The Return of Little Miss Law

Hello, old friends!

As those of you who used to read this blog may recall, I stopped posting 3+ years ago.  I started a new blog, then another, until I gave up having a blog altogether.  I decided at that time that it had been wonderful and entertaining and therapeutic, but that I was done with sharing personal details of my life and that it was just too time consuming anyway.  A lot of wonderful things have happened in the past 3 years, which I will share in a moment.  But one thing hasn’t changed in that time – I still love to write, and I still don’t have an outlet that quite fulfills my need to write the way this blog did.  So after some consideration, I’m back!

So here’s the life of Little Miss Law over the past 3 years, in a nutshell (and yes,  just because I can never resist: “Help!  How do I get out of this nutshell?”)

1.  After many months of being in a funk and not feeling like myself, in 2008 I started seeing a therapist, who I saw for over a year.  I had always been reluctant about therapy, but she was terrific and it really helped bring me back to feeling…well, like me.

2. After many, many first and second dates with various eHarmony, Match, etc prospects that went nowhere, I met an amazing guy, who we’ll call Mr. Law, through mutual friends in September 2008.  (He’s a litigator like me, at a small firm.)  Words don’t suffice to describe this, but he is everything I’ve always been looking for.  We hit it off and our relationship took off quickly.  In May 2010 we got engaged and we’re getting married in July!  (Yes, this blog is likely to contain many wedding-related posts.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

3. After looking at 60-70 houses starting in January 2010, in September Mr. Law and I bought our 1st house, a 98-year-old Craftsman in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.  We both fell in love the first time we saw it and, even though homeownership can be daunting and scary, not a day goes by that we don’t comment how lucky we are to have found a place that is so perfect for us.

And now for the things that haven’t changed:

4.  The infamous Noodles is still around (in fact, he is sitting partially on my arm as I write this!)  He has mellowed out substantially since the days of the vicious attacks, and he and Mr. Law have even grown to love each other.

5.  I’m still at the same firm practicing litigation, and now more than ever (as a 6th year associate) I feel like I’m at a crossroads where I need to decide where to go from here.  (More on this to come too.)

6.  My same friends who I mentioned previously on the blog are all still very much in the picture and, in most cases, will be in my wedding.  But those friends are also almost all married and some have kids or kids on the way.  Three years has definitely caused a huge shift in that regard!

This is a short post, but I promise you, dear readers (if I have any now), to make my blogging regular again and not leave you hanging for another 3 years!

Till next time,

LML

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.

Cyber-Crushing

Is it actually possible to have a crush on someone you’ve never…well, actually met?

I posed this question to T. today in the context of the new guy I’ve been emailing with, and she reassured me that yes, if it’s acceptable to have crushes on celebrities, it is definitely OK to crush on a guy you have actually talked to (albeit only online and once on the phone). Whew. Glad I’m not completely crazy.

This guy’s passion is writing, so it’s no wonder that his emails are nothing short of excellent. Witty, cute, unpretentious, sly movie references — what’s not to like? Sending lengthy emails back and forth, though, tends to create this odd feeling, where you feel that on the one hand you know part of this person’s life story (way more so than someone you meet at, say, a bar) but on the other hand, again, you haven’t actually met them.

Anyway, after a week of emailing, I am ready to take this out of cyberspace and into the real world, and on Sunday we are meeting up for coffee. (Or, as I suggested to him in my last email, maybe we could just go eat a bunch of caramels. See, I can make sly movie references too!!) Here’s hoping that he is as fun & cute in person as he is over email & phone. When we talked on the phone, we were discussing writing and I mentioned my blog. I almost — almost! — made the lethal error of revealing my identity as Little Miss Law, but thankfully bit my tongue. Talk about him knowing my whole life story before he meets me! (Also, then I couldn’t write about him, which is just too fun.)

Noodles is snuggling up to me so close that I can’t even type anymore, which is a clear sign that he misses me and that it’s past our bedtime. Till later, dear readers, have a fantastic weekend!

It’s My Job, And I’ll Whine if I Want To

After my panic attack at work a couple of weeks ago, I have still been incredibly busy, but somewhat more calm. (Perhaps it’s just that I’m too busy to do more than just try to keep my head above water? Hmm.) I am still considering all my life options, but since I know I’m not going to be moving jobs or cities in the immediate future, I can relax and just keep my mind and eyes open.

One thing keeping my feet planted is that a case I’m on is going to jury trial in March, and I’m excited about that, so I know I need to stick around till then. Perhaps the fact that I am so excited about the prospect of choosing a jury, using a jury consultant, etc means I should stay Little Miss Law after all?…

In any event, at times when I’m feeling very burnt out and uninspired, it helps to know that I’m not alone. In that vein, I was amused by an article in my favorite blawg today about a poll taken that revealed that associates at big law firms are actually happy, and the follow-up comments on the truthiness or not of this finding. I can’t try to do the article justice, but the comments to it are particularly entertaining (and, as is always the case on this particular blawg, very snarky. And we wonder why us lawyers aren’t more beloved).

The commenters, among other things, say that law firm associates who complain about their jobs are basically big ol’ whining babies, since they are getting paid outrageously to do a cushy job. One commenter said that associates who went straight from college into law school are the biggest whiners of all.

Sure, call me a whiner. That’s fine. At least I’m not alone.

This past weekend I spent time with my best friend M. for the last time before she moves to England! We had a fantastic time — went to the movies (is there anyone hotter than Clive Owen, particularly as a pirate?), she made me some of her organic cooking, we dressed up for Halloween and went out, and we went to Santa Barbara for the day. When we were in SB, we stopped at a cute coffee shop to get some chai and ask for directions since we went the wrong way on State Street. I looked around at the people on their laptops and I thought how much I would love to be a free lance writer, and have my laptop be my only office. Of course, I know what an uphill battle that would be, but it’s fun to imagine myself as the next Carrie Bradshaw. Dear readers, do you know anyone who has actually lived a seemingly farfetched dream?

And, to top this off before I head to bed, something to make me and my compatriots feel better about our jobs, a quote from a reader of the above article:

“As a Naval Officer I worked twice as hard and earned one third as much money as I do as a 1st year associate in BigLaw. They actually let me sit down here when I am doing my work at 2 in the morning. That makes me happy.”

Yes…it could definitely be worse. Hold on a moment while I scratch “Naval Officer” off my wish list.

Have a Happy Halloween, dear readers!

Memory

Dear readers, I’m not feeling very bloggy tonight.  So instead of a true blog, a poem, by Miller Williams:

Memory

You can’t keep all of the past in a backpack or purse

all of the time.  It’s heavy, and what’s worse,

it wouldn’t leave room for much else,

what with drive-in movies, wooden motels,

a record player with needles, a touring car.

But what we were is much of what you are,

and what you are … believe me when I say

that what you are is going to wear away

little by little until, to your awful surprise,

you aren’t all there; you barely recognize

what’s left.  Go now and rummage back to find

some odds and ends that may have been consigned

to dusty boxes somewhere in the mind.

Put them together and make of them a book

with ragged, bone-white leaves and a leather look.

Use whatever is there–how it was to spend

a long while in silence with a friend,

to watch the trembling death of a dog, to look

with wonder on the ordinary, to like

the feel in the flesh of time passing, to be

your crowded selves with nothing more from me.

I can’t say what you’ll find for stuff and glue.

I don’t know what you’re made of.  I hope you do.

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!