Enigmatic Female

Good News to go with the Bad News

Yesterday, on the anniversary of our engagement, Dallas and I trudged off to Crandall, TX, a small town outside of Dallas where Dallas' sister-in-law went to high school. Dallas' brother and sister-in-law had reserved a lot in a new housing development in this town on Saturday, as they've outgrown their current home, and are looking to be closer to sister-in-law's mother, who has offered to take care of their baby for them free of charge. Dallas and I have been casually looking for a new home for some time, as Dallas and I both wanted to live in a more rural or small town area, and our current house isn't child-friendly and we're going to try starting a family soon. We've been exploring various areas, types of homes, builders, etc. The homes in the Crandall community are on quite a bit of land, and the homes are exceptionally reasonably priced. In short, it sounded like everything we've been looking for in a new home for ourselves with the added bonus that we would be neighbors with Dallas' brother and sister-in-law, with whom I'm very close. We looked around, checked out floor plans, walked off the dimensions of various lots, and ultimately decided that we, too, would put a deposit down to hold a lot. We did not, however, reserve the lot directly next door to the in-laws. That might be a little too much family closeness. Instead, we're about 11 lots down from them, an easy walk, but not in earshot. We don't need any more details on their sex life than we already have, which is significant, as they share with us frequently (usually it's a lack thereof, rather than an abundance).  We will go back on Thursday to sign a contract and get the building underway. We expect to move sometime in June or July.

Newly-everything

Things have been happening in the five months since my last post -- wonderful things. On March 31, 2006, I moved out of New York City and headed South, way South. Past pseudo-south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line Maryland, where I mostly grew up and into the as-far-south-as-you-can-go- without-being-in-Mexico Texas. My fiance (now husband) had a house here, and it came with a sweet dog named Abby Gail. We soon added the puppy I've been dreaming about for years to the mix, and got a black lab named John Quincy. Presidential history anyone? Anyone?? See, even though I really really wanted a puppy, we *needed* a puppy for Abby Gail, because she was so lonely by herself, so Quincy is kind of like Abby's puppy. Get it? No? Moving along... It's been a job searching, Texas bar studying, bridal showering, family visiting, marrying good time. Now that the honeymoon is over (we came out slightly ahead in Vegas -- the Husband by a few hundred dollars, me by new shoes and a handbag), we're settling in, resuming pasttimes, and moving forward. He starts a new job on Monday and I am figuring out that the Texas legal market is a labyrinth of network connections, which I'm slowly unraveling with the surprising help of my younger sister and the hiring partner of her Washington, D.C. law firm. Ironic that I am relying on contacts in D.C. to land a job in Dallas, no?

For those not in the know, our wedding was tiny and intimate. We had only thirteen guests, a minister, a photographer, and ourselves against a backdrop of mountains in North Carolina. Neither of us is from North Carolina, nor do either of us have family there (one of the few safe spots in the country, due to my mother's ever-burgeoning family of her thirteen siblings and their various spouses, children, and grandchildren), making it the perfect "destination wedding" spot without really being a destination at all. We loved it. We loved not having 200 guests and having to pretend to be interested in them, when we really just wanted to be by ourselves with our families. Although, my grandmother did invite herself along, which cast a slightly bitter and gloomy shadow over the event, but we'll discuss her in all her glory later on. Let's just say she and I don't always get along, despite the endless comparisons she tries to make between us, i.e. "when I was your age and about your weight, my boyfriend nicknamed me 'butterball,'" or "I recognize those feet; do you have a hammer toe?" I wish these things were made up or even exaggerations, but they're not. She's a urine-soaked heart patient with a bad attitude and feels no compunction about hurting others' feelings, and perhaps takes some small joy in it.

