Lawyerish

Slouching to the Finish

Well, I missed a day in there, but even so I managed to provide almost 30 straight days of completely meaningless drivel on this here website.  I think we're all better people for it.  No?  Well, no.  Probably not.  But I accomplish so little in my life these days that I have to take the small victories, even when they're not really victories. 

This is why I have been spending about 100 hours a week playing Facebook games -- that temporary rush you get when you beat your prior high score or soar past a friend on the leader board, well, sometimes it's all that gets you through the day.  Or maybe that's just me.  On the down side, I've played so much Word Challenge that I've started making anagrams in my head of almost every word that comes to mind.  It's a sickness. 

You'd think I could come up with something more meaningful to do with my spare time and mental energy, but no.  Nope!  That's it for right now.  If/when things improve, I will go back to doing all those important things I was doing before, like...  Uh...  Hmm.  Napping?

Meanwhile, I'm on "The Long Winter" in my trek back through the Little House books, and hot damn does that book make me grateful that I do not live in a climate that has seven months of blizzards, in a house with no central heating. 

Oh, how I hate, hate, hate to be cold.  I would have been a wretched mess in the Ingalls household, with its one stove and its dwindling supply of coal.  I would have knocked poor blind Mary to the floor so I could have her rocking chair closest to the fire.  Whenever Laura writes about getting up and getting dressed in the frigid air of their attic bedroom, with the frost-covered nails poking in from the roof, I have to find a blanket to huddle under.  Can you imagine?  I am miserable when I have to change clothes in our chilly bedroom, and it's probably at least 65 degrees in there in the mornings (we keep it cold for sleeping). 

I think I might have just killed myself rather than have to strip naked in an unheated room when it's forty below outside and probably below freezing indoors. 

My freshman year of college, it got down to sixty below zero with the wind chill once (I think the actual temperature was twenty below), and like the foolish nerd I was, I wrapped up in about fifty layers and trekked all the way to class.  Most of the professors hadn't even shown up, and I was one of about three people who had left the dorms that day.  It was so cold, your tears froze on your eyelashes and your scarf iced over as you breathed on it, and you felt like your whole body might simply crack apart.  You almost wanted to pee yourself just to warm up a little, except then your pants would turn to ice, which wouldn't be good. 

You'd think that, coming from good Midwestern stock, I would be a little more tolerant of the cold, but I am pathetic about it.  I shiver when it's fifty degrees out.  And yet, I refuse to move to a warmer climate solely in seek of better weather.  All things considered, I still prefer having a snowy winter to having sunshine and warmth all year round.  I like seasons and storms, and as long as I have sufficient gear to bundle up in, I can make it without too much of a struggle.  Joe spends the months between November and April vowing to move to San Diego, while I soldier on, shivering and pallid, but a teeny bit grateful for that zing of cold air that flies up your nose and freezes your brain and reminds you you're alive. 

Plus, without cold, gray winter months, how would I find an excuse to hole up and play Facebook games or watch Felicity reruns for hours on end?

Wish I

What are you hoping to get for Christmas this year -- what's the one big thing you want?  I made a list of gift suggestions today (we tend to trade lists of what we want, since it makes life easier for everyone and there's still plenty of room for surprises and creativity), and it's a lot of little stuff -- clothes and kitchen stuff and the like -- but nothing major.  I'm doing my best to get into the holiday spirit although it feels like going through the motions, since of course you all know what I REALLY want, and it's something that even Santa can't bring.  That's where all my Christmas wishes are going this year. 

I have to say, the constant state of worrying and praying over this is physically exhausting.  It's like how I feel after I get off a long flight -- totally drained from all the mental energy I used to keep the plane aloft.  Except it's 24-hours a day, every day.  It's self-preservation in precisely the same way; this is my entire existence in the balance, and I'm giving every ounce of my being over to it.  I'm so very tired, but we will get there.  We have to. 

Tip!

I have a tip!  If you have pets and every surface in your house is, consequently, awash in pet hair, you need to get yourself a Pet Hair Magnet.  I picked one up on a whim today at our local pet store for $11.99, although if you follow that link you can purchase it on Amazon for a mere $6.99.  It WORKS. 

