The Life and Times of One T. Andre
Another frustrated attorney written blog.New Amsterdam?
Nah this post is really about the old Amsterdam. So I have been planning this trip to Europe for a while and I had been vascillating on the idea of cutting out Amsterdam from my itinerary.
I figured, that this being my first trip abroad, that I’d rather just see two places for the 10 days I’m over there to try to get a better feel for those two places.
I ended up voicing this concern to my friends who had been and they all pretty much said I should make time for Amsterdam. So I did, as you guys know, and I booked that funky hotel in Amsterdam
Now however I’m trying to find some cool shit to do in Amsterdam. I don’t have that much time there. Basically two days. The only things I’m sure I will go to are the Anne Frank House and perhaps the Van Gogh Museum.
I’ve gotten Rick Steve’s Amsterdam/Brussells/Bruge book and I’m trying to customize my trip. Any suggestions on spots I should see?
T
Recurring themes
Last night I was having a talk with an internet dating prospect who is an attorney that left their high six figure salary at a prestigious NY law firm to do public interest law in Florida. It was interesting to talk about the recurring themes among so many folks who practice law.
“I despise the hours”
“The work is unfulfilling”
“My bosses are cunts”
“It’s mind-numbingly dull”
“I wish I’d become a dentist”
Etcetera, etcetera right? It really is an interesting profession, not in its subject matter, but it’s just such a mind fuck. This is my theory on it. Back when the first lawyers emerged and got together to start fucking folks over, there was just one guy who bossed the others and was a giant prick. He realized the way to make all this money was to be a douche to all his subordinates and profit from their toil.
This was thus handed down generation to generation (Baron and White, was begat by James, Wilshire, and Kennedy, which was begat from Henderson, Mercer and Johnson, etc.) and now it has just gotten to the point where half the lawyers in the profession don’t know how to treat the other half. Or anyone else for that matter.
It breeds a lot of contempt. I’m convinced that many lawyers just hate themselves. They must.
Update
Ah, after about two weeks Zooey holds a slight lead over Elisha (5-4) in our little poll for my soul! Really there is no loser in this…
Man I’m beat. Work is having a real good go at me these days. It’s been late nights, weekends, it’s been simply awful. What sucks about it, is that it just really doesn’t seem important to me. Why is this seemingly unimportant shit taking a priority in my life? It’s really passionless.
I know it’s very important to my partners (who make a ton of cash off my work), the individual bank clients (who are competing each other for praise and cash bonuses at the Bank), but I feel overwhelming and crushing apathy. It is only my ethical obligations (which I take rather seriously) that keep me mentally engaged at all. I’m just so incredibly weary right now.
That being said, I have my first ever vacation to Europe around the corner. On November 25, 2009 (after a full day’s work, ugh) I get on a jet plane for Paris! There I’m going to stay with a couple of good friends from law school where we will celebrate Thanksgiving together and take in the sites! On November 29 I will be headed to Amsterdam. I’m going to be staying at a really funky hotel called the CitizenM Amsterdam City. I’m staying two nights and from there I go to Merry Old England where I’m going to stay at the Rockwell in Kensington. I’ll be in London for a couple of nights, and then down in Surrey for a night, even further down in Portsmouth for a night and then back up to London before getting on a flight back to Miami. I’m very tempted to just stay over there and run away to Romania…
It’ll be a nice change. I can’t believe I’ve never been before. However that’s one of the reasons why I gave up music, so I could afford these opportunities. However, now that I’m an attorney I know now that you can afford these opportunities, the profession doesn’t allow you to take them until you’re retired…
Keeping in touch with my musical roots I’m trying to take in concerts in Paris and London while I’m there. There is going to be a production of La Boheme in Paris while I’m there, unfortunately tickets are over 250E which is unacceptable. There should be good music in London as it is the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death, so there’s good baroque music being played while I’m over there. That’ll be worth checking out.
I’m utterly lost about what to do in Amsterdam. I guess the Anne Frank House, which I hear is a must and I’m thinking the Heineken experience. However I don’t know anything about Dutch food or culture. I’m gonna have to read up on it.
Anyway I need to get back to work.
Conflict
There is a life and death struggle for my mortal soul. My heart of hearts.
