cookies

i am waiting to go to bed until the sugar cookies cool. it's been that kind of magical day, despite the extreme annoyance that was three inches of snow falling on our little urban wonderland. with the semester finally, blessedly over, i was free today to take care of all of the loose ends that came unraveled while i concentrated on school stuff. that meant laundry, cleaning, stocking up the house and getting ready to go on my road trip.

i leave tomorrow to start a long, amazing trek that starts in the metro area, loops through louisiana and alabama before terminating at my grandparents' place in georgia. in anticipation of this, i've spent today preparing. my roots are touched up, i've got new clothes, and all i have to do is load up the rental car and hit the highway tomorrow. i'll miss the city. i'll miss my man. but i cannot WAIT to reconnect with my friends and my crazy family. this has been a long time coming, and i am so ready.

but tonight, i'll curl up in bed with my man one last time before we separate for christmas. we'll eat cookies and enjoy one another for one more night. the moonlight on the snow is pretty through the windows. peaceful. restful.

like home, wouldn't you say?

the heart of the matter

[with special thanks to an utterly awesome blogger for the inspiration. are you reading her? go read her immediately after you're done here. you will LOVE her.]

and i thought of all the bad luck, and the struggles we went through; how i lost me, and you lost you.
this road never gets easier. as the mechanical unwinding process continues, we still have to talk. and it's weird. i would love to be friendly, to be easy and natural with you. you're not interested in it. you've built a really obvious wall between us. i can't blame you for anything you've done. you're entitled to your process. but it's still rough, a small scrape with an emery board across my heart every time your voice sounds that way.

there are people in your life who've come and gone, they've let you down, y'know they've hurt your pride.
oh, wait. that's me, i guess. i did come and go, i let you down and hurt your pride. i broke you into pieces and, yeah, i hurt your pride. sorry about that. but i just get the feeling that i'm going to have to bear the cross of your pain and sorrow for a lot longer than you'll have to deal with mine. maybe that's what comes from being the decision-maker, the one who pulls the trigger. but i hardly think it's fair that i have to be continually blamed. i have tried to soften the blow as much as i can. i really, really have.

and the work i've put between us, you know, it doesn't keep me warm.
it's pretty apparent that i'm basically happy in my life. my professional dreams are lining up, school is... well, it's school, and then there's the whole "i'm in a loving relationship with my real, honest soul mate" thing. (not that we're discussing that; it's, frankly, not your business anymore. you may have some clue, but really, it's not your concern.) but the reality is, i miss what we were. and no matter what comes up in its place, there will be a hole in me where you used to be. it'll be a little cold, a little tender, and yes, a little painful forever. neither of us will ever get over this. ever.

i'm learning to live without you now, but i miss you sometimes.
it's a different life i have now, suddenly, without a lot of adjustment time. and you know, i was pretty damn comfortable. your good qualities - man, it's notable that i don't have some of that stuff in my life. your unconditional kindness is something i miss. the world doesn't baby a woman on her own the way you were willing to do. i could always find comfort with you. that is not always the case now. the new relationship has a new dynamic, and he's not as soft with me as you always were. i'm not used to that. know this: it wasn't a wholesale rejection of you. i do miss you sometimes.

but i think it's about forgiveness, forgiveness, even if, even if you don't love me anymore.
you don't love me anymore. i know this. but i want to get to a place of forgiveness. maybe that'll happen someday. i sure hope it will, especially given that you'll be forty years old before we're all the way untangled from each other. that'll be twenty years of time in one another's lives, when it's all said and done. i'd like the last eight to be... not the same as the first twelve, but not a source of pain, anger and sorrow for both of us.

i want to be forgiven. maybe someday you'll grant it to me. i can hope, right?

sweet southern moon

[this all started when i found this picture while listening to this song. heard the song again today; hence the renewed nostalgia...]

