...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...

Belated return!

Well, it's been wayyyyyyyy too long since I updated. I've gone back and forth about whether to keep blogging here, open up a new blog or just let the whole online blogging thing die a slow and painful death. I've decided to stick with either 1 or 3. I guess we'll see in another couple of months.

It's fitting that my last blog posts were about starting my new job and passing the bar, and now, several months later I've been working myself to exhaustion and hardly had time to think about blogging, much less actually wanting to sit down and write. But T is out of town for work tonight, I've got time on my hands, and I'm kind of tired of watching old re-runs of Malcolm In The Middle and 30 Rock on Netflix. So here's a quick recap on what's been happening since I finished the bar:

I finished the bar at the end of July, and then a week later I had to take the MPREs because I'd never actually gotten around to signing up for them during law school. Let me tell you: that sucked. Don't do that, if you can avoid it. It seemed like everyone else was relaxing and enjoying the fleeting period of time between finishing the bar and starting work/freaking out about not having a job. I didn't get even that fleeting second. Because I took the bar on one week, and had to immediately cram for the MPRE the following Friday, and then started work on Monday. My head was spinning.

But then I went to work, and I pretty much have hardly caught my breath since. I go in most days around 9 a.m. and leave anywhere between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. That's probably a cakewalk for most first year associates, so I feel bad feeling bad about this. Working with The Gang isn't the typical, "big firm" experience. Still -- did it never occur to me that by going to law school, I was headed toward being an actual lawyer? With lawyer responsibilities and lawyer hours? I was commiserating with a friend who is in a terrible first post-JD job working for an emotionally abusive jerk boss who alternates between screaming at her and confiding his marital problems to her. (She has it worse.) We both agreed that we've learned more in the pair of months that we've been baby attorneys than we did during all of law school, and it's definitely more exhausting and difficult. Yet...

This is exactly the job I wanted. I am working with immigrants who are facing removal proceedings, and I am being given the space and support to come up with creative solutions for defending their right to be/stay here in the United States. I'm helping victims of crimes and their surviving family members navigate through the bureaucracy of state prosecutors' offices. I've attended marriage interviews and asylum hearings and gone to court. I have my first court date here in Big City (my first one was out of town) this week! Really, truly, I love it.

And our apartment is great. We no longer live in Tiny Firetrap Apartment, but have moved exactly one block down the street, to a new third floor walk-up with bigger rooms, hardwood floors, a small porch and roof access. We actually have space to invite friends over, and have been able to host a halloween party, pancake dinner, several game nights and other festivities. When I come home now, after work, I look forward to eating dinner with T, watching a tape or hanging out with him in the office while he works and I surf the internet, and then having quiet cozy time before doing it all over the next day. Most nights now, I'm too tired to go out. But on the weekends, our friends from the neighborhood are all around - we were so lucky to not have to sacrifice our awesome location for an apartment upgrade. We get together, or we walk downtown to go window shopping. Sometimes on Saturdays I have to go to the office for a bit in the early afternoon, but the minute I walk out of the building my mind switches off of work and on to the rest of life. So, life's pretty good. I can honestly say that finishing law school was like stepping outside into a bright sunny day after endless days of being shut up in a dark library. That was one long, difficult stretch, and I don't regret it for a second, even if our paychecks are being devoured by student loan bills. But it sure feels NICE out here in the real world again.

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.

Own Date

Took myself out on a very lovely date tonight.

T and the dog are gone for the weekend, down in Virginia visiting his parents with my brother in law. They drove off this afternoon, and I walked them to the car, wearing flip flops with socks and trying to ignore the fact that the sidewalks were crowded with summer Friday passersby. This is the second weekend in a row (and next weekend will be the third) that T has left town for at least part of the time. Last week, he was visiting friends in NYC and next week he will be down in VA again. I'm so glad he's taking advantage of the summer and getting out and about to see friends and reconnect. But I do miss him. Already. And with both him AND the dog gone, the house feels especially quiet and lonely.

But I've never been one to dislike solitude. So after reviewing contract formation for the trillionth time (I take back what I said about learning anything useful for the bar in Advanced Contracts), I grabbed my keys, wallet and the Summer Fiction edition of the New Yorker, and just walked out the house. No feeling guilty about leaving the dog. No rushing to be on time. I just went down the stairs, stepped out onto the sidewalk and walked the two and a half blocks to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.

