Just to give a bit of an idea of the types of things that happen in some Idaho courtrooms, we apparently made the national press when a judge ordered his bailiff to duct tape a defendant's mouth shut.  Who, BTW, has a documented history of mental illness, wasn't on his meds, and part of the hearing was to address whether the defendant was even competent to proceed.  I would personally tackle any bailiff who tried to duct tape my client's mouth shut.  And then go to jail for it.  But then, I am a bit punchy these days. 

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/apr/21/judge-orders-defendants-mouth-taped-shut/

I have to say, I am getting pretty chafed at just how screwed a lot of my mentally ill clients are getting.  Of course, none of them had their mouths taped shut, so I guess I should feel lucky.

So the Idaho State legislature has decided that all state employees (including me) should take a 3% pay cut.  Which is stellar since I had such a bon vivante lifestyle to begin with.  In stinkpartment.  With my cats.  and apparently one of the state legislators has been waxing psychotic on the state house floor about how this country is not a nation, but is a confederation, and the states are therefore not bound to the dictates of the federal government.  Which is odd, because I sort of thought the whole Supremacy Clause thing pretty much put that debate to rest.  What a relief that these legislators are exempt from the pay cut, since they are doing such important business for the people.  never mind the whole resonance with the Civil War and Idaho as a racist state thing...

The non-date turned out to be fun, but very clearly a non-date.  Which is for the best, really.  I'm still largely a human train wreck.  And it's always nice to make a new friend anyway.

Gonzaga's still in it!  Very excited for Friday!  There will be whiskey!

So, I've finally got my first Idaho Supremes argument out of the way, and am currently drowning in a case load that I never seem to get a handle on.  and I have virtually no life.  at all.  other than the whiskey and pool games at the bar with the funny smell that is across the street from the office. 

I did get asked out on a date -- or a something -- by this guy who is clearly too attractive for me.  And who is a welder and rock climber who doesn't smoke and loves to exercise.  So we really have so much in common.  I am trying desperately to resist the urge to compile the list of reasons why I am a train wreck and a fundamentally gross person who looks like a space alien.  Not working so well, since I blurted out that I use the sniff test when I get dressed in the morning.  and that I just bought a blouse that makes me look like a cabbage.  Unless guys think that's hot.  I am guessing no.

But seriously.  It really makes me look like a cabbage.  It's the damnedest thing...

On the up side, I have a squirrel that eats peanuts out of my hand.  Which turns me all kinds of giddy.  I know they are vicious little bastards with each other, but they are so fuzzy and cute...

I periodically check the local paper online during my day (partly to see their local crime reporting - people in this office tend to track which cases may be comming our way).  This morning, I was more than a little surprised to see NO articles on Barack Obama on the main page.  Or the national news page.  Even though his speech was, for me and probably hundreds of thousands of people, the most memorable and inspiring moment of any election that I can remember. 

Instead, the lead stories were McCain's veep pick (no surprise), a story about migrating hummingbirds (make sure to keep your feeders full!), and an article about Lindsey Lohan writing negative things about her dad on her blog.

Maybe one of these days the culture here will no longer surprise me....

 Apparently the Idaho Supreme Court in 1966 decided that "construced" is a word.  Weird....

Woo-hoo for Kennedy v. Louisiana!!!!  Slightly less enthusiastic woo for Giles v. California!  

I'm still not making progress on the blues harmonica, but at least I got good news from the Supremes this morning!

I' ve had just enough whiskey to spend an hour and a half trying to master "Amazing Grace" on the blues harmonica.  At best, the sounds that I produced may qualify as "amazing" (but only in a purely technical sense, as in "It's amazing that the human ear can withstand those noises"), but there was nothing graceful about it.  I'm certain that the people across the hall were delighted....

I was asked to be a "celebrity bartender" at some charity event that the place where I usually go to shoot stick after work.  I told them that they needed to get a dictionary and look up the word "celebrity," since I am a half-shimmy away from crazy cat lady.  Seeing as how I have one friend total in the Boise metro area, I think I would only qualify for an anti-celebrity event.  that being said, there was still a wee part of me that felt good that they asked.

Craving someone tonight....

 Ooof.  So, I have been giving myself the home-haircut (usually when drunk or depressed, which is excellent planning on my part) for the last ten years.  And just found out this weekend that I have to fly home to do some family photos for my mom to use in brochures for her campaign.

