All Things Profane and Sacred

I love the dark rainy October weather-from the inside. Outside, not so much. This morning I pulled on a raincoat built like a plastic bag before taking the boys out for their obligatory walk. The rain was gusting and blowing, which is quite nice to watch from, say, a nice window while sipping a mug of chai, but not so nice when it is whipping against your unprotected legs and stupid too short hood, fogging your glasses and sloshing in your slippers. As soon as everyone pooped (except me), I turned the gravy train back home, peeled off the useless raingear, removed my sodden clothes and fed the dogs. I had plans to go out into the world today, but I don't think they stand a chance.

J is out on the ocean today, because his boss is taking everyone fishing. I missed his body heat something awful last night, and between that and some mild anxiety didn't sleep all that well. I know it is insane, but I worry about him when he's not around, because I don't know how I would live without him. Isn't that just the pukiest?

I'm feeling better today than I was. Ups and downs. I don't feel quite as much like pulling my hair out (at the moment), so I'm going to mosey along my day, dispensing sunshine and bubbles out of my ass.

So the siren song of a steady job has been calling to me today. I saw a couple of job postings that I would say I have at least a 60% chance of being able to land. Mmmmm. Paycheck. Doing stuff. Feeling like worthwile human being. Mmm.

But on the other hand, of course there are problems. Job 1 is about 45 minutes away. Now, that's not a terrible commute, but considering the estimated hours, it would work out that I would be getting home just as J was going to bed. I would basically not see him at all during the week. And it's in "the largest privately owned firm in Hillsboro!" Ugg.

Job 2 is closer, and the hours more reasonable, but the pay is pretty low, and it mainly consists of non-law stuff. While it is a job I think I'd enjoy, on the other hand I don't see myself wanting to stay and work my way up, and I don't see it providing me with a whole lot of benefits, other than a salary.

It seems like all the qualities that would make me a good lawyer are qualities that hold me back from getting a legal job. I'm loyal and hardworking, so I need to enjoy the work. I'm independent and imaginative-I don't want to work at a lawyer mill where we all have to march lock-step. I'm compassionate-but loving people means I also have a family I need to love and be loved by. When you read about firms and hear, "being a law firm employee is agreeing to your own exploitation" and "law firms tend to chew up associates and spit them out. There's also the conformity that's required . . ." and ponder the astronomical number of attorneys who are dissatisfied with the profession, and you don't think, "Gee where can I sign up!" (at least if you're me), but instead, "Why didn't I realize this before I was in debt up to my eyeballs? I am a moron!". I wanted work that was meaningful and exciting, full of writing and creative solutions to real life problems, using your mind to making the world work better! Not all this political jockying cog in the machine bullshit.

I don't know. All this is just a bunch of me babbling to myself whilst sitting in my bathrobe thinking bad thoughts. Blah.

Yesterday I make a huge fucking pork roast (while doing a number of other things). It sat in the oven from 10 to 7. J tried to convince me to leave the roast for a while and take a bike ride with him. I was tempted, because it was a beautiful day, but all the appliances in this house are on the brink of extinction, so I decided safe was better than sorry. J pleaded. I resisted, saying I didn't want to come home to a big smoking hole in the ground. J turns to me very somberly and says, "That happened to Luke Skywalker once."

I had a bit of a breakdown this weekend. I'm starting to get used to them-they come and go. I think what brought this one on was thinking about how if I don't find work in the next few weeks, I'm going to have to sign up with a temp agency to do paralegal work, and that I've wasted a good chunk of my time and money getting myself a degree and passing the bar for no good reason, and could have taken a job right out of high school or even out of college and be at a comfortable salary level with comfortable benefits because at least then I'd be at the smarter end of the pool. And, of course, signing up with an agency won't do me a damn bit of good because there is already an experienced pool of paralegals in this town who were out working while I sweated through classes and the chances that I'll even get to work are slim to none. So then I'll be down at Fred Meyers (they are looking for holiday help) and I'll make a pouty face like "Woooo!" and be sad that I'm barely covering the gas to get out there and taking home a pittance that the student loan collectors will jump on and divide among themselves-if someone with more retail experience doesn't snap all the jobs away from me (My retail resume: sex shop-2002-2003, citgo-1999-2000. Not too impressive, but hey! I can run a register).

Anyway, I have to go put together mailings today. And I have 2 receptions this week-the local bar and OTLA. God I hate dressing inoffensively and trying to smoothly hand over my card.