Yes, at first it felt awkward to be standing in a restaurant filled with groups of young people, downing margaritas while servers hustled and bustled around the room, and to not be noticed, and then mistaken for a member of another party. But once I settled in with my chips and coke (and once my spilled coke was mopped up and replaced...yikes! Good thing I don't need to impress myself!) I was able to Just. Chill. Out.

While eating my chicken mole enchiladas, I started reading this really awesome short story by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of the amazing Middlesex). The short story Asleep in the Lord, is about a 23-year old religious studies major and uncertain Christian who set off to travel around the world in search of spirituality and ends up volunteering in Calcutta at a hospice run by Mother Teresa. He is trying to figure out where he fits in in the world around him, wedged as he is between the strait-laced European Catholic volunteers and the hippie New Age backpackers. He is also trying to summon the courage to do the "dirty work" at the hospice, to figure out the relationship between works and faith. Oh, it's good.

I got hooked at the restaurant, and finished the story at the park by my house. On Fridays in the summertime, there is always a family-friendly musical act going on at the park. When I rolled in, still feeling weird about being there without the dog, kids were running everywhere, young parents chatting it up and band members packing up gear. I sat and read on a park bench.

Now I'm back here, and recounting my brief but pleasant date with myself, because it was lovely, and I wanted to capture this moment. I am content, even if I am missing my husband and my little fur family. And even if I am in the middle of bar prep. We found the apartment we want, and assuming we work out the details the way we would like (it is a little complicated), we'll be able to take it over come September. This makes me extremely happy. The decision was easy, too. T and I went to see it, looked at each other and as soon as we walked out, said, "Let's do it." The best part is that it's only a block down from where we are now, and two doors from T's best friend, and overlooking the park. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh, summer.

It was a beautiful day.

Let it be known that today was a beautiful day.
The weather outside was undeniably warm. No question about it.
I wore my brown HM t-shirt with the stripes, and my hot pink sweatshirt.
During Advanced Contracts, I discovered the rumor was true: I do NOT have to have all of my supporting documentation in to the State Bar Examiners by the regular filing deadline (Friday) in order to pay the regular filing fee.
I confirmed that with FSIL on the front steps of the law school building.
Although I spent about six hours in the library doing legal research for a client who is at risk of being deported to a country he doesn't know, where he would more likely than not be killed, I enjoyed the work. This makes me think I might actually like being a lawyer.
My life decisions, if only for a day, have been validated.
Tomorrow I have an appointment to look at a very promising apartment in our neighborhood and price range.
There is a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and an episode of Steven King's The Stand awaiting me in the living room.
The windows are open and the breeze is blowing through the house and the noises of passing cars are soothing to some deep down part of my soul that was probably born in childhood when I had dreams of living in a big city.
Let it be recalled, it was a beautiful day.

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.

Brief thought on moving back to Virginia

While we were in Richmond, I ran into some people we used to hang out with from college. One of the guys had moved to DC while we were living in RVA and has since moved back. He said that he likes Richmond a lot more now than he did when he lived there before. Before he left for DC, he described feeling bored with the city. He doesn't know if it's that Richmond has changed or himself, but he's goes out a lot more and has a lot more fun now.

This gave me some encouragement about perhaps one day moving back. One of my big concerns is that moving back to Richmond would be a return to a slightly more...stunted social life.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. The best weekends, it should be no surprise, are the ones that I forget that I'm in law school. I should think about that some, though. After all, aren't I going to miss law school when it's over? Probably best to spend more time focusing on the here and now.

A year from now...

Where do I see myself in a year? Where do I see us? Those are the questions that I've been thinking about more and more these days. This coming week, I have a meeting with the two head honchos at my office to discuss fellowship project ideas. If I can come up with one wow their socks off and they decide they want to sponsor me, I'd have to start putting together an application for yet another competitive application process. (And I thought applying to law school was a pain...)

Let's just say I were to get a fellowship that would enable me to work on a project in the field of immigration over the two years following graduation... What would my life look like?

For starters, I would be staying in the Big City. T would keep his job (God willing) and we would have a dual income. Our families would secretly cry collective tears, while publicly putting on brave faces and expressing their vicarious satisfaction that our lives have flourished here up North. It would mean two more years of long, difficult commutes to T's family on the coast. Two more years of being displaced Virginians. Two more years of expensive housing, small living spaces at relatively exhorbitant prices. Two more years without yards or porches. Two more years away from communities we grew close to and left behind.