i have one exam - one long, stupid take-home exam for a professor i, frankly, detest - standing between me and freedom for fall 2010. senior-itis (LL.M.-itis?) is hitting me hard. and with winter like this hitting the metro area as hard as it can, i was in the right frame of mind to get knocked sideways by a four-minute pop song about driving the river road in baton rouge.

yeah, i was never so sweet on baton rouge when i lived there. i love, love, LOVE the fact that i hold two degrees from LSU law center. i am proud as hell of that. GEAUX. TIGERS. but the town itself? meh. it's funny, though, how experiences twine themselves around your heart when you least see them coming. i find myself realizing just what i had when i lived there, and how, well, perfect LSU was for me.

i'll hit the road myself in a few days, heading back south for a series of amazing reunions with people all over the southeast, the family and friends who, frankly, got ignored for too long while i was living the old life, the one that wasn't me. but when i'm here, though i am blissfully happy with my surroundings, a shockingly intense twinge of longing for, say, boudin balls at the chimes whipsaws through me. i have no idea what causes this, but there it is.

this is an old habit of mine. for most of my adult life, and even when i was a snotty little college kid, i found it remarkably hard to just light somewhere. (to translate the southernism: light somewhere = be still and settle.) i spent my last two years of college constantly driving back and forth across the commonwealth of virginia. i always want to move, to go, to do. i am almost never at my house. it makes me wonder if it's the place i miss, or the action, the motion, the other-ness? interesting question, i guess. the time will come, very soon, when i put down roots for real. i've made commitments to this place, ones that i am not at all interested in breaking. the pliability that accompanied some of my old life choices is no longer available - the people involved in my decision-making process are adults, with lives and responsibilities of their own. balancing all of this inures towards staying still, being present and breathing for once in my life.

so the old strains of that silly little song, which really does sum up nights in baton rouge better than a thousand descriptions i could write, still tug at my heart. but when i'm done having some brews and marinating in that sweet, sweet southern moon, i'll get in the car and come back here, back to the arms of my love, my city, and i'll curl up in the comfort of home. the roots will grow. they're small, but they are most certainly there.

baubles

one of the side effects of being a hardcore, intense football fan is that i watch a lot of sports on TV. this time of year, that means i see one HELL of a lot of jewelry commercials. nothing makes me stabbier, except for maybe that god-awful hyundai commercial with the twee-pop indie freaks. (i won't link to them. they're too famous as it is. GAAH.)

now, don't misunderstand me. i am a HUGE fan of jewelry. i like me some sparklies. i am well-known for throwing on sweats and flip-flops (or snow boots in this weather), no makeup and hair all thrown back into pigtails, but with a perfectly-matched necklace and earrings. i am a connoisseur of swarovski crystal, turquoise and sterling silver.

but oy, do these jewelry commercials reduce relationships to so much patriarchal pablum. the women in these ads are simpering fools; the guys are smug paternalists, riding in to SAVE THE DAY with a glinting bride-price. the worst offenders, by far, are kay jewelers and their just god-awful two hearts (or as the boyfriend calls them, the two asses - go back and look at them again; you'll see) collection. either that or the "zomg, it's raining, save me, o strong man, for i am a weak and spineless girl-child!" one.

it's enough to make you want to join a radical wymynist collective or something. seriously. can't the people in these commercials just, y'know, give each other gifts like normal human beings, without the women looking like tiny children and the men looking like purchasers of more than just jewelry? come on, folks. real women with brains are so much more fun than airheaded simpletons. and smart women appreciate gifts too. we just don't gape over them like deer in headlights. it's way more fun to win a woman's heart when she's your equal.

a grand adventure

well, this is a fun turn of events. at my exam-week midpoint, after a brutal library day yesterday, i've chosen to reward myself with a 110-mile road trip... to get hamburgers and shakes with my boyfriend. oh yes; we lead a fun life.

