Week one down...

Well. The first small week of law school is over and the first full week lies ahead. So far, most everything has gone pretty well. I've been prepared for class. I've felt like I understand what has been talked about. I like my professors. Taking notes on a computer is actually easy and kind of awesome.
There are only two things that seem to be bothering me now. The first is that I am feeling more than a little out of place among the young kids who make up the most of my section. I sort of expected it, but at the same time it is a little bothersome. I have always been a quiet person and it's not always been easy for me to open up and make friends and being older makes it a little harder. Not having the same references. Not being at the same place in life. There's a number of different things that make it a little harder to get to know people. On Thursday I went to Billy's, the local bar that William Mitchell kids seem to frequent. I went as part of an event that was being thrown for a law fraternity that I am planning on joining. I was the oldest person there. Which wouldn't have been bad, I guess. But, I just couldn't get my feet underneath me in any conversation and I felt horribly out of place. It was more than a little depressing. I do think that ultimately, law school will be the more important thing and ultimatley I'll get to know people. But it's still something I worry about.
The second thing I worry about is how much I worry about things. Friday, after my last class of the day, I couldn't get my brain to stop thinking about law school. Not the subject matters as much as my reading schedule and when I'm going to get everything done. I know my worry is a function of how much I want to do well, but it's hardly a comfort. I just have to get better at relaxing and trusting the schedule I set up will get me at least most of the way to getting things done. And realize that I need the time off as much as I need the time on.
Mostly though, things are going well. And that's the important thing.

Chrome heart shining

I'm about 10 minutes from getting up from the library desk and heading up to the third floor for my first law school class. Don't worry, I will not be posting like this for every class. But I thought, this is big. Really big. Like, I'm not sure if I'm gonna throw up big.
Getting out of the rut I'd gotten myself into career-wise has been a very scary thing. Fear of failure and thoughts about what that would mean for me, for my family and for my mental well-being seem to pop out of every thought I have. Which is obviously nerve-wracking. But. It's also good. It points out why I'm doing it and why I've got to just sit my ass down and do the work.
And, I think I can do it. After a week of reading through things and reviewing and re-reviewing things, I think I've got a system that will work for me. I mean, I don't know that yet, because I haven't stepped into a classroom. But at least I have this moment of confidence, even if it's temporary and does not feel like all that much to hold onto right now.
As I was getting dressed after my shower, I turned on some music and on came Neil Young. Long May You Run. I almost started crying. Although these changes have come with your chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run.
Perfect song for the day.

Bears did not kill me...

I emerged from the woods earlier than expected, but intact. As I mentioned in my last post, I had a bit of a cold. Unfortunately, it got worse on our trip. We spent Thursday night in a hotel in Duluth (which was planned), and it started to get better. Duluth was awesome by the way. It was cooler and so pretty. We hung out down town for a bit and drove around the city Friday night. Friday morning we went to Glensheer, which is the family estate of the Congdon family--an uber-rich family that made a ton of money in the mining industry. It was a good time.
But Friday evening and night was not kind to me. There was a dubious start to our camping trip when, on the drive into the park, I saw a baby bear (cub) on the side of the road. But, we went in, undeterred. However, it might have been the rain, which started almost immediately after we got our tent up, and dripped through the tent a bit. It might have been the smoke from the fire, which took us a lot longer to figure out how to get going than we thought it would. Or it might be the fact that the converter that would've allowed us to fill our air mattress broke. So, we "slept" on the hard ground.
Actually, I'm sure it was the "sleep". I could tough out the other things, but not sleeping just made me so sick and miserable. So, Saturday, we stuck around and spent the day in nature and left after supper.
It was for the best. I needed the sleep. I did not want to consider starting law school sick.
Which brings us to today. Classes officially start on Thursday, but today was the first day of official orientation, which is almost as scary to me. Today is the first time to meet the people in my section. And honestly, the social aspect of law school is probably just as scary to me as the studying and work aspect.
But, I have to say. So far so good. I met a couple people who seemed really nice and who are in my section. And I think it's gonna be okay.
So, yeah. I'm calmer tonight. Which is nice.

Law School Affirmation #3

I'm a little sick today. Nothing major, just a summer cold and a raw throat. Hopefully something I can get over quickly.

But it was because of this sickness I slept in this morning. So, when I finally awoke and looked at my clock, I freaked out. Noon. Holy crap. You see, any other day this summer this would not have been a big deal. I wasn't really working on anything. I was getting ready for law school, but that didn't involve getting up at any particular time. (Though I do want to say, I was usually up by 8 this summer.) Today though. I had decided today would be the day I tore the cellophane off the new books and started working on my assignments.

