good guys

we're... we're supposed to be the good guys here. and being the good guys means we have to be civilized about this. - stuart redman, the stand

this is my favorite quote from my favorite book of all time. it's my philosophy of life, it's my guiding principle, professionally and personally. i ran an ethics committee for a year in law school. i took every professional ethics class i could get my grubby little mitts on when i worked. i care about what gets done, but i'm one of those annoying people who also cares - quite a bit - HOW it gets done. if it has to be shady, i don't want to deal with it. this comes up because yesterday, i got to get up at oh-dark-thirty, hop in a rental car, and drive two and a half hours one way to spend all damn day at a mandatory professionalism course for my law license. never mind that i had to pay $150 for the privilege, too; i hate that i, being someone who has specialized in legal professionalism throughout my young career, had to sit through situations i already know about. sigh.

but the worst part of all of this wasn't the repetitious nature of the conference. i could've dealt with that. it was the keynote speaker. they dragged out this retired judge guy to talk at us on the subject of professionalism. first off, the man started a generational war with us. i personally don't want to be told by a man who came of age in the era of massive resistance that it's MY generation that was raised in an era that disrespects morals and civility. thanks, but my generation understands that racism is not appropriate, be it de facto or de jure. but leaving that aside, he also spent the whole time blathering about how civility and professional conduct is something special to virginia.

look, i've been a virginia resident off and on since 1998. i've lived all over this commonwealth: the shenandoah valley, hampton roads, richmond and northern virginia (where i reside to this day). i am a virginia attorney. there's a lot of good here. but i'll be DAMNED if i buy into this virginian exceptionalism, a unique type of psychosis in which a lot of well-born virginians specialize. i have a big enough problem with the attitude that americans are more special than other nationalities by mere virtue of our birth (we have to actually LIVE UP TO our awesomely high standards to earn that title, if you ask me). but to extend that to the commonwealth of virginia? no thanks.

i don't get down with chauvinism, in any of its forms. really, it's a ridiculous enterprise to think you're better than anyone else just because of a characteristic that you possess by accident. you're not better because you're, for example, male, virginian, blonde, tall, etc., etc., etc. you're "better," if you can call it that, because you choose correctly. if you comport yourself with civility, respect the people around you, do the right things, live a good life and try to be kind, you're "better." if you don't, no amount of inborn "specialness," be it american citizenship, gender, or even being a virginian (please read in the sarcasm - i'm straining to get it through here), is going to fix your bad choices. end of story.

so judge? allow me to civilly, respectfully disagree with every word that left your mouth yesterday. we're not special because we're virginia attorneys. we're special, if we all even are, because we choose to live by a set of standards. we're supposed to be the good guys because of the oath we took. not all of us are, nor will we be. but those of us who choose to try? being virginian didn't make us that way. being good people and making good choices did. end. of. story.

literally

i am a writer, writer of fictions
i am the heart that you call home...
 - "the engine driver," the decemberists

i have worked with language as long as i've known how to put my dreams on paper. i've written regularly for basically the last 25 years of my life. fiction, nonfiction, poetry, prose, and even an ill-fated screenplay - your humble blog proprietor has written it all. not to brag, but i think i've got a pretty decent command of this mother tongue of mine. i hone my craft here, there and everywhere, digital and analog, recreationally and professionally. this craft bleeds into my life. i speak as i write, much to the chagrin of my legal writing professors. ("would you actually say that word?" uh, yeah, dumb-ass; that's why i wrote it.) i use metaphor, simile, exaggeration, understatement. i am an architect of words, and it's a talent a) of which i am justifiably proud and b) that has been appreciated by many people with whom i've interacted over time.

so imagine my surprise when it came to my attention that this talent is radically underappreciated by some of the people i love most dearly. i mean, it's not an outright hostility - no one's telling me, as if anyone ever could, to stop my writing. but that sort of foolishness would almost be easier to wrap my head around. it's more of an intellectual blind spot. it's almost as if this crew is thoroughly incapable of comprehending figurative language. it's the weirdest damn thing i've ever seen in my life.

there is a cold, logical literalism at work in these conversations, one that confounds and amuses me in equal parts. words must be chosen carefully in order to get a point across. well, more specifically, to avoid a five-minute excursus as to what i meant and didn't mean, what i said and didn't say. it's important in this crew to be precise. accurate, even. to say that this is a frustrating development in my life is an - ha, ha - understatement. it's funny, too, in that, in the immortal words of jimmy buffett, if i couldn't laugh, i would just go insane.

look, i'm a lawyer. i understand the need to be incredibly precise. but guess what? my linguistic crayon box has 120 colors in it, and i will use every single goddamned one of them. i will not be stultified just because people in this world still use the 8-crayon kindergarten pack. i am a master of the language, spoken and written, and i will practice my art and craft, loud and proud. and if you can't hang? well. i'd advise that you either learn to drive or get off the track, or else you're liable to get left behind...

regrets, i've had a few

i love a lot of things in my life: family, boyfriend, friends old and new, etc. but one thing i do not love, sadly enough, is my dream graduate program. i mean, it's brought me some great people, and it's getting me a REALLY valuable credential that will help me get where i'm going. it's certainly not a waste of my time, and i will come to appreciate this. but my god, this is painful. not the academic demands - i've been challenged before, i'll be challenged again. child's play. it's the... worldview, i guess, from which the people who are teaching me this body of law approach their jobs as lawyers and advisors. let's just say that this little baby lawyer is turning into a world-class rebel.