On the other hand, it would mean two more years of foot commutes. Two more years of being able to walk to our coffee shops, bars, restaurants, grocery stores, hair salons, doctors appointments, Macy's and our offices. Two more years of blissful ignorance of the fluxuation in gas prices. Two more years near friends that have moved closer. Two more years of living in an incredibly diverse setting and being part of a Sesame Street-style neighborhood. Two more years to develop deeper ties to friends we've met and allow the roots to grow where they have been replanted.

Um, more specifically, there are big questions: do we want to own a house here in the Big City? Do we want to have kids here in the Big City? Does T want to continue in his line of work if we move somewhere else? How important is his being vested at his current place? Will my law school's alumni network get my foot in the door out of this state?

If I get the fellowship, I imagine that the question of whether to stay or go almost takes care of itself. It would be just a matter of adjusting our mindsets to the new development. On the other hand, if I have to take a more, um, proactive approach to my career path, the options abound. Big City vs. Virginia is just one of the issues. Do I look for a firm job? Try to get hired at a legal services corp? Seek employment in rural areas where there is a greater need? Strike out on my own? Have I decided on immigration law after all? What kind? Blah, blah, blah.

I may sound like I'm freaking out, but I'm not. I'm excited and I'm just thinking outloud on my blog. T has been having some (unrelated) anxiety lately, so these aren't questions we're in a position to seriously tackle at the moment. In the meantime, I'm hoping that one day I'll look back fondly at this moment and cluck my tongue and smile.

Balentime's Day

The fireplace was a nice touch, but just the novelty of sitting in the Omni sipping cocktails was by itself enough to make yesterday a memorable date night. "Happy Balentime's Day," T said to me. "Happy Balentime's Day," I replied. And we toasted, he with a Jack and Coke, I with a gin and soda. We chatted about office gossip, what our lives will be like when we're old, and whether money is a romantic topic of conversation. (Me: Yes. T: No.) Over by the bar, a group of hotel guests were huddled together, strangers acting like old friends, watching the 2010 Winter Olympics. I was grinning.

We hadn't intended on having a "Valentine's" date. I just suggested that we go see a movie. But then we realized we still didn't have food in the house, and we were hungry. So we decided to walk over to our favorite Thai restaurant a few blocks away. It was a brisk walk, what with the snow and my refusal to wear my new boots to dinner. But when we saw the neon lights and the inviting sign, thoughts of cold disappeared. Instead, we began to wonder why nobody was eating at the restaurant.

"Welcome!" said the lady who greeted us. "We have a prix fix menu for Valentine's Day. $35 a person. Would you like to see?"

"Um, are you doing your regular menu, too?" was my classy reply. Predictably, the answer was no.

After a quick huddle, we decided to throw caution to the wind. Kind of like we did the last time we decided to splurge on dinner out. And the time before that. And I haven't even gotten to last week!

Kidding! (Sort of.)

I'll fast-forward through the delicious appetizer course, scrumptious dinner and so-so (hey, just being honest) dessert, except to say that our dinner conversation consisted of deciding that we should look for a new apartment. The glory of being on a month-to-month is that we can pretty much move out whenever we want, except for the whole 60-day notice thing. After a year and a half of being in this little firetrap, we've official been in Big City and in this apartment for as long as we were in Richmond (and our nice, big apartment). Other exciting topics of conversation included gushing over our fat, "just married!" tax return, and the speed with which we will now be able to pay off credit cards. T quickly wiped my hefty student loan debt off the table of conversation.

Anyway, after dinner, we had a good long stroll down the main drag of our neighborhood, where we stopped in to some of the charming local shops (Condom Kingdom, Beyond the Wall). I considered buying a journal for logging, uh, bathroom functions. Mostly I pretended I was 15 again and hanging out at the mall. I even saw a group of my old high school friends (or their doppelgangers) sharing fries at Johnny Rockets.

Eventually, we wound our way up to the movie theater, where we were 45 minutes early. I guess Condom Kingdom didn't have enough to keep us occupied between dinner and movie. Cue T's brilliant idea to get drinks at the Omni Hotel, which is right next to the theater. Yes, I had to use my passport to get my drink, since I lost my driver's license at that stupid 1/2 to JD party a couple weeks ago. But no, they did not kick us out for looking like vagabonds wandering in off the street.

But the whole point of this post is to tell any reader lucky enough to have read this far that you must go see Fishtank. If it's not playing at a theater near you, rent it on Netflix when it comes out. This was a beautifully stark, well-shot and never-dull "coming of age" story about a 15-year old girl growing up in public housing in England's East Side (?). I hate the concept of "coming of age" movies, which usually seem to be about boys trying to have sex for the first time. But this one was awesome. I can't recommend it enough.