It's good to be home, to be settled, and to be looking forward to the next fifty or so years.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Things are, pardon the pun, moving right along. My accounts have all been changed to my soon to be new Dallas address, I have no fewer than five pairs of shoes waiting for me in my new residence, and I am almost finished with the Texas Bar Application, a process I've been dreading for some time. If you're not a lawyer, you might not appreciate that you can't just go roaming about the  country and be able to work in your chosen profession. Oh, no. You have to get registered in whichever state you intend to work, which can either be fairly easy or a gigantic pain in the ass approaching the gravity of the "grape-like hemorrhoids" I once heard described in a very special Oprah devoted to taking a healthy shit (Oprah admitted to peering into the bowl following a dump -- it was classic). Texas is in the hemhorroid category, which has also made it somewhat more difficult to find a job, as few firms seem willing to take on a new hire who isn't already a member of the illustrious institution that is the Texas Bar. Still I persist in my hunt for employment, and am currently waiting to hear from two firms that are quite different but potentially equally enjoyable. I am finishing out things at my current job -- attempting to hand off as much of my current caseload as possible before leaving, while continuing to travel frequently to Dallas to handle as much household reorganization as possible before I bring a truckload of new crap into the mix. Leaving a few items each time I visit hasn't made the dent I intended it to in my store of possessions, so I might have to abuse my baggage limit the next time I fly down (for St. Patrick's Day -- there's a parade!).

Yesterday S called as I was heading from the airport to the office in a cab and said he was in town from Seattle, was in my neighborhood, and would like to have lunch if I was free. I haven't talked to S since he called to wish me a happy birthday in August, pre-brunch, pre-Thanksgiving, pre-Dallas, pre-engagement. I figured that my friend, B, must have told him I was engaged (or maybe even more likely, B told B's mother, who told S's mother, who told S), but I still felt somewhat guilty for not telling him myself, so I agreed to lunch. We met at one of my favorite spots near my office and were soon chatting about people we knew, his goal of moving to New York very soon (he was in town interviewing for a job), and of course, my engagement. He waited until the end of the meal to ask, and I ran him through the entire story, from brunch to proposal, to moving plans. Telling him I was in love with someone else was easier than I thought it would be, but still more difficult than it should be after all this time. We chatted on about me leaving New York and he commented that life moves in four-year cycles and that we're at the end of one (it's been over four years since he moved to Seattle and I to New York, but each of us has been feeling restless for several months and needing a change) and that it's time to take a new direction. He and I broke up at the end of the last four-year cycle, right around this time in February 2002; I was devastated and lost all sense of personal direction for a bit. The end of this four-year cycle is so fittingly the opposite, as I am looking forward to every second of the next four years, knowing that whichever direction I take, Dallas will be there with me.

Pursuit of Balance

My life has become unbalanced in the past three or four months. I no longer go to the gym a minimum of three times a week, or drink eight glasses of water a day, or eat seven to nine servings of fruits or vegetables each day. Indeed, I've stalled to a near halt in doing any job-related work of a substantive nature, and have not completed a book since November (although I've started a few, the latest of which is a biograhy of Catherine the Great). These days, my time is spent daydreaming, making extraordinary lists for moving-related tasks, wedding plans, upcoming expenses, and job search findings, and prematurely packing my belongings into boxes that will soon make their way south via parcel post. I travel frequently, if not always in good nature, and have been watching more than my fair share of television, which was almost absent from my previous lifestyle. I spend hours and hours on the phone (nearly 2000 minutes were spent talking to Dallas on the phone last month, which does not include time we spent together, which was approximately 14 days, so when averaged out, we spent over 100 minutes a day talking on the phone). In some sense, this is just another winter -- as it gets colder and darker, I retreat farther and farther from activity and healthy eating, choosing instead to eat McDonald's cheeseburgers and desserts in an attempt to put myself into food hibernation. I must say, it's working well, but now it must end. I've realized that the happier I've been with Dallas, the less image-conscious I've become, resulting in high calorie, pleasure-giving foods like Butterfinger-topped frozen yogurt, guacamole and margaritas, carryout Indian food, and chips, many, many chips. Since there are already all kinds of food and love-related endorphins coursing through my body, there isn't the need for the runner's high I was craving and achieving this fall. The love-endorphins can stay, and I hope they do, but those pesky salt, sugar and fat highs I've been having must go. The post-engagement grace period is over. The wedding is precisely six months away, and I have about 10 or so pounds to lose before my dress fits perfectly (it fits now, but it could be much better in the tummy area -- no bride wants it whispered that she jumped the gun in the pregnancy department). To that end, I am strapping on my running shoes, throwing a new mix of songs onto the iPod Shuffle, and heading out for some sweaty, much-needed pavement pounding.

