A diary from 2034. Streamed using transchronological quips from the future.

Tues 9/12 — 11:34p

Lectern quill at 8:55, on schedule. Read the Hale supplement off Lauren's screen over her shoulder in 120, which she offered, which I would have done anyway.

Chester got hit by a drone today. Not the drone's fault, per Hale, because Chester "entered the flight path with intent." Hunter asked if a dog can have intent and Hale said "Mr. Briggs, have you met a dog." Best exchange of the semester and it was Hunter.

Albrecht: Mullane again, then into the supplement. He called on a guy in the back row, Whit or Wyatt. "Reasonably calculated." I had it, all of it, including the beneficiaries whose addresses were known so publication wasn't enough for them. I sat there with it in my mouth like a lozenge while Whit/Wyatt said "sufficient" 4 times. Albrecht let him go at the second "And then what." Didn't look at me. Lauren wrote something in her margin and underlined it twice.

For the record: not called isn't the same as ready, but I was ready.

Carrel 4-17 free, sweatshirt where I left it. Started the closed memo research log. Got 2 lines in, and one of them is the date.

Kat texted "housing court tmrw 8:30 come!!" I said I have Contracts at 9, which is true. She said "next week then" and I said yes.

The 4 p.m. storm knocked out the light at the bottom of the stairs. Walked up by Pane light, thumb catching the hinge crack the whole way.

S. at 10:12: "is chester a plaintiff or evidence." 10:14: "asking for hale." I said Chester is a fact pattern with a tail. He said "most section 3 sentence ever typed." Answered in 4 min.

Whiteboard says Tess OFF tonight, nights again starting tomorrow, so she was in bed by 10 trying to flip herself back around. Door shut, fan going. So no blender. Stood there holding the frozen banana like an idiot for a second before I remembered.

Wed 9/13 — 11:58p

Headache at 10:25, 5 min before Albrecht (see: every Wednesday). Cart coffee made it worse, which I knew going in.

Dunleavy did the deli again. Mr. Szabo, pastrami on a tab for 3 years, never paid, grandmother kept feeding him. "So was that a contract or a friendship?" I said both. He said "Then which one does she sue on, Ms. Hartsell?" and laughed, and I laughed, and it was a good laugh. With, not at.

Kat texted a picture at 8:41 of a hallway full of people on benches. I was at Kiln.

3C. Lauren's Civ Pro outline has a tab for Erie. We are not on Erie. Dez left at 9 to call Imani. S. ate most of my almonds and when I pointed at the empty bag said "I thought they were communal." Lauren said "they were kind of in the middle," which, fine, but they were on my side of the middle.

Apartment dark when I got in. Tess's shoes gone.

Thurs 9/14 — 12:22a

Team name tonight was "Res Ipsa Loquitipsy." Hunter picked it, Hunter defended it, Hunter spelled it for the bartender twice. 4th of 9. We lost it on state birds. Dez was sure about the cardinal and was right, but for the wrong state, and argued with the host about it for longer than the round took.

Res ipsa was actually Torts this morning, so the name was half earned. Byrne and the barrel of flour falling out of the warehouse window onto a man walking by. Hale read the facts out loud with her whole chest. I had "the barrel speaks for itself" ready and she called on Lauren, who said it first and better, with the part about exclusive control. Wrote exclusive control down. Underlined it once, not twice.

Varga at 1:30, re: research logs: "If your log is prettier than your research, I will know." Looked at mine during the break. It is not pretty. It is 6 lines now. Memo due a week from tomorrow.

Mom texted a picture of Biscuit wet in the tub at 1:52, subject "Bath." Answered at 5:10. She'd already sent a second one of him dry and furious.

Hunter spent every break selling the German festival Saturday like a bar prep course. "Mandatory for section morale." Dez leaves for Columbus tomorrow afternoon and said "can't, sorry" like he'd won a motion. Lauren said she'd "try to come for an hour," which means she'll get there before Hunter. S. said he'd go if there was a pretzel bigger than his head and Hunter said "buddy, they're bigger than your torso." So S. is going. So I'm going, since I already said yes to Hunter on Tuesday, which is the actual reason.

The jukebox wouldn't take my Keel tap. Hunter's worked on the first try. He played the same song he played last week.

2 beers, which is 1 over. Left at 11:15, which is maybe 20 min over. Stair light still out.

Lab paragraph at 10 and I haven't looked at the prompt, which means

Fri 9/15 — 9:47p

Read the lab prompt at 9:51 on the streetcar, which gave me 9 minutes, which was enough, barely. Landlord tapes the notice to the apartment door. Tenant has been in the hospital for 2 weeks. One paragraph: is that notice. Varga handed out the lined paper and said "Rule first. I don't want to meet your feelings until sentence three."

Rule first. By sentence three I had feelings anyway (hospital, 2 weeks, tape) and put them in behind a "however," which she will circle. The pinky side of my hand is gray from dragging through the ink. Nobody in there writes that much by hand anywhere else, and you can see it, 15 people shaking out their wrists like a spin class.

Base day:
- sent Mom the thing
- Kiln, large, before lab. "Morning, counsel."
- groceries: eggs, dumplings (2 bags), the good peanut butter, which is $2 more & I put it back once
- laundry, 2 loads, came out with one white sock I have never seen before. Tess was at the counter in scrubs eating cereal standing up, so I held it up.
"Please?"
"The sock."
"Abby. I don't own a white sock."
- Keeled Hunter 12 for the festival entry he pre-bought for "the section" without asking, which, fine, it's 12

Torts for Tuesday not started. A delivery van, a ladder, and a man who should not have been on the ladder. I'm going to do it Sunday before group like I do it every Sunday before group.

Group chat since 3:
Hunter: "shoes you can stand in for 4 hrs"
Lauren: "is there a dress code"
Hunter: "yes. joy"
Dez, from somewhere on the interstate: "have fun kids"

S. hearted the joy one. Nothing else from him all day.

Sat 9/16 — 10:05p

Lauren got there at 12:40. Hunter got there at 12:55, in a green felt hat he says was his uncle's. Called it.

The "hour" turned into 5. The chicken dance started around 2 and the band leader made everybody within 30 feet stand up. Lauren didn't just stand up. She committed: elbows, knees, the clap, the full spin at the end. A man in lederhosen who had to be 70 high-fived her after. Hunter filmed the whole thing and dropped it in the chat with no caption, and Dez replied from Columbus "this is who she is."

I did about half of it with my arms crossed, which is not a way to do the chicken dance.

While she was mid-spin I said to S. "she's putting this on her résumé." He said "she's having a better time than you." Then he went and got in the pretzel line. I didn't have anything back, so I drank my beer, which was warm by then.

For the record I was having a fine time.

The pretzel was not bigger than his head. Hunter held it up next to S.'s face for proof and it was about even, and S. said "I'll allow it," and that ruling stands. I got a quarter of it, which was about what I was owed after the almonds.

The 4 p.m. storm came at 4:10. The whole street got under 3 tents. Strangers' shoulders, somebody's brat against my arm, the tuba player keeping his tuba dry under his own shirt somehow. Lauren handed out napkins from her bag. She had a travel pack of napkins in her bag, at a beer festival, like she'd outlined it.

Streetcar home soaked. S. got off 2 stops before me and said "go do your ladder," so apparently I told him about the ladder at some point.

Tess on shift. Torts tomorrow before group, the van and the ladder and the man.

There's mustard on this page, bottom corner, and it's not coming off.

Sun 9/17 — 11:26p

The inhaler counter says 12. It started at 200. I don't know how many days 12 is, but it's not many.

Ran the stairs at 7:40, down and up twice. On the first climb I stopped at the landing by the reservoir fence "to stretch." On the second I didn't pretend. A woman older than Mom passed me going up with a dog, said "morning," and wasn't breathing hard. My legs were still full of yesterday. Pane says 2.1 miles, and it has no idea most of that was vertical.

The ladder, at Kiln, 11 to 1:15. The man on the ladder wasn't the driver and wasn't paid. He was the driver's brother-in-law, "helping." He climbed the side of the van for a box on the roof rack while it was parked on a slope, and the van rolled 4 feet. The court spends 6 pages on whether you can be an invitee on a vehicle. I have now read that sentence out loud to myself in a café.

3C at 2. Lauren had briefed it in 3 colors. I said if a brother-in-law on the roof is an invitee, then so is every raccoon that gets into a dumpster. Lauren laughed, a real one, and said "raccoons can't be invited, they don't take direction." That isn't the rule, but it was funny and it got me, so it goes in.

Then S.: "Who paid for his leg."
Lauren: "That's not the question."
S.: "It's the only question he had."

I agreed with S., out loud, which put me on the brother-in-law's side, which is not where I started. Lauren caught it right away and said "so you switched." I said I refined. Nobody bought refined.

Dez at 4:22, straight off the interstate with his keys still in his hand. "Anybody decide if the brother-in-law's an idiot." S. said "legally or generally." Dez said at his firm that's settled by lunch and nobody ever says the word invitee. Lauren wrote invitee in the margin anyway.

Home 5:30. My room was 84 and the unit was on low, dripping. The utility text came at 4:02: "we ask households to reduce cooling 4–7 p.m." Tess was up in her sleep shirt making toast before her shift. I turned the unit up and she said "it's not 7."

I said it's a request. It says "we ask." Nobody got served with anything.
She said "it's a request to not be a jerk, Abby."
Then she said the hospital's on the same grid as my window. I don't know if that's true and I didn't ask, and I turned it down. She left at 6:35. I sat on the bed in front of the fan until 7:01 anyway, with nobody there to see it.

For the record, the text also says "thank you for helping," which assumes the conclusion.

Mom at 7:48. Picked up.

"Are you eating real food."
Eggs. Dumplings.
"Frozen dumplings."
They're real, they're just cold first.