So yesterday the fridge started making an unholy ticking noise. I waited for J to come home (to make sure the noise was not in my head) and we agreed that the fridge was not doing so good. We agreed to wait until 8 when the landlord gets home and give him a call, but J's brother came over for a visit, and we fell asleep minutes after he left (we're a real exciting house these days-it was even poor J's birthday) and didn't wake up until 11:30. Shit. So we cross our fingers and go to sleep.

Flash to 3 am. The fridge is now making an alarming "Ronk! Ronk! Ronk!" noise. We get up and put all our food and ice into a cooler. We think maybe the problem is something easy, like some of the ice caking our freezer is protruding into the fan. So it's 3 in the morning and we're defrosting our fridge. After the last traces of ice are removed, and the water is all wiped away, we have a very clean freezer, but the fridge is still heaving and moaning. We pull out the fridge and scratch our heads while looking at the back. J pulls an onion skin out of the fan in the back. Plugs the fridge back in.

Silence.

Fucking appliances.

You gotta love an article that has a quote like this: "The splogstorm over the weekend produced a tremendous amount of spam . . ."

A story about J's brother D-

D and a friend decided to get tattoos to celebrate their friendship. So they brainstorm and decide they would both like an asian character symbolizing friendship on their ankles. So they pour through books, and find a character that symbolizes "friendship between males." Perfect!

Of course after the tattooing, they realized that what the symbol really meant was "sexual friendship between males."

Finally got out of the house last night. It's not exactly like I'm trapped here, but with J's work schedule, I'm not seeing him a whole lot, and when I do he's tired and all stay at home. This is ok, because I'm a homebody myself, but you got to get out sometime (and I don't mean for 'networking' either. That's not getting out, that's just plain not fun.)

Anyhow, we had great fun. Went to Smoking Glass on Hawthorn. It's sort of like being in an upscale restaurant-"Would sir like to see today's specials?" Very smooth and customer servicey. Lots of really expensive pieces that were more art than anything else. The pipe sommolier told me "Oh, well, yes, we do have the economy line, which ranges from $15 on up in that case there." Another gentleman went over to the economy case and started pulling out pieces for my perusal. One was nice, but had a very large hole. When we pointed this out, the guy said, "That is large! This shall move to the $15 shelf. First we better do a drop test." And he throws it on the floor. He found a more expensive pipe and told me he would give me a deal on it, and throw in a cushy carrying case, and since I liked it, he threw it on the floor, pronounced it good to go and away we went, full of joy. J gave me much shit about always getting free stuff wherever we go and otherwise making remarks showing he is jealous of my tits.

Then we got a slice of pizza and watched the freaks on Hawthorn. Afterwards, we stopped at J's friend's house for a visit. A local band (The Clementines) was practicing in the house, so we got some sweet free live music. Not a bad night at all.

I finally 'got' kung fu movies the other night. They're like musicals, only instead of breaking into song, the actors break into fights.

Well. So I joined this organization. A member sent me a rude email. I responded in a manner befitting a professional. Now the executive director is leaving me a voicemail extending a personal appology on behalf of the organization and assuring me she will talk to the rude member (hello to those of you google sent after typing in "rude member"). All this in my first week in this organization. I'm terribly embarrassed by all this hoo haa, and hope it blows over quickly. J says it is a "good networking opportunity."

And I was worried about making an ass of myself.

I think networking made me sick yesterday. I woke up this morning with a head full of snot, hacking and coughing my way around the house. I guess I won't be calling any hot job prospects today-"Cough, cough. Ahem. Do you hab sub bwork for me? Ibe berry profedional." I think if I can ever do a seminar, it will be "Germs! The dangers of Networking." I'll bet it was the damn sicko law students. They're always sick with something.

The networking thing last night was put on by the Oregon Women Lawyers. It actually wasn't too terribly bad. I always feel like I smell when I'm at these things, so then I start nervously sweating (at which point I'm aware that I probably do smell bad, not to mention look sweaty), so 'networking' isn't exactly my strongest suit. I think it has something to do with lingering high school trauma-only here, 'fitting in' actually means something. I also realized that I actually have some sort of complex about lawyers and am afraid that I come off lower class, and that they'll look down on me because I'm poor. This is kinda funny, because most of the lawyers I know are jobless and poor.

Anyhow, I was surprised to realize how much 'networking' I do on a daily basis. The speakers pointed out that networking isn't about meeting a whole bunch of people you don't know, but is more about keeping your ear to the ground and exchanging information with people you do know who need it. Of course, the more people you meet and talk to the more information you pick up and the more exchanging you do.

I also had a weird moment when I realized the law students there were looking at me like I was a real lawyer or something. I mean, I know I am a real lawyer and such, but well, I guess I wasn't real sure what they were looking to get out of it. Great, now that's a fabulous attitude-this whole thing is going to be a huge uphill battle.

I'm volunteering for the ACLU as of yesterday. It's so hard for me to walk into a room of people I don't know. I have to ramp myself up, at which point I'm pretty much a freak. Like, not a hidden kind of freak, but the kind of freak people look at and say, "Whoa, what's wrong with her?" It didn't help that I was pretty excited to be at the ACLU in the first place. I mean, these people defend civil liberties, for fuck's sake. How great is that?!?

Anyway. I'm hoping that they'll put me to work on something. There's a few interesting cases they're gathering information on (that I now know about and you don't. Ha!). I volunteered to help with ballot title challenges, if any come up, so I'm gonna start learning about that process. The deal is, when a group or whoever put together an initiative to change the laws or constitution, they gotta put together a ballot title. This isn't just a title, but a long description of what the initiative does, and what a yes vote and a no vote do, ect. These have to comply with statutes and case law. If they don't, you can file "suggestions" which can be acted on or ignored. If they are ignored, you can file directly to the supreme court, who looks at the briefs and either makes the group change their title, or, well, doesn't. It's a pretty quick process. And a lot of these groups word their stuff sneakily, so I think it will be pretty satisfying to kick some skank ass.

Warning: some rare political content ahead.

The other night I saw John McCain on the news. I spaced out for a while and imagined what life would have been like if he had won the primary and then the election in 2000. I know, a bunch of baloney heads are saying "But he lost the primary which means he would have lost the election!" And I say, "baloney heads, you're fucking morons!" I remember that election vividly, even though I was having an election party and drinking it up. I was sitting with two liberal friends (and mind you, I too am a liberal, or as the neocons these days say, a big unpatriotic whiney dumbhead-na na na boo hoo hoo. Thanks for the incisive commentary. Anyhow, back to this sentence) talking about our choices. 2 lukewarm Gore votes and a Nader (No, I wasn't the Naderite. Yes, I did my patriotic duty this last year time around and called her to remind her not to pull the N lever). Anyhow, we were talking about the candidates and getting shit faced, as you do at election parties. And all three of us agreed that if John McCain had made it to the general election, we would have all voted for him. Because even though we knew that we didn't agree on everything, we all felt that we could trust him to do what was right for our country, and that he was a reasonable man. Where the hell are all those reasonable men?

Sigh.

My horoscope says that there are a bunch of eclipses this month involving moving forward with working. She says it doesn't look like a promotion or honor at work, but is more along the lines of developing new business and reorganizing workspace-more preparatory stuff where what I do now will help me get ahead later (she says February). This is funny, since I've been doing all this jobby stuff-getting a filing cabinet, phone and business cards. Responding to stuff. Setting up other stuff. Signing up for lists, meetings and stuff like that. I have a shot at a job that would take me from November to end of January that would give me a bunch of good experience and a foot in the door (fingers crossed).

She says I should also change my hair because I'll be going out more with the goal of networking and "change your hair, change your life." Bitch.

I've been getting spammed, so the comments now make you do a little dance before leaving your comments. Sorry, but I'm not dealing with daily offers to join the exciting world of internet dating.

I went down to Pioneer Square today to interview J for Storycorp. Storycorp is an oral history project. They have a permanent station somewhere in New York, and mobile stations that travel around the country. The mobil stations are airstream trailers that house super sweet recording equipment. The woman working the audio in the mobile unit told us she got on the project in Seattle and was traveling with it down to Vegas. Being unemployed has its advantages-we were told that the reservations for recording an interview filled completely an hour and a half after they opened, and there has only been one cancellation. I know I spent an hour on both internet and phone trying to get a spot for J. Anyhow, they record your interview and it goes to the library of Congress for a folk history thing and you get a CD of your interview.

J wanted to talk about his grandma and sister, both of whom recently passed away. It was real difficult-the interviews are 40 minutes long, and a lot of the things he wanted to talk about were kind of difficult for him to talk about. Anyhow, I feel like I sounded like a moron, but I guess it wasn't too bad. We haven't listened to the interview yet, but the audio lady asked if we would mind if she referred it to OPB. If they do air it, I hope they don't air anything that makes me sound like a dipshit.

In any case, it was a pretty cool experience. I feel pretty lucky that I managed to get a spot for J and glad that he got to talk about two people that mean so much to him.