bonus post: blog games!

woo-hoo; 2 posts in a day! this is total birthday decadence. so here's the deal. the fabulous jessica has tagged me in a blog meme. and because a) it's my birthday, b) i hate studying real property and c) why the hell not, i'm playing! so without further ado, the great eight. (hell - it's a meme named after my beloved ovie. how can you go wrong?)

1.  What is your favorite board/party/card game?

trivial pursuit! trivial pursuit! and no one ever wants to play with me. we always end up playing asshole at parties. that's fun, too, but i really want to own everyone at trivial pursuit...

2.  What is your earliest memory?

i have this weird vestigial memory of standing in my crib looking at a fan in a window. i thought it was something i made up, but once i described it to my dad, and i apparently described my room at one year old to a T. weird.

3.  If you could witness one event that occurred prior to your birth, what would it be?

the march on washington, 1963. i did a giant protest in DC in '04 (the march for women's lives), and that was amazing enough. imagine being a part of something where there were real, fundamental human rights issues at stake...

4.  What is your favorite curse word?

ahahahaha. it's so great. my favorite swear word is "motherfucker." oh, it's so much fun to say. it feels like a load off just saying it. i am fond of just about every swear word there is, though. i have a filthy, filthy mouth.

5.  What is your main fault?

without question, i overanalyze everything. but all of y'all already know that. you read it here. i am worse in my personal life. i would also offer that law school has made me really addicted to order, which doesn't help the overanalysis thing at all.

6.  What turns you on?

a good-looking, brilliant man who flatters me. i MUST have a smart man. i love to talk about high-level things, all the time, and i cannot abide a guy who can't keep up. a good conversation is deeply stimulating to me.

7.  What is your idea of misery?

heh. that one's easy. misery is knowing what you have to do, knowing how much it's going to hurt, and not having the nerve to pull the trigger. you may as well run your soul over a cheese grater.

8.  What do you wish you knew more about?

i wish i knew more about using technology. my interest is deep; my knowledge base is SHALLOW. i'd like to be able to do a lot more with computers, web stuff, etc. than i can. 

whew. fun! ok, so now i have to spread the love. here's my group of tagged bloggers:

1. live. love. learn. breathe.

2. the daily dose of reality

3. the foggy dew

4. momma's pixie dreams

5. are you there, youth? it's me, nikki.

6. handbags and handguns

7. harriet and friends

8. to be determined

enjoy, folks! :)

midpoint

today is july 2. this is the exact, unequivocal middle of the common (non-leap) year. 182 days behind us, 182 days in front of us. this is halftime, kids.

and it is also my birthday.

a lot of other people share this day with me: rene lacoste (the tennis/polo shirt guy), thurgood marshall and medgar evers (civil rights heroes), dave thomas of wendy's, john sununu, larry david, jose canseco, lindsay lohan and johnny weir, among others. it's quite a day. hell, when i was a kid, i used to think of the whole 4th of july thing as a nice big protracted celebration of me and my life. i was truly disappointed when i was told that the fireworks were not for me. (yeah, i'm an only child.) regardless, there's always a party, people are generally in a good mood, and hilarity almost always ensues.

i come to this birthday - 29, the start of my thirtieth year of life - at a weird, unsettled place. i'm in the middle of the biggest ordeal of my professional life in studying for the bar. i'm in the middle of the end of something i expected to have forever. i'm in the middle of, for the first time since i was a teenager, really having to look myself in the eye and say, "okay. now what?" i'm in the middle of, well, the middle. it's mushy, it's unclear, and there's no clear path to a solution anytime soon on a lot of this. all i can do is keep up the slog.

there will be birthdays when things aren't so crazy. it's up to me to rise above the middle-ness of it all and reclaim my day. i stand alone in this moment and say, "yes, it's going to be OK. it's all going to be OK. so let's have a drink and celebrate." that, my friends, is the best gift i give myself this year.