And now for some deep thoughts

It's over.

I feel so empty when anything as big and as time-consuming as this is over. What will give meaning to my life now?

It's really over. Like, law school, and the whole thing.

(Uh, if you passed, hk.)

It's entirely possible that I did not pass either bar.

I woke up today with the stomach ache from hell. It turns out that eating crap for three days, living in a constant state of extreme stress over six weeks, and not sleeping more than 5 hours a night for four days is bad for you! And does bad shit to your body! Who knew?

The human hand is not meant to write continuously for three hours at a time. And then for another three hours after that. And then a day later, for another six hours. Hi, Carpel! Have you met Tunnel? Oh, Syndrome, nice to see you too!

I have never made up so much shit so openly on any test, EVER. On one question, I literally made up rules of law for each issue.

Huh. Don't know how to serve process on an individual who lives in another country. Thus, don't know if she served properly. Don't even fucking know if that's the issue. Well, let's just make up some shit -- here: "Under Crimson State law, an individual living overseas must be served personally. Therefore, the plaintiff did not serve properly and the complaint should be dismissed." NEXT!

I did this with all the issues on that essay, and at least once in every other essay as well. It was sad. It was also kind of funny. Whatever.

The bar exam is useless and does not test whether you will be a good attorney. Just another fucking hoop to jump through.

Why do I feel so empty, when this whole process was so excruciating and only served to drive home more deeply the point that I? Hate. The. Law.

Learning all this actual law is a good thing for a new lawyer to do. If only they did that in law school. What a concept, eh, Crimson?

My god. I'm done. It feels so unreal. Surreal. Definitely not sinking in yet. I feel like I'm going to wake up at 6:15 again tomorrow and sit up in a panic thinking, "I have an hour to get on a bus/car and get to the exam site!"

Damn. Everyone who wrote emails, texted me, or left me messages -- you are wonderful and I am so grateful for your support and encouragement. I love you and want to make love to you all, Roberto Begnini-style!

I'm done.

What's next?

Branded and stranded

Okay, so not really. But they did physically put on our wrists these neon green tags, like you get in the hospital, with the "NYS BAR EXAM VALID 2 DAYS - DO NOT REMOVE" on them, and for 2 days, it was the hottest accessory in Albany. It did feel a little like being marked.

The stranded part -- also not really. But it felt like it when I got back to the fabulous Days Inn at SUNY Albany and the desk clerk called for a cab and they said 20 minutes and my flight was in an hour and a half and I wasn't sure if I could get my broken suitcase into checked luggage anyway. I even considered asking some perfect strangers who were loading up a car and clearly headed to the airport if they'd take me. But I didn't, and a cab did show up, and at the airport a nice United Airlines employee smiled and was really pleasant and taped up my suitcase and my faith in humanity and the world was restored after two days of bar-ing. It was slightly amazed when I got to the plane and was requested to move to the back to fix a weight distribution problem (it was a pretty small plane, but still), but it got restored again when I got to Dulles (a very round-about flight back to Crimson City due to my making reservations at the last minute) and boarded the flight and found that I was in fucking first class, dude, seated next to a very handsome stranger (who looked at me as if I were an alien and then closed his eyes and fell asleep, but he was still pretty to look at). That was the most relaxing hour I'd had in weeks. I reclined in my plush, spacious seat. I watched Friday Night Lights (yep, as good as you've heard it was). I really didn't want to land.

People in Albany were pretty dang nice. I forget that the hard shell we all adopt in the big cities is just a shell, and most Americans are at heart friendly, well-meaning folk. Take the server at the salad bar I went to for lunch yesterday. He smiled and asked how the test was going, and said, "It's almost over! You can do it!" while assembling my salad. Or take the cabbie on the way back from the airport last night here in Crimson City. I was exhausted and highly stressed and was very short in my replies to his well-meaning attempts to chat, and seeing that I was exhausted and highly stressed, he (1) shut up, and (2) when dropping me off, took my ragged, ruined suitcase (it had a hard trip, and was bleeding Barbri books when I got it off the carousel) up the stairs right to the front door.

Looking for a table to sit at, I noticed a periodical printed on pink paper, and wanting something to read and think about besides law, I sat at that table. I realized in short order that it was a horseracing sheet after I sat down, and a few minutes later a fat, ruddy gent with white hair said genially, "You don't want to read that, do you?" I shrugged and said, "Well, I'll read it. Something to do during lunch."