That concludes my obligatory Valentine's Day post. Thank you for reading :)

Making good time in 2009

I've never had real New Years resolutions that I actually vow to stick to. Usually I do make a resolution or two in the spirit of sharing with friends over a toast at midnight, but this year, I didn't even do that. Instead, I silently vowed to myself in the wee hours of the first morning of 2009 that I would try to be more mindful this year. I want to write more. I want to open myself up more to talking about the things that really matter to me, the things that are on my mind. I want to spend less time distracting myself with things that don't matter at all. (Hello, Wii and Uno FreeFall!) For a moment, I entertained the idea of vowing to post on this blog every day for the whole year, or maybe write in my journal or something. But I'm not one for making promises I know I won't keep. So, instead, I'm just going to try. And I am holding myself to it by announcing that here.

So now I'm sitting in the Duke undergraduate library, typing out this first entry for the year while I kill time down in North Carolina. I'm in NC to visit old friends, people from a life I feel I've left pretty far behind by now, but not so far that it's irrelevant. I spent a good two years here, developing my post-college identity and setting the course that eventually landed me here in law school, engaged and more content and settled, if a bit more boring. Boring has been the theme of this "vacation" home to visit friends and family all over Virginia and NC. Not that it's been boring, but that I wonder if I AM boring. Even writing that, I laugh at myself a little. I don't feel boring, and that's what matters. But hanging around my bro, and other old friends, I remember myself from five years ago, seven years ago, when I would run around all night with them, hoping from diner to basement to liquor store to parking garage, playing video games and doing stupid suburban things. They don't do that stuff anymore, but they have moved on the grown-up version of such pasttimes: parties with friends in the city, clowning in the circus (literally), I don't know. I just feel different. It's not bad, it's just something I don't notice except under certain circumstances.

Anyway, that's one thing running through my mind this break. Another was the whole shadow of living under my parents' roof again. That's the kind of stuff that trips me up from writing on a blog, because it's dark and scary and I'm afraid of making my family life sound terrible. I'm also protective of it, but at the same time feel an urge to write. What I realized, on my drive down to NC, is that I am terrified of sadness. Too much time at home and I start to feel scared and lonely. So I'm ready to go back up to the big city, where T awaits me and I can live MY life rather than worry about my family's. I just wonder, I keep wondering if I am running away from something.

Well, I have to get back to driving around these old streets and trying to make sense of being here. As unhappy as I sometimes feel with living in a big city and having disrupted something good T and I had going on in Richmond, I feel very very grateful to be with him in our tiny little apartment, and I don't really care where it is. Big city, tiny town, boondocks or cookie-cutter suburbs, I am just happy to have the little family I have and be living in something that is mine, that is the present.

seasonal

Yesterday morning, on my six block walk to the subway station, I saw a ponytail laying on the ground amidst a pile of junk. Not a ponytail holder, mind you. A full-on ponytail. It was still there on the way home, and again today. This bit of discarded intimacy, when ranked on a scale of disturbing things found in public places, surpasses the used condom and comes closer to the bear paw mistaken for a human foot.

In another interesting commuter discovery, I found one of T's business cards laying on the sidewalk somewhere between 12th and 13th streets, just chilling like it was supposed to be there. Considering that it was a good four or five blocks from our apartment, I took it as a good sign that word is out about his business on our side of town. No, I have no idea how it got there, although we did hand out a whole bunch of the 4000 cards he printed this summer while we were at the zine fest this weekend. Can't wait to hand out a whole bunch more at the zine fest next weekend! (Hi, Richmond!)

On another note, I've been thinking about country music tonight. I miss it. I miss it the way I missed hip-hop when I left Durham and reggaeton when I left Northern VA. There are so many little ways in which Virginia is southern, ways that I've taken for granted having spent my whole life there. I never really considered NOVA to be part of the south, and most Virginians would insist it isn't. But the truth is, before it became a huge suburb, it was country. My family lived there when it was country. I remember it that way: scrappy tin mailboxes painted red with sloppy yellow numbers, rolling roads with barns on either side, that long straight stretch of route 50 and its straight shot to the Blue Ridge Mountains. As a kid, coming home from piano lessons, tae kwon do or girl scouts, I spent so much time trying to find the line where the mountains met the sky that to this day I still think of Shenandoah when I see the clouds at dusk.

I never thought I'd miss Fairfax, but I do. I didn't think I'd miss Richmond all that much, but I do. I've gotten used to missing Fredericksburg, in a way that is less like longing and more like appreciation. I feel certain that I want to go back when this is all over. Whenever that is.