Things covered, 23 min:
- Biscuit got into the trash and ate most of a corn cob. "He's fine. The cob is not fine."
- Dad sold the blue bike, the one he put the new cables on, to a man from Mt. Zion for his granddaughter. I asked if he made anything on it. She said "He was pleased, Abigail." Then she moved on to the next thing like I'd asked about the weather.
- Cole's band is playing someone's graduation party in October, for a graduation that happened in May. They're called Parking Brake now.
- Church. Somebody named Deb asked "how's the lawyer." I said I've read 4 cases about ladders. Mom said "so, good."
- Nana asked about my judges. Mom said she's better in the mornings, I could call. I said I have class in the mornings. Mom said "Saturday morning," and then just waited, like Albrecht (see: every adult).

Anyway.

Sent S. the raccoon thing at 9:10, since he missed Lauren's comeback while he was refilling his water. Says delivered.

Contracts for tomorrow is 22 pages. I've done 9.

Mon 9/18 — 12:51a

Other 13 pages at 1:40 last night. Nobody called in my row.

S. answered the raccoon at 7:15 this morning: "lauren wins."

Varga handed back Friday's paragraph. She circled the "however," and next to it she wrote "there you are."

Tues 9/19 — 11:17p

Keel wouldn't tap at Kiln. The Pane said "Update required to continue," which has no due process anywhere in it. I sat at a too-small table on the café wifi for 11 min watching the bar fill while my cold brew waited on the counter. "Counsel. You're not patched." Paid at 8:47. While it restarted I went into settings for no reason, and under the model name there's a line: security updates for this device end 4/2035. The hinge will go first anyway.

Torts. Hale finished the ladder and then kept going. The brother-in-law files with the van owner's insurer, and the insurer's system denies it in under a minute because a man on the side of a van isn't an "occupant." Is that anybody's negligence. I said yes, the insurer's, because somebody picked the word occupant and set a thing up to stop reading there. Hale: "Picked it when?" I said when they built it. She said "And who's the plaintiff suing, the word?" Lauren said it isn't Torts at all, it's a contract claim with maybe bad faith on top (Dwyer, in the notes, which she'd read, and Dad used to do this, sort of), and Hale said "For today, yes, Ms. Pham," and went back to the roof rack. Lauren didn't write anything in her margin. She didn't have to.

S. at the cart after: "you had the room on occupant." I said the room isn't who grades. He said "nobody grades Hale's room." I said we'll see. He drank his coffee like that was an answer.

For the record the word came from somewhere, and a person put it there.

Albrecht spent the whole hour on the log case in the supplement and called on 2 people on the other side. Whit/Wyatt's seat was empty.

Memo log is 11 lines. Friday.

Stair light's fixed. I didn't notice until I was halfway down and could see my own feet.

Tess wrote on the whiteboard under her shift, in green: "BLENDER OK TILL 9 (AM)"

Wed 9/20 — 11:41p

Kat, 7:58a: "today?? 8:30, bring a pen." I was already halfway down the stairs with Contracts in my bag, which is true, and I sent her a picture of the syllabus, which is petty. She sent back a thumbs-up and "next wed!!" That's two next weeks.

Dunleavy did the mailbox rule, and no deli, which felt like being skipped. He sat on the desk and called on 3 people in the front row. One was Lauren, who got a "good." Not a laugh, a "good." Noting it.

Headache at 10:20, early (see: every Wednesday, ahead of schedule). Bead in the basket. Albrecht back in the log case, and again he called nobody on my side. That's 3 classes now. Either he's working across the chart or he's saving me.

Carrel 4-17 from 12 to 5, except lunch, which was 14 min in the microwave line for dumplings. Memo log is 15 lines. 2 of the new ones are cases I pulled and then decided don't matter, and Varga says those still go in, so they're in.

3C. At 7, before anyone had said the word, Lauren said "nobody talk about the memo." Dez said "I was going to talk about the memo." Nobody talked about the memo.

Torts for tomorrow instead. Palsgraf: the man with the package, the guards pushing him onto the train, the fireworks, the scales at the other end of the platform coming down on Mrs. Palsgraf. Dez said that's a settle-by-Thursday. S. said the scales did nothing wrong. I said the scales are the only party in the case with an alibi. Lauren laughed and wrote something down.

S.'s Pane lit up on the table, 9:47. We were on Cardozo's part, the risk reasonably to be perceived.

Out at 10:05 because the room was only booked till 10. S. took the streetcar. I walked up.

Dani voice memo at 10:58, 7 min. The first 3 seconds are "okay. October." Paused it.

Thurs 9/21 — 11:52p

Palsgraf, the in-class version. Hale read the whole platform out loud: the package, the guard pulling, the guard pushing, and a little boom with her hand for the fireworks. Then she asked "Who is Mrs. Palsgraf to these guards." Lauren's hand went up. Zone of danger, foreseeability, the whole Cardozo part. Then: "Honestly the scales are the only party in the case with an alibi." Room laughed. Hale laughed. Hale said "Put that on a mug, Ms. Pham."

3C, last night, somewhere around 9:40. I said it and she wrote it down.

Not upset. Just dating it.

Dez leaned over and said "that was yours," low, so only I heard. It's the nicest thing he's done all week, and it also means he was keeping track, which means it isn't just me.

Didn't turn around to see what S. did.

LRW. Varga on the memo, before anything else: "Tomorrow. Your name, your log, your sentences. If I read a sentence that sounds like nobody wrote it, you and I will have a conversation." Then she did citation form for the rest of the period and never said the word memo again.

Carrel 3 to 7. Log is 19 lines. The conclusion is 2 sentences that disagree with each other.

Trivia, one round only, because of the memo. Hunter said "one round is a coward's round." Team name "Proximate Clause," a Christmas pun in September, and he knows, and he doesn't care. He brought his cousin Macy from across the river ("loan stuff, at a bank," and Dez said "respect"). During the break before round 2 she went around the table asking why here, like a host at a wedding asking how everyone knows the bride.

Dez: "Money. And Imani's up the road."
Lauren: "Home's an hour. And they have a clerkship person."
Hunter: "I can almost see my mom's house from the garage."
S.: "They let me in." Macy laughed. I don't think it was a joke.
Me: "For the city."
Macy: "Oh, are you from here?"
"No."
"But you'd been?"
"Once."
"That's so brave," she said, and then the host started the famous horses round.

Dez knew 4 of the horses, and nobody asked how.

1 beer. Left at 9:40, on time for once. S. said "it's one memo." I said it's worth something. He said "a little," the same way he says everything, like he's reading it off a card nobody else can see.

Walked down to Holtkamp's listening to the rest of Dani. After "okay. October." it's 6 more minutes, and the summary is: her birthday is Friday the 13th, she already looked up that it's our fall break "so don't even," Tyler is making chili "the Illinois way, no spaghetti, we're not animals," and her team has a tournament Saturday morning and they need a sub "who can at least stand there." Last 20 seconds: "I'm not asking, I'm scheduling." Haven't answered. I'll answer when the memo's in.

Tess on shift. The whiteboard just says NIGHTS all the way across Thurs–Sun with an arrow.

1:48a

Memo done, or done enough to stop touching it. 21 lines in the log. Read the certification line on the cover page twice before I typed my name under it.

Could have been on the lake.

Anyway. Hunter added Macy to the group chat, and at 12:30 she sent "so nice meeting the section!!" Lauren hearted it within a minute. Lab's at 10.

Fri 9/22 — 9:36p

Submitted at 8:04 from the kitchen counter, wearing Tess's slippers because mine are under something. Lectern said "Received." I looked at that word for a while. Received by what.

Checked it twice more on the streetcar. Still received.

Lab. Varga wrote the prompt on the board instead of handing it out: "Your memo's rule. Two sentences. No 'however.'" Somebody behind me said "oh come on" under their breath. She said "I heard that. Still two." My rule took 3 sentences in the memo. I got it down to 2 by cutting "generally," which turns out to have been holding up more than I thought. After that there was nowhere to put the hospital, because there was no hospital. It was just the rule sitting there on the lined paper looking at me. She collected them without reading them and said "Go sleep. Not here."

Slept 1:30 to 4:50 on top of the covers with the unit on low, Tess asleep on the other side of the wall. Two grown women asleep at 3 in the afternoon with the blinds down. Had a seam from the pillowcase across my cheek until 6.

Answered Dani. It took 4 tries. The first one started "so, re: October," and I deleted it because she'd play it at the party. The one I sent says yes to Friday, yes to the chili, and I'll sub but I'm not diving. 1 min 12 sec. She sent one back in under 5 min. It's 40 seconds, most of it screaming, then "diving is a mindset, Abigail." Then a text: "drive thurs??" The practice midterm is that Tuesday. I said Thursday and didn't bring up the Tuesday, because it's ungraded, so there's nothing to bring up.

S., 6:20: "submitted?"
Me: "received."
S.: "by who."

Didn't tell him that was my question at 8:04.

No storm at 4, the first day all week. Hot anyway.

Dinner was toast in the pan on the one good burner, with the good peanut butter, standing at the counter where the memo was. 2 slices, then 2 more.

Sat 9/23 — 10:48p

Goetta at 8:10 with Tess, straight off her shift, still in scrubs, mask lines across her nose. She orders for me now without asking. Eggs over medium, which I never told her.

She fell asleep once for about 2 seconds with her fork up, woke up, and kept going on the house Kyle sent her at 4 a.m. "It has a porch you could just die on." She meant that as a good thing. She calls the neighborhood "she" the whole time. "She's going up. Everybody's finding out about her."

I said at least a house is a thing you get to keep. She said "rent's priced to the floor, Abby. They know exactly what lands in your account and they build from there." I said my rent is my rent. She pointed her fork up at the ceiling of the diner, which is not our landlord's, and said "that's what he's counting on."

The waitress called me "hon" and Tess "baby." Tess has been going there since high school, so that's seniority.

Home 9:05. Tess to bed, blinds down.

Civ Pro at the door-desk 9:30 to 12:15, Pane face down the whole time. The log case again for Monday, which will make 4 classes on the log case. Albrecht has to run out of road on it eventually. That's supposed to be his line.