A few minutes later, it came out that it was his paper that I had unintentionally appropriated, and after I apologized, it came out that he had a couple horses in the race that day, the opening day at Saratoga Springs. After a few more minutes, it came out that he actually owned the restaurant, and that the whole family was helping to run it, including his grandson at the salad bar and another grandson, no more than 10 years old from the looks of him, running between kitchen and bar for various types of greens, and his son behind the register, where he'd been running the restaurant ever since he got laid off from his flight attendant job after 9/11. And a few more minutes after that, it came out that his family was from Tuscany originally, and had always been in food and in construction, and that he worked in construction, but always had an interest in food too, and still insisted on eating only fish on Christmas Eve because that's the way he was brought up, and since he himself went down to Brooklyn every year and bought 60 pounds of fish for Christmas Eve and cooked it all up, no one complained too much. I asked him the names of his horses and his favorite construction machines, and he grinned when I said it looked like fun, working those big cranes, and said it was fun, a lot of fun.

It was a lovely interaction to have, and reminded me that the thing I find the most interesting in the world is people's stories.

Deluged

Did you know that 12,000 freshly graduated law students descended upon Albany for the bar yesterday? That's a LOT of Elle Woodses for a little upstate town to handle. I think hell must be like this. The only thing worse would be if it were 12,000 freshly graduated business school tools. Can you imagine? The streets would be slick with smarm.

(Apologies to business school types. But you have to admit, there's a lot of smarming that goes on in B school. Law students try to smarm, but they fail.)

(Smarm smarm smarm. SMARM! What a grand word. It's like a fresh little green alien amongst the dreck of ordinary quotidien language.)

(It's possible that I'm delirious with lack of sleep and too much law. I think I might go to bed now.)

(But wait! Shouldn't I review my notes one last time? And then not get enough sleep again?)

(Here's something to lose sleep over -- with 12,000 law students trying to get the heck out of Albany tomorrow night, will I be able to get a cab? And considering that the suitcase I borrowed from Mathgirl decided to give up the ghost when I got here, and is now going to be tied together with twine from the Quik-E Mart across the street, it is worth it to try to take it with me to the test center tomorrow, in its twiney glory, so I can try to go directly to the airport from the test?)

(These questions, along with torty tort torts, grim crim, non-evident evidence, conniving con law, perfectly potty property, and give-me-contractions-anyday-over-contracts-questions [sorry, I ran out of steam there], are not ones I can answer.)

One Third

How did it go? It went. I wrote things. I filled in bubbles. I at least cursorily answered every question. I was extremely tired at midday so I drank much caffeine and now I'm very jittery. I scribbled until the very very end and my hand, arm, and shoulder ache like crazy. "No statistical difference between those who take the test on laptop and those who take it by hand" -- no statistical difference, my ass. But it's 1/3 over.

Now I'm just worried I won't make my 7:10 flight tomorrow. There's, like, no frickin' way to get out of Albany tomorrow night except on this plane. Or renting a car, I suppose.

God, I'm so out of it. I don't even know what to do with myself for the next four hours or so. Do I wander? Watch TV? Study (ha hahahahahaha)?

Final stretch

It's a cool, rainy day in Crimson City, chickadees, and I leave in half an hour to Albany, to take THE BAR. Dum dum DUM!

I've been reviewing my flashcards and outlines for the top ten tested topics, and trying to keep the panic at bay. If I haven't learned it by now, I probably won't learn it between now and 8 am tomorrow -- unless there's something really important about torts, contracts, wills, professional responsibility, domestic relations, corporations blah blah blah that I have already forgotten that I would be reminded of IF ONLY I REVIEWED IT TONIGHT IN MORE DETAIL!!! ARGH! WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT? THE PERCENTAGE OF SHAREHOLDER VOTES NEEDED TO CHANGE A MAJORITY QUORUM TO SUPERMAJORITY IN A CORPORATION FORMED AFTER FEB. 22, 1998? HOW TO REVOKE A TOTTEN TRUST? THE 3 DEFENSES TO ADULTERY IN A DIVORCE OR SEPARATION SUIT? THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON INDEMNIFICATION? I JUST DON'T KNOOOOOOOOWWWW!!!

