No, I’m not in Paris

April 7, 2009 at 7:33 am | In law school, the firm | 3 Comments

Apparently, some people want to know where I have been. Am I not writing because I’ve run off on sabbatical and am now in Paris, typing this into my iPhone (because I bought one as soon as I ditched the firm-issued Blackberry) whilst sipping Cote du Rhone in a cafe on the Seine (with Little Buggy speaking fluent toddler French next to me)? Sadly, no. Well, sad that I’m not in Paris. Not sad that I’m not on a sabbatical (read on…).

A loyal blog reader (and friend) emailed me this morning to see what had happened to me now that I’ve disappeared from the Internet (as you might remember from last year, she is the friend who gave up Facebook for Lent. She has done so again this year, so she cannot keep tabs on me that way, either…) I sent her back a quick email and thought I’d post it here both in the interest of time and for a brief update:

Dear K,

Yes, the blog has suffered a bit as of late. I’m trying not to feel guilty about it (isn’t that ridiculous?) But I don’t really have the energy — by the time I come home, put Buggy to bed, cook dinner (sometimes), and do some work (and maybe even exercise somewhere in there — but not usually!) — all I can do is watch Gossip Girl or read one Talk of the Town before I lose all brain functionality. Being a working mom is hard! (But being a working-anything is hard, and being a mom-anything is hard, so I’m not really complaining.)
 
No, I did not take the firm up on the sabbatical offer. After talking to a bunch of people here, I realized that, while the firm was very happy to have people take the fellowship option, the sabbatical might not be the smartest move for a first-year lawyer. At least with the fellowship you could be doing something related to the legal world. I think the sabbatical is more for fourth-years who might quit soon anyway so that they can go take cooking lessons for a year; I also heard that this option was offered in response to a lot of guys who wanted more paternity leave (supposedly). Also, when I think about it, I have a MASSIVE [I used an expletive in the actual email] load of loans. That made me too scared!
 
Anyway, it was sort of a hard choice — but, rationally, not really that hard. Being in the tax department, I’m fairly busy (but not TOO busy, which is good!) I worry about the future of the legal profession. Well, no, I don’t — it’s a stupid model that has far too inexperienced people billing out way too much. But I don’t want it to change until  pay off my loans (and I’m retroactively pissed at BC for not giving me any financial aid…but that’s a whole other story…)
 
Please let me know how you are doing!
xoxo [I sign all my letters this way now. Guess why.]

25 random things, etc.

February 2, 2009 at 4:57 pm | In NYC, Starbucks, decor, law school, little bug, read this, running, tax law is sexy, wine, yoga | Leave a Comment
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Are you on Facebook? No? Then you are missing the internet craze of the month, the viral “25 Random Things About Me.” It’s wonderfully self-indulgent.

The instructions: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

My list:

1. Waiting nine years after to college to go to law school — and then going to law school — was the best decision I have ever made.

2. Don’t think I’m crazy: I also loved law school, even when I missed five weeks of classes because I was too nauseous with morning sickness to drive to school.

3. I’m a far, far better (happier) person today than I was 5, 10, 15 years ago. As my mother would say (quoting “The Velveteen Rabbit”) I’ve been “rubbed real.”

4. In high school I wanted to be a U.S. Senator. Now I would like to someday be a speechwriter for a U.S. Senator.

5. This is probably because I have career ADD: I am currently on my 10th job since I graduated from college.

6. My daughter is named after my mother.

7. Speaking of my mother, she is the shining inspiration of my life.

8. I talk on the phone, or email, or both with my mother and my sisters every day.

9. And speaking of my sisters, they are without a doubt my best friends. I wish Erin would move back to Boston already.

10. My husband is one of nine children — he and his twin sister are #s 7 and 8.

11. Here is where I have lived since 1996: New York City; Ketchum, Idaho (Sun Valley); Los Angeles; Paris; Princeton, NJ; Boston.