Group chat, 1:50:
Hunter: "rec at 2?? who's around"
Lauren: "library :)"
Dez: "laundry & regret"
Hunter: "S???"
3:40, Hunter: "update: I am bad at basketball"

The storm came back at 4:05 like it had only taken a day off.

Nothing due Monday that I haven't read. That hasn't been true since August. I opened Lectern 3 times this afternoon to check whether it was lying. The quill spun, and then it wasn't.

Tess left at 6:30 and knocked twice on my door on her way, which she's never done. When I opened it she was already on the stairs. "Just checking you're alive." She says it the same way Dani does.

Contracts for Monday is a man who keeps mowing a neighbor's lawn all summer that nobody asked him to mow, and then he sends a bill

Sun 9/24 — 10:22p

Tried the river trail instead of the stairs, because it's flat. It is flat. Getting to it is not. Took the wrong street down, ended up under the interstate next to a sign for a parking lot that closed some other decade, and came back up a hill I didn't know we had. Pane says 3.4. One puff before, inhaler says 11.

3C at 2. Dez on time and smug about it. The mower. Lauren said he's a volunteer, he conferred a benefit nobody asked for, no recovery, done. I said the neighbor watched him do it every Saturday from her kitchen window and never once came out, which is accepting it (see: every Saturday). Dez said "so I can bill you for the almonds." S. said "communal." Lauren said "silence isn't acceptance, it's on page 3."

It's on page 3.

Storm at 4:07. Every Pane in the room buzzed at once with the county alert, about 6 minutes after the rain was already coming sideways at the window. Dez said it's always late. Lauren said you couldn't sue them for it anyway, discretionary, and bet it's on Hale's syllabus somewhere before October. So whose job is it to be wrong out loud. Wrote that on the corner of the mower brief and didn't say it.

Mom at 7:30. Asked if the paper was in. I said Lectern said received. She said "well, that's good," like received is a grade. Then "your dad's right here" and handed it over before I could stall.

Dad: "Hill still there?"
Yes.
"Good."
There's a 3-speed in the garage now, green, older than him probably. I asked who it was for. He said "nobody yet." Then "here's your mom." 2 min, which for him is a speech.

Texted S. at 9:02: "page 3." Nothing.

Running shoes are on the radiator, which isn't on, so they're just shoes sitting on a radiator.

Mon 9/25 — 11:48p

Called.

10:41, 4 classes into the log case, Brannock, and it was me. "Ms. Hartsell. The tenant." Bead in the basket, heart somewhere behind my left ear.

I had it. The platform sends the notice to the tenant's account and logs it delivered. The tenant says she never saw it, and the eviction goes through anyway. The court says the log gets a presumption and she can rebut it. He nodded, the spine nod.

"And then what?"
Then she testifies she didn't get it.
"And the court believes her why?"
Because she's a person under oath and a log isn't anything.
"A log can't lie, Ms. Hartsell. Can Ms. Brannock?"

I said courts rely on logs every day, service gets confirmed by the vendor and nobody checks if a human saw it, so the presumption is doing what it always does. That's Dez's, from the cart, almost word for word. I heard it come out in my voice.

"And then what?"
Then the landlord brings in whoever runs the platform.
"Who is who, exactly?"

And there wasn't any more road. I said then it's a credibility contest. He said "Yes," and moved to a guy named Delgado on the other side.

About 4 minutes. I didn't run out early and I didn't get a "thank you."

Better answer, 2 hours late at the carrel: the landlord doesn't bring anyone. That's the point. There's nobody to bring.

Lauren's hand never went up. After class she turned around and said "that was really good, the vendor part. Where'd you get the vendor part?" I said experience. She said "ha."

Dez at the cart: "you used mine." Not low this time. Then he grinned, so that's even for Thursday, and apparently we keep score out loud now.

S. never answered "page 3." This morning at the cart he said "saw it" like it came by mail. After Civ Pro he said "you ran out at a good spot." I asked what makes a spot good. "He said yes." Choosing to take it.

Dunleavy on the mower: "So the neighbor had a very nice summer." Front row again. Nobody asked about the kitchen window. I had it ready anyway.

LRW. Friday's two sentences came back with a check mark. No red. I turned it over to look at the back.

Carrel 3 to 6:30. Deleted Gloss off the Pane. For focus.

Inhaler still says 11. Finally sent student health the portal thing about moving the prescription over. The reply came at 4:12. Needs an in-state provider, visit required, bring the old box if I have it (on my dresser, counter up). A paragraph of instructions and at the bottom "Reviewed by Dana Fitch, NP." I scrolled past the paragraph to get to her name, then went back up and read it. First open appointment Tues 10/3 at 10:30, which is Albrecht. Next is Fri 10/6 at 10, which is lab. Didn't book either.

Tess off tonight, awake at 9 eating cereal on the counter "to stay up." Asked if I got called. I said how did you know. "You're doing the thing with your jaw."

Had Tully read the portal message back on the walk in case I missed something. Flat voice, all of it, ending "Reviewed by Dana Fitch, nip."

Tues 9/26 — 11:09p

Financial aid, 7:04 this morning: "Dean's Scholarship — Renewal Terms (No Action Required)." Also parking, which I don't need, because the car hasn't moved since the 3rd.

Torts. Hale did a sidewalk unit, the little cart kind, stopped dead in the curb cut, and a woman who couldn't get around it. "Does it owe her anything." Hunter said it owes her an apology. Hale said "Mr. Briggs, cite me." Lauren went straight up the chain to the operator, then the city, then the contract between them. S. said "it didn't see her as a thing that moves." Hale stopped, turned around, and wrote *classify* on the board and underlined it.

She left it up there through the second half, through a whole different hypo, and nobody erased it.

Albrecht has finally left the log case and is in the Erie neighborhood, which Lauren tabbed 13 days ago.

Cart coffee, no headache, wrong day for one.

S. at the cart said "classify is doing a lot of work" and I said that's the only work it does, and he said "sure," which is his no.

Wed 9/27 — 11:31p

Cool last night, finally. Slept with the window open and woke up at 6 under the blanket I haven't used since I unpacked it, and the trucks were louder than they've been all month.

Dunleavy had the deli back. Not Szabo — his uncle, who let a guy take a case of something on a handshake and then the guy's truck "had a fire, allegedly," and Dunleavy did "allegedly" with both hands. Then he set the word consideration down in front of us like a dish and stood back from it. Front row again. That's three in a row.

Headache at 10:15. Earlier every week, so at some point I should stop writing down what time it starts.

Civ Pro is all the way into Erie now and Erie is a different animal. It isn't about whether somebody got a piece of paper. It's about which set of rules you're standing in. Albrecht didn't call on anybody for the first 20 minutes, just talked, which he never does, and the room went quiet in a way that wasn't the usual quiet. "You will not feel this until you are standing in a courthouse in a state that is not yours." Then Delgado again. Delgado is having a week.

Anyway.

Went back into the memo upload confirmation tonight because it's been sitting there since Friday. Under "Received" there's a gray line: 2 hidden characters removed. Out of the block I pasted from my research log, which I typed, which I know I typed. Went and found Varga's assignment sheet anyway and read the bottom boilerplate twice, the part about embedded text intended for grading or review tools. It's on every sheet in every class. Hunter has never read it in his life. I've read it 4 times and could recite the middle clause.

It's a space or an apostrophe. It's nothing.

3C at 7. Lauren brought a second outline, a skinny one, "just the Civ Pro standards of review." I said you made a side outline and she said "it's not a side outline, it's a stub" and Dez said "it's a side outline." She's making me a copy. I said yes before I decided if I wanted it.

Then Dez wanted the mower again, and he was right that the kitchen window doesn't get you there, and I said fine, but there has to be a case somewhere where watching is enough. "Sure. When you had a duty to speak." Then he just looked at me until I wrote it down. I said that's Albrecht's move and he said "where do you think I got it."

S. left at 9:15. Said it twice in the room first — "9:15 I gotta go" — and then went at 9:15, and I noted the time like a person with a hobby.

Kat at 4-something: "wed??" Meaning the 4th. Said yes. It's 8:30 and Contracts is at 9, so either I walk in at 9:20 in a coat or I don't go to Contracts, and I haven't decided which I'm lying about. Today was the Wednesday I promised her two Wednesdays ago and neither of us brought that up.

Board says Tess is home 7 tomorrow morning. There's a second line under it in red. EGGS.

Thurs 9/28 — 11:52p

Memo back. Varga brought the stack to the front table facedown and said "Alphabetical. Don't read it in the hallway," so of course the hallway was full of people reading them. Mine was between a Hall-something and Hoyt. I got it to the carrel at 3 before I turned it over.

Red. A lot of it, but in two places she put brackets around whole paragraphs and wrote "this is the memo" sideways up the margin, and then two pages later, "you are arguing with a landlord who has not spoken yet."

She said that about the paragraph on the 15th. Different words. Same sentence.

2 of 7.

Torts in the morning was the cart woman again, except the operator settles and it's just the city left holding the curb cut. Hunter said the city owes everybody a curb cut and Hale said "Do they owe you one at 2 a.m." and Hunter said "especially then." Somebody erased *classify* off the board. It was up two days. I looked for it before I sat down, which I'm aware is a thing I did.

Holtkamp's at 8, three rounds, which is two more than last week. "Erie, Indiana," which Hunter did not pick and does not understand and put on the card anyway because Dez made a noise when he heard it. 2nd of 11. Dez carried an entire round on rivers and then we died on state capitals, which he took personally.

Macy again, up from the bank. She asked if law school is "as mean as they say." I said not mean, endless. Hunter said "four weeks of that man waiting," and did the wait, the whole thing, with his hands folded, looking at the middle of the table, until Lauren said "stop it" and he kept going for another five seconds.

S. got there at 8:20 and left at 9:50. Said he had a call. It was 9:50 on a Thursday.

Kat sent a picture of the courthouse hallway with nobody on the benches — "empty at 4pm, wild" — then "wed!! 8:30!!" Wednesday is the 4th. I've said yes twice in writing now.

