Little Miss Law in Training?

First of all, dear readers, let me comment on how many hits I received in the past day on my post about Jane Austen! I must say, I expected to get more comments in the vein of “What are you talking about? You’re not a spinster!” and I am very pleasantly surprised to find that nobody went in that direction, since that wasn’t the point of my post. (My mom did, however, email me with this excellent point: “Spinsters are pretty lucky these days because they have the internet……” Very true.)

Also, I find that my blog readers appear to be quite literary, seeing as how this post drew more attention and commentary than many of my more seemingly juicy posts about dating.

Anyway, one of my favorite things about the blogosphere is finding other kindred spirits out there, whose blogs reflect the same things I think about, worry about, dream about. I have found several — they’re the people who often comment on my blog (along with my “real life” friends) and whose blogs I read daily. It’s funny because even though I haven’t met these people and don’t even know their real names in most cases, I find myself routinely checking to see what’s going on in the worlds of Karalina, Jem1896, etc. When they write cliffhanger posts about a fight with a boyfriend or a worry about work, I find myself becoming anxious, waiting for the resolution.

Then a couple of days ago I got a comment from this blogger, a law student who is brand new to the blogosphere. The first post I read of hers was about the incestous and ill-advised nature of law school dating — totally spot-on, based on my one dating experience in law school. Then today I surfed onto her blog again and was astounded to find just how kindred of a spirit this girl is — first, writing about an unpleasant conversation where a non-lawyer tells her how bad law school is as a place to meet people, she says, “He continued on for awhile and by the end of the conversation, I had decided that I might as well buy a few more cats.” (As my readers may know, I have occasionally contemplated getting Noodles a sibling, but have never taken the leap because I determined that more than 1 cat per bedroom or per person may be pushing it.) Then, her post goes on to mention spinsterhood.

Ok, maybe this isn’t the world’s biggest coincidence. Cats and spinsters tend to be discussed together. Still, my friends, this is a girl after my own heart. And soon to be a lawyer, no less. I think I’ll keep reading!

Becoming Little Miss Law

Yesterday on the plane I began reading The Jane Austen Book Club, which I recommend if you’re a Jane Austen fan. For someone who considers herself a reader, I am ashamed to admit that I have read not even a single Austen novel, so that when the women in The Jane Austen Book Club discuss the plot points, I have to wrack my brain for memories of the movie version. In fact, I recall so little of Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow, which I saw so many years ago, that I had to fill in the blanks with my perfect memory of that awesome adaptation, Clueless, which I must have watched weekly in high school.

But I digress. The book made me think of Becoming Jane, the movie about Jane Austen’s life that was in theaters a few months ago. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it basically showed Austen as a headstrong aspiring writer who turns down a string of suitors until a mischevious guy, Thomas Lefroy, comes along and wins her heart. But of course, as in all of Austen’s novels, money, class and family come in the way, Jane won’t run away with him and so they part ways. Jane never ends up marrying, and goes on to write all her amazing novels. At the end of the movie, she is older and grey and seems sort of lonely but also peaceful. Jane Austen was the quintessential spinster, and died at the age of only 41.

This may sound strange coming from the girl who spends entry upon entry writing about guys and dating, but there was something sort of oddly…appealing to me about this. People talk about spinsters (to the extent anyone actually uses that word, these days) as unfortunate women who never meet a man and grow old and alone. They talk about spinsters as though they have no other choice but to be alone.

But Jane Austen did have a choice. If she had wanted to be married for the sake of being married — or for money, status, security — she had more than one chance. But instead, she declared that she would live by her pen.

I know what you’re thinking. She just didn’t meet the right person. If she had been able to marry Tom Lefroy, she would have married him and they would have lived happily ever after. I say: perhaps.

The movie made me wonder, at what age in today’s society does one transition into spinsterhood? And I don’t mean that in the bad, freaked-out Oh-my-God-I’m-heading-towards-30 way. I just mean, at what age now does someone gain the status of someone who is tranquilly, perpetually single, as opposed to someone who is still on the market and just temporarily single? And is it even possible to choose and embrace singledom and not have to eternally defend that choice?