12. Of the places listed above, I would move back to Ketchum, Paris, or LA in a heartbeat.

13. I am obsessed with interior design — blogs, magazines, etc. I fall asleep at night redecorating the rooms of my apartment in my head.

14. On average (even counting the three months or so I had to give them up while I was pregnant, meaning that there has been many a day when two were consumed), I most likely have had a Starbucks soy chai latte every day since the year 2000. I am, in fact, drinking one right now. (Oh, the money! The calories!)

15. I am a certified yoga instructor.

16. Sundays make me slightly blue, but I love our Sunday family dinners with just Tim, Little Buggy, and me eating spaghetti at meatballs at 5:30 p.m.

17. I don’t drink hard alcohol but make up for it in the amount of red wine I consume.

18. Oh yeah, when I lived in L.A. I worked at a wine store and took classes at UCLA to become a sommelier (did I mention my career ADD?)

19. I have run one marathon and two half-marathons.

20. I used to be a rather intense ashtanga practitioner (every morning at 6 a.m. for 2 years) and almost-vegan.

21. I have been to 29 countries and have: trekked in the Himalayas, visited Ankgor Wat and the Taj Mahal, sailed down the Mekong, seen the wailing wall in Jerusalem and Palmyra in Syria, sunned on the beaches of Rio, hiked the Swiss alps, watched the sun set over the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Those days are long gone, and I’m quite okay with it.

22. That being said, my dream is to live with my family abroad someday, preferably in Paris or London. Do you think they need tax lawyers there?

23. Despite my newest career, I still want to publish a novel. Maybe that will get me back to Paris.

24. I am in absolute awe of the fact that I found my husband, and that we made our incredible child.

25. I truly, truly believe in karma and that everything that happens to you in life — good or bad — leads you to where you are supposed to be.

Addiction

November 16, 2008 at 8:51 pm | In law school, the firm | 1 Comment
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For those few readers who, fortunately for them, are not lawyers, here is some background:  Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw the two legal research services out there.  It’s hard to overstate how much you use them (and it’s difficult to comprehend the time when they weren’t on line — you had to go to the library and look up cases or subjects in an index and then cross-reference them in huge binders. Actually, I’m not even really sure what you had to do since, fortunately, I was in the law school section with the legal research professor who eschewed teaching us the “old-fashioned” way, as some professors still did. On a side note: my father always swore that it was his idea to put Lexis online but that he just never knew how to get it done. That would have been nice for us, no?)

Anyway, in law school, access to both of these services is free.  You can search as much as you want for as long as you want. In addition, each service has representatives at every law school in the country, who set up tables almost daily in the lunch room or the student center, passing out water bottles, highlighters, and candy, or who lure you to free “training sessions” replete with pizza or Thai food. And when you’re a poor law student you tend to hit a lot of those trainings…

And now, as I sit here conducting a search which is getting me nowhere — so I know I need to both redefine my search terms and Shepardize anything I find (a little trick by which you look up cases that have themselves cited to the case you’re looking at) — I realize that Lexis and Westlaw are crack. They’re doled out for free in law school, along with all sorts of other fun gifts, in order to attract your loyalty to one brand or another (I’m a Lexis girl. In part because it’s Lexis-Nexis — Nexis is the journalistic equivalent of Lexis, to which every reporter becomes addicted, so I was indoctrinated a long time ago…). So then you’re hooked, and you search and search, and you get used to the high of always finding exactly what you’re looking for because you can go back and hone your search terms, and hit that “Shepardize” button. And then you get to your firm and learn that every search costs like $225 and every time you Shepardize it’s like another $85. So you sit at your keyboard, almost physically shaking from the withdrawal as you waiver: “Do I just do the search? Will the client get mad? I need that search! I NEED it!” And then you feel slightly guilty, but oh, so satisfied when you find your case…

The numbers don’t lie

October 29, 2008 at 12:40 pm | In law school | 2 Comments
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My blog stats, which tell me the search engine terms people have used to find me here, show that recently more and more people are searching the terms “Massachusetts July 2008 bar results,” “July 2008 MBE mean/passing score,” “when will the July 2008 Massachusetts bar results come out?”

