I was going to come home early and do laundry and update my checkbook and update the blog and do all manner of orderly things, but instead I went with Roommate and her co-worker on a hike that lasted until 10:45 -- still daylight, of course. Her co-worker has a yellow lab, which looked very outdoorsy and REI whenever it bounded up the trail and then turned to check on our progress.

Thus, it is 12:28 am and the laundry is still running and I am still up, with no errands accomplished. Agh.

To the top of the world and back again, in 4 days. Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse/North Slope is verrrrry interesting, and the drive up and back was even more fascinating. More when I'm not still covered in dust and DEET.

Oooh, and got my grades today: A- in Crim, B in Torts, B+ in Famous Minority Professor's leftist class. Am relieved and fairly pleased. Still don't understand grading though.

Whenever I leave my usual habitat for more than a day or so, I am reminded of what my mother said once when she was fussing over and straightening out her place in LA just before we went out: "I want to leave it neat in case I don't come back."

Well, I left my desk relatively neat but my mind considerably rumpled at work. Overslept and completely missed a hearing this morning at court. I feel like such a fuck-up.

Off I go into the big bad northern wilderness.

In order to counteract the wine headache this morning, I drank a cup of coffee and bounced off the wall all day. And still had a headache. But I just finished a glass of wine again tonight. It's just too comforting to give up.

hk has been getting 6 hours or so of sleep every night for 3 weeks, and it's showing. normally mild and conciliatory, i've let loose the raging, froth-at-the-lips battlehorse of the soul, the kind that charges up hills of long-suffered and usually long-accepted facts of life and relationships and tramples anything unwise enough to get in the way -- trees, roots, small rodentia. I've gotten into an unusually high number of fights in the past few days. interesting and bothersome.

so the Ringleted One is off in Seward by herself tonight, and Roommate is out doing some summer solstice thing, and I came home and drank two glasses of whine -- er, wine. and read, and ate dinner, and enjoyed. not even my landlady is home.

so, this coming weekend, the Ringleted One and I are headed off to the Arctic. We're either flying or driving up to Fairbanks (not so good with the planning, hk), and then renting an SUV and driving the Dalton Highway, formerly known as the Haul Road, because it was (and is) the only road by which oil companies send off and receive shipments and supplies. (Imagine -- driving an SUV for the purpose for which it was made!) Prudhoe Bay, which is just shy of the top of the world, is apparently owned by oil companies -- you can't even get to the Arctic Ocean in a private car, you have to buy a ticket on a shuttle that takes you through the last 8 miles or so of the highway to the sea.

many, many people think driving the Dalton is deeply nuts, and it probably is. Right now, during the day it's in the 40s in Dead Horse/Prudhoe Bay. The highway is only 25 percent paved -- the rest is deeply rutted gravel road. If it isn't mud. And 20-ton trucks zoom by at 80 miles per hour. (Well, at least we won't be alone on the highway.) After the Arctic Circle, which many people drive to, take a picture of themselves by the sign, and drive back, there is really nothing for 200 miles but tundra, wolves, and the most spectacular mountains and views in N. America. At least, that's what they say. But lord, if you break down, it's mighty cold and lonely.

it's also going to be mighty expensive, but as Supervisor put it, "In a year, you won't even remember the money. and you'll be glad you did it." Yes. but it still hurts. (He also said, "You need to be careful driving the Subaru around -- and you especially need to be careful." Huh? Wha--? "I don't know, you seem like a risk-taker to me." Actually, Supervisor, I'm extremely risk-averse. But it pleases me that you said that.)

My co-intern said it best, in her practical grew-up-off-the-road-system way: "Well, if you don't show up at the office on Monday, we'll know where you are, and we'll call the state troopers. Shouldn't be more than a day or so out there."

somehow, i have again made it to past midnight without being asleep.i am moronic beyond belief. it must be that battle horse mentality. no one ever said that wearing metal and charging into a field of men wielding sharp implements was the act of a wise horse.

The Ringleted One is here, hence the lack of entries. She keeps me hopping. Tonight, for example, we hiked Flattop Mountain from 9 pm to midnight. There was a damn beautiful sunset at 11:30. And we acknowledged the whole solstice thing on the mountain, which was pretty cool. But damn, it was cold. We passed several large patches of snow on the ground.

This past weekend? Denali National Park, home of Mt. McKinley. It rained. We saw several moose and mooselets. We took a shuttle into the park at 6 pm on Saturday and saw a snowshoe rabbit and a moose carcass. Our driver? "I've been driving this route since 2003 and this is the worst day I've ever had in terms of seeing animals. Usually you see a moose or Dall sheep, at least." But our driver? Coolest part of the trip. Used to hop freight trains, and wrote a book (as yet unpublished) called "Hobo Sapiens." You heard it here first.

Oh man, oh man, it's 2 am. I'll have to write tomorrow -- no, TODAY -- about the weekend and various adventures. Oh, but I must say that I finally did something right at work: was complimented on the part of the reply brief that I wrote (for the case before the state supreme court). Supervisor said it was "impressive." Yay! I'm not a total fuck-up.

More tomorrow.

I've been delinquent (and feeling really guilty about it!) in keeping up the entries for the past three days. Over the weekend, Roommate and I went on a road trip to a little town called Kenai on the Kenai Peninsula, so I was computer-less then, and then last night I just HAD to sleep, so I skipped entrying to do that. It was very, very needed.

The trip to Kenai reminded me why I came to Alaska. Anchorage is nice -- a cozy city with its fair share of little gems -- but no one comes to Alaska for the cities. There's only one road to Kenai, but you get a little bit of everything. After hugging the coast for a while, we drove through marshes and groves of dead spruce trees. The spruces are victims of a devastating beetle infestation that is on its way to killing every spruce in the state. Bill, our impromptu guide around Kenai, told us that two or three days after you see the holes in the tree, it goes gray and dies. The freshly dead trees are ghostly, surrounded by healthy green trees of other varieties. The long dead ones, like the groves we saw in the marshes, stand stripped of branches, tall gray poles of death.

After the marshland comes the forests and the mountains. Oh, lord, the mountains. The Kenai River, turquoise with glacial sediment, flashes suddenly into view from the highway at some point. There are lakes with no one on them, set off by mountains that are as green as Ireland at their base, but still snow-capped. We stopped at one place and smiled our way into a $9 parking lot for free, to watch all kinds of people lined up in the river fly-fishing. We saw two men cleaning off their catches -- huge silvery fish, easy 20 or 30 pounds.

Our landlady owns a little house in Kenai (and I do mean little -- probably no more than 1000 square feet). She just bought it from a couple who lives down the street, whom we called after we arrived and found there was no water. The man who answered the phone said, "Yeah, I'll turn it on for you. In the meanwhile, you can come over here and use my bathroom and stuff. I'm right around the corner."

In a few minutes, though, an enormous red pick-up truck rumbled into the driveway, and a mustached man stepped out. The white dog with black spots that was tied in the back whined as the man moved away from the truck.

"Hi," I said, taken aback. "Are you Bill?"

He said yes, shot the breeze for a few minutes, and then disappeared in the crawl space below the house. He emerged a little later and said he needed some things at Home Depot, and asked, "Well, what were you planning to do?"

"Um, drive around and see what there is to see, I guess."

"Well, hop on in."

So we went to Home Depot. And to the beluga lookout point (Kenai is on a bluff overlooking the juncture of the Kenai River and the ocean, and during salmon season, beluga whales sometimes swim up quite close to eat the salmon). And to dinner at Ski Mo's (home of a fine cheeseburger and beer). And he told stories.

