Happy Halloween!!!
ARGGHHHHH! I be a pirate today, matey! So, batten down the hatches, filch some grog and prepare to set sail!

Ahoy! Thar be me and me son preparing to loot the kitchen while the wee one and me mate are sleepin'!

Have a Happy Halloween, maties!

Career Quiz

A quick and fun career quiz can be found at:
http://www.princetonreview.com/cte/quiz/career_quiz_results.asp

My results:

Blue Interests
People with blue Interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve creative, humanistic, thoughtful, and quiet types of activities. Blue Interests include abstracting, theorizing, designing, writing, reflecting, and originating, which often lead to work in editing, teaching, composing, inventing, mediating, clergy, and writing.

Green Styles
People with green styles perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is outgoing. They prefer to work where things get done with minimal analysis and where persuasion is well received by others. People with green styles tend to be spontaneous, talkative, personal, enthusiastic, convincing, risk-taking, and competitive, and usually thrive in a team-oriented, adventurous, informal, innovative, big picture-oriented, varied environment. You will want to choose a work environment or career path in which your style is welcomed and produces results.

I see how a law career could fit with these things: writing, abstracting, editing, MEDIATING. Well, good. Glad my tuition isn't going to waste!

OK, so it's been 21 days since I last posted. I suck. So sue me.
(law humor)

This past weekend I was a student invitee/participant at the Oregon State Bar Family Law Conference. Great chance to observe "real, live lawyers" in a relaxed atmosphere and "schmooze" to my heart's content, as one of my sponsors so aptly put it. Ah, the art of schmoozery - not really my thing - but I'm getting decent at it. After a while, it is a bit draining though. This conference was at the beautiful Salishan Resort on the Oregon coast, and for me, it was a wonderful blend of hearing about practical applications of the law, networking, doing homework, and relaxing. It was only the second time I've been away from my family at night, and the 6th and 7th nights ever away from my partner at night. Judging from my welcome home hugs, the baby girl and wife missed me a lot and my son was happy I was away so I could bring him presents upon my return. (In reality, he probably missed me the most. As my wife has observed frequently, he and I are two peas in a pod, and have a soul-connection so strong people would think I was the birth mom. See - makes no difference.) The puppets purchased at the resort were big hits, but so were the hotel-provided pens, note pads, jar of jam, soap, lotion, paper coasters, and post-cards. Heck - my son even liked the paper gift bag with handles that he's not let out of his sight since I arrived home approximately 48 hours ago. We all survived the separation, and though I love traveling and would do it more often if I could, I suspect it will be quite some time before my wife wishes to brave it alone again, especially since baby girl has not been sleeping well for.....well.....her whole life.

I now have to say I've done my extracurricular "stuff" for the semester, and I must get serious about the school work. (Oh, did I fail to mention that my new mentor asked me last week to do some last-minute legal research for her? Yup. When I read her email request I said out loud, "Cr*p, I just don't have the time." What I typed into my reply email was, "Sure, I can spare a few hours..." It was fun, and she seemed impressed. Nice to do some real, non-academic legal work to feel like the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.) I need to write my A-paper (big paper of law school), I need to get on top of my barely-started outlines, I need to listen to 2-3 missed lectures, I need to do a few CALI lessons on Property since we've stopped using the English language and I've gotten confused. Fee tail? Contingent remainder? Vested remainder? Possbility of a reverter?

I should have just gone into acting.

Tagged!
I was tagged last week by my lovely wife and even though I should be reading ahead in Property (not because I am overly ambitious, but because I have two weekends that I will be out of town this month), I thought I'd take a moment to respond.

The challenge was to name 5 weird things about you or your pet. I'm not going to tag anyone else, because I mostly read law student blogs, and I just don't have the heart to lead them into temptation. (Oh, yes, I do, but not today!)

1) I have a wishbone-shaped scar on the inside of my left hand. (It's always with me for good luck!)

