...and I moved!

In light of major changes in my life, and the fact that Blogger is a part of Google, and Google is increasingly taking over the internet and every shred of our privacy along with it, I decided to switch blogging platforms and create a new blog at the same time. Every time I write a blog post, every time I start a blog, I wonder if I should announce it to my people from Real Life. I blog under the assumption that there are people I know from real life reading, but I never directly address it. Maybe on this next blog, I will.

For those of you (are there any of you?) who have continued to click on my new blog posts, who have continued to check for updates... please consider the new blog an extension of the this one. Except instead of learning to cope with being on the dark-half of my twenties, it starts with me at age 30, a newly minted lawyer and expecting a baby. So, whoo-hoo! Here we go...

Post #401

I passed the bar! I'm going to be an attorney, it turns out! An immigration attorney, I might add. :)t

back to firsts

I'm done with the lasts.... last class, last exam, last time I ever take the bar (hopefully)...

It's time for the firsts... as in, first day of work. Tomorrow I meet the Gang at the brand new office (literally...it's brand new). I'm very excited to get started on this adventure, but I just really, really hope that I'm going to impress everyone with my mad legal skillz, and not be a rusty old let-down. I'm sure it's fine, and I'm sooo over being self-depracating, but law school the bar exam has done a number on my self-confidence. So.

I'm off now to plan my first day of work outfit, and get a good night's rest!

new haircut new job new chapter

yeap. i finished the bar, for the first time ever, and hopefully the last. and a week from now, i'll be starting my new job as a law clerk for a small immigration group that i shall call The Gang henceforth, for lack of a better descriptor and for anonymity's sake. if i pass the bar, i am anticipating being a young associate attorney, but that's for chillier days of late fall. for now, i plan to walk to the office and do my time as a good little legal researcher and client handler and so on and so forth. i consider myself extremely, incredibly, horrendously lucky to have found a job, all thing considered. and to be able to work in my field, in the kind of small office environment i was hoping for, and to be able to maintain my car-free lifestyle? all blessings that i thank God for. because i sure didn't do anything to deserve them. but i'll do my best to use my blessings for good things, and to remain grateful.

these are exciting times, in so many ways, on the home-front. because of bar stress and all that, i've not updated on the housing / apartment hunt situation. but we are hoping to have a sweet new place in the same neighborhood sometime within the next two months. we managed to negotiate a fair deal with our landlords of the past 3 years, in which they agreed to let us move out whenever we want, as long as we take the responsibility of finding a new tenant that they approve of. so we're not bound for another year at this point, and they don't have to worry about us ditching them in the dead of winter with no prospects for a new tenant. with the new job, the new paycheck, the new apartment (hopefully. soon), the new lease on life, and the new haircut for the first time in OVER A YEAR, i'm feeling nervous and excited at once. things are heating up around here, i'm grabbing my saddle and holding on for the ride.

BETTER NOT TELL YOU NOW

"Am I going to pass the bar exam?" I asked the Magic Google Ball.

The Magic Google Ball responded:



I can't write anything at all right now, but I did discover this gem from Thanks, But No Thanks. If you want an update on me or any other loved one (including yourself, if you are an unfortunate bar candidate also trolling around like a spider-bot looking for answers), I recommend clicking over and reading it.

Studying for the bar now.

I am actually studying for the Bar. I'm actually studying for the Bar! Woo-eee! I feel like I've arrived :)

Hmm. Ask me again in four weeks. I suspect I'll be singing a different tune. I just can't believe I'm now doing what all those law blawgers were doing when I started following them 3 or 4 years ago, as I was considering whether to apply. Sweet!

Graduation day

I graduate today, and it's a surreal feeling. Seems like just a year ago that I was living in Richmond with T, working at my old HR job and fooling around with LSAT books. We lived in a bigger apartment, had a porch, weren't married, had two paychecks, I was bored with my work, we were close to family, T ran a printing press every day and we were four years younger.

