I do not fall in love like the ordinary person. It's taken me a long time to accept this. While my friends have found people that make them glow, or that they are gradually starting to resemble (I believe from the large exchange of DNA that love elicits), my approach has been like a swordfish -- fighting every step of the way while being reeled in, and then, when finally in the boat, feeling slowly suffocated and getting ready to either a) leap out of the boat again or b) stab my captor in the eye.
Thus, I've sat through many fairy tale weddings, looking on with some perplexity as my friends said the lines that were (in theory, anyway) supposed to give themselves to the other person forever. And vice versa. And I have to admit, although the thought of trying on wedding gowns amuses me, and a sparkle on my left hand might be nice, I must eventually face reality: that I would immediately spill wine all over the dress, and the ring would make me an even larger target for the mugging that will eventually take place to break me into being a New Orleanian.
There was a boy I thought that I once very much wanted to have those things with. But he wanted to have them in Canada, and thus I found a much more suitable boy who understands that it is ridiculous to want to live anywhere where it is under 50 degrees more than two months out of the year. And I love him instead.
But this love is different. I've fought it off, the best I could. I questioned, interrogated, accused, put his TV out on my porch overnight and a variety of other irrational behaviors that I can only explain by my lame swordfish metaphor. I was fighting for my life, I suppose.
But lately, the boat hasn't been so bad, and maybe I'll think about it long and hard should I ever consider jumping.
And for me, that's about as good as love gets.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Work
I'm sure work is going swimmingly. I can only to venture to guess since I seem to have checked out mentally and only come back to life at the end of the day to read over something that someone of incredible genius authored and then conveniently stuck my name at the top so I get to hand it in, and log my hours, and go home and molt the last of two pairs of pants I can manage to squeeze into and crawl under the covers of my bed.
Winter and I do not get along. Looking at me, you'd find yourself in the presence of a (slightly chubby version) of a Nordic princess, but I think all the cold-loving genes ended up getting lost in some Viking's mattress. I hate cold.
But back to work. One of the hardest parts about being a lawyer is that you tend to be very neurotic and paranoid. Which makes working with other lawyers difficult because you know that in the same way that you are overanalyzing (and occasionally silently mocking) them, they are doing the same thing to you. This makes social situations with lawyers incredibly uncomfortable for me. Plus, we all tend to talk over each, and it's just rude, and I don't know why I keep doing it.
I think my attitude toward work is that it involves money, and unfortunately what many bright-eyed law students don't understand is that it's not that you WANT the money, you actually do NEED it. Yes, I could live without a nice car or my own condo, and actually pay my student loans off faster, but I've done the calculations and considering all the consolidations and graduated repayment plans, it's very likely Citibank will be digging up my body in 2051 up in a last-ditch effort to find some jewelry on my person with which to satisfy the remaining interest.
That would be the euphemism of the century for a first date:
Girl: So what do you do?
Boy: Oh, um I rob graves for Citibank...er, collect student loan debts from estates.
My life insurance policy (again generously granted by my employer) has been securely lodged in my sister's name, but I admit that I occasionally have fantasies of faking my own death and finding some way to collect, perhaps paying sis with a generous wiring fee. The problem is, of course, escaping the Citibanks, the Chases, the Wells Fargos and those greedy people over at the Banana Republic who keep giving me points. There has got to be a rock solid way to keep those proceeds out of their undeserving hands, and goddammit, I refuse to leave a place with a very large law library until I find the answer.
Money. Oddly enough, in the last year I've had more than I've ever had, and yet it's all I think about. It is giving me numerous grey hairs that I am still to cheap to fix. Oh my. Money.
About five years ago I lived in a loft apartment in Staromestske, smack in the center of beautiful downtown Prague. The place was 350 square feet, counting our rooftop patio. If friends came over to watch a movie, we all had to pile into bed together, which was somewhat sordid, but acceptable to twenty-something behemians. I lived there with my boyfriend and a dog. It was on the top floor of a five story building. There was no elevator. Each night, the wall right next to my bed would throb with vibrations from the night club in the basement. I wore earplugs so much, that I stopped being able to stand even ordinary noises as being too loud.
