Being a lawyer? It's hard.

So, dear friends.

This is the week that I've stopped doing just depo summaries and moved onto things that actually, you know, MATTER. I'm doing a memo for Tuesday, and I had a client meeting today.

It's hard.

I'm wondering if it gets any easier.

Turning it aroud

Remember the days when I ate well? Those days have been long gone for a while now.

I can't do a whole lot about my exercise routine at the moment, with school and work. I can make it days I don't go in. And the weekends. And I should and I will. But I won't get back to my former workout glory.

And that's OK.

I'm cutting out white flour again -- it's crept back into my diet, and it's evil stuff.

I'm also cutting out Diet Coke. It PAINS me to do this, but I drink WAY. TOO. MUCH. I can still have a cup of coffee or so a day -- I don't over-indulge in coffee. Diet Coke will have to go by the wayside for a while.

And? I will eat less bread and more veggies. Bread does evil things to my body -- it makes it crave even more bread. Some is healthy, but I've not been the best in that regard.

I'm not going to make hard and fast "rules" because ... it just makes me feel limited and deprived. And I can't think of it that way. I'm going to eat more veggies. More fruits. More lean protein.


I don't like falling off the wagon. But I hate feeling fat even more.

People are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling

I've been very disappointed in some people I know lately. They've been hurtful and superior. They've hurt others just for the hell of it, and hurt others to just keep them down.

So, to reverse this trend I ask you, Dear Readers: Pop over to see Katie at Overflowing Brain. She could use a word of encouragement and to know that the internet has got her back. You're all so great to me -- let's pass that along.

Halloween AWESOME-TUDE

Dearest Readers, I have been agonizing about Halloween for weeks. WEEKS, I tell you!

You see, Boyfriend and I wanted to dress up together. All couple-like. But so many couple's costumes are lame. Overdone. Expensive. Unfunny.

You get the picture.

Anyway, a friend suggested Paulie Bleeker and Juno. And as I was looking for the T-shirts they wear most in the movie ... I saw our true Halloween calling.

It was a Captain Hammer T-shirt.

But, lest you think I am going as Penny, Dear Readers, think again! Because Boyfriend and I like to buck tradition! Instead, I will be going as Dr. Horrible to Boyfriend's Captain Hammer.

Our things are ordered. All should get here before Halloween. It will be awesome-sauce. Boyfriend has already said he is never taking his hammer T off once it comes because, "It may be the most awesome thing I own."

We are nerds. But we have Halloween costumes.

Autopilot

I've been on autopilot the last few weeks. It's been point A to point B. Get through the day. I want nothing more than to get to bedtime every night, and yet when it comes, I can't sleep.

I've always been an insomniac, and law school has only intensified this tendency. Despite my life being pretty damn good at the moment, I'm always kind of vaguely annoyed or unhappy. Maybe it's just law school malaise. Maybe it's more. I don't really have time to sit down and decide one way or another at this juncture.

Either way, I'm really busy. I'm in class in the morning, work in the afternoon, and then I've got to do the reading and assignments for school. Somewhere in there I need to start making time for the gym. But I'm giving myself pass on that for a while, until I figure out which way is up with the new schedule. I've been maintaining with really no effort. That in itself is probably victory enough until life starts to make some sense.

I just need to snap out of it. I've been sick for what feels like forever. I've got more work than I anticipated. And I miss quality time with Boyfriend, but by the time things are done at night, I just want to sleep. Or stare off into space and think about sleeping, or about how epic Christmas break will be.

But, for now, it will have to do that I just watched a Youtube video of a cat climbing a ladder. And that I will watch episodes of Doogie Howser, M.D. on Hulu until I fall asleep. You know you're jealous.

I'm a paid law clerk. Weird. And is it normal to be scared of the partners?

So.

After this post, I'm not going to blog about work. Or if I do, it will be to say, "Oh, man, work is cool! I love my bosses!" and similars. Trust me, there's enough going on in the life and weight loss of Five without the craziness that is the Job.

But. I did want to say this.

Law firms are cool.

I say this after working for a totally awesome judge in a totally awesome city in a totally awesome state. My summer experience was great and I wouldn't change it for anything. But that said ...

I have an office. Yes, I share it, but I have a big L shaped desk that is mine. I have an email address. There are assistants. I'll have an extension. My computer was made after 2000. I'm not working in an "office" that is really the library, where everyone is barging in all the time and disrupting my mojo by pulling books. Where everyone can read over my shoulder. Where anyone walking to get coffee can see if I got up to go to the bathroom. Where my "desk" was just big enough for my computer. Barely. I don't have to put books on my lap to work anymore. There's tons of room everything I could ever need at work.

And, at the end of it all, there's a paycheck.

So, thus far, the transition to firm life has been good. I survived the first day and didn't die. I wasn't fired. And I was only moderately terrified when I met a partner.

I think that's probably a pretty good first day.

I got my hairs painted!

My hairs have been painted. In highlight form. By a professional. For the first time in ... years.