Of course, you know there will be something I forget tomorrow, so that I will be kicking myself for not remembering or at least reviewing in more detail tonight, but this whole memorization thing -- and let's not forget that I haven't had to memorize anything since the capitals of the 50 states in FOURTH GRADE, because why would you have to memorize anything in this age of quick and easy access to information? -- it's like piling up an enormous stack of magazines with glossy covers. You've got your Torts Illustrated, your Crim In the Maxim your Wills 'N Trusts, your Corps Illustrated, your Ellevidence, and your Practica en Nueva York (New York Practice, Spanish edition), and you're trying and trying to stack them up neatly in your mind's coffee table, but no sooner do you get Torts Illustrated on top than the Cosmopartnership starts sliding out from the bottom, and you've got to pull that one out and put it on top, which starts the Wills Weekly slipping out of its spot, and you've got to pull that one out and ... you see what I mean. My brain isn't capable of keeping all the info in line and accessible at once. It's bound to lose some -- many things along the way. (Curse those drug-filled nights of my youth, damaging my brain and memorization capacity!)

So, I skim my cards, I look over my outlines, and I pray. I don't know if I'll have wireless in my hotel -- (a ghetto fabulous) (maybe) Days Inn in the armpit of Albany -- so I may have to wait to whine online til after I get back on Wednesday night. In the meanwhile, thanks for the good wishes.

Vomitous

I don't know what it is, but after doing 10 practice essays today (twice as many as I'll be doing for real on Tuesday), I physically feel ill. Looking at the answers and writing down notes literally and actually and really makes me feel like puking. I can't tell if it's a psychosomatic response, my eyes wearing out, or the two Boca burgers I had today, but ... I think I need to stop for now. I have hit the wall.

Everywhere a bar bar

You know you've been studying a lot of torts when you are sitting outside having a smoke, see a guy drive by in a crane-construction-thingee, and think, "Huh. If that guy were 18 or under, he'd still be held liable to the default standard of negligence -- that being the hypothetical reasonable and ordinary prudent person in like circumstances -- instead of the usual relative standard for kids of his age, education, experience and intelligence, since he's engaging in an adult activity, namely, operating machinery." (Except I totally had to look up the age right now. I'm so dead.)

Just 3 days before the New York bar exam. 4 days before the multi-state bar exam. Five days before the MA and NJ bar exams. I'm going to go vomit now.

Bar barbarbar BAR! AR! The very wrong, evil kind of bar. You know I gotta seek out the very right, liquid-providing kind of bar after next Thursday.

Dark hour
(I would say darkest hour, but there are too many days left before the bar to be so hopeful.)

life is suffering.
bar exam is suffering.
i am suffering.

my brain is a sieve.
can't remember anything.
least of all law stuff.

(not totally true.
i remember lots of things:
posh and beck's kids' names...

every hogwart's spell...
how to spell hermione...
the rules of quidditch...

lindsay lohan's age...
how many days that paris
hilton spent in jail...

all the USEFUL things
a person has got to know.)
(law: not so useful?)

stomach is churning.
panic setting in -- no. HERE!
I want to throw up.

resigned to failure.
you think i am kidding, but
sadly, i am not.

excuse me for now.
i have to go lie in bed
sleepless and staring.

Commercial

I love me a good ad campaign. It's a little strange, considering that I am kind of a pinko-commie when it comes to consumerism (I rarely buy things that aren't food or airplane tickets -- not really out of lack of desire, but out of a combination of lack of funds, indecision, and laziness). But I LOVE good ads. Those "Priceless" Mastercard ads? 30-second works of art. The Gap consistently delivers catchy, hip-looking commercials that do more than sell you the clothes -- they capture the zeitgeist. The Robert DeNiro AmEx ad? Kinda makes me tear up. I even appreciate the Empire carpet ads (I think they're a New England chain) -- they're annoying as hell but damn if I don't remember the jingle and the number: "Eight hundred five eight eight, two three hundred, Empiiiiire! Call, today!" Good ads are more than just pleas for your dollars, they're entertainment and statements about society.

Which is why you should check out this site: cleanishappy.com. Now you know what you were missing in your life.

Practice

I've thought before that law school was probably good prep for law firm life -- you get assigned all this crap to absorb with very little guidance, you have authority figures who feel free to yell at you in ways unacceptable in most walks of civilized life, you are booked for every solid minute of your life and you disclaim your unavailability to non-law school friends through the "I'm in law school, it's busy" line.

