little things mean a lot

I haven't made any large resolutions (though I have been working on the diet and exercise thing for the last month or so, that is always an ongoing project), but I do have a small goal for 2009.  I bought a cute 2009 day planner from Sarah Pinto that contains a To Do section for each day.  My goal is to write down and accomplish at least one thing per day.  It can be a small thing, like taking a yoga class or walking on the beach or reading 20 pages of my current book or accomplishing a task for one of my classes or grocery shopping.  Or even, dare I say it, posting a blog entry.  I just think that I need to do more goal setting (and achieving) to keep the self-esteem up during my period of retreat from the wage-earning world.  I'm optimistic that this little project will get me moving a bit more and keep the spirits up.

I'm thankful

Just a partial list:

• Gretchen's condition continues to improve.  She seems to respond somewhat to us these days and she opens her eyes and will look right at you when you are talking to her.  Her improvement over the course of the last week has been really encouraging.  I'm hoping that she'll be "awake" when we get back from...
  
• Hawaii!  Mike and I head out for our practically free vacation tomorrow.  It has been a while since we've taken a real vacation together and I'm looking forward to 6 days without plans on a tropical island together.
• As always, I'm happy to have such a great guy in my life.  I would go on, but I fear that I may be schmoopy.
• Of course, I can't forget to mention my wonderful friends and family.  And the gift of good health.  And the New York Football Giants.  Alright, that last one has me a bit verklempt.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

conflicted

On the one hand, I think that the California Supreme Court decision today (PDF copy here) that struck down as unconstitutional California's law that required marriages be between a man and a woman is amazing, wonderful, incredible news. On the other hand, I worry that given human nature and the raw numbers of bigoted, homophobic people in our country, the end result will be some sort of constitutional ban on gay marriage that will put gay couples in California in a worse position than they are currently in under the domestic partnership scheme. I hope I'm wrong.

Here are a couple of great quotes from the opinion:

"In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and their central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples, without regard to their sexual orientation."

"...we now similarly recognize that an individual’s homosexual orientation is not a constitutionally legitimate basis for withholding or restricting the individual’s legal rights.
In light of this recognition, sections 1 and 7 of article I of the California Constitution cannot properly be interpreted to withhold from gay individuals the same basic civil right of personal autonomy and liberty (including the right to establish, with the person of one’s choice, an officially recognized and sanctioned family) that the California Constitution affords to heterosexual individuals."

this is not my beautiful house

I've been pretty introspective lately. Which makes sense, of course, since I am making a pretty big change in my life. I'm trying to be more introspective generally as well. Not in a navel gazing sort of way (though, really, what is wrong with gazing at your navel every now and then?), but in a more concrete action-plan sort of way.

I know that there are people out there who figure out the way that they want their life to go and then they plan accordingly. I've never really done that. I've spent my first couple of decades of adulthood sort of muddling along from one thing to the next. At least part of the reason for the muddling is that I'm impulsive by nature. If something sounds good to me at the time, I head that way without taking the time to figure out the consequences. While that is not necessarily the perfect way to approach things, it has actually worked out remarkably well for me. Sure, I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I know at least one or two things that I don't want to be. And my law career more than paid for itself (in preparation for my "retirement" and on the advice of my financial advisor, who also happens to be my boyfriend, I sent the check to pay off my remaining law loans this week so I am a debt-free woman). Plus I met some interesting, fun people who happen to be lawyers. Who knew?

So here I am. I figured out in the last 5 years where I want to be geographically. I'm pretty sure that decision won't ever change again. Now I just need to figure out the ever-important question: What Do I Want To DO With My Life (did I just conjure up Twisted Sister to anyone besides myself? because I do, in fact, want to rock!). I know two things:

1. I can figure this out.
2. I can make whatever I figure out that I want to do happen. Someway, somehow.

So yes, I'm happy right now. And excited. Because something good is headed my way and I plan to be open to it when it rolls on by.

copycat

I liked this quote enough to steal (ahem) borrow it from Maggie Mason of Mighty Girl:

Dave Grohl in Esquire Nov. 2007 — “Anybody who has to focus on being real has a problem. It’s like having a panic attack over how you’re prone to panic attacks.”

my unified world theory part ncaa: coaches and mascots

In my ideal world, college basketball programs would include in their requirements when looking for coaches a simple question: Does he (or she, but who am I kidding - it's always a he*) resemble our mascot?

