divine angst

People, you have GOT to STOP posting things about the new season of Project Runway! I cannot and I mean CAN NOT watch it until after the bar, and I would like to develop my OWN opinions on the designers and the challenges, and I CAN NOT do that when you are all jammering away about them!!!

‘k thx bai.

On my flight on Monday, I reached down at one point to grab my bag from under the seat in front of me. But my bag got caught and my hand slipped from the handle and SLAMMED into the bottom corner of the tray attached to the next seat. The bottom corner of the tray looks something like this:

. . . except not in the open/down position. Note the metal hinge there. I show you this because I now have a bruise exactly the shape of that metal hinge ON MY HAND. And, delightfully, that bruise happens to be RIGHT where my pen rests when I write. As I happen to do when I’m taking notes in bar class or writing out my handy, colorful “big picture” outlines for the MBE. (The bruise is also where my chopsticks sit when I eat with chopsticks, as I did for lunch today.)

I tried to take a picture but, as you can see, you can’t really see the bruise. So just trust me. It hurts.

Over the weekend, Mr. Angst and I took the Amtrak round trip to see his family and our new nephew. The trip there was delayed an hour—because the freight lines demand priority on their rails and we had to wait for other trains; the trip back was delayed by three hours, but not because of issues with access—our train hit a pedestrian, who was killed. The tragic nature of the accident couldn’t really wipe away my frustration at being stuck on a train in the middle of our state, but at least it put the whole thing in perspective. After all, I missed out on some sleep (and GOD, I am exhausted today), but someone else died.

Of course, people will be people and people can be shallow and tacky—especially overprivileged teenagers, two of whom kept complaining that they were going to demand a refund of their ticket price, and calling their families to repeat how “ridiculous” the situation was.^[1] At one point, Mr. Angst, who had taken out his headphones to talk to me, looked over and apologized, saying, “I thought it would be nice to talk to you, but I just can’t stand listening to that.” Yeah.

So here it is, Monday, and I had to get up early today (after a scant four hours of sleep) to catch a flight out of town for a day trip. I can barely keep my eyes open, and I am pretty sure (as I head home) that this trip was really pointless.^[2] Still, pointless as this day has been, and tired as I am, I’m still alive. I keep reminding myself of that, and of all the good things going on in my life, and I keep trying to retain some perspective.

1. While the conductors made no explicit announcements about what had happened, we came to a very abrupt stop, immediately after which one of them made an announcement asking for a doctor or a nurse because there was an incident at a gate crossing. None of those facts could possibly indicate anything good. Yes, it sucked. But someone died. ↩
2. The problem with pointless things is that you often cannot know they’ll be pointless till you’ve actually been through them. That’s definitely the case here. ↩

I was planning to write a sort of lengthy post about the end of law school and all of the myriad emotions I’ve been feeling since taking my last exam, and about wandering around the city feeling unemployed, and how sort of strange I felt today, particularly.

But I’m not going to write about that because, today, after I got home, my graduation gift from Mr. Angst was waiting for me and I’ve spent most of this evening playing with it. Mr. Angst has even joined me.

That’s right.

We’ve formed a band.

So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little preoccupied for the next few weeks before Bar/Bri starts (and before my summer job starts)—what free time I’ll have away from revising The Task and from finishing up journal stuff may well be spend honing my guitar skills. (Yes, it’s ironic—I’m the guitarist and Mr. Angst is the singer. I am not really sure why or how that happened except that it’s my graduation present and, at least if I play by myself, it’s more fun to play the guitar than to sing. I actually think I’ll spend some time tomorrow starting a solo career.)

Excuse me—I have to run. Mr. Angst is singing Don’t Fear the Reaper, solo. I want to watch this.

Craigslist is amazing, but only for electronics.^[1]

Mr. Angst and I found ourselves with an extra flatscreen monitor and I wanted to get rid of it. Having had little luck selling anything on the school listserv, and wanting to get the best sale price, I decided to post it on Craigslist.

That was this morning at 9.

I just walked back in after handing it off to the buyer. With cash in my pocket.

AH-MAHZ-ING.