In The Jane Austen Book Club there is one character in her 50’s named Jocelyn who never married. She says she is happily unmarried. She breeds dogs.

“Each of us has a private Austen.

Jocelyn’s Austen wrote wonderful novels about love and courtship, but never married. The book club was Jocelyn’s idea, and she handpicked the members. She had more ideas in one morning than the rest of us had in a week, and more energy, too. It was essential to reintroduce Austen into your life regularly, Jocelyn said, let her look around.” —The Jane Austen Book Club

I feel like I may have to, for the first time, read some Jane Austen instead of just watching the movies. Introduce her to my life…let her look around.

I Heart Bookstores.

Tonight I have felt the most peaceful that I had in a long time.  I came home from work and decided that I didn’t want to stay cooped up in the house, so I headed over to one of my favorite L.A. spots, The Grove.  Yes, it’s crowded (apparently it gets more visitors each year than Disneyland), yes, it’s touristy (I saw a gaggle of girls in “I Heart L.A.” T-shirts) but still, I find it somehow enchanting.  I thought I might do some late night shopping, but instead of heading for Banana Republic or Arden B, I beelined for Barnes & Noble and spent a good half hour walking around, perusing.

Call me crazy, but a bookstore is one of my favorite places to be.  Walking around in a bookstore to me almost rivals actually reading a good book, because of the delicious anticipation.  It’s like when you’re waiting in line at the ice cream parlor, thinking about what flavor you’re going to get.  You can’t quite taste it yet, but you know it’s going to be amazing.

Walking around in the bookstore tonight, I felt overwhelmed by the number of books that caught my eye — so many books, so little time!  I almost wished I could just bury myself under a big pile of books and let all the words seep into me through osmosis.

But in the end, I didn’t purchase anything.  After all, I already have a backup of books I have bought in the past couple of months and not yet read–most notably, Saving Fish from Drowning, which I have been eyeing in bookstores for about a year.  I think I may have to follow Knittikins’ lead and join the library.  For whatever reason, borrowing books just isn’t as satisfying to me as buying them, but my book habit may end up getting out of control!

After going to Barnes & Noble, I sat down on a bench and just people-watched.  It was the perfect temperature –not too hot, just a lovely warm late summer evening with the slightest breeze.  As I sat, I realized that I am learning to just be alone, and for that matter, just be, without having to try to appear busy with my cell phone or a book or anything.  If I can convince myself to eat out at a restaurant alone, now that will really be progress!

The Man of My Dreams

Oh, isn’t Little Miss Law a tease.  You thought that she was just going to open up and share all about her ideal guy or something to that effect. 

 Sorry to disappoint, but Wrong!  No, I’m writing about the novel I just finished with that title.  As often happens when I finish a book that I have been enjoying, I felt sort of sad and let down.  It’s as though you are spending time with a good friend, having a nice time when suddenly they get up and walk out the door, never to return again.  (Ok, yes, that was a bit melodramatic, even for me.) 

Anyway, the book had (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!) an ending that one may describe as happy, though not in the stereotypical Hollywood, music swelling in the background type of way.  No, here the protagonist spends the whole novel coming of age (it spans from when she is a young teenager to when she is in her mid-late 20’s), learns about love and relationships, moves from Boston to Chicago to be with a guy she has a crush on who she has never dated, gets into a messy unrequited-love friendship with him, he ends up married to someone else, she moves to Albuquerque and gets a job as a teacher at a school for autistic teenagers.  The end.  Seriously, that was the end!

My semi-disappointment with this ending made me think of something that I often lose sight of.  Often I find myself thinking so hard about the future and waiting for something to “happen” that I realize there are lots of wonderful things happening in my life and all around me.  It’s way too easy to fall asleep in your life and just try to get through the day, and sometimes I forget that my life is happening right now. 

I loved this passage from the novel, after the protagonist has to try to get an autistic boy’s hand unstuck from some playground equipment:  “I was wearing a gray button-down shirt, and as Jason headed inside with the nurse, I noticed that Vaseline was smeared on it in several places, and I felt in that moment–you can see the Sandia Mountains from the school playground– that I was meant to live in the desert of New Mexico, meant to be a teacher with Vaseline on my blouse.”