It's almost like a squeegee, except you use it on upholstery instead of your windshield or shower door.  It sort of mops all the hair into a clump and then you can easily remove it and throw it out.  I believe I removed approximately three pounds of hair from our couch this afternoon.  Suddenly, our brown velvet sofa looks chocolatey and lush again, instead of just looking like a tangle of fur on top of an unidentifiable fabric. 

I should also take this opportunity to remind you to buy a Furminator if you haven't already.  Between that and the Pet Hair Magnet, your life will improve dramatically.  At least in the category of Animal Hair That Threatens to Take Over Your Life. 

Incidentally, do you refer to a couch as a couch or a sofa?  I usually go with couch, but threw in sofa above for variety's sake.  My grandmother used to call it a davenport.  Isn't that awesome?  If you went around making reference to a davenport in this day and age, I think people would start to avoid you in the way they would someone who is a bit touched, you know?  Maybe I'll try it.  You should, too.  Let me know how it goes. 

Plenty and Want

So...full...  Difficult...to type...  Eh, not really.  We ate around five (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas and cranberry sauce -- your very basic Thanksgiving meal for two), and it's been at least an hour since I inhaled some pie (apple crumb, with Edy's Loaded Butterfinger ice cream (don't judge; it was a delicious combination) and Cool Whip), so I feel pretty good right now. 

I don't mean to be indelicate, but I must tell you that I wanted to bathe in my mashed potatoes.  I hardly ever make them, and I would say they're in my top five favorite foods, so our joyous reunion every Thanksgiving is always a reminder that life is not all bad.  I put a dash of nutmeg in mine, in addition to about a stick of butter, a half-cup of cream and however much whole milk it takes to make them all fluffy (this is for about a pound or pound and a half of potatoes), and it gives them a certain complexity of flavor that's hard to match.  I may dream about them tonight.

Separately, we don't watch "Survivor" on a regular basis, but we just caught a recap show tonight -- there was nothing else on, and inertia set in -- and I have to say, I would be a disaster as a contestant on that show.  They're so HUNGRY all the time, and I don't do hunger well.  Not chronic, all-consuming hunger, certainly.  I would be a wreck, all bitchy and then panicky and then filled with despair, and no one would be able to be around me.  Also, I would probably be unconscious 90% of the time.  It would be ugly.  Seriously, the people on this season look like they came to the show by way of a prison camp and it's not even that close to being over.  They literally COUNT OUT their grains of rice, which is just...no. 

Besides, I am terrible at strategy, and I'm far too gullible to figure out the whole game aspect of the thing.  I would trust everyone and I would be clueless about forming alliances and all that.  I stink at the board game Stratego (my brother used to mop up the board with me EVERY TIME we played), and it's sort of along those lines.  When I watch the show, it's sort of like when I watch a spy movie; the people talk about their meticulously plotted machinations and shifting alliances and I'm all, "What?  Huh?  Who's on whose side?  What is going ON here?"  Needless to say, if I had to do that while also being hot, dirty, sleep-deprived, and near starvation, I would be utterly useless.

Fun fact:  I applied to be on the very first season of "Survivor" and got a callback, which I ended up not being able to attend because I was scuba diving in Cozumel at the time.  It was when I was in law school (which naturally involved a lot of scuba diving and travel), and I didn't know much about the concept of the show or anything; but my brother had heard about the casting call and was super excited about it, so we both sent in video "auditions" or whatever, and oddly enough I got a callback. 

I don't know that he has ever fully forgiven me for missing that callback.  It would have only required me to miss a DAY of vacation, so in hindsight it was kind of odd to blow it off, but whatever -- as shown, I am sure I would have been the first to be kicked off, and then I would have to add to my already besmirched personal history the ignominy of being the very first person kicked off the very first episode of "Survivor." 

I hope you're all enjoying the holiday!  Eat more mashed potatoes and pie.  They make everything better.

You Can Probably Guess What's on the List, Anyhow

Before I go Oprah on you and list all the things for which I am grateful, I would like to register a general complaint against screwball holiday movies that make Christmas seem like an ordeal to end all ordeals.  The premise is PLAYED.  I realize that Hollywood likes to find a formula that works and stick with it (i.e., beat it to death), but I would like this particular formula to be buried once and for all. 

