Mice at Play

This weekend TF was out in Vegas with his brother for his batchelor weekend. Also gone were many of his fellow trainers, off to get their RKC certification. Meaning there was a large group of girls whose boyfriends were out of town. I dubbed it the “When the Cat’s Away Weekend.”

It started with a little bowling downtown. I ordered a cheese-less pizza with spinach and garlic and peppers, which ended up a spinach-less and pepper-less pizza because they were out.

I walked down to Michigan to get the bus, but it never came, so I ended up making the 30 minute walk home with my little box of leftover pizza.

A few blocks from my house I get stopped by a tourist. It’s not uncommon and I often ask bewildered people on the corner if they need directions. This guy is looking for Gino’s, but he doesn’t know which Gino’s when I inform him that there’s quite a few locations in the neighborhood. I find this strange, but it is not the strangest thing that will happen. The conversation went like this, I swear to god:

Me: Well, there’s one on Superior, which is-
Him: I’m from Montana, you ever been to Montana?
Me: Um, no.
Him: I raised a wolf as a pet.
Me: [pause] Oh. Um….That’s…wow. …Ok. Well, there’s another Gino’s-
Him: What you got there? Leftovers?
Me: Pizza. You wouldn’t like it.
Him: I’m in town for three weeks. I went fishing today and I’m gonna go to the Bears game. How old are you?
Me: [uncomfortable laugh]
Him: I don’t mean to get personal. Are you single?
Me: No, I’m engaged. [wiggle my ring finger, flash the diamond]
Him: Oh, that’s too bad. I went to the Cubs game today. Want to get some pizza?
Me: Um…[awkwardly hold up my pizza leftovers]. I already have some. And a fiancé.
Him: I thought we could go get some pizza.
Me: Well, I have to go home and walk my dogs. So…sorry! [practically sprint down the street]

Weirdest part about this was that it wasn’t in the touristy part of my neighbor hood, where all the people and things are. It was in the nice, residential area, which is why I really thought this dude was lost for like, half of the conversation. So I present it to you here as a lesson in not how to pick up girls in three simple steps.

#1- Don’t try to get a date on a street corner. Ever.

#2- Save the wolf as a pet story for at least the second date. It’s not the opener that you think it is.

#3- Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to suggest pizza, know when someone is already holding pizza in their hand.


The next night was dinner with the girls and then out for drinks. I dragged one of them out to a club where I was meeting another group of girls-nite-outers. My friend K is drop-dead gorgeous and couldn’t move for the boys trying to chat her up. Best bad opening line: “I want to teach your martial arts!” So we spent the night testing out different stories to see which got them running the fastest.

All and all, a good weekend, but I’m happy to have TF back home tonight. I’m cleaning the place top to bottom in preparation for a week of snuggling on the couch before my flight to Dallas on Saturday. I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about, or acknowledging the reality and permanency of the move, so I can’t say a lot about it. Just the “yes, I’m sad to leave but yes, I’m excited to settle down and start work.”

Uff, Ow

Yesterday I fell off the exercise equipment at the gym. Yes I did. It was the ARC Trainer and it was moving, so that's good I guess. But it wasn't like a little stumble like when you sometimes get caught up watching a tv on the treadmill and you trip on yourself. It was a "whoa-OOOHHH!" arms flailing, crash into the side of the machine. It was a nice bruise on my butt this morning.

So that was embarrassing.

Also, a homeless woman spit on me. Or, the ground as I was stepping on it.

I did see another homeless woman wearing a Pineapple Express t-shirt. So all and all I'd say it was your typical week.

I am the law!

Am I late on picking up on this?


Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

…And One to Go

Dear MBE,

We are officially broken up.

I’m sick of your mind games and the way you treat me. I work and work and work my fingers to the bone and still it’s never good enough for you.

Well, I don’t need you in my life anymore. So here is your Statute of Frauds back. I put all your Recording Statutes in a box (to the left, to the left). I was going to keep the First Amendment you gave me that day at Starbucks, but it brings up too many bad memories.

Please don’t ever talk to me again.

Love,
Cella



Actually, today was not the worst thing ever. It was not so awesome that I even want to entertain the idea of doing it again, but I sit here with at least a fond hope that I am still passing the bar.

I finished both the morning and the afternoon sessions in about an hour each. I went over my answers and counted all the As, Bs, Cs and Ds because I couldn’t get that thing out of my head that the BarBri lady said about them all showing up equally (i.e., each answer is correct 25 times out of 100). I’m not saying this as advice because it will probably screw with your head much more than it will ever help. Because I was way short on 1 letter, but of course I didn’t know which answers were wrong. So you start thinking “Well, if I change my answer to this question- because I might be totally wrong seeing as I know jack squat about veto power, if that’s even what the question is asking me- then I’m closer to 25 Bs but now I’m short a D. And I could change the answer to that question, but that will ruin my balance of As.” And on and on and on.

So I just turned it in and went to lunch, which was at the fine dining establishment known as My Car. Or, My Sister’s Car Since I’m Borrowing It. So I ate from my cooler of apples and peanut butter and hummus and pita and looked at my notes from practice questions until I realized that really, I know what I’m gonna know and I’m not learning anything new. Partly cuz I can’t focus, partly because I don’t care so much anymore, who knows.

Back from lunch, they didn’t open the doors at 12:45 as they had promised so we’re all stuffed into the un-air-conditioned hallway in the heat. And I am sorry, Texas Tech T-Shirt Guy, but Man Sandals (“Mandals”) + Heat = Nasty Sweaty Boy Foot Stink. Also, you wore jorts. Both days. …I’m just saying.