2) I like to lay in bed with one arm raised up in the air. It causes an odd sensation. (I don't do this a lot.)

3) I really like whole cranberry sauce in my chili. (Family thing)

4) Sometimes I prefer M&M's over really good dark chocolate. (Though not frequently. Yes, the M&M's darks are good, but not quite "real" M&M's.)

5) I don't mind getting wet in the rain, and sometimes do it on purpose with my kids, as long as I get to go inside my house afterwards to dry off and get dry clothes. (Not so much fun right before class with the air conditioning blowing on you even though it's only 65 degrees in the room.)

There! I did it! Should anyone want to feel tagged and use this on their own blog, consider yourself tagged!

Boundary Issues
I was commenting today on someone else’s blog, and it got me to thinking about boundaries. I refer to boundaries in the sense of where one thing starts and another begins and how we decide what the thing is in the first place. For instance, we were discussing religion, and someone else brought in a race analogy. Though the two do not have to overlap, they sometimes do, and when they do, are the distinctions even more important? Is a person who is visibly of a particular race and religion more obligated to support or denounce the behaviors of others within his religion (or race) because he is a visible representative of the group? Where does personal responsibility and social responsibility fit in?

Let’s move this away from religion, because truthfully, it’s not one of my favorite topics. Let’s say a person has self-identified and is visibly homosexual. He has a shirt on that says, “I’m Gay.” As long as he is wearing that shirt, or even after the fact given that many people may have seen him, does he have a moral obligation to represent all gay people in a positive light? No, of course not, but….let’s be completely honest here, all of us gay folk,….don’t we kind of hope he turns out to be an upstanding citizen and not do anything really stupid? If he does something stupid, how do we react? Do I have an obligation to educate those around me that “we aren’t all that way’? Where’s the boundary between “me” and “we”?

Closer to home for some, what about areas of the country where gang violence among a particular race is common? What is the obligation of the same-race college student or lawyer or stay-at-home mom to denounce the gang behavior, and serve as a call to their city that it is time for a change? Maybe there is no obligation whatsoever, but as I've been indirectly arguing against on this other blog, maybe there should be. The thing is, we as outsiders, can't create the obligation or define the boundary issue. I think that is an individual choice.

I’m working on a paper analyzing various arguments that states have used to either uphold or deny same-sex couples the right to marry. Some argue that all citizens have a fundamental right to marry. Others argue that is not a fundamental right. Some say, yes, we all have the right to marry, as long as it is a person of the opposite sex. They say there is no discrimination there because men and women equally have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. Same-sex couples and opposite sex couples are both given equal opportunity to marry someone of the opposite sex. Interesting boundary issues there. Some have drawn a boundary around – what? – a behavior, a biological trait, a preference? – and then proceeded to say that the boundary doesn’t really exist because a person can just walk right over the border and have full equal rights. Does any of this sound like the race discrimination arguments this country heard no so very long ago? Aren’t most of those “boundaries that aren’t boundaries” still boundaries?

Connections
Making connections is what is on my mind this week. I don't just mean in self-serving, networking, oh-my-god-I-have-to-find-a-job/internship sort of way. I mean making meaningful connections with people who can make a difference, or help others make a difference, in all aspects of life. Sometimes it's just having a brief conversation at work to understand a challenge or situation better, other times it is networking, or sharing contacts, or passing along the name of a book, or having a moment when the light bulb comes on and we see connections we'd never noticed before.

As I write this, I wonder why I am not writing in the first person. Why am I not telling you, dear reader, about the connections in MY life? Maybe it's because I actually am looking at this at a meta-level - wondering about connections all over the place and how we make them, how we can use them, and what my role might be in facilitating them. On the other hand, of course I have been viewing it personally, as well, putting my life under the microscope, then going back to the telescope and back again. (Dang....this is making me dizzy!)

