And on Sunday, there was no rest at all. Sorta.

This is sort of a mixed post, dealing with blogging, odds and ends, and headwinds.  If bored, scroll down.

Blogging

Now that I’m in a new environment, people are starting to discover the blog. First off, as I’ve written elsewhere, the blog isn’t a dirty little secret. Please feel free to tell me you read it, even if you only know me from the hallway in work or the courthouse. If you want to discuss anything on the blog, I’d be happy to hear it.

As far as posting on the blog, and what I use it for, The Ground Rules for the blog are linked to on very top of the right sidebar.

Basically:

1. There are confidentiality issues.  Please do not use anyone else's real name without their express permission or, like my friend Seth Abramson for example, they also blog and comment under their real name.  If you violate this rule, I’ll be deleting your comment or at least editing out the name.
2. I’m not going to write salacious things about my clients (in fact, due to ground rule 1, I’ll probably write little or nothing about them specifically, although I may comment on “types” of situations we see, in an effort to let people know what this job is like, and how the legal system “is” for the indigent).  I will not salacious things about the office, or the judges I’m in front of, or the court personnel.  I'm unsure about the prosecutors.  (Just kidding.)  If *you* want to see those things in print, by all means blog about them, but don’t use my comment fields to do so.  If you do, I’ll be deleting your comment or, at least editing out the name.  I may banyour access to the blog as well.
3. Please feel free to raise any factual issues or counter-points that do not implicate rules 1 or 2.  Disagreement is cool.  I like it. 
4. Feel free to use any amount strong language on those issues you feel passionately about; however profane and/or substances diatribes directed at myself or other non-public figures will be  most likely deleted prior to my banning you from commenting.  Or I could just make fun of them before banning you.  I do that sometimes.
5. As you may have guessed from the above, the blog is a private publication.  I have (and will) restricted access to those who can’t play nice. 
6. Because "we write what we know," if you’re reading the blog there’s a chance you may see "yourself" (disguised via moniker, hopefully indiscoverable as yourself, distorted by point 7 below) on these pages.  If you're uncomfortable with your moniker, or if you want to be CATEGORICALLY UNBLOGABLE simply write me at scoplaw@gmail.com (or any other valid email address you may have for me) and LET ME KNOW.  I will not take offense, and I will delete any reference to you.  That brings me to the issue of truthfulness.
7. The easiest way to say this is: I lie on the blog.  It’s more in the realm of literature.  It is not UNMEDIATED FACTUAL OR BIOGRAPHIC REPORTING.  If reference to anything appears on the blog, IT MAY NOT BE TRUE.  Do not rely on anything you read here.
8. Deal with number 7.  This gets it own number.
9. To explain number 7, I’m a writer as well as a (some-J.D.-post-bar/pre-oath-limbo-something).  What I’d like to do with the blog is to create a record of my experiences and tell a few stories along the way.  Often those stories here, like all stories, are distorted for various reasons.  However, given the nature of blogging, I also deliberately distort things.  I may want to protect someone’s identity, I may want to skip extraneous details and get to the heart of something, I may combine several stories or scenarios to give readers a flavor for what some sort of “typical” experience is, so on, so forth.  Poets lie to tell the truth.  Which is why Plato gave us the boot from the Republic.
10. As kind of a PS, the blog is about 80% first draft posts, and I don't obsessively edit them.  Feel free to point out misspellings and improper punctuation and so forth, but don't expect me to hop to correct them.

If anyone is curious, I wrote about why I blog awhile ago.  http://scoplaw.blogs.com/scoplaw/2005/02/what_it_means_t.html

I think most of that still holds true.

Odds ‘n Ends, Space and Visitation

The James Bond Watch (former roommate, now snazzy lawyer) is hopefully coming down to Miami to do some clerkship interviewing. Irish Bars beware!

I’ll have to buy that air mattress tonight after all. And wouldn’t you know it, but there’s a Cuban bakery I really like next to the air mattress place. Guess it’s time for another coffee and pastry/donut.  Donuts - round power bars.

I may opt for the futon/couch though, instead of the air mattress. Hmm.

