It’s all fun and games until someone dreams about Orin Kerr.
posted by Elizabeth Nowicki
Today ends my guest blogging stint here on concurringops., and I thank my hosts for having me. (I also thank Bill Sjostrom and his truthonthemarket posse for allowing me to cut my teeth guest-posting there. And, to that end, I thank Gordon Smith, Christine, and Vic for being the first to allow me to dip my toes in the blogging pool with Disney blogging.)
Allow me to leave with a few observations:
1. This blogging business is not easy (for me). Kudos to the bloggers here and all over the ‘net for churning out some valuable reading. Blogging is incredibly time-consuming, in order to do well (so I am told).
2. To that end, I apologize to those of you who replied to some of my threads but never received a personal response. I am very sorry – I appreciated all of the comments, and my inability to respond to everything has nothing to do with the substance or quality of the comments.
3. To *that* end, blogging strikes me as a lot like waitressing – waitressing was by far the hardest job I have ever had in my life. The average waitress is, at any given time, juggling about 18 different tasks, all of which are time pressured. Moreover, people *care* about what their waitress is doing, such that mistakes are noticed. You can’t just spill a tiramisu accidentally on a guest and walk away. (Ask me how I know.) One of the worst aspects of the waitressing job is going home at night and *dreaming* about waitressing and all of the things you did wrong that evening. “Oh, I forgot to refill that fellow’s Coke” and “Ohmygosh – that redheaded lady on Table 24 never got her extra dish of ranch dressing with her fries” and “I dropped the *whole* carafe of red wine – I can’t *believe* that I did that.”
It is for this reason that I knew I was in trouble when I started dreaming about blogging. Indeed, last weekend, I had a dream about a blogging conference, at which I met Orin Kerr. Mind you, I don’t know Orin Kerr, I have never spoken with him, I have never spoken about him, I have never e-mailed him, I would not know him if I crashed into him on the street, and he was never even on my radar screen until I started blogging. But now I have dreams about blogging conferences and prolific bloggers, and those sorts of odd-ball dreams just solidify my belief that I do not have the mental stamina to be a Bainbridge-esque blogger.
4. That said, if I can finish in the next couple of hours the paper I am currently grinding to finish, I might whip out one last concurringops post on “sex for money.” I have been sitting on this “sex for money” post for quite some time, because I am not quite sure what sort of a reception a “sex for money” post would get.
5. Speaking of which, I would like to thank God for giving me the strength to stay away from this train wreck. A younger Nowicki would have jumped into the fracas. This old and tired Nowicki finally knows enough to stay away from things like that and instead spend her time trying to analyze perhaps meaningless data.
6. For those of you who are still reading, you will be delighted to know that my next iteration of the “Nowicki Not-in-Good-Faith” manifesto will (a) have graphics (thanks to my good friend Benjamin Nelson) and (b) have a deconstructionist and Sartre discussion. To that end, I know very little about either Sartre or the deconstructionists, so, if you ever run out of things to think about, think about both of those things, and e-mail to me your thoughts (enowicki- at – richmond – dot- edu).
June 30, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Posted in: Blogging
Print This Post
Responses (13)
Benjamin Nelson - June 30, 2006 at 8:32 pm
If we were to take the beginning of that PrawfsBlog thread, and tie it to its end, so that it became a mobius strip composed of Blog, it would probably generate enough ranting power to provide energy for a medium-sized city.
Oh, by the way, I replied to your reply (on Law and Society Blog) on the Good Faith issue. I believe that the ommissions-not-in-good-faith clause has the potential to play a big role in your future formulations (unless I misinterpreted).
Daniel J. Solove - June 30, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Thanks Elizabeth. You were great.
Kate Litvak - June 30, 2006 at 9:57 pm
That’s because Orin Kerr is easy on the eyes.
As to this deeply disturbing lack of appreciation for my appearances: I thereby unleash plague and heightened airport security searches on you. May your Excel spreadsheets uncontrollably switch to the “formula” format. May all your samples contain ten observations. May all proposals of using the difference in logs instead of ratios of absolute values come after the lapse in submission deadlines. May your Lexis password be deciphered by the Chinese. And may the DE legislature put the “not in good faith” clause out of its misery right before the law review submissions season. Amen.
Paul Gowder - July 1, 2006 at 3:28 pm
The blogosphere is starting to remind me a little of law school itself in its Total Neurosis Environment characteristics. Dreaming about blogs and rant-fests can’t be healthy.
Speaking of unhealthy things… please don’t compare corporate bad faith to Sartre’s bad faith. I beg of you, on behalf of abused existentialists everywhere.
Elizabeth Nowicki - July 5, 2006 at 11:39 am
Kate, I’m hurt. Really, really hurt. You say *nothing* in response to my thread pleading for help with data analysis, and you instead just lash out on me here. So sad.
And what makes it even worse is the fact that I sent you a postcard from my recent vacation to Disney World, which you never acknowledged, and you are still poking at me here. How many other of your abused colleagues send you postcards? Exactly. Next time I go away and send you a postcard, I will try to find one for you with personal affirmations on it (or something similarly designed to help you deal with your anger).
Paul, just watch me go. I am ready to enter the existentialist world. You can thank my repressed-philosopher qua research assistant for putting me on to the value of Sartre to this discussion. I intend to spend large amounts of time in the next week reading Brad Wendel’s work. . . . Stay posted.
Paul Gowder - July 5, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Did Wendel write about Sartre somewhere?
Regardless, if my suspicion is correct that you’re going to pull from Sartre’s notion of “bad faith,” I’d seriously urge you to proceed with, uh, major caution. If nothing else, bad faith in the Sartrean context is manifestly self-deception, rather than deception of others. It’s a denial of the fact (to Sartre) that one possesses radical freedom of choice. It has jack-all to do with deceiving others, either deliberately or cluelessly.
Elizabeth Nowicki - July 5, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Paul, I’m with you on the Sartre point, but I do not think that the self-deceiving aspect makes the discussion irrelevant. I think that that concept is can be super-imposed on the director-good-faith discussion.
Kate Litvak - July 5, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Elizabeth: perhaps you should have informed this audience that your Florida postcard was a thank-you note for my generous contribution to the Elizabeth Nowicki Legal Defense Fund — which, contrary to your representations, turned out not to be tax-deductible! I don’t think I want to continue serving on its board anymore. And stop sending me your poetry. I’ve already faxed you my undergraduate transcript – what else do you want?
Also, if either of you ever mentions Sartre again, I will unleash the spirit of Brian Leiter.
Bruce - July 5, 2006 at 5:53 pm
It’s been leashed?
Paul Gowder - July 5, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Don’t we invoke Brian Leiter by saying Nietzsche three times?
Kate Litvak - July 5, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Bruce: Don’t confuse omniscient with omnipresent.
Paul Gowder - July 5, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Kate: Are you suggesting that Leiter is not God?
Kate Litvak - July 5, 2006 at 6:16 pm
Paul: we invoke Brian Leiter by thinking of Nietzsche three times.
Leave a Reply