There's just nothing new to say about some worldly and citified person/couple having to trek to the hinterlands to spend the holiday with their backwards and/or pathetically quirky family.  And it's kind of offensive on some level, this concept of family time as harrowing and inconvenient and somehow BENEATH people of a certain socioeconomic/educational/professional echelon, and virtually every iteration of this theme engages in stereotyping of the most cartoonish order. 

I feel like I might be veering wildly into Ann Coulter/Focus on the Family territory all of a sudden.  Hmm. 

So!  Gratitude!  Thankfulness!  Things I cling to desperately as my life teeters on the brink of ruin!

Well.  Y'all, I started writing a list, and it sounded so freaking cheesy and stupid.  I KNOW I have lots to be grateful for, and I do appreciate all the things, big and little, that make my life good.  I even take the time to reflect on them on an almost daily basis.  I just sound like the world's biggest goofball when I try to put it into words. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Just Call Me Charlie Brown

I was emailing with Dianna the other day, regaling her with some of the lowlights of the past few years, and I realized I should share them with y'all.  I don't consider myself to be someone who dwells on the negative (yes, I am neurotic, but it's not the same thing as being a  pessimist), but when I look back at the last five or six years of my life, it seems there have been some seriously huge disappointments; I'm not sure I've had the greatest luck in the world, let's just say:

After we got engaged, I took a leave of absence from practicing law to give acting and dancing and writing and generally being an artiste a shot.  That was a spectacular failure, and not for lack of trying.  I got to be an extra -- excuse me, a "background actor" -- on "Whoopi" and in "The Manchurian Candidate", and I did some student films that will never see the light of day and that were presided over by gangly 19-year olds who could barely operate a camera, and then I had the pleasure of getting hit on by a wannabe director who turned out to be a complete lunatic and ended up going on a shooting rampage in the Village some months later.  

So that was fun.  

Then I decided to apply to grad school to get a PhD in History (well, at first I wanted to get one in psychology since I really should have been a therapist from the get-go, but then I realized I would have to get a post-bac degree since I don't have any psych credentials; so instead I settled on History, which was my undergrad major and I figured academia would be a good fit for me, blah blah). 

I did extremely well on the GRE (much to my surprise, since there was, like, trig and junk on there, and it's not like I do any math...EVER), scared up some letters of rec from some prestigious profs, churned out application essays and rounded up writing samples, and then went and visited all these schools and met these great professors and grad students, and everyone seemed to think I would handily gain admission to the top programs and do very well.  And then?  I didn't get in.  ANYWHERE.

Then there was a whole disaster where we decided to rent an apartment that we thought we liked, but when the prior tenant moved out and we were getting ready to move in, we went back to see it again and it turned out to be an UTTER CRAPHOLE.  It was the weirdest thing; when we saw it initially, it was all cozy and charming -- exposed brick, fireplace, little office/guest bedroom -- and then when we saw it empty for the first time (after we'd signed the lease, of course), it had been transformed into this cramped, dark, dirty, dingy travesty of an apartment.  So we panicked and spent a load of time and money trying to get out of the lease while also rushing about to find somewhere else to live, and GEH, it was a nightmare.

After I went back to the firm (see above re: artistic FAIL), we decided to embrace the American dream and buy our first home.  We went into contract on our apartment in the fall of 2005, only to have the real estate market start to sag pretty much immediately thereafter -- I mean literally the WEEK AFTER we signed the contract and locked in our purchase price, the New York Times started screeching about how it was the worst POSSIBLE time to buy and the bubble was about to burst and anyone with any sense at all would rent, not buy. 

We do love the apartment -- especially now that we've poured a lot of dough into renovating the kitchen and bathrooms (another series of nightmares) -- but there's still that drifting anxiety about whether we're going to be left holding the bag when/if the economy tanks even more than it already has.  

And then there have been all of our hilariously awful travel stories -- the horrific trip to Spain with our lost luggage and 36 hours of travel; the canceled flights for our trip to Mexico; the rainstorms that trapped us in Atlanta last summer; the many, many delays and scheduling errors and the like.  We can't even do VACATION right.

Well, and then there's the last two-plus years.  That story has a chance to redeem itself.  Which I hope it does, SOON.

Of course, amid all of this there have been moments of great joy and plenty of small daily pleasures (ew, I kind of hate the word "pleasures") and I have lots to be thankful for (maybe I'll write about that tomorrow).  I just think that we've earned a break -- which doesn't seem to be forthcoming at the moment, but I hope hope hope is right around the corner.