That’d be a big step for me. I’m used to moving often, sometimes with minimal help.  (Thank You! All who have helped, wanted to help, or will help the next time around!) As I’ve told some people here, I got so sick of moving my big stuff that I pared everything down to a couple of car loads – furniture, books, things-seldom-used were sold or given away.  And even now, I’m still a bit nervous when it comes to getting heavy/bulky stuff for my place.

But I know I’m not thinking rationally. Assuming I pass the FL Bar (knock wood), where would I ever move to in FL to practice law? Tallahassee? No, I’ll be staying right here in Greater Miami. And, on top of that, I could always sell my stuff again if for some reason I move out of state. Still – the non-big-acquisition-reflex keeps engaging. The thought of adding a piece of furniture like a futon makes my palms a bit sweaty.  But I need something for house-guests.

**

Although JBW’s visit is more of a social/get-together thing, it’s very important for me to be able to have the space to accommodate other people if the need arises. When I was younger, I didn’t have a place for my friends to stay when they really needed it. I often wonder how things might have turned out differently if I could have simply let someone crash for a few weeks. I know there have been times in my life when I hugely benefited from someone telling me, “stay as often and for as long as you need to.” Sometimes just hearing it is enough – knowing you have a place to go. But it’s been awhile since I’ve really had a place entirely of my own (well, excepting El Gato Perfecto’s non-legal but basically co-tenantship).  In some ways it seems too little too late – most of my friends now have stable, sustainable lives and are not being buffeted about by the powers-that-be. Some were buffeted out of my life, and some out of their own. Regardless of how it might have affected ultimate outcomes, I wish I’d been able to offer them more than what I could.

And even if it’s unnecessary, still, it’s just cool to be able to say it without negotiation – “You can stay over. You can use my place. Stay as long as you need to.” I like that. Not that I hope anyone needs it, but I like that I can say it if they do. (And that’s the pure truth.)

**

I’ve been out to dinner/happy-hour a few times with the new crew. We had Haitian and Middle-Eastern. Both were excellent. The PDs office is awash with good info about affordable and impressive places to go and try. I have a feeling I’ll be eating very well here. (I also finally found a farmer’s market that was just built – I’m eager to see what they have.)

Headwinds

One of my cool new colleagues is training for an Iron Man, which I think is just damn impressive. I mean, I’m training myself to iron my pants correctly and find supermarkets (which I’m sure she *also* has to do.)

While I swim (sorta, my last attempt was weak) and run, I do my best swimming if I’m heading for the shore and away from something that’s sinking. Also, running tends to gain special interest for me if I’m being chased by dogs or something. Other than that I’m afraid I’m too indifferent to compete. However, I can chip in on 1/3^rd of her training activities via biking.

This morning, she introduced me to a cool group ride that heads out of SW, over the bridge to Key Biscayne, around a bit and then comes back. Because she’s training and wanted more miles, we did another leg around a golf course (then I took a cool-down breather while she did a second), before we headed back to the shop. My goal for the day was to stay with her – that seemed to work out OK, with the exception of the one break. The scenery was gorgeous and the riders were pretty funny (in a good way). There was one perfect moment when we were all riding slightly downgrade, in sunlight, when the lightest of rainshowers hit – it was more like a mist.

The FL riding experience is weird for me. It’s flat and there are a lot of steady winds that can drop you to a crawl in certain conditions. You’ll literally be cruising at 18, the winds will cause you to expend more energy as they drop you down to 15. That may not sound like a lot, but it seems like you’re riding through molasses.

I’m generally a lighter rider, so I get pushed around by the wind in a way the heavier riders don’t.  Well, the pushing of the wind against our surface areas is roughly the same but I don't have the extra muscle to turn the cranks and power through the wind.  Conversely, I’m (was – my recent sloth has manifested itself) good at hills, because I only have to power my lighter self up the hill.

There’s one “hill” in Miami – that’s the bridge span over to Key Biscayne itself. I tried to zip up it, made it to the crest with decent speed, but ended up sucking wind badly, so badly, that post bridge I thought I had over-taxed myself and was completely gassed. I recovered though and kept going for the rest of the morning. Sometimes the body is like that.  As far as the heavier/lighter rider thing goes, I was out today with one guy who outweighed me by (not kidding) literally 100 pounds.  The wind came and he just pushed harder, but he had to really struggle to lift himself up the bridge.  (Dude's a wall though - it was like drafting a dump truck.)