He told us work stories. A carpenter by trade, he works now at Red Dog mine (lead and zinc), not far from the Arctic Circle, but he's been all over the state.

He told us a long, long story about how his wife suffered a collapsed lung as a result of playfully wrestling with their son, and how the hospital screwed up her treatment so that it took her over three weeks and $30,000 to heal.

He told us about putting up a building for someone and hearing brakes squeal and something white flying through the air, finding his dog on the ground and a panicky driver, commanding his friend to drive the truck as he knelt on the cab floor and held his dog (miraculously, the dog only suffered a broken leg and is now referred to as Nic, the Broke-Leg Dog).

He told us about his ex-wife, who, on the day he had packed up his things to leave, grabbed two knives he'd sharpened that day, and in the ensuing struggle, stabbed him in the chest. The only thing that stopped her from gutting him was the fact that she was holding the two knives in the same hand, and the shorter one hit a rib.

And while he was telling these stories, he drove. He drove us out of Kenai, actually, and into the next town over, and then he turned off the street and onto a graveled road into the forest. And it struck me that, gosh, I don't know this guy from Adam, and these look like woods that a realtor would reserve for showing to serial killers, and dear lord, what have we gotten ourselves into? As he talked about the property he hoped to buy, he turned into an even smaller, cramped path through the trees. Around this time, as I later found out, Roommate started looking for hard objects in the truck cab to use as a weapon. I started looking carefully at the wheel to make sure I could drive the truck away.

The property he hopes to buy is on a small lake, which was mirror-still. Bill excused himself, and I promptly thought, "Dear lord, he's coming back with an axe, I know it." And started estimating how far the other side of the lake was. Roommate, as she later revealed, was looking around for fist-sized stones to hold in her hand as she swung.

But Bill came back sans axe or other instrument of murder, and cheerfully submitted to pictures of himself in front of his (hopefully) lake as mosquitoes went to town and lunched sumptuously. He drove us back into town, still telling stories.

After he dropped us off, I suggested to Roommate that we buy him a six-pack, since he (1) bought us dinner, (2) drove us around town, and (3) didn't kill us with an axe and then throw us into the lake. We brought over a Boston brew and of course he insisted on inviting us in. We watched a promotional video about Red Dog mine, which was oddly fascinating. Bill politely said the beer was good, but I noticed he didn't drink much of it. Nic the Broke-Arm Dog drank more of it than he did.

At around 11 pm, we thanked him and left thinking we'd been very, very lucky to meet a real Alaskan with a real life. Because Roommate and I are living fake lives here (kinda true).

Roommate, being a writer, wanted to update her journal on the back porch, so we bundled up and sprayed on the Deet, and wrote while the dog (we're taking care of the landlady's bichon frise, and took it with us) looked disconsolate on the side of the house. A little while into the journaling, I noticed that George (the non-broke-arm bichon frise) was standing on his hind legs looking at something between the houses.

"I wonder what that dog is looking at," I mused, and got up to look.

"What is it?" Roommate asked.

It took me a second to get the words out. "Moose," I said, still not really registering it. "He's looking at moose. Across the street. Holy mother of god. Moose."

Now, all the guidebooks say, don't be stupid -- don't approach moose or bears or other wildlife to take pictures. A 600-pound moose can do a lot of damage to a soft and silly human. Despite this, I said, "I'm going to walk around to the front of the house to take a better look."

So Roommate and I crept around to the front and tried to take pictures with the cameras we'd grabbed, but cars and a tree were in the way, so it was frustrating, because not only was it a moose, it was a mother moose and her two mooselings. "Damn," I whispered, "I wish that car wasn't in the way."

And then the moose started moving our way.

"Holy mother of god," I blurted out for the second time, "we gotta get out of here," and we amscrayed to the back and were both almost inside when I remembered, "Shit! The dog!" and crept outside to grab the dog and bring him inside. Where we stayed for the next 10 minutes as the moose came up to the FRONT YARD and started munching on the shrubs in THE FRONT YARD and then started walking away, except the littlest mooselet couldn't negotiate the string dividing our front yard with the neighbor's so the mother came back and started walking TOWARDS OUR WINDOW and lumbered by the side of the house, finally disappearing into someone else's back yard, along with her kids.

Roommate and I kind of slumped to the floor after that. "Omigod, we just a a moose. In the front yard. Like, 3 feet away from us. Omigod."

Now all we need to do is see a bear. Which I could personally live without. Seeing as how black bears will attack you for fun and all. Seeing a bear from the comfort of your kitchen, however, would be just fine.

Holy moly!

So after the weekend, I was pretty revved up about being here. Everything was so beautiful, and Bill the Alaskan Carpenter was so nice, and we got to see moose in the front yard, for crissakes. Going to work on Monday was hard, but I fueled up on caffeine and got some research done, and it was only after work that the fatigue of driving and not sleeping well caught up with me, and while I was walking away from a memorial statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., I suddenly thought, "My GOD, what am I doing here? Why am I doing this job? What was I thinking going to law school? This isn't me. This isn't the life I should be living. I feel so LOST."

I got some sleep last night, so the desperation of that moment isn't quite so fierce. But the question still remains.

I guess it doesn't help that I feel like I keep fouling up assignments at work. Legal research is such a bitch. It's so boring, and so important, and Supervisor said, "I talked to Other Attorney, and he said he didn't think this was a task you could finish doing, so let's just stop the research now and start writing." Which is good, because Supervisor wanted to know the law about a certain issue in every damn jurisdiction (every state), which Co-Intern, when I told her what the task was, said, "Wow. I would need to set aside three weeks to do that." But I still feel like I'm flubbing the research assignments. Supervisor has assigned me to write part of the reply brief going before the Alaska Supreme Court, and I'm mildly terrified of failing again. He's all into the pedogogy thing and providing opportunities for me to learn and grow. I'm all into starting small and having a hope of succeeding. I'd make a good corporate law firm drone, I guess. God.

Or as he would say, "Duuuuude."

Anyway, tomorrow I attempt and hope not to fail. Also tomorrow, the Ringleted One arrives for a visit. And so the summer rolls on. Now. it is nearly 1 am and I MUST GO TO BED. Aaaaggghhh. I will be sleep deprived forever.

Absolutely terrifying drive today.

I've had this dream a few times: there's a monster or vaguely unholy type of baddie out there and it's up to me to stop it because I'm some kind of chosen warrior (didn't we all want to be Jedi Knights when we were kids?). Unfortunately, even though I know I'm supposed to be this warrior type, I have no fucking clue what do to. In the dream, I've forgotten (or perhaps never taken) any kind of training that would help me fight this monster. But it comes, regardless, spoiling for a fight. I'm scared shitless. There's a sick kind of knowing dread in my stomach that I am going to be ripped to shreds. But I have to go forward. I have to fight the monster, even though victory is impossible.

So that was a little what it was like today going with Other Supervising Attorney to her house, knowing that I would be driving the stick shift car back to the office and then to my house. She was worried about her sick baby, so she didn't really talk about the details of driving stick (and I may have overrepresented how much I knew about it). I tried to carry on conversation with her, but I was stressing the whole time about watching when she pressed the clutch, when she shifted, etc. And then we got to her house, which is on the top of a hill, and she said, "Oh, and the CD player doesn't work so well, and -- " and I told her, "It's okay, just go see your baby" and she smiled and gave me the key and said, "Good luck!" and walked away, and I got in and coasted down the hill in neutral and then stopped just fine at the end of the hill, but then sat there for 5 minutes because I couldn't figure out how to make the car go again.

