"I will delay no man for lucre or malice..."

I don't have the top of my head photographed too often. That bald spot is kind of alarming.

One of the most pervasive moldy-rye-induced hallucinations suffered by the accusers in the Salem witch crisis of 1692 was that of Satan (Mary Beth Norton makes a convincing argument that the overall descriptions made the Father of Lies out to look like a member of the much-feared local Wassachusett tribe) appearing to them and imploring them to sign his large black book so that he could have their souls. I couldn't help feeling I was living something like that today when I bent down over a table in Fanueil Hall to add my name to the official roster of Massachusetts lawyers and formally joined the ranks of the oldest judiciary in the Western Hemisphere. Very sobering to be taking the same oath and signing the same roll in the same place under the same state Constitution as John Adams, Louis Brandeis, Daniel Webster, and so many of this country's other greatest legal thinkers. Plus, free pen.

Meantime, of course, I'm sending out more resumes and cover letters and hoping that my bar admission speeds the process up.

I should add a special shout-out to the commenter on my last post who took me to task on going to "graduated" school "write" after college. Good luck with that GED!