Boring Update

The job search is well under way. I am waiting (and waiting and waiting) to hear back from two firms that I really liked. If either of them extends me an offer, my search will be over. I am still scheduling interviews with other firms, as I don't want to count any chickens before they hatch. I have started slowly moving stuff out of my office, like my personal books, office supplies (mine, not the firm's), and the assortment of tea and coffee-related paraphernalia I've accumulated over the past year and a half (I'm probably the only person in the firm who finds the coffee machine coffee undrinkable and who solved this problem by installing a Senseo in her office). Wedding plans are going full steam ahead. My older sister is helping us by doing a lot of research and coordinating the thing and all we have to do is make final decisions and write checks. We are going to have a very tiny, family only wedding, which will take place in a beautiful cabin near Boone, North Carolina overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains (my family will stay in the cabin for the weekend, while Dallas's family will stay in another cabin or house nearby) and a small cabin for the first four days of our honeymoon, after which we will return to Dallas for a couple days before heading for the Bellagio in Las Vegas for a little more excitement. Here's a bit of North Carolina wedding trivia for you: in order to get married in North Carolina, the parties to the marriage must have been born opposite sexes.

I'm In Love And He's In Dallas

Today begins a long weekend of interviewing for positions in Dallas; four interviews in six days is a lot, but hopefully the job search, which has been ongoing since early December, will be fruitful and this weekend will be the sum total of interview Hell. Saturday we are picking up the car I bought by phone from my New York office at a dealership in Dallas. Sunday we're painting the living room of "our" house in Dallas. As weird as it is to say "our" house, it's weirder to call it Dallas's house, as I will be living there very soon (hopefully by mid-February). Hopefully I will find time over the next few weeks to update a bit more frequently than I have over the past few weeks. My holiday was rife with stories of drunkenly falling off my grandmother's walker, getting a nasty case of cellulitis in my engagement ring finger the day before Christmas Eve necessitating a trip to a physician on Christmas Eve resulting in a ten day course of antibiotics, and meeting Dallas's extended family and having his granny make jokes about how Dallas knew his dog before he knew me (a timeline that we're not going to  continue trying to convince her is untrue).

Renewal

Four years ago today, March 30, 2001, I found out I was admitted to Columbia Law School. I can remember it clearly. I was in Philadelphia visiting B. S and I had broken up, as we would stay until he returned from backpacking around Europe. My mom called on my cell phone (she didn't know I was in Philadelphia, and stayed blissfully ignorant until just this past year when I told her this story). She said that I had a letter from Columbia, and I inquired whether it was skinny and flat and unpromising like the one Cornell sent me (waitlisting me, the whores). She said, "Yes. It is just like that...EXCEPT THERE'S ALSO A FIVE POUND PACKAGE WITH IT." I screamed for her to open it and could NOT believe it when her first word was, "Congratulations." I was elated.

I was 21 years old and had never been to New York City except for the three hours my mother and I showed three Spanish foreign exchange students the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. College graduation still seemed far away. I had no idea what it would mean to go to law school or be a lawyer, or live in New York, but in spite of all this (or because of all this), I was tremendously excited. B took me out to dinner that night to celebrate, which was bittersweet, as his two roommates had not been so lucky in their law school application process. I was eager to get back to Maryland to open the package for myself and see with my own eyes the direction my life would be taking for the next three years.

The day I moved to New York, my mom came with me. It was the second time I had been there in my life. I was dismayed to find that there was no air conditioning in my apartment, and that supermarket aisles were not even large enough for 2 people carrying handheld baskets, let alone the small carts that were provided. I adapted, and even when I don't love New York, and I fall in and out of love with it capriciously, I am still excited by it and challenged by it.