I never, even then, would've seen myself as a "law student" much less a "lawyer". Throughout the entire application process, right up until the first day of school, I went through the motions with my tongue planted in my cheek. It all felt silly, almost. Buying a cheap backpack at Target with T the night before my first classes, because the messenger bag I'd used for work wasn't gonna cut it with all those case books I had to lug around. Getting used to all that free time during the day, when I could be at coffee shops or chatting with my new classmates. All those meet-and-greets with professors and other students, like I was back in college. Oh wait. I WAS back in college. It just didn't seem real. And once again, it doesn't seem real.

In between, I got accustomed to the classes, the free time, the other students, the backpack, the test anxiety, the casebooks and the latin. It almost began to feel completely normal. This really hit home a couple weeks ago when I made a dark joke about the death penalty to a group of non-law school friends and was met with concerned looks. I quickly went to explain myself: "Sorry, I'm in a habeas corpus class this semester. Humor is a coping mechanism." My friends looked at me like I had two heads and then proceeded to make fun of me for the rest of the evening for using the phrase "habeas corpus" in casual conversation. I don't blame them.

Anyway, I guess I was gonna get three years old whether or not I went to law school. But now that I'm graduating, it's as good a time as any to reflect on being three years older. I remember thinking, at the beginning of this journey, "Woah... I'm gonna be getting ready to turn 30 the year I graduate," and being horrified at how old that would be. I've gotten used to the concept of turning 30, along with a lot of other things. Unlike three years ago, when I first matriculated, I have no idea what the next three years will bring. I'm back to the normal adult world of choices and job hunting and making a paycheck and charting a path to the future without a map.

But before all that, I have to go celebrate with all the family that's come into town, and then do one last final test of endurance: the bar exam. So for the next 6? 8? weeks I'll be holed up cramming bits of knowledge into my brain on a tightly planned schedule. And come August, I'll be let loose into the world again.

I'm getting a JD!

I got my paper back yesterday. I passed with a much higher grade than I could've imagined. :P My feelings about that are mixed, however. I'm eternally grateful I was able to do well in a class I had expected to bomb. But I wonder if it's not going to contribute to my slack attitude and give me another excuse to procrastinate on future projects.

Whatever the case, I graduate from law school in two days. Holy hell! It's all still so surreal.

pity party

throwing a self-pity party! all are welcome.

i'm seriously freaking out that i'm not going to graduate. why? because i sabotaged my research writing paper requirement. :( i know i'll survive, even if that turns out to be the case, but right now, i'm just mad.

Law school isn't hard

Yesterday when I was leaving my clinical office, I rode down on the elevator with my supervising attorney and another attorney from the office. They were leaving for the day, and I was headed home to continue work on my giant research paper and to cram for my final on Friday. I looked at them chit-chatting and said, "I'm so jealous of you guys. You don't have finals to study for."

They laughed. Scoffed, more like it. Their workload is so immense, and the consequences for not doing their best work far exceeds mine. When they screw up on a deadline, their clients get deported. When I screw up, I get half a letter grade off. It reminds me of what an attorney I know said to me during the very first week of law school: "Law school isn't hard. Being a lawyer is hard."

Of course, I'm still riddled with anxiety over this paper and my exams, and the few cases from clinic that I still have to finish before I go. And the loose ends that must be tied up here and there (and everywhere) before I can graduate. I'm still paranoid that something will happen at the last minute and I won't be allowed to walk across that stage. Even thinking about it to type this short paragraph makes my heart quicken with nerves.

But I'm putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that it will work out. I've been given a lot of support from friends and family, who remember a similar panic from when I was wrapping up undergrad eight (EIGHT?!) years ago. It's their encouragement that gives me strength, and their advice rings in my ears as I try to just get it done.

Yesterday a client came to my neighborhood to drop off a critical document we needed for deadline. I met her in the parking lot of the convenience store by my house. When I got there, she was standing outside smoking with her sister. As we talked, they both drilled me with questions about the process of getting her immigration relief. How long will she have to wait to hear back? What happens next? Who will guide her through the process? Will my organization still be her attorney after I leave? When can she work? And the hardest question of all: What do I think the outcome of her case will be? I tried to give her the best answers I knew off the top of my head, crafting responses that would make sense with her limited English and that would give her the confidence to be a good witness without creating false expectations about the certainty of a positive outcome.