1. I say this because, last summer, when we were trying to sell some furniture we no longer needed, I could not find buyers for some really solid stuff to save my life. I guess furniture is tough, with the transportation issues and all, but still. ↩

My new favorite movie lawyer is Paul Biegler. Sorry, Atticus Finch.

I seem to like the lists lately. Here’s another one.

• I did a quick search on Westlaw today, looking for additional authority for a section of The Task that I’m reworking. It was very gratifying to note that of the top 10 results, I already have—and have read—seven of them. Two of the other three were PLI documents (so, not really what I was looking for, since those tend to just report developments in an area of law rather than craft/expound upon a new theory or interpretation). Honestly? One of the better research moments in my life. I do wish, however, that I’d been able to construct this awesome search three months ago; the benefit of hindsight, I suppose, and months of reading on the topic.
  
  
• My brother may be moving overseas. Like, in a month. This is a little weird, but really cool for him. I was just thinking that, if he does have to move overseas on short notice, it’s good that it will be right after my graduation, since that’ll be a nice family gathering where we can all say goodbye; he probably won’t be back in the States till the fall, and even that seems like a bit of a longshot.
  
  
• I get to leave tomorrow for a three-day, four-night vacation with my best friend (and some other people) and I am probably more excited about that than the fact that I had my last real law school class, EVER, today. (I have a clinic meeting tomorrow, but that’s not really class.)

I think that’s enough of a list for today.

I find it amusing that my package tracker widget is not smart enough to realize that the “days till delivery” should be “0″ when the status is “out for delivery” even though the “scheduled delivery date” is tomorrow.

In other words, I’ve ordered a new trench coat (the last one did not fit) and it should arrive today. Which is actually perfect, because the weather today is vile.

I am having a bad day, already.

OK, I’m not really having a bad day, I’m just not starting out superb. For starters, I got home quite late last night after a long day—one that began at 6:45, and involved driving to a nearby suburb, among other things—and I was just exhausted. But I still had to get up and take the dog out this morning because, hey, the dog has to pee. On my way out with him, my non-slip waterproof boots slipped on the non-slip rubberized stair covers on the steps going out the back door of my building and I bonked my thigh (which I already bruised last night) and mildly twisted my ankle. The dog did not even look up.

I, of course, went back to bed.

Now I’m up and the dog is ignoring me, which is weird, we are out of coffee, except the pot Mr. Angst made and left for me (thank you, thank you!)^[1], and it looks like it might actually snow today—you know, like the digusting spitting rain from yesterday wasn’t enough. Meanwhile, I’ve ordered a new trench coat, but it won’t arrive in time to keep me dry today—instead, it will arrive just in time for sunny weather. Awesome.

Finally, I am having a meeting about The Task today and I am, frankly, petrified. I haven’t looked at it since I turned it in, but I’m pretty sure it has NOT gotten better. So I don’t know what that’s going to be like, but I can’t even imagine a scenario in my mind that’s not awful because I really can’t imagine anything good coming of it.

I think today might be the day I go set up my tanning membership.^[2] I need some UV rays to lift my mood.

1. We are expecting more coffee today. Yes, I order my coffee online. Yes, this is really necessary. Coffee is very important; it’s the first thing I consume every day, and I want it to be the coffee I like. ↩
2. I’m in a wedding right after graduation, and my dress is a color that will look much better on me if I’m tan. And yes, I know tanning “causes cancer” and yes, I know they make fake tanning stuff. The problem with the fake stuff is that it actually rubs off of me. I have two tubes of very good, very expensive self-tanner that comes right off if I exfoliate the day after applying it. Seriously. So I will be tanning, and unapologetically. I have Mediterranean heritage, and my skin can handle quite a bit of tanning—and I won’t be maxing out. I just have to get rid of the pasty winter-whiteness. Plus, I really do think the UV rays will help my mood. ↩

I am distressed—nay, appalled—that it freaking snowed 2″ last night. Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL—45 degrees, sunny, breezy, very “Spring is on the way!”

Today, it’s wet and snowy and cold and it looks like it’s going to stay that way through Easter. Barf.

At least I have this paper to write so the sunshine won’t taunt me. Yeah, that’s my lemonade.

