Day 843: Un-golden silence

So I really need to stop saying things sometimes, things that I know are mean or that I just shouldn't repeat.

Today, however, has been a good day. I was productive for, oh, one tenth of my morning. I got my post-conviction hearing argument written for prosecution. I read the problem and about fell off my seat laughing. See, all the problems are hypotheticals, and the case names are fake, but then actual cases are cited. Why did I fall off my seat laughing? Because the name of the defendant in the case I'm taking on...is my name. Same last name. Spelled the same and everything. And this week, to shake things up...I'm on the defense. I am half tempted to crack a joke about recusing myself because I shouldn't represent a family member if it clouds my judgement, but...

I read the cases and the facts and came to a decision: I'm really only going to tackle one angle of argument. I really only have one good argument going for me, and I'm not going to waste time on ones I know I'm going to lose. I also suspect that it might throw opposing counsel off, since she's probably expecting me to grasp every straw I can reach.

If there's anything I learned from trial team with Melilli (and more and more I'm seeing just how much I learned from him) it's that a conservative, lean approach is best and often throws opposing counsel of their game.

I'm going to try it.

After all, last week I faked my way through a closing. Only I didn't. As I drafted my openings and closings, I remembered working on the openings and closings for trial team, remembered how we hashed and rehashed, what philosophies and strategies Melilli suggested, and I made them work for me. And then twenty-odd practice trials plus four competition trials gave me nerves I didn't think I have. I don't quite have nerves of steel, but I can project composure even though I don't really have it, and I can keep a straight face even when I hear something immensely stupid.

Amber pointed this out to me (I went to hang out with her tonight). Yes, my classmates probably worked on their specific closings longer than I did, but I worked a lot longer and harder on giving closings in general. And apparently, it paid off. Amber said I'm learning to think like a lawyer. It's kinda scary. And also kinda fun.

Today is my mom's birthday. Now that she's already opened her present, I can mention it.

Anyone who hasn't figured it out by now - well, I'm a writer. I love to write. Even though I have written my fair share of novels (I count five finished ones at this point), I write far more short stories. I think better in short story form even though novels consume my mind most of the time. I'm a little sad that one of the best short stories I ever wrote - ninth grade, got a blue ribbon for it - has been lost to the annals of, er, my bedroom back home. And I didn't write any more decent short stories until my senior year of high school.

But write them I did.

So for my mother's birthday I collected some of the short stories I've written from ninth grade up through my second summer in law school, picked through for typos, formatted them, wrote an introduction and made a cover page, got the whole thing bound at Kinko's, and sent them to my mom. Along with a CD of songs, because, well...I write a lot of songfics and it's faintly embarrassing. When I gave my mom my second novel in ninth grade, she sort of overanalyzed it, which made me a bit hesitant to give her writing ever again. This time around I tried to answer some of her questions about any of my stories in the introduction, Neil style.

She cried into the phone.

I didn't realize my stories meant that much to her. Let's see how she likes them. I included some she's read before, and some she's never even probably dreamed up. I was faintly alarmed at how many of them dealt with death or relationships that ended somewhere in the antithesis of happily ever after. I think one might have ended happily. Some of them include weird literary devices, like flash-forwards, and some of them reference obscure mythology. Who knows what she'll think. I left out a couple of stories I knew she'd pretty much flat-out dislike. But it was a fun project to do.

I showed Kim the "Did You Hear About Our John?" video, and we both giggled like madcaps. I found out that my friend Katie is still playing The Game (made some of you lose it just by reading this, didn't I?). I hung out with Amber - we watched House and she gave me dinner. We talked about boys and life. Then I called mom again, because I didn't want her to feel lonely alone on her birthday, but she was out serving the neighbors and rocking it as a human being.

Also, I talked to Bishop Dallon yesterday. Oddly enough, it was one of Melilli's random 'visit Nagi' moments that spurred me to do it, as he told me a joke (not a mean one) about Bishop Dallon, which reminded me that I needed to speak to Bishop Dallon. So I went to talk to him. He went into Bishop mode as soon as he realized I didn't have a pressing torts question, asked about my family and all. And then he got a little tentative and prefaced a question with, "I don't mean to be too personal," which of course means it's going to be personal.

And he asked me if I was still dating Seth. I explained that since we weren't dating, we couldn't still be dating. And we'd gone out on one and one half dates. The last of which was the first weekend of October. And the last date I went on was with Dental Dave.

It was an exercise in awkwardness. Apparently Seth was "very enthusiastic" about me when he last spoke to the Bishop.

Huh.

But I have been a useless human being the last few days. Apart from getting small chores done, I really haven't been all that useful, and I feel awful for it.

Last night I missed the FHE activity because Kile was letting me steal stuff off of his external hard drive. He also joined Ladies Night in the World of Darkness, so it's no longer ladies' night. It should be a good experience though, since he has more experience as a player, and hopefully being in the company of a bunch of truly lovely ladies will help some of his social awkwardness. I also got some serious inspiration for game awesomeness, since I basically had to bluff my way through last night's game.

I've had a lot of crazy fun the past few days.

I really, really need to work.

Jordan called me tonight. Of course, he only calls when he needs something, but he rarely needs something so I don't mind. He is also very sweet, so after we got done talking business we talked life, and after he hung up I felt a little SHGP.

Just a little. Not enough to break me down into a Jane Austen heroine or anything lame like that.

I know so many sweet guys, and none of them seem to be dating anyone.

...It's been almost a year since I kissed a guy, and it's making me a little crazy.