we used to go on crazy flights of fancy like this all the time when we were kids together. we definitely drove to florida for the hell of it a lot. one night we all ended up in gautier, mississippi in the parking lot of a jitney jungle grocery store eating snackwells devils food cookies and yelling sassy remarks at the bemused police officers watching us. but to do it at 30? oh, this is magic. one of the things i love about the man is his capacity for wide-open adventure like this. we were, and are, partners in crime, winging our way through the night together in search of a little fun, a little amusement, a deviation. it's beautiful, and all too rare. so if you'll excuse me, i've got a road trip with my man to enjoy.

forever may we rave.

mr. sanders goes to the senate floor

oh, my god, y'all. who saw the filibernie today?

needless to say, i've been a little removed from current events, between exams and the state of my personal and psychological life. but it's no secret that i am a crabby little liberal watching all this go down. so the impassioned, fact-driven, humane and downright beautiful litany of every value i hold dear that senator sanders gave us today was the shot in the arm my civic engagement needed.

people disagree. and in many cases, i truly do believe that people who care about politics, even if they're ideologically disparate from me, come from a place of care and concern for the nation. we're all americans here. but increasingly, the powers that be (and, at the end of the day, what really matters is what the 535 people who vote in congress think; the rest of it is blue-skying) are of either of two categories:

1) milquetoast democrats, far more concerned with looking like they're cooperating than getting anything accomplished.

2) fire-bombing republicans, far more concerned with looking like they're taking it to president obama than getting anything accomplished.

that leaves us... nowhere. we've reached a place where a bill that passes 57-40 isn't enough of a majority to actually change anything (and leaves a just insanely stupid policy in place). nothing is getting done.

so what if a filibuster - or a morning-session soliloquy - doesn't change substantive policy? it was so freaking refreshing to hear someone a) care, b) try to express that care and c) take people to task for their amazingly stupid behavior. to hear someone take americans to the woodshed for our collective greed? MIRACULOUS. to hear credit-card practices rightly described as usury? AMAZING. for this estate-planning attorney to hear the estate tax described properly, factually and accurately? REFRESHING. and most importantly, to listen to someone discuss economic inequality realistically?

lord, i thought i'd died and gone to the heaven i don't believe in. my civic pride is through the roof. hell, even though it took a 70-year-old socialist to kick the democrats into high gear (damn - they busted out bubba hisownself to counterprogram this!), it was so nice to see. now let's hope to all things holy someone in my party was listening, took this to heart, and (GASP!) will actually do something about the sad state we're in.

sirocco

the sirocco is a wind pattern in africa and europe that dries out the sahara and makes the mediterranean cold and damp. wind has been on my mind of late: it's been a constant feature of life here in the nation's capital of late. the identical bookends of my monday was a whisper from the man as we awoke, then again as we drifted off to sleep: "windy." i haven't been able to wear my hair down outside in days.

wind is funny in its casual, reckless and random destructive power. all over town, some signs and newspaper boxes are blown over, while others stand next to them untouched. some branches break; others remain. wind is without prejudice. it just blows, and if it touches you or not, well, whatever. it totally does not care.

wind also forms the basis for just untold metaphors for chance and carelessness in life. call me the breeze. forrest gump, floatin' along all accidental-like (and that feather, which was REALLY bad CGI in retrospect). against the wind. blowin' in the wind. dust in the wind. winds of change, the wind cries mary, blah, blah, blah. if anything, i find wind to be less of a metaphor and more of a constant. i mean, hell, what's more constant than change?

the french have a saying: plus ce change, plus c'est la meme chose. the more change, the more of the same thing. so wind might be random, altering things in its path. but hell, that's just the course of everyday life. what's so careless about that?

home game

i am an itinerant little blogger these days. i have been for... well, really, since i got back to the area this spring. i spend a lot of time in places that aren't my home. i sleep at my dad's. i go to school. and, basically every weekend night for months now, i've carried a bag with a couple of changes of clothes and decamped to the man's house.