Went back to the margin thing before bed. She underlined "has not spoken yet." Not the whole clause. Just those four words, and

Fri 9/29 — 10:14p

Base day. Things:
- rent to Tess, my half
- sent Mom the thing
- groceries: the cheap coffee for the kitchen, eggs (EGGS), a bag of frozen peas I bought because it was 89 cents and I don't like peas
- Kiln once, not twice, growth
- 2 loads

Lab at 10. Varga had us take our own memos and write one paragraph the way the landlord would write it. Not a response. His side, his facts, his rule, in his voice. "You may not use the word unfair." Somebody asked if we could use "unreasonable" and she said "Try it and see how it feels."

It felt terrible. Halfway through I had a landlord who sent the notice to the account the tenant gave him, on the day the lease said, through the system the building uses for everything, and I sat there with my pen up realizing he isn't lying about any of it. Four sentences. Crossed one out. She came down the row and stopped behind me for a second and didn't say anything, which was worse than red.

Hunter after: "so we're doing the villain's homework now." I said the villain has a pretty good paragraph, actually. He said "don't say that where Kat can hear you."

Anyway.

Walked down at 1 with nothing due until Sunday, which felt illegal. Three-way at the parlor by the stairs and the guy behind the counter didn't ask, he just said "the usual bad decision?" so I'm there too much.

Tess home and awake at 3, which never happens on a Friday. She's bought a folder. A paper one, two pockets, for house things, with a printed sheet of numbers in it. "Kyle made me print it because I kept losing it in my Pane." I said that's a whole system and she said "it's a folder, Abby." Then she asked what my rent's going to be next year and I said the same, and she made a face like I'd told her November would be nice out.

Back on nights Sunday.

Dez left for Columbus at 2, "venue day, pray for me." Hunter put up 6 messages about tomorrow, chili tour stop 4, across the river, "worth the bridge." Lauren: "in for 1pm." S. hasn't been in the chat since yesterday.

The stub showed up in my carrel. Physically. A printout, paperclipped, sticky on the front: "standards of review — this is the whole thing, don't outline it twice." Four pages. My Civ Pro notes are 60-something pages of typing plus a folder of photos of the board.

Called Nana. 9-ish here, so 8-ish there, which I got wrong out loud and had to walk back mid-sentence. She was herself tonight. Asked about my judges. I said I don't have judges, I have professors, and she said "same animal, worse pay." Told her about Albrecht and the waiting and she laughed in the right place, at the part where nobody says anything.

Then, about the courtroom in the supplement, the one with the notice:

Do they still have someone take it down

I said I'd find out. She said "you'll know by Christmas."

Mom texted after. "she said you called." One line, and then Biscuit asleep on the good chair he is not allowed on.

The 10:30 on the 3rd and the 10 on the 6th are both still sitting there. I've opened that page so many times that

Sat 9/30 — 11:16p

Across the river for stop 4. Hunter said 1, Lauren said 1, so obviously Hunter got there at 1:20. The place had 7 stools and a card in the window about how long they've been there, which Hunter read out loud to us like a tour guide, and then he ordered for the table without asking anybody, four-ways, which is beans, which nobody voted on.

It was better than ours. I said so and Hunter said "SAY IT LOUDER" and then tried to make me say it into his Pane, which I did not do.

Lauren asked me in the car on the way back if I got my memo back "okay." Just that word, okay, lifted off the end. I said it was fine, a lot of red, and she said "she wrote 'this is the memo' on mine too, I think she has a stamp." Which is either a kindness or a very quiet way of telling me she got a 5. I didn't ask. We were on the bridge and the water was the color of a nickel and Hunter was pointing out his family's building even though you can't see it from the bridge.

Anyway.

Home at 4 and the apartment was all mine, actual quiet, Tess at Kyle's for the night, and I did the Contracts reading for Monday on the floor because the chair hurt. Got through it. Then I sat there with the stub, Lauren's four pages, and read the whole thing and it's good. It's really good. Every standard of review in one place with the little parentheses for who's deferring to who. Took me 20 minutes to read something that would have taken me a week to build and would have been worse.

Put it in the front of the Civ Pro folder, behind nothing.

Cole texted at 6 with no words, just a picture of his hand holding a piece of flat steel with a line of weld down it. I said what is it and he said "a line." I said is it good and he said "for a Tuesday." Then, 10 minutes later, unprompted, a second picture of the same plate from the side so you could see the bead sitting up on the surface, which means he wanted it seen from the side.

I said it looks like a zipper and he sent a thumbs-up.

Sent him nothing else. Had a link half-typed about a fabrication program with transfer credit and deleted it, which I want noted, because I usually don't.

Dishes done, both days of them, before Tess gets back tomorrow and has to look at them.

10:40 the chat went off — Hunter, from somewhere, a picture of a receipt and "stop 5 is committed, Oct 7, no bridge." Lauren: "in." Dez from Columbus: "venue survived." S. hearted the receipt.

Stairs on the way up from the streetcar had the first real leaves on them, the wet flat kind, and the light at the bottom was on, and someone had left a pumpkin on the third landing. A small one. On purpose, in the middle, so you have to go around it.

Tomorrow: run, group at 2, Mom at 7:30. Nana's Saturday morning was today.

Sun 10/1 — 10:52p

No run. Woke up at 9 with the window still open and lay there doing math on whether the stairs count if you do them twice on a Tuesday.

Group at 2 and Dez came in already holding his keys, which is how he leaves, not how he arrives. Something with the caterer. Back in Columbus by 8. Lauren said "then we start with your part," and he did his part, and we were out at 3:40. S. said maybe nine words all afternoon and every one of them was right.

Two pumpkins on the third landing now, a bigger one next to the small one. Nobody's claiming them.

Practice midterm is nine days out. Ungraded.

Mom at 7:30. She asked about Nana's Saturday morning and I said I called Friday night, which is true, and she said "she liked that," and I let that be the answer. Then Biscuit got something off the counter and the call ended the way they end.

Smoothie at 6:15 with the whole apartment to myself, loud, longer than I needed. Tess back on nights tonight, whiteboard already switched over, and the mug I used is

Mon 10/2 — 11:20p

Contracts, consideration, and Dunleavy called on the third row. Third row. Not the front. I sat there in the fourth doing math on the odds like a person at a slot machine.

Albrecht is in Erie and Erie is a fight about which rules you're standing in, and I said that to Dez at the cart like I'd thought of it and he said "Albrecht said that Wednesday" and I said I know, I was there, and he said "then say it like you were."

Anyway.

Tess left the house folder open on the table to the numbers page. I didn't read it. I looked at it and didn't read it, which I'd like noted, and then I moved it so I could eat.

Booked the 10 on the 6th. Which means no lab Friday, which means I have to tell Varga, which I have not done. The form made me pick a reason from a list and the closest one was "establish care." I have never established anything.

Then Kat, 4:40: "wed 8:30 we're ON, also wear layers the AC in there is deranged." So I have said yes three times and this time she's told me what to wear, which is how you know it's happening. Contracts at 9. I'm going to walk in at 9:20 and Dunleavy is going to not notice, and that's the part that bothers me, that it costs nothing.

Inhaler still 11. Two pumpkins still there, one of them tipped over.

Hunter at Holtkamp's last week said half the files that come back to his family's office have the same flagged paragraph in them, the old covenant language, void, unenforceable, every report, boilerplate now. "Nobody reads it. It's just in there." He said the ones that come back clean go through by themselves, and the ones with a real problem land on his aunt's desk, and that's the whole company now, his aunt's desk. Then he said "anyway that's why I'm here" and ordered a pitcher. I wrote it on a napkin and the napkin went through the wash, so here it is again, worse.

For the record his aunt's desk is a better answer than mine was.

Tues 10/3 — 11:02p

Mail slot downstairs had an actual envelope in it with my name on it, which happens maybe twice a month. Machine-written, one paragraph, telling me 41 of 44 said they complied. Doesn't say which 3. Filed that in August and forgot I did.

Torts. Albrecht. Practice midterm is 7 days out.

Kat at 8:30 tomorrow. Layers.

Wed 10/4 — 11:44p

Went.

8:30, layers, and she was right about the AC. Kat had a pen for me because she assumed I wouldn't bring one, which, fine, I didn't.

Big room, bad chairs, a rail, and you sit behind the rail. The clerk called them in groups. Not one at a time — groups, six or seven case numbers read straight through, and the ones with nobody standing up got handled in about the time it takes to say a number. I counted 14 before 9. Kat leaned over and said "watch how long the ones with a person take," and she was right. Four, five minutes. The magistrate asked actual questions and looked at the person while they answered.

One woman had a folder. A paper one, two pockets, papers coming out the top, and she kept trying to hand it up and the clerk kept saying ma'am, not yet.

Left at 9:12, walked into Contracts at 9:24. Dunleavy was on the desk mid-story and didn't stop, didn't look, nothing. Sat in the fourth row with my coat on and my ears cold and wrote down the rest of the hypo like I'd been there the whole time.

Anyway.

Albrecht, still Erie. Delgado again. I've stopped deciding what that means.

Kat at the cart after, coffee I didn't want: "so you'll come back." I said yes. She said "you said yes four times already" and laughed, and it wasn't mean. Then she told me about a judge downtown who won't take a motion without a signed line from an actual lawyer saying they read it. Not read it, read it. The first time she watched him send one back, she said the whole room went quiet like somebody'd dropped a tray.

Headache at 10:15 again, so that's just the schedule now.

3C at 7. S. left at 9:15 and didn't say it first, and I noticed that more than I noticed him going.

Practice midterm Tuesday. Six days. I have a folder of photographs of a board.

Thurs 10/5 — 11:38p

Torts at 9 and I had done the reading and she never got past the first hypo, which was a rented car with two names on it in the app and one person driving. Lauren wanted to know who the app thinks the driver is. Hale said "the app doesn't think."

LRW. Told Varga about tomorrow. She said "student health," not as a question, wrote something on the roster, and said "Bring me the paragraph Monday."