Then I got the best encouragement I've received so far. My client's sister, who herself has an attorney and has dealt with many through her family, said that I would make a great lawyer. She praised my ability to explain things to them in terms they understood, and said she really appreciated that I hadn't lost sight of her sister's humanity. Really. That's what she said. After we said goodbye, I went back to my apartment smiling. If I get my law degree, and if I become a lawyer, it will be thanks to the inspiration of people like my client's family, and all the immigrant families I've known who have fought to put down roots in their communities, sometimes despite the quite hostile terrain. And in the end, no matter how hard it gets, I'll try to remember that I've got it pretty good.

The last mile

It's exhausting. But I'm starting to see a faint flicker of light off in the distance. Could it be the end of the tunnel?

I wonder if when it's all over, and I look back at my time in law school, it'll seem like one long fever dream.

perfect costs as perfect does

the search is on for our new apartment! t and i have already looked at two this morning. all this thinking about relocating really has me thinking more generally about where we live. essentially, it's the perfect neighborhood, as far as city living goes. it's right in the heart of the city, without being noisy. it's as safe as city living can be. the neighbors are a diverse set of characters: young families, old italians, immigrant workers, all ages and races. within two blocks of my apartment are two grocery stores (including whole foods!), a pet store, two coffee shops, several restaurants/bars, a wine & liquor store, mail supply store, playhouse, bike shop and park. my landlords are on the corner, as is a bus stop. and beyond the immediate vicinity, it takes between 5 and 10 minutes to walk to city hall, to the big shops, the tourist destinations, the subway and train stations. t's walk to work is about 15 minutes. i looked up the walkability score of my address yesterday on walkscore.com. out of 100 points, it scored a 98.

so those are all awesome things about our neighborhood. as you can imagine, it comes with a price that could be easily avoided by moving to a further out neighborhood. there are lots of cool, up-and-coming neighborhoods full of young, creative people doing interesting things, with housing that is significantly cheaper than the housing in our neighborhood. it happened that we really lucked out and it was pure chance that we found our current firetrap through word of mouth before we had even moved to the Big City. we rent from some old-school neighborhood types that don't know about Craigslist and are charging us less than market value. sometimes when i walk through our neighborhood and look at the amazing houses and beautiful street art and famous eateries, i wonder how we ended up here. that's when i start to think we're crazy for trying to get a better deal here in the neighborhood.

we absolutely have to find a larger space, soon. this tiny apartment has been perfect for the three years i've been in law school. if i were honest, i'd say i could continue to live here a little longer and save money, just to keep the location. but we need access to the outside, beyond an open window on the third floor. t routinely talks about wanting a better apartment. and our friends (who have two incomes) live in an awesome place just a block away. so we're searching, and we're putting up more money for it. but a part of me wonders if it's realistic to expect to find the perfect "next step" apartment in our current neighborhood. i also wonder what it says about us that this is where in the city we've chosen to live. we have friends who pay half what we're willing to pay, for much bigger space, in different areas. when people hear where we live, they peg us as yuppies. when i ask around at shops for potential leads in the neighborhood, i get comments about how hard places are to come by here and how expensive they are.

if we can pull this off, it'll be amazing. i just don't want to go broke doing it. oh, exciting times. i can't wait to see where we end up.

zomg i'm almost finished: a freak out

Today I had the sudden realization that I am going to be finished (FINISHED?!) with law school in a month. I mean, I've known that the end was approaching for quite some time. But this was like an out of body realization. *I* am going to be finished with law school? For real? Didn't I just get here? I still sometimes feel surprised that I ended up being a law student in the first place. I don't *feel* like a law student, much less a lawyer. Yet, as swiftly as it began, it is coming to an end. And I can't shake the feeling that I am getting to resume my life, as if it was on pause for a while or something.

The thought of being a working stiff again sends pleasing shivers down my spine. I remember those joyous, carefree days of putting in a good day's work, coming home to our cozy apartment and sitting on the porch with a PBR and a good book. Or maybe T & I would go out for dinner and watch television at a friend's house. On any given weekend, we'd spontaneously drive out on a scenic back road until we hit the mountains. Wait - am I missing life before law school, or Virginia? I seem to have conflated the two.