Hence, it was pure genius for Wisconsin to hire Bo Ryan:



















And it was not a bad move for Georgetown to scoop up John Thompson III (for more reasons than just family loyalty):
















So despite my sadness that Kelvin Sampson blew his shot with IU**, I'm taking some solace in the fact that he now is free to pursue his ultimate dream job. Coaching the Cal. Bears:




















*I cannot even tell you how happy I was to hear an honest-to-god female color commentator for a Men's Division I game this weekend. And she was GOOD.

**IU is one of my two college basketball teams - both parents (and tons of extended family) went to IU. In the interest of full disclosure, since I'm likely to have some March Madness ramblings here, the other is my law school - Georgetown - I was there when Iverson was playing. Unbelievable.

and then came you

I really enjoyed reading today's blog by dooce's husband* about living with someone with mental illness. It really could be about the work that goes into successful relationships generally, but obviously that work is increased when you are dealing with severe depression or other chronic mental health issues. I'm sure most people have dealt at some point with these issues, if not with a spouse or significant other, then with a family member or friend. I certainly have. And I firmly believe that medication (permanent or temporary) is the answer for some people. It has changed people that I love dearly for the better.

Maybe I'll add better communication skills to my ever-growing mental list of things to work on in the upcoming year. Oh, wait, it was already there.


*I'm sure he is much much more as a person than merely dooce's husband, so pardon my sloppy shorthand.

ms. brightside

Things have been going really well for me recently. Or I've managed to change my point of view and appreciate the good instead of dwelling on the bad. So here is a short recap of what I've been up to:

• I read Eat Pray Love at the suggestion of Alice. It made me want to go to India and Bali. Really I should get out of the Western Hemisphere sometime soon. Maybe 2008 will be the year for some bigger trips. I am working on making more time for thought and meditation in my life. Maybe I really will become a hippy-dippy left coaster after all!


• I've been doing private pilates training sessions a couple times per week. So far they've been worth getting up at 6:30 a.m. for. I love feeling limber and balanced.


• I tried to play Guitar Hero III and... really enjoyed it. Rock on. It has been quite a long time since I've enjoyed playing a video game. I am so not good, but I have started my career and I can rock the classic oldies. (But I have to steer clear of all the Poison-type songs, because I don't know any of them!)


• Yesterday I e-mailed with my high school boyfriend. It was really nice, actually. He's living in Boston, passionately pursuing a number of interests*, and he sounds really happy. I'm really happy to be back in contact with him now that all my teen angst has evaporated. Oh how dramatic everything seemed to me when I was 18.


• Tomorrow Jodie arrives in town. We'll have a pretty beach- and activity-filled weekend, I'm sure. Should be fun. The weather has been perfect, so I'm hoping that the clouds stay away for her visit.


• Next Friday Mike and I are going on vacation to Cabo with our best friends. It will be a spectacular time. I know for a fact that some golf, some spa treatments and some lounging by the pool, drinking umbrella drinks is in my future.


• My art class is going well. We did figure drawing with a model last night. I really enjoyed it. The class schedule for the Spring semester came out yesterday, so I get to peruse the offerings and decide what interests me. I originally wanted to get into painting, but maybe one more drawing class first wouldn't hurt?

I guess that is all for now. I'm going to have plenty of blessings to count next Thursday and I am feeling incredibly grateful right now. My planet rocks.

*He personifies the idea of giving 110% to everything that you do, and he always has. I'm awed by his drive and passion for life.

Moving Forward

Lately I've been trying to take steps to unstick myself. The main thing that has me feeling stuck is my current career. I've blogged about it before, but I've finally realized that I need to start figuring something out sooner rather than later. So I've talked to a few people about non-legal career options, thought a lot about what sorts of job prospects give me energy and would inspire me and taken positive steps to do more things that interest me even if they aren't leading me to a new career. Necessarily.

