Romance

 Today would have been my 16th anniversary. It's not. It's taking some work to move on.

Made me think of the most romantic points in my life, though. So here we go:

1. Bill and I dancing in the rain under a streetlight. 

2. Jason at my front door after so long, picking me up and swinging me in circles. 

3. Jim driving up to my work on Valentine's Day and laughing at my double take before I ran into his arms.

I miss love.

I Dunno, Maybe?

 I've been an attorney for going on 16 years. I can count the days on my fingers when I felt like I was effectual at it.

I have a case, currently, where there's no proof that my client did anything wrong. I've been going back and forth with the prosecutor as well as my client. I think I'll win.

Maybe I'm good at this.

This Took Far Too Long

 I've not written in slightly under forever. That's my fault. I think my last post was pushing 12 years ago.

To catch you up: After 15 years, we broke up. It was ugly, both verbally and physically. I'm still recovering. 

I'd love to kvetch about it; it's unwise. No guarantee about the future. 

Tonight I've been listening to music from the early 2010s. I guess those are the ones that touch my heart the most.

I just need to write again. 

Black Friday

Well, OK, it's not black outside, but it's quite grey, and I'm sitting here, playing on Amazon (totally waiting for the $97 TV) and doing laundry. Living the dream, as it were.

I've not been writing not because I don't have a lot to say, but because it's all so deeply personal and would probably make me sound like a nutball were you to read the words that are muddling through my brain. GPOM and I split up, I think I told you, and it's been strange to determine how to live. I spent over four years trying to arrange and rearrange myself to please and be pleasing to someone who had a mistress whom he loved (and loves) more than me. That's an ego burn of the highest degree, especially when his love is an inanimate object. Can't compete with that, yet I try and fail and wonder why I do and become my own armchair psychologist.

I'm sure you know how well that works.

But I'll try again, as I always do, to rebuild and write and think and dream. Until then, I've got a giant bag of Swedish Fish to tide me over.

Godmother

Today Momma and I were chatting on the phone about the upcoming birthdays of my brother and my nephew. She asked me what I was getting for my godchild.

My godchild? I have a godchild? Wade's oldest doesn't count because she never had her kids baptized, so I'm an unofficial godmother to him, but not to any others, I said.

Yes, dear, she sighed to me. Don't you remember?

Was I at the christening?

Yes.

Who's the godfather?

Your sister-in-law's brother.

Are you sure I'm his godmother? Because I really don't remember it and that seems like something I'd remember.

Yes, you are. Remember? You thought it was odd that the godfather didn't know the Apostle's Creed.

Sunlight...

Oh, crap! I am my nephew's godmother! Man, I've been a really shitty godmother!

Yes, dear...now do you want me to include this spider Lego in his birthday box?

Yes, please.

Catch Up

I've been away. There's been plenty afoot around this place. But here's the good/bad news: I've been writing in my head for a while, so there will be a flurry of posts coming up. Ready yourself.

In the meantime, is it your phone ringing, or mine?

Lazy August

It's Saturday, and I should be working. But first, Hi! How are you? I'm well; I'm a bad redhead. I spend a lot of money to keep my hair a color approximating red and today I just couldn't be bothered to use the specialty shampoos and conditioners that deposit more red into my hair. Today was a Garnier Fructis and John Frieda kind of day.

I find it very difficult to work on weekends. I've got four meetings on Monday and the day starts early, so I want to get ready for them this weekend. I don't want to run around Monday morning like a nut trying to get case files together, do last-minute research, and probably balance a giant trash bag. But still, everything in me says that I should spent today and tomorrow reading books, watching TV, and listening to podcasts while playing endless rounds of mah jongg solitaire. I'll figure it out though. It'll probably be tomorrow before I do anything.

I used to love Sundays. Sundays were days of talking with Momma, napping, acting foolishly - all the things I like best in a day. For the past month or so, though, Sundays have turned into an extension of Saturdays. This doesn't mean that Sundays are bad days, but they're not the same, and occasionally I resent that.

I don't use washcloths. I don't know why I felt the need to tell you that.

I Didn't Get It

I'm going to flog the hell out of a dead horse. Bear with me, because I don't often keep as up-to-date with news as I should. I mean, I was excited about the SCOTUS decision regarding health care coverage, but I was also exhausted with Facebook and its political leanings, so I avoided a whole lot of coverage. My best thought regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act was that we can't know what it's going to look like on the United States as we've never worn such an outfit.

