Bar Exam Aftermath

It was 4:30 and Shawn had left the building. Someone had suggested that I join a group of people at Billy’s, a bar right near William Mitchell. I had thought about heading to the library there, writing the Day 2 entry, maybe watch a movie on my laptop and just chill. Well, temptation got the better of me and I headed over there to watch people get drunk and smoke. A lot. Cigars as well as cigarettes. (I stunk when I got home that night.)

Still, it was kinda cool to talk to people who I’d never met. Well, it might have been cooler if they’d been talking about something besides the bar exam. I couldn’t believe it—they just got out, it was time to put everything behind us for a couple months and they were still lingering on the topic, certain questions, general discussions about the law… it made me sick to my stomach. Well, not literally, which was good since someone ordered a big plate of nachos that I joined in on.

The best part of the nachos? Yes, it was a big plate and there were large portions, but the girl who decided to get them kept dropping stuff onto the front of her shirt. There were a couple of stains there by the time she left—I told her she could avoid the problem by leaning over the plate, but she was adamant that after spending so much time hunched over during the exam, she was gonna sit upright no matter what. Hey, I’m not doing her laundry…

Eventually, a couple people decided they wanted to play darts, so I joined in on that as well. It was pretty funny, really. I played so-so (though I can pat myself on the back for being the only person who got a double bullseye… and I got it twice), but the guy I was teamed up with did a good job and we ended up winning. All three times. The other guys said we were playing for drinks during the first game, then it was double or nothing, then it was triple or nothing… if I’d had three glasses of Coke with free refills for all of them, I would have been pissing like a racehorse the entire night. Thankfully, I only had one glass that got refilled three times, but then it was time for me to take off.

After all, I still had a concert to attend. A friend of mine, Annie Wallick (link to her website on the main page), was playing a concert at Station 4 in St. Paul that night. She said she’d be on around 8:30, I showed up at 9:00 and she was playing pool with a friend. I asked her if I’d missed it, but apparently, the list of performers extended a bit farther than she expected. Open mic night, lots of people signed in… it was another half hour or so before she got up on stage. I listened to her play as well as a couple other performers, then she invited me upstairs.

Get that smirk off your faces, ya perverts. That friend of hers I mentioned earlier? He’s in a band and they’ve got a little room above the club that they use for jam sessions. It was a nice little place, though not much of a booty trap—they said the futon and mini-fridge for beer hadn’t been delivered yet. Oh, and there was more!

This guy wasn’t the only friend of Annie’s I met that night. One of them, Adam, was up on stage after Annie—his girlfriend showed up about five minutes after he was done. Man, jobs suck… and it was worse because he did a really good job, too. But his girlfriend brought a couple other friends, so when we went upstairs, it was me, Annie, Adam, his girlfriend and two other unidentified females (can’t remember their names, but there are some days when I’m lucky to remember my own, so I’m not going to get down on myself over it).

There was a couch in the room where we were invited to sit: “Just find someplace where there’s not any stuff.” I was moving towards an open space, then saw one of the girls sitting there and called out, “Lap space!” She responded with something like, “Go ahead, everyone else has sat in my lap before.” What am I supposed to say to that? “Oh my God, how do I know where that lap has been?! Eeeeww, gross!” Nope, I accepted the invitation. I plopped down on top of her. (Well, not actually on top of her—I wouldn’t want to squash anyone the first time I met her—but I plopped down just to the side with one leg looped between hers and my arm on the back of the couch behind her head.) I asked if I had her hair pinned, but she seemed comfortable enough. Adam’s girlfriend did not.

She looked over at us a couple times and finally suggested that the girl come over and sit next to her. I asked the girl if she wanted to go; she asked me if I wanted to go. I was perfectly comfy where I was, so I stayed there until the four of them had to take off. A couple minutes later, Annie realized that it was 11:30 and decided that it was time for her to leave as well. I was welcome to stick around for the jam session, but that would have been a tad awkward to be hanging out in a room with three guys I didn’t know, so the two of us headed back downstairs again.

That was pretty much it for the remainder of the day. I was amazed at how much I got done in the course of that seven hours. I wasn’t quite as amazed at how little I got done during the course of all of today. I woke up late (I figured I both needed and earned a late bedtime), hung around the house, played video games, took the dog for a quick walk and picked up the mail, answered the phone a couple times… very inactive and very relaxed. No more pressure to do anything. Aaaahh… life is good. For another month and a half, anyway. Now it’s time for me to wrap this up and become inactive again. No studying, no cramming, just inactivity. Aaaahh… life is good.