Trivia two rounds. "Res Ipsa Loquitipsy" again because Hunter says the name earned a rematch. 5th. Macy wasn't there, had a thing, and Lauren said "tell her we said hi" to a man who was going to tell her anyway.

Dad called. He does not call. I could hear Mom in the room, so he was put up to it. His doctor's after him about the one-and-done cholesterol shot and he wanted to know if it's covered, and then he was off — preauth, medical necessity, the whole vocabulary, faster and easier than he talks about anything. I said I don't know how any of that works.

"No, you wouldn't yet."

Fri 10/6 — 10:31p

Student health at 10. Forms, then a woman took my blood pressure twice and said "that's fine for a Friday." Dana Fitch came in holding the old box because I'd set it on the counter. Shook it, looked at the counter, said "eleven." Then: "how long has it said eleven." A while. She didn't make a face, which I noticed, and then had me blow into a tube three times. Third was my best, apparently.

She asked what I'm doing here and I said law school and she said "so, stress and no sleep," and typed something. Would like to see the word she used.

New one out of the locker downstairs at 2, with a code.

No lab, which felt like skipping church. Owe Varga a paragraph Monday, haven't looked at what it's on.

Other Friday things: laundry, one load. Kiln, large. Didn't buy peas.

Stop 5 tomorrow, no bridge, and Hunter has sent 4 messages about parking.

Sat 10/7 — 11:02p

Four messages about parking and then there was parking everywhere, half a block of it, right out front.

Stop 5 has a drive-thru window and nine stools and a sign for a sandwich they don't make anymore. Hunter did the historical portion before anybody got a menu — the family, the second location, the year the window went in — and then told us the cheese here is cut thicker, which it is, which I would not have noticed and now can't unnotice. He ordered for himself this time. Lauren said "one o'clock" and was there at 12:58 with her coat still on, eating fast because she had the afternoon planned, and left at 1:40.

Dez bet Hunter the drive-thru doesn't take Keel and lost, and paid in a way that involved a lot of commentary.

S. hearted the receipt last night and then didn't come. Hunter said "where's my guy" and Lauren said "he said he had stuff," which means he told somebody. Not asking.

Anyway. Three days.

Sat on the floor with the Civ Pro folder out and tried to put Erie on one page, which is what everybody says to do, one page, and I got four lines and then a diagram with an arrow going both directions. Lauren's four pages are four pages because she waited until she understood it. Mine are four lines because I'm hoping the page will do the understanding.

Did the ladder through the drone through the cart in my head on the walk up instead. That part I have.

Dani: "what time thurs." Said morning. She said "morning morning or your morning."

Tess home tomorrow at 7 and the sink is fine, actually fine, I did them while the water was hot from the dishes before. The leaves on the stairs have gotten slick enough that you take them flat-footed now, and the second pumpkin is gone and the small one isn't.

Sun 10/8 — 10:39p

Tess came in at 7:05 and I was already up, which she did not expect, and she stood in the kitchen doorway with her bag still on her shoulder and said "Please?" at the empty sink like it had said something to her.

Ran. Stairs twice, the flat-footed way, because the leaves have turned into a surface and not a thing on a surface. Stopped at the reservoir fence both times and I'm not calling it stretching anymore. 2.0 even. One puff first, and the new one has a 200 on it, which I looked at twice.

Group at 2 and it was the practice-midterm one, so Lauren ran it. Not in a bad way. She had a sheet. The sheet had a schedule on it. She said "two hours, we do Albrecht's old one, then we talk" and nobody argued, and then we sat in 3C and did a practice exam in silence on a Sunday afternoon, four people and the air handler.

The fact pattern is a car accident in one state, a plaintiff in another, a corporation incorporated somewhere else that does "substantial business" everywhere, and a notice that got sent and logged and maybe not seen. It is every single thing he has said since August stacked into one paragraph, and when I got to the second page I actually laughed out loud, and Dez said "yeah" without looking up.

I wrote for the full two hours. Then we talked for 40 minutes and I found out I had spent most of my time on the thing that was worth the least. Dez had Erie in half a page and I had Erie in two pages and his half page was right and my two were a tour. He said "you're writing to show you know it." Lauren said "which is the whole trick, you have to write like you're bored of it." Which, fine.

S. had the notice issue in four sentences. Four. He read them out loud because Lauren asked him to and they were so flat and plain they sounded like instructions for a dishwasher, and Albrecht would eat them with a spoon.

I asked him when he started writing like that and he said "when I had to write letters people actually got." Then he said "mine's missing the whole venue part" in the same voice, so there's that.

Out at 5. He was going to the rec center. Didn't come to the chili thing yesterday but is going to the rec center, which is information I didn't need and now have.

Anyway.

Mom at 7:30 and I got it on the second ring for once. Biscuit is on antibiotics about the corn cob after all, so the cob was a bigger story than she let on two weeks ago, $140, and she told me the number and then said "don't" before I said anything. Cole's shop class took a field trip to a fab shop in Springfield and he came back talking, actually talking, and she couldn't do the vocabulary back to me and kept saying "the thing that cuts." She put him on for 30 seconds. I asked which thing that cuts and he said "plasma table" like I'd asked him what color the sky is.

Dad in the background saying something about the garage door.

Nana's facility does a thing on Sunday afternoons with a piano. Mom says she goes and doesn't sing.

Tomorrow: Varga's paragraph, which I still haven't looked at, and Albrecht, and then Tuesday. Two more days of the folder of photographs of a board. Lauren offered to go through her Erie tabs with me at Kiln tomorrow at 4 and I said yes

Mon 10/9 — 11:27p

Found out in the hall at 8:40 that Varga's paragraph was the mower case. Wrote it at a window ledge at lunch, 15 minutes, standing, and handed it over at 1:30 like it was on time.

Kiln at 4 with Lauren and her Erie tabs. Left column, right column, and a third color for when nobody knows. She asked me to explain the log case back to her and when I stuck she waited, not Albrecht's way, more like she wanted to see where I'd come out. An hour and ten and she never once said obviously.

Then: "you're fine tomorrow, it's ungraded anyway," and she put her Pane face down to say it.

I don't know what to do with her.

Albrecht still in Erie, Delgado again, which is four.

10:30, Room 120, two hours, blue book or laptop, pick at the door.

Tess up and cooking something before her shift, telling me to go to bed, which

Tues 10/10 — 10:58p

Two hours. Blue book, because my hand wanted something to do.

Not the practice fact pattern. Accident in one state, fine, but the notice went to an account the defendant closed in 2031, and then there was a third part about a form filed by the wrong office. My hand quit around minute 80 and I kept going with it half-closed like a claw.

Delgado picked laptop. I know because he was two seats up and I looked, at 10:33.

Erie I did in half a page, on purpose, bored of it, and I don't know if that was brave or lazy.

In the hall Lauren said "the third part, right?" and Dez said "there was a third part?" and that was it, nobody comparing, everybody comparing.

S. said "you were still writing when I left." I said my hand was still writing. He said "same thing" and went down the stairs.

Dani: "morning morning. 7." Fine. 7.

Haven't packed. Tomorrow's just Dunleavy and then Albrecht in Erie for the fifth class, so one day stands between me and the car, and the car hasn't moved since the 3rd.

Wed 10/11 — 11:52p

Dunleavy forgot the deli and did a bilateral/unilateral thing with a chart, and a chart from him is like seeing your dad in a tie.

Albrecht, fifth class on Erie, and he finally let it go at 11:40 with "We will leave Erie where it belongs, which is unresolved." Called on nobody. The whole hour was him and the board. Delgado kept his pen up anyway, which I understand now in a way I didn't three weeks ago.

Packed at 9 and it took eleven minutes because there's nothing to pack. Two days. Casebooks are staying here, which I decided and then stood in the doorway looking at them.

Started the car at 8:30 so it wouldn't be a surprise at 7 tomorrow, and it started, and I sat in it in the dark halfway up the block for a minute with the heat on because the inside of the car smells like the inside of the car, which is a smell from before here.

Holtkamp's at 6 for an hour because Hunter declared a break-eve. Lauren didn't come. Dez is driving home tomorrow too and was in a good mood about it, and somewhere in there he said his old firm put a line on everybody's review the year before the cut. Tool adoption. Scored out of 5, same sheet as attendance. He said the guys who scored a 5 were the first ones gone, and then he said it a second time differently, "no — the guys who scored a 5 made themselves the easy part," and ordered the second pitcher. Tool adoption. On a review. For a job.

Hunter said "that's cold" and then asked whether they scored his aunt.

S. is not going anywhere for break. Said it like a fact about the weather. "Staying." I said doing what and he said "nothing, probably," and then Hunter started on the Halloween thing and that was the whole exchange.

7 in the morning. Dani said she'll be awake at 9:30 and that's as early as the day gets for her.

Three-way for dinner at 5, which is the fifth

Thurs 10/12 — 10:12p

Left at 7:20, so 7 means 7:20 now.

Back seat empty and I checked it twice at the first stop like I'd left a kid at home. The books are on the floor by my desk where I put them down on purpose.

Keel put a hold on at a pump in the state I was only crossing, so I stood there with the nozzle in my hand doing a verification on a Pane whose hinge catches every time my thumb comes back up. It cleared while I was in the bathroom. Nobody in the world was inconvenienced except me, and only for 6 minutes.

The land gives up about two hours in. It just goes flat and then stays flat and the trucks pass each other in a slow tired way out there with nobody in them, and you can see the weather coming from forty minutes off, which I had forgotten was a thing you could do. Got the hour back near the line. The car clock has been wrong since and I'm leaving it.

Dani opened the door before I was on the porch. "You smell like a car." The plants have taken the whole east wall and two of them are in buckets, which she says is temporary, which it is not.

Tyler came at 5 with a cooler and shook my hand, which, we've met. He went most of 20 minutes on a woman whose furnace was fine and who wanted to be told it was fine, and he told her, and she paid for the visit anyway. He started the chili tonight because it's better the second day. Beans. No spaghetti. He said "no offense" to a city.