his place is more hospitable than mine, i'd say. two people live there; five people live in mine. he has a master suite; i share a bathroom. but i do have to admit that i sometimes miss being, well, in my bed, be it alone or accompanied. as nice as his bed is, it's just not mine. my room is great. it's dark, which means it's a little easier for this insomniac to fall asleep at night. i have about six thousand blankets at my disposal (something which the man thinks is a) superfluous and b) hilarious). it is set up in every way to be, well, perfect for me.

so imagine my surprise when i was able to sweet-talk my beloved into staying with me last night. it was a low-pressure sale, but it worked. and even though he had to leave this morning at an hour i don't even want to contemplate right now, it was so, so amazing. as much as i love waking up next to him, i love it that much more when we're wrapped up in my comforter, here in my little corner of the world. it makes me feel... like a grown-up, really. the feeling of being a guest has almost worn off when i'm with the man, but it's still not my house. i don't have to feel any other way besides comfortable here. my man, my house, my stuff.

there really is just no place like home sometimes. i'd do well to remember that.

headache

my head hurts. it's hurt all day long. not really enough to warrant drugs or anything; just that dull, vague pain that accompanies a series of mild-to-moderate annoyances.

i am over school. i don't want to do it anymore. i have three exams and a paper, all of which have to be done before the 16th. i can barely, barely force myself to study for them, even though i'm spending ungodly amounts of debt-money to get this stupid degree. it's physically painful to drag myself through this preparation.

and the physical pain triggers emotional dragginess. that in turn leads me to take tiny slights as full-on assaults, non-cues as giant signs of my immense worthlessness, and all sorts of other foolish things. i don't know why this happens, but it does. it makes me, to be totally honest with you, really terrible company. so i try to mitigate this by not speaking, by sitting silently wherever i happen to be. but then i feel like a giant burden on everyone i'm around, bringing the room down with my negativity.

now, none of this is real. but i still end up hurting as if it was. how goofy is this? it's just exhaustion, frustration and disappointment, to be honest with you. it really is. but knowing what it is doesn't seem to help me, y'know, DO SOMETHING about it. so here i sit, tightness in my chest, burden in my heart, feeling like i'm in the way again.

what a headache.

#reverb10: make

[as tumblr has decided to remain, in the subtle terminology of my boyfriend, fucked, my reverb post is here again. back to normal programming in both locales when tumblr, quoting the boyfriend again, unfucks itself.]

"what was the last thing you made? what materials did you use? is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?"

i am no one's conception of a handywoman. i'd be the one who ends up with pictures all over the internet of the spectacularly improbable injury i'd somehow give myself, entertaining millions with my natural grace and giftedness. but surprisingly, i do have a couple of areas of handicraft in which i specialize. we've all been entertained with the ongoing saga of magnolia v. sewing machine for halloween. and while that was shockingly successful, that's not one of my strengths.

i do two things quite well when it comes to tangible works: i make food, and i cross-stitch. i've also regaled you with tales of marathon cooking spates on football sundays, embarking on culinary adventures to the dulcet tones of the greatest football broadcaster ever, scott hanson on NFL red zone. (i totally have a non-sexual crush on this guy. he's AMAZING.) but as for my needlework, well, that's a side of me you may not have seen coming.

when i was in seventh grade at a nondescript middle school in my gulf-coast hometown, we had what could charitably be called a dearth of electives available for us. there was a dearth of a lot of education in that place, though by god, they tried. there was a real "hey, kids, let's put on a middle school!" vibe around there. i started the year in a computer class with 25 students and ONE apple IIe. i was in seventh grade in 1992-93, at which point the IIe was nearly a decade old. clearly, this was not going to work. my only other option, however, was home arts. seriously? well, at least we get to cook, was my thought process. i like cookies, and this class did not disappoint.

our midterm project was a cross-stitched christmas ornament. she gave us a really simple pattern of a tree, and all we had to do was the actual cross-stitching. she did the back-stitch and knot stitches to finish. it took us two weeks, and i was stunned to find the process of preparing the thread, stretching the aida cloth and taking needle to canvas extremely... soothing, really. of all things, a lifelong hobby was launched at that moment. (i got an A- on the project; one of my rows was a little off. i also got a B on my final for that class; we sewed tote bags on sewing machines, and my seams weren't straight.)