The reality is that my post-law school life will probably not look similar to my pre-law school life so much as it will be some other unpredictable permutation of "life over the age of 25" (ha!) or "life from 30 on up" as my blog's sub-title should be renamed soon enough. It's not as if I'll magically relocate to our old apartment with the tilted balcony and temperate winters once I've been handed that sweet, sweet JD. We'll still be in the Big City, at least for now. (Although we will hopefully be out of the firetrap, finally.)

But the scariest part of how different things will be once I have my law degree has nothing to do with my lifestyle, per se, or my housing arrangements or where we live. It has to do with work. What will it look like? Will I screw it up? Being a lawyer is much scarier, it seems like, than being a human resources person or whatever you want to call the kind of professional I was before I left for law school. I mean, just to be allowed to do this job, I have to go digging through my past and confess to every little transgression I may or may not have been caught for. (Hello, six stitches on my chin from a bad night out when I was a junior in college. Come on in, various tickets for expired registration! Long time, no see!) Just today I discovered that I owed my college town a bunch of money in property taxes that I had NO IDEA I even had, for a time when I wasn't even living in the municipality. The joys of LexisNexis Public Records searches and nosy bar examiners. Couldn't I just take the pat down?

Ok, I'm rambling. I mean, I just really want to be a good lawyer, and I really want to do this work. To even get to that point, I need to graduate, successfully complete the APPLICATION for the bar, and then, you know, pass the bar. And then I have the rest of my career as a lawyer to be on my best professional behavior - not procrastinate, not forget a date, not mess up my advice, not commit malpractice. I'm just nervous, ok? I can't believe I got this far. I don't want to screw it up

My unconvential search for a way to get paid to do what I love.

Okay, so I'm starting to get creative with some ideas for what to do after graduation now. Just today a friend of mine forwarded me a Craigslist posting for an immigration firm from another part of the state looking to hire an immigration attorney part-time to represent their clients in the Big City immigration court at Master Calendar Hearings. Duh. I can do that! So I'm not technically an attorney yet (which matters a lot, yeah, yeah) but I could totally market myself out to immigration firms around the state who don't want to make the trek to the big city for something as minor a time-suck as a MCH. Not the most glamorous job in the world, but it could make me some money while I weigh my options, and it beats doc review, from what I've heard.

Another idea floating around in my head that I'm trying to figure out how to put to good use is my serious interest in immigration holds (aka ICE holds, immigration detainers, deportation holds). Check out these immigration attorneys who market themselves to the families of non-citizens who are stuck in jail waiting for federal immigration agents to come take custody:

Here's one in San Diego.
Here's one in Dallas, TX.
Oh! Hello, Virginia Beach, Virginia! This one is in my home state!
And I like this one because it straight up challenges the very legality of immigration holds by ICE attorneys. (Something I have a lot to say about, and wish more of people were examining.)

The point is there are lots of attorneys out there doing what I want to do, and I want to learn how I can get into that field. I'm also surprised and intrigued by the fact that this style of marketing and/or just direct address of the immigration hold problem is not found in my particular area. Let's get on that!

Then there's yet another piece of the puzzle that I'm trying to work into my master plan of supporting myself after graduation. My other blog. I want to rework it, make it more user/search friendly, think about focusing my audience and maybe add some original content about immigration enforcement. Over the three years I've been running that blog, I've certainly seen enough to have a strong sense for the shifts in policy over the last several years. (Hint: Employers and human resources directors everywhere, be on your guard. Specifically those in Southern Missouri, in the immediate future.) It's amazing what you learn just by following the headlines on a semi-regular basis.

Ok, T is back from walking the dog and I need to calm myself down enough to take care of more pressing issues... like completing that pesky bar exam application and working on my research paper. But as I continue my unconventional search for a legal career, I'll keep on posting. Maybe something interesting will turn up. In the meantime, if anyone from any of those law firms ends up on here, I hope you'll consider letting me know. I'd love to talk!

One of these days...

I'm going to return to updating the blog with some sort of normalcy. But for now, nothing feels very normal, and yet everything feels almost TOO normal. I'm in that weird period of limbo that is referred to as senioritis by high schoolers across America, but in law school is merely summarized by the last part of that overused yet strikingly accurate saying:

First year, they scare you to death.
Second year, they work you to death.
Third year, they bore you to death.

