blind insight

Pardon the interruption.

My 'pologies for the dearth of quality reading material in these parts of late. Blame it on Blakely and the slew of enormous, procedurally morass-y new cases on which I've been appointed.

Plus, I managed to jam the end of my middle finger into the pool wall pre-flip-turn (or pre-what passes for flip turns in my world) this morning, and it #@*)!@%&! hurts to type. Adding insult to injury, it also hurts to raise the offended finger offensively at the offending parties. Of course, there's really no one to blame for this mishap but myself, but I think flipping the bird at someone (or something - how about the big effing black clouds dumping buckets on yet another afternoon?) would make me feel better.

Anyway, bear with me during this time of chaos and pain. I'll have some cool new stuff to share with you before too long . . . .

In which we attempt (however ineffectually) to be Good Samaritans and I realize my boyfriend is a bighearted softie.

Friday evening, as Steve and I were loading the car for a two-day climbing getaway to Elevenmile Canyon, we noticed a small, grayish something in the courtyard by my house. Closer inspection revealed it to be a tiny bird of indeterminate genre, still alive but obviously in distress. Both of us seemed to take it as a given that we could not simply drive away and leave the bird to die. While its death seemed inevitable - it was a mere baby and appeared to have fallen or been pushed from its nest - we knew that we had to do something to aid this struggling creature.

First, we tried move it into the lawn, thinking it would at least more comfortable and might be able to feed on worms or bugs or perhaps obtain some moisture from the grass. But we were afraid it would be attacked by one of the many cats in the neighborhood, and we couldn't bear to leave it to such a fate. We thought some more, then decided to place the bird in my fenced-in patio in a shoebox, lined with some soft material (a dishcloth seemed sufficient). We added a small container of water and another with assorted edible material that struck us as birdseed-like (specifically, some Passover hot cereal mix, some corn grits, and some seeds from the bottom of a bag of trail mix. Give me a break - it's not like I keep birdseed on hand for emergencies or something!).

Once we'd prepared this impromptu nest, Steve, far braver and less squeamish than I, gently picked up the little bird and placed it into the box. It settled itself into the dishcloth bedding without too much fuss, but seemed oblivious to the water and food. Steve moved it closer to the water, but it couldn't move enough to dip its beak into the container. So Steve held the bird by its back and tipped its beak downward, and it snapped at the water greedily. Then we tried dribbling some food towards its beak, but it didn't seem to know what to with the stuff so Steve held it up to the water a few more times and let it drink.

We talked about various courses of action, and determined that there was little more we could do unless we were willing to spend the weekend feeding the bird with an eye-dropper and nursing it back to health. Since neither of us felt sufficiently moved to undertake that act of compassion, we decided instead to cover the box with a mesh dome (which I use to keep flies off food when dining al fresco) and hope that at least we'd made the baby bird's last moments a little more comfortable.

As we drove away (after scrubbing our hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap), I felt a little sad, a little nauseous, and a little inadequate. I then promptly forgot about the bird until later in the weekend, when we were getting thundered and lightninged and torrential-downpoured off the rocks. I suddenly realized that if it was raining as hard in Denver (it was), our little birdie in the box would surely drown. As the rains continued with little respite, forcing us to break camp and return home in the wee hours of Saturday night, I thought again of the bird we'd so ineptly tried to help. Steve reminded me that it was sure to die, and that at least we'd shown it a little bit of care and comfort.

By Sunday evening, Golden had received almost 4 inches of rain and Denver, too, was drenched. When Steve finally drove me home, he entered the patio first and whisked the box to the dumpster, sparing me the sight of the dead and bloated bird.

I'm not sure why I'm writing about this. It wasn't a particularly complicated or moving moment, and we didn't do anything that anyone with a conscience and five minutes to spare wouldn't also have done. Unlike Steve, I wasn't even willing to touch the poor bird, though it seemed to respond positively to the warmth of Steve's hand. I didn't learn any brilliant or fundamental truths about life and death from the little bird, and it didn't bring me any deep insights about mortality, compassion, or anything else.

I guess the point is this: watching Steve so gently and patiently helping the bird to drink, trying to feed it, and making sure it was comfortable melted my heart and made me fall in love with him all over again. Thank you, baby bird, for showing me that soft and sweet side of my no-nonsense boyfriend. I'm sorry we couldn't do more to help you.

Venting, Supremely.

The Supremes have spoken, setting off two days of scrambling and discussing and brainstorming and musing and running back and forth to judges' courtrooms and chambers (not all by me). It's an interesting time.

Yet the decisions that sent me into a tizzy yesterday made rather less noise nationally. In two capital cases, the Court once again held that the finality of state court convictions is more important than fixing constitutional errors, even in death penalty cases. I remain baffled and increasingly angry at how any state interest can take precedence over ensuring that the ultimate penalty - if we are going to impose it at all - is administered with absolute fairness and utmost care. I fail to comprehend why anyone's life should be spared or sacrificed based on an arbitrary date on the procedural calendar, and I defy anyone to give me an explanation for the Teague* rule that is both logically and morally defensible.