Ugh.

First off, I should say my brother-in-law (who is an attorney and went to law school not all that long ago) was a little weirded out when he heard I'd been given some of my law school assignments this early. He thought it was a little cruel to make us more anxious by giving us so much time to get our first assignments done. I see his point, but I think I was going to be anxious anyway, and I'm not sure knowing what needed to be done by the first day was going to make me more so.

But, he has a point. Because when I looked at the clock today, I felt my chest tighten and my heart start to race. I would say I started to sweat, but with this humidity, I was already sweating, so I can't say for sure that this had any effect on that. My plan was to start some reading before lunch, head home, eat and then finish anything else up in the afternoon. But now it was already the afternoon. So, of course, having a panic attack was the best way to go.

So I calmed myself down, fixed some lunch, took a shower and got my books together. I was at William Mitchell in by 1:30. And I've read my first assignment for Contracts on Thursday. And...I freaked out for nothing. It's not that the material is easy, but it's not some super abstract, crazy-hard to understand contract or anything. It's a text book. And it's the first chapter, so it's not like they throw you into the deep end and watch you cry.

See, here's the thing. I am somewhat prepared for some of this material. I went to paralegal school, not that long ago and was introduced to some of this stuff. Clearly not with the depth or clarity I'll need for law school, but it is helpful to have some exposure.

So, yeah, after reading through the chapter, taking notes and reviewing it, I can say, okay, this is going to be challenging, but I can do this. It reminded me of my first tour of Grinnell. The tour guide took us to Yonker Pitt where a friend of his was working on a paper for one of his seminars. The tour guide asked him how it was going and the guy said something about 15 more pages to write. I was already frightened just hearing the guy say the word seminar, but 15 pages? I had the feeling that I was not ready to do a 'seminar' and writing 15 pages seemed completely insane. Of course, we all see where that's going. I took 3 seminars at Grinnell. I wrote papers over 15 pages. And I graduated. Yay me.

But while this would lead others to look at new challenges in a different light, I felt myself having a similar reaction as the one I had when I was 18 and looking to live in a dorm room for the first time. Namely, "what the hell am I getting myself into?" and "I don't know if I can do this."

It hasn't helped that everyone talks about law school in the same way. 'You'll be really busy.' 'You won't have time to spend with your wife.' 'It's just a crazy busy time.' Clearly, I will be busy. Clearly, it will be challenging. But, I'm a smart guy. I want to be here. I want to work hard and accomplish a lot. And other people have been able to do it, so it's not like this is mission impossible. I don't know why I keep forgetting this. I don't know why I'm more comfortable doubting myself than taking a deep breath and just getting to my business.

I can do this. If I don't get killed by bears this weekend.

Bears...

After what will be a long, hot, sticky week in the Twin Cities, I will actually get to start going to law school. Holy-goddamned-shit.

I don't really have much else to add to that, I guess. I am as ready for this as I expect I ever will be, so, yeah. I'm just gonna try to enjoy myself and start working on some of the assignments that have trickled out. I'm not freaked out right now. I'm just a little uncomfortable.

******************

One thing that might keep me from going to law school is camping. Yeah, for some reason, Dinah and I decided this would be a good weekend to be outside. Well, "some reason" was really, "I think if I'm here over the weekend I might freak out." But. Yeah the reality of spending time outside is hitting me.

Quick fact: mid-northern Minnesota is known for having bears, among other things. And not just the cute ones like the one pictured (from International Falls, MN). Which is fine, right? Bears are cool. They leave you alone if you leave them alone. Well, I'm not quite so sure now. In doing some planning, we checked to see if it would be okay to keep our cooler in the car, because, bears can't smell through cars, right? Oh. Bears can smell food through cars. They sure can. And if they smell food, they might not leave you alone. Which is awesome. So, of course, we check to see what we should do if we see a bear.

Apparently, we're supposed to be really loud and to throw rocks at it. Which makes sense. Whenever I see something that is stronger, faster and that has big sharp claws, as well as no sense of reason, my first instinct is to throw shit at it. Because, even though an angry bear is more dangerous than one just strolling by looking for a pic-a-nic basket, I at least want people at my funeral to say, "Joe put on his big-boy pants that day. Too bad that bear was bigger, stronger and faster than Joe." "Yeah, it would've been nice to have an open casket, but at least Joe hit that bear with a rock. My boy's a hero!"