Now I'm thinking that preparing for the bar is also a good preparation for the first few years at a law firm. You get up early, put out some work only to find out later, when you check with an authority (model answer, mid-level associate), that you knew even less than you thought (which wasn't very much to begin with). Your work consists of going through mind-numbing material for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. Your desk is your dining table. If by chance your friend convinces you to take a dinner break, you keep looking at the clock, because every minute you sit there chatting is a minute longer you have to stay up working. There's an inexorable deadline and time will have to expand for you to complete all the work you have to do in order to meet that deadline.

Above all, you are motivated by fear.

You have this nagging feeling that it doesn't have to be this way -- for anyone, really, because the inhumane system hurts everyone, and for yourself, because you didn't have to go to a law firm, you didn't have to go to law school -- but in a way, it feels as inescapable and hopeless as the tickity-tock passage of minutes, each one bringing you closer to death.

Of epic proportions

Bar exam! Two weeks!
I hang my head in defeat.
I know I shall fail.

Ask the magic die:
"Will I fail the bar exam?"
"It's 50/50."

(Stupid. Defective.
Never more will I believe,
Six-sided prophet.)

Practice test was bad.
Twenty-fourth percentile. Ack.
I know I shall fail.

I study, study.
And yet my scores don't go up!
What is up with that?

Barbri, if I fail,
Will you give me a refund?
I think you owe me.

No, I didn't foll --
Alas! The fine print says no!
Justice, where art thou?

I mean, really, who
could possibly follow your
"Paced Program"? Get real.

Sigh. And sigh again.
One can't escape destiny.
May as well go sleep.

Glum

I love that word. Glum, I mean. It's so expressive, and sadly underused.

I'm not particularly glum today. Not any more than you'd expect to be if you were tied up for 12 hours a day with studying for an exam in a field you find boring and which will prepare for a career in said field. The lecturers sometimes try to make the hypotheticals amusing by using pop culture references, which sometimes works to perk me up for a few seconds. A torts question is made slightly more enjoyable when the plaintiff is Britney and the joint tortfeasors Paris and Lindsey. Same for a spousal privilege example where Britney is called upon to testify about a drug deal she witnessed between Kevin and X while she and Kev were married. (Answer: Kevin couldn't keep her from testifying, since they're no longer married and it wasn't a confidential communication between them during their marriage.) It's also fun to make up mnemonics (what are the 6 exceptions to the search warrant requirement? SPInACH!).

I should be reviewing crim right now, so I can do the stupid practice essay to turn in, but after three hours of conflict of laws with Joe Tom Easley, my brain is on strike.

I'm pretty settled in my mind that the next communication Scientist and I will have is going to be our breakup conversation. We haven't had any contact since last Sunday, when he said he was unhappy with how the relationship wasn't progressing, didn't feel like he wanted to do the things needed for the relationship to progress, but didn't think we should give up yet.

Everyone says that they learn something from each relationship. So here is what I learned from dating Scientist for 3 months:

1. Communication is important, but repetitive messages are pointless when they don't lead to action. Scientist looooooves communicating, but when he says, "I'm reluctant to move forward. I just thought you should know," without any action on his part to remedy the problem, I just end up feeling like crap. Stop unloading on me unless you're willing to do something about it.

2. Hot sex is awesome!

3. Being with someone who is incredibly well-read, intellectually curious, and interested in just about everything is hot!

4. Sadly, brainy + hot sex, while somewhat necessary, are not sufficient for a good relationship.

The next few things are more along the lines of things I learned about myself.

5. I do a lot better with someone who is decisive, knows what they want, and is used to taking charge. Perhaps I should not be. Perhaps I should know my own mind better. Perhaps I should be more decisive. Perhaps I should take charge more and stop being so lazy/accommodating. In fact, I should be all those things. But I'm not. I'm working on it. But it's not my natural state of being, and I'd rather be the indecisive, accommodating, lazy follower in the relationship, if there is one.

6. I don't have overweening passions. I didn't lie on my match profile when I said I liked hiking and reading and traveling and writing and making snarky comments about TV shows. I do like those things. But except writing, I don't make a particular effort to do any of those things. I just do what's convenient. I am not able to say, "OMG, I would die if I couldn't do ___." Well, except writing. Okay, so maybe writing is my passion. Fine! I'm totally wrong here. The other things are just second tier passions. The Colby Colleges of my passion hierarchy. Or something.