Note to self: car does not move forward when you press the gas IF IT IS IN NEUTRAL.

I actually got the car moving without too much trouble once I figured out I needed it to be in first gear, but that was just the beginning of my troubles. She lives on a quiet street. At the end of it, I had to turn onto a busy street. And there the terror really began.

You see, the last time I drove a stick shift car was at least three or four years ago, and that was for one hour. In a parking lot. With the Ringleted One by my side telling me what to do and calming me down. And before that, it was an hour with bigbro (in his 1971 Volkswagen SQUAREBACK, not Bug, as I mistakenly stated in an earlier entry), way back in -- god, 1997? Yeah. In neither situation had I actually driven in traffic. With other cars around. That had to wait behind me when I stalled (just once, though!) and had to restart the car. And had to wait as I herked and jerked my way forward a few inches at a time for a good 15 seconds before I got the car rolling. And had to switch lanes because I was going 20 freakin' miles an hour since I was too scared to shift into third. And had to sit behind me when, at the top of the hill leading to my house, I started to roll backwards when I was trying to move forward to merge onto my street.

The amazing thing? Not one driver honked at me. At one point, I put my hazards on -- only to find out later that I hadn't put them on at all. I might have gotten some dirty looks and muttered curses, but I was too terrified and worried about not grinding the gears to notice.

But enough about the nice drivers of Anchorage, and back to meeeee. Meee and my terrrorrrr. Because Ah tell yeww, Ah was petrified. I seriously did not know enough to drive this car, and here I was in midday traffic, 10 miles away from the office, in the city, with stoplights and cars and jaywalking pedestrians -- god, I'm breaking into hives just thinking about it. I could not believe I was actually in the car doing this, making up ideas about when to shift, trying to ignore the strange protesting sounds coming from the engine, praying that stoplights wouldn't turn red, reminding myself under my breath, "To stop, just press the brake and the clutch. Press the break and the clutch to stop. To stop, just press brake and clutch. Brake and clutch. Brake and clutch."

I did remember what bigbro told me: that our dad had learned how to drive a stick shift in a parking lot when he somehow rented a moving truck that was manual. And I remembered that bigbro himself learned on the fly. But I am sure that they were not as ill-prepared as I was. Nor as frightened.

All the stuff with the car today helped me not think about the other stressful situation at work. Today I meant to talk with Supervisor about farming the work out for this reply due in two weeks to others, because I didn't think I could finish it in time. But I was preempted; he sat down and said he'd just look over the cases himself. And that he wanted me to write part of the brief because it would be a good learning experience. Which is nice. But it was sad that I couldn't do what he had assigned, and I said so. "No, no, no," he said, "I have a tendency to project my work style, which is that I just want to be given the assignment and then be left alone."

"Well," I replied, "then since I know that, it's on me to tell you that it was too much to chew."

"But you wouldn't know that it was too much," he countered, and he was right. Which is kinda what I've been thinking.

I guess I feel a little guilty for not completing this research myself, but I've got no ruler against which to measure myself. Maybe it was a task that my schoolmates would have easily accomplished. Maybe not. Maybe the Wonder Intern last year could have done it all and I'm just a total doofus in comparison. (I think that's entirely possible -- she was described to me as "a machine" by another attorney.) I have no idea.

But I also don't think it's so bad that he took work away from me, because: 1. I wasn't going to finish it on time, and you don't turn things in late to a state supreme court; 2. I am by all rights a moron right now at research because I just haven't done it enough; and 3. I don't care about being good at research because I don't like it and I don't really care about being a stellar lawyer. I don't even want to be a lawyer! So that makes things much easier.

I really don't have ambitions to impress anyone here. I've got enough recommenders from other jobs who thought I did great work so that I don't need these guys. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to work hard. I'm just not going to care that much if they decide I'm not SuperLawClerk.

Yay for low ambitions!

So in sum: petrifying, incomprehensible and uncomprehending terror in the Subaru; "eh"-ness in the office; and weekend trip to Kenai. Yeah, Roommate and I are going to rent a car (trust me, if you'd been in the parking lot where we practiced driving tonight, you'd know we were not ready to take the Subaru out for a 3-hour-long drive through a national forest) and go for a short trip to our landlady's new house in Kenai. There's supposed to be some good salmon watching there.

Oof. It's 2:45 am. How? Oh yes: driving in circles for an hour in the high school parking lot down the street, stopping and starting, stopping and starting, stopping and starting... Poor little Subaru.

Had another "don't stress!" - "but you haven't looked at that yet?" conversations with Supervisor today, but I was more relaxed about it today. My co-intern confirmed that I was reading him the right way, so I guess that's just his way of telling me to do certain things. Maybe he thinks I should be doing them already, without him telling me. Look, I'm just not that smart, okay? God!

I'm supposed to have another debrief with him tomorrow, which is why I stayed until almost 7 pm tonight, going through a list of cases and trying to see if any of them help us. Ugh. It's very, very slow going. And I'm not sure I'm even looking through the right list of cases!

When Supervisor asked me today how I was doing, I told him straight out, "I just feel so slow, and I don't know if I'm doing the right things." He turned to my co-intern and asked if she felt the same way, and she confirmed, as did the attorney who strolled into the library/intern "office" a few moments later -- "Yeah, I didn't feel like I really started getting it until I started clerking," the guy said. "Hey [Supervisor], didn't you feel the same way? Or did you just get it right away?" the attorney joshed. "Hey man, I STILL don't get it," Supervisor laughed.

I think I'll just tell him tomorrow that I can't complete the list of things he wants me to research by mid-week next week. I can't tell if that because I'm really slow, or if it's because it's just not possible. In any case, it's not possible for me, especially on this Alaskan work schedule, where no one is in the office before 9 am, and most are out the door by 5 pm. I was certainly the last person out when I left at 7 pm.

I don't mind staying late to finish things; there are zones of time during the day when I'm just not working. I wish I could work all day and go home with a clean conscience, but I can't concentrate on this stuff without taking breaks.

Stuff today that reminded me that I'm not in Kansas anymore:

1. I asked my co-intern, who is from Alaska, if I could use her Westlaw password (I've forgotten mine) so that I could check the Alaska Supreme Court cases there. I mentioned that I thought it was odd that Lexis only lists AK Supreme Court cases from 1959 onward. "Oh," she said, "Alaska wasn't a state before 1959." Oooooohhh.

2. I had to call a legislative staffer in Juneau today. "Huh," I said out loud, "that's weird. Do you have to dial the area code even if it's the same one?" "Where are you calling?" Co-Intern asked. "Oh," I said as I walked to my computer to check the area code, "I guess it's different area codes, since they're all down in Juneau. No, wait, it's the same area code." "There's only one area code in Alaska," Co-Intern explained. Oooooohhh.

And unrelated stuff: I'm a dogsitter again, while my landlady and her rather sweet daughter visit family in Maine. They have a young (1.5 years) bichon frise who is by turns rambunctious and timid. He's locked in the bathroom during the day when no one is around, but is extremely clingy when people are around. he's a strange dog -- after work, I put him outside, leashed to the house, as directed. He just sat there. Most dogs would sniff around, take a pee, whatever, but he just sat there on the step where I left him. Very odd.