You see, Readers, I am what you might call ... frugal. Yes, we'll go with frugal. I am frugal when it comes to the hairs on my head. In college I did all-over box dye to bring my chestnut hair to truly red. I did it myself, and had many an interesting result. But I was adventurous! I had only one bad experience, which necessitated a trip to the salon for my first and (until today) only professional color experience. I went BRIGHT red that day. It was hot.

Since graduating over a year ago, I have not put dye in my hair. I don't know if it was laziness that started it, but after a while I realized I liked my natural color. So it stayed. And I still like my natural color. But I wanted some ... ooomph. Some vavava voom! So I made an appointment with a salon that my friends swear by and got a cut and color.

And my hairs are pretty. See?



That's pretty much all I've got. Save to say that I'm up to my eyeballs in law school. Kill me now.

New Toy!

Today was a monumental day for our household.

You see, gentle readers, for the past year and change that I have been dating Boyfriend, he has not had a cell phone. Well, that's unfair. He had a prepaid cell phone that he never turned on. It was always out of minutes. He gave out my phone number to people because mine was always on, and his never was.

It pissed me off.

So, today, we got a family plan. And Boyfriend got a big boy cell phone. And I got a matching one, b/c it's cute and pretty. We got these Motorola Karma phones:

Image courtesy of http://www.techgadgets.in/images/motorola-karma-handset.jpg

They're cute. They've got a lot of bells and whistles for a messaging phone. We're very happy with the twins. Save that the Internet won't work on Boyfriend's. We're going to have to go back to the AT&T store tomorrow to figure that out.

Now, yes, in a perfect world we would have gotten iPhones. Or Blackberries. But ... we're law students. The data packages for those are more per month. We pay half as much for unlimited data as we would for iPhones, and they really do everything we need them to do. I'm sure we'd love iPhones if we got them. But we just really can't justify the extra cost right now.

But we're a family. Our cell phone company says so. And we have cute square phones. Phones that are still full of endless possibilities and features that I haven't quite mastered. Phones that are well-reviewed on CNet.

So, it's a good day. I'll be up learning how to get the most out of my new toy.

While I'm preoccupied, I leave you with this video. You MUST watch it all the way through. The end makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe.

The ugly cry

Why, good morning. It's only 9:20am or so, and I already know that the gods hate me. How? The comedy of errors that was my morning, that's how.

So, I've not been sleeping well, for probably a lot of reasons. Normally it's not a huge problem, but I've also been feeling a little under the weather. And still can't sleep. So, yesterday when I hit that afternoon time when I really wanted to nap, I did not. In order to sleep well that night.

Fast forward. It's 1am. I've finished a hot toddy. I've done a lot of reading. I should be tired. I'm WIDE AWAKE. I finally drift off to sleep around 2:30am.

And this morning the alarm didn't go off.

It didn't exactly put us too far behind -- John has a good internal clock. But, having not slept well, I was counting on hearing the alarm and him getting up to take the first shower in order to wake up slowly.

Didn't happen.

I burned myself on my flat iron.

And then ... the kicker. We were walking down our driveway, which was damp from the rain. I was being careful, and then BAM! Down I went. Ankle twisted. Scrapes. A little blood. And the ugly cry. Oh, the ugly cry. In the middle of the damn driveway, facing one of the busiest streets in the area.

Boyfriend just kind of let me bawl like a little kid, then picked me up and took me in and cleaned me up. And then we drove to school, b/c the gods were clearly anti-bus. And I had a noticeable limp, making the bus standing painful.

All because some woman in our building dropped and left her barrette on our driveway.

... is it the weekend yet?

Why, hello. Yes, I *DO* blog, thank you!

So, hello. Evidently one post per week is my new style.

I'd like to say that first: I am no longer the emotional basket case I was a week ago. I have mellowed (mostly). At the time, I had just finished a phone convo with Papa Five in which he discussed the fact that his company is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next two years. He thinks he's safe, but there's no real way to know at this point. It was ... well, he wasn't upset, but by the time I hung up, the camel's back had broken, so to speak.

So, yes.

In other news: Law school sucks. Legal journal associate editorship sucks. My sources are in A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE. I have to figure out how to cite these (literally) foreign arbitration awards, court cases, and code provisions. It's less than fun.

Oh, and my note topic is due on Thursday. I think I'm writing about bankruptcy? I don't know? Someone help me. I need an adult.

But in positive news: I got a job. A real, paying-me-to-do-legal-work job. It's with a firm that does personal injury. No, I won't tell you the name. Anyway, I feel even more a kinship to Namby Pamby than I once did.

In "eh" news ... the scale hasn't moved. But it's not the scale's fault. I've been baaaaaad lately. I've let the gym slide and eaten more calories than I should of things that shouldn't even go in my mouth to begin with.

But, I think I'm on the upswing. I'm tired of empty calories and feeling like crap after I eat. And that's really the big thing, isn't it? We change our behavior when we notice that it's causing us more pain than it's giving us? At least in theory?

So, there's your schizophrenic update. I'll try to get at least one more at ya this week. There are things going on, as always. Funny things, even. But at the moment, I'm just pretty busy. And a little under the weather. So, my hot toddy and I? We're going to bed.