I swear to God, when my brother was in boy scouts* he was told you were supposed to be quiet. Lay down and play dead. I mean, maybe the scoutmaster didn't like my brother very much. Considering the scoutmaster was my mom, this is entirely possible. Or it could be that bear technology has come a long way and now we know that bears aren't as stupid as we thought they were. I don't know. But it bothers me that now they haven't just modified the lay down and be quiet thing. It's not like they're telling us to lie down and throw your voice, so the bear thinks the tree is talking to him. That's a concession. It says, okay we weren't totally wrong about bears. The lying down part gets in their head, but you need some noise.

No, instead, they've reversed field and told us to give a frontal assault on the bear. It's only been 15 years since then. How could we have been so wrong?

So, yes, it is with an utter lack of confidence that I will trek into the woods this weekend. At least it should be cooler.

*Note 1. I never joined boy scouts. I don't really remember why, except I think when it came up I was going through my individualistic phase and joining this group of do-gooders didn't seem like it was for me. Mostly, I think this was for the best, but sometimes I wish I could tie those cool knots.

Gumshoe Epilogue to Case #1

Yeah, I wasn't sure I was done with case 1 either. I mean, I wrapped up most of the actual case, but there were some issues I wanted to deal with and some things I wanted to set in motion. So. Here is an epilogue. Hope you enjoy.
It had been a week since Andrew Grassley had been aprehended in a cemetary on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa. I had gone back to the boring insurance claims work that I'd been working on before an actor named James Troop walked into my office pretending to be someone named Simon Fletterling, and basically careened my life way off it's normal, boring course.
I hadn't seen Trooop since that night. I also hadn't seen Detective Edna Muldoon, who was my former partner and the investigator who officially arrested Andrew Grassley for the murders of Jane Hernandez, Selma Fletterling and Chance Greer. He'd killed them, apparently, because years ago another killer, Aaron Masters, had taken a woman named Edna Portis away from him. Portis wanted to be Grassley's mother and was in the process of adopting him when she was killed. From what I could gather, Grassley blames the loss of his would-be mother on me, because I didn't catch Masters before he could kill her. It's convoluted logic, I tell myself as I sip from my bottle of Millstream Iowa Ale. But I know Grassley has a point. I was supposed to stop Masters and I didn't. Instead I ran away to Chicago and joined a cult. It doesn't speak well for my mental toughness or my professionalism, not to mention the fact that people died while I was trying to get my head together.
A couple times during the past week, I thought about calling Edna or James, but I hadn't really any idea why. I guess I could consider Edna a friend, even with all that had passed between us. It would be awkward to interact with her outside of a case now, but it could happen. James, though. I'd known him for only a couple days. And during those days, we were either fighting for our lives or ducking for cover. It can be a bonding experience, for sure, but part of me felt like it would be odd to try and turn that into a friendship. I tell myself, Grassley would want me to feel guilty. That I should feel good, or at least okay, just to spite him, but it falls on deaf ears.
And that's why I sit alone in the dark drinking the good beer I save for celebrations.
*********************
Something tears my dream from in front of me and replaces it with reality. I blink trying to figure it out for a second, before the phone rings again. I put my hand to my head and try to remember if my phone has always been this shrill or if I have a hangover. The empty six beer sitting at my feet, give me all the evidence I need. I used to be able to put away a six pack without much trouble, but now...
I run my hand through my graying beard and try not to think about the rest of that sentence. But the damned phone shrieks at me again. I get up from my arm chair and make my way over to it and rip it from it's cradle. "What?"
"[Gumshoe]?" It's Edna.
"Yes." I say, ever so cleverly.
"Can you come down here? We're running into a problem with Grassley."
After I throw-up, shower and dress, I'm in the car and at the station. It all takes half an hour, which I find sort of impressive. It's not that rallying from a hangover should be an Olympic sport or anything, but if it were, I'd be world class. Well there's something to be proud of, I suppose.
"You like like shit." Edna says to me as I make my way to her desk.
"Genetics," I say quietly. I took some asprin, but I still feel the dull ache of my head begging for me not to drink like that again.
"So," Edna starts. Before she can continue, though, she's interrupted by a man walking from the interview room. I've never set eyes on him before, but something about him--maybe it's the glasses, or the soft, brown sweater he's wearing, the notepad, perhaps--tells me he's a psychologist. The door next to the one he's just exited opens and the psychologist is joined by another man. This man's holding a briefcase, has an expensive haircut and a suit I would describe as slick. "District Attorney." Edna tells me quietly.
"Insanity?"