OK - my connections - and it is at this point that I have to admit I've been reading a bit about manifesting your own reality, the power of conscious creation, and related ideas that I won't go into but am pretty sure if you do an internet search, you'll come up with a ton of stuff. (OK, here's one site: http://www.universeofpower.com/ Some of this may seem pretty far out there to some, and for others, it is as simple and clear as the power of positive thinking and like attracting like.) So, the connections that have happened for me lately -
1) I found out someone I know is a major player in a landmark lawsuit, having to do with what has
2) become my "A"-paper topic (Doing an "A" paper is a graduation requirement.),
3) my professor for the class in which I am doing my "A" paper nominated me to do something fun with lots of networking (connections!) potential, and
4) in that same week I was matched with a mentor in the same field of law.

Add in to all of this that over the last few months, via work, I have made a connection with a two women whose business motto is "Creating processes that empower people" and whose tag-line is the same Goethe quote that I've had taped to my monitor for the past 6 years.....well, the connections, or synchronicities, if you will, are certainly adding up!

What does it all mean? Well, for that, I will give the quintessential legal answer: It depends.

Remembering Sept. 11, 2001

Five years ago today, my partner was 11 weeks pregnant with our now 4 1/2 -year-old beautiful boy. She and I worked in the same high-rise building in downtown Seattle and always carpooled to work. (In fact, in those simple days before children, we only owned one car.) On our way to work, the newscasters still thought it was only a small private plane that had hit the World Trade Center. As the horror of the morning unfolded, and emotions and uncertainty were on high-alert, like most Americans, we processed as best we could. What would be next? We were only about a mile away from the Space Needle. If terrorists were attacking national monuments, this would be a prominent one....visually and emotionally significant, lots of nearby ports and a naval station not that far away either....Downtown Seattle didn't feel particularly safe. In reality, I suspect no place did. Being at such a critical time in pregnancy, my partner's supervisor sent her home, and I of course, was allowed to go to. ( I say, of course, as if it was a right or a given. It was not, but was the right thing to do.) In fact, all employees were told to do what they felt was right for them and their families.

We did not personally know anyone who died that day. Our lives were not significantly impacted, on any surface level, but really, to some degree everyone's lives were affected. The entire nation was impacted, security became "Post 9/11", we saw a portion of our country devastated beyond what any of us could ever conceive, and we wondered how/if our unborn baby would be affected. My partner's stress level was high, fear was a part of daily life for everyone for a while, who knows how that would affect a tiny developing life?

There will be plenty of people blogging today about politics, about the recognized and unrecognized heroes, about how so many families and friends still live with the horendous and senseless loss of loved ones. I won't add to that body of work. I'll just say that to me, what is important right now, is enjoying each day as much as I can and appreciating the family that I am so fortunate to call my own. A short video taken last night of me playing with our children is a wonderful tribute to the love my partner and I both have for our family. Please check it out at: http://naptimechronical.blogspot.com/ (It is the Sept. 10th entry entitled: Bath Time Fun with Mama.)

Peace.

Washington Request to Reconsider Gay Marriage

Hey - I'm back!
Swamped with work since being off last week in Disneyland. Our trip was excellent! Hope to write about it at some point, probably when I should be doing legal research :)
First week of school is going great! So far, the professors are clear, well-organized, and easy to listen to. I meet the last one tonight, so far, I've heard mixed reviews from fellow 2Ls who have not met him but either. We'll see.

Anyway, too busy to actually come up with anything creative to write myself, by wanted to share this:
-------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Gays ask court to reconsider marriage ruling
P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/283091_samesex30.html
Gay and lesbian couples are asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider its July ruling that bars them from getting married in Washington.
Such requests are rarely granted, but the couples' lawyers said Tuesday that the stakes are too high to let the opportunity pass.

"We felt that we had to use every option available to us to show the justices the logic behind our arguments and how their decision as it is currently reasoned falls short," said Nancy Sapiro of the Northwest Women's Law Center.

State lawmakers are justified in defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, the Supreme Court held in its splintered 5-4 ruling.
The decision overruled two lower court decisions -- one in King County and one in Thurston County -- that found the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.
The high court must now decide whether to rule on the couples' motion to reconsider the issue or seek a response from the other parties in the case.

