Don't worry, this isn't another rant about how indignant I am about the recent disruption to my five year plan. I'm pretty sure I'm over it. Pretty sure. But yeah, with all the other stuff going on, it was most excellent to have the opportunity to spend an entire evening laughing myself silly. Brian Regan. Is there a funnier person on the planet? Probably not. For our fourth anniversary, I got us a pair of tickets to see Brian Regan when his tour came through Portland. And after several months of anticipation, the big show was last night. So worth it. I was first introduced to the comedy stylings of Mr. Regan while I was in college, during what was probably the very last summer of my life that was devoid of adult responsibilities. Good times had by all. Now I'll occasionally drop a "You too!" or "Take luck" in casual conversation to see if I'm speaking with someone who has an acceptable sense of humor. If they know what I'm talking about, a comical exchange will usually follow. If they don't, I just feel sorry for that person. Their life must be so bleak. So last night, we got to hear some of his new material, which was thoroughly entertaining. But I must say, the best was when, during his encore, he launched into the classic "little league" bit, after some not so subtle urging from the crowd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prLLabn1vPA FREE SNOW CONE!!! Thank you for giving me something to look forward to. Thank you for making me laugh. And thank you for putting things in perspective. Life is pretty darn hilarious, even when things don't go according to plan.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Has to land on somebody
As I sit here pondering the latest turn of events in my life, a line from a movie comes to me. It's somewhat poetic that this dialogue from my favorite movie should come to me at a time like this, and be so utterly appropriate. "Bad luck?" "Yeah. It floats around. Has to land on somebody." What a succinct way of summing things up. It has to land on somebody. In the movie, this exchange occurs between two imprisoned murderers, one of whom was wrongly accused and convicted. The one responds to the other with incredulity that he would describe such a miscarriage of justice as mere "bad luck." My problems will likely never be on par with wrongful imprisonment for double homicide. But I suppose it was rather naive of me to think I would never be the person on whom bad luck happened to land. It's like that. Shapeless. Ephemeral. And utterly indiscriminate. Now that it has descended, I'm at a loss for what to do with it. I would really like to gloss over the first four stages of grief and get right to acceptance, but that is just not happening. When the news first broke, I fully indulged my denial. I used humor to deflect and cold analytical thinking to rationalize and reassure myself. Now I seem to be hung up on anger. Things like this happen to other people. We were doing everything right; how could this happen to us? And how dare you, fate? How dare you screw up my perfectly ordered existence like this? Part of me clings to the belief that things will be okay. Things always work out for the best, don't they? Everything happens for a reason, and all that? I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Moment over
Scott and I were on our way home from church this morning, discussing some weighty matters that are going on in our collective life at the moment. When I posed the rhetorical question, "What do we do?" Scott's response was, "Pray." After a pause, I rejoined with, "Just to make it today." Scott nodded slowly and said, "I was just thinking that, but I didn't say it because I figured it wasn't the right moment." "Oh," I said, "Don't worry, I said it for both of us." Somber moment over. Thank you, Hammer, for providing the soundtrack to today's important discussion.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Thursdays
Scott is back in school after a wonderful three week break in between semesters. It was a much needed reprieve. We put some of our awesome new Christmas gifts to good use (chocolate-filled ebelskivers, anyone?), watched tons of Daria and X-Files, and even assembled the second 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of our marriage. Good times. But now that Scott has evening classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I find that my time is much less...shall we say, structured...on the nights where I have the house to myself. On a normal night, we both get home from work, have an actual sit down dinner together, catch up on the day's political news courtesy of Jon Stewart and then we hit the books (though only one of us gets to read for pleasure). With Scott in class at this very moment, my evening has instead looked something like this: I stayed late at the office because I was working on a massive project that didn't seem to notice or care when 5:00 rolled around. Besides, there was no one home to care what time I walked in the door. When I finally finished what I was working on, I came home,went for a run and played around on the WiiFit (which is my new favorite toy). When I was done winning virtual hula hoop competitions and mastering the Tree pose, I promptly cancelled out any caloric advantage I might have gained, by raiding the huge bowl of assorted Christmas candy that currently graces our dinner table. But as everyone knows chocolate is not a meal unto itself, so I balanced things out by chasing it with Tabasco-topped popcorn while perusing the latest gossip on Facebook. This is all proof positive that I need to come up with more productive ways to spend my unstructured time. Here are some of the ideas I've considered and decided merit further procrastination... um, I mean consideration: Read. Plan a trip. Study the big fat Spanish grammar book that I have sitting in my nightstand. Begin revisiting all the super fun topics that comprise the legal universe in preparation for my as yet unscheduled but not entirely distant date with the Washington bar exam. Additional suggestions are welcome. But at the top of my list right this second is: Eat chocolate. After all, Dove says chocolate loves unconditionally. And if my chocolate wrapper says it, it can't be wrong.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