I was really excited at how bright out it was as I made my way to campus for a meeting last night. “It’s 5:30 in the evening and I could wear my sunglasses!” I thought. (OK, I admit it—I actually thought, “Hey, wow, the days are really getting noticeably longer!” right before I remembered that we’d just sprung forward our clocks.) I was pretty happy right then about Daylight Saving Time.

Of course, this morning, I remember the dark side of Daylight Saving Time—literally. I hate how dark it is at 8 am when I am getting up and moving around. It doesn’t help that it’s sort of cloudy and hazy out today, with a possibility of snow, and very little sunlight. But even were the weather more cooperative, it would still be dark in the morning when my alarm goes off, and that, my friends, is a crappy thing. I suppose it would matter less if I kept more student-like hours—sleeping way in, staying up way late—but, in fact, I do not. I get up at a reasonable hour and I go to bed before midnight. I keep working hours—i.e., the hours of my working husband. So the evening daylight is nice, yes, because it’s light out when I’m coming home from school or (as last night) going to an evening meeting, but the lack of morning daylight really sucks. It’s hard enough for me to get up in the morning.

Happy Monday, all.

The semester has officially caught up with me. But I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel—in the last few days I’ve finished or offloaded three major projects and made huge headway towards totally completing a fourth. I have two major things left to do, one which (sigh) I am already hugely behind on which has repercussions for other people (i.e., they’ve got work to do after I’m done), and one which I am also delayed on but that only affects me (i.e., if I don’t get it done, at least it means I’m the only one who will have to work on it after graduation).

But I am well underway on both of these projects, and I feel good about them. I also am going to be getting some help on one of them soon, so the light at the end of the tunnel is really shining brightly. Still, between now and mid-May I have to finish these two projects, one of them much sooner than the other, study for and take the MPRE, and . . . wait, that can’t be it, can it? I also have an exam to take as well as a clinic to keep participating in, but I am less concerned about those—that’s just the daily work, I guess. And there’s the law school musical, of course, but that’s just plain fun—diversion—so I don’t really count that. What it all means is that my plate is looking a little cleaner lately, which I appreciate.

It also means that I have to be a little more focused since I have fewer things to be distracted by and I admit that I am not the best at being focused on one or two things; I like to have a lot going on at once so that I can jump back and forth. But it will be good for me—finding the diversions in the monotony? (Not that there’s a lot of monotony in the work I’ve got ahead of me; it’s just that it is almost certain to seem neverending at some point.)

Meanwhile, I’ve got a burn on my left thumb, which makes it tough to type (I’m going between my keyboard and an ice cube wrapped in a paper towel) so I’m taking a bit of a Valentine’s Day break to watch a movie with Mr. Angst. I am sure I will regret this in the morning, but ah well.

What is it about “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number,” that is so hard to buy? Why do wrong-number callers always insist you are wrong? Why did the wrong-number caller who just called me say, “But this is the number she gave me!” Well, then, she probably didn’t want to hear from you again, sorry. Because it’s NOT HER NUMBER.

Sheesh.

I’m just going to shamefully admit again how much I love disaster movies, and how pathetic that makes me.

Still, watching Volcano in HD—even if it’s not the first movie I’d think of watching in HD—is pretty nice.

Back to editing with Tommy Lee in the background.

It’s 1 o’clock. What have I done today?

1. Read background materials for a clinic assignment. Wrote up some questions for my conference call with the supervising attorney this afternoon.
2. Finished my bar exam application. Submitted it online (and paid for it). Still have to notarize and mail in one form.
3. Did the Law School Roundup.
4. Did my taxes. Working part of a year for a law firm means my refund is very nice.
5. Walked the dog. I just bathed him yesterday, and now he’s dirty again. I like the slightly warmer weather, and the resulting thaw, but it definitely makes the streets really gross.
6. Discussed the possible purchase of a new TV with Mr. Angst. (Thanks, tax refund!) Not sure about the timing on that.
7. Threw a load of laundry in. Still needs to go in the dryer.
8. Blew my nose approximately four hundred times.

I think that’s a lot for four hours (I didn’t get started on anything till 9 o’clock, and somewhere in there I also took a shower). Let’s see if I can match it this afternoon!