I would so rather be working than thinking about how I'm going to pull together a 30-page paper on truth commissions. I flat out refuse to think about what on earth got into me when I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for Transitional Justice in my last semester and fulfill my writing requirement by doing a paper on something NOT RELATED TO US DOMESTIC LAW when it's taken me 3 years to have even a whiff of understanding of that legal framework. Why did I think I could pull off a research paper on an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT KIND OF "LAW"?

Oh well.

At least I'm getting some amusement out of the fact that the two legal briefs I have to churn out for my clinical (aka actual cases, with real life consequences) seem like a piece of cake, a mere inconvenience. Feels like just a couple of months ago that I was terrified and avoiding my first-year memo. Bwahahaha.

It gets better, 1Ls.

Outside of law school and the slow death of my formal legal education (and our savings, which is now devoted exclusively to surviving the Bar), life appears to be at a standstill. I am knocking off things from my 30 Before 30 list (just about done with Revelation, the end is near!) and fantasizing with T about our next apartment and life with two incomes instead of one. (We're conveniently ignoring the part about how it comes with a giant mass of student loan debt.) I'm trying SO HARD to imagine what my future will look like, all the while knowing that I cannot possibly imagine it. All I know for sure-ish is that it will involve us staying in the Big City, for now, which means for the next year at least, and as far as I'm concerned that's all the future I need to think about right now. I can hardly handle that much.

Can you tell I'm overwhelmed? I'm overwhelmed. On the upside (not that any of the above is necessarily a downside) I am looking forward to a kick-a$$ graduation party!

If not now, when

I can think of a lot of reasons why I should be nervous right now. Job search. Student loans. Moving out of the firetrap. General anxiety about "The Future" and all that.

Yet I find myself more content, more happy than I've been perhaps since I started law school. I'm learning to accept my life for what it is, rather than what I want it to be. I have no idea what my life will look like six months from now. Why should I? Instead, I'll put my entire focus on making the present count for all it's worth.

Sometime soon, I'll make a more substantive blog entry. For now, I'm off to be with T.

Graduation year! And my first hearing.

Had my first Master Calendar Hearing today! What an immigration law nerd I am. As I sat in the IJ's courtroom watching the delicate Kuboki dance of discretion between the judge, the government attorney and the client's attorney as the client's attorney argued for a motion to suppress (evidence of an unlawful arrest), I was in AWE. I'm surprised I didn't break out in a grin from ear to ear, or jump up and down and shout, "Ooh! Ooh! What happened? What evidence does the government have to support removability? Why was he arrested???? How long was he in jail on a detainer????????? Huh? HUH?!" Maybe I did do those things and just don't remember.

What I do remember, very clearly, is thinking to myself, "I wish I was doing this for a living already. I want to spend all day here." Oh, fresh meat. I'm such a newbie. I wonder how long it'll take me to burn out on this stuff. But whatever, for the moment, I'm happy to have found something I'm so passionate about and to feel so...at home in what I'm doing.

Heh. That's kind of funny, too because I am at home, when I should be at school. You know. For class? Advanced Contracts? That whole, getting a JD thing? Wow, it's fun being in my last year.

Oh, and one other thing. I'm doing 12 month-long resolutions this year instead of one year-long resolution. Last month I resolved to eat breakfast every day. It seriously changed my life. I can't believe I was going without breakfast for so long! The only thing is that I've started to get sick of eggs, and sometimes french toast doesn't cut it. I'm looking for other suggestions in the breakfast department. February is exercise month. I have resolved to exercise for half an hour (or run/walk one mile) every day. This is going to be a serious challenge, to the point that I wonder if I should even mention it on here. But there I go. Exercise month! Resolution year! Graduation year! Sweet.

The JE Guide to Life gets rich!

And sometimes that music drifts through my car
On a spring night when anything is possible
And I close my eyes and I nod my head
And I wonder how you been and I count to a hundred and ten
Because you’ll always be my hero, even if I never see you again
- The Dismemberment Plan, "Back and Forth"

On Thursday, the Dismemberment Plan is playing in the Big City. One of my favorite bands from my late teens and early twenties, the Plan was awesome, danceable indie rock of the kind that cannot be described, merely listened to. Or maybe I just am not the one to describe. But listen, seriously, I promise you'll like it.