Anyway, it's nice taking care of someone that is not me. I am reminded of a long-ago fellow DOJ intern who had twin boys a couple years ago. Before they were born, I asked Brian: "How do you feel about becoming a father?" His answer was typically thoughtful: "You know, Helen, I think I'm ready to put someone else before me. I'm sick of putting myself first." At the time, some three years ago, I thought this was extraordinarily mature and a little strange. But maybe at some point, a life of just thinking about yourself and what you want to do becomes devoid of meaning.

Unrelated confession: since Roommate and I are taking care of the dog, we took another liberty and watched us some TV. Oh man. I miss TV. We both were like, "Man, maybe we should skip going to Kenai this weekend and go buy a TV!" But we probably won't, because as Roommate put it, "that's not what I came here to do." On the other hand, as I pointed out, we came to relax, and TV is quite conducive to relaxing (I remember reading some article comparing the mental state to that achieved during meditation).

Whatever. You know I'm too cheap to buy a TV.

I walked the coastal trail back home today after work, feeling somewhat downcast about my work day. It did the trick:

- the stretches of possibly quicksand-y beach;
- the chilly-looking waters of Cook Inlet;
- the cargo ship anchored close to shore, its dark colors real and distinct against ice blue haze and clouds;
- the Chester Creek sewage processing plant (the part you see is much smaller than the part you don't -- five stories of sewage processing underground);
- the seven ducklings and their mother (down from 11) darting about on the lagoon;
- the strangely aggressive black-headed and black-and-white bodied ducks and their calm brown consorts;
- the seagulls incessantly squealing overhead;
- the small fluttering "birds" flying in odd patterns above the trees that were more likely bats;
- the various groups of people running or walking or biking and pulling babies behind them on the trail (the older folks slowly jogging by, the group of mothers, etc.);
- the Snack Shack; and
- the yellow lotus flowers blooming several yards from shore.

I didn't exactly get "yelled at" today. It was much stranger. Supervisor came in to ask if I were stressed, because I "seemed stressed this morning, looking stressed yesterday," and advised me that I shouldn't be stressed this summer working at this office. Used a military metaphor to suggest that I turn to some other kind of research in order not to get sucked too deeply into the particular research task so as to lose my way. Then he proceeded to stress me out further by asking if I'd considered this or that or gotten to this or that part of the project and, when I said no, ejected an amazed, "Duuude!" Which, because I too am from California, I know to mean: "What have you been doing with your time and why are you so stressed if you haven't even gotten around to that stuff yet?"

Dude. I TOLD you I'm slow at legal research. And you should know that first year law students are idiots. And why are you insisting on my not being stressed? It's in my nature to be stressed, because I want to do a good job. That's why you hire Crimson students, right?

Plus, it's nice that you have a feeling that the court's gonna rule our way, but I need to find case law that backs up your intuition (which is based on one footnote in one case), and that's DIFFICULT. Especially for someone who takes a long time to do legal research. Which I may have mentioned.

It's a perfect example of clashing styles -- I like things to be precisely laid out, with clearly delineated supporting evidence and feel stressed until I have things set up that way, and Supervisor is comfortable with a process that's a lot more open-ended and intuitive. It might also be some insecurity about the outcome of the case -- I'm a lot more worried about the precedent than he is, but I don't know as much about the topic or the court.

Those rationales sound good to me now (and may even have some grounding in reality), but then I felt pretty defensive. If you're saying I'm stupid in my approach, I agree with you! I don't know how to do it better because no one taught us at Crimson and I'm new at this stuff! So lay off, will ya? And stop telling me not to stress. For one, it works in your favor, and for two, no one relaxes because someone tells them not to stress out.

Tomorrow, I pick up the car. With the stick shift. And drive it home. Whoa!

HIGHS AND LOWS (but lows being of the good kind. Sort of.)

The day started out very promising, weather-wise. It was warm enough that I took off my scarf and nearly took off my jacket while walking to work. Ah, I thought, it is finally warming up! Nice job, Anchorage. Yesterday it was 58 degrees at 6 pm and 60 degrees at 8 pm. Could Anchorage be the only city in the world that is warmer at night than in evening?

I prepared for my client interview with as much vigor as I could muster in the morning, which isn't much in the best of situations. Well, at least I woke up at 5:45 am instead of 4:45 this time.

At 10 am, I had my briefing with Supervisor, who listened to my research results and shaped the project for the next two weeks. It's going to be a lot of work, and most of it legal research. But at least I can see where it's going.

At 11 am, the client came, and I took a whack at questioning her about the stuff in her file. We covered three topics, and each time I couldn't think of any more questions, I sat back and turned it over to Supervisor, who said, "I just have a couple questions," and then would proceed to go at it for at least as long as I had. Supervisor is good about trying to make me feel like I'm doing important stuff. I'm grateful. Like I said, this is a great first legal job, in large part because Supervisor views it as a pedogogical process (he used to teach). But I also feel like, hey, Supervisor's got 15 or so years of experience on me, and there's no way I can expect to know or anticipate the kind of things he knows. It's good to know your limitations. I accept them. I guess it's easier when you don't really care about going into law.

The client had a lot of bad shit happen to her. It was a little hard to pin down exactly what happened, due to bad memory and perhaps some tendency to exaggerate. It's hard to know when to believe the client, which is the same experience I had in the legal services student organization I took part in during the school year. Most of the people I know strive for a certain level of accuracy, exactness in storytelling. They're aware of the filters through which they view life.

The interview took 2 hours, and Supervisor said I was very "calming." That's what my legal writing student instructor said too, when I was asking questions during someone else's practice appellate argument. "You've got this Oprah thing going on," she said. I should go into some field where that's valued. I tell ya.

After lunch, I was online trying to find a car to buy (thanks to J1's commonsensical and encouraging advice delivered via email last night), and asked the other intern and then one of the paralegal/administrators, who said, "Well, for a junker, I wouldn't pay more than $1000. But you know, Other Supervising Attorney has an old car she's been trying to get rid of. I'd ask her first."

So I wandered over to Other Supervising Attorney's office and the administrator called out, "Hey, Other Supervising Attorney! Got a junky old car you wanna get rid of?" And OSA said, "Yeah! You want it?"

"Ye- yes!" I stuttered. "I'd be willing to buy it or lease it for the summer."

She waved the suggestion off: "No, just drive it around and try to sell it for me. I have a For Sale sign on it but I never drive it around, so no one ever sees it."

"Really? I would totally pay you to use it."

"No, no. Just use it."

"Wow! Thanks! Gosh, it can't be that easy," I said.

"Yeah, it's fine. Do you drive stick?"

"Oh," I said. "I knew it couldn't be that easy," I replied, crestfallen.

"You can learn how to do it," she said encouragingly.

"Well, theoretically I do know how to drive stick -- I've had lessons," I brightened up again.

"Well, that's fine then."

"Wait, it's not going to break down on me halfway to Denali, is it?"

"Um... no, I don't think so. I mean, I drove it for a month without oil and it did fine. Does even better now that I put oil in it."

So for the price of a registration sticker and emissions check, I have a car for the summer. And if I burn up the clutch, Roommate said, we could just pay her the $1500. Wow!

Thus, a HIGH was achieved today. Such generosity!

(Since the administrator was so good at getting me what I wanted, I asked her to find me a boyfriend too. She said she'd work on it.)

My co-intern drove me home today because it was raining, and told me that the area I live in was -- way back when -- the area where "naughty things happened." Like, you know, where the prostitutes hung out. Interesting! But the weather was a drag -- it probably dropped to about 50 degrees this afternoon.