How amazing to have that feeling of certainty, of just being, and to be aware that what you are, and what you are doing, is precisely what you are supposed to be, and what you are supposed to be doing.  We should all be so lucky.

I just can’t help but end this post with a quote from the final episode of Sex & the City:  “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”

Well put.

Little Miss Law Comes Home

I must say, there is nothing better than traveling, and then there is nothing better than coming home to your own apartment and sleeping in your own bed.  Aaaahhh. 

I wasn’t quite ready to leave Maui yesterday morning — I was wishing I could have a couple more days of vacation — but after a 5 + hour flight, an hour waiting at LAX for my bag, and a taxicab ride, I was the happiest girl in the world when I finally turned my key in the lock to my front door and my legs were encircled by a meowing Noodles.  (He was so happy to see me, in fact, that he followed me around like a puppy all evening; started meowing at 4:30 a.m., and didn’t stop meowing, even after I fed him, until 7:30 a.m., when I finally pulled myself, bleary eyed, out of bed and started getting ready for work.)

At any rate, it was a fantastic vacation.  The weather was perfect:  mostly hot and sunny, with some brief periods of luscious tropical rain.  The balcony of our suite overlooked the well-landscaped grounds, the pool area and, beyond that, the ocean.  I slept on a Murphy bed in the living room, next to the balcony, with the sliding glass door open, so every morning when I woke up as the sun rose, I would turn over in bed and look out at the water.   What a way to start the day. 

Our days were full of a good mix of exploring, eating and lounging — my three favorite things to do on vacation.  We ate some amazing food, including to-die-for pork pot roast and some excellent seafood.  We went to the Maui Ocean Center aquarium, which was really neat; snorkeled and swam, and then ate dinner, at Napili Bay; took a submarine ride; shopped; and had lots of pool time.  The highlight of my trip, though, was a 1/2 day snorkel trip out to Turtle Town and Molokini.  There is nothing I have experienced that is more tranquil than snorkeling, surrounded by fish, feeling my body weightless and suspended.  We saw so many fish at Molokini, it was like swimming in an aquarium.  Truly amazing.

It was also great to spend time with Mom & Dad and our family friends.  We haven’t taken a family vacation in a long time, so it was a really special treat.

Finally, I got in some reading, as I had hoped.  I took with me the three books that I mentioned in my last post, and then I ended up buying a book at LAX (because I had packed the other 3 in my suitcase): Back to Wando Passo, by David Payne.   It took me a bit to get into it, but once I did I was hooked.  I’m sure my parents had a flashback to when I was an avid reader in elementary school and they couldn’t get me to put down a book long enough to have dinner!  Payne is an extraordinary writer, and the book is quite gripping.  Using fantasy elements, it weaves two dramatic love stories, one from the present day and one from the Civil War period, which both took place at Wando Passo, an old rice plantation in South Carolina.  Payne must have done an incredible amount of research — about the Civil War, plantation life in the South, race relations, Cuban mysticism and witchcraft, blues music, and on and on — because the novel is so vivid, descriptive, and most of all accurate.  If you are willing to suspend disbelief and lose yourself in this book, I recommend it.

I also read a lighter, summer beach read — The Guy Not Taken, a collection of short stories by Jennifer Weiner (who I love — she also wrote Good in Bed and In Her Shoes).  The stories were funny, sad and genuine, and it’s an extremely quick read.

Well, dear readers, I must go collect my laundry and head to bed. On Friday I am off to my next adventure — a bachelorette party in Vegas — and I’m sure that more stories will come from that! (Though if the old Vegas adage applies, I may not be able to write about it…)

Who reads this blog, anyway?

My dear readers, by now you all know to a certain extent who Little Miss Law is — or rather, what she’s like, what makes her tick, what pisses her off … you catch my drift.  Indeed, a good number of my readers have the *privilege* of knowing the “real life” Little Miss Law.