"We believe the decision was correct, so if they call for an answer, we will certainly urge the court not to change its mind," said Assistant Attorney General Bill Collins, who defended the state's existing marriage law.

The losing side often asks the court to reconsider in cases that sharply divided the court -- such as a 5-4 or 6-3 ruling. But Collins said that in his 29 years as a state attorney, he has seen the court change its decision just twice.

Lawyers for the 19 couples in the combined gay marriage case relied on a pair of legal arguments in their motion asking the court to reconsider. The court's finding that the Legislature had a "rational basis" for seeking to regulate marriage was flawed, plaintiffs argued.
"They couldn't show any reason how it could hurt opposite-sex couples if same-sex couples get married, or why same-sex couples' children wouldn't equally benefit if their parents could get married," said Jon Davidson, a lawyer with the gay rights group Lambda Legal.

The ruling also overlooked an aspect of the state constitution's sex discrimination protections, the plaintiffs argued, by not recognizing that the gay marriage law treats individuals differently based on their gender -- a man can marry a woman, but a woman can't do the same.

Back to School Blues
The post where I confess that I am dreading going back to school.

OK, dreading is a strong word. Maybe "having mixed feelings" is more accurate. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of school, getting my feet wet with family law and intellectual property and just learning more. On the other hand, we have been having the BEST SUMMER EVER. It's been so wonderful spending time with my wife and two kids - seeing how the kids develop and change every day, laughing over silly things, having water fights, reading stories at night - everything that I get so much less of during the school year. We've been to Disneyland, the beach, Seattle, and done a couple of day trips. We've camped in the back yard a few times, had lots of barbecues, watched lots of movies and Seasons 1 and of 2 of the OC (not the kids, of course) and had dinner together every night. Sure, there have been arguments, crying, yelling, ignoring, and temper tantrums, like every home with kids, but overall, it's been a great summer! Now, the impending end looms like a dark cloud.

Yet, the sun shines through the clouds. The clouds will part. Light will prevail and we will adapt to our new routine of me being involved with law school, my wife caring for the kids all day and into the night, me arriving home after dark and Sunday being sacred Family Day, not to be disrupted by homework. I know once I'm into it, school will be fun again, but right now, I'm already looking forward to next summer.

On an up note - Saturday we leave for Disneyland Trip #2! We are all so excited we can hardly stand it!

I haven't even mentioned our new car yet!

We bought a cute little Scion xA. It's the little sibling of the bigger boxy car that has everyone asking, "What is that?" They are Toyotas, so I feel confident in the quality. Great gas mileage, stick shift, fun to drive, and holds more in its tiny cargo space than one would suspect. It's already done a trip to the beach and to Seattle. I don't have a photo, but here's a link. The color is Indigo Ink (blue). With the Saturn pushing 100K miles and me driving about 40 per day, I was starting to fear for the amount of money we were going to have to shell out in repairs on a car that was fine, but just that - "fine." This has become our new weekend warrior vehicle. Way fun!

Summer Book Review

As some of you may recall, at the beginning of summer, I was quite excited about the prospect of reading for pleasure. I have made it through three of the six books I bought, and now must start some pre-school reading (not to be confused with preschool reading). I read, in order, Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Call me a product of my generation, call me shallow with a short attention span, but I have to say that I by far enjoyed The Da Vinci Code the most. I loved this book - clever, fast-paced, enough fact mixed in that you could believe you were reading non-fiction, and in fact, I wanted it all to be true. Gotta love a good conspiracy theory mixed with worship of the divine feminine. Therapy was like taking a walk with an old friend - enjoyable, reliable, comfortable, and though not entirely predictable, I never felt that I HAD to read the next page. I HAD to keep reading The Da Vinci Code, especially since the whole book is essentially one huge chase scene. (No, I'm not a big action movie fan.) The Time Traveler's Wife, which was recommended by many folks, was good. It was a creative, bittersweet love story. I'll put it in second place for the summer, but must admit, I did not love it. I liked it. I really liked the main characters and felt for their situation, but in some ways (this may seem wrong to those who have read the book) nothing happened. Maybe it was read too quickly on the heels of the much faster-paced Da Vinci Code. The two cannot and should not be compared. It is literature versus pop fiction? Yes, perhaps.