__________________
*Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989), is one of the habeas lawyer's greatest nemeses. Teague teaches that when the Supreme Court announces a "new rule" of constitutional criminal procedure, the decision applies to all cases that are not yet final on "direct appeal" (e.g., straight up from the conviction), but not to older cases in which the new decision would be raised on "collateral review" (e.g., habeas corpus). There are two exceptions to this non-retroactivity principle. One is where the new decision de-criminalizes certain conduct. The other is where the rule is of such watershed importance as to "alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements that must be found to vitiate the fairness of a particular conviction." It is difficult to tell just how fair and accurate the Supreme Court expects convictions to be, however, because the Court has consistently rejected attempts to apply retroactively any "new rule" other than the right to counsel (which wasn't even "new" when Teague came down).

Thompson, redux.

The Sixth Circuit today issued this remarkable decision. May it withstand further scrutiny better than my own Thompson death penalty case.

And may this be at least a partial answer to those who wonder what kind of impact law clerks have on the judicial process. Bravo!

(not quite) Through a glass, darkly.

My office building is attached at one corner to another building. When the weather's bad or I'm feeling lazy, I cut through the other building on my way in or out of the office. The ground floor of the other building contains a bank and a coffee place. The bank has a rather odd, semi-open layout. The coffee place sits in a corner and is partially open to the bank. These two businesses are connected to one another and to the corridor leading to my building by several different entryways and open spaces.

Some of these openings are filled with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. Some of them are not. The flooring is different in several places - some spots are tiled, some are polished smooth, some are carpeted. Where the flooring changes, there's some type of metal divider inlaid in the floor between the two different styles. The plate glass windows also have metal dividers at their base. And there are a few places, particularly in the corridor, where two large beams extend from the floor to the ceiling, with a metal divider running along the floor between them, but no plate glass window between the beams.

The result of all this opening and closing and flooring and windowing is that I can't tell where I'm going. The plate glass windows are sparkly clean, and particularly through my fuzzy eyes it is almost impossible to tell which spaces are blocked by windows and which offer free passage. I don't cross through the building often enough to remember this problem, or to have memorized a safe route. So each time I use this shortcut, it ends up taking me twice as long as the outside path because I have to pick my way slowly and carefully through the convoluted and confusing maze.

Yesterday, when it rained all day (despite my impassioned plea to the sun), I cut through the building on my way to lunch. I was navigating pretty well, I thought, and had almost reached the final set of doors, when I found myself only inches away from a plate glass wall. What caused me to pause before actually hitting the glass was a sudden glare bouncing into my eyes. Sheepish, I backed away and peered around until I found a clear way out.

Later, I realized that my crappy, glare-prone eyes had actually saved me from embarrassment or injury. Had the glare not stopped me in my tracks, I might have walked smack into (or, worse, through) the plate glass window. Thank heavens for small favors, I suppose.

Blogging by comment.

I'm buried under huge piles of case records and impending brief deadlines and assorted other work chaos. So instead of giving you zinging original content today, I'm going to be lazy and send you over to Sherry's Place, where I've been moved to comment on her posts about changing the legal profession (you should read all six sets of suggestions over at Matt Homann's blog, too) and studying for the bar exam.

I'm curious to hear what any of you lawyer/law student types out there have to say on these subjects. In fact, I'm curious to hear what ANY of you - however lawyerly or unlawyerly (unlawful?) - have to say.

You are my sunshine.

Dear Sun,

I have been wracking my brain for the past three days, trying to figure out what I did to offend you. I know I've taken you for granted in the past, and I haven't always told you how much I appreciate it when you show up and work hard 300 days out of the year (which sure is more than I can claim), but I can't remember the last time you've stayed away for this long a stretch. (At least since we've been hanging out together in Colorado, anyway. There was that dark and desperate time known as The Seattle Year, but we've agreed to put that behind us and speak no more of it.)

You know I can't function for long without you. The first 24 hours were fine, and after the sweltering heat of Atlanta I almost appreciated a little cool weather. I nearly made it through the second day in good shape, too, but by the end of the day (when it had been raining on and off pretty much all day long) I began to wonder whether there might be something more afoot than the "afternoon thunderstorms" you like to play with at this time of year. Now it's Friday afternoon and you've been AWOL since late Tuesday. I know I must have upset you, but I'm just not sure how.

If you'll just come home in time for the weekend, I'll do anything to appease you. Do you want me to be more careful about sunscreen? Should I show you the new bikini I've yet to get much use out of? I'll even plant flowers in my garden for you to shine on (though I can't promise their long-term survival under my inexpert care). Just please, please come back to me. I've got rocks to climb and trails to run and roads to bike and Qs to Bar-B-, and it's just not the same without you.