That’s right. That ultra hot Canadian bon bon Elisha Cuthbert has a potential usurper to her until recently unchallenged title as undisputed Champion of Tony Andre’s affections.
What is this upstart’s name? Zooey Deschanel.
I’ve brought this point up to my friends, and many of my male friends think I’m silly. “Tony, Zooey is cute and all, but she’s no where near as hot as Elisha.” is what they tell me.
Since this is the battle for MY mortal soul, and since it ultimately rests on my decision concerning each candidate’s hotness, I respectfully differ from this view. Let me explain. If we took the two women in a vacuum and were just looking at pure physical attractiveness, perhaps Elisha would win (that’s still a big ”perhaps” in my book), but what has really gotten me obsessed with Zooey is her voice. It has got the most soulful and plaintative (in a good way) quality, which absolutely entrances me when I listen to her.
For those of you who don’t now, Zooey is a the front woman of a two man indy folk duo called She and Him. Earlier this summer I saw the film 500 days of summer (on a rebound date off my own short circuited summer romance ironically enough), which stars Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levit, and I was blown away by the soundtrack. One day I’m listening to the soundtrack and I’m totally blown away by a cover of the Smith’s ultra short ballad “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.” I had no idea it was Zooey until I had googled She and Him.
Needless to say, this lead to me purchasing She and Him’s only album Volume One and I’ve been hooked on her ever since.
Now Elisha exudes molten hot sexuality, and I adore her, but could their be room in my heart for both ladies? I do think I have a big enough heart. There is more than enough of me to go around ladies…
Elisha makes a most compelling argument:
But so does Zooey:
Ladies and gentlemen, I reckon this one is too close to call at the present time…
Beat up old man
The marathon training is still going strong. Last week I didn’t quite get the miles I wanted, but I finished this week strong and did a 10 mile long run this morning with a group called Miami Beach Fit. I got up this morning at about 3:30a (couldn’t sleep to save my life, work literally keeps me up). I however did not have to meet the group until 630 so I could kind of relax ahead of time.
One of the things I like best about running is not having to drive to a gym or somewhere to do it. I can just put on my sneakers and run out the door. So I wasn’t super excited about driving 10 miles away to South Beach at 6am so I could go running. However, it ended up being pretty fun running the 1:40 with some other folks, though by the end of the run everybody is kind of going their own pace and I ran the last 3 miles or so by myself.
Since I got this crazy idea in my head that I’m going to attempt a marathon, this has been my 2nd 10+ run. They both hurt very much. The first time I had a left foot issue and today I have a right calf issue. When did I turn into an old fucking man? Oh this past August how could I forget.
The run started on 21st and Collins and then we went west and ran over the Venetian causeway to the Omni area and then went on to the edge of Overtown (which is widely considered one of Miami’s rougher neighborhoods). The middle of the run over the venetian islands was beautiful, however the Miami part of the run was not all that scenic.
For instance, there was a kind of grizzly crime scene. While I did not see a body, it appeared there was a hit and run (or some sort of assault/physical crime) as there was a police road block with several police cars, surrounding a back pack, a shoe, and a hat, which were all laid haphazardly along the road. I thought it was a pretty bad omen for a trio of runners. Plus being in Overtown with about $200 of consumer electronics (heart rate monitor, ipod) always makes for an adventure. I was actually amazed with how many people were milling about on a Saturday morning at 730 in the morning. I also saw a bird that looked like it was run over by a bike, but the poor thing was still alive. It was macabre actually.
Man I meant for this post to be uplifting and encouraging, but some of the shit I had to see today just reminded me about how ugly some of Miami can be. I don’t doubt any place has it’s ugly side, but Miami’s is just uglier.
I wanted to talk about how I’m getting more and more satisfied with my level of fitness and stuff, but as I re-read this thing it’s sounding more and more like a bummer. Hmmm.. Oh well, football is on and that’s not all bad.
T
The reason for the season
College football. To quote my great friend Matt: “Life sucks just a bit less today.” So apt. As much as this week has been utter shit (mostly professionally though a bit personally), college football makes me feel so much better. It just invokes the greatest feelings. Youth, excitement, comraderie. Also college footbally helps you feel like you belong. It engenders an espirit de corps, that just makes you feel comfortable. Being a Sooner just makes it that much more fun, because we have the best team and the best fans.