My most recent really big idea
I wish I'd had a camera handy to capture the look on Scott's face when I told him I want to take a sabbatical and spend a year globe-trotting. It was best described as a cross between amusement and complicity. To give a little context to this whole scenario, my idea was not completely out of the blue. I must confess, I just finished reading "Eat, Pray, Love," which is the third book I've read in the last four months that utterly romanticizes the notion of heading off into the unknown for an adventure abroad. I do love a good adventure, and what better place to have such an adventure than abroad? With each new destination I add to my list of places visited, the more compelled I feel to add even more to that list. For Scott and I, traveling has kind of become our thing. We toss all our spare pennies into the vacation fund coffers, and then each year we go out and blow the vacation fund in fine style. I've already mentioned how much I love to plan these vacations, and now that I've got it in my head that I want to spend a year traveling, I find myself wondering at the logistics of such an undertaking. Like how long will it take to save up enough money to ditch our lives for a year? What countries am I dying to visit? What countries would give us the biggest bang for the buck? I already know it won't be Italy, but I'd sure love to go back there anyway. When would we be able to actually pull off an undertaking of this magnitude? Obviously not now, because Scott is still in school. So that means we still have at least two more years to figure out the big stuff. By then, my loans will be paid off (how amazingly awesome is that? Eat it, law school!) and if we maintain the status quo, I could theoretically toss my entire salary into the humongous vacation/adventure fund. This could totally be doable. And taking a year off isn't really all that unreasonable, especially if you refer to it as a "sabbatical." Somehow that makes the whole idea sound just slightly less irresponsible. Maybe I can write a memoir chronicling this really big adventure and it will turn out to be a runaway success story/vehicle for early retirement...oh right, that's been done. But still, I think it would most definitely be a pretty awesome way to spend a year. Especially when the alternative involves being tethered to an office.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
FAIL moment of the day
The firm where I work is looking to hire a new legal assistant. Since I am one of the lucky attorneys that will be assigned to work with the new hire, I was asked to participate in the interviews. I must say, it was an interesting experience to be on the other end of the table; asking the ridiculous questions rather than scrambling to answer them without sounding like a total idiot. On the one hand, it was reassuring to know that everyone struggles to sound coherent under that kind of pressure. On the other hand, I got a little tired of hearing how "perfectionism" is such a weakness. Really? Could you be any more cliche? Anyway, after interviewing 5 applicants and tossing out fluster-inducing questions like "What's the worst thing you've ever done in a job that your boss doesn't know about?", we narrowed the field to our top three and the hiring partner called the applicant at the top of the list to offer her the job. Minutes after she accepted, the office bookkeeper casually asked if we had Googled the applicant to whom the job had just been offered. No, but now that you mention it... It turns out our top pick had been arrested and placed on administrative leave from her last job just two weeks ago on charges of official misconduct, theft II, four counts of computer crime and four counts of forgery I. Funny, when I asked why she left her last job, she said she was interested in getting back into the private sector because there were more opportunities there. Yeah, I guess she wasn't lying, but I didn't realize just what opportunities she was referring to. Needless to say, that offer was quickly rescinded, but let that be a lesson to you all. Good idea: applying for a job in a field in which you're well experienced and qualified, and being polished and professional enough in your interview to get a job offer. Bad idea: failing to realize the number one Google hit on your name is a newspaper article advertising the fact that two weeks ago, you were fired from your last job for theft, forgery and official misconduct and you may be facing jail time. I think my favorite part about this story is that she asked to have her start date moved back until next Tuesday as opposed to Monday because she was going to be "traveling with her family" on Monday. Yes, traveling to the courthouse for an initial appearance. Epic FAIL!!!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
2010 midterm madness via Facebook status updates.