I'm not sure why I'm going to be in them since the idea is for her to win.  And not to advertise to the world that she raised a weird daughter who gives herself home-haircuts.  So it looks like I am going to have to call someone who actually cuts hair.  For a living.  And then endure the mockery and lectures about not engaging in drunken home-haircuts.

I just know I am going to be that person in the brochure that everyone makes fun of for looking like the goofy person in the brochure.  And what do you wear to be in a brochure?  Pant suit?  Dress?  Smelly jeans that I wear constantly but almost never wash?  

I come from a family of all cute and attractive people.  I think they should just do the photo without me.  Seriously.  The last time I went out to shoot stick some guy told me that I look like I have tiny t-rex arms.  That is not family photo material....

 Woooo-hooooo!  Just won my first case today!  In a published opinion!  On a probation revocation issue! 

Of course, my name isn't on the opinion since I wasn't a lawyer in Idaho at the time.  But it was decided on the briefs and I wrote the brief!  Woot!

(1)  My birthday was lame.  I ended up drinking way too much whiskey and crying.  

(2)  I had my first oral argument today.  The argument itself was rough (I was asked questions non-stop and went over the time allotted).  But, even better, I apparently decided that today should be the day that I wear my underwear inside out.  And forget to zip up the fly on my pants.  Because what good is inside-out underpants without showing the world?  Also nice is realizing this fact after you have spent most of the day trucking around with an open zipper and an underwear tag hanging out the back of your pants.

 So I found out last week that I passed the bar.  Which I still can't believe.  I wait every day for the phone call from the ISB telling me that they made an awful mistake and that I actually failed.

In celebration, I get to argue my first case in front of the Court of Appeals in three weeks (yay?) and now have a newly assigned consolidated trial and post-conviction petition.  I was hoping for something a bit more fun.  and made of whiskey.

Actually, the people in my office went batshit with the decorations on the morning I passed.  Confetti, streamers (in Idaho Vandal colors, tee-hee), balloons, that weird string stuff that shoots out of a can.  It was awesome.  And surprising, since I was (am) pretty sure that everyone at the office thinks I am a doofus.  And stinky.

So I am knee deep in my first official trial on appeal, and the trial lawyer (for the defendant) decides that it would be a good plan to call his client (now our client) a "maniac" during opening statements.  Really?  Really???  You think that is a good way to introduce your client to the jury?  I may be just a baby lawyer, but I seem to think that the jury might not be so open to your defense if you start off on the my-client-the-maniac foot....

Also, I seem to have lost all of the stuff telling me how to get officially sworn in.  something tells me that i might need that...

 So, these days I am listening constantly to the Be Good Tanyas and The Weepies.  Especially the latter.  And you would be half right if you thought that I loved those bands for their names only.  They are not as musically talented as my sister, but that goes without saying...

I get my bar exam results next week.  And the night before is the roller derby bout against Salt Lake City.  Fighting Mormons on roller skates.  So far I have conscripted about 1/3 of the office to go with me.  Either way, I plan on being hung over and crying once I get the results.

Is there some definitive way of knowing whether your life has taken a very wrong turn? 

 Ok.  Did someone beat up Charlie Rose?  Because he totally looks like someone messed him up tonight...

I have hit a patch where I alternate between (1) feeling like everyone at work treats me like I am a moron and it pisses me off; and (2) feeling like everyone at work treats me like a moron and agreeing with them.  Appellate work is lame some days.  There are a surprising number of  issues of law that are not settled; and it surprises me even more how little unanimity there is among the cases from other states/jurisdictions that have looked at the issues I have been researching.  

Add to that the fact that I feel very disconnected from everyone at work right now.  And since these are pretty much the only people I ever see in Boise, I am not feeling like a charmer whose wit and personality attract the masses.  Maybe I should just start a dweeb colony. 

So apparently a couple of days ago there was a "gang related" school shooting in Nampa:

http://www.kivitv.com/global/story.asp?s=8015033

at the alternative school they decided to call the "Original Gangsters Basic Academy of Delinquency."  Is it just me, or does that name seem really poorly chosen if the idea is to avoid gang related shootings?  It almost sounds like gangland style shootings would be part of the curriculum... 