My IQ Is Dropping By The Minute

I am so glad I am not alone in my "Real Housewives of Atlanta" love.  Thank you, Luanne, for reminding me that Kim said that "cat" is spelled "K-A-T."  And that was WITHOUT irony.  BWAH!  I think, as Jamie pointed out, her weave/wig/THING of hair impairs the flow of blood to her brain. 

But the rest of them seem like a lot of fun!  NeNe is flat-out hilarious; Lisa is a little spitfire and seems very down to earth; and DeShawn appears to be very sweet and grounded (except how she says "jrrry" for "jewelry" -- also noted by Jamie).  Oh, and Sheree is really polished and professional and cool, but I can't quite get my head around her friendship with Kim. 

I mean, yeah, there's bizarre and often childish drama, people calling each other "low budget bitch" by text message and referring to one another "haters."  But it's good fun, and none of them have those honking accents of the New York housewives, which automatically makes them more likeable. 

Okay, clearly NaBloPoMo has bested me when I devote two posts to this show.  Send help. 

And no, there's no improvement in the Other Situation That Shall Not Be Named.  I'm just not writing about it.  I'll let you know when/if it's resolved, but until then I'm going to leave it alone on here.  It's too delicate and there are so many moving parts, and I am drained by it to the point of desiccation.  Except I'm sure every now and then I'll do the equivalent of collapsing in a heap of tears here, which should be fun for everyone.  So until further notice, your prayers and good thoughts are still needed.

Anyway.  What are y'all doing for Thanksgiving?  It's just the two of us and we're staying here, so I'll cook and I'm sure we'll mostly hang out for the four-day weekend.  So much for the first-Thanksgiving-with-the-baby that we thought we'd be celebrating this year.  But at least Joe probably won't need an emergency root canal, like he did last year the day after TG, which led to me having to eat about 50 pounds of leftovers all by myself, while he subsisted on smoothies and cold scrambled eggs for two weeks.  Good times. 

Yep, it's been a grand couple of years around here.  We're still waiting for that big payoff that's going to make it all worthwhile.  GRAH.

Distraction Techniques

Have you all SEEN "The Real Housewives of Atlanta"?  I thought the New York one was trashily addictive, but the women of the ATL take it to another level.  The most notable of the bunch is Kim, who considers herself a singer and expects to have a chart-topping single any day now, except there is the small detail that SHE CANNOT SING (her vocal coach gently tried to break this news to her, but Kim called her "delusional").  Kim, incidentally, is divorced but has a sugar daddy who is referred to as "Big Poppa."  According to the Internet, he is a married real estate magnate.  MARRIED.  Yes.  KLASSY, Kim.

Several of the women are married to professional athletes, and they actually seem like they might be fun to hang out with.  Some of them even do things with their time -- charity, business ventures -- other than lunch and shop; although there is definitely a LOT of lunching and shopping that goes on nonetheless.  It also appears that in most boutiques in Atlanta, they hand you a glass of wine when you walk in -- at least, they do if you come in with a camera crew and a bunch of women who can drop $25K the way the rest of us would spend eighty cents on a can of Diet Coke.

Aside from all the cattiness and unnecessary drama, the conspicuous consumption that goes on is absolutely mind-blowing.  They all seem to have staffs of at least ten people, including personal chefs, makeup artists, and event coordinators.  And their HOUSES.  OMG.  One of them has a bowling alley in her basement.  Another has trompe l'oeil ceilings that must be thirty feet high.  Their power bills alone must be equivalent to the GDP of a small country.

The women's hairdressers -- who tend to be African-American and quite openly gay -- appear to play a prominent role in their lives.  They seem to go to lunch and shop (there's that activity again!) with their hairdressers quite a bit.  That right there is the difference between the North and the South (well, I suppose there may be others):  I can't say that I know my hairdresser's NAME here in New York; I certainly would not be comfortable asking her to lunch, or calling her with the minutiae of my day. 

On the other hand, the woman back home who's been doing my and my mom's hair since I was in about the sixth grade is definitely a friend of both of ours -- she came to my wedding (to do my hair, yes, but also as a friend), and I would go to lunch with her any day of the week.  I feel like in Georgia there is some kind of tie-in between hairdressing and therapy; maybe to work in a salon you have to have a Master's in Social Work. 