Clever, no? Thanks.

I saw a whole lot of vitriol. I giggled over the number of lawyers (and their loved ones) who posted this:

I braced myself for what was bound to be at least a day-long battle of I'm-Smarter-Than-You comments on people's posts. What I was unprepared for was this:

I had to ask about this. I still have to ask about this. I don't understand what Dred Scott has to do with health insurance. If you guys know, please tell me. I'm serious here - I don't think I'm entirely an idiot. I can explain the difference between substantive and procedural due process with only a few examples in place of definitions, and I realize that explaining by example is a lesser form of definition than a true definition (but it's a lot easier).

I think of this today as I'm catching up with Popehat, a favorite blog of mine when I want to read something with substantially more thought put into it than I put into writing for you guys. (Apologies all around, but I consider this more a diary than a place for discourse, and diary entries really aren't known for pre-planning.) I was pleased to see Patrick's list of SCOTUS cases even more horrifying than this decision, and I agree whole-heartedly with him. 

I hope the (what is it now?) 33 attempts from the House Republicans to repeal the law will end, as we have better things to do, like figure out how else we can screw over those who pay for private insurance already. Tax hike, anyone? 

Karen Klein

I tried to watch the entire video of this woman being harassed on the bus by junior-high kids, but I couldn't do it. I could not get through all ten-ish minutes of the ordeal. Not being able to do so made me feel even worse, because here this woman had to endure such cruelty and know that she could not react, and I'm too big of a wuss to watch it from afar.

Some brave chick I am.

I am so very glad that the Reddits and the indegogos are helping this woman, and I hope she can enjoy a healthy retirement and vacation and maybe, I don't know, one of the punching bags that looks like a real guy? 'Cos I think I'd be into hitting one of those for an hour or year.

The whole episode reminded me of a class period I "taught" when I was a substitute teacher. Here, let me set it up for you:

I was in my late twenties and I was a substitute for a semester, mostly because my mother both threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn't start doing something useful and she was a teacher at the school, so I had a cozy quasi-permanent sub position. I worked with all four years of high school kids and for the most part, particularly over time, I really did enjoy it. I enjoyed it so much I considered staying in the school system, but that didn't pan out, and it's a story for another day.

I was engaged at the time, and the kids (they were freshmen, I believe) were really interested in my life. Anything to avoid working, and who doesn't like thinking that kids find an adult's story fascinating? So the kids asked me about my fiance, and how we met, and how long we had been together, and did I have a picture of him? Yes, I did, and I showed them, which caused one boy to grab the picture and throw it in the trashcan. This almost brought me to tears, and I didn't know how to respond, but the girls in the class did.

Thank goodness for girls who are young and true believers in true love! This boy got an earful about respect and kindness and , "GET HER PICTURE OUT OF THAT TRASH RIGHT NOW!" So he did, and we all moved on, and the class ended, and honestly, although I didn't hold his actions against that kid, I never showed another picture to a class again.

So I'm thinking that the greater tragedy for Ms. Klein is that the other kids on the bus weren't strong enough to shut down the cruelty of a few. I don't think anyone else could have really quieted the noise other than someone in their peer group.

Experiment

Like pretty much everyone I know, I have many email accounts. At last count, I think I have five. There might be more. Wait, I just thought of another, although I don't think I've ever used it.

Of those six email addresses, four are with gmail. I'm digging gmail as I get better and better using it. It's substantially awesome for work, because my cable and internet-based provider only allow about four gigabytes of data to be sent. Only FOUR. That's crap. Considering that my scanner does not have the ability to decrease the size of documents, you can imagine how many things I cannot send to clients or myself or the court system.

Think, for just a minute, how large a bankruptcy filing is. Potentially hundreds of pages. Hundreds of pages through my scanner would probably be about twenty gigs of data. My regular email system just exploded.

Anyway, the point of this is that I am currently signed into Google with at least two email addresses, one for work and one for fun, and I'm about to sign into another account with a third.

If you find you can't search today and Google is really slow, you can blame me.

A Wish

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, and lately my groove has been set to dance music. I like the bouncy beats, the infectious grooves, the whatever, the energy. So I've decided that one of the neatest things that could happen to me would be this:

I'd like to commandeer a nightclub, its lights and sound system, for about thirty minutes. I don't want to do this while anyone's there - I couldn't take the pressure of trying to ensure a good time for all. Plus I think I'm too old for that sort of thing. I've not been to a nightclub in at least eight years and I really have no interest in returning.