The prostitutes seem to have moved on (as far as I've seen). But there is a Wonder Bread factory right around the corner. I kid you not. There are a dozen big, white Wonder Bread/Hostess trucks parked there in the evenings. And there's also a bread thrift store, where all kinds of breads (not just white bread, but honey wheat berry and honey oat and other semi-healthy stuff) are half the price you find at a grocery store. Like, 4 loaves of bread for $5! I bought just two -- one for Roommate and one for me -- at $1.39 each. Yay!

So, another HIGH (a smaller one, but extraordinarily -- and disproportionately -- pleasing) today.

The LOW wasn't a serious low, it was just a "Million Dollar Baby" low. Haven't seen it? Well, I hadn't either, but it was playing at the $3 theatre, and Roommate wanted to see it, so we went and ordered giant nachoes and settled in, and even though I knew the ending of the moving, I was deeply depressed afterwards. So much so that I bummed a cigarette off someone while coming out of the theatre. I was also deeply impressed. Very nicely done, Clint.

The older I get, the less I want to see serious movies. I don't want my entertainment to be serious and depressing. Maybe it's because I find life depressing enough that I just want to escape when I'm entertained. The inequities of life weigh somewhat heavily on me, which is a stupidly round-about, fancy-pants way of saying that there's a lot of crappy stuff that happens in the world, and when I learn about that crappy stuff, it makes me sad, and I don't want to sit down and take in manufactured sadness. (That's too bad, because I probably miss a lot of great art that way. Then again, most of the movies out there are crap anyway.)

For those who have seen the movie, I wonder, is it really better to have had the shot at greatness, to have been a contender? I asked Roommate that, and she said, "I don't know. I think I get a lot of pleasure from small things." It's the age-old dilemma: you can't be risk-averse if you dream big. (Well, I guess you can, if you leave it at dreaming only.) There's a Dido song where she sings, "I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea/ To travel the world alone and live more simply/ I have no idea what's happened to that dream/ Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me." I like that, partly because I think that happens a lot. You let go of dreams you used to have, slowly, through the years. Maybe you've changed, or realized you didn't really want the thing you thought you wanted, or found out that it was harder than you thought -- almost impossible to make that dream come true.

I don't remember a lot of the dreams I had. Work in the movie industry, I remember that. I think I realized that I didn't fit personality-wise into Hollywood, and that hanging out with theatre/actor types made me feel insecure. I wanted to write book. I still have that dream.

I guess I think about dreams a little differently than when I was a kid. If I were to die tomorrow, what would I regret not doing? I would regret not being on better terms with my mother. (I'm working on it.) I think that extends to my aunt and uncle, from whom I've drifted in these confusing adult years. I wish I could send them on a trip to Europe, because my aunt has never gone.

Other that, I can't think of much. Sure, it would be nice to see drive across the U.S. someday. It would be nice to be really, really well-versed in some subject area. It would be nice to set up my ex with money for college. It would be nice to act in a play or movie. But I think I could go without feeling that I left something undone.

Interesting.

But you can't end a day with 18 hours of daylight on a LOW. (You can, however, start it on a LOW, since you wake up at four frickin' forty-five every day). When we were coming in from the movie, Landlady stopped us and said, "Hey, i was thinking that if you guys didn't have anything else to do this weekend, you could go down to my house in Kenai while we're in Maine. There's nothing inside [she just bought it], but it's a block from the beach." Wow! I guess I need to learn how to drive stick before the weekend. But hey, when it's light till midnight, there's plenty of time after work to learn! Ha ha!

Omigod. I'm totally sun-crazed. I gotta go to bed.

AGH. Stress! From not having a car! Renting a car for the two weekends that Ringleted One is going to be here will cost $400! And the single weekend of renting a car with Double M is going to be $250 at least! And the folks want to come for 6 weeks and that will be through the roof! I could buy a 1990 Honda Civic for $2000 but I'm scared of buying a lemon and having to get insurance and having to sell it myself at the end of the summer! And I could rent a car -- without personal accident insurance -- until mid-August for $2200! But is that insanely expensive and not worth it?

Well, yes.

But I am getting so stressed out about not having a car when people visit that I'm considering it very, very seriously. Like, I made the reservation already. It's not just visitors, of course. It's wanting to get to the mountains on the weekend; take advantage of the long, long evenings to go for a drive; get around with ease to the grocery stores; go to the library without having to worry about the bus schedule.

I'm nearing my wit's end ('cause you know, it ain't that long). Any suggestions from the collective wisdom out there?

Today I got to go to an administrative hearing for a client who is in danger of losing her welfare benefits. She didn't speak English, so her son translated for her. They seemed so nice, and so genuine. Their caseworker sounded like a pissy, defensive, "look, I'm trying to help these people!" kind of bureaucrat. I know she probably does genuinely want to help people, but jobs like that are built to wear you down and make you suspicious of your cases. After a few years, I'm sure that everyone looks like a deadbeat. But that doesn't make it okay. I hope we win.

My supervisor told me about something the client wanted him to say that he thought was irrelevant to the hearing, and while he wanted to respect her wishes and autonomy, he just didn't know how to do it because he really didn't think the judge would want to hear it. And then he mentioned an article that I freakin' had to read for my presentation week for Famous Minority Professor's class! I could NOT believe it. Crazy.

The article was about a poverty lawyer who had a client who'd been cut off from her benefits. She and the client figured out a game plan, which included her coming in with her children's worn-out shoes to show that she had not spent money extravagantly. At the hearing, though, the client did not meekly bring out her children's old shoes to beg for the continuation of her welfare checks. When the welfare administration officials asked what she had been spending her money on, she cast off her apologetic demeanor and tone, and said: her children's shoes. They needed shoes for Sunday.

When we read this for class, I and others thought the article was silly -- not because it was about a client who took control, even for a moment, of her life, but because the author was so rhapsodic about how the client was reshaping the power dynamic of the hierarchical system and challenging the status quo. No one thinks like that, for crissakes. I certainly don't think that our client today wanted to undermine the powers that be by asking my supervisor to talk about a certain topic. I don't know what she wanted. Maybe she didn't understand the irrelevancy to the proceedings. Maybe she just wanted the caseworker to know that something really shitty happened to her, possibly because she got dropped off of welfare. Maybe she just wanted someone to know what she'd gone through. But there's no way she was all "Fight the power!" with the welfare system.

My supervisor managed to get in a question about the topic, but not much else. It's kind of impressive that he cared enough to do that -- and important. Cause there IS a huge power imbalance, and even the most careful lawyering won't erase that. But you can do your best. (That being all you CAN do. So continueth the lesson of the summer.)

I've got a client interview tomorrow that Supervisor wants me to lead -- okay, whatever. Other schools, like the one my fellow intern went to, actually taught interviewing skills in a pre-trial class she was required to take. I'm going to be lost. But I'll go in tomorrow morning and prepare my questions and ask 'em. Supervisor knows I know nothing. (Or if he doesn't yet, he'll find out tomorrow morning, when I have to brief him on what I've uncovered on the case before the Alaska Supreme Court. Answer: not much.)

After work, I went to the Alaska court system law library again to photocopy a journal article, which I read over a BBQ chicken pizza at Uncle Joe's Pizza on G St., because I knew that if I went home, I wouldn't have it read by the time I'm supposed to brief Supervisor. It was just like reading journal articles for class. Boring.