A friend since high school and I have a long running joke that I will become rich and famous for writing pop fiction and she will write good literature. This is reflective of our tastes in just about everything - books, movies, music. I don't seem to have the temperament to appreciate the beauty of art that exists more for art's sake, art that is crafted and textured with subtlety. Deliver the message in a straight-forward manner and if there are complexities for me to investigate at my leisure, wonderful, but don't make it necessary to enjoy without making the extra effort. Maybe this "deliver me my entertainment" mentality is a weakness I should explore. Maybe it addresses why I don't like to play chess, or any games that actually involve strategy and planning ahead. Let me shoot things (thought not realistic hunting games) and rack up points and not have to engage my brain too much. A weakness, perhaps, or maybe some of us just need a break from the mental gymnastics of life when we have the time for recreation.

Now, I am on to my fourth book of the summer: Family Law in Perspective by Wadlington and O'Brien. It is a prerequisite for the Family Law seminar I'll be taking in the fall, since I have not taken the actual prereq class. Should be interesting - deals with issues of adoption, divorce, and gay marriage, among others. Still, it won't be any Da Vinci Code.

Thank you to the couples involved with Andersen v King County


I visted the Lambda Legal web page to see what they were saying about the defeat in Washington. Lambda Legal is "a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work." They have a summary of the case, as well as the plaintiffs' declarations, and an area of photos and short bios. These are such wonderful stories showing the happiness, fear, anger and love of these 8 couples. These are ordinary (and yet remarkable!) people who just want to be able to get married to the person they love. In many ways, these people are me, so I am not surprised by their stories. I wish more people were aware of these people, their stories, and the huge numbers of us out here with stories just like theirs.

It's sad that we live in an age that despite so much technological advancement, legalized discrimination not just exists, but thrives.

Looking back to the bright side, Lambda's press release says in part:
“While this was certainly not the result we were looking for it must be put into perspective. In 1948, when the California Supreme Court became the first state Supreme Court in the nation to strike down laws banning interracial marriages (which were on the books in 30 states at the time), lawsuits challenging such laws in 14 states had been unsuccessful (in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia). Despite those setbacks, people whose rights were trampled did not give up. They pressed on to change public opinion, to secure legislative repeal of those laws to win in California and ultimately, 19 years later, to win before the U.S. Supreme Court,” Pizer said.

So, we continue to hope, to educate, to fight for our rights, and to live our lives.

Adoption, Beach Trip, Denial of Civil Rights

Wow - has it been a busy week! As of Friday, July 21, I completed my first legal action. Granted, it was acting as a Petitioner In Pro Se (on my own behalf) which anyone could do, but the thing is, I did it, and actually understood what I was doing! It was for the adoption of our 17-month-month old daughter, which my partner gave birth to, and which we planned, conceived, and have raised together. Although we'd planned on going through the adoption process shortly after her birth, mixed answers at the County Courthouse for how to handle second-parent adoptions, and then law school, delayed plans for doing it ourselves. We'd hired an attorney for our son's adoption, but this time around we were hoping to save high attorney fees. Now that I've completed one year of law school, I at least got what a Petition was, along with the other documents that had to be filed, and understood the language when I spoke to someone at the courthouse. So, by doing the adoption myself, law school saved us about $1500, so far. Only another $32,500 and the year will have paid for itself! *grin* Does this count as a legal internship?

We had a wonderful trip to Long Beach, Washington with my nephew, who I haven't seen for 6 years, his family, plus my sister and her husband. It was great fun, and wonderful to see our kids all playing together. For the pictures, see my partner's blog for July 25th.