Yet, it feels sometimes like the playing field is a bit uneven, because I don’t know much about my readers.  Who the hell are you?  The only knowledge I have about my readers (aside from the usual suspects — aloha, Mom & Dad) comes from one of my favorite WordPress features, where you can read the search engine terms people used to find your blog.  Here are the terms people used to make their way to Little Miss Law this week:

“little miss law blog”  (YES!  I have a following!)  😉

“kathy the cartoon character” (Ahem, it’s Cathy with a C.  But if you are reading my blog I forgive you.)

“sighting ben mckenzie” (Glad to see I’m not the only celeb stalker.)

“triplets joke” (I wonder if this person liked my Siamese triplets pun.)

“wordpress theme” (Huh?)

“confessions office watercooler blog”

“Fashion dress blog” (Sorry to disappoint.)

“wear to court” 

“once a week my cat go crazy and attack” (Spray bottle!!)

“going to court heels” (Yes, they are called pumps.  ‘Nuff said.)

So, in a nutshell (help, I’m in a nutshell!  how do I get out of this nutshell?) my readers are crazy cat ladies (or ladies with crazy cats), lawyers, celebrity stalkers and gossip hounds.  Indeed, you’re my kind of people!  Keep reading!

Tomorrow I hop on a plane and fly to the beautiful island of Maui.  Snorkeling, hiking, lounging, eating…I wish I could just transport myself there instantly. 

I’ve also bought a few books to take with me, since pleasure reading is one of my biggest loves and it so often falls by the wayside.  They are:  The Guy Not Taken (short stories by Jennifer Weiner, author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes); Saving Fish from Drowning, by Amy Tan (Joy Luck Club) and finally A Mighty Heart (the Daniel Pearl story, now starring Angelina Jolie).  I will update you when I return!

Though I know tears will be shed that I will be blog-free for a week, I just can’t imagine shlepping my laptop to Hawaii, so I will say goodbye for now!  But first I will leave you with the Ben McKenzie story that I promised you (since apparently at least one person cares).

It was the afterparty to the premiere of Rocky Balboa, which was actually really fun, not because the movie was good at all (I admit to never having seen the others, but this was a clearly over-the-top schmaltzy throwback to them, not in a good way), but just imagine a theater full of people chanting, “Ro-cky!  Ro-cky!”  Goodtimes.

Anyway, I was with my co-workers, who luckily know and love me.  I announced that I was going to go talk to Ben, and was heartily egged on.  He was sitting with Kevin Connolly (who I just noticed on IMDb was in Rocky V) and some other guys I didn’t recognize, no other girls in sight.  There was an empty seat next to him that I resolved to plop myself down in.  I marched in the direction of his table….then hovered nearby, unable to get up the nerve to approach him.  This went on for a while until I gave up and returned to my friends.  Luckily, I don’t think he saw me stalking him.

Soon thereafter, a beautiful brunette sat down in the coveted seat and they started chatting and eventually snapping pictures.  “That could have been me!”  I kept thinking for the rest of the evening.  The next day I went online and sure enough, I found this picture of Ben and the beautiful brunette.  I sent it to my friend C. and wrote “see, this could have been me!”  She responded, “Um, that’s the girl who plays Sloan on Entourage.”

Doh!  I guess my brush with celebrity wasn’t quite as close as I imagined.

Till next week….

The Magic of Writing

This has been an incredibly relaxing weekend.  The weather has been hot and gorgeous, with sun and bright blue skies.  Yesterday I felt inclined to get some quality time with Noodles, so I took the opportunity to  start the book that has been gathering dust on my shelf for a year – Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking.  Today I went to Knittikins’ boyfriend’s oasis of a house and relaxed by the pool, took a dip, enjoyed some girl talk, and finished the book.   (I also went out and took a little salsa lesson with BF last night, which was tons of fun.)

 Anyway, I found the book incredibly inspiring.  As I think anyone who enjoys writing/blogging can attest, getting one’s thoughts and feelings down on paper (or the screen, as it were) can be a very cathartic experience.  In this book, Didion takes that catharsis to a whole new level.  The book is written (Spoiler alert — though this is also in the jacket cover) in the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death and her daughter’s severe illness (which later proved fatal).

