Well I'd a-danced like the Queen of the Eyesores

Every little girl wants a pony or puppy or kitten or some other sort of pet. She'll beg and beg and cry and throw fits and the parents sit back and after a while, they are worn down and think the persistence must mean that she takes the responsibility seriously.

They grant her wish. And suddenly, pony doesn't get fed, puppy doesn't get walked, and kitten gets no attention at all.

I get it. I'm always that little girl. Just I'm 23 and looking for a Nice Guy and then one shows up in my living room. And now I have no idea to take care of it. Maybe it's more like the little girl who begs for a pony and gets an iguana. An iguana? Well, shit, I don't know anything about iguanas. I can't brush its hair. And it's totally not fuzzy.

Initial thoughts: ACK!!! Take it back to the store!!!

Then thought: Maybe an iguana is what you need. Everything else just shits on your carpet and aggrevates your allergies.

[It seems unfair to make a Nice Guy an iguana in this extended metaphor. Because I think in animal form, they would totally be fuzzy]

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I'll call him Nubile Crush. He's a young one. Yeah, I'm not going to get arrested, but I didn't miss the cut off by too much. How young is too young?

I don't understand guys who want to look at me too long. I don't understand ones that want to help me take the trash down or clean up my kitchen. I am very big on personal space and I don't understand guys that want to spend the night with me in my tiny bed. I certainly don't understand snuggling all the time. Even post-coital, I like a good ten minutes tops. Then I want to roll over and grab my teddy bear and call it a night. Boys legs are heavy and I don't like feeling trapped by them. And yes, I don't know if I'm referring to being trapped by their legs or them in general. I just know claustrophobia is a familiar sensation.

I am an old woman set in her ways. An iguana freaks me out. But at least they don't get fleas.

Far below a furry moon
Our purposes crossed
The weird divide
Between our kinds
--The Shins

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Finally, someone other than a dirty, left-wing, crazy hippie feels like I do. Problem is, she already retired. Thanks a lot, Sandy. I guess it's easier to call BULLSHIT on the administration once you've left politics. You let the possible dictator put in your replacement in a branch of the government that has the power to fight against it. Or something. That whole checks and balances thing somewhat escapes me while looking at how the world seems to heading.

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I participated in our firm's Trial Advocacy program. Basically, it's an excercise for the first year attorneys to practice interviewing and cross-examining witnesses. They call upon us paralegals to play the witnesses of an actual case that the lawyers then "try." I studied my testimony very closely. The problem was, my witness saw an accident, but no more than "he went over here and then over there" was illuminated. My hiring attorney chose me to do the first demonstration and the first thing the nervous, young attorney did was tell me to go up to the map.

Utter horror.

Now we can have as much fun with non-essentials of our person, as long as we don't change the facts of the case. Where an accident, a fight, where people are standing are important facts to keep straight. I can't make this stuff up. And yet, I have no idea where I'm supposed to be pointing. In the end, it doesn't matter because a lawyer might come across a witness who doesn't remember shit, but it is a little awkward to not be able to point out your own house.

The guy had picked me because I'm an actress. If I had known the schematics better in regard to my testimony, it would have been a beautiful piece of performance art. Instead, I mumble and gesture vaguely and am just about the WORST witness imaginable. I had a feeling that the guy was sitting there, thinking, "THIS is our actress? No wonder she has to work at law firm."

The big group then breaks up into small groups and the whole thing gets repeated again. One of the first-years that I actually know (besides him, the only other attorneys I know are the hiring attorney and my boss) and he was thankfully in my small group, and before the faculty could bust him, explained the map for me.

Then I was ready to go. I had decided my "character" was a talker. She has a hard time staying focused and loved to talk about her cat. My original idea was to keep talking until the lawyer was forced to cut me off to keep me on track. Sadly, after the first lawyer interviewed me in my small group, I realized that these lawyers weren't good enough at this stuff to know when to stop me. But I did it a little bit. On cross, the lawyer was trying to get me to admit the part in my curtains was too small for me to really be able to see anything. I had told him the curtains were parted because my cat likes to jump up there (which was the actual testimony from that witness, and was my inspiration to make her obsessed with her cat).

"So the curtains could only have been parted about this much to let a cat sit on there?"

"Oh no, sir. Much more. My Izzy is really fat. Like monstrously fat. I know, I know, it's not good for them. But she's so cute and when she begs for food, I just can't say no to her."

Also fortunately, my hiring attorney was in my small group as well. He laughed at this. Hopefully, I redeemed a little of whatever was lost in the big group about my ability to create a character.

I also enjoyed talking about how those curtains were from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

And that I had a bad hip.

And that I liked to watch Law and Order, though it makes me feel a little nervous to actually be living in one.

I gained a whole new respect for Abby, seeing as she was never a big fan of performing because I realized how much of being a good trial lawyer is dependant on being a good actor. You have to sell whatever side of the story to the jury. And these newbies were pretty bad and the faculty was very good about giving critiques that were very nice and helpful. I literally had to bite my tongue to ask if I could give acting notes. I think what every lawyer needs is a monologue class. A teacher that will help them with all the little mannerisms, while adorable in a person, are distracting as an audience/jury. Things like awkward hand gestures, shifty feet, and the desire to say "um" or "uh" when getting stuck on something. Also, POSTURE. I swear, I know lawyers had to study for a thousand years either while in law school or for the bar or whatever, but Dear Lord, take a yoga class or something. I can't imagine anything more disturbing for a jury to have, especially say a defense attorney, approach them like they're Quasimodo or something.

And an improv class. The funniest thing I found during the whole experience was this one poor newbie. What she needed me to say after we established where I lived and where the window is, etc. was that I heard a noise that made me turn my focus away from the TV.

How she put it:
"What did you hear to turn your attention from the TV?"

OK, I'm not a lawyer, but I think I know what happened here. It's a leading question. If I haven't said it, you can't assume I heard ANYTHING on the night of whenever. She needed to ask if I only watched TV the whole night or did I ever have occasion to turn my focus away from my show, or something like that. That way, we're not basing the course of my testimony on things that haven't been established yet (Abby, if I got any of that wrong, feel free to correct me, but I think I did pretty well for a non-lawyer). So of course, the opposing counsel objected and it was correctly sustained.

But poor newbie had written that as her question. And I guess had decided that THAT question was written in stone, like it was one of the Ten Commandments. Asking me what I heard was gospel to her, and you don't fuck with the word of God. We spent at least the next five minutes with her changing maybe the order of the words, asking a longer question, etc--but she still kept asking the same question. Opposing counsel kept objecting and it kept getting sustained. You gotta think on your feet, little attorney, and stop asking me what I heard. This isn't getting us anywhere, and inverting word order isn't tricking anyone. She looked like she was going to vomit. And while I kinda felt bad for her, this was a fake courtroom and not like anyone was really out to get her, so I found it vastly amusing.

And nicely enough, the one who did the best job examining me was the one first-year that I knew. So good for him. He had a bit of the Quasimodo stance happening, but he was articulate and well-prepared, so even the Hunchback stance came across as more cocky than creepy. And juries at least expect that from a lawyer.

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And that's my world. Odd thing, this life.