On the down side, Washington State confirmed it's discriminatory practice of denying same-sex couples the right to marry. The State Supreme Court in a 5/4 decision stated that the DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), which states that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, was not unconstitutional. For the opinions, click here. As a student of the law, I find the opinions fascinating, and they really reinforce that reasonable minds can differ. Along with the majority opinion, there were two consenting and three dissenting opinions published. I have not made my way through all of them, but so far, they are all well-written, well-thought out, and even where I disagreed, I could see the rationality behind the argument. That somehow both reassures me, and concerns me that something that even the majority seems to be saying is not in the best interests of the state and is discriminatory can be upheld.

I don't have the time right now to go further into this topic, but let me just add that beyond being a law student, this decision impacts me personally. My partner and I live in Washington state, and this decision both saddens and angers me. Despite being upstanding citizens, parents, neighbors, friends, employees..etc...we continue to be viewed as second class citizens in the eyes of the law. The injustice must end, and it will, but when?

TV Shows, Not Updating and Other Trivia
Wow. Do I suck at updating this blog, or what? In my defense, I will say I have noticed that most of the other law school student blogs that I read are also not being regularly updated. Guess the law student blogs are kind of on summer hiatus, not unlike my favorite TV shows, The L Word and Grey's Anatomy. (Click on it - you'll get to a cool blog by the show's writers.) Windfall is a fun new show out this summer about winners of a huge lottery. One of the stars is Luke Perry of 90210 fame. (Come on - you know you like him.) There are lots of other pretty people in this series that deals with the changes in the lives of these 20 people (now 21) that share the winnings. Love, lust, crime, greed, jealously - all the usual stuff that goes into good TV can be found here.

I am totally enjoying the summer! Getting in lots of time with my wife and kids. I wish I didn't have to go to work and REALLY had the summer off, but compared to not being home each night until 9:30ish, being home by 5:00pm and having weekends off is a wonderful break.

The kids are fun and amazing and growing so fast. For those of you that read my partner's blog (listed on the right), she updates more regularly than I and posts pictures. This weekend we are going to visit a lifesize, working Thomas the Train. Next month we'll spend a couple nights up in Long Beach, WA with my nephew and his family who will be visiting from Texas. I've not seen him in 6 (?) years, so am looking forward to that. Getting lots of maintenance kind of stuff done over the summer - having a heat pump installed in our house today, bought a freezer so we can stock up on food and make life easier during the school year, planning on putting up a new gate in the backyard, and assorted other activities. Just living life. It's much different than when I am in school. On that note, I must run to catch my express bus home!

Happy end of June!

Disneyland Resort Rocks!
Howdy all! We've been back from the magic of Disneyland for almost a week now. It was a totally fabulous trip! We were so pleased with the entire Disney Resort, which for those that haven't been in some time, is quite a switch from our last trip 8 years ago. It now consists of two parks (Disneyland and California Adventure), three Disney hotels and a shopping district that includes establishments such as the Rainforest Cafe and the House of Blues. We were dropped off by shuttle bus in front of Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel (where we stayed - we weren't just randomly dropped off!) and never left the resort for 6 nights until the bus picked us up again to take us to the airport. It was great to not have to go onto any "real" streets, see traffic, people's homes or businesses not related to the resort, and to just be lost in the ultra-clean world of Disney's team of creators. Disney calls its employees "Cast Members" and this is a reminder to all that Disneyland is one big show and there is a lot going on behind the scenes to create the grand illusion that guests see. It is worth the effort and the expense. This is not to say that all was perfect or that we did not experience the melt-downs of an overly tired 15-month-old or an overly excited and exhausted 4-year-old, but all in all, the kids (and adults!) did remarkably well and a truly, truly great time!