And I’m also just saying that some girl wore a “I Own Blackacre” shirt. To the Bar Exam. I assume on purpose. I also assume that everyone who wore a t-shirt with their law school emblazoned upon it also did that on purpose. Especially those from schools not within the vicinity because my guess is that you are staying in a hotel like I am, and that you packed, like I did, three shirts. But you appear to have different criteria for shirt selection that I. Or, alternatively, you own three shirts.

And one girl wore her Shitty Law School Law Review shirt. And then I died of barfness.

One Day Down

Even though today was a half-day it was still brutal. First of all, I’m taking it on my computer. There’s only two locations in the state that allow computers, so we’re in this massive Exhibition Hall. I kinda feel they probably show tractors or something in it when we’re not taking bar exams in there. My tablemates and I estimated about 400 people (we couldn’t see all the way to the other side).

A couple people at the table next to me showed up literally at 7:58 for the 8 am test. I don’t know what you thought you were stuffing into your brain in those last five minutes, but I doubt it was more valuable than the peace of mind of having your computer turned on and the exam software up and running by the time the test started.

One person at my table didn’t show up at all.

Then there was the epic FAIL of everyone trying to save their tests to the jump drives provided to us. This took roughly 20 minutes, all the while we’re bouncing in our seats doing the peepee dance because they wouldn’t let us leave for what the Proctor kept calling our “Comfort Break.”

She made “comfort” sound like “soft blanket, nice hug” type of comfort but I’m pretty sure the Bar Examiners meant “physical relief from the need to pee” type comfort.

Upon return from our Comfort Break, we were chastised by the Proctor again. This time, she was “very disappointed” that we had chosen “not to pay attention the first time” and apparently some people tried to go outside for a cigarette. And because of our atrocious behavior, these “Comfort Breaks may have to be discontinued in the future.”

I finished the Procedure and Evidence part in a little over an hour. I sat there for a minute or two, but I really didn’t have anything else to say. If I didn’t know it, I didn’t know it. If I did, I said everything I could about it. A couple things were totally out of the blue, and some stuff I was sure would be on there wasn’t. So even though I had 30 minutes left, I turned it in and went home. I was hungry, anyway.

It'll Only Hurt for a Minute

Good luck to everyone taking the bar tomorrow! I'm safely holed away in my hotel room, after a stressful weekend of not having my admissions ticket (have it now!), almost getting on the wrong plane (didn't!), getting here and settling in (...am?).

I've only stayed in a hotel by myself twice before (callback interview and all-attorney firm weekend), but never for three nights. It's weird, sort of lonely but also kinda freeing.

Not much more to say than that. I've studied and now I'm tired. I'm ready to go take the test, which is not the same thing as knowing enough, but what can you do? I was so stressed this weekend that I had to take my anxiety meds (see above about having no admissions ticket, etc), but now I'm just ready to get into bed, look over my notes and get some sleep.

The good thing is that tomorrow is just a half day, comprised of the two parts of the test that matter least. One, I'm not worried about at all. The other, I don't know enough about. My strategy is to do well enough in the other three sections that the procedure and evidence section isn't much more than a place to pick up some extra points.

But, I ramble. The Tylenol PM is kicking in (taken just in case the anxiety attacks come back, so I will sleep through them). Good luck again to everyone. My friends, I know you are stressed but I also know you are smart. You will pass. I will pass. We will all move on.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Spends So Much Time on Facebook

If it’s not been painfully clear by now, I am deep in bar study hell. And what fluctuates between more hellish and a mild reprieve from pangs of death by bar is that I am doing it alone in my room with an iPod. That means that every morning I get up, make coffee and sit at my breakfast room table with an iPod and the 40 lbs of books that BarBri sent me. I wear little headphones, even though I’m the only one in the house, and sometimes I chuckle a little to myself at the things the voices in my head say. I was trying to remember some of them so that when TF asked me how my day was, I could say, “Well, I’m listening to torts and the lecturer had this hysterical story about trespass to chattels. And yesterday the guy doing Crim Pro called the defendant a ‘little bastard’! Can you believe it? Oh, we just laughed and laughed!”

TF asked me what studying for the bar was like, if it was anything like studying for finals. I think he was trying to prepare himself for Barmageddon. “Will there by crying?” Yes. “What about wallowing in self-pity?” Very much yes. “Throwing things?” Mmmmaybe. “Including tantrums?” Oh. Yes.

Studying for the bar is kind of like studying for finals, if you were taking all your finals at the same time and some more finals on classes you never had because the thought of taking classes with names like Commercial Paper and Oil and Gas made you put sharp, hot, stabby things in your eyes.

And after a week of sitting at my desk, or the table, sometimes the couch, with my book and headphones, I developed pain in my neck and head so bad that I almost puked. TF made me get a deep tissue massage. Now I can’t move my head at all. I have had deep tissue massages before on my leg, when I was going to a chiropractor. I know they hurt and I know they can leave you bruised. But it’s one thing when it’s your leg, it’s another when it’s your friggin neck.

I will say (proudly) that I didn’t do one embarrassing thing during my massage. This may be the first. Although, I will say the moment I laid down I automatically reviewed all I had eaten in the past 12 hours.

So that is where I am and what I’m doing. I can’t say I expect too much excitement to happen here in my apartment, but I promise to be on the lookout. I do try to venture into modern society at least once a day, but I’m sort of embarrassed by the number of times I visit CVS in a week. Last time I was released in the wild, I ran into one of TF’s coworkers. I was standing in CVS (of course) wearing the same sweatpants I had worn all week and an oversized hoodie pulled over my unwashed hair, and holding a box of Cheerios. I can’t say for sure, but when I caught his gaze, I might have hissed and skittered back into the shadows from whence I came. You know what they say, if bar review is going to make you feel stupid, it might as well make you feel ugly too.