To all you searchers: I feel your pain. I check the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers website daily just in case the passing list somehow went up online before the letter arrived.  (And, as an aside, is it like college admissions?  Do you get a big letter for passing?  A thin envelope otherwise?)  I coached my husband on how to handle the (unlikely) situation should letter come while I am in New York.  (The command: “Don’t you dare open that letter until I’m home.” Response: “Are you kidding? I’m opening it for you. But if you don’t pass, I won’t tell you it arrived.”  Which is a ridiculous approach because every single one of my law school friends will be emailing me instantly, so I’ll know it’s bad news if he doesn’t call…) And I feel ever so slightly nauseous all the time. 

I am not at all convinced that I passed.  I’m not just saying that.  Yes, yes, I know everyone feels that way.  But read through my archives and you’ll see:  I struggled mightily with the MBE (and ended up filling in at least the final 10 questions of each session with a “B”) and the whole bar review process in general.  In Massachusetts, while the MBE score is combined with the written score to get your overall passing score, you also need to pass the written part to  pass the whole thing (in other words, if you get a perfect score on the MBE but don’t pass the written part in and of itself, you don’t pass the bar. Please someone correct me if I have this wrong…).  I feel pretty confident about the written part; nevertheless, I may be that one person who passed the written part but whose score still wasn’t enough to overcome a dreadful MBE score. 

So there.  My anxiety is out in the open.  If I pass, Tim has promised me dinner wherever I want.  (L’Espalier? Sorrelino? Fugaku?)  If I don’t pass, my mother said she’d give me $1,000.  (Remember, Mom?) Does this reflect the supreme confidence only a mother can have in her child’s abilities, or is it merely a sum sufficient for short-term retail therapy?

Unemployed almost no more

September 12, 2008 at 3:14 pm | In Starbucks, law school | 2 Comments
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When I started this blog, I had hoped that I could provide some sort of relevant commentary on being a law student and mother and/or lawyer and mother. But as my days grow busier, I’m realizing that this is probably going to devolve into more of a journal-type blog, to be read mostly by people who know me and want to keep tabs on me. So this won’t be my book-deal making masterpiece — sigh — but at least it will keep me writing.

My last few days of relative stay-at-home-motherhood have been sweet — probably more sweet than they might otherwise be. Morning trips to the Duck Pond and Make Way for Ducklings statue (via Starbucks, of course). The Little Bug goes absolutely crazy for both, jumping up and down in her stroller as soon as she sees the gates of the Public Garden ahead of us. We’ve run into lots of moms and babies every day, and I always have to drag her home. If I were a more prepared mother — or had an iPhone! — I’d have snapped some cute pictures. As I’ve posted about  before, I’m not very good at documenting Buggy’s baby-hood — we have a rarely used video cameras, there is no real baby book. I should post a picture of her new hair cut (she looks more and more like I did at that age, probably now due in very large part to the bowl-cut bangs…but what else can you do with a squirmy one-year-old?). I should order pictures for my office. Actually, I should upload our vacation pictures, too. Why is this one area of my otherwise relatively organized life that I’m so bad at keeping up-to-date? I keep telling myself that an iPhone will solve all these problems! (ha.)

But I’m ready. I think. I had drinks with Meg last night, who started work on Monday, and she was visibly excited and enthused about her new life as a lawyer. In fact, we also ran into her walking across the Garden to work, looking adorable in her suit. I’m excited to look adorable in my new suit.