After that, I went to the bookstore in town and browsed their $1-a-book section. You know, I do have the best of intentions. I want to read quality literature. And yet I'm irresistably drawn to crap like V.C. "Flowers in the Attic" Andrews and Robin Cook medical thrillers and other slash-and-kill murder mysteries. So I indulged in the V.C. Andrews for a while, after which my mind felt scummy and unhealthy, and then bought "Cold Sassy Tree" and a book by Straight Dope guru Cecil Adams. How 'bout a holla for some semblance of untrashiness, eh? Nice mix of Asian girl-ghetto speak and Canadian, eh? Oh man. I need help.

Today I woke up to a call from Joiner, who is living it up in DC this summer, working for The Man. Ah, I remember working for The Man, fresh out of college and living in my very first apartment with One-Armed Maggie. She was very patient with me, and I tried to be patient with her. Oh, the salad days then, that are wilted and sad now!

I was stressed today because Roommate and I were trying to make our way to the mountains to the east in Chugach National Forest and the closest bus route was still five miles away from the trailhead we wanted to go to. We would have had to have taken a bus and then called a cab, so we decided to leave that for another day and stick closer to Anchorage. We settled on going to Far North Bicentennial Park, but the bus to that park only comes once an hour, and we missed it because I got up late, and I was on IM with Friend while we were looking at trail maps online, and my folks called and I had to talk to them and they were being annoying and I was feeling stressed and irritated because why would you schedule your visit when you know I have another visitor here for half the time you're planning to come here? (They wanted to come from July 2-9, when they know that Double M is going to be here over 4th of July weekend.) How exactly do you expect me to see you when I have another guest in town? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I was annoyed. But they are going to change their trip dates. To the day after Double M leaves. AAAGGGHHH.

Anyway, Roommate and I missed the bus, and so called a cab, and it cost $19 to get to the trailhead, which is about half of what a car would have cost to rent. Sigh.

On the trail, I saw a guy who looked like my supervisor from work, but I wasn't sure, so I shouted out his name and waved when he turned around, but he looked right through me. But I was pretty sure it was him, so I walked over and then he was very apologetic and kept saying he thought I was a tourist who wanted him to take a picture and so on and so forth and yes, well, I am a tourist, and I don't care. He introduced me to his 3 kids, who were collecting little black caterpillars, and said Viewpoint trail was a nice one, and that I shouldn't be scared of bears and moose since they didn't come out much during the day, and that the bugs weren't too bad if you kept on moving.

The trail was all right -- it was pretty flat, and through miles and miles of forest, and while I prefer mountain trails, it was a nice walk in the woods. Nice, that is, except for the bugs. Sweet holy jesus. I still feel itchy. The little bloodsuckers created a halo around each of us, like the cloud of dust around Pigpen from Charlie Brown comics.

We'd bought some of that Skin-So-Soft from the Avon lady at the Saturday Market yesterday, and she assured us that she'd never had a return on the product, but that has got to be CROCK, because we must have sprayed ourselves a dozen times over, and the mini-vampires got us over and over. Right after I sprayed my clothes, they would avoid the clothes for a while, but then they'd be back at it. I was sitting down at one point and four or five mosquitoes were trying their best to stick their proboscises into my jeans, hoping to tap into a blood source. I watched one as it tried to drill into the denim. It would try a couple times in one spot, hard enough to bend the slender proboscis (doesn't that word alone just give you chills?), give up, walk a few steps over, and try again. The thought of that narrow proboscis sinking in my flesh makes me feel ill. But watching the buggers try and fail on my jeans was kind of funny. And disgusting.

I was lucky in that I was wearing a hat, but the bugs were all over Roommate's hair. She got bitten on the face, on the neck, on her arms -- through her shirt, mind you -- and all over her hands. This may not seem that bad to you, but Roommate and I -- curiously -- share the same allergic reaction to mosquito bites. The area around the bite puffs up white a few minutes after we get bitten. Then it turns red and swells up to twice the original area. The swelling gets hot with fever, and is tender to the touch. The fever sticks around for a day or two. After a few days, it fades to something that looks like a bruise. The marks don't completely fade for months.

So when Roommate got bitten on her forehead, she looked like she'd been knocked on the head with a bottle. Similarly, my right hand is swollen unnaturally in a couple areas, as is the tip of my left index finger and my right elbow.

To sum up: Mosquitoes = minions of Satan. Us = meat. Avon = useless. DEET = buying it tomorrow.

It rained while we were on the trail, as it does every day. The buggers left us alone a little while while it was raining, but they came back full force after the thundershower ended. As the rain tapered off, though, we met a cowboy on the trail. Honest to daisy. He rode a chestnut stallion and he wore a cowboy hat. His stirrups were large gourd-like affairs, and he had a salt-and-pepper beard. He saw us coming along the trail and moved his horse over to the side. When we passed, he smiled and nodded and said, "Did you get wet from the rain? I did too. But there are worse things!" And then he disappeared.

Is Alaska where cowboys come to die? We thought he might have been a ghost, except that as we left the park, we saw him training his chestnut mount. I waved, and he waved back. Roommate took pictures. But I wouldn't be surprised if no one is in them.

The cab driver had driven us to the trailhead, which was at least a mile and probably more like two miles from the main road, where we'd arranged for a cab company to pick us up at 6:30. The road was very, very long. We were very, very tired. At the end, we stopped at the Alaska Botanical Gardens, where we gratefully sat down on a bench across from two teenage boys, one of whom disappeared for a long time and came back with a pipe and some weed, which they promptly lit up. They didn't offer us a hit (chuh!) but they did ask, "Want some bug dope?" after watching us ineffectually swat away mosquitoes for 10 minutes. Hah.

On the way back from the happy weed garden, a guy on a bike swooshed past me without a sound, and I was so startled, I let out a scream, which scared Roommate and caused biker guy to ride right into a moose that stepped out of the woods. The moose then became enraged and kicked the shit out of said guy and you realize I'm totally lying, right? There was no moose. Just a biker guy that made me scream, which scared Roommate, who said, "Damn, you are really on edge, hk." Well, maybe she didn't say "damn," because she is a nice girl. But I guess I was on edge.

On the main road, we watched empty bus after empty bus go by, until our cab showed up. At least, we though it was our cab, until our cab driver set us straight. I got to talking with the guy, because I wanted to know how we could obtain a car for the summer, and one thing led to another, and next thing you know he's telling us about growing up in South Central LA and getting mixed up in stupid things with stupid people, how getting drafted saved his life, about how he lost fortunes twice in Alaska and in Hawaii, how he came to Alaska after living in many places and thought, "yup, this is it," how he planned to go to Iraq to work as a contractor and make half a million dollars to live on for the rest of his life, how half a million dollars goes a long way in Thailand, where "a nice Thai lady with a kid is probably thinking right now how it would be great to be with an American," and how he's "always been attracted to Oriental ladies" and thinks them "beautiful." Then he turned around and smiled at us.

It was all so good before the Oriental ladies came into it. Damn Oriental ladies!

And in summary: cowboys = dreamy, teen boys = stoned, hk = on edge, and men who like "Oriental ladies" = ew.

The first day of relaxation! And it was good.

I woke up at 7 am, thought, "Hell, no!" and slept until 10 am, when a long-time-no-speak friend called. It was lovely. And then I ate breakfast (Korean instant ramen -- mmm) and fielded another phone call. And then I was waiting around for my laundry and Friend called. I thanked him for packing my suitcase so well. He said he picked up my dry cleaning this morning, which I'd left with him (I had no time to do it during exams and law review, okay?) and which apparently includes a gray wool skirt with asymmetrical hem that I don't own. He said he finally got on IM and that he was going to write his first message to me, but that I wasn't on IM anytime he checked. We talked about nothing much for a good long time (like, an hour), and ... I don' t know. I just don't know. But it's nice to get calls. Hee hee!