Anyway, they are playing here on Thursday, after having played a couple of big reunion shows in their (and my) hometown of DC. Although I eschew reunion shows as a hard and firm rule (including, and especially, my most teen-angsty favorite band of all time, the Smashing Pumpkins) this is The One True Exception. Even six years ago, when they apparently played a 2005 reunion show as a benefit in DC, I didn't have the heart to come out and dance on the Dismemberment Plan stage again. But now is a different time. I am a different me.

I am, of course, the person I am today because of everything that I was in the time leading up to this moment. I once heard that people change their fundamental personalities every 10 years. Not that I believe it, but I see the general point. We evolve and grow as people, and it should be that way. But do we owe anything to our former selves? Do I owe it to my 20-year old self to go out to a concert on a Thursday night and dance along to music that moved me so fervently 10 years ago, but that I rarely listen to anymore? (Although when I do, I am still transported to that happy place at the side of the main stage at the Black Cat wearing a Salvation Army t-shirt and bright pink hat.)

Am I driven to see the Dismemberment Plan out of some allegiance or some desperate reach for my younger self, or is this something that almost-30 year old me wants to do for herself? The reason I don't usually go to reunion concerts is because I'm usually interested in letting bygones stay that way. In this case, I think I'm doing this for the me of Now. And I don't think I'm the only one.

In reading Facebook posts and Tweets and all sorts of other social media updates I've been watching my friends that are still in the DC area going through their own Dismemberment Plan revivals. Hell, just reading band interviews it's been pretty clear that the band is deliberately reliving its past from a very different place. Everyone in the band has "real jobs" and nobody is trying (as of yet... supposedly) to turn this into a new career. Just like all my college friends and I have moved on in our lives from that time when we would drive up on school nights, park somewhere on 14th St. and wolf down seitan burgers at Food For Thought before the first band came on stage, getting back to the dorms at somewhere past 2 am to stumble into bedrooms darkened by our already sleeping roommates.

It's a different place in life for all of us. Some of my friends are parents. Some of them are highly specialized and extremely well-paid careerists. Some are both. Some live in communal houses in the city, work day jobs in social services and play in bands at night. Some teach high schoolers, college kids. Some are working behind bars or counters. Some have supported their parents through the end of life. Who knows where we'll be in another ten years. We're just getting through our twenties.

So I guess this D Plan show is kind of a reunion of sorts. Even though I'm not getting to go with all the same people I used to dance with, and even though my self-consciousness will probably be uncomfortably palpable, I am looking forward to reconnecting with a feeling that isn't (yet) anchored in age. The joy of possibility. I was about 19 or 20 when I went to see a Plan show with my friend K, a decidedly anti-scenester (that's what we used to call hipsters) non-indie-rock loving friend who simply agreed to accompany me, probably out of boredom. At the end of the night, even he was smiling at the unselfconsciousness of the dancing, the fun and excitement that radiated from the band, the music and the audience. If this show fails to replicate that moment, I won't be surprised. But that's okay, because when I turn on my iPod and listen to The City, I feel thrilled for who I was at the beginning of my twenties, and excited for what my thirties are going to be. In a way, maybe, it's letting go of the past and acknowledging that even this moment is the brink of a new era. Who knows how I'll look back on it. Right now, I'm just feeling ready to embrace it.

We exhaust ourselves trying to get there.
- The Dismemberment Plan, "Back and Forth"

The future, in terms both long and short.

It's been so long since I've updated, especially with anything beyond "Oh, it's finals. Life sucks." So long, in fact, that I don't really feel like updating now.

But update I will. For posterity, as always.

Finals ended on Friday, and it's Monday today. So really, it's only been a few days since my semester ended, but it already feels like an eternity ago. Immediately after my last final (4:30 pm on a Friday... fun!) I grabbed a couple law school buddies and we met up with T who was having his holiday party after-party at a bar downtown. That led to more drinks, two pizzas, some fries and a homemade sausage sandwich, all consumed at various stops between the first bar and my apartment. I wound up at home several hours later, quite full, slightly tipsy and very ready for sleep.