so to this day, i tend to save time here and there for large-scale cross-stitch projects. i'm currently waiting for the end of the semester, so that i can finally, finally finish the huge one i started around this time last year. christmas break is a good time to sit on the couch, watch movies or sports, and stab a needle into cloth. not only do you get this really cool-looking piece of art when you're done, but there's a nice amount of stress relief in taking a sharp implement and plunging it into something over and over again. many cases of malicious wounding have been avoided by me using visualization techniques to transfer the urge to stab real people into stabbing cloth.

as everyone would, i'd love more time to sit and stitch for hours on end when i am so inclined. but that's not the kind of life i've chosen for myself. but that's what makes my favorite old-school hobby so much of a treat when i get to do it: it's a rare pleasure. and when i finish a piece, look at it and see all the work that went into it, i am proud as hell. no doubt about it. hell, yes. i made that. it's so, so damned satisfying. that's why making things is still something humans like to do, i guess; any source of validation in a tough, sometimes-crushing world is welcome, but when it's self-validation, it's about a hundred times better. and who couldn't use more of that?

#reverb10: let go

[tumblr's having technical difficulties, so i've migrated here for the day.]

"what (or whom) did you let go of this year? why?"

oh, wow. talk about striking a nerve, and on a day when i'm hung over and have somehow managed to chip a molar. (yeah, a molar. NO idea how that went down.)

you could say i've done some letting go. this whole blog's been about letting go, at least when i'm not on about something political, mooning over the man or generally being zany. i've let go of artifice, of letting other people's expectations define me, and - oh yeah - relationships that just don't work anymore. 2010 was 100% about slicing off, cutting through and moving beyond everything that was, even without my knowledge in some cases, holding me back.

and why did i do it? self-preservation. i reached a point in my life where i just could not tolerate the state of affairs in my head and in my heart. i woke up one morning in mid-january feeling like i was literally bound to my bed. (and not in the fun way, ha ha.) i felt so trapped by waffling, by fear, by indecision and by my seeming inability to move forward. so i started writing it. i opened up my heart to y'all, and through reading, interacting and unburdening the secrets in my soul, i saw the way forward. i pulled the trigger. i went and demanded what i wanted. and by god, i got it.

so yeah, i let a lot go this year. but i'll tell you something: when i let that stuff go, i freed myself up for more bountiful goodness than i could have ever imagined. so let it go. let it all go. you'll be glad you did. lord knows i am.

mutilation

i'm seeing black swan tonight. not gonna lie; i'm pretty excited about this. i like to read reviews of movies that pique my interest, usually from the new york times or the washington post. when a smart publication raves about a movie, it makes me that much more excited to see it (and conversely, when a movie gets panned in that kind of review, it disappoints me that i was even interested in the first place).

but the one theme i keep noticing about this movie is the heavy emphasis all the articles place about the self-injury that runs like a river through the whole thing, apparently. look, folks, this is a movie about the upper echelon of professional ballet. it may look pretty, but that is a brutal, harsh, cutthroat and, yes, painful world. hell, when we were teenagers dancing for fun, we used to have a saying: "the more it hurts, the more you smile." (some of us know this well, don't we? one word: mazurka.) so multiply that by about a million once you get to the top of the top. competitors in physical disciplines hurt themselves. we talk about how honorable football players are when they sacrifice mobility for the final fifty years of their lives to be successful in their twenties. but it's funny how the discourse on ballerinas has such a psychodramatic twist, eh? no one calls what defensive tackles do to themselves "self-mutilation," but doesn't it end the same?