I'm looking forward to the winter. The taste of fall is in the air already, and I like it. I like that no matter where I am, or how old I am, fall always comes, and always gives way to Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and wintertime. I look forward to the pumpkins and the cider and tea season. By January, I'll be sick of it, I'm sure. But by then, it'll be time to start looking forward to the spring. It's what I love about having four seasons. There is always a new one just around the corner. And for that, I'm grateful to be where I am, rather than somewhere less... seasonal.

Things are starting to feel just a bit cozy. Or maybe they aren't feeling cozy yet, but a part of me is just dying to get nestled in, to winter and to these new circumstances. If I can't get the one, I think I'm willing to settle for the other for now.

Our new apartment

Not that we have left our old apartment. As T so artfully put it, we are "homeful" right now. The old apartment has approximately the following: one extra long couch (hopefully to be purchased by an interested craigslist peruser before September 1st), two CPUs, one computer monitor, a kitchen table (soon to be banished to the curb), some cans of Pringles and a whole lot of dog fur.

As of close of day Wednesday, our new apartment currently furnishes our (same old) queen mattress and box spring, one of our green chairs, a sofa-bed left by the old tenant, our TV, many many book shelves, one very confused dog and a couple of friends who came up to help move. The friends are T's best friend and his best friend's bandmate. They are also considering a move to Oz, which would be cool, though the jury is still out on whether the move will actually materialize.

Not one to reveal my hand too early in the game, I'm not quite sure yet what I can and can't say about this place. It doesn't feel real yet, though in some ways it feels completely natural. Natural in the sense that a really big hotel room in a city where you're vacationing feels natural. Natural, but not permanent; not a replacement for your "real" life, just a nice change of pace. I do enjoy the front windows from which I can gaze into the second and third floor apartments of my neighbors. And stooping is fast on its way to becoming my new hobby (and favorite verb). There are some nice parks within walking distance, and looks like there will be some good places to eat, drink and be (yeah I said it) merry. Though we did accidentally run up an $80 tab at a dive bar around the corner tonight, thanks to a couple of $20 pitchers of beer! WTF.

Anyway, T and E are out on the stoop winding down, A is wearing in our new-to-us pull-out sofa, and I am about to curl up with some exciting reading: Sloan's Basic Legal Research and Writing. Not sure, but I think I have to read the first two chapters for the first day of class on Tuesday. I also have to brief Gideon v. Wainwright. Brief. I already feel like I'm speaking some alienating lawyer language, and I don't even know what I'm talking about. Que chulo!

Gonna be a 1L

In just a week, classes for first year students start. This summer has been both incredibly fast and excruciatingly slow. I'm back from the beach with a sunburn and plenty of ridiculous memories, and now is the time to quit procrastinating and shove all my stuff in boxes.

T and I are moving to Oz this week. We're bringing the first load up in a moving truck and one van on Wednesday, then driving back down to pick up my car and the rest of the stuff. I almost can't believe it, but in just a few days, I'll be a Car-less Callie! No more car insurance (kind of), no more gas (kind of) and no more feeling guilty about all the (actual) junk in my trunk. My car is going to my parents' house, where it will hopefully get put to some good use by my dad, who currently has to guzzle about $15 of gas just to drive to the store in his truck. T and I will be living off of just his car, and with any luck we'll only have to use it on rare occasions.

With any luck, also, the Club that he is buying will be just a formality.

Leaving Kansas has been a tough choice to reconcile. The last couple of months have been some of the hardest for T, and it's been hard to watch him come to terms with the decision. There are times where both of us have wished we had decided to stay here, rather than move to the big city, but given that there is nothing we can do to back out of this decision without my pulling out of law school, we're moving anyway. We'll take it a semester at a time.

Due to the emotional turmoil involved with these decisions, and my tendency to avoid difficult feelings by pushing them away, very little of my energy has been spent over the past summer on preparing for starting law school. I've been vacillating between worrying about T and distracting myself from the mind-numbingness of my job (which I left last week... hooray!!!). Sure, I picked up a few books to read (PLS 2, Learning Legal Reasoning, and Gideon's Trumpet) but for the most part I feel like I am going into this the way I always hated getting into the pool or the ocean: by just jumping in, cold be damned.

Anyway, I'm excited to be joining the legions of blawgers out there whose lives I have been tracking for a while now. It's been interesting to be able to read, all in one place, the journey of so many people from fledgling one-L to hardened three-L, with all the milestones in life that come along the way. I wonder, what will my posts have to say? What will my future bring?