Still, I think it would be awesome to queue up what I want to hear in the way it's intended to be heard. Honestly, Lady Gaga and LMFAO and stuff like that are not really meant for a car stereo or the radio in my bathroom. These kinds of tunes are designed for maximum acoustics and noise-spread, and just for a while, I want to hear them that way.

Also: I've become re-addicted to Bejeweled. I blame you, Google Chrome Store.

Memorial Day Shopping

Last night I took a little pill to help me sleep. I'm one of those who can fall asleep quickly, but cannot stay asleep. This works out just fine if I go to bed at 9, because then the middle-of-the-night panic attack that wakes me and keeps me awake for three hours can't ruin the whole night. But last night, I was really wrecked, so I took the pill at 8:30, went to bed at 10, and was still awake after midnight, reading a book, long after GPOM had tucked me and himself into bed. Glorious.

By 11 this morning, the pill hadn't worn off. I was awake around 7, but stoned until noon. However, this wasn't so bad because I didn't have to meet Momma until one. I made it, only a teensy bit stoned. No driving threat here!

We bought every color of the rainbow T-shirt at the store, and my best find was a fourteen dollar Ralph Lauren shirt. You read that right.

$14 RALPH LAUREN SHIRT. I AM THE QUEEN OF BARGAIN SHOPPING.

Next we went in search of food, but decided that we were above food court "food". This means a trip to Cracker Barrel. No judgment please. I know about its checkered history. I hate its checkered history. But damn, that place can make a mean veggie plate. (Only 40% meat and meat by-products!)

But before then, there was a quick pit-stop at Bath and Body Works, because I was whiny and the only way for Momma to shut me up was to buy me six bottles of foaming hand soap. (Trust me when I tell you it's worth spending the $20 on me. I can be whiny like only an overtired toddler at Disney can be whiny. Plus, I was hungry, so add a missed Disney Princess breakfast to that toddler's attitude, and you're almost close to mine.) On the way out I saw a display of my absolute favorite scent, the Energy Orange and Ginger body wash. It was on sale for $5/bottle, marked down from $13/bottle.

What could I do? I grabbed two, found Momma a place to sit, and went to the checkout. The lady there told me today was the last day of the sale, and if I bought them all, she'd help me to my car. Sixteen bottles and about eighty dollars later, I will smell fantastic through Christmas.

That's a guarantee right there.

A Quick Love Note

What, you thought I'd forget to honor my mother today? The woman who gave me life, sarcasm, and a strong sense of my own awesomeness?

I'll thank her for you.

Today I told Momma that the one thing I really wish I had was a cold beer. It's probably been about three months since I've had one. We had a misery-loves-company shopping excursion, where we discovered that everyone else is a pain in the ass and that we are amazing. Driving her home, I mentioned the beer, and she said that she had some, and would I like to take some home with me?

Um...yeah.

So she gave me three Yuengling Lights, while guaranteeing to me that taking three of them was not in fact too greedy, as she had nine left from her pack. I asked her if she thought it would be OK if I just drank one on the road home.

"Well, they're warm..." she said.

Avatar

All right, let's do this. I realize ahead of time that I could upset some people.

Duly noted.

Why in the world do people use pictures of their children as their avatars? It makes absolutely no sense to me. There's a safety issue attached, and there's a real question of priorities as well. Do you not like your own looks? I've had someone use that reason. Are you extra-super-proud of your children? I've heard that one as well.

It makes me wonder if some people lessen their own value in order to elevate their child's. That is a big ol' problem in my view, because not only does it create a heavy burden for a child (if I'm more important than mom or dad, then I must be responsible  for him/her as well) but it can also elevate the child's self-esteem to an unhealthy level. I think we've all seen what happens when someone believes his own hype. Those people are freaking annoying.

As an aside, I spoke about this with GPOM, and he concisely stated what I was meanderingly thinking: I'm friends with you, not your kid. And here's the bad news: I don't think your child is as endlessly fascinating as you do. I think your kid's just fine. Hell, I might even like your kid. But you are my friend, you are the one I want to see on the internet, and you are the one I discuss life with.

So show yourself and be yourself.

Dress Code

First of all, HAI, new blogger interface! Sure would've been nice to get an introduction to you before you moved in, but hey. If I made it through college living with strangers, I can make it living with you. We can get to know each other. Stay up late. Fight about TV channels. Sing songs to try to cover up the dance krewe practicing on our porch until midnight.