"That's the rumor." I watch these two men talking. Right now they're deciding whether to try Grassley in a criminal court or whether to have him committed. The cop in me feels a little insulted. I was the one who followed this guy. I punched him in the crotch. I tackled his ass and brought him down. I take one look at Edna and I know she's thinking the same thing. And that's why she brought me here. We both know the District Attorney likes to have the cops on his side, so sometimes you can pressure him or her by standing there and looking angry. I'm guessing that this case, partially because of Chance's involvement, is something the DMPD brass does not want to have a public trial about. And they've probably already tried the 'look angry' trick.
"So, you have a plan?"
She stands from her desk and we both walk toward the two men. "Excuse me?" Both men look up at her. "What'd you find?"
The psychologist looks at the district attorney, as if to say it's his call. "Detectives," he says to both of us, and I feel a twinge of pride in my stomach at being addressed as a cop again. It goes away quickly, as I remember all of the things that brought me here now. "It's not like he's going to go free. He'll be committed to an institute that's not quite as bad as prison, but it's not the Hilton."
"So, you've decided to forgo a trial?" Edna says calmly.
"It'll save the tax payers a great deal of time and money." He starts to walk away, trying to signal he doesn't want to talk about this anymore.
"What if he's not crazy?" I say, thinking I see Edna's play. It's been a long time since we were partners, but there's still a residual rapport. And if nothing else, I'm stringing this conversation out a little more.
The psychologist steps forward, "I assure you. He's quite crazy. He seems unable to communicate outside of song lyrics." That catches us off guard and th epsychologist continues. "It takes quite an effort to be able to sustain that kind of neurosis if one were to fake it."
"Look, I'm sorry, but you can understand why it's better for this case to just go away." The DA looks at us sympathetically. "But like I said, he's not going somewhere nice. He'll probably still get raped, if that comforts you." Edna and I exchange glances. I guess we were supposed to laugh.
The two men stand for a second waiting for our blessing, but when niether Edna or I say anything they start to move away. "At the graveyard he wasn't doing that." I say as they're about ten feet away. They turn and look at me. The DA opens his file and starts calmly looking through it.
"He didn't give a statement," he says closing the file. "Look, I would hate to think you guys are so invested in this that you might be tempted to change stories now, but let me assure you--this is a done deal."
I look into his eyes, feeling a burning in my head that I'm sure is no longer hangover related. "Before that. You know while he still had a gun and was just like any other criminal. I was yelling at him. I said something like he'd wasted a lot of bullets on me. And was it worth it. He said, 'it only takes one.'"
The DA opens his file again and looks through it, stops and looks at me again and then turns toward the psychologist as if to ask for help. The man adjusts his sweater and starts, "Yes, well. It's quite possible--"
"He's faking it." Edna finishes it for him. "He's faking it and I think if [Gumshoe] goes in there, he can shake it out of him." So, that's the plan. I look at he and I can't tell if this was her plan since she called me or if she just thought it up. I take a step back. I don't know if I really want to look at this guy again. I'd been tempted to visit Aaron Masters through the years, but I could never bring myself to do it. He'd killed someone I'd cared about and I had wanted to look in his eyes and get a sense for what kind of man could be so dark, so cruel. But I could never bring myself to actually do it. I was always worried that after the way things had ended with Mindy James, not to mention how I'd behaved afterwards, well, I was worried I would find something familiar in his eyes.
"I don't think that would be good for the patient." The psychologist says quietly. I looked at him, suddenly filled with anger. The patient. Wouldn't be good for the patient. The words echoed in my head as no one said anything. This is a done deal. Isn't that what the attorney had said? Eventually the two men turned and began to walk away from Edna and I.
"Ten minutes," I say heading toward the door to the interview room. "You guys watch and record the whole thing."
"Detective, please," the psychologist says, sounding suddenly weary.
I turn. "What's the worst that can happen? I make him more crazy?" When no one says anything, I grab the door knob.
"[Gumshoe], give me a couple minutes to get the video recording." I see a twinkle in her eye. She really thinks I can do this. I'm not so sure. I'm also not so sure that Grassley isn't crazy.
"Detective. This is by the book, you understand? You don't touch him. You don't do anything that could even possibly be construed as a violation of his rights."
I smile and nod as they all head in. I slowly turn the knob, taking a deep breath as I do. "Sure would hate to violate his rights," I mutter as I let the air out of my lungs and enter the room. And there he sits. Andrew Grassley. He looks up as I enter the room and I see his something in his eyes flinch. I give him a big smile.
"Andy," I say as if he were a cousin I hadn't seen in a long time. "How are you?"