now, in the case of the movie, it's clear that this is supposed to be a descent-into-madness thing. i get it. but the whole women and self-injury thing has me thinking. men, when things go sideways in their lives, always get portrayed as lashing out at others. you know the image: dad loses his job at the plant, gets drunk and beats mom into oblivion. but when a woman is hurting, she's always shown as taking it out on herself. papa roach notwithstanding (and i apologize for even bringing that song up), men are not often cutters. women are. why?

i think it's cultural. we're trained to view aggression and anger as male emotions, and thus only men are "allowed" to express them freely. we all know the cultural vocabulary for angry women: ball-busters. bra-burners. (for the LAST time, NO ONE BURNED BRAS. can someone PLEASE teach sarah palin et al to READ?) bitches. words i won't even use that slur women both straight and gay. so what do we do? women swallow anger. we tamp down rage, frustration, disappointment. finally, though, you can't swallow any more; it's coming out one way or another. and all too often, it comes out with the swift, savage pull of a blade across our own skin. the pain, the blood, the action itself brings a form of release, the only way to manifest the darkest recesses without running up against taboos bigger than ourselves.

we've come a long way, baby, as the old cigarette ads used to say. (and the fact that i remember when cigarette ads provided pop-culture memes shows that i'm getting old.) but we haven't come far enough to allow women to just be mad in public. the whole "mama grizzly" thing back in '08 wasn't real anger; it was a stylized temper fit designed to market an ideology. you ever see those women do anything from a place of rage? nope. that's because it's not allowed. if we really want to claim a victory for fairness for everyone, we can make it okay for every person to be healthily angry in the way he or she sees fit. that way, we can eliminate this whole sad cycle of lashing out, either at ourselves or others. maybe then it won't be an issue anymore.

lights

being a filthy no-account heathen, the whole reason for christmas - the birth of jesus - doesn't really register with me. but that is not going to stop me from eating up every single second of the secular-cultural fun side of the winter holiday carnival. i freaking LOVE christmas. it's the one thing that justifies the existence of winter weather (well, that and hot chocolate with marshmallows in it).

i went to dinner with the man last night. when we got back to his place, i noticed that his neighbors across the street (the nice, responsible ones with the baby, not the horrifically obnoxious drunken 20-year-olds) had strung tiny multicolored lights in the tree in their yard. nothing outlandish; in the ex's neighborhood, there's one of THOSE houses. y'know, those people who seem to thrive on being a) unspeakably tacky, b) as ecologically wasteful as humanly possible, and c) visible from freaking space with all their lights, inflatables, moving things, etc. just a simple arrangement of pretty lights in a tree. so unbelievably beautiful.

there's nothing like christmas decorations. the non-religious parts of the holiday are things that everyone can agree on: love, friendship, warmth, and light.  the good, small things that make this life worth living. that's the best part of this year. and we could all use a lot more of it, no doubt about it.

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.

news: #reverb10

i just wanted to give y'all a heads-up that i'm joining the #reverb10 party this december! i know for a fact i won't post all 31 days, mainly because christmas will be spent in a part of the country with neither broadband internet nor AT&T service of any kind (i don't know how i'm going to survive that, by the way; i won't be reachable by PHONE, for god's sake). i'll probably do a catch-up series when i get back from the 19th century.

but here's the deal: i'm doing it as a project at my tumblr site. i'd rather save this space for freeform writing, and this is a directed-prompt thing. besides, this seems too multimedia to do here. i may have pictures or other weird ramblings to use. so check me out there for all of this.

and i'll be back later with some writing to do. it's a reflective kinda day.

a rich, full day

so here it is. thirty days, thirty posts. (i am so counting the double post the other day to get me over the hump. i wrote it; it's valid.) and what a day to finish, too.

i write you today basking in the glow of my first successful court case as a practicing attorney. who cares that it was only getting my client out of traffic tickets? i WON. and it was a beautiful, amazing feeling to call up the client and say, "congratulations! you won!" that made him so happy, and it was something i could help him get. that's what being a lawyer should be. (i write this as i sit in my private wealth planning seminar, where we're talking about how to legally shelter millions of dollars in the uber-rich's cash and property from as much tax as possible. yeah, there's a lot that's not so nice about the law.)

the peak-and-valley cycle has hit a peak. i'm so happy. i'm tired as hell, because i had to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive to the pastoral wonderland in which my client got his ticket, but i'm so freaking pleased. i know i've made the right choice in my career. things will be... okay. it'll take awhile, but it'll be okay. let's do some blessing-counting (yeah, yeah, an atheist counting blessings - it's weird).

1) i'm alive, in basically decent health.
2) i can feed myself (with some financial help - not great, but okay).
3) i have an amazing family that rallies around me and admires me.
4) my boyfriend is... well, he defies categorization, really. he's perfect for me.
5) my friends, far and wide, real-life and digital, ROCK.
6) i have a good career plan, with possibilities to get great soon.

see? it's all... if not good, then heading there soon. days like this encourage me, give me faith, and keep me going. not to mention the fact that i am going to sleep the sleep of the just when i get home tonight. it's a damn good day, full of damn good things. sometimes, it's just that simple.
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woo-hoo, and this is post #200 to boot! fun. thanks again for hanging out with me in my little corner of the internet. i love my readers dearly; y'all are FABULOUS. :)

obligations

gaah. nablopomo failure yesterday. i think i'm going to take hannah's idea of a bye day, because i had a lot going on. i feel kinda bad that i fell short so close to the goal line. it was day 28! but hey, that's the way it goes, i guess, when you're out there living experiences in order to be able to write them. and it's been a pretty amazing weekend.

i'm dating outside my religion - by which i mean college football team - for the first time, and it did not work out well for my beloved bayou bengals. it did, however, work out well for my beloved razorbacks-supporting boyfriend. (sigh.) so a large portion of the remainder of the weekend was spent with a) me pouting, b) him gloating and c) me fulfilling a bet i just won't get into details about. suffice it to say that while betting on sports is wrong, this worked out well for both of us.

but it's all about fulfilling obligations. and i am glad to do that, not only for selfish reasons, but because i love making the man happy. his dedication to me makes me want to return the favor to him. it's absolutely perfect; i couldn't be more thrilled with the way our relationship has evolved over time. we're cut from the same cloth, and we want nothing more than the best for each other. always have, always will. my obligation to him is simple - love him as well as he loves me, no matter what. easy as pie.

quick hit

stupid arkansas. stupid quarterback. stupid not winning.

that is all. too cranky.

[exhalation]

whew. that was an adventure and a half. so many people, so much activity, so much hustle and bustle. when we closed the door behind the last guest at 1:00 AM, i was so knackered i could barely keep my eyes open.

but we laughed, we ate, we played rock band with a pack of really sharp little kids (who NAILED "smells like teen spirit," despite having been born a solid decade after "nevermind" came out). it felt like one of those scenes from a movie where you look at the house from the outside and all you can see is light and laughing family through the windows.

i don't know why i was so apprehensive in the days leading up to this. as is my custom, i built it up to be way more high-stakes than it was. i put so much pressure on myself for things to not only be perfect, but to reflect back onto me. this was actually a good exercise in letting go, being out of control, and just... breathing. and it's funny; it felt so nice to just be a helper, then a guest.

there's a lesson here. breathe. smile. as the owner of my beloved washington capitals, ted leonsis, likes to say, "be positive - be happy - show gratitude." and enjoy the party.

thanks

on this day of thanks, i want to call some people out for being amazing.

1) my parents. they rock, and i love them.

2) the man. thank you, love, for EVERYTHING. i love you more than words can say.

3) my friends, non-blog and blog. a few in particular:
a) the high-school crew, those who knew me when it mattered. (love you all, boys and girls.)
b) the law-school crew - i miss y'all more than i could ever imagine.
c) my blog friends. y'all have sustained me through it all. thank you, thank you, thank you.

take a minute to love your nearest and dearest today. give thanks. it's worth your time.