you aint got no alibi

so happy to be done with that bit of bar exam unpleasantness. I think i passed, who's to say for sure. I loathe being evaluated by objective standards and i just hope I put all the dots in the right places on that damn sheet. I got back to the office today and they got along just fine without me. no calamity. tomorrow its back into court for my duty day. I want crime santa to fill my docket with bank robbers, wayward mail carriers and small time con artists.

We did a bit of unwinding at the great portland landmark The Alibi, after the exam. We also discovered the best sign for a strip club ever. and I found some new music I like.

The Dodos - Fools



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No Criminal Procedure Questions

The first day of the Oregon bar exam is a painful memory. The rabbit and I both woke up at the crack of dawn, twitched around like a ball of nerves and headed down to the Holiday Inn at the airport for the festivities. It was below 60 degrees in the room because they didn't have the heat on all night and people were stomping their feet and rubbing their hands together to get warm. 9 essays later, at 5:40 pm, we were headed home. We both had the fifty yard stares and felt yanked around but at least that part is over. Would you believe that for the first time in like 4 years they didn't have a criminal law question? Just my luck. Admin law, joinder, article 2 and agency instead. Gee, thanks.

The Beatles - I'm So Tired

Brain Rot

The quiet, task oriented isolation of studying by myself is rotting my brain. I have been housesitting for the peace and quiet for over a week now but I'm not really the quiet type. There's something about too much coffee, stress, and alone time that doesn't agree with me. I find my mind wandering to some awful remark I made five years ago and wiggling and pondering it like a rubik cube. I can't wait for this to be over.

Hooky

I decided to make a cd for a friend's birthday instead of studying.

Pavement - Newark Wilder

The Gits - Change is Gonna Come

Man Man - Spider Cider

The Coffin Daggers - Dr. Guillotine
And I got to talking to the folks at the wine bar with the wi-fi. They really couldn't be nicer. its Vinideus in Beaumont Village up in the NE. One of the owners is french and showed me his blog. It's in french. Its based on a movie called The Dinner Game about a group of friends that get together every month or so and the challenge is that they have to bring an idiot to the dinner. So the french wine man has a blog about the idiots that he would invite to dinner. and you can vote on your favorite idiot.

Cure for The Common Cold

I got a sudden attack of a cold last night when i was studying. I felt terrible when I woke up and went into the office for an appointment. Thankfully, the rabbit came and picked me up after and took me to Pho Oregon and now I feel much better.

Coffee

Since i'm housesitting up in NE this week, I found a new coffeeshop. Ristretto Roaster, so far as I can tell, has some inside track on really well done beans, good music, and baristas guapas. I am here now and have had so much coffee that my hands are shaking and i feel like i've been embalmed with espresso.

Viewpoint

Its supposedly a free country and the kids can do what they want. I'm just saying that if you are a homeless punk kid, maybe you shouldn't have a ferret. Maybe this complicated part of your life is not the right time to carry a ferret around in the hood of your sweatshirt or have it crawl around on a little leash all over your body while you wait in the soup kitchen line. For that matter, a rat probably isn't such a hot idea either. i'm just saying.

whimper.

Valentines

Not so far from the apartment is a great Moroccan place that was SO TASTY with the lamb action and mint tea and belly dancing. Perfect valentines with The Great Rabbit. We shared a table with a couple of mixed Oregon heritage. She from Scappoose, he from Clackmas, how will they find common ground?! Today was my last day at work before the bar exam and i was a house afire. And my own dear mother sent me fancy delicious lapsang souchong chocolates from L.A. Burdock. Whhhhooooooooa. I dare say it was the best valentines day ever. Most especially because my beautiful brilliant friend in Michigan had a healthy baby girl last night. Nothing says happy valentine's like a tiny pink baby.

Trees beware!

I asked to 2nd chair a Great Big Paper Case at the office last week. (take image to the left and multiply by 200). That means I'll be learning a special software called casemap, working with a team of lawyers, investigators and paralegals that i really like, and hopefully learing a lot and being indispensable. A lot of criminal defense lawyers don't like Great Big Paper Cases but its a heck of a thing to know how to do and do well. To the castle gate! Charge!

Reversible. How clever.

The Oregon state flag is the only one that has something different on each side. Though i haven't spent anytime at all pondering the flag of Oregon, when I was at a prison recently, there was a large flagpole out in front, and there, flapping the the breeze, was a little yellow beaver. the other side is a boring state seal.

And music for you:

British Sea Power - Waving Flags


Chin Up Chin Up -Blankets like Beavers


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Like hope, but different

In case you were wondering...

Ornamental cabbage tastes like cabbage. Rebecca and I were walking through the neighborhood and checked to make sure.







And there's also music for you:

The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show

Vampire Weekend - M79

Night in the Box - Tom Sawyers and Lawyers

Not a library.

Trying to study here didn't go so well. Somehow I thought the crusty atmosphere would relieve my feelings of inertia and utter sick-of-it-ness. back to bare table at the library, facing a blank wall.

Down the River

I drove to Salem again today in the rain again, so far as i can tell it is always raining on I-5 between Portland and Salem. The Oregon State Penitentiary was there and very different from most of the prisons I've been to. Its right in the middle of town, surrounded by little houses and landscaping, and ancient, if you consider 1920 to be ancient. My client visit was a good one and the staff was extremely nice. The visiting rooms were furnished with inlaid tables and upholstered chairs fabricated at the prison. Gary Gilmore and Robert Thaxton used to be locked up there. Prisons are rotten places, of course, but I've been to worse.

Going with the Flow

7:30 staff meeting bright and early in the morning. I am about half way through the first habeas memo I have written in about five years, and of course its taking me longer than expected. I'm glad I started early and I'll still sweat and be dissatisfied. I'm almost finished with my property outline. I'm getting good resolutions for my clients and starting to move my cases along. I am reminded of the hindu goddess Lakshmi when I'm trying to make things happen at the work place and manage to get a flow going. i met a hippie girl once who told me that I should pay attention to the Lakshmi principal of flow if I wanted to be happy, and I think it applies to public defender workload as much as anything else. She's the goddess of love and beauty, and has money in one hand, and a lotus flower in the other, and something else in the other, and so on. The hippie girl said that she was really the goddess of flow and that Lakshmi gets really pissed off when there's no flow. Without the flow, you can't have the love or the money. And so now I'm going to go to bed and think about flowing myself to that staff meeting tomorrow.


Goodnight Cincinnati, Good Morning Tennessee - Shorty Long

punkbowl

They're having a punk fest all weekend at a nearby bar called Slabtown. I heard its owned by the Dandy Warhol people. Its a classic punk dive, (although the women's bathroom was gratefully tidy) with most of the people there being throughly middle aged rocker. We watched the bands, played some pinball, and saw the superbowl kickoff. Yay!

Yes We Can.