Spring is here: I'm walking to and from the law school in short-sleeved shirts with no jacket, and as I wandered home I wondered at the strange gradations of color that pass for sunset in New York, where the horizon is the next block of buildings and the 'sky' is that thing you can see when you look straight up. This morning students were out reading on the college lawns as I wandered schoolwards, and going back the same way this evening there was some event with food and music in front of the Low Library. The air is warm with the clean smell of thawing winter (rather than the stench of coming summer), and the street fair on broadway was full of shiny organic fruits and vendors hawking overpriced ethnic food.

I've lowered the Exam Stress warning to "guarded." While at the library today I covered my last section of Con Law: each topic I've either read in Chemerinsky, briefly covered in Legalines, or suffered through in Sullivan. There's only a little more Crim reading left to do, and even Reg State is down to a manageable minimum. With just under two and a half weeks left, it's now down to outlining and preparing. Since most of my preparation is the act of synthesizing my notes (and I've given up hopes of Law Review), much of the terror has abated. The Rubicon is before me, and tomorrow the bridges get burnt.

So tonight I'm wandering the city with my girlfriend, our evening's agenda still unknown. When she arrives, I think we'll walk down Broadway for a couple of stops, take in the final moments of twilight as it drifts away, and then head out for adventures unknown.

Incidentally, if you're lucky enough to find a companion during your 1L year, seize that particular opportunity with both hands. I'm going to break my standard policy of not talking about my personal life to say that finding someone understanding of a 1L's schedule, who can put up with the fact that you're available only at odd hours and that your one instant topic of conversation regards your workload, is an circumstance of tender mercy. If she knows how to cook brilliant halibut cooked with saffron, yogurt and shallots, all the better. But during this madcap silly season, having someone to share with is really the crowning glory.

A 1L I was chatting to yesterday murmurred something about being happy that they were single, because "otherwise my grades would be suffering so badly." To which I can only quote the poem from which I stole the title of this post:

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter...