenry (are justices elected in Mass?) should not be charting a course for the entire nation, no matter how intelligent, well-meaning, and substantively correct they are. You could probably criticize this approach for exalting procedure over substance, but so what. Correctness of procedure is the bedrock of our democratic society. We’re not supposed to cut corners because the constitution won’t allow it.

You may have noticed that I’ve already contradicted myself more than once. I don’t know exactly how I feel about the issue. I nearly shit myself with rage whenever someone from the “Family Research Council” shows up on cable and says that gay marriage is emblematic of the moral decay of American society. Listen--there’s nothing wrong with sticking your dick in someone’s ass. You’ll probably go to hell, but let’s be honest--who among us isn’t? But it does piss me off when people start screwing around with the constitution b/c I’m not entirely persuaded that marriage is a fundamental right, rather than a privilege. This is typical of me, i.e., of course public schools should be equally funded, as long as my property taxes aren’t diverted away from my hypothetical children and spent instead on, God forbid, those poor people schools. But that’s the crux of the issue--it’s complicated. That’s why I hate politics. It’s too easy to kick the shit out of gay marriage and piss on those filthy activist judges who support it. No politician takes the time to educate, or even make an honest fucking argument for why we should agree with them.