He's says nothing. He just folds his arms and looks away from me.
"What? Couldn't think of Lionel Ritchie? 'Hello, is it me you're looking for?'" I say with a chuckle. He stays quiet. "Isn't that what you're doing? Quoting song lyrics?" I give him a minute, but he knows I'm baiting him. But this is the guy who turned my life upsidedown. Who knows how long he planned it? Who knows how long he nursed his grudge? He wants to play with me. He wants to beat me. "Did you use up all your good songs already? It's okay, I listen to Nickelback, so I can slum a little." I take a seat across from him. "Don't want to talk?"
"Baby, we could talk all night, but that ain't getting us nowhere." And there it is. Of course it's Meatloaf. He couldn't give me some Heart? Just a little switch.
"Oooh," I say leaning in really closely and giving him a look of disbelief. "Are you trying to tell me Meatloaf did it?"
His eyes narrow and I can almost feel how much he wants to hit me. "I mean, I know Mr. Loaf had his troubles, but you can't really expect me to buy that he's into something like this. Still. I can have some guys look into this if that's your story."
After a minute of solid silence, I start again. "Jesus, man. At least tell us why you did it." His face spasms just for a second as he doesn't know what to believe. "What was it? Someone broke your iPod? Hey, that might make some of these killings justifiable. Help us help you, here." For a second, I think I've got him. But he knows I know. It won't work to keep pushing that, but it was a nice try. And he may be a bit off balanced now. We sat there in silence as he looked at me. Finally, I put my feet up on the table by his hands. "Seriously Andy. Dazzle me. Give me some Talking Heads or something." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a quarter. Holding it out to him, I said, "I'll give you this quarter if you sing a little bit of Psycho Killer."
He balled his fist up and looked away. He was biting his lower lip. I flipped the quarter and it landed on the desk in front of him. He stared down at it as if he could drill a hole through it. "Huh. It's like you don't know that many lyrics." I looked at the window. "Almost like someone really wants this case to go away to save someone some face. I don't know Andy. That what you're thinking now?"
More silence.
"That's okay Andy, I don't expect you to have an opinion on office politics. In fact, it was rude of me to bring you into that." I pull me feet down and lean over the desk, putting my hand on his and looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry for that," my voice is full of sympathy and understanding.
He sits there for a second trying to make sense of what's going on, but quickly pulls his hand back. "Oh baby, I'm a hunter in the dark of the forest. I've been stalking you and tracking you down." He spits the lyrics at me from behind eyes filled with flames.
"And I've been dancing on the ceiling, Andy." I give a pause. "Oh, what a feeling."
He lurches over the desk at me. "I'm gonna fucking kill you you mother fucker."
I grab him by the collar of his shirt and slam him on the table and then pick him up and slam him against the wall. He stops resisting and it takes me a second to realize, I have him lifted off the ground. I set him down and let out a deep breath I didn't realize I'd been holding in. "Huh. That could've been Motorhead, I guess," I say with a smirk. The door opens and Edna looks in at us. Behind her the attorney and psychologist are looking more than a little disturbed.
"Lionel Ritchie," I say barely able to hold in my amusement. "It's alway Lionel Ritchie that sends 'em over the edge."
*******************
I stand before the door waiting for my courage. Finally, I suck it up and knock. It takes a couple moments, but soon enough, James Troop has answered the door. He stares at me for a second.
"Hey." It's a pretty reasonable starter.
"Hey," I say, because it's a pretty reasonable response. Another second passes and as I tell myself to just start. "So. I just wanted to talk to you, if I could."
"Uh. Yeah." He says, but doesn't offer to invite me in. Okay, I tell myself.
"So. Yeah. You fight pretty well. Tai Kwon Do?"
"No. Stage fighting."
"Stage fighting? You kicked me ass with fake fighting?"
"Yeah," he says with a chuckle. "I guess I did." He pauses. "Look, I don't know if you came for this, but I'm sorry I..."
"No. That's not...It's...." I run my hand through my hair. "I just was thinking. You seem to have good instincts. And you can handle yourself all right. You wouldn't want to get into Private Investigating would you?"
"I'm an actor." He says giving me a look of confusion.
"No. I know. You were in Rent. I know. I just thought if you had extra time, or could use extra cash." God, I feel like a fucking idiot. "I could use the...you know...help."
"Yeah. Well. Let me think about it."
"Cool." It's the only thing I could think to say. I nodded and turned to walk away.
"Hey," he said and I turned to face him. "You want to come in for a beer? I was gonna watch some crappy 80's movie. Footloose or--" I cut him off.
"There's nothing crappy about Footloose," I say walking to the door.
"Well, it's a little dated."
"Oh, yeah. But not crappy. If anything, that story speaks more to modern America than it did when it was made. Small town fanaticism against urban sensibilities."
"You feel passionately about this, don't you?"
"I do. I really do." I said as the door shut.