To celebrate the college football season I’m sitting in my house, smoking barbecue (we are in hour 6), and drinking beer. It’s terrific, blissful even. The fact that I do not have to go to work on Monday makes this whole thing feel even more sublime.
On the marathon front, poor weather and a hectic work schedule has made running a tough one. I had one run this week, a 5 miler which felt great. I’m going to run a five tomorrow and and do my long run Monday morning (hopefully 7 or 8 miles), and that should get the week started off nicely.
Ok back to bliss.
Not quite a week
So, I was a little chicken shit to write this in my last blog explicitly, but it’s my crazy intention to run the ING Miami Marathon at the end of January. You can imagine my chickenshitness. I mean when you write it down in a public forum like this it makes the whole thing so real. However, I’ve come to the realization that I enjoy doing hard shit and telling folks about it, so I figured I’d own it today with this blog entry. News about my possible crazy intention to take the CA bar 3 weeks later is forthcoming…
My first week of training (not over yet) has been ok. I have been tired as hell however. It’s the weirdest thing, when I exercise a lot I do not sleep fitfully, I have no idea why that is. Since Saturday 8/22/09 I have swam 3 times and ran 3 times. Yesterday I did both, with a 6:15a swim (about 25 lengths of the pool with the breast stroke) and yesterday evening I ran 5 miles. It was a SLOW 5 miles, it took me 52 minutes. Jesus, I’ve ran a 10k in 54! I’m butt hurt about how out of shape I’ve gotten.
There is a half marathon in Ft. Lauderdale in November that I probably need to do as it is at the halfway point between now and the Miami Marathon. Probably a great barometer for my training. I don’t see that being a problem actually. I’m going to try to go for a 7 or 8 mile run this weekend as my long run for the week. Though that 5 miler might’ve been my longest run in quite a bit of time…
Ok I have to get ready for work.
T
Shocking
Didn’t win the $246,000,000.00. Damn.
Life goes on though. I did get my car towed yesterday though! So that’s like the exact opposite of winning the lottery. Chance is a fickle bitch.
So now as a bona fide 30 year old, I feel that I have a need to “defy my thirties.” Or defy any pre-conceived notions that I may have had about how I should not be at my physical peak. I think when I speak to folks about one of the draw backs of working in an office, I always speak as to the lack of physicality involved in the job. Part of me dies sitting in that windowless office just a little each day.
It makes the physical activities I do engage in more rewarding, even elemental feeling. Running, boxing, swimming, sex (on those rare occasions), etc. Being that I’m 30 and in my lawyering wheelhouse right now, I’ve got my mind fixed on achieving some lofty physical goals.
I would like to get in the best shape of my life for one. I would say that unequivocally the best shape I had been in my life was when I was 21. I spent the summer of 2001 in London Ontario Canada at a chamber music festival called the Aria International Academy. I had been running a good deal all spring leading up to it, and I remember at Aria just feeling great about everything. The festival was great and the weather was fantastic in Canada, cool all summer. I recall just going out and running around London exploring its beautiful scenery. I remember one special day where I ran for 150 minutes! I suspect I ran about 18 miles that day. I also played a ton of soccer with the other campers at the festival. It was a great physical and musical summer.
Summer of 2009? Started strong physically, but as you guys have read, I had a funk in the middle of it. I’m hoping now to get stronger and fitter by 2010. 3 months to try to turn back the clock to 2001…
It’s going to be harder with a 30 year old’s metabolism, but I hope this blog will help me stay honest. Just for anyone who’s interested in a similar goal, www.runnersworld.com has a really cool free training log where you can keep track of your workouts (running and non-running workouts alike).
Ok, I’m going out for a swim.
T
Power Ball Prayer
Come on Lord… Come on Lord… Come on Lord…
Yeah, I know it’s pretty sad. I have a 1:146,000,000 chance to win this thing, and I’m turning to a heathen’s last resort… Prayer.
It’s first resort for the pious, but the for heathen that has forsaken everything? “Shit I might well give it a shot.”
$245,000,000.00 though, would get a lot of heathens hopeful for a pay day. I promise if I win I’ll blog every day this year and talk about how rich I am.
T