I was stuck in tr affic on the drive home behind a guy with a bumper sticker proclaiming, "YOU WILL NOT MOCK MY GOD."

I like to think that I am a very tolerant person, but I have never wanted to mock anyone's god so badly in my life...

 On my way home for lunch I passed a sign for one of the pawn shops advertising "trolls and snubbers."  I have no idea what snubbers are, but I bet they are cute and furry.

I also realized that my fly has been open all day long.  Who's a smart girl? I'm a smart girl!!!

 Last week was the Idaho bar exam.  And it was awful, just like I knew it would be and just like every other bar exam on the planet.

The highlight was the last day, when I was running late and forgot to make sure that the lid was on my water bottle.  Which I blindly shoved in my purse while I hightailed it to the exam.  Apparently, it somehow excaped my attention that water was running out of my purse and dousing my bum while I was hiking through downtown Boise.  I managed to realize this fact by the time I got to the test center.  And had to take the wet-bummed walk of shame.  Genius.  Pure, unadulterated genius.

My parents sent a nice card congratulating me for taking the bar (like I had a choice) and calling me their "baby warrior."  Which sounds a bit like I fight babies.  For sport.  Or maybe territory.  If all else fails, maybe competitive baby fighting can be a new career for me.

 So the new year is looking like it is going to be more stressful than the last. My case load keeps getting bigger, and I don't seem to be keeping up.  Clients have been calling all day, so I am barely making any progress on my briefs.  And studying for the bar seems to be getting me as far as willing myself to be taller and thin.

The girl who hit my car (and wedged a part of my bumper inside of my rear tire) now seems to think that maybe she didn't hit my car at all.  She thinks maybe she just hit a small animal.  I have no idea what to say about that one.

And I was ambushed by a news crew as I was coming out of a coffee shop this morning that wanted to know how I felt about the rising gas prices.  Before I even had a sip of coffee.  I ended up sounding like a complete moron.  And looking like a pale, squinty, bobble-headed doof.  On the nightly news.  Awesome.

Last week, this girl destroyed my little Korean compact vehicle when she came charging out of a parking lot and t-boned my car while I was driving down the road.  She sped across two lanes of traffic, so I didn't see her coming at all until there was a loud bang and my car spun around 180 degrees.  I don't know how fast she was going, but it was fast enough to dislodge part of my bumper and spear it through my tire.  It was still hanging out of the tire the last time I saw my poor little car.  Not to mention the Kia-bits that were scattered across the road.  And the fact that they had to close down two lanes of traffic during rush hour while they towed my car.

My rental car is nice, though.  and brand new.  And the rental car guy was one of the nicest human beings that I have ever met.  This is the first time that I have ever driver a zippy little red car.  BTW, if anyone ever needs to rent a car, I highly recommend Avis.  Seriously.  I think the guy who helped with my rental is a total saint.

So now I have to get a new car.  With horrible credit.  And no idea how to go about buying a car without getting fleeced.

I also need to start studying for the bar.  I got my limited license and signed my first few briefs to the court today.  They are talking about having me argue my first case to the Court of Appeals either January or February.  My goals are not to vomit on the podium or cry.

The office holiday party was fun.  I found out that I can roll bones with the best of 'em.  Although I wouldn't try to test that theory on a craps table.

Apparently, my post-Christmas flight home from Spokane leaves at 6:45 in the morning.  I didn't even know that there was a 6:45 in the morning.  Very sweet of my folks to get me the plane ticket, but there is a small, petty part of me that wonders whether the early morning flight might be punishment for something.

 So Boise is a lot better than I thought it would be.  I got together a bunch of people from work to go to the rollerderby, which was an outstanding time.  I may even try out to be a rollergirl once the whole bar exam stuff is over.  

Speaking of people from work:  I like them.  I really do.  And they are all very smart and very committed to what they do.  I just hope that I don't get fired if i fail the bar.

This weekend I think a group of us are going bowling.  I love the smoking sports.

Thanksgiving was great.  I got to see my sister, who always makes me laugh until I pee a little.  And there was whiskey and cigars and roasted marshmallows.  

I guess I will be arguing a case in January.  So I will finally get to wear my big kid pants (or suit, I guess).

Now all I have to do is get back in touch with the handful of people down here that I know and love.  If anyone here in the Boise area ever gets bored and wants some whiskey, let me know!  :)