And the winner is: Soul!

We won! The four black chicks with the lesbian coach are the freakin' national champions. I sat in the back, stomach in knots, heart thumping, as round after round, my girls stood up and laid it the fuck down. Their final closing argument was a spine tingling work of art. People told me they wanted to cheer.

After the competition, I needed to walk back because I just couldn't sit any longer. They walked, in heels and the drizzling rain, because they said if I was walking, they were walking. It was so wonderful to see them beaming with joy and reeling with their success. It was on the walk back that they told me they had wanted to win for me, and came out there determined not to let me down. "We couldn't have done this without you," they said. There in the craptacular neon light of Las Vegas, my heart broke. I thought I just gave them a good crash course in trial practice. Maybe I gave them something much more valuable.

In thinking about this over the past couple of days, I think I'm beginning to see why sports fans are so interested in the coach. It's the players, on game day, who matter. But before game day, it's the coach's job to bring out the best in those players. When organizers and a couple coaches were talking to me about how great my team was, I told them a little about my methods, which focused not just on the case, but on teaching them to believe in, speak for and understand themselves. I wanted them to be who they needed to be within the case. They grew. It was wonderful to watch, win or lose.

Maybe here it even went a little farther. They were all calling their parents (I envy how close black families are. I love my mom and dad and still haven't called them) and I heard one telling her mom that they were the only black people there. It might have taken a little extra to help them have the kind of courage and self assurance they showed in a white male profession against schools whose names people knew. "Oh, Rutgers. . . " they said, looking deflated. "Shit, they tried to recruit me and I didn't even write them back," I told them. "We run the courtrooms in North Carolina for a reason, and don't you forget it." While that's true, it is also true that our school is the state underdog. It's the old black college with the ghetto nearby. We let people in with lower scores and tougher backgrounds to give them a chance. So, "take that, white boy!" I say out loud. "This was right, and beautiful", I say to myself. I let them hold my St. Thomas More medal for the final round and asked that he guide them. I guess he did. And I'm learning that so did I.

Cheer me up, dammit.

The end of the year, in reality, means nothing. People made up calendars to keep up with themselves and each other and to explain why grandma is so much more wrinkly than the baby. On January first we'll all be the same people dealing with the same shit washing the same dishes and changing the same baby and grandma diapers. Calendars mean nothing.

Yet, at the end of every year it seems like everybody's shit gets stirred up and we feel weird. I've been pretty depressed lately. Of course, the dead fish didn't help, or crap at work, or realizing suddenly that Christmas is next week and I just don't wanna. People around me are cranky. On the bright side, there's this D.A. with awesome legs who wears a skirt almost every day. Yeah.

This morning I started a list of cheer me up things. This is as far as I got.

1. D.A.'s legs. Both of them. In high heels. Mmmm.

2. Christmas will be over soon. No more stupid music in every store I go into because I need grapes and deodorant. People will stop wearing Christmas sweaters, which are an abomination and should all be burned. I will not be tempted to strangle some guy in a stupid Santa tie for 12 more months. Overall, good.

3. If I break down and stab somebody, I know several really good defense attorneys and all the local judges. I just need to stab someone in this county.

4. There's always chocolate.

5. Butt stick is only in the office for another week. (If you're confused, see post "butt stick.")I am looking forward to no longer having to deal with butt stick, who could probably benefit from a good ass kicking. Again, I do know some defense attorneys.

6. L word starts back up next month, even though retarded ass Showtime is taking it off the air and ripping everyone off with a 6 week season. Still, though. It's the L word.

7. I never have to take the bar again. Thank God, because I'd stab myself.

8. I'm running out of ideas. That's sad, isn't it?

Help me out here. Mail your happy thoughts on a postcard taped to the hood of a new BMW to: Bah humbug, 110 S. Dammit Street, Gimme-leggs NC. Don't use cheap tape and fuck up my paint, either. thanks.

Sell it to me

'Tis the season to go buy crap. Years ago, I thought about going into marketing but was too stoned so I just sat around dreaming up funny ads, which I thought at the time amused my cats, but am now not so sure.

I still find myself fascinated with how people try to convince others to buy their crap (hot chick eats popcorn = suggestion popcorn breath will get you laid) and also by how people pick their target audience. "He went to Jarred's!" targeted to bridezillas who measure a guy's worth by the size and setting he chooses for a little piece of compressed coal dug out of a mountain by a Sri Lankan with one arm. That's love. Or so the marketers over the past 70 years or so have said.

My favorite thus far is a local shop: "Guns and Scooter sales." I'm not making this up. This, I presume, is aimed at gun totin' drunk drivers - people who have lost their licenses but may still legally defend their trailer or gang by popping a cap in somebody's ass. On second thought, just the trailer dwellers. People in gangs, in my experience, don't really give a fuck about some little license revocation. Besides, what kind of drive by shooting is that? "Putt, putt, BANG! putt, putt, BANG! BANG!" "Where did that come from?" "The dudes on the little scooters." "The scooter gang? Seriously?" After which, the unharmed targets chase down the guys on the scooters, who are fleeing the scene at 35 mph and kick their asses. So, I guess it's for drunk drivers who need to defend their trailers. Or people too poor or lazy to pay their speeding tickets, resulting in a revoked license but apparently enough money to buy a .22 automatic. The question remains why they take so fucking long to pay my bills.

Maybe we should start selling weapons. Here's the marketing idea: "Bazookas and bond reductions! Get your guns and hired guns at your one stop crime shop!" Or something like that. It's a work in progress. In the meantime, I've got to go hand out some business cards and get the bills paid so I can spend it on something marketed just to me: a left handed lesbian lawyer with a bunch of cats, a penchant for old trucks and a stomachache from too much coffee. Any takers?

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