i went to law school not to chase the atticus finch, law-and-order dream of the crusader. hell, i study tax law; it's a different ball game. but i did see, firsthand, the good work you can do with some knowledge of the tax code and an aptitude for helping people. you can get out there and help farmers keep their land in their families. you can set up a plan such that the teacher and the insurance salesman won't have to put mama in a cut-rate home when she's too frail to live with them. you can write a will so airtight that there's no way that the spiteful sister can step in and take granny's brooch from the dutiful sister. you can make sure sissy and bubba get the home on lake verret when daddy dies.

i did not go into tax and estate planning to help the scions of the top 1% shelter their inherited wealth in foreign trusts and family LLCs so that their scions' scions can continue to live off of never-ending streams of untold millions. those people don't need my help. noblesse oblige is dead; these folks, by and large, only give to charity to the extent they can write it off on their taxes. they perpetuate their wealth at the expense of their daddies' employees. i am not interested in that kind of service.

the longer i have to listen to my old-money professor, who winters in foreign country A, summers in foreign country B and works as a hobby, refer to laws passed to catch tax cheats trying to hide their money in secret bank accounts as "witch hunts," the more i become the second coming of huey long. i grew up the daughter of a man who worked, HARD, to give me what he could. i busted ass to help put myself through college; what my brain couldn't get me, my feet did. i've worked hard all my life. i have funded all four years of my legal education by myself. no one gave us anything. to sit here and listen to these people talk about tax problems from the perspective of the uber-rich? yeah, forgive my lack of sympathy.

it's ridiculous. i don't want to be that kind of lawyer. i want to help, y'know, REAL people. let the psychotically wealthy either figure it out on their own or - gasp! - own up and do their civic duty as recipients of untold privilege. i'll seek a career path doing what matters to the 99% of us who don't have our opportunities given to us with no effort. that's what being a steward of the law is all about. meanwhile, i'll slog through the rest of this elitist foolishness, and i'll gladly take the credential. i'll just use the knowledge i gain to do good, not to recklessly, shamelessly, and - yeah, i'll say it - whorishly chase money.

my daddy raised me better than this.

type A

i will totally cop to being a borderline obsessive planner. i like things to be set up, a certain way, well in advance of actually getting there. let's just say that i'm not the kind of girl who digs a surprise party. i like to know what's going to happen.

so it really, really, REALLY grinds my gears when people who are supposed to be in charge of setting an agenda just... don't. look. it's november. the semester will be over in one month and seven days. now is just not the time to tweak your freaking syllabus! i cannot deal with... to call what this is "disorganization" drastically insults the disorganized.

i was not always this way. those who knew me as a teenager are consistently amused by my need to have everything set up. (they are comforted by the knowledge that my pickiness has not translated into keeping my room clean. i'm still messy.) but my new life, my newly-molded orderly and logical mind, demands a certain amount of order. i can't really function without it. and by god, it cannot POSSIBLY be that challenging to set up a semester before it starts. really.

debacle

it's a natural byproduct of the aging process to find things easier to do as you practice them. as i practice memorizing the elements of crimes, torts, and various other minutiae, i naturally find this easier. this applies to not only intellectual pursuits, but practical life things as well. i mean, it now takes me about 10 minutes to do my tax return, but i've been filing taxes for over 10 years now. making a car rental reservation, getting utilities hooked up, registering for classes - you name it, i can do it. i've got this adulthood thing all nailed down.

so it's kinda shocking to me when i look around at grown people and they just. can't. do it. i've been up to my eyebrows in people who are chronologically adult, but who simply can't handle the basic tasks of adult life, WAY too much for my own personal sanity these days. it really makes me wonder how the black hell these folks got this far in life without knowing how to do things. i shouldn't get phone calls from people twice my age asking how to handle basic machinations that are just a part of adult life. somehow, some way, something should've stuck with them, and it didn't. that scares me.

so here's to all the people in my life who made sure that when i left the nest, i had the toolbox i needed to, if not do things i needed to do right away, at least know how to find out what to do. thanks to y'all, i've been spared the rather sad and pathetic fate of being grown and having everything be a nightmare. i can get through arduous and annoying tasks without my walls crashing down. not everyone can do this. i am reminded of that far too often for my taste. and i am grateful as hell that i will never be that person.

oh, and one more thing

re: yesterday's rant, i think coach mora said this best.

the shadow knows...

ha. haha. hahahaha...

someone out there in internet-land thinks they know better than i do what's going on in my life. that's freaking hilarious.

i refer you all, once again, to the CAVEAT EMPTOR in the sidebar.

and for those of you who think you're "sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this has gone on too long and it's not right or fair for her to do this to you":

gossip is funny. but you crossed the line. BIG TIME. i may not ever find out who you are, but i pity you. couldn't even do it under your real name, either.

i know some of you think that life is just this big soap opera. here's a lesson: it's not. adults sometimes write fiction. other adults know about this. children can't separate fantasy from reality. adults can. why don't those out there who can't either grow up and trust people to handle their business, or if you can't, go elsewhere for internet entertainment?

and for those of you who can separate fantasy from reality, stay tuned. we're gonna have some fun. :)