Roommate and I went out (she had a whole plan for the day and I tagged along), first to the high school that's three doors down because it had a Native Festival, which we somehow could not find. But the place was hopping, what with the ROTC car wash (complete with eagle mascot wandering around) and some kiddie performance thing that seemed to involve little girls dressing up in tutus. Or maybe that was just the photo shoot in the hallway? It was confusing.

After that, we went down to the lagoon but picked a marshy spot and got bitten by mosquitoes for our troubles, so we went to the other side of the lagoon and sat in the warm, warm sun and read and watched the ducks. There was an adolescent-looking duck that wandered onto the bank after three adult male mallards hopped up, looking for food. Its feet seemed too big for its head, and it waddled ungracefully, even for a duck. The three adults ignored the duckolescent, which quickly seemed to realize no food was forthcoming (a big sign told us not to feed the ducks), started trudging back toward the water, and gave up and fluttered up into the air for 3 feet before splashing down into the water. The three adult mallards studiously ignored it. But they headed back in shortly after.

Roommate had the Saturday Market downtown next on the list, but it started raining, so we stopped in at a very nice cafe she'd written down as a possible alternative to the market, and read the paper and Vanity Fair (me) and the New Yorker (her) that the cafe had. It was a personable little place, and I think I've found the first coffeeshop I like here.

The rain stopped after about an hour, so we went to the market and tried fireweed jelly and birch syrup and a reindeer hot dog, which was sooooo good. Mm. Mystery meat.

Then we went to see a documentary about Somali refugees in Lewiston, Maine (the mayor wrote a letter to the Somali community asking them to tell their family and friends back in Somalia not to come to Lewiston, because it was too much of a drain on the city).

Then we went home and ate dinner.

Then we went to the theatre nearby where you can eat and drink while you watch second-run movies, and watched "Hitch," which pays lip service about respecting women but had the most unappealing, selfish, self-centered heroine EVER. The best scene was AFter the whole story ended and you get to see Eva Mendes (stuck playing this awful character made even worse because no one seems to realize that she IS awful) and Will Smith and Amber Valletta and that fat dude from King of Queens dance some funky dance grooves from the full-on eighties.

As Roommate said after the movie, the theatre's going to be our TV for the summer. At $3 a pop, I foresee multiple visits during the week, when you come home at 6 pm and there are still 5.5 hours of daylight left. And even after the sun "sets," it's still as light as the few minutes before dawn, or the few minutes just after the sun sets. We walked home from the theatre at 1:10 am, and it was -- god, I can't come up with any synonyms for light and I'm sick of saying how light it is, but you get my drift.

Okay, must sleep now. Tomorrow, hiking in the mountains. Woo woo!

Today I went to the Alaska court system law library in town and did some legislative history research, which was kinda interesting. Piecing together a story is a good time. Reading microfiche, though, made me nauseated.

Today I also overheard a client's story of abuse and ill-doings. At the end she said, "Oh yeah, and I also got shot." Whaaa? "Yeah, my husband's girlfriend's ex-boyfriend [or possibly her husband's ex-girlfriend's boyfriend -- I can't recall] shot me in the arm and they never got it out, so now I have a permanent bullet in my arm."

Dang.

After work, my roommate and I went to a bar, where I had the Alaska salmon chowder and a sampler of Alaskan beers. It was pouring outside for about an hour, even though it looked perfectly sunny. Weird. And then all the clouds disappeared completely.

It's first Friday here, which means a lot of galleries and stuff were open late. We went to the Museum of Natural History, which had a jazz concert going on, and I examined some really cool pictures of northern Finland natives, called the Sami. The guy behind the desk gave us free passes (2 each) to come back AND one of the front desk copies of the bus schedule (I mean, it literally says "Front Desk Copy, Do Not Remove").

On our way to another gallery, someone yelled out of a window, "Konnichiwa! Ni hao ma!" and I thought, "Jesus! Every. Fucking. City." My roommate gave him the finger.

We had the best piece of Hawaiian pizza in the coldest pizza joint in town (why have the air on when it's 55 degrees outside? why why why?), and then we walked home. The sun was heading down over the lagoon in a dazzling display of purples and oranges. It was 10:30 pm.

We returned the DVD we watched last night (Mean Girls), and some 14-year-old riding by on a bike winked at us, according to my roommate. I didn't notice. It was 11 pm when we got to the house and let ourselves in. The sun was finally just starting to sink past the horizon. I noticed a mosquito on the wall and tried to kill it with the Anchorage Free Press, but it got away. I was looking for it, paper in hand, when I felt a burning on my wrist and heard a buzzing sound. I shook my hand, panicked, and sure enough, there were four -- four! -- fresh bites on my wrist, white and raised. I went to wash my wrist and my roommate found and smacked the mosquito, hitting her own finger on the wall in the process and dancing around in pain, which I interpreted as joy, from my view in the bathroom mirror. We mournfully acknowledged that we will both be in itchy hell this summer.

It's midnight and still dusky outside. This time last week I was helping Joiner clean up vomit-y water from a dorm sink and fighting the urge to hurl. It's been a long seven days. I gotta go to bed.

Today I was sitting in the library where the interns are housed, while one of the lawyers and the other intern did a client intake session. Without going into details, which I can't divulge (even to the point of identifying anyone as a client of our organization), it sounded like a caseworker had treated the client without even a shred of respect, even telling her that she was going to "teach her a lesson." The lawyer said, "Well, ma'am, we're going to teach her a lesson," and the woman put her head down and sobbed. "They have all the power," she cried, "and [the caseworker ] was like a hound you let loose and it goes after a chicken."

Welcome to being poor.

It was great that this organization can help people like this woman, but thanks to Famous Minority Professor, I feel all too aware that this organization does nothing to give the power to people like her. The lawyer told her that she didn't need to be afraid of the caseworker, that what she feared wasn't going to happen to her, but the next time she has a problem with some monolithic agency, will she have the tools to know what she can or cannot do? Will she have the knowledge necessary to determine whether she has to be scared anymore? Will she have the power?

I get bothered about equity issues. At the same time, I don't want to be the lawyer in this case. I don't want to go after this caseworker. What I want to do is write about how heartbreaking it was to sit there, pretending to work on my own case, while an old woman who forgot to put in her teeth that morning wept, hands over her mouth, because someone told her that she didn't have to be afraid.

I'm lucky in terms of jobs this summer, I can already see that. My predecessor, another Crimson law student who encouraged me to apply, was right to be so excited about this place. I'm going to get serious research and writing experience (the response that's due to the Alaska Supreme Court, for example) that might actually make a difference to poor people (Intellectual challenge/"brain" work -- check.) I'm sure I'll get client contact (I was supposed to meet with one today who ended up not showing, but I'm sure I'll do more. (The human element that was missing at law school -- check). I'm working with a really smart and personable supervisor who's not afraid to give me lots of room and work, but also isn't intimidating in the least. (Good supervision -- check.) The work has varying degrees of impact on real people, from very direct (getting a protective order for an abused woman) to somewhat less direct (impact litigation). (Meaningful work and morally palatable -- check.) All in an office where no one's around before 9 am and I'm encouraged to leave at 5 pm. (Reasonable hours - check.) So what's the problem? Well, I'm just not excited about being a lawyer.

Well. As Neener pointed out today on the phone, I will be helping people this summer, and that's never a waste. I am grateful to be here. And it's only the second day, so we'll see. But if by the end of the summer I don't want to go back to school, I'll know it wasn't for lack of a good workplace.