Tonight is my second drawing class at UCLA Extension. I've never felt that I had particular artistic talent, but I have a creative drive that just has not been fulfilled and the first step to taking art classes is drawing (though I've always been more interested by painting classes). So away I go. My teacher is a pretty darned talented painter and I really appreciated something that he said last week. He said that anyone can draw if they spend enough time practicing techniques and working at it. He acknowledged that some people have more natural talent than others but he said the there are basic learned skills that are not necessarily tied into talent as much as practice. This made sense to me. I've always thought of art more as a talent than as a learned skill, which is a frustrating way to view things if you lack what you perceive as innate talent. So I'm done looking at it that way. At least for 10 weeks. I'm a smart girl - I can learn to draw!

I'll report back more on career goings-on as I continue to sort things out. I'm happy with myself for making the effort to talk and think about possible options and exit strategies. For now that is enough.

Like Four Seasons in One Day

Saturday was LJ's wedding. It was a great weekend of girlie-bonding and champagne. Lots and lots of champagne. I think I had a marathon 12 hour champagne-drinking session on Saturday (impressive, right?). A thoroughly enjoyable 3 days with one of my favorite people in the universe.

I have used LJ's wedding as a placeholder in my mental calendar. As in "I'll do ________ after LJ's wedding" and "I'll think about ________ after LJ's wedding". So I guess it is d-day. I have a lot on my list. Most of it is self-improvement and lifestyle stuff that I've put off for years and I've finally decided should not be put off any longer. Figuring out my likes, my wants and my dreams and working towards something instead of just trying to get away from something.

Should be a piece of cake, I'm sure.

On Blogging and (Other) Creative Pursuits

How many people blog and also keep a separate journal? It seems to me that in some ways they serve different purposes, though many people treat their blog as a journal. Generally I think that I try to produce a more finished product here than I would in a journal. I pick my words more carefully and think about themes and cohesiveness (this isn't always self-evident, is it?). I've been wanting to exercise my more creative side lately and I picked up a book yesterday that has me thinking more about taking time to put on paper more unfinished product. The book is about visual journals (or journals that include visual elements, at least) and theorizes that journals serve one (or more) of four principal purposes:

observation
reflection
exploration
creation

I've designated my new journal, which I'm doing my best to carry around with me and actually USE. Let's see if this project gets any creative juices flowing. Note: if I were really all about editing myself here, I would totally change that last sentence. "Creative juices flowing" does nothing for me. How cliched.

You May Say I'm a Dreamer...

But I'm not the only one.

I had an interesting conversation with my hairdresser (who wants to be a firefighter) today. He is also an Aquarius. We were discussing things we'd like to be or do and he said "You're an Aquarius, aren't you?"

I said yes.

He said "In my experience we're all dreamers. We have big dreams, but we don't always put in the effort to make them happen."

I can see that.

Ya Seen One Crowded, Polluted, Stinkin' Town...

Today I learned a thing or two about one of those crazy early 80's songs that I never really understood. Maybe everyone else knew that this song was part of a musical theater production about chess written by the men from ABBA? Murray Head must be forever grateful for landing that random part.

Get Thai'd!

One Nation Controlled by the Media, Redux

Thanks go out to Ty for alerting me to this blog, which includes text of a speech by Ashleigh Banfield about our television media and the way it both plays into and shapes the consumers' appetite for news coverage. That speech got her demoted and eventually fired as a MSNBC correspondent. When will our serious journalists stand up and try to change the system? When will consumers wake up and demand more than mediocrity and the race to the bottom from our mainstream news sources?

I don't know Ms. Banfield, but she is my current hero.

Maybe it's the Martini Talking, but...

My life is pretty good. For having a pretty rough beginning of 2007, I'm having a wonderful time. Perspective is an amazing thing.