I will probably do a more detailed update, but for a little more info and a great photo montage, see my partner's blog at:
http://princeandprincessadventures.blogspot.com/

If you have any specific questions about the Disneyland Resort, feel free to ask me, as it is one of my favorite topics. I used to run a Disney vacation web site, but then law school came along...Anyway, we'd go back today if I had the vacation time, and we had the money! We've told our son, and ourselves, that we can go back in three years, when I graduate from law school. He'll be 7 and his sister 4 - great ages for Disneyland. Heck - any age is a great age for Disneyland!

Taking it easy.....
Wow, so this was what my pre-law-school-life was like. Sort of. Evenings and weekends at home with my family. Time for yard work, tv shows, even a little sleep. I'm getting to know my kids again, and my wife. These are very good things. I love school. I really do. Right now, though, I am loving summer! Bring it on!

The very first Saturday after finals were done we went to Powell's Books in Portland. For anyone not from around here, this is the most amazing bookstore ever. It takes up an entire city block and I don't even know how many floors. I could probably spend a week there without getting bored. Check out this quote from their website:

"The greatest bookstore in the world, bar none, sprawls in the blandest of buildings on Portland's Burnside Street....The store that calls itself the City of Books has been dubbed 'the best bookstore in the English-speaking world' (author Susan Sontag), 'the world's greatest bookstore' (The Seattle Times), 'the mother monster of bookstores' (author Ursula Le Guin), and 'one of the most innovative and creative enterprises in the country' (The Wall Street Journal). How does Powell's, an independent in a sea of chain stores, stay afloat? Answers: a vast offering of used books, a stunning selection of out-of-print books, a crammed roomful of rare books, its knowledgeable and verbose staffers, the comfortable ambience of the mother store, and its secret weapon: www.powells.com...." VIA: The Magazine For The Western Traveler, March 2003

I now have 6 books that I do not have to read for anything other than my own pleasure.
Thank you for your suggestions - received both verbally and on this blog. What did I end up with?

- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
- Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman
- Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman (Yes, I like Kellerman)
- A Widow for One Year by John Irving
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- The King of Torts by John Grisham

I've started with Therapy (about time, right?). I'm a long-time fan of the Alex Delaware series. They are techically murder mysteries, I suppose, but the main character is actually a psychologist who is a consultant for the police, so they've got a psychological thriller edge to them. The main character is straight and his best friend is a gritty, tough defying-the-stereotypes gay police detective. Nice, realistic banter between the two men. Oh, hell, what do I know? It might not be realistic conversation between men, but it feels real. It would be real if they were both analytical, not overly emotional, but still sensitive women.

This weekend we head off for 6 nights at the Disneyland resort! Great way to celebrate the end of 1L. Hey- I'm a 2L! "I'm goin' to Disneyland!"

Hope my fellow classmates are having a wonderful summer!

The End Is Near!

No, not a religious post.
Law school post.

One more three-hour exam, tonight, and I am done with 1L. Wow. It went by quickly, it really did. Someday, perhaps I will have the brainpower to contemplate the experience. Today is not that day. I don't know when I have ever felt this exhausted. I was really tired after my partner's 37-hour labor, followed by a C-section, followed by me becoming the primary (and somewhat clueless) caregiver since my wife was hooked up to tubes and such, followed by our baby's 4-day stay in the NICU. I barely got any sleep for those 6 days. That was exhausting physically and emotionally. This is mentally exhaustion, which I don't think I've ever experienced before. If I step back and look at it, it is sort of interesting: interesting in that floaty, what-was-that-I-just-took sort of way. In fact, if I think about it more that a few seconds, it puts a little smile on my face.

Random thoughts: Last post I was not saying I want a sports car. I wouldn't mind one, but that was not the point. It was about control and bonding and a lot of stress. I actually like of like the Subaru Baha. Not so much a sports car, but sporty, nonetheless.

Ghost Whisperer is an amazing show that had a totally"did-not-see-that-coming" season finale.