Dani asked how the test was. Ungraded. "Okay but how was it." Ungraded.

Told Mom I'm not coming down. 45 minutes each way, and the tournament's Saturday morning, and then the drive. "That's fine, honey," and then a picture of Biscuit on the good chair. She didn't bring up Nana and she could have.

Couch. Window open and nothing coming in it. I keep waiting for the trucks.

11:40

Hunter in the chat from Holtkamp's. Picture of the table, five of them, S. in it with somebody I don't know, her hand on the back of his chair.

Then: "sams gf is actually really cool"

Then: "3rd!!! robbed"

Lauren hearted the first one.

Fri 10/13 — 11:58p

Chili was better the second day. Dani is 23 and made everyone say one thing about her, out loud, around the table, like a motion she'd already granted herself.

Didn't check the chat.

Tournament's at 8. I said I'd stand there.

Sat 10/14 — 11:31p

Middle school gym at 8, and they heat those on a timer, so for the first hour you could see your own breath over the serve line. Four teams, three courts taped across one court, a folding table with a laptop on it for the score.

Dani's shirts are iron-on letters and the A on hers is peeling at the corner, so she is DANI with a ghost A. The team name is still the team name. I'm still not writing it down.

I subbed two games. I said I'd stand there and I mostly stood there, back row, and then in the second one somebody hit a short ball into the gap in front of me and I went down on my forearms on a middle school floor, which has its own smell when your face is 4 inches from it, and I got it up, badly, and the setter got it over, and Dani screamed "ABIGAIL" from the other side of the net loud enough that a dad on the bleachers laughed.

So I dove. One time, for a ball that didn't matter, in a tournament scored on a laptop. My forearms are two colors.

Took a puff in the bathroom between games and made sure nobody saw, which I don't know why I cared about.

They went 2-2. Tyler worked the cooler and yelled "side out" at points where that was not the situation.

In the parking lot after, Dani sat on her bumper eating a granola bar and asked what I actually do all day. I said reading, mostly, 60 or 70 pages a night, and then the groups, and then having ready whatever the groups mean you have to have ready. She said "no, like, what do you do." I said that's what I do. She chewed for a while and said "you talk about it like a thing you signed."

Then: "You're 45 minutes from your grandma."

I said the tournament was this morning, the drive back is five hours, and the memo due Friday is the one that's worth something. All true, in order. She said "okay," finished the granola bar, didn't say one more word about it, and then told me about a guy at the greenhouse who ordered 400 of the wrong bulb.

For the record 45 minutes each way is 90 minutes and I'd have had to leave at 11.

Left at 2:10. Got the hour taken back. The clock in the car is right again now without me touching it, which is the only thing I have ever gotten out of a time zone. Stopped once outside a town with a water tower that had the old name painted over and a newer name painted under it. Opened the chat standing at the pump and closed it.

The land stays flat for three hours and then starts to not, and the last 40 minutes you're going up and over things, and I came off the interstate and up the hill and still had to think about which way the one-way goes.

Home at 7:40, heat off, whiteboard says nights. Two hours of Contracts at the door-desk, which was my plan for six hours of Contracts.

Books are on the floor by the desk where I put them Thursday on purpose, and now they're just books on a floor.

Open memo Friday. The prompt's been up since Thursday. Haven't opened it.

Sun 10/15 — 10:44p

Opened the prompt at the counter before 9 with coffee I made myself. A guy who paid for the same thing twice, and the question is who has to give it back. Contracts is done, Torts is half.

Late to group. 2:12, me, and I want that written down because Dez has been late four times and no one keeps his numbers. Lauren already had the memo broken into pieces on a sheet, with copies, one per person, mine with my name on the corner.

S. asked how Illinois was. Flat, I said. "It's supposed to be."

Forearms are green-yellow now.

Mom at 7:30. I told her about the dive and she said "on a gym floor?" like the floor was the problem. Then she said Nana asked if I'd been in town this weekend and she told her I had school.

Lauren's sheet is numbered 1 through 6 in her handwriting, and 4 is just the word FACTS with a box around it.

Mon 10/16 — 11:19p

Contracts, Civ Pro, LRW, and the open memo sitting under all three of them like a thing in the sink.

Albrecht started personal jurisdiction over corporations and he was in a good mood, which for him means he asked "And then what?" with a little lift on the end, almost friendly. Called on a woman in the second row twice in a row, which I have never seen him do. The second time she said "I don't know" and he said "Good. Neither does the Fourth Circuit," and that is the closest thing to a joke he has made since August.

Dunleavy at 9 and he is three weeks into not telling a deli story.

Varga at 1:30 did the memo logistics and then spent 25 minutes on the word "arguably," which she wants out of all of us by Friday. "If it's arguable, make the argument. If it isn't, don't put a hedge on it and call that research." Somebody asked what to write instead and she said "The thing you mean."

I have 11 "arguably"s in the first pass. I counted at the carrel, which was a bad use of 20 minutes I did not have.

Anyway.

Opened the memo at 3 and did the first real pass. The guy paid twice, once by his own tap and once because his thing paid it for him on a schedule he set up two years ago and forgot. So there are two payments and one of them nobody decided to make in the moment, and the company kept both. Lauren's sheet calls that item 2. Item 4 is FACTS in a box and I now understand item 4.

Hunter at 8:40, in the carrel, hovering: "do you have the Contracts for tomorrow." There is no Contracts tomorrow. He said "right, right," and stood there another minute, and then said he's two cases behind in Torts and his dad called about Christmas already. He didn't ask for the Torts. I almost offered and didn't, and I'm not sure which of us that was for.

S. in the chat at 10-something about nothing, the way he does, a picture of the rec center scoreboard that was broken in a funny way. I looked at it for longer than it was worth and put the Pane face down.

Tess left a bag of the good peanut butter on the counter with no note, which means she bought two by accident or she's being nice, and I'm not asking which.

Four days. Torts reading still half.

Tues 10/17 — 11:41p

Lectern didn't crash at 8:55. It just opened. I had my thumb on the refresh before it needed it and then there was nothing to refresh, and I sat in Room 120 with the supplement up and no grievance.

Hale had two purchasing people in a hypo where neither of them ordered the thing and there are 900 cases of it on a dock. Lauren asked whose fault the schedule was. Hale said "Whose fault is a Tuesday."

Four hours on the memo at the carrel, and item 2 is the whole thing. He tapped once, and then the other payment just went out on a day he picked two years ago and never thought about again.

Cut 6 "arguably"s. Five to go.

Wed 10/18 — 11:36p

Two days.

Albrecht on contacts with the forum, the shoe case and then a newer one, and he spent ten minutes on a company with no office anywhere that sells into every state, and asked where it is. Not where it's incorporated. Where it *is*. Somebody said nowhere and he said "Then nobody can sue it, we're finished, you may all go home." Nobody went home. Then the "And then what?" chain, and the answer at the end of it was just a list of things the company had actually done here, which is the whole doctrine. A list of things somebody did. I wrote the list down and then wrote LIST next to it, which is not a note, that's a man pointing at his own hand.

Delgado didn't get called yesterday or today. I'm tracking Delgado like a stock, which I'd like noted as a symptom.

Carrel noon to 6:40 and what I did with those hours was move the discussion section twice and put it back where it was at noon. Three "arguably"s left out of eleven and one of them I think is load-bearing, which is probably what everyone says about theirs.

S. read my first page and handed it back: "you're answering a question he didn't ask." I said that's Varga's line in a different shirt. He said "then two people." He has the restitution part done, obviously, in sentences with one verb each sitting in the middle like a bolt.

For the record the guy did decide to make that second payment. He decided it two years ago, and an old decision is still a decision, and nobody wants to come out and say the thing you set up and forgot is still you. I have a version that argues that and a version that argues the reverse and Friday I pick.

3C at 7 and Hunter came up to the third floor, not to study — something about a deposit for the Halloween thing, he needed Lauren. Then he stayed in the doorway with his hand flat on the frame. He got into his Pane about a bet he wanted to put on some appeal everybody's apparently heard of, $5, as a joke, and it wouldn't take it. Greyed out. He turned the Pane around to show us and the word on it was restricted, and he said "restricted! On a lawsuit! I can bet on weather." Dez said you can bet on the weather because the weather isn't going to find out. Lauren, without looking up from her sheet: "there's a reading about why you can't do that, it's in the PR course," and Hunter said "I don't have that yet" and she said "you will."

Then he said "well now I want to know how it comes out" and went, and nobody said come back Sunday. I've had Monday night in the back of my head since Monday night — him at my carrel not asking for the Torts — and I had the whole thing out in my mouth, come Sunday, there's room, and what I did instead was look at the door after it closed.

Headache at 10:15 like always and then a second one at 4, which is new, and I am not going to do math on it.

Hand on the frame the whole time he was talking.

Thurs 10/19 — 11:24p

Picked the version. The old decision is still his decision — he set the thing up — and he gets it back anyway, because by the second payment the company already knew it had been paid once. Wrote the sentence standing at the carrel at 4:40, then sat down and read it and it's fine. It's a sentence. Three "arguably"s down to one, and that one I turned into "the better reading is," which is the same hedge in a nicer coat and she will find it.

Torts at 9. Hale ran the dock out to where the 900 cases are sitting there costing somebody money every day they sit, and asked who pays the dock. Lauren said whoever could have stopped it cheapest. Hale said "Say more," which is her version of the waiting, except hers lasts four seconds and then she helps you.

Varga at 1:30 did not say "arguably" once, which after Monday felt like a trap.

Trivia, because Hunter would have called. Two rounds, 6th of 10, team name "Motion to Dismiss This Round," thought of in the car and still being enjoyed at 9. Dez had one beer and announced it three times. He's driving up tomorrow afternoon, off his week — Imani's mother is in town about flowers.

Then I said it, at the table, while Dez was at the bar. Sunday, 2 o'clock, 3C, if he wants. He said "oh — yeah, maybe," and looked down into his glass. Then "I've got a thing with my dad." I don't know whether there's a thing with his dad.