Please, Sunny dearest. I miss you so!

My Blue Heaven.

I like to fancy that I'm a glass-half-full, carpe-diem-ing, sucking-the-marrow-out-of-life's-every-moment kind of girl. But certain moments are more sweetly savory than others, and better suited to being experienced fully, richly, and sensuously.

Like last night. On the bus ride up to Boulder, I watched the sky do its late-springtime-in-the-Rockies thing: thick black clouds roiling in the distance, splotches of white cloud dotting scattered patches of blue and gray, hints of greenish orange boding ill for the eastern plains. It started to sprinkle while I waited for Steve, then cleared, then misted lightly a little later as we left my parents' place for an evening run.

We roamed into the foothills, breathing in the mountain sage and lilacs, then let the lightning chase us off the ridgeline. We jogged along at a comfortable pace, teasing each other and coveting the zillion-dollar homes and waiting for the rain to start in earnest. We wandered a bit into open space, and Steve led the way down the rocky trail while I concentrated on my balance, grimaced at the scratchy-itchy brush of the tall grasses on my ankles, and directed all of my mental energies at warding off rattlesnakes (it worked - we saw none!).

As we rounded Wonderland Lake, the wind picked up and a thin spray cooled our sweaty bodies. The Flatirons lay shrouded in blackness, but the threatening skies released only a few drops on our heads before sighing and moving eastward. By the time we were sprinting the final block, the evening had grown cool and dry and fragrant.

We walked a little to cool down, stretched a little, and took quick, cold showers. Later, we walked the mile or so to the market, stopping along the way to play on the swings and the monkey bars in North Boulder Park. I tried to leap from the swing in mid-air, but my technique seems to have suffered a bit over the past 25 years, and I landed awkwardly in the dirt, giggling all the way.

We sat outside eating spicy sushi rolls and drinking tart-sweet grapefruit soda, until the chill nudged me into my sweater. Walking back, Steve pulled me closer, passing the warmth of his skin to mine. At the edge of the park, we stopped still for a moment to watch the mountains disappear into the night, breathe in the grass and flowers, and listen to the crickets chirping their frantic symphony. Singing 80s songs to one another, we slowly made our way home, where we discovered some strawberry-rhubarb crisp my mother baked before leaving for France. It was still delicious, and paired perfectly with a dollop of ice cream.

Heaven.

G, your mail smells terrific.

After a week or so of using Google's new G-mail service, I'm liking it quite a bit. The mailbox capacity is huge, the search-and-store features are handy, and G-mail seems to lack the many problems and excessive spamminess I've lately experienced on Hotmail. You can't yet acquire a G-mail acocunt except by invitation from an existing account holder, and I've got one invitation left to hand out right now.

Borrowing a page from Sherry, I'm going to auction off that invitatation to one of you lucky readers. The terms of the contest are simple:

1. Give me one (or more) good reason(s) why I should bestow the invite upon your lucky head.

2. In the alternative, tell me something I don't know, but should.

3. The best reason (or bit of wisdom) wins.

4. Determinations of bestness (or most usefulness of conveyed information) will be made exclusively by me, in my sole and absolute discretion.

Gentle readers, start your engines . . . .

More entertaining than the Coke museum.

There is a reason why Atlanta is not among the Top Ten Best Summer Vacation Destinations. Several reasons, actually, including the thick, steamy sludge that passes for air, the oppressive heat, and the substantial absence of fun (even tolerable) things to do other than watch movies, visit shopping malls, or sit in an air-conditioned room and attempt to move as little as possible.

There is, however, one excellent reason to visit Atlanta in June:

Lucky for me, this exceptionally cute, cuddly, and precocious reason was happy to spend the weekend rolling around on the floor with his silly Auntie Mad, leaving me no great need to go outside or to bother with movies, shopping malls, or other diversions. In fact, by the end of the weekend I'd managed to lure him into a pretty good imitation of a crawl.

This accomplishment was motivated by the burning need to knock over any stack of objects within his sight line. Apparently, towers of blocks are highly repugnant to the sensibilities of nine-month-old boys, and MUST BE KNOCKED DOWN AT ALL COSTS. For several hours, the toppling of the offending structures was accomplished by awkward, side-legged butt-scootching followed by a prone, full-body-extension (which would have inspired envy in the most devoted yoga addict), culminating in the desperate, but ultimately successful extreme-one-finger-reach move. Little by little, though, fueled by adrenaline and auntly cheers and showers of tickles and kisses, the frog leg found its way under the butt, the scootching turned into a relatively smooth one-knee-after-another motion, and soon there was no safe haven in Nathandom for a blockity tower.

I'm so proud. Still, I think I'll wait until maybe October or so to visit next.