Well, I finished the damn paper. It was a long road, made longer by my numerous false starts and general loathing of my topic. Believe it or not, I finished writing it in the chair at the salon as I got my hair highlighted (I had to be pretty for graduation). I missed out on fun with Olivia, the P-Funks, and the Hardy Boys because I was working on the damn thing. A word about the Hardy Boys: so named in honor of the ridiculous, yet mostly harmless situations they seem to get themselves into. There are two of them, Frank and Joe, and when I join them on adventures (does this make me Nancy Drew in a rare cross-over novel?), the experience is invariably bookended with me shaking my head and muttering "I can't believe I'm about to do this" or "I hate them both" before, and shaking my fists at the sky and wondering "Why do I let the Goddamn Hardy Boys talk me into this shit?" afterwards. For all my bitching and exasperation, I usually have fun and get a great story out of it (I think the funniest involved an all-night diner, a lot of vodka, and a minor viral video sensation. The best one's title involves the phrase "Mexican Standoff," so it is best not discussed here.). Thus, it's fair to say that most of my protest is pure posturing. Even though the night usually involves so much eye-rolling that I sometimes fear they will get stuck in the "up" position. The point is, I missed out on what could have been either a) a night of hilarity, or at least amusement or b) a chance to test new and exciting curses on my friends.
Two days after I hit "send" on my final paper, it was time to graduate. As soon as I was officially done, I tried on my snazzy law school graduation robes. This would be better with a visual. You're not going to get it, because I don't know how to blur faces out on Photoshop. I will, however, transcribe the following exchange between Finn and myself as I walked into the hallway in full regalia:
Lola: Well, I guess this is how they're trying to keep us humble…
Finn: What? By dressing you up as a character from Harry Potter?
Lola: The hood's not staying where it's supposed to! I need—
Finn: A wand?
For those who've never seen it, J.D.s graduate in doctoral robes. Which, have long (though, not nearly as long as master's degree robes), bell-shaped sleeves with velvet bands on the sleeves. And velvet on the front. Lots of velvet for May. And then, there's a "hood" (which is a misnomer; it's more like a really weird collar. It hangs around your neck, looking kinda like a normal collar, but then it hangs down your back in a giant loopy-tail thing. With two colors in satin representing your school's colors and then a band made of, you guessed it, velvet, which denotes your degree. Law is purple. We were fabulous.). But, the cherry on this sundae is the hat. It is made of, wait for it—velvet!—and looks, in the bag, like a normal four-cornered mortar-board. HA! It is bigger than your standard mortar-board, and, most importantly—floppy. It was like a graduation beret. Topped with a purple tassel of course. Not even being dressed up like Albus Dumbledore could dampen my joy at this momentous event; I was going to walk across the stage and graduate from law school summa cum laude (I may have numerous personal faults, but I'm pretty good at school. Yeah, I'm kinda bragging a bit, no, it's not particularly attractive, but I worked my ass (and two boyfriends) off, and I'm pretty pumped about it. So, get over it); something that, despite my continuous complaints about law school, has been my dream for the better part of my life. So great was my joy that I even agreed to meet the J-man and family for breakfast the morning. We agreed to meet at my apartment between 8 and 8:30 a.m.
Those of you who've had the dubious pleasure of dealing with me before 10 a.m. and a cup of coffee, you know I'm not a morning person and can probably see where this is going. My father (and the older of my two younger sisters, actually) is always a few minutes late for family stuff. His favored tip-off is calling five minutes after he was supposed to arrive and saying "I'm just down the road." It is purposely vague. We have come to understand that "just down the road" means "approaching the interstate exit," which is a good 15-20 minutes from his house. D has been about an hour late for my birthday dinner for the past two years running. As she lives an hour away, I think it's fair to say that she's been leaving her house at the start time of dinner. Needless to say, I was pretty sure I had until 8:15 at the very earliest. I woke up around 7:25 and started getting ready. Slowly, groggily. Cursing myself for the poor decision to forego setting my automatic timer. At 7:30, my door buzzer rang. WHA? As I scrambled into a robe, and to the door, I realized that D was not on time, but early. I quickly got my coffee-maker ready and gave D instructions for working it. The J-man calls:
J-man: Are you almost ready?
Lola: I just need to get dressed and put on some make-up (ok, I had to shower too, but I didn't have to blow-dry my hair)
J-man: How's that going?
Lola: It will go much faster if I'm not talking about it on the phone. . .
J-man: Good deal, we'll be there soon. I'm just down the road.
I was thinking this gave me at least 15 minutes, so I hopped in the shower. And got out, less than 10 minutes later, to see my father and his family had been let in. I squeaked out "be just a few minutes and scrambled to put on clothes and make-up. But, I was ready by 8:05, so it's all good. And I was even early to my check-in at ThirdTier (yep, my dear friend Amie and I graduated from the same law school). I'll be honest, I was excited for graduation, but also dreading the ceremony. She-funk graduated from her master's program the week before me, and their ceremony was over three hours. Three hours in a heavy robe draped with velvet with no air conditioning promised brutality (a fitting end to law school). Especially since we had a special guest speaker, a faculty speaker and a student speaker. Lawyers love to hear themselves talk. I was anticipating a Gone With the Wind length epic. After our traditional walk to the building, ThirdTier President started speaking. Really slowly. I groaned inwardly and mentally girded my loins.
I was pleasantly surprised. We literally spent as long milling around the Law College as we did at the ceremony. We were finished in an hour and a half. I'm still kind of waiting for it to sink in. Even after I saw my terrible professional shots. I won't be ordering them. I do plan on printing the picture, taken at ThirdTier with my favorite people, the people who made it possible to survive three years of this hell and still have fond memories. WAY better than a picture of me shaking hands with the President of ThirdTier, who I spoke to for the first time as he handed me my fake diploma (a poster of Dean Asshat's inane "inspirational" saying. Which he repeated when we lined up. We all booed.)
So, for a minute, I'd like to give a shout-out: to my law school family. You are the people who made this possible. Through three years of late-night studying, marriages, deaths, breakdowns, break-ups, babies, baby-scares, baby-quiche, ridiculous adventures, ridiculous bad luck, job-hunting in a terrible economy and a million little successes and failures, you made it possible to keep a sense of humor about all this. We made it through and did it with style (and surprisingly few hangovers). So, for being the family that ThirdTier made, thank you, I love you, and CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