In August it was kind of full. Tonight I'm the one holding a door open in a bar and he's the one saying maybe.

Anyway.

S. wasn't there. Out in the chat at 7:40, then at 10:52 just to me, "memo tomorrow. you good." No question mark. I said picked my version. He said "good one?" and I said we'll find out and he sent "that's the spirit, counselor," which he has never called me before.

Rain at 4 and again at 8. The stairs tonight had water running down the middle of every step, a little channel cut into each one, so I took the street.

Fri 10/20 — 10:51p

In at 8:06 from the kitchen counter. Hit submit and then stood there with my hand on the counter for a second like the counter had something to say about it.

Lab at 10 and Varga handed out a prompt with nothing to do with any of it — a man who rebuilt a fence on the wrong side of a line and sent nobody a bill. "You turned something in two hours ago. Now you're going to write about a fence." Hunter said "respectfully" and she said "no."

Four sentences. No arguably. No "the better reading is," which she would have found in about a second.

She didn't collect them. She had us read them to the person next to us, out loud, which is new. The guy next to me is named Pruitt, which is Nana's name, and I lost about a half second to that before he started. His paragraph was better than mine. One line of rule, flat, sitting there, and then the facts came in behind it and did the work. That's the sideways brackets. That's what she's been writing sideways in my margin since September.

Said so to him. He said "I rewrote it three times," and the lab is 45 minutes.

Anyway.

Money went out: Kiln twice, which is the memo tax, and beef because I wanted it, which I'll feel in a week. Then the parlor at 5 and the counter guy didn't say anything at all this time, just started it, which is either a relationship or the end of one.

Slept 1 to 3:30 with the blinds down. Got up and Tess was in the kitchen at 5 in a sweatshirt, not scrubs, making a sandwich, and the house with the porch went to somebody else. Over asking. She said it twice and put "fine" on the end of the second one. The folder is still on the table, still open to the numbers page.

Dez made Columbus by 4 and sent a picture of a card with nine kinds of flowers on it and no caption.

Nothing in the chat all day from Hunter. Not one thing, on a Friday, which from him is a document.

S. at 8:20: "it's done. that's the whole thing." Then nothing for an hour, then a picture of the reservoir stairs with the water still running down the middle of them.

The Halloween thing is a Saturday and there's a sign-up.

Sat 10/21 — 9:58p

Slept until 11:10 and woke up annoyed about it, like I'd been robbed in a way I agreed to. No diner. Tess was asleep and I wasn't up, so it just didn't happen, and nobody owes anybody a goetta.

Bill came in. It's $9 more than last month and we used less, which we know because the window unit has been off since the 8th. Tess did the math on the whiteboard under her shifts, in green, and the household part of it didn't move at all. The other line moved. It has its own date on it, two weeks off from ours, so you can't even put them next to each other. Tess says Kyle's dad says it's the warehouses out by the river not carrying their end, and she said it the way you report weather you don't believe in. I said I'd like to see what the warehouse's line says. She said "Abby, nobody's showing you that."

For the record $9 is $9 and I'm the one who ran the unit in September.

Called Nana at 11:30, which is 10:30 there, which is the good half of the day per Mom. Rang 9 times. The room phone just rings, there's no voice at the end of it, no anything, it rings until you decide to stop. Didn't try again. Could have tried again at 4.

Hunter resurfaced at 1 with 11 messages about Halloween, including a rule about not coming as a lawyer, which he says is "beneath us," and a sign-up with a slot for what you're bringing. I put beer because I bought beef this week and will be out of money. Lauren's already answered with hers and it's a thing with a concept.

Contracts for Monday at the door-desk, 3 to 6:30, and I understood it the first time through, which felt like finding a $20 in a coat.

Took the AC unit out myself at 6 and got it in the closet. The sill under it is a different color than the rest of the sill.

Sun 10/22 — 10:36p

S. went the other way on it.

Found that out at 2:20, four days after it stopped being anything I could do something about. He had the man eating the second payment — you built the thing, it's your thing, it paid on the day you told it to pay, and two years later is not a defense. Four sentences, one verb each, sitting there like bolts. Lauren came out where I came out, which should have felt better than it did, because she got there off item 2 on her own sheet and I got there standing at the carrel at 4:40 on Thursday because I had to pick something.

Lauren said it doesn't matter which side. "She's grading whether you could see which facts were doing the work." Item 4. Everything is item 4.

So that was ten minutes, and then there was nothing due, nothing at all, no reading that had to be ready for anybody tomorrow except my own Civ Pro, and the room got strange about it. Fifty minutes and we were done. Lauren filled the rest with a calendar she'd already made — outlining starts the first week of November, two courses a week, "and then we're just reviewing in December, not building." She said "not building" like a diagnosis of other people.

Dez walked in at 3:50 straight off the road with his keys still in his hand, into a group that had already broken up, and we sat there another twenty minutes anyway because nobody wanted to be the one to stand up. The flower thing is resolved. They went with the card with nine kinds on it, which Imani's mother picked and which Dez had already sent a picture of on Friday, so the whole weekend was a round trip to agree with a decision. He did not seem to mind. He said "that's the job."

Anyway.

Hunter at 3, in the chat, a photo of a long table at his family's office with files on it in two stacks and a coffee cup on the near one. "sunday with dad. 40 of these." So there was a thing with his dad. I hearted it. Lauren hearted it. He didn't come back on, and the Halloween messages stopped for the day, which from him is the quietest he gets.

Earlier: ran, first time in two weeks, and the two weeks were right there in my chest by the second flight. Stairs down, street up, because I know what I am now. The hills have actually gone over — the whole slope above the reservoir is orange and rust and that one stupid red tree somebody planted on purpose — and I stopped at the fence and stood there breathing like a man in a movie who's been stabbed. One puff before. Counter says 198.

Mom at 7:30. Told her about the 9 rings yesterday and she said oh, Saturday mornings they do a thing with the chairs and the bands, she'd forgotten to tell me. So Nana was in a room with bands and I was standing in my kitchen counting rings. Mom said "try her in the week, she's good till about two." Dad in the background about the gutters. Cole's band has the graduation party next weekend, the graduation from May.

Said I'd call Tuesday. Tuesday is Albrecht and Torts and I'll call Tuesday.

Beer's on me for the Halloween thing but not until the 1st, and I'm going to have to say that out loud to Hunter at some point.

Civ Pro for tomorrow is done. Tried the one page again after everybody left 3C and got five lines, which is one more line than the 7th.

Mon 10/23 — 11:16p

Dunleavy said "Ms. — " and then stopped.

Went down to his office after Varga let us out, a little after 3, because I had an actual question about the mower and whether a benefit nobody asked for can ever get there. He was eating something out of a container with a fork. "Ms. —" and the hand doing the thing where he's reaching for it, and then "come in, sit down." The question got answered. It was a good answer. He drew bargained-for exchange on a napkin and turned it around so it faced me.

Four weeks in the fourth row with my hand up.

Albrecht on general jurisdiction, at home everywhere versus at home somewhere, and he asked where a person is at home and somebody said where they sleep and he said "Where do you sleep in August, Mr. Nagle."

Varga handed back nothing. Said open memo grades in about three weeks and the room made a noise and she said "that's fast."

Didn't call Nana. I said Tuesday.

Tues 10/24 — 11:52p

Called her at 1:40 between Civ Pro and nothing. She picked up on the fourth ring and said "well" like I'd been standing outside.

She's good till about two. She was good. I didn't have a trial for her so I gave her Nagle and August and she said "that's not a question, that's a dare."

Torts, the dog again. Albrecht.

Wed 10/25 — 11:33p

Radiator came on by itself sometime in the night, so now I know what that sounds like. Clank, then a long hiss, then nothing for twenty minutes, then clank. Went down the stairs at 8:30 and every windshield on the block was white, the whole row of them, and mine the whitest because it hasn't moved since the 14th.

Dunleavy had the deli back. Three weeks and then his grandmother's brother-in-law and a disputed freezer. Then he called on me, by name, correct, "Ms. Hartsell," and the seating chart is taped flat on the podium and I watched him look down at it before he said it.

The answer was fine. Mutual assent. Nobody cares.

Albrecht, still general jurisdiction, and somebody offered up the registered agent's office as where a company lives. He said "So it resides in a drawer in a strip mall." Then the chain, and the end of the chain is you can sue it anywhere it's at home and it's at home almost nowhere, which he said in the voice he uses when he's told you something that should bother you and is waiting to see if it does.

3C at 7. Lauren brought the outlining calendar, printed, two courses a week starting the 1st, mine with my name in the corner again.

I said what about Hunter, for Sunday. Lauren said "sure, that's fine," already looking at the next thing on her sheet, and Dez said "he's funnier than all of us," and that was the whole conversation, four seconds, done.

Texted Hunter at 10 to say the beer's on me but not until the 1st. He sent back "i got you. pay me never." Didn't say anything about Sunday. The box was right there open on my screen and I closed it.

S. left at 9:15 and said it first this time.

Beer he likes is $14 for the twelve and I looked that up before I texted him.

Thurs 10/26 — 11:41p

Put the registrar on hold at 9:50 and forgot about it, and then it pinged me at 12:20 with a woman already saying hello, in the carrel, so I said hello back into the silent floor and then got up and did the rest of it in the stairwell. Residency. She was nice. She wanted to know if I had a job here, and when I said no she said "mm," and then said the committee looks at "the whole picture," which I wrote down in my Civ Pro notes because it was the only paper out.

The whole picture. There's a form, apparently. There's always a form and it's never on the page where you're looking for it.

Torts was the dog and a shared car and Hale got Chester into the back seat somehow. Lauren asked whether the dog counts as cargo.

Trivia. Hunter named us "Hearsay Within Hearsay" and had to explain it to the bartender and then to Macy and then abandoned it. 4th. Dez left after round two because he's packing for nothing, he just left. S. came at 8:30 and sat down across from Hunter instead of next to me, which is where there was a chair.