Must go to sleep now. I slept almost 7 straight hours last night before waking, perhaps because of an Ambien I took last night. But it's not really the falling asleep that's hard. I just wake up at 4:30 and at 7 am because it's so light.

It's 10 pm now and sunlight is blazing through my window, which I had to block off with the box from the room lamp we bought at Walmart yesterday. Yesterday? God, it feels a lot longer than that.

I walked to work today past a gorgeous lagoon with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop. Walking back home, I saw a darling family of 11 ducklings and mama duck swimming about. (Dang. Listen to me. Mama duck? What am I writing, a children's book?) The walk takes about 30 leisurely minutes, which is a little longer than my walk to work in DC used to be. it's about 35 degrees cooler than summers in DC were, though. Downright chilly, if you ask me. But I always did get cold easily.

Work's already hopping. No coddling here -- after an hour of introductions and general office stuff, I sat down for a debrief with my supervisor, read background material for a case he has before the Supreme Court of Alaska, went to court for a hearing on a different case, came back to the office and read a little more, got asked to meet with a client alone tomorrow, then chatted with one of the attorneys til about 5:30, when he said, "I'm leaving now and you should too."

I work with the statewide litigation guy, and am going to have to research something for a response due to the Alaska Supreme Court on Monday. Except we are going to file for an extension, because no one can research and write something that fast. Okay, that's not true. But it is true for someone who gets paid what I do. Which is technically nothing, from my employer.

Apparently, my predecessor was "a machine" who would get through everything and ask for more. I actually took work home with me today but haven't looked at it, which was definitely the right thing to do. One lawyer, dressed in a corduroy shirt and jeans (par for the course in the office), urged me to speak up if I was getting too much work -- "it's not supposed to stress you out!" he said. He also offered me the use of his car, which he rescinded once I revealed bigbro's complaint that his stick-shift car never worked the same after I learned how to drive stick on it. (Cripes, it was a '72 VW Bug -- if I'd breathed on it wrong it would have driven funny.)

Everyone is very, very nice, including my fellow intern, who grew up in Bethel. Bethel is 400 miles from Anchorage. It boasts about 6,000 residents. It is "off the road system." I thought that meant that maybe it was off the official paved highway system. NO. It is literally OFF the road system, as in, there's no other way to get there except by flying. Whoa.

I went to court today for a hearing, and decided I had no desire whatsoever to become a litigator. I further decided that my supervisor is very smart and a good writer (the judge complimented his brief), and I'll learn a lot this summer.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet with a client on a bankruptcy case and ask her some questions that my supervisor outlined for me (he's going to be at his son's graduation from kindergarten). He asked me if it was too much, if he needed to back off on the work, and I said no, not at all. I'm not that stressed about it, which surprises me a little. I'll just do what I'm told and do it the best I can. Looks like the confidence-crushing and resultant reality-checking/life-coaching that took place this school year has done its work.

After work, I came home and made myself a beans-over-rice dinner, and then my roommate and I went out to a coffee shop, where I wandered through the attached bookstore and looked for a while at David Mura's account of his journey to Japan as a sansei (U.S.-born grandchild of Japanese immigrants). It would be cool to do something similar with my own journey to the homeland, except that I didn't think Mura's book was all that interesting. Hm. It could be my fatigue, though. I woke up today at 4:45 am, after going to sleep at 12:30. The jet lag must stop! I think tonight's an Ambien night.

Having no TV is going to probably lead to a lot of writing this summer. Could be a good thing. My roommate says she's going to "find herself" this summer. I'd like to find myself, but my track record doesn't lend itself to much hope on that front. I am very, extraordinarily, amazingly, exponentially bad at finding myself. For example, I thought I'd find myself in Korea, and I ended up in law school. Dearie me. I suppose it's worth another try, though.

(Jet-laggity-lagged, so this entry is jumpity jump jump.)

Tired... yet, not sleepy. I've been up for a good 14 hours, running around to Walmart, the supermarket, Sears, etc. in my rented car (which I'll be very sad to part with tomorrow morning), with my roommate, but it's 10:40 pm and as bright as, say, 6:30 pm back in Crimson City, and it feels very weird to have to go to sleep now.

America West lost my roommate's luggage yesterday, and wasn't sure where it was or why it was where it was, or if she'd ever see it again, so we ran around buying just-in-case shoes and the like. Fortunately, just as we were at Sears and she was ready to buy an armload of clothes, America West called. The luggage arrived 10 minutes ago.

Anchorage looks like a lot of small cities with suburban outriggings, and the streets are wide and spacious, like any place with nothing but a surfeit of space. But for the soaring mountains in the distance, there was nothing particularly distinctive about today's outings -- probably because we stuck to huge chain markets. My roommate remarked that it was surprisingly diverse, and I think she's right. There were a lot of people we saw who could have been Native American, which is interesting in itself.

Different too was the moment, cresting over the swell in the road where my office is located, when the cold, icy sea came into view, with misty mountains in the far distance, and I thought, "Wow." Actually, I believe I said it out loud: "Wow. That is aMAzing."

My landlady is a pretty woman in her early 40s, I would guess, with curly ash blonde hair, a boyfriend down the block, a small white dog, and a young daughter. She just bought a house in Kenai, which she promptly offered for a weekend, if we liked. She seems quite nice, but not overly solicitous. She set up a wireless port for us down here in the basement.

Tomorrow I start work. They told me to come in around noon, as my supervisor would be busy until then. I wonder how it will be. Will I like working in law? I'm a little nervous about starting a new job, but not too much so. I just want to like it.

Oh, and I broke up with Friend, about three hours before I left Crimson City. But then we sort of fooled around for 45 minutes, and then he packed my suitcase for me, so I don't know what the HELL is up with me, him, or this damn situation. Well, at least I have no qualms about meeting my mountain-man-with-grizzly-for-a-pet this summer. You think I'm kidding.

Oh yes, and I spent 48 hours with my mother, my aunt and my uncle in Seattle this past weekend. Sigh. It was fine, much better than I thought. They were uncharacteristically late in picking me up because they had the wrong flight number and arrival time, so I chilled out with my luggage, happy to have the time to adjust and prepare. I saw them coming down the escalator and jumped in front of my mother, who, for a startled second, looked at me without recognition, and then grabbed me in a hug. She seemed okay this weekend, alternating between sulking silently and disdainfully and being involved and solicitous. Much less of the former than before. At one point, when my uncle wandered off into a store rather than walk with us down the pier in Port Townsend, she said hilariously, "He's not a team player." Which she verified as her current status too when I set up my camera for a group photo and she didn't look at it. I playfully accused her of not being a team player, and she agreed completely straight-faced, "That's right. Not yet."

Oh, my mother.

At the end of the two days, my aunt tried to give me money, and I refused about 50 times before my mother said, "Take it and give it back another way. That's the best way." My uncle asked me straight out, "Why don't you want to take the money?" and I couldn't say the words: "Because I'm making more than enough money from this summer to take care of myself, and you're working away at age 64 to take care of yourself, your wife, and yet another member of your wife's family who doesn't appreciate what you do, and that isn't fair, damn it, it's not fair and I'll be damned if I take from you when I should be giving YOU money to take care of MY ungrateful, silent, resentful mother." But I didn't say it. There are some things that aren't worth the damage. Not when things are healing over. I took half the money, which will go into a card for Father's Day that'll get mailed right back to Seattle.

Okay, time to shut it, and go to bed.