I'm all fuddled now. Time to go back to crim.

Onset

3 weeks until the bar, and I'm already behind and it's really not going to be pretty. Ack! Panic! No time! Gonna fail! Can't possibly memorize it all! Scared witless! Why wasn't I diligent and why wasn't I studying for 9-12 hours a day every day since I turned in my 3L paper? Even what I've studied I'm barely passing! Crap, crap, crap! I'm screwed! Ruined, I tell you, ruined!

The Other Shoe, She Has Dropped

After four weeks or so of low-key, twice-a-week hookups, Scientist was the first one to break. Last night he said: “I’ve been thinking about us.”

AAAGGGHHHHH!!! A phrase to strike terror in the hearts of hks.

I will spare you the specifics and attempt to summarize. The man has not been happy the past few weeks because he feels that the relationship is not moving forward. Theoretically, he wants to be in a relationship where he wants to engage fully, spend several nights a week together, integrate two lives a little bit (not fully, mind you, as he made a point of saying, since he doesn’t have the time or energy right now to do that). But he can’t get over an internal activation barrier (oh yes, he did use that phrase – he may not be sweet or smart, but he is a scientist) enough to do that in THIS relationship. He doesn’t want to move forward, and he doesn’t know why, but he’s unhappy that it’s not moving forward. Oh, but he also doesn't think we should give up on it yet.

To which I say: “…the fuck?”

Several weeks ago, when Scientist said (for the second time) that he wanted to take sex out of the equation, I told him that that wasn’t acceptable, that I wanted everything – spending more time together, meeting each other’s friends, doing stuff outside the bedroom. And at that point, he shied like a spooked horse and said he needed his space and that he felt pressured – blah blah blabbitty blah. So on some level, I figured that the past few weeks were good for both of us – I didn’t have time or energy to spend on a real relationship, and he wasn’t getting any pressure from me to commit more fully.

But … no.

I’m having a curiously bifurcated response to this. On the one hand, I know – I know – that this doesn’t have the potential for a longterm relationship, even if I do end up staying in Crimson City. I looked at Scientist last night as he told me these things, and I couldn’t muster any compassion for him. After he unloaded these concerns, he seemed much more lighthearted and relieved, and we started talking about other things, including problems he’s having at work, and though I said all the right things and (I think) made him feel better, or at least heard, it was like a reflex – all those hours doing mediation, you know. For the first time too, sex (yes, because this is the pattern: relationship talk, me feeling totally crappy, wordless staring, weirdly normal conversation, followed by sex) felt utterly empty, and I just wanted it to be over.

On the other hand, I’m three weeks away from the bar, and I can’t afford to waste a day here or there nursing stung feelings. And it’s so easy to just go along the way we have been, which is to just kind of ignore the talk and continue on. The stuff with Scientist has been a third or fourth tier concern for the last 2 months, what with graduation, the bar, and finding funding. Perhaps I should just ignore everything until after the bar? Then I’ll be gone for two months in god knows where, and it’ll be a natural break point anyway.

I veer between depression and cranky, agitated urges to just end it already.

To top it all off, I studied with Friend a lot last week, some nights into the 11 pm zone, and while at first I was glad to have a study partner, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable (again) with us spending time together.

Sigh. I should flee to New York and camp out in Joiner’s apartment.

For my amusement during the wills lecture today, I came up with these short missives to various interested parties…

Dear Women of Crimson City:
I managed to keep him off the dating scene for 3 months. You’re welcome.
- Love, hk

Dear Women of Crimson City:
I’m done. Good luck!
- Gleefully fleeing, hk

Dear Scientist:
I’m done. Fuck you!
- Utterly demoralized because of you, hk

Dear Karma:
Thanks for the lesson. I’d say “up yours!” but I’m afraid of more “lessons.”
- Respectfully, hk

Dear Barbri:
I know you told me to get out of troubled relationships before July so I can focus on the bar, but maybe July 2 isn’t too late?
- Dying on the inside from your wills lecturer’s abrasive voice, hk

Dear hk:
Just ignore everything and concentrate on studying for the bar. Fuck everyone else! Don’t return phone calls, emails, or acknowledge the outside world in any way. Get your head on straight and memorize the 15 bazillion ways to impeach a witness NOW.
- Love, the Scary Mommy part of you

Dear hk: Girl, please. Some self-respect. Dump the motherfucker already.
- Love, the you that you wish you were