This time of year is always one of renewal and change for me. Breakups happen, decisions are made about living arrangements, graduations occur; it is only fitting that the day before this anniversary, my roommate and I extended our current lease on the Upper West Side as we apartment hunt in the West Village and Tribeca and I renewed my commitment and love/hate affair with New York for another year. While it's not life-altering in the same way a new school or a new career or a new city are, it's lovely to have a plan and to make small changes that can have a big impact.

The End of an Era

It's graduation day. I was afraid I didn't pass the semester and each day that went by without a call from Academic Services telling me I failed Juvenile Justice was a personal victory. I just checked my grades, though, and I definitely passed and finished all my requirements, so it's official; I'm no longer a student. It feels good, but also surreal as I haven't spent one minute since I was 4 years old not considering myself a student. That's 21 years of studenthood. My parents are on their way to New York this morning with my North Dakota grandmother in tow. My new roommate and I have been making our apartment parent-ready, and I am holding all kinds of items for various friends that they didn't want their parents to find, proving to me, once again, that my parents are the coolest, as they would never in a million years look through my stuff to find any of this contraband, nor would they care if they did. As of tomorrow afternoon I will be back in Maryland living at my parents' house for the summer, studying for the bar exam, and looking forward to not going back to school this fall.

Boring Update

I've been a little too busy this last month or so to really keep up with blogging. A LOT has happened. The main things are that I have completed almost all of my graduation requirements (one paper standing between me and a diploma) and I moved. For the first time ever I am living in housing that is not either owned by a university or my parents. It's really something, but it's really something of a pain in the ass. A friend and I moved together to the Upper West Side from Morningside Heights. A move that my brother summed up as, "You're moving down so you can move up." Our new place is walking distance from my favorite bars, weekend brunch-eries, and gourmet grocery stores. I have a feeling that all the money we're saving in rent (we have a 4th floor walkup) is going to go straight back into the economy as I have to pass at least one of my favorite stores no matter which route I take to the subway, which is also conveniently closeby. I will take the train only 5 stops to get to work, and I'm ecstatic. The apartment also came with some new-ish IKEA furniture that former building tenants abandoned in a cross-country move. While it's not my "aspirational furniture" it certainly serves its purpose for the time being while I'm unemployed and studying for the bar. I still intend to move home to Maryland for the summer, and my law school roommate is going to sublet my new room during bar prep.*

*For those not in the know, Bar Exam Preparation (ominous music here) takes a long motherfucking time and is a huge pain in the ass. It meets daily for 4 hours starting the day after graduation and continuing until a week before the bar, which is held the 27th and 28th of July. During this time, most people also find it necessary to study an additional 4 hours a day, bringing the grand total up to a full-time job. Some people think that if you've successfully completed law school, you should be prepared for the bar. Those people would be basing their mistaken idea on the premise that law school teaches us something useful. This premise has been disproved time and time again. Ask anyone.

Just a Little Bit Longer

I got measured for my graduation regalia this afternoon. Those of us getting J.D.s get to wear full doctoral regalia complete with "tam" instead of "cap"--in other words, we get to wear the floppy pillow hats instead of mortar boards. They're velvet and have a jaunty little tassle. Very 2004 and oh so hip. People getting master's degrees still have to wear the undergrad-style regalia. Suckers! Although, if I were a Ph.D., I might feel cheated after putting in 5+ years and getting put on the same graduation fashion-footing as a bunch of 3 year, non thesis writing punks like me. At any rate, it's all very exciting, and it's happening very fast. Less than a month of classes left to go (not that I've been attending), one major paper, some creative writing, one in-class exam, and one take-home exam and I'm done with law school. Surreal. On this date 3 years ago I found out that I had been accepted to Columbia and decided the same day that I would attend, having April 1 as my cutoff date for making a decision. Now I'm getting ready to graduate. It feels at once like it happened in a former life and like it was just last March. I'll be moving back to Maryland for the summer and starting work in just under 6 months on September 13. Here's to moving backward before you can move forward.