I'm in Dallas tonight. Mike and I planned a trip here centered around a couple of client meetings that I set up in order to finagle a free trip to visit friends. In the interim, his appendix ruptured, which pretty much precluded his making the trip out this time. So I'm in Dallas alone. But I'm not alone at all.

Last night I sat down with Mike's ex-wife and talked. We talked about her life now, and the changes she made in order to get to where she is today and what she wants out of life. We talked about my life now, and my hopes and thoughts about the future. Then she met some of my friends and we regaled her with stories of our past stupidness and our plans for future stupidness. It was a fun night. Ok, there were some pretty awkward moments, but overall, it was one of the better things that has happened to me in the last 5 years.

And I did something similar with my sister in the last two weeks. We found some common ground and started moving forward with our relationship, despite the problems that have plagued us for years.

If you had asked me at any point in the last few years what weighs me down, I would have listed my guilt about my actions with respect to Jodie and my unhappiness with the state of my relationship with my sister. Suddenly, seemingly in a flash, both of those relationships are in the forefront once again, but this time not for negative reasons. Remarkable.

But I can do you one better. I have a friend in Dallas who was there for me during some tough times (see above, re: Mike's ex-wife) and we had a bit of a tumultuous relationship. Nothing earth-shattering or overly dramatic, but we had some misunderstandings and miscommunications. We've stayed in contact because her boyfriend is one of Mike's best friends, but for some time we were not that close as a result of the problems I listed above. Tonight I sat down with just her (something that most likely would not have happened if Mike could have made the trip) and we talked. Like old friends. And we reconnected while discussing how much commonality there was between her younger self and my younger self. Eerily similar stuff. And we had a great time and stayed up way too late (or the hotel just had last call way too early - I haven't decided which). And - note for 'stina - I had my first ever gin martini (Bombay Sapphire, and I didn't even ask for it dirty, although I'm generally a martini wuss). It was good.

The thing that is interesting to me at this moment is that, objectively speaking, I've had a hard year. My favorite person in the world through the course of my lifetime, my gramma, was very ill and finally died. I just sat through five hours of my best friend's surgery and helped him through a rather painful recovery. I'm not particularly fulfilled at work and I've felt some kind of awkward feelings with one (in particular) partner about the necessary time off I've had to take in order to deal with the not-so-great stuff that's been going on. Enough so that it sent me into tears while I was in Utah at Mike's hospital bedside. Oh, yeah, and I'm up for partner this year. And we aren't busy.

And yet... I am so happy right now. I feel unburdened and free. Oh, to savor this moment and remember it when life gets me down once again. Because this month has been serendipity.

Pardon me while I enjoy tonight's Texas-sized thunderstorm. We don't have those in Los Angeles, you know.

One Nation Controlled by the Media.

I'm angry. Really angry. So angry that I am not sure whether I should blog about this right now or wait until I cool down some. It is unbelievable to me that the mainstream media in this country has a non-stop loop of a psychopathic killer's "manifesto" and pictures and writings polluting the airwaves. What have we come to? Seriously.

Who will have the courage and the position to stop this madness? If the news networks and websites completely lack the ability to self-edit and the introspection to understand why their coverage of the Virginia Tech murders is fundamentally flawed, how will we ever stop the race to the bottom that our media has become?

It is not okay to publish the works of a psychopath who ruthlessly killed dozens of people. It is not "news" it is evidence, to be used by the people investigating this heinous crime.

It is not okay to plaster photos of him holding guns, photos that he sent to you because he wanted them widely disseminated, at the top of your webpages, followed by links to his videos and stories about his life, all the while asking for stories about the victims so you can run them in a single link that friends and family members would have to click through from the equivalent of the Murderer's Home Page.

Why would you be so crass as to think that anyone who knew the victims would be able to tolerate wading through the front page dominated by pictures and stories about that asshole to get to the tribute page that you have set up? Are you really this clueless or do you just not care?

So, yes, cnn.com, msnbc.com, cbs, nbc, abc, cnn, msnbc, we are on a break. Don't contact me and I won't contact you. You make me sick.