Saturday consisted of watching old Christmas cartoon classics (the lesser-known, racist ones, because that's all they had on Netflix Instant Watch) while I purged my study nook of all my old notebooks, outlines, books and assorted papers. I also managed to purge my closet, which started out at the beginning of the semester looking so neat and tidy, but ended up the apparent victim of a deadly tornado. After throwing every single shirt, suit jacket and dirty sock onto the bed, I sorted clothes into "trash", "giveaway" and "keep" and then stopped, leaving the tornado debris all over the room. Hah. Finishing projects is not one of my strengths.

We went on a date Saturday night, though, which was awesome. T had brought a bottle of wine home a few days ago, which I stared at longingly for the last 3 days of studying, having realized that I absolutely cannot be productive if I've had a glass of merlot. T, the wine and I made up the street to a BYO thai restaurant, where the waiter immediately whisked the bottle away to be opened, only to return moments later with the cap unscrewed. "Didn't realize this was screw-top," he said, as we all looked down and laughed awkwardly.

And speaking of awkward, the post-finals reconnection is always a little awkward, because I've basically spent the last three weeks ignoring T while he goes about his business and I sink into a pit of despair and self-pity out of which I refuse to be helped. All of a sudden, with finals over, I'm ready to return to our amazing marriage, our passionate love and fond affection for one another, and I'm inevitably frustrated that life is not immediately back to normal, my husband isn't attentive to my every need and our conversation doesn't flow the way I remember it. It takes time to cultivate the closeness that I've shrugged off for the entire last month of school. And that is why our Saturday night date, despite my initial misgivings, was so lovely.

After dinner, wine and dessert, we made our way uptown to a local art theater to see Tiny Furniture. I could write a whole other blog post about why I thought Tiny Furniture was awesome. But suffice it to say that there aren't enough movies told from the point of view of a 22-year old normal-sized girl who isn't sure why she's living with her parents or working at a restaurant after having just earned a college degree, but is pretty sure that's okay for now and the answer isn't about finding the right guy or getting a makeover. I highly recommend it, and I'll leave it at that.

So anyway, after Saturday, the rest of the weekend (aka Sunday) was just a bunch of me and T poking around the house, planning for our upcoming trips, alternating between getting things done (me: put the clothes away, t: pack orders) and laying around (me: listen to savage love podcasts, t: nap). We went over to our friends' house to eat dinner and watch more old Christmas movies, came home and went to bed.

Where does that leave me?

Well, pretty much trying to fight off a sinus infection and avoid the freezing, freezing death cold of the Big City, while continuing to be semi-productive in planning for my future, in terms both short and long. (Short: trip to T's family's rental house for Xmas, then 2 weeks in Colombia. Long: another college graduation that may or may not lead to a paying job.) I'm putting together a homemade Christmas present for everyone in my life, and telling myself that is a form of productivity. And I'm carefully spacing out my consumption of Tylenol Head Congestion pills and Theraflu Warming Elixer (or whatever it's call). And forcing myself to update my blog.

NaBloPoMo (overwhelmed procrastinator edition)

Is this why law students drink so much?

Right now I have the following concerns running through my head:
- I need to read, like, the entire textbook for Human Rights. I really should get on that.
- I've only outlined the first day of class for Crim Pro. Need to catch up. I really should get on that.
- What happened? I was doing good in Fed Courts but I'm so lost now, I can't make myself open the casebook. I really should get on that.
- I can't believe I didn't even know my ADR professor's name so I could get her exams from the library. I really should get on that.
- This fellowship ain't coming through. I need to start applying for jobs. I really should get on that.
- If I want to do deportation defense, I have to stop lurking around the offices of the clinic attorneys that I admire and actually initiate conversations. I really should get on that.
- Wasn't the State of Virginia trying to audit my taxes from 2005. I was supposed to follow up. I really should get on that.
- Running low on cash, but somehow I've gotta find some gas money so I can take my brother to Atlantic City on Friday. I really should get on that.
- Where are all my friends? It's been too long since I called my BFF and I feel like I never talk to anyone anymore. I really should get on that.
- I can't believe how many days I forgot to take my Prozac before remembering this morning. Plus, I don't have a doctor's appointment for when prescription refills run out. I really should get on that.

Man, I could use a drink. I really should get on that.