I was playing like one of those little wind-up monkey toys. They booed us off the stage, Phil! Jimmy couldn't even hear how off-key he was.

Oh, man. That line was all I could think of after my oral argument practice today. I got up and I was making an effort not to look at my notes but I was also just OFF somehow the minute I started arguing. Just...OFF. And I finally just stopped halfway through to be like, YES, I KNOW I SUCK I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. (It's practice, in case you missed that, but still not something to do at this stage of the game.)

And it really just felt like that moment in That Thing You Do! where Guy gets the beat wrong right off and they never recover. I tried to tell myself it was good to have at least one shitty practice, but let's not look too deeply into why that could ever serve any purpose.

I have to book my train tonight and then we're off Thursday and get back Sunday. We are coming back early Sunday even though the semis and finals are Sunday afternoon. (It's called reality, y'all.)

And next week I have a real fucking motion to suppress and I'm sort of shitting about that. I have a giant research project due Thursday as well (which is obviously getting delivered to her the day before). And our clinic exercise this week WOULD be fun if it wasn't a time suck.

So for our exercise this week we have to pull a cross-examination from TV, movies, or literature and re-do it. We have this same exercise at the end of the semester with closings. So no, I'm not going to pull a cross from A Few Good Men or My Cousin Vinny. (Well, I guess you could use the public defender's cross from MCV, but let's at least be a little challenging, shall we?)

I'm not going to lie, I just went out and bought the first season of The Good Wife expressly for this. I mean, I love that show and wanted to own it anyway, so win win. But I thought it would be a great show to pull a cross from that could be re-done for reality, since it's always good but it's done for TV. It was tempting to use Carey's first cross when he nearly pukes and asks all of two questions. I also really wanted to use her cross from season 2 when she mistakenly asks a convict "what else" his attorney had said to him. Man, was that a mistake--first rule of cross is don't ask questions you don't know the answer to. But it was only two minutes, so I don't think I can get away with that in class.

The only movie I think I'd use is Anatomy of a Murder, which has a similar issue. I won't spoil the film here, but let's just say somebody gets royally fucked by doing an improper cross. And it's great. And you know how I feel about Jimmy Stewart but I still like this movie.

I also rented ...And Justice for All! in an effort to track down a cross-exam. I've never seen it before and if you haven't either, you know it just as that movie when Pacino's all "I'M out of order?! YOU'RE out of order!! THIS WHOLE COURT'S OUT OF ORDER!!" I'm halfway through and so far I have these three things to say. 1) OMFG, the 70s music is OUT. OF. CONTROL. Almost worth it right there. 2) Al Pacino was one very fine-lookin' young man. I've seen plenty of his early films before but somehow it's more striking here. Gotta be the hair. Ok, I just looked it up. Apparently the man was 39. Not buying it. My math or brain or imdb.com must just be wrong. 3) I've forgotten after that. Oh, yes. MELODRAMA, baby. "Don't you care?? Don't you CARE?!" DRAMA.

The plus side of this week will be the potential to have drinks with Drew Saturday night. Fingers crossed. (Make that--drinks with Drew and I will be content/happy/pleased with my performance. Let's aim HIGH, doll.)

UPDATE: Just for one last kick in the nuts, I got an email notifying me that Kat Edmonson is playing in NYC (she lives there now) Sunday night at 7pm. OF COURSE SHE IS.