I thought I'd look up some interesting facts on chocolate. As it turned out, none of them held my interest. Trivia: There is a bag of M&M's waiting for me with my pre-final dinner. Thanks, Wife :)

OK, that's it. I'm out. Got nothing else but the hope that all I've learned in Contracts is stored in my brain and will surface when it is needed tonight.

The point at which we begin losing control...

It hit me this morning; the point at which our lives begin to resemble some suburban tv show minus the precisely timed wit and constant level of high drama. This could also be considered the time that we grow up or the time that we sell out and start living the prepackaged life that our society so desperately wants us to live. It is when we trade in that sporty 5-speed for a practical automatic that gets good gas mileage. A friend (you know who you are) pointed out to me the other day that her current car lacks soul. Yes, that is it exactly. My 2000 automatic Saturn is a fine car with 4 doors (plenty of room for 2 car seats in the back) and really good gas mileage. It's been dependable and looks nice, even when it's not been washed in close to a year, but it has no soul. Or maybe it does, but I've not connected with it. We are not best friends, pals racing to work, to the beach, to anywhere. We do practical things together and get the job done. Maybe, just maybe, it is when we give up being passionately involved with our mode of transportation and see it as simply a means to an end that we give up a little of who we are.

OR - it may just be the stress of tonight's 4-hour, closed-book, torts final is getting to me and the above makes absolutely no sense. I'm not eliminating that as a possibility.

I did make 10 minutes go by simply by blogging about it though :) 20 minutes more and I can leave work and go pick up my brief which is now graded. Then, I will still have two hours to kill before the final starts. Maybe a little music and sunshine are in my immediate future.

Civ Pro Final - Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress?

Well, I doubt it was truly an intentional disregard for the probability of emotional distress, no more so than any final exam. Actually, judging by the way I, and those I went out with following the final felt, maybe there was some battery involved. We all felt pretty beat up. (Can you tell that torts is my next exam?) I had lots to say, just not enough time to say it well and go back over my answers to check for errors or omissions. At least we all took the same test in the same amount of time. That's one down two to go. I'm already feeling fairly exhausted, and tomorrow is the 4-hour closed-book exam; Thursday the 3-hour one. Wow. It's going to be a long, hard week, but then, I am done with 1L! My family is very excited to have me home, and I think it is going to be nice to spend my evenings and weekends being a family rather than a student. I'll be ready for school to start in the fall, but for now, I am ready for the summer break!

On that note, I am taking suggestions for summer leisure reading. (Classmates - you remember that, right? It's where you read for fun, not because you need to learn the material, and you will NOT be tested on it later.) Required elements: 1) Must be entertaining; 2) Must be mostly mindless; 3) If there is ANY educational value, that must be a secondary purpose of the material. Bonus points for strong lesbian characters or appearing on the best-seller list so I can give the impression I have somewhat kept up on pop culture during my law school career. Suggestions need not be particularly current as I've done little pleasure reading since our 4-year-old was born. Sleep-deprivation and non-mandatory reading do not go well together. I will be looking forward to your thoughts and be assured this is yet one more method of procrastination. Suggestions will be researched on Amazon.com for reader reviews and probably purchased there, too. That ought to take up some precious study time! Thanks! Have a wonderful week!

What's Your Personality Type?

I've been hard at work this morning, and only minimally thinking about the upcoming finals. Minimally, in that sort of vague way that you can't really block out a toothache....Anyway, thought I'd go for a little something fun. I find it reassuring that no matter how many versions of this Myers-Briggs-type tests I take, I always end up the same - with my scores being almost identical for the following (though usually INTP comes out barely ahead). Link to do this quiz for yourself is at the end.

Your #1 Match: INTJ

The Scientist You have a head for ideas - and you are good at improving systems.Logical and strategic, you prefer for everything in your life to be organized.You tend to be a bit skeptical. You're both critical of yourself and of others.Independent and stubborn, you tend to only befriend those who are a lot like you. You would make an excellent scientist, engineer, or programmer.

Your #2 Match: INTP

The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can.Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge.Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat.A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor.

What's" Your Personality Type?