Didion is a wonderful writer.  I have not read any of her novels, though I will now.  It is so interesting to see how she crafts the memoir very deliberately, and yet uses it actively to work through her grief and loss, even as she writes it.  At times she talks about feelings in the past tense — for instance, when she recounts that she could not bring herself to give away her husband’s shoes because if he came back, he would need his shoes.  As she progresses in her writing of the memoir, the months go on.  Didion experiences, over and over again, flashbacks to what she and her husband were doing on that very day a year ago, when he was still alive.   As the months and memoir progress, the reader can witness firsthand the process she goes through and the way her understanding of what happened and her way of coping shifts.

Didion and her husband were both writers, and so the book has an inevitable or obvious quality to it — what else would a writer do in the wake of such a tragedy, but write about it?  I wrote recently that I am now reading things as a writer.  Didion’s writing made it seem as though she actually experienced the events as a writer, though I’m sure in part that was merely the artfulness in which she conveyed them.

At any rate, I highly recommend The Year of Magical Thinking…read it and let me know what you think!

Reading, Writing and Fake Meat

Yet another quiet day at the office.  I sit at my near-clean desk (it just wouldn’t be me if it weren’t a little messy and cluttered) and stare at my brand-new flat computer screen.  I am in love with this screen as much as I have been in love with any inanimate object in recent memory.  The screen is large and bright, and as I type the words seem brighter and crisper than before.  My old computer screen was covered in Post-Its with my scribbling–to-do lists, phone numbers, reminders– but to put flourescent notes on my beautiful new screen would seem sacreligious somehow.

As I sit, I am contemplating what my next read will be.  I have a perhaps bizarre habit of, every so often, compulsively purchasing a pile of books off Amazon that then gather dust on my shelf for months and months, while I amuse myself in other ways — TV, books I purchase in the interim at Borders etc.  But I have now almost completely weaned myself off of TV (minus Entourage and occasionally the Daily Show) and so I am left to either finish working my way through my collection of books, or purchase something new.  Most likely I will finally (a year after purchasing it) begin The Year of Magical Thinking.

I find that these days, as I read, I do something that I have always done, but more so–I try to read as a writer.  I delight in certain turns of phrase, I marvel over descriptions that clearly involved substantial research by the author, I wonder whether I, too, given the time and the resources, could produce anything readable.  More and more, as I blog, I feel that writing is just something I have to do.  I had not written (aside from legal documents) in so long, and now that writing is part of my daily life again, I feel alive in a way that I forgot existed. 

***** A few hours later, I have just returned from lunch with some of my fellow associates and summer associates.  Today we ventured to Real Food Daily in WeHo for some vegan cuisine (one of the summer associates is vegan and another is vegetarian, and so far this summer we have subjected them to many a lunch of watching us stuff our faces with burgers while they quietly eat a garden salad, so we decided to return the favor). 

My meal was quite good — ginger tofu and veggies over soba noodles — but overall, I’m sure I would perish if forced to live a vegan lifestyle.  As an avid meat-atarian, the idea of fake meat (today’s specials included fake Salisbury steak and fake meat loaf) really creeps me out (I know, I know–I should admit that real meat is much more disgusting on many levels, but I love it, so sue me). 

To top it off, the restaurant had a list as long as my arm of desserts, each one sounding more tantalizing than the last.  I ordered the chocolate pudding, thinking to myself that my pudding taste buds are hardly sophisticated — I buy Jell-o pudding snack packs at the grocery store and am happy as a clam.  However, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the consistency of the pudding was what I imagine it would be if you mixed cocoa powder, cream and a healthy serving of blackboard chalk in the blender.  Blech.

That’s OK, tonight I am going to Hamburger Mary’s, one of my favorite neighborhood spots, where there is no fake meat in sight!

Flashback: 1991-1992

Hello dear readers!