Oh, and I was totally broke. But happy. I ate cabbage soup for a month straight. But I didn't owe any money to anyone AND I was skinny.
All that to point out that sometimes things don't fall out the way you thought they would when you have to live on the bank's dime. Because it starts getting too easy. Then you find that instead of enjoying your work for its many challenges, as you did in the past, you start simply to see it as the means to an end.
That is why I don't really know what goes on between 9 and 7pm when I finally leave. I've blanked out like Amanda Knox on haschisch, except I have better skin and haven't fingered my boss for murder (yet). I need to start enjoying my life again. All of it. Even the part that pays my bills, and be goddamn grateful that I can.
(last three sentences to be read to self in mirror each morning while straddling a heater in an effort to find a will to live, or at least go outside)
Winter and I do not get along. Looking at me, you'd find yourself in the presence of a (slightly chubby version) of a Nordic princess, but I think all the cold-loving genes ended up getting lost in some Viking's mattress. I hate cold.
But back to work. One of the hardest parts about being a lawyer is that you tend to be very neurotic and paranoid. Which makes working with other lawyers difficult because you know that in the same way that you are overanalyzing (and occasionally silently mocking) them, they are doing the same thing to you. This makes social situations with lawyers incredibly uncomfortable for me. Plus, we all tend to talk over each, and it's just rude, and I don't know why I keep doing it.
I think my attitude toward work is that it involves money, and unfortunately what many bright-eyed law students don't understand is that it's not that you WANT the money, you actually do NEED it. Yes, I could live without a nice car or my own condo, and actually pay my student loans off faster, but I've done the calculations and considering all the consolidations and graduated repayment plans, it's very likely Citibank will be digging up my body in 2051 up in a last-ditch effort to find some jewelry on my person with which to satisfy the remaining interest.
That would be the euphemism of the century for a first date:
Girl: So what do you do?
Boy: Oh, um I rob graves for Citibank...er, collect student loan debts from estates.
My life insurance policy (again generously granted by my employer) has been securely lodged in my sister's name, but I admit that I occasionally have fantasies of faking my own death and finding some way to collect, perhaps paying sis with a generous wiring fee. The problem is, of course, escaping the Citibanks, the Chases, the Wells Fargos and those greedy people over at the Banana Republic who keep giving me points. There has got to be a rock solid way to keep those proceeds out of their undeserving hands, and goddammit, I refuse to leave a place with a very large law library until I find the answer.
Money. Oddly enough, in the last year I've had more than I've ever had, and yet it's all I think about. It is giving me numerous grey hairs that I am still to cheap to fix. Oh my. Money.
About five years ago I lived in a loft apartment in Staromestske, smack in the center of beautiful downtown Prague. The place was 350 square feet, counting our rooftop patio. If friends came over to watch a movie, we all had to pile into bed together, which was somewhat sordid, but acceptable to twenty-something behemians. I lived there with my boyfriend and a dog. It was on the top floor of a five story building. There was no elevator. Each night, the wall right next to my bed would throb with vibrations from the night club in the basement. I wore earplugs so much, that I stopped being able to stand even ordinary noises as being too loud.
Oh, and I was totally broke. But happy. I ate cabbage soup for a month straight. But I didn't owe any money to anyone AND I was skinny.
All that to point out that sometimes things don't fall out the way you thought they would when you have to live on the bank's dime. Because it starts getting too easy. Then you find that instead of enjoying your work for its many challenges, as you did in the past, you start simply to see it as the means to an end.
That is why I don't really know what goes on between 9 and 7pm when I finally leave. I've blanked out like Amanda Knox on haschisch, except I have better skin and haven't fingered my boss for murder (yet). I need to start enjoying my life again. All of it. Even the part that pays my bills, and be goddamn grateful that I can.
(last three sentences to be read to self in mirror each morning while straddling a heater in an effort to find a will to live, or at least go outside)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Diet
I am now on the path that leads to redemption: I have admitted that I am swiftly becoming a lardass. Time to take action.
Step One:
Smoke.