My schedule this semester (and Mr. Angst’s, while we’re at it) really precludes us from taking a real vacation before I graduate. (Frankly, if things go the way we hope they willl, we won’t be taking any sort of vacation any time soon. Which sucks, but the tradeoff is that things will have gone the way we wanted them to.)

At any rate, we had hoped to do something fun and tropical over spring break, but that’s just not going to happen. But I’ve ensured we’ll still get away for a bit over the break: I just bought plane tickets to New Orleans.

Now, to be fair, I’m the one who will get to spend some time in the Crescent City—we’re going down for an engagement party which will be held in Baton Rouge, not New Orleans—and I’m going down for four days so I can kick around New Orleans with the bride-to-be for a bit, while Mr. Angst can only go for two-and-a-half days, most of which will be spent in Baton Rouge for the party. But it’s still a trip out of town, to a place which has lots of fun stuff to do, where we’ll be hanging out with people we love. It may not be the Bahamas, but it will be warmer than This City in March, and is almost certain to involve a little more debauchery.

Today I:

• Spilled my breakfast shake all over the kitchen.
  • I had my stand mixer in the accompanying mixing cup, when I left the two of them, upright, on the counter to grab a little more milk—my shake was too thick. I poured the milk, put it back in the fridge, and heard a thud. I turned around to discover the top-heavy combination of mixer and cup had tumped over, distributing shake-splatter all over the floor and on the wall. AWESOME.
• Roasted a chicken.
  • Verdict: Pretty good. Next time I might do the herb-mixture-under-the-skin thing, since it was just pretty chickeny tasting, without much else going on. Also, I am still trying to figure out how to roast a chicken without ending up with a half-inch of chicken-jelly on the bottom of my roasting pan. None of the recipes ever talk about the collagen in the chicken leaching out, nor about the vast amounts of chicken fat that renders down into the pan. EWWWW. Thank goodness I have a carving board with a channel.

That’s two food-related things I did today. I did some other stuff, too, but none of it seems very interesting compared to those two things.

If someone will remind me later, I’ll post my breakfast shake recipe.

You konw there’s something wrong with the world when you see the temperature display outside a bank and it says “10°” and you think, “Oh, that’s downright balmy.”

And, compared to yesterday, your observation is true.

Brrrrr.

The last week has been good. I’m getting settled back into school, adjusting to my new schedule (which I love), eating healthier, taking more breaks from the computer . . . in general, I think I’ve started the year well.

Best of all, I’ve lost 3 pounds by having a homemade fruit-and-yogurt smoothie for breakfast every day, and going to the gym with Mr. Angst three days a week. As for the latter, I always thought I preferred to go to the gym alone—get my stuff done by myself, not see anyone I know in case I did something stupid (like slip off the exercise ball like I did last night)—but going with Mr. Angst has been delightful, and I’m glad it’s working out for us. The former was just an attempt to get more dairy and fruit in my diet, but it appears to be working and I’m not going to knock it.

Meanwhile, I’ve managed to write a couple of interesting pages for The Task (ack, I am just starting to write) as well as started finishing my part of last semester’s journal issue. (This semester’s issue hits my plate in a week, though.) And I’m taking scheduled breaks from my computer (important since I’m at home most days) to sit on my couch and do my reading or just watch a little TV and play with the dog.

If I can keep this up all semester, I’ll be in good shape!

The party was a success, as these things are measured. The salsa was obliterated, almost all of the tamales (that we put out—I saved a dozen for myself and stashed them in the freezer) were eaten, and our guests even made a significant dent in the sausage cheese balls (which did not benefit from being reheated—next time I won’t make those ahead of time). People even drank the nog, which I know from experience is always a questionable thing—some people don’t like the taste or the smell, and some just rebel against anything that eggy and rich. I had just a touch left, which I did not feel at all bad about tossing down the drain at the end of the evening.

Of course, I woke up the next day with no voice and today, two days later, it’s showing no sign of returning any time soon. This is OK, I guess—it might even get me out of participating in (what I think is) an incredibly silly first-day assignment in my Thursday class. Stay away, voice! Just for a week!

Otherwise, Mr. Angst and I are enjoying a relaxing weekend. We ventured out yesterday so I could join his gym. He ran and I used the machines. It was terrific. I admit it—I love gym machines. I particularly love the elliptical machine and a select few of the weight machines. I know how to use them and I even have an old workout plan/routine from the last time I belonged to a gym that I am comfortable with and that works well for me, and now I can get back to following it. It was a great workout and I love the gym and even though it’s not very conveniently located, it’s not so out of the way that I won’t use it regularly.

So the New Year has begun well.

Today was my first potentially productive day of the new year. (Yesterday was for sleeping in and eating yummy homemade brunch and watching movies.) Turns out, it was a pretty productive day!

I did some journal work and was relieved that it was not as awful as I feared it would be.

I put together my materials to apply to a clerkship that just opened up.

I mopped the bathroom floor and vacuumed the rest of the house except the office.

I did some more journal work.

Oh, and I also put a pot roast on early enough that we’ll be able to eat at a reasonable hour, went to the post office to send my holiday cards (finally!) and send a Christmas gift in for exchange, and did two loads (well, more like a load and a half) of laundry.

It was a good day.

Happy new year, all!

I was reflecting back on the last year and realizing that it was not a terrific year for me. Oh sure, I had some successes, and I am proud of those, but I also had a horribly stressful year as well as some “failures.” Frankly, I’m glad to put 2007 behind me.

This is not to say that 2008 won’t have it’s share of stresses, but I think they are the kinds of stresses that I know how to deal with. The bar exam will be hard, but it’s a test, and I have taken many tests in my life, and I know how to deal with that kind of stress. We may be moving because of career developments, but we’ve moved across the country before, and I know how to handle that. Thankfully, my job situation shouldn’t be a stressor even if we do move, but even if I have to find a new job, well, I’ve looked for jobs before, and I know how to keep my sanity. I’m not saying any of these things will be fun—I know the bar won’t be, and I hate moving, and I hate the mass resume drop—but I know that I can deal with all of it.

And maybe that’s why 2007 was so stressful for me—I was doing a lot of things I’d never done before, and doing them under intense time constraints and while picking up a lot of other people’s slack. I struggled for balance, and I don’t think I ever really achieved it. I regret that. I have a few more months of dealing with those duties and frustrations, but I’ve learned a lot from my experiences in 2007, so I think have a better grasp of how to achieve balance now—and a better sense of when to not to just do it all myself. I wish I’d found that earlier.

So here’s to a good 2008. I have some specific resolutions (for instance, I want to lose a few more pounds before I order the bridesmaid’s dress I have to wear in May) but I also have a more general goal for this year: to achieve balance. That goal has a lot of nuances for me—I need to balance personal with school, journal with non-journal, perfectionism with delegation, and initiative with distraction. But I think it’s also very simple—my life needs to be more balanced. I’m eager to get there.

After a week of travel and family and Christmas and food and more food and presents and more food, Mr. Angst and I are back home with Himself.^[1]

All is right with the world.

1. Who, by the way, is completely zonked out. Maybe just being boarded is exhausting for him? He doesn’t get as much exercise as he might when boarded since he can’t be put in with the general population of dogs to play and wear himself out, but he’s definitely worn out. Maybe he feels a little like I do—he’s home and can finally relax. ↩

I promised a follow-up, so here it is!

First, if someone at UPS tells you something you either don’t believe or don’t want to hear, call back and talk to someone else. Yesterday, I called UPS to check on the status of my claim, and the girl I spoke to said she couldn’t tell me anything since I wasn’t the shipper. I told her that the shipper didn’t call in the claim, that there was no problem with the shipper, that I brought it to the attention of UPS, and I was pretty sure the shipper didn’t know there WAS a problem. She said, “No, we’ve been in touch with the shipper. You’ll have to contact them for updates.”

That seemed fishy to me, but I let it go, because I had an exam to take. And I went and took my exam and then did some post-exam shopping, and then came home to get ready to go out and have fun, celebrating the end of the semester.

But this morning, I got nervous—after all, Christmas is on Tuesday, and I still didn’t know if this package was going to arrive on time. So I called UPS again. This time, I got a more helpful—and probably smarter, and possibly less harried—customer service agent. I told her what I’d been told yesterday and she said (and this is EXACTLY what she said and I wish I could replicate her tone), “What? Really?”