Today I went by my folks' place, and my dad was napping. In his underclothes. He woke up when I came in, and scurried to the kitchen to find some real wrappings. (Please don't ask why my father keeps his clothes in the kitchen. That's a question I don't think anyone could answer.)

But watching him scurry, I thought, why are you dressing for me? You didn't dress for your wife, with whom you live. Yet something tells you that lying around in your undergarments in the family room is just fine for her. Made me think of days when GPOM wanders the house in his underwear. Not that he doesn't look great in just that. Maybe I'm just fussy?

When I come home, I immediately change into what I consider "house clothes" - cotton pants and a T-shirt, the first generally from Lands' End and the other from any law school which admitted me or any event I've attended. But if someone were to come by, I wouldn't be completely humiliated. It's my house, I can be bra-less if I choose.

I guess I just don't understand the attire of pure comfort versus the attire of covering up for others.

Ow. Ow. Damnit, OW!

The very first time I got a pedicure, I was visiting my sister in California. I was probably in my twenties, and had never had anything particularly girlie done, unless you count the unending number of bottles of fire-engine-red hair dye that had graced my head since the minute I discovered that the upside to being a Sun-In blonde is that that blonde will absorb red like a sponge.

And we won't discuss the absolute unruly glory of my eyebrows in those days. I do have some vanity left.

So my sister dragged me along to let a stranger who spoke minimal English rub my feet and legs, trim my toes, and erase those calluses from my feet. (Fellas?) It felt good, warm, restful, despite the growing horror of the callus removal. Once done, I had brightly-colored toes and feet as soft as a baby's bottom. What a luxury! What joy! Until I walked, each step more painful, excruciating, weird...why would it hurt to walk?

Turns out there's a reason for those hard-earned calluses. Being able to walk upright, it turns out, is a small price to pay for a little bit of not-so-lovely bits of me.

I didn't get a pedicure for about a decade after that, and when I finally went to the nail salon, it took a goodly bit of bribery to lure me in. My memory is bad, but my physical memory of hurting is strong, and I couldn't stop thinking of how long it took to walk full upright again, and be able to wear cute shoes again. This pedicure, however, was different and better. Some scrubbing, smoothing, painting...no skin removal. Perfect. I've been addicted for years now.

Until this last one, where the helped pedicurist asked me if I'd like a "procedure". Sure, why not? You guys, it was the same as the first. So of course walking hurt, and of course I had to stand in a hallway for an hour in heels with no protective barrier between my skin and shoes and floor.

That was last Thursday. Today is Tuesday, and I can finally walk upright again. No more procedures for me.

Another Way To Do It

GPOM has been restless lately, wandering the place when not killing whatever requires his attention in Fallout. I remember this waiting feeling when looking for work and trying to find ways to fill time when there's nothing but an endless ocean of time, the soft, calming voice in your head screaming, "FAILURE!" and a bank account that mocks you with its very existence. I try to be understanding, am incredibly imperfect at it, but I do try. I also make a point to get out of the house so he doesn't feel the evil eye of my home-based business glaring down on him. I also try to encourage him to get out of the house as well, and I give him tasks and chores so that he's contributing to the household.

I sound like bloody Mother Teresa, don't I? Well, I'm not. I glare in judgment sometimes and don't listen and occasionally lord what I'm doing over him. Really helps his self-confidence, I've found.

Anyway - there was a random $1.99 data charge on our cell phone bill this month, so I asked GPOM to call the company and get them to reverse the charge. We don't use data plans on our phones, and even if there was a one-second mistake, there's no way I'm paying $1.99 (plus tax!) for it. So GPOM called and got what seemed to be a very inexperienced customer service rep, who kept repeating to him that she would figure out what the charge was about (it was on his phone) and that it might be a mandatory upgrade. The phone connection apparently wasn't that good (why I still have a landline) and I'm guessing her English was a second language, so the barriers were pretty insurmountable.

After about fifteen minutes, GPOM let loose with an expletive or two and hung up, telling me that he'd pay the blankedly-blank two dollars.

If you know me at all, you know that's not going to fly. Not that I don't appreciate the gesture and efforts from GPOM, but that my need to screw over the phone company because of $1.99 (plus tax!) is simply too strong. There is very little I can control in this world, but I'll be damned before I pay a charge for a service I did not use (or at least get a credit on next month's bill). After fifty-two minutes of hold and gentle conversations with a charming young woman named Olivia, I got the charge reversed.

