Sometimes you eat the bar...

and sometimes, well, he eats you.

The Stranger
--The Big Lebowski

That quote isn't entirely accurate since Sam Elliott apparently is saying bear, but you can forgive me if I seemed to have misheard him. I seem to think of little else than the bar and whether or not he is going to eat me. But I am trying to just keep working, and I think it is helping. If I still have time to blog, the reader says, then you must not be too worried. Well, I counter that this is merely procrasti-blogging because I don't want to do the essays and questions that I must. But I didn't really want to talk about the bar, so I'll try to steer the discussion somewhere else.


Kat and I have been packing up the house so some interesting things have been found. This was in some old photos. While it is only five years old, in some ways it feels like a long time ago. Looking at this photo makes me a little sad but mostly happy, although some people may have an inverse reaction. But I'm happy that that day happened. I was happy then and I am happy now, although a whole lot has changed.

I think studying for the bar exam makes me contemplative because being contemplative is less work and stress than studying. But I am feeling good. This summer is probably going to be the worst one of my life - at least I hope it is - but when it is over, it will be over. Unless it is not, a possibility which is scarier than Joan Rivers' face.

I have not been blogging because I have not been doing anything of interest other than listening to lectures, making notecards, and surfing the Internet when I was supposed to be studying. I hope everyone else is having a good summer.

One nice thing about the Arizona summer bar exam is that it is too hot to go outside anyway so it is relatively easy to stay inside and study. But it is also easy to stay inside and listen to podcasts, daydream, or just organize a sock drawer. I have done all of these things and more than once.

But looking at this photo reminds me that it is just a test that I am taking. It is just another thing. It is nothing more. It can't change the people in that photo, all of whom I love dearly, and it can't change me, regardless of what happens.

And with that, I return to the depths of the law.

Did you miss me?

All right stop, collaborate and listen
Ice is back with a brand new invention

I hadn't heard VI in many moons, but a fellow law clerk, who clearly wishes it still was the 1990s, had it bangin' in his Subaru Legacy the other day (Sirius '90s on 9 channel if you want to queue it up) and it brought back a flood of memories. Actually, it was more like a moderate trickle of memories. What I remembered was that other than the stolen bass line that song was pretty terrible. And long, too, insufferably long. I also remembered when VI destroyed the set during the taping of 25 Lame, a show that is crying out to be released on DVD. I am actually getting close to just breaking down and buying a bootleg copy from someone online because the Youtube clips aren't enough. I think my memory of 25 Lame is actually funnier than it actually was, but not a week goes by that I don't think of it. (That was a sad sentence but nonetheless true!)

But before you think me some sort of sentimental sappy sod, I can explain why I am in such a contemplative mood. I am reading a biography of Ted Williams that is making me yearn for the past, when men were men (meaning they tended to spit on unruly fans) and baseball was baseball (meaning, I guess, that only white men were allowed to play it). (Speaking of Williams, read this. It is the greatest sports story ever written and seems to show that maybe everything was better in the past). However, I guess the noted poor driver William Joel may have been right when he said "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems." That's the kind of seemingly deep yet totally pointless comment that could sell pop records back when I was a kid. Now, it's just booty-shaking, Autotune, and kooky Minnesotans dancing that moves product.

If you can't tell, I have no idea what is going on in the world these days. I move in a bubble of unimportance that I pretend is important. And that is really what I wanted to talk about. Recently, I attended a hearing with a real live prisoner in a real orange jumpsuit and real arm and leg shackles. I attended this hearing to see this person because much of my time lately has been working in an effort to keep said person in said jumpsuit. Said person clearly did not understand why I was at his hearing and probably was not happy to have me there. But I wanted to be there to recognize that what I was doing was having an impact. Obviously, such a situation can lead to some conflicting feelings. I don't really know if said person belongs in that jumpsuit. I know what I have been told. I know what I read in reports. But it is something a little bit different to see the effect on the actual person and the effect on his or her family. I often say that staying in the office, poring over books and never seeing the light of day is fine with me (can a person's skin get more untanned than absolute white? Of course not, it's an impossibility!). But sometimes you have to face what you are doing. Not because it is supposed to make you feel bad about it or that you are doing the wrong thing, but to keep you focused on how important it is so that you do only what you know is right and truthful.

When Chief Justice John Roberts was on campus this year he was asked if he lost sleep over all of the petitions he gets from prisoners on death row. He frankly admitted that if he did lose sleep over them he wouldn't ever get any sleep. This is true. He said he simply took every one seriously, made his best decision, and then moved on. If he didn't move on, he wouldn't get to live his own life. I think he was absolutely right, but the trick is to take each one seriously even after receiving them over and over again. I am far too green to take anything lightly, but I know that attending that hearing simply reinforced the need for focus.

I meant for this entry to be lighthearted. Honestly, the only thing that keeps this blog from being the bleakest on the Interwebs is that I post so rarely. I don't mean to be spend every day of my life as Mopes the Sad Clown or some sort of martyr who has the weight of the world on his shoulders. I guess I just take this stuff seriously, for now, at least. My current fear level is at orange at all times, although it is inching toward red since I am less than one year from the bar exam. By then I don't think I'll have any fingernails left, maybe no fingers at all. The seriousness will be like Schindler's List in Darfur. No, I won't expect you to talk to me. I wouldn't talk to me either.

So I'm going to post this, even though it is of questionable value and makes me seem like a possible danger to myself and others. But when it's not basketball season there is not much for me to write about. Well, some of my readers don't want the basketball anyway. I can't think they would like this better, but we'll see I guess. Well, that's all for now.

If there's a problem, yo I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it