Small Business 101

Maggie Mason blogged recently on advice she would give to high school students regarding entrepreneurial endeavors. I think her advice, though a bit simplistic, is good to keep in mind even for (barely!) post-high schoolers, such as myself. I particularly agree with point #3, after years of not LOVING what I do:

3. Don’t believe the myth that “if you liked your job, no one would pay you to do it.” It’s essential that you love your work for you to be as happy and financially successful as possible in your life. The person who loves her job will always beat out the person who’s doing it for the paycheck.

Food for thought this weekend...

Sleepwalking Through Life

There was an interesting story by Gene Weingarten in The Washington Post this weekend about beauty and art and music, and how unlikely we all are to stop what we are doing and appreciate those things in everyday life. It made me sad for us. Would you have stopped to listen?

Fond Farewell

My old firm is dying today. I spent almost 8 years working there (from wide-eyed days as a first year associate all the way up to jaded senior associate status) and I have warm feelings for the people who worked there and for the culture that they created there. The firm made a pretty big mistake taking on a tax partner in Chicago who was giving out questionable opinions. And it paid the ultimate price for that decision.

I guess what is interesting to me about the situation is that my old firm was not some renegade actor, doing anything out-of-line from industry practice. Some other firms that you may have heard of, such as Sidley Austin and Shearman & Sterling, were issuing pretty much the same opinions at the same time. And making a lot of money off of them. In my opinion, there were two things that brought my firm down and left the other players in that market standing strong: (i) the Chicago partner was a bit of a bad actor, in the eyes of the IRS, and I think they picked his firm out because they liked the idea of sticking it to him (he made an unbelievable amount of money off these tax opinions and, according to some, he was a bit of a market leader in the area) and (ii) the firm was not Big Enough to withstand the press hit and the eventual hit to the pocketbook. Yes, size matters.

So lawyers fled. Including me. And including many of the heavy hitters who were recent additions to the firm (no, sadly (or not), I am not a heavy hitter) and who had no qualms about shopping themselves around (after collecting the boom year bonuses that resulted from the tax practice opinions, of course).

A lot of people have looked on with glee as one of the big name firms in Dallas collapsed. These people include former employees who felt wronged when the firm had layoffs (as all the big firms did in 2002-03) and former competitors of the firm in its heyday who are happy to lose the competition. I just feel sad for the loss. The loss of the excitement we all once had when the firm was trying to become a national player and the loss of the reputation of a firm full of good, smart lawyers.

I wish my former co-workers luck and success wherever they end up. I'm sure working at the firm for the last year or so has been no walk in the park.


[Note: I intentionally did not use the name of the firm in this blog because I don't particularly want to pop up in google searches of the subject. Just in case you were wondering.]

It's A Good Thing IU Never Got Around To Personifying A "Hoosier"

In honor of March Madness, one industrious blogger came up with a list (and corresponding pictures with captions) of the 25 worst division 1 mascots.

I was glad to see that the Buckeye made the list because he has been a subject of frequent discussion in my household. Mainly we wonder how he manages to remain vertical with that giant head on top of that tiny body ("it's like sputnick!" "an orange on top of a toothpick!" go cry yourself to sleep on your giant pillah!" - well, you get the drift). Mike never hesitates to point out that the buckeye is the absolute bottom of the Big Ten food chain (even below the pathetic Gopher!). Badgers like to discuss the food chain, it turns out. Sometimes it even degenerates from there into a lecture about the many ways that a badger could end up beating a wolverine in a fight. I remain unsure whether the badger or the wolverine would ultimately prevail, but they both are pretty tough characters.

I also agree that all the random human mascots totally suck (John Harvard was my favorite from the link - what an awful mascot!). Though the boilermaker that we typically see at the Big Ten tourney is more cartoon character (giant head!) than that one the blogger included in her list.

Finally I will note that my undergraduate school was also the Yellowjackets (like Georgia Tech), however, instead of being a mean-looking bee with a stinger, we had a happy waving bee that just wants to be your friend and perhaps teach you the alphabet. Like the bee on the Simpsons, but not drunk or speaking Spanish.

(thanks to 'stina for the link!)