It's always a good idea to let vindaloo settle in your stomach before hopping on the treadmill, correct? I'm not procrastinating, I'm just...protecting my esophagus.
I've entered the uneasy, uncomfortable adolescent stage that comes after you've gotten situated in a new job and people start coming to you for advice and counseling. But as my boss says, the only real way that you can learn is to just start taking ownership and don't be afraid to make mistakes. But having come from a job where getting your self-esteem eroded on a daily basis, I'm more inclined to feel poorly about making mistakes.
I think that's the thing that's so hard about this whole gig. I analogized my daily doings to shepherding a running herd of cattle in a general direction, without knowing whether I'm sending them over a cliff into a dismal abyss of legally questionable activities. And to make matters more confusing, my legal "spidey senses" are not yet developed in this area, since it's a relatively new one for me. I have made some wrong calls lately, and I have to learn to be fine with that and learn from that. I do learn from it, it's just that it takes a while for me to be "fine with it."
It makes it easier, however, that I have nice eye candy to distract me. No specific eye candy in particular, it's just that as a whole, my company is relatively attractive. Some hotties up in herre. That also push the phat rides, judging from the view from the corridor outside my office. I really shouldn't complain.
Time to enlist those "coping strategies" that we all know and love, for the mother in-law will be swooping in to visit for a week starting on Friday. She comes armed to the gills with coma-inducing sugar, annoyingly high-pitched voices, and enough delusion to make you question your own grip on reality. I think that my greatest annoyance is that I cannot change her or her attitude towards what makes people happy, or perhaps get her to recognize that the things that make her "happy" are not what make me happy. I'm an introvert, having found my solace in a dark corner of my closet with a flashlight and Beverly Cleary at the age of twelve. And frankly, not much has changed about me. I simply don't "do" meaningless conversation because it stresses me the fuck out. Can't stand weather talk, and I think the how's-your sister/brother/parents questions (I prefer to answer all with "fine") are nosy.
So in summary, I do find her to be someone that I wouldn't want to be friends with on a personal level, let alone my mother-in-law. And I stress out for at least a week before she comes and visits because our house is so small and her presence is so big that it seems like she's EVERYWHERE. And she is. She can't be alone by herself. She needs to be where she can talk to people. Talk talk talk. I am little worried since they are going to be with Q during the day for 5 days, but they will get their fix and hopefully go home happy. But I have reservations about the easter basket filled to the sky with sugar and cheesy $1 gifts, but we'll see.
The Governor, in contrast, will probably have a blast. I think he'll be fine. He is so opinionated, even these days. He is starting to develop these "organizational" habits, like always putting his juice in the fridge, and having to turn the TV off ("I wanna doo eet!") when the DVR has finished playing his Dr@gon T@les, or putting all of his trains in neat rows. He asks for "Thirty Kisses," which is this thing we have developed to help him count to thirty. I kiss him thirty times, and he has to count. He picks up on numbers and quantities faster than sounds and letters, but he picks up singing and tunes very well (including the "Scooby-Doo" theme, which I believe he's only heard once or twice, maybe?).
So to summarize: deep. breaths.
The best lawyers and law students, in my very humble and unsolicited opinion, are the ones that do not take themselves too seriously. I think to really succeed in this profession, you have to want to realize that you don't know everything--and that you can always learn more. I think it's unfortunate that because getting into law school and surviving it, law students are often tempted to think that they are "more intelligent" than everyone else. And frankly, I've given into that temptation a few times, with "few" meaning "more times than I'd care to admit." However, when I think about the things I admire about my favorite current and former bosses, they all seem to possess a certain humility that compels them to want to continue learning, even as they become senior litigators, biglaw partners, and heads of government bureaus.
I enjoyed law school, and I enjoy being a lawyer. It took some experience and determining what really made me happy, but I am thrilled to walk into my company have people barrage me, asking for guidance and advice. I love it that I have only been there but three months, and people think of me first when they need to get something done. I like knowing what "price elasticity" means, and being able to joke with my supervisor about it. A litigation risk calculation tickles my fancy...well partially because I don't have to do the actual litigating itself. I'm just one of those people whose personality fits this little corner of the legal profession in which I sit.
So to those of you who have that question in the back of your minds: yes, it does happen. You can be a lawyer and be fairly happy.
I am feeling a tad guilty about having withheld posting about supermaggie's sample sale until I made my selections. I'm the proud owner of the Vertical Stripe Scarf in Beach and the Skinny in Stripes. The former is for fun, and the latter is...for fun too (but it also matches my red spring coat). Yess!
The internet is a very strange thing. You can get drawn into all sort of drama online that consumes your mental and emotional energy even when you're not posting on your blog or on a message board. I exchanged some brief heated words with one of the other moderators that I am very close to on a certain message board (not D_igs, since I'm not a Housesitter, natch), and just finally stepped away from visiting there on Thursday. Initially, I wanted to see how and why I'd contributed to the mess. However, since I've not been back for the past few days, I've had all of this emotional and mental energy that I can devote to other things. Such as work. And The Governor and Conan. And laundry (boy do we need it). I figure I'll come back when I am good and ready. I'm not sure when that will be, but since I operate by instinct, I figure those "spidey senses" will kick in whenever that time comes.
I came to the realization that it is time to close down dear-bean, save everything to disc and print it out, and give it to Q. We now talk about all of the things I want to tell him, and I figure I'll use this blog to document our lives together. My emotions and sense of balance hinge partially on my interactions with him, so it makes sense. That doesn't mean I don't experience a little pang of guilt or loss, but in a way, it's time to move on.
I marshalled three projects (2 small ones and 1 large one) through completion by 10:30 this morning, and all of a sudden my industriousness took a nose-dive. So I'm sitting here at my desk shortly after noon, wishing so desperately for the end of the day. Unfortunately, I don't think my company has nap-time.
I have been stuck in a funk regarding The Governor's sudden transition to being a complete little boy. Two weeks ago, I could see vestiges of baby-ness in his features and demeanor. However, he had this ridiculous spurt in his conversational and mental abilities, and now does things like recall from memory and verbalize those thoughts. And those are not things that babies do.
A part of me loves it and is enthralled. However, another part of me hates it. That's right, I said "hate." I am sort of miserable about not having a baby anymore in the house, and I am coming to grips with having to let him "go" in many ways. I view motherhood as a never-ending series of "letting go" episodes; I am constantly re-assessing my relationship to him. For instance, and the extremely crowded mall playground at the mall the other day, he disappeared from my site quite a few times as he moved from the different parts of the playground. While my previous reaction would have been to immediately readjust my location so that I could see him at all times...I knew that he already knew to watch out for other kids ("especially babies!"), and to not go outside of the playground area. I also knew that he periodically searches for me from time to time, and would eventually come back to see me and boast his accomplishments.
And so I waited for a minute until I moved so that I could see him. But that minute was an eternity: I was fighting the urge to automatically "protect him" while allowing myself to wonder whether he was okay. I had to "let him go" for that minute, and it was so. hard. But parenting is ultimately about loss: you do all of these things for your child so that he can live halfway around the world if he wants--and still be safe and be a good person. I just figured that out recently, and I am sort of "grieving" about it.
It might explain why, as of lately, I can't shake this fear I have about something happening to The Governor sometime in his life. I don't know if it is resolution with this aspect of my role in his life, or if it is intuition, but for some random reason, I have this strange worry in the back of my head. I mean, there is always some healthy level of concern (which keeps me going), but as of lately (with the snow and us running around), my general level of concern has increased. And I am sort of scared about what that means.