So I explained to her that I was getting desperate, and I needed to know something. And she was great. She took a look at the history of my package (and as she was looking at it said something like, “OK, shipped to Texas, and then . . . oh wow, Florida, wow, how did THAT happen . . . what the heck? . . . OK . . . Yeah, we’re still trying to locate that box. Boy that’s strange!). She told me they are still trying to get in touch with Florida Lady. She told me UPS would reimburse the shipper the cost of sending me a new package overnight so it would arrive by Christmas. Though she said I’d need to call them and arrange for the new shipment, she also said if they gave me trouble, to just conference them in with UPS so the UPS people could corroborate my story.

So that’s what I did. (Well, the conference call wasn’t necessary, thank goodness.) The company has already sent out a new package, overnight delivery, and they told me they would deal with UPS from now on, so I didn’t need to worry about anything.

Despite the tremendous hassle this was—from trying (in vain) to reach Florida Lady, to calling UPS multiple times, to calling the shipper multiple times (they’re a small company and don’t appear to have very many more than one customer service person), to being generally very fretful about all of this at a time when I was trying to prepare for my exam—it all worked out pretty well, and I am pretty happy with both UPS and with the company I bought this gift from. With the exception of that one customer service girl, everyone has been very nice and very understanding of how important it is that I get this package before Christmas. They’ve all been very accommodating, and I appreciate that.

I guess this delivery horror story is now just cocktail party fodder. (And I think it will be terrific in that role—I’ve told the story to a few friends already and the universal response has been shock and amazement of the really gratifying kind.) I’m glad everything turned out well enough that I can continue to tell the story and have it be humorous, rather than a reminder of something more bitter and ugly.

Did you think you’d get through this holiday season without having to read a delivery horror story from me?

You’d be wrong.

Today’s doghouse resident: UPS.

I am proudest of one of the first gifts I ordered this holiday season. Inspiration struck me out of the blue, and I knew exactly what to get this particular family member. So I ordered this particular (very cool) gift right away, on December 6. The next day I got an email from the company I ordered from telling me my order had been fulfilled and giving me the tracking number. I cheered, knowing that at least one gift was taken care of and would arrive at my dad’s house in Texas in plenty of time to be opened on Christmas Day. I didn’t track the package because I figured it would get there when it got there, and I wouldn’t be down there to open it and wrap it until the 23rd.

On Monday, I got a phone call from a nice lady in Florida telling me that she had my package and wanted to know when I could come pick it up.

Florida Lady’s address is the same as my dad’s—except for, of course, the CITY, STATE, and ZIP CODE.

I immediately got online and looked up the tracking number so I could see what the heck was going on. I first blamed the vendor—the stupid company probably got the address wrong on the shipping label, so I’d just call and make them send a new order to the correct address, and deal with getting the other order back on their own time. But the invoice showed the correct address—me, care of my dad, at his address in Texas. So I pulled up the tracking information.

There it was, on December 12:

[CITY], TX: A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION / THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED

And then they sent it to Florida.

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone yesterday morning with UPS trying to figure out (a) how this happened, (b) how I was going to get my package, since Florida Lady had given me her phone number but wasn’t answering her phone and her voice mail was full, and (c) what UPS was going to do to FIX IT.

To be fair, UPS was very apologetic (though I am sure it is in the customer service script that they are to apologize every time they say anything to a customer who has lost a package), and they are doing everything they can to get my package back from Florida Lady and on to Texas. They also got detailed information on what was in the box (including item numbers), presumably so that, if the package is gone, they can just call the vendor and order a new one on their dime and overnight it to Texas in time for Christmas.

Of course, I’m not completely won over—after all, they screwed up. I am just not sure how someone in Texas decided that my dad’s perfectly valid address was not valid, and then how that someone decided that I really meant the package to go to the same address but in a different city and state. I bet there are other cities in this country that also have an address with the same number and street as my dad’s—I guess I’m lucky they happened to send it to someone who was nice enough to call me and say, Hey, I’ve got your package here!

Simply unbelievable. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next.