Everyone knows that cigarettes cut your appetite, keep your mouth and fingers busy, and supermodels do it and god knows they're thin. Of course, there's always more of a health risk for overweight smokers, but if you increase your intake from one to two packs a day, you'll reach your goal weight in no time!
Step Two:
Add more fruits and vegetables to your diet and avoid wheat.
That means instead of beer you should go for a little cranberry in your vodka, or a bloody mary. The antioxidents also cancel out any potential adverse effects of the alcohol. In fact, you can actually see it working. Have a couple of martinis with extra olives and look at yourself in the mirror naked. Damn! You hotty, you!
Step Three:
Get more physical exercise.
Give your signed letter to your secretary instead of calling her to make her come get it. This will also have the added advantage of no longer being the only lawyer at the firm whose secretary is skinnier than she is. To that end, give her lots and lots of dictation tapes full of your babbling that she has to spend all day typing and tell her aerobics are really bad for the elderly. It's likely this last comment may drive her to eat something fattening.
Step Four:
Find inspiration.
This one really tripped me up. I mean, there's so much to choose from when searching for inspiration to get skinny again. Alas, pasting photos of supermodels and JCrew catalogs everywhere are not doing it for me. Nor do I feel like investing in one of those devices that oinks when you open the fridge. And frankly, the fact that my pants always leave marks in my new flesh folds no longer do the trick because these marks seem to have become permanent and my pants just sort of snap into place like legos.
Thank the gods for this video. It not only provided me with the inspiration to get moving again, it gave me an idea for other lucrative careers once this whole legal thing goes in the can.
Step One:
Smoke.
Everyone knows that cigarettes cut your appetite, keep your mouth and fingers busy, and supermodels do it and god knows they're thin. Of course, there's always more of a health risk for overweight smokers, but if you increase your intake from one to two packs a day, you'll reach your goal weight in no time!
Step Two:
Add more fruits and vegetables to your diet and avoid wheat.
That means instead of beer you should go for a little cranberry in your vodka, or a bloody mary. The antioxidents also cancel out any potential adverse effects of the alcohol. In fact, you can actually see it working. Have a couple of martinis with extra olives and look at yourself in the mirror naked. Damn! You hotty, you!
Step Three:
Get more physical exercise.
Give your signed letter to your secretary instead of calling her to make her come get it. This will also have the added advantage of no longer being the only lawyer at the firm whose secretary is skinnier than she is. To that end, give her lots and lots of dictation tapes full of your babbling that she has to spend all day typing and tell her aerobics are really bad for the elderly. It's likely this last comment may drive her to eat something fattening.
Step Four:
Find inspiration.
This one really tripped me up. I mean, there's so much to choose from when searching for inspiration to get skinny again. Alas, pasting photos of supermodels and JCrew catalogs everywhere are not doing it for me. Nor do I feel like investing in one of those devices that oinks when you open the fridge. And frankly, the fact that my pants always leave marks in my new flesh folds no longer do the trick because these marks seem to have become permanent and my pants just sort of snap into place like legos.
Thank the gods for this video. It not only provided me with the inspiration to get moving again, it gave me an idea for other lucrative careers once this whole legal thing goes in the can.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Lull
I've been in a bit of a lull lately. I've been feeling domestic, while avoiding doing anything particularly domestic, so this basically equates to me staying at home watching old movies while fruit flies breed in my sink.
Sigh.
I'm not sure what my deal is. What makes it worse is pretty much everyone around me is attributing my unhappiness to the practice of law. I can't really agree with that. There's definitely a lot of tedium involved, and I'm not one of those people that gets off on confrontation (although god knows I'll rise to the occasion if need be - or if need not be - like if you're just ticking me off). I also like winning. So far my record's pretty good. As in, I haven't lost yet. Go me.
I need a change, I think. Or maybe a vacation. If neither comes soon, I'm bound to make some irresponsible purchase, like a designer couch, or a massage chair, or perhaps a neti pot.
Hm.
Sigh.