But then, even as I ducked out solo to run some errands this afternoon, I saw a toddler being pushed in his stroller by his babysitter, and I had a pang of sadness. He was so cute, just as cute as my little Bug, who is going to spend more time with her babysitter than with me. I’m not going to rehash the Mommy Wars anymore — at least I’m going to try not to — but instead will approach Monday remembering two things my mother recently told me:

First, I walk out the door every day knowing I am providing a good life for my child. And she’s a happy child, and she’ll be just as happy when I’m working as she’d be if I weren’t.

Second, I am very, very lucky that I have a baby at home to miss. A healthy, happy baby who will keep me focused at work and who will continue — as she always has — to give my life purpose. So missing her is a good thing.

Nevertheless: check in with me Monday to see if I haven’t broken down and bought an iPhone (even though that will make me the woman who is checking her email on her work Blackberry and then on her iPhone!)

P.S. Random aside: my brother-in-law texted me today to see if I wanted him to get me a ticket for the musical Legally Blonde, which apparently is headed to Boston. I was like, “Um, do you have to ask? I am Legally Blonde!!!”

Why listening to Coldplay and drinking wine is not usually a good idea

September 10, 2008 at 8:53 am | In law school, little bug, music, wine | 1 Comment
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I got uncharacteristically weepy last night. I spent the rainy afternoon indoors with the Little Bug, dancing to the Dixie Chicks and cooking dinner for us (Tim was coming home late, so she and I noshed on butternut squash ravioli and blueberries — doesn’t it sound like an In Style party re-cap?), while simultaneously trying to keep her away from the unprotected electrical socket and out of the toilet. The song “I Believe in Love” came on (by the Dixie Chicks — the Coldplay came later), a beautiful song made melancholy by its minor harmonies. I just held my Little Bug (and she let me, putting her little head on my shoulder) and wiped away the (my) tears. My time being home with her is almost over. For the past year, except for some crunch times around exams (and the bar), I’ve spent at least some part of every day with her, mostly in the afternoons, strolling around Boston or hanging out playing at home as we did today. I’m not second guessing my decision to be a full-time+ lawyer, but perhaps finally (and perhaps necessarily) I’m feeling acutely the close of this rather wonderous year.

After she went to bed, I opened the Sauv Blanc and put on Coldplay (a combination which just screams “Warning! Warning!”) and organized the kitchen cabinets (not kidding.) When I finished, I realized that I’m now also done with all of the reorganization/cleaning/redecorating/shopping I meant to do in my post-bar/pre-work hiatus. Now I just have to sit around until Monday. And, again, tears. This larger, three-year period of my life also is coming to a close. These three years when I moved out of my longtime holding pattern to what I knew my life always could and should be. I’m very much at peace — surprising for me — with where I am in my life. And, yet, I’m again a bit blue at this crossroads. I loved law school from the very first day; then I met Tim and pretty much loved him from the very first day; then, of course, there was the Little Bug. And in between, the intellectual stimulation of classes, the camaraderie of my classmates, and a deepening and strengthening of my existing friendships as I began to find my footing again. It was a whirlwind, and still it was incredibly grounding. And this interlude in my life is now over.

So, onward (although first I shall spend the next three days drinking wine at lunch, sleeping in, and reading every trashy magazine I can get my hands on!)

Well, hello

September 4, 2008 at 11:23 am | In Starbucks, decor, law school, little bug, politics, wine | 3 Comments
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Morning, Long Beach Island, NJ, 2008.

Remember me? I used to have a blog. Then I took the bar exam, and here’s what happened after that:

1. I sat on my ass and drank white wine for two weeks (and played with my baby, but not while drinking, don’t worry.)
2. I went to Ellen and Wildon’s beautiful, happy, emotional wedding.
3. I went to the Jersey Shore for a week.
4. I came back and sat around again and drank more white wine. Our “no drinking on weeknights” rule (which has now been extended from Mon-Wed to include Thursday night as well, in the hopes of motivating us to get up and exercise on Fridays…) does not apply to me while on vacation.
5. I partied old-school, including comandeering (wish I were kidding) the dance floor at the Barrington Yacht Club (and having to wake up at 6 a.m. with a baby chirping in a nearby Pack’n'Play — ugh) and a fabulous, Ivy-era dinner party in Westport, where I stayed up later than I have in years and almost got to see a sneak preview of the new season of Gossip Girl (but I turned in too early) and also almost got myself quoted by a famous journalist about my obsession with said show.
7. Per a pre-bar exam bargain, I kept my promise to Tim to cook him dinner every night in August.
8. I woke up this past Tuesday and realized I start work in less than two weeks and went into full-on dealing mode, which includes redecorating my entire house, enrolling my child in stimulating “classes” (OK, just a music class with Janet and a Saturday “daddy-and-me” class with Tim), buying an entire work wardrobe, and working out like crazy to fit into said wardrobe.

I have kept journals in high school and then periodically throughout my adult life. When I keep them, I am meticulous and almost OCD about it: tiny, neat handwriting; unlined pages; black ball-point pen only. When I stop keeping them for more than a few days, however, it seems almost impossible to pick back up. How will I ever recount all that has happened? I get panicked about making up that lost time, and I feel the same way about this blog: much has happened, much has been discussed, both in my life and in the world that I have found myself thinking often over the past month, “I should write about this,” but felt too overwhelmed by my long absence. So bear with me, as I try to catch up a little bit on these lost weeks of beautiful, blissful freedom — spent wandering to Starbucks and then the duck pond in the mornings with my Little Bug, catching up with friends, reconnecting with the neighborhood moms in the playground, traveling here and there. Things I need to touch upon:

1. My redecoration project. I am SO pleased — thank you Erin Gates for your inspiration! Will post pics soon.
2. A long overdue post on how to go to law school with a baby.
3. Knowing what I know now, a post on how to take the bar exam with a child/children.
4. Sarah Palin. Not sure I can write about her sensibly yet, except to say that (1) every family is dysfunctional in their own way and I’m not judging; (2) I feel pretty bad for her future “son-in-law”, whom someone gave a haircut and slapped on a flag pin yesterday and told him to hold hands with his “fiance”; (3) she’s a good speaker, and I’m really, really worried.

So, to my now more meager-than-ever readership, I’m back! D-day is September 15, at which point my little world will be meticulously organized enough for me to embark on my new life as a lady lawyer.

The BC Law girls at Ellen’s wedding. Sans Ellen.

Motivation

July 25, 2008 at 1:59 pm | In law school | 4 Comments
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I just don’t think I can study any more. I need to, but every time I get a wrong answer I freak out (even though I need to only shoot for a C-!!!) The ever-wise Ellen sent me this picture of her, Nell, and me about to cross the finish line of the half marathon we did this spring. I (in the white hat on the right) look sort of hunched over and slow, but the metaphor is clear — you’re not going to stop with a mile to go, right? Tim has been likening this process to the Boston Marathon all along. Two weeks ago, when the BarBri classes ended, we were just out of Wellesley, running past the firehouse, and up our first of the three hills in Newton — reaching the first false summit. After that, there was another hill and false summit, and now I think we are officially in the Heartbreak Hill part of the metaphor. When I ran the marathon for real in 1997, at the bottom of Heartbreak Hill a little boy tried to offer me chocolate cake. I turned him down then (because even I, a 10-minute-miler, cannot eat chocolate cake before running up a hill, as sweet as the gesture was), but I think now I shall go in search of chocolate…

Motivation of a different sort — come next Friday…

Perspective

July 24, 2008 at 8:48 am | In law school | 1 Comment
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I did not want to run yesterday morning. At 6:30, the humidity was already 91%. (I know this because Henry never met a gadget he didn’t love, so of course there is some high-tech digital barometer thing sitting in the kitchen.) But after an early morning thunderstorm ended, I ducked out and headed down South Street to cut through a little path in the woods behind Clearwater over towards Division Avenue in Summit. It was about a 40-minute loop (an aside: running in the heat and humidity and hills of Summit is great training!), and 20 minutes into it lightning cracked right over my head and the skies opened up. Whether I turned around or kept going, I still had 20 minutes to go, so nothing left to do but pick up the pace a bit.