I am sitting at my parents’ laptop at the kitchen table, looking out at their gorgeous, lush and tranquil backyard. They had a new deck put in recently, and they put a lot of energy into maintaining the lawn and the various plants and flowers: ferns, rhodedhendrons (sp?), succulents, etc. It’s beautiful and so serene. The past day 1/2 has been a bit drizzly and overcast, but I haven’t minded one bit. It always takes me a little while to shed off the stress and fast-paced impatience of L.A. (i.e. when everyone here drives 30 mph down the main streets and there is only one lane in each direction so you just have to wait), but then I slip back into this pace of life, and realizing that the most urgent place I have to be is dinner (at 5 pm, ha!) is incredible.

The other thing that inevitably happens when I come up here is that I feel like I have entered a time capsule, and suddenly it is 1997 and I am in high school. I always feel, during my trip, like I have to keep in touch with my BF or at least someone from my present “real” life so that I feel anchored to who I am now. Then again, there is something important about remembering who the teenage version of myself was, what she cared about, what she dreamed about, what she wanted to be when she became the grown-up version of me.

Deciding, then, to embrace this peculiar form of time travel (I should have mentioned that I have been reading The Time Travelers Wife, which inspired this thinking), I decided to go to the giant cardboard box in my childhood bedroom and dig out the multitude of journals I kept from elementary school all the way through high school.

So, what did Little Miss Law care about in 1991? (6th grade).

Two things: 1) BOYS — namely, why was no one asking me out? 2) My friends, and making sure everyone was getting along.

Those of you who know the grownup Little Miss Law know that these obsessions have not changed 100% since ’91.

I decided to share some of these entries with my dear readers verbatim. Because seriously, I can’t make this stuff up.

Nov. 9, 1991: Dear Diary, Oh my. S.L., the guy M. has liked since July, told her stepbrother-to-be that he “sort of” has a girlfriend. She is SOOOOOO sad. I don’t know what to say to her. She was depressed yesterday, so I sang her a line from a song by Michael Bolton that goes, “You may think your world is over, but at a chance, remember this: Nothin; heals a broken heart like time, love and tenderness.” Oh yeah…I got my bangs permed again!!

NOTE: Apparently my current not-so-secret love for adult contemporary music started at a young age!

Dec 9, 1991: We switched seats in class and I sit behind A. We’re starting a new unit on (gag me) puberty. P.S. I got a cool clock radio with cassette recorder for Hanukah last night!

March 10, 1992: L. told me that today she told T.H. that I have a big crush on him and M. and L. both say that M. nodded when L. said, “Isn’t that right, M?” Aah! It’s not true! Guess what! I’m soooooo dumb! B. told me one day that I should shave my arms and I finally did today. And my mom, like, freaked out! “What?!” she cried. “You didn’t shave your arms did you!?” “Yes, why?” I asked. She explained how stubbly my arms could get. OH WELL!

Mar. 18, 1992: J.C. is nice, but he admits that he changes girlfriends as much as he changes shirts. Here are the ones I know of, in order: Shannon somebody, Pam, Brandi, Marniece (school slut), Erica M, Erica B, Shannon again, and now Tabitha. Huh!

April 9, 1992: I really want a boyfriend now. I mean, Carson’s had 4 girlfriends, Bayla’s had 3 boyfriends that I know of (she claims she has had more), Ilona has had 12 boyfriends, J.C’s has about 20 (ha) and claims he has 5 right now. Even M.’s had a boy ask her out, and has another boy who has a crush on her. (But she doesn’t know who.) Carmen knows but she’s sworn to secrecy.

April 26, 1992: M. & Greg went to the movies yesterday (on a DATE!) But Greg invited Derek, and M. says that Greg paid more attention to Derek than to her. Oh well. They went to see “White Men Can’t Jump.” My mom won’t even let me double-date till high school. She won’t let me date one-on-one until I’m 16. I really think that’s UNFAIR!! I can’t have a boy-girl party till 8th grade!! EEK!!!!!!

April 27, 1992: Things are kinda awkward between Greg & M. now. I guess after you’ve gone out with someone who you’re not formally “going with,” you both wonder where it’ll go from there.

*** Wow, how insightful of 12-year-old Little Miss Law!! If I had even imagined how complicated relationships could be, I might have thanked my mom for trying to spare me from it, at least until after puberty!

That’s all for now. Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. More later on my actual trip!