I'm not sure what my deal is. What makes it worse is pretty much everyone around me is attributing my unhappiness to the practice of law. I can't really agree with that. There's definitely a lot of tedium involved, and I'm not one of those people that gets off on confrontation (although god knows I'll rise to the occasion if need be - or if need not be - like if you're just ticking me off). I also like winning. So far my record's pretty good. As in, I haven't lost yet. Go me.
I need a change, I think. Or maybe a vacation. If neither comes soon, I'm bound to make some irresponsible purchase, like a designer couch, or a massage chair, or perhaps a neti pot.
Hm.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Weight
It was recently pointed out to me that by far my most passionate and effective legal writing happened to coincide with the period from last November through last February, when I was blogging heavily in order to impress a potential mate with a panopoly of wit and truth.
Mission accomplished, so I stopped blogging and the writing part of me got lazy and now it takes me five minutes to write a sentence in a brief because I can't seem to find the correct adjective. And even thesaurus.com, my old friend of yore, yields nothing these days because I can't even think of what I want the synonym for. So, such gorgeous phrases as "Defendants' so-called 'very real' defense boils down to nothing but a mumbo-jumbo of misplaced monikers and stonewalling strategems"* have dwindled into obscurity, only to be resurrected (hopefully) with a positive end-of-the-year review.
After landing sought-after mate, my need to be witty in a form that could hang out in the public sphere in blog form and be read by perhaps not all of the people I want reading it, but who I might have mistakenly (drunkenly) given the address to, seems to have faded. Let's face it, I was getting the attention I craved. I was also getting laid, and I've noticed that this can tend to direct the mind to other more (re)productive things.
Also, I got fat. That made it hard for me to type more than my job requires. If blogging were a job, I would've applied for disability.
I'm really not kidding about the fat part, and I'm definitely not kidding about all the offensive things I am going to say about fat. See, there is a very cardinal rule in my family about fatness, which is pretty much that you should be left on the side of a mountain to starve until you read an acceptable weight and may return to the tribal grounds. It's about Darwinism and a strong need to propagate washboard abs which appears on our family crest right next to an abstract rendering of dysfunctionality. In short, my family is somewhat sizest, although we would term it "aesthetic."
When I returned from Asia last fall after getting dengue hemorrhegic fever, I was a very skeletal 122 pound 5'8 waif of a thing, about 13 pounds under my normally small frame. I had to admit that I really liked the attention. I totally got what the point of anorexia is -- it's that barely disguised envy when your girlfriends tell you that perhaps you're a "little too thin." But I'm a nice person, and I didn't want anyone to feel bad and my work clothes fit me like garbage bags, so I did the sensible thing and consumed as much food as possible in order to get back to 135.
This involved a lot of ice cream.
But at 135, I was still a "little too thin," so I indulged everyone once again (and myself with more ice cream) and made it to 140. And somehow forgot to stop eating. And eating. And walking distances longer than 50 yards.
I now weigh 166. No fucking joke. I have gained more than a quarter of my original body weight. I am carrying 125% of myself around like some pussy ant. I am officially overweight according to the BMI. My sister called looking for a temporary home for her Size 8s and I had to decline because even Banana Republic 10s are threatening to give everyone a crack peep show at work when I sit down. I swear I even hear the seams creak when I breathe.
I have been boring my friends to death with all this talk of fat -- so much so that one of them finally convinced me to do something about it already and join a gym. Also, I could stop eating about 6,000 calories a day. Just a suggestion.
I'm glad she intervened. I was starting to have nightmares that I would be on one of those featurettes with "America's Growing Obesity Rate" and then a street shot with a bunch of fatties waddling down a street with their faces blurred out. And there I'd be, and everyone would know it was me because I haven't yet learned to walk like I'm fat so I'd be the only one galloping as my BR Size 10s swish swish swish their way into a hole between my thighs resulting in eventual second-degree chafing.
Truly, it's bad. I think I just disgusted myself into going to the gym again tomorrow. Besides, our gym has those nifty treadmills where you have your own TV, so today I could watch videos from all over the world where drunk people fall on train tracks and miraculously survive. As if that was not enough to make me appreciate a heart that wanted to explode and a body that would ooze stinky sweat and fat bouncing everywhere at the same rate as my suddenly huge boobs (I'm talking about being grateful to be alive, which I, like, so totally am), they then did a MONTAGE of the same shots in rapid replay. It was like being at a rave featuring near death experiences.