It was the best run I’ve had in weeks. Months. I remembered running down the far end of Prospect Street with Ankie, senior year, in a similar storm. There is an exhilaration in just surrendering to the rain. As I ran up and down hills yesterday, brushing the rain out of my eyes (and waving knowingly at other joggers caught out in the storm), I felt so grateful that I could be out running on two healthy legs, that I had a beautiful baby waiting at home for me, that I have the most supportive family one could ask for.

Later, through the wonders of Facebook, which I could go on and on about but it would be cliched by this point, I went off to meet some high school friends for a drink in town. I hadn’t seen Carolee, Karen, Meme, or Darci since our fifth reunion high school, and of course I don’t remember talking to them then (nor much of the reunion in the first place, for various reasons…). Going to our tenth reunion was out of the question for me at that point in my life, and apparently no one got around to organizing a 15th. While they have all settled nearby and have remained close to each other, I nevertheless felt like I had just seen them a month ago. I love how maturity, chidlren, and a mellowing kindness can take hold in one’s 30s — five years ago I would have been to insecure and self-aware to have met up with high school friends. Last night we closed out (in Summit, that would be 11 p.m.!) the bar and had a wonderful time. We didn’t talk about the bar exam, nor what firm I worked for — we gossiped and talked about our kids. I definitely needed the break — needed to get out of my mom’s house, away from the forest-green glare of those BarBri books, needed that glass of wine (sauv blanc on the rocks, a nod to LMR!). But I think the evening also was so enjoyable just because — as cheesy as this will sound — people, at their core, are open and kind.

And this was, again, illustrated to me this morning. Sitting at the kitchen table on another hot, humid, rainy day, I was procrastinating over my third cup of coffee. I just didn’t see how I could hit the books again for 10 hours. (At this point, I wish the exam were tomorrow…) The UPS guy appeared at the back door, and my mom got up to get her package — but, instead, it was for me! An old, old friend, Natalie — whom I haven’t laid eyes on in at least 15 years, but who herself has taken three bar exams (NY/NJ and then, as so many people do, another bar exam for love when she moved to Atlanta for her husband…) — sent me some homemade sugar cookies from Eleni’s in NYC. It was as if she knew exactly where I’d be mentally on this exact morning — not knowing how I could do it for yet another day. I finished my coffee with one of the cookies and now feel like, with so much support and encouragement, even from the most unexpected places, there’s no way I won’t fly through this test.

Thank you thunderclouds and old friends.

(An aside: yet another reason why I need an iPhone — how I’d love to post a picture of our gathering. Everyone looks the same — and yet, as I think happens with women in their 30s, much better than even 15 years ago! Especially since between all of us we had 10 children…)

Until August 1, then…

July 15, 2008 at 10:00 pm | In law school, little bug | Leave a Comment
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And with that, Marbury v. Madison Ave. will take a brief haitus to acquire a law license in the state of Massachusetts. Little Bug and I are hopping on the Acela to Jerz tomorrow morning (that should be an adventure!) for two weeks of studying at my mother’s (who, I’ve mentioned several times, herself took the bar with three children. Though now that I think back on it, two of us were away at summer camp and the third — me — was apparently more than happy to stay far away from the house and out of my mother’s hair because I honestly don’t even remember her taking the bar! Which only shows you how self-absorbed a 15-year-old girl can be…)

I’m actually looking forward to diving in fully, knowing that my mom will be handling all of life’s mundane distractions (cooking, etc.) and taking very good care of my baby during the long days — and knowing that I’ll surface having done the best I can do.

See you on the other side!

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