Other than that, the traffic seemed fine compared to some places, and the roads were decent enough to ride on. There were a lot of puddles about, so I ended the day looking as though I’d been mountain biking.  And, of course, when there is no wind, or when you have a tail wind, flat is just fun.

As much as it pains me to say it, I see a gear purchase on the horizon. I need to get a camelback that won’t lie on me like a wet blanket. I could go with the wedgie bag and water bottles, but, the problem is I like to take stuff with me on rides. I usually go alone from the house instead of a car, so while out on my own I like to have: map, compass, bike tool, pump, patch kit, mp3 player, cell-phone, ID, credit card, cash, keys, sunblock, aspirin, Neosporin, bandaids. Sometimes a camera. And of course, food and water. That gets heavy. But I do, and have used, these things. I’ve also been caught without them 40 miles from home, which is no fun.

Final tale of the tape was about 56 miles and change at an average of 17+mph. The average was probably raised somewhat by riding in a group, some of it was depressed by fighting headwinds alone in the afternoon. I got the Little Red Rocket up to 40mph on the bridge descent. And I wasn’t even pedaling.

 

Comments

[Kat]

**mis. grn**
With the liberty afforded me by point 3), I wonder what you mean by point 7) in light of this statement:

"“Why Blawg?” as opposed to, “Why not keep a purely private journal?” For that you’d have to go back to the first reason and add that even a small audience of friends helps keep the writing honest –simply knowing that anyone could write in and disagree with your postings is an incentive to think things out to a certain degree."

As a fellow blogger, I can relate to being selective about what I include or omit in order to protect someone's identity or to make the story easier to follow, but what I'm grateful for about the blogging process is that it keeps me accountable. My family/ friends would have no hesitation in writing in to correct me if I misrepresented something(which they have done)... I think that helps build the trust between reader and blogger.

Re. 10) Good for you!! I'm not so brave, but am getting there.

ps(Love the 'Donuts - round power bars'.)

[Scoplaw]

See Point 9.

7 is mostly just a way of saying that you shouldn't rely on "factual truth" from the blog. Which is especially important given my representation of clients.

I blogged about this earlier, but I'll just repost those thoughts here:

(Complete aside: I am typing on the grilling patio, next to the garden where Sister School is working. I paused to kill two mosquitoes drifting by, locked in conjugal bliss. I feel good about this.)

Having written for a long while, I’m familiar with the projection that occurs around those who know writers. Everyone thinks – “Goodness, it must be *me* he’s writing about.” Poetry has its own particular pitfalls. The common assumption there is that anything in a poem must be a secret fetish of the author. Write a poem from the perspective of a pathological liar, based purely on research, bearing no close resemblance to anyone living or dead, and the reader assumes that this must *be* the poet. And on some level, one can say, it is. The experienced poet always informs the poems, but never unknowingly.

Perhaps, in the aside above, there was only one mosquito. Perhaps I had killed two, together, in a completely different setting four days ago. It might be My Own Private Idaho who is actually sorting the recyclables out back, while I could be in the kitchen, eating a lovely danish from the farmer’s market and sipping green tea. Or perhaps it’s coffee. I trust the reader gets the point – the details are eminently fudge-able, the anecdote related for purpose – even if it only be the amusement of the speaker, or for the simple aesthetic flow of a posting. Were this a poem, the poet must know, of course, if mosquitoes mate in flight. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don’t. However, the tiny smear of blood across my palm – the one that looks like a brushed Chinese character, running stronger and deeper in the minute whirls and cross-hatchings of my skin, the one oddly punctuated by a perfectly preserved wing, the one which affords me opportunity to wonder whose blood this is, from which person or animal – that’s real enough. Even if it’s really on the hand of my neighbor’s daughter, who is here to help turn the composter, even if I haven’t seen her in 2 weeks.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that the Blawg isn’t “true” to life, or that there isn’t a strong corollary to my actual lived life, to what I do. There is. But as AI and I spent some time discussing, there’s certainly a gap which can be exploited to shield the identities of those mentioned in the blawg.

I think that sometimes this shielding is unnecessary, save that there are a number of people who don’t realize how close the public is to their actions, even when they are acting in public, on the public record, as it were. Usually I try to offer some kind of shield – changed names, unspecified places and times, slightly altered statements.