Maybe next time a different channel.
*Extra credit for the alliteration. Take that, Matlock!
Mission accomplished, so I stopped blogging and the writing part of me got lazy and now it takes me five minutes to write a sentence in a brief because I can't seem to find the correct adjective. And even thesaurus.com, my old friend of yore, yields nothing these days because I can't even think of what I want the synonym for. So, such gorgeous phrases as "Defendants' so-called 'very real' defense boils down to nothing but a mumbo-jumbo of misplaced monikers and stonewalling strategems"* have dwindled into obscurity, only to be resurrected (hopefully) with a positive end-of-the-year review.
After landing sought-after mate, my need to be witty in a form that could hang out in the public sphere in blog form and be read by perhaps not all of the people I want reading it, but who I might have mistakenly (drunkenly) given the address to, seems to have faded. Let's face it, I was getting the attention I craved. I was also getting laid, and I've noticed that this can tend to direct the mind to other more (re)productive things.
Also, I got fat. That made it hard for me to type more than my job requires. If blogging were a job, I would've applied for disability.
I'm really not kidding about the fat part, and I'm definitely not kidding about all the offensive things I am going to say about fat. See, there is a very cardinal rule in my family about fatness, which is pretty much that you should be left on the side of a mountain to starve until you read an acceptable weight and may return to the tribal grounds. It's about Darwinism and a strong need to propagate washboard abs which appears on our family crest right next to an abstract rendering of dysfunctionality. In short, my family is somewhat sizest, although we would term it "aesthetic."
When I returned from Asia last fall after getting dengue hemorrhegic fever, I was a very skeletal 122 pound 5'8 waif of a thing, about 13 pounds under my normally small frame. I had to admit that I really liked the attention. I totally got what the point of anorexia is -- it's that barely disguised envy when your girlfriends tell you that perhaps you're a "little too thin." But I'm a nice person, and I didn't want anyone to feel bad and my work clothes fit me like garbage bags, so I did the sensible thing and consumed as much food as possible in order to get back to 135.
This involved a lot of ice cream.
But at 135, I was still a "little too thin," so I indulged everyone once again (and myself with more ice cream) and made it to 140. And somehow forgot to stop eating. And eating. And walking distances longer than 50 yards.
I now weigh 166. No fucking joke. I have gained more than a quarter of my original body weight. I am carrying 125% of myself around like some pussy ant. I am officially overweight according to the BMI. My sister called looking for a temporary home for her Size 8s and I had to decline because even Banana Republic 10s are threatening to give everyone a crack peep show at work when I sit down. I swear I even hear the seams creak when I breathe.
I have been boring my friends to death with all this talk of fat -- so much so that one of them finally convinced me to do something about it already and join a gym. Also, I could stop eating about 6,000 calories a day. Just a suggestion.
I'm glad she intervened. I was starting to have nightmares that I would be on one of those featurettes with "America's Growing Obesity Rate" and then a street shot with a bunch of fatties waddling down a street with their faces blurred out. And there I'd be, and everyone would know it was me because I haven't yet learned to walk like I'm fat so I'd be the only one galloping as my BR Size 10s swish swish swish their way into a hole between my thighs resulting in eventual second-degree chafing.
Truly, it's bad. I think I just disgusted myself into going to the gym again tomorrow. Besides, our gym has those nifty treadmills where you have your own TV, so today I could watch videos from all over the world where drunk people fall on train tracks and miraculously survive. As if that was not enough to make me appreciate a heart that wanted to explode and a body that would ooze stinky sweat and fat bouncing everywhere at the same rate as my suddenly huge boobs (I'm talking about being grateful to be alive, which I, like, so totally am), they then did a MONTAGE of the same shots in rapid replay. It was like being at a rave featuring near death experiences.
Maybe next time a different channel.
*Extra credit for the alliteration. Take that, Matlock!
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