Hunter asked me what time Sunday. He asked me. I said 2 and he said "2," and wrote it on his hand in front of everybody like a bit, except he wrote it.

Fri 10/27 — 10:08p

Blue books back, and not back — a cardboard box on the floor outside his office with a sheet taped to the door at eye level. Alphabetical, more or less. Take yours. Somebody had already pulled the whole H section and stood them on end like files.

The sheet is one page, typed, four numbered things the better answers did. 1 and 2 are about naming which court you're standing in before you start arguing in it. 4 is one sentence: "A conclusion is not an issue with the word 'therefore' in front of it." 3 says the third question was worth the most and most of us "arrived there with four minutes and an apology."

Four minutes and an apology. I had six and no apology, and the apology would have been better.

In mine: a check in the margin beside the closed-account part, and one word next to it that is either good or goes, and I have now looked at it in two kinds of light. Then beside the Erie half page — the half page I did on purpose, bored of it, because that's what Lauren said — a vertical line straight down the margin and nothing written. No word. A line. Which I have decided means either that's the best thing on the page or that's where he stopped reading.

Ungraded. (see: the box on the floor)

Last page and a half is in the claw hand from minute 80 and there are two places I can't read my own sentence.

Lab at 10 and the prompt was facts only. No rule, no argument, no conclusion. "The facts, in the order that makes them matter." Everybody just sat there. Somebody asked how you're supposed to know the order and Varga said "you'll know when you put the wrong one first." I got six sentences. The sixth one was an argument and I crossed it out and you can still read it straight through the line.

Anyway.

The health plan wants an immunization record to finish enrolling me, which they have apparently wanted since August, in a message I've skimmed for the number and the date three times without once seeing the word immunization. Not on my Pane. Not anywhere I actually have. So I texted Mom and got back inside four minutes, subject line FOLDER, then a photo of a page shot at an angle with the lamp in it, crooked, her thumb along the bottom, my name across the top in handwriting I don't know. 2013. Whoever it was made the 8 in two circles.

Then: "do you need the dentist ones"

Bought the beer for tomorrow today, which I did not have to do, except he said pay me never and that's exactly why. The $14 twelve, on the Friday before the Wednesday. One load of laundry. Nothing else.

Sign-up's at 14 and Lauren is bringing something with a concept, still unnamed, listed as "a tray." Dez left trivia after round two last night and was in Columbus by noon, which he announced with a photograph of a highway.

S. at 7-something asking what I'm going as. Then, unasked, what he's going as: nothing, probably.

Carried the twelve up the stairs and had to switch arms at the second landing, which in May I would have

Sat 10/28 — 11:21p

Hunter came as the dog.

Brown hoodie, ears made out of felt and a headband, and a sign on a string around his neck that said CHESTER in marker, and he spent the first hour making people guess and nobody guessed, because the sign said Chester, so he kept having to say "the dog. From Torts. The DOG," and by 9 he'd given up and was just a guy in a brown hoodie holding a pitcher.

Lauren's tray was a thing. Deviled eggs with a drop of hot sauce on each one arranged in a spiral, the whole tray a spiral, and when Dez asked what the concept was she said "it's a tray" with a totally straight face and I think that was the best she's been all semester.

Patio was open, it was cold enough that everybody was out there anyway in coats pretending it wasn't. 14 on the sign-up and about 20 came.

Kat came. She knew four people and left having met everybody, and at some point she had Hunter's phone in her hand showing him something about his family's thing, and he had the ears pushed back on his head listening with his mouth open. She asked me how the memo went and I said we'll know in three weeks and she said "oh, nobody tells you the memo doesn't matter." I said Varga grades them. She said "Varga's teaching you to write, that's different from it mattering," and then went to get a beer, and I stood there with that.

S. came as nothing, as promised, and then at some point had a pair of the cheap plastic sunglasses from behind the bar on and said he was "a witness." Didn't talk to him much. Didn't not.

My beer went in four minutes and nobody knew whose it was, which is the correct outcome for $14.

Left at 11, and the stairs up were leaves on wet and I took the street, and there was a whole group of actual children on the sidewalk two blocks down even though Halloween is Tuesday. One kid in an inflatable thing that needed a battery pack and the battery pack was dying, so the costume was slowly sitting down on him while he walked.

Hunter's last message in the chat, 11:40: "the sign was a mistake"

Sun 10/29 — 10:58p

Hunter was in 3C before I was.

I got there at 1:58 and he was at the far end of the table with a legal pad still in the shrink wrap and his Torts book open to a case we did three weeks ago. "I'm catching up in public. It's a strategy."

Lauren came in at 2:05 with the outlining calendar and a fifth copy of it, printed, for him. Sometime between Wednesday night and this afternoon she went and printed a fifth copy.

And then he asked what an outline is actually for. Out loud, in the middle of the table, not as a bit — like, what is the object, what does it do on the day. And Lauren answered him for eleven straight minutes and it was the best anybody has explained it to me since August, that it isn't for the exam, it's for the two weeks before the exam, it's the thing that tells you which parts you only think you know, and you can't photograph it, and the reason you don't buy one is that somebody else's is a map of what they already understood. Hunter wrote all of it down with a pen he borrowed off me.

Dez didn't come at all. "staying, driving back in the am, imani's cousins, send help." First time he hasn't been in the room, and Lauren reshuffled the order of her own calendar in about four seconds without saying she was doing it.

S. was there, did the Contracts part, said maybe eight words, two of which were "that's the fact," and left at 4:40 for the rec center.

Anyway.

Kat, last night, with a beer in her hand: nobody tells you the memo doesn't matter. I have been carrying that around all day like a rock in a shoe. For the record it is worth something, it says so on the syllabus, there is a percentage printed on a page, and the comments are the only writing anybody has read of mine since I got here. And also I know exactly what she meant, and I'd rather not.

No run. Out till 11 last night, leaves on everything, and my legs were still annoyed from Sunday. Walked down to the store instead and got pasta and the cheap peanut butter, because the good one Tess left is still in the cabinet and it would be weird to buy a second one of somebody else's gift. Wednesday for everything else.

Mom at 7:30. Cole's band played the graduation party last night in a garage with the door up and people standing out in the driveway, and the power went out once because somebody had a space heater going on the same thing. Mom wasn't there. Deb's nephew was there and reported in to Deb, who reported in to Mom at church this morning, which is a whole system. Cole sent Mom a 4-second video of it. He did not send me the 4-second video.

She told Nana the Nagle line. Nana wanted to know whether Albrecht is a big man or a small man, and Mom couldn't answer it, and I've been sitting here deciding. Small. Dad in the background about the storm windows.

Tess is off tonight and was on the couch with her feet up doing the thing where she fills a cart that isn't a cart, narrating it to the room. A vacuum. A VACUUM, nine hundred dollars, for an apartment with two rugs in it. Then a bathmat. Then "okay, checking out," and she made a little noise at the end and set the Pane down on her chest looking like somebody who'd been to the beach. "It gives you the whole thing, Abby."

Outlining starts Wednesday. Halloween is Tuesday and the kids already went Saturday.

Did about twenty minutes of it in bed. A chair, a lamp, a coat with a zip-out liner, $214 of coat. Checked out. It thanked me.

Mon 10/30 — 11:26p

Found the form. It isn't on the residency page, it's inside a four-page PDF hanging off a page about fee classification, which is a different word for the same thing, and the third sentence on page 1 is:

"Presence in the state for the primary purpose of attending an educational institution shall not, by itself, establish residency."

By itself. So I read the rest looking for what it has to be with, and the list is twelve consecutive months, a lease in my name (half of one), a license from here (no), a vehicle registered here (the car hasn't moved since the 14th), employment (no, see also "mm"), and then at the bottom, as its own line, "other evidence of intent to remain."

Printed nothing. Put the link in the folder with the health plan thing and closed the tab, because a form that wants twelve months is a form you fill out in August.

Anyway.

Dunleavy at 9 on a woman who quit a job because of something somebody told her, and then the thing didn't happen, and no bargain anywhere in it, and he sat on the desk and said "So what's she got." Second row. He has a chart week and a story week and this was neither.

Albrecht spent ten minutes on one word. "Transacts any business within this state." Made Nagle read the clause out loud and then the next clause, and then asked whether a phone call transacts, and Nagle said probably, and then one letter, probably, and then a tap on a Pane while standing at a bus stop in a state you drove through, and where did the transacting happen, and Nagle said the bus stop, and he said "And then what?" By 11:40 we were three states deep and Nagle was standing in all of them. Not one person in that room thought Nagle was wrong. That's the part.

Somebody took the wrong Bead out of the basket on the way out and there was a whole negotiation in the doorway, two people holding one earpiece up to the light.

Varga taped a paper sheet by the door. Fifteen-minute conferences on the open memo, the week of the 13th, you get the comments in the room with her and not before. Lauren's name was on the first slot before Varga had the second piece of tape on. I took Tuesday the 14th at 3:15, which puts a known thing on a Tuesday in two weeks and I can feel it sitting out there already like a dentist.

Hunter texted at 7: should he buy one of the red ones as a BACKUP. I sent him back about half of what Lauren said yesterday, worse, and he said "right right right" three times in one message and then "ok no."

Pasta with the end of a jar of sauce from the back of the cabinet, and tomorrow is also pasta, and Wednesday it isn't. The good peanut butter is still unopened, which at this point is a monument.

Health plan came back at 4:40 about the immunization page. They can't take it. It has to come from the office with the stamp or the signature, and what I sent was a photograph of a page in a folder on a kitchen table with Mom's thumb in it. Which is, to be fair, exactly what it is.

Texted Mom. "ok." Then, four minutes later:

"does it have to be the stamp one"

Tues 10/31 — 11:09p

Torts, chili, bed.

Nobody came up three flights for candy, which I knew Saturday but still bought a bag of the little ones. Opened it.

Outlining tomorrow. Dunleavy, Albrecht, then the calendar with my name in the corner.