I also got laundry done and the entire kitchen cleaned, including offloading the dishwasher. That's what you can do in forty-five minutes of hold music.

Mississippi Dots

I was minding my own business this morning in the bathroom. (Yes, I know, the place where one generally would mind her own business. Tee-hee.) Something made me think of the Bar/Bri class I took in DC all those many years ago. And by many, I mean five.

That does seem like many years ago.

I wasn't enrolled in the same bar review class as some of my classmates, although some people from my alma mater were taking the class in the same location as me. Mine was popular enough to have a morning, afternoon, and evening class. I am an afternoon person, and at that point, I was unemployed, so everything came up Milhaus and I took that class.

I met a young lady named Caitlin, and we bonded over being from the south and not being entirely sure what we were doing in DC. Her husband, if memory serves, had a job up there, and I had a wild hair that would not allow me to return to Alabama. So we shared accents and anecdotes and the occasional lust for sweet tea, and we would play games during the more tedious videos.

I taught her about the dot game. She had never heard of the dot game, which to me was just about the horrifying news I'd ever heard. No dot game? How did you manage sitting through church? Hangman's tough to hide after a while, you know. But I laid out the game and taught her the basics and it only took two games before she was routinely kicking my behind.

I was proud of my little protege, and I wonder where she is now, and I hope she's happy.

Caitlin, just in case you forgot, this one's for you:

And This Is Why I Love You

This morning was a slow morning, a lazy, syrupy, holy-crap-did-I-really-need-that-last-vodka-we're-meeting-the-inlaws-for-lunch-morning, and I took full advantage of the gurgly, mildly hungover slow-moving feeling to switch channels quickly on my TV until something interesting/ignorable came on just for me.

First I watched some of Flip This House. Oh, mid-aughts. You were a silly, dreamy, delicious time. You made us believe that there was money to be had, if we worked really, really hard at it and somehow yanked a leg off a bunny and made a wish on it.

Then I flipped over to the History Channel, and came in about fifteen minutes into Modern Marvels. It was discussing 90s technology, and I thought to myself, "Now this is something I remember!"

See the first paragraph. That should explain my deep thoughts.

There were pictures of old cell phones, and the world's first portable computer (from 1981 - hey, History Channel, you cheated!) and there were video games and GPS (thank you, President Clinton, for letting all us civilians play along as well) and then there were Furbies. Boy, do I remember Furbies. I had two of them - one Momma bought me, and the other a gift from my ex-fiance.

I watched and learned that Furbies did not, in fact, actually learn English from hearing me speak to it. It was programmed to use more English words the more it interacted. (Or maybe not even interacted? I'm not clear on this.) It reminded me how annoying I found my Furbies because I couldn't understand one good goddamned word they said or what they wanted, and I eventually put them into my closet where they would occasionally mutter, usually in the middle of the night, and scare the shit out of me.

Furby revenge.

My revenge? Their batteries finally died.

If I had known that they would speak more English as time went by, and if I didn't have the patience of an overtired toddler in a grocery store candy aisle, I would have given them time to speak more English. Had the internet existed in the way it does today, I would have Googled Furby secrets and found this out, and actually used my fuzzy weird-eyed toys. For I know now that no matter what I want to learn, someone has already been interested enough to explore it more deeply than I care to and would have created a dedicated Wikipedia page, along with pictures.

And this is why I love you, Internet. (And you guys, too.)

After-School Special

Thursday night, Momma and I celebrated an achievement of hers, and then went out to dinner for her accomplishment and my birthday. I was thinking of a sandwich with garlic aioli, and she was thinking of a pasta dish and cocktails. When the waiter came to our table, Momma asked me what I wanted to drink. I said, "Diet Coke," for I am a fan of anything with caffeine, and this restaurant doesn't serve diet Mt. Dew.

Which is a shame. Everywhere should serve diet Mt. Dew. It is delicious and refreshing and burns my throat and can keep me pleasant for days.

Momma looked at me with sad eyes. Then she looked at me with a bit of stink eye. The waiter, noticing this, mentioned that margaritas were on sale for $2.95. Momma looked away, still looking at me somehow, in a way only mothers can.

"Apparently we're having margaritas," I told the waiter, and he left to fill our order.

My mother totally peer-pressured me into having a drink when I didn't really want one. My Momma is a protagonist in a very special episode.

I love that woman.