Anyway, we happened upon the marathon of this show last night, ordered in some giant burgers and sunk into the couch for a night of quality Bravo programming.  I've got to get caught up on the whole season before they have the reunion show this week.  From the promos for the reunion episode, it appears that someone actually calls Kim a hooker to her face (OH, NO SHE DI'N'T) and then tells her to "close [her] legs to married men" (OH, SNAP!).  Good times. 

NaBloPoMo FAIL

Oops.  I missed a day.  My brain is sort of dead at the moment. 

With our parental status remaining up in the air indefinitely, we're looking at God knows how long of feeling like we still have our lives on hold, that we can't plan or make decisions, and so on.  You know the sad spiel.  I won't belabor the dirge.

I'll come up with something real to say tomorrow. 

Comfort Me With Pretzels

I have the nagging feeling that I have talked about this here before, but I was reflecting today, during this continuing time of crisis, on whether I am a stress eater or a stress non-eater. 

You know how stress eating is like this whole THING that gets played up in pop culture all the time, as though women can't get through a spat with their boyfriend or a job layoff without plowing through 500 cartons of Ben & Jerry's.  On the other hand, stress non-eating is one of those things that makes you secretly want to punch someone in the face when they talk about it -- like when Kate Bosworth got so thin you could basically see through her a year or two ago, and she blamed it on stress, "Oh, I just can't eat when I have a lot going on in my life; I was working so much and I would just forget to eat and I lost 12 pounds, blah blah blah." 

I guess I'm sort of neither one.  I definitely have cravings and eat a bit more when I'm PMSing, but it's strictly a hormonal thing.  When I'm stressed, it sort of depends.  If it's work stress, where I'm super-busy and rushing about to get a load of crap done, sometimes I don't have time to eat properly -- but I never FORGET to eat.  I get so unmanageable when my blood sugar sags that at some point I have to at least stagger to the vending machine and suck down whatever is reasonably edible (Cheez-Its and chocolate-covered almonds? Yes; Super-King-Jumbo-Sized Honey Bun?  NO).  Otherwise, I'll end up staring blearily at my computer, my mind wandering to nonsensical things and my mood swinging like a drunken chimpanzee on a chandelier. 

When I'm emotionally stressed (see: NOW), it's kind of a mix.  I don't feel a whole lot like eating, frankly, but I still go through the motions.  I tote my little South Beach Diet Bars into work every morning for my breakfast and make the usual dinners; but there's no sense of relishing any of it.  It's sort of how I feel about everything other than my Big Problem when I am upset:  EH.  Although there was that day about a week ago when I came home and polished off a big bag of pretzels and half a pint of ranch dip in about thirty seconds flat, without even really registering that I was eating -- that was weird; although I was also PMSing, so it doesn't 100% count as stress eating.

On the other hand, having my same little meals and routines provides that sense of normalcy that you crave when your world is upside-down.  It's like, "I'm sitting here at my desk with my Cranberry Almond bar and my Diet Mountain Dew and scrolling through my Google Reader, just like always, so surely everything can't be about to come crashing down on me."  It helps me keep up the illusion that I'm okay!  I'm fine!  I can get through the day without crouching in a corner and weeping!  Since, after all, I kind of have to maintain that ruse if I also want to maintain my employment. 

And of course there is that certain comfort that starchy food provides; I can't deny that a giant bowl of pasta or a nice oozy grilled cheese with a pile of fries is exceedingly appealing when I'm down In the Shit, like now.  Hence, carbonara for dinner tonight!  Hooray!  Although I didn't get to eat much more than the minimum required to keep the low blood sugar wolves at bay today, so there you go -- it's the strange way I have of managing to balance things out even when I'm all messed up. 

How about y'all?  Are you a stress eater, a stress non-eater, or something in between?

Incidentally, when I got home today we had six messages on our machine.  SIX.  Mind you, NO ONE CALLS US.  Certainly not at home, anyway, and not in the middle of a workday.  They all turned out to be hang-ups or telemarketers, or some poor soul who kept saying, "Hi, is Joanna there?" as if they didn't realize they'd gotten the machine.  I wonder if our registration on the do-not-call list recently expired.