My Life, As Told Between (Baby Cakes') Naps

Whew, just dodged the bullet for a document review project in Austin.  At least so far.  I feel bad for the first year going though; she has to leave Sunday.  Doc review by yourself in a strange city for an indeterminate period of time can not be fun.  Am keeping my fingers firmly crossed that I won’t be sent into the abyss. 

Diet going well.  Too weak to write.  Or too lazy.  Whichever.

One day down, the rest of my life to go.  Actually managed to get up early enough for a quick run this morning; not back up to six miles a day yet, but am inching my way back into shape (hopefully).  And, thanks to my late night dash to Target for weights and a pilates ball, I also did some weights this morning.  Successfully avoided all culinary temptation today, so short of a disaster in the next three hours, I think I’m safe for the day. =)

By the way, thanks for the lovely Christmas cards everyone (at least everyone who sent them – as for the rest of you, where’s my Christmas card?).  Sorry I’ve been such a slacker this year.  My frantic bout of phone calls and text messages while waiting for my flight back to LA yesterday wasn’t my best showing, but it was an attempt at keeping in touch.  And for those of you I wasn’t able to get ahold of, I blame you. 

As always, I loved being home and regressing back to an infantile stage where all of my conceivable needs are handled by others (although this may arguably also be the case in LA since my nifty roommate handles pretty much everything around the apartment, as well as doing the occasional post office run for me while I’m at work).  Nothing new to report, simply a good weekend spending time with people I care about.  I hope you all had the same.

Oh, one thing.  Having seen several newly svelte friends recently, I’m inspired to really get back on my diet and start my running again (even if this does entail getting up at 6am)!  So, contrary to this page’s tag line, I’m giving up both chocolates and martinis for awhile.  At least until my toes are once again visible.  So the next time we meet up, I may be a little more grumpy and a lot more tired, but hopefully I’ll also be thinner. =)  Expect to see daily details of my diet and exercise regime in the following months.  Yes, the fun just never ends on this blog. 

Going home!  Yay!  For someone well into their twenties, verging on their late twenties in fact, I still get ridiculously excited about going home during my breaks.  Anyways, I’m off to the airport.  Happy holidays everyone!

I love getting gifts.  Especially nice, useful, thoughtful gifts.  I just hate it when I don’t realize that we’re at the nice, thoughtful gift-giving level of friendship (which for me usually occurs after the ten year mark, mostly because I’m lazy and not particularly thoughtful).  I try, I really do.  I mean, I buy souvenirs when I can, often send postcards while away, and generally remember birthdays, give or take a few months, but buying so many gifts in such a short period of time is soooo hard!  (whine, whine, whine)

In any case, today the other first year in my group, someone who’s fast becoming one of my best friends in LA, gave me a beautifully engraved business card holder/clock.  It was thoughtful on so many levels: (a) I have nothing decorative in my office whatsoever right now and she thought it would be a nice place to start, (b) I like my name on things, it’s sad but true, and (c) it’s the first, and likely only, thing I have that says “Esq.”  Unfortunately, it also left me scrambling to buy a gift that shouts “THOUGHTFUL” and not “I BOUGHT THIS AT THE LAST MINUTE, AND IT WAS THE ONLY THING LEFT IN THE STORE.”  Although, perhaps I shouldn’t bother.  I think I may have given it away when I gasped and said, “Wait, we’re getting each other gifts?!”

On a brighter note, I had a great time at a friend’s potluck last night in Long Beach, despite somehow getting lost (keep in mind I’ve been to her house several times now since I’ve gotten to LA) on my way back and ending up at the LAX airport trying to figure out how to get home.  Oh well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I provided some holiday cheer for friends when I called them up, repeatedly, asking for directions on how to get back to my apartment, only to hang up and call again when I realized I’d forgotten half of what they had said.  At least I’m assuming it was an overabundance of holiday cheer that lead to the non-stop laughing on their end. 

Here I sit, staring at my blackberry, hoping it doesn’t buzz.  Please, please, please stay silent…    

*Sad violin music playing in the background*

I hate to be so cliche, but thank God it’s Friday.  Although Friday does lose some of its charm when you have to come in early Saturday.  I received my first Friday 5:00pm call today; it came from the NY office.  I expect most of my weekend is effectively ruined.

Coincidently, we also received notice of our bonuses today.

In any case, I’m off to enjoy my Friday night before I have to face a Saturday at the office.  I’m going to a friend of a friend’s party, where we’ll no doubt see how many people can fit into a small, two bedroom apartment.  Rumor has it that there will be test tube shots and perhaps a test tube shot girl hired for the occasion.  That part doesn’t sound so fun, but I am excited about getting to wear these new gold shoes I bought recently (no, they’re not tacky, I promise!).  Oh, and if anyone has any advice on how to get this site to accept posts/responses, shoot me an email.  Despite my best efforts (i.e. hitting random buttons), I’m told it still isn’t working.  I’m baffled.     

A co-worker told me, as I was complaining (yet again) about all this holiday weight gain (while simultaneously consuming my fourth piece of chocolate), that “If you’ve lived a full life, you won’t go to your grave looking good, you’ll skid in sideways clutching a martini in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other.”  Or something to that effect.  Of course, she’s from Texas.  Only people from Texas can get away with saying stuff like that (or things like “That dog won’t hunt”).  Anyways, I like it.  Am thinking of using it as the new tag line for my blog.  What do y’all think?  It’s either that or Diaries of a Corporate Lawyer.  Which either sounds kinda cool, or really, really lame.  Given my tendency towards all things lame, I venture to say it’s the later.  

By the way, I’ve had a few people mention that they can’t respond to the postings.  I think I’ve fixed it.  Just click on the link that says discuss, below the posts, and we’ll see what happens.  I do wish you all would respond.  As narcissistic as I am, I still like to know people are out there and I’m not the only one who finds my extremely boring life riveting. =)

I finished up work early today.  We’re still waiting for feedback on some of the stuff we submitted.  Had a scary moment when one of the more senior associates warned me that I may get a call at 3am to come into the office and help with revisions if the feedback arrives late.  It still hadn’t arrived when I left at 8:30, so there’s still the possibility, but given how little I know and how utterly unhelpful I’d be, it’s probably a slim possibility at best. 

Yuck.  Completed a long day at the office today with a Jack in the Box splurge.  It was a spontaneous roommate excursion; although, the only reason I went was because I’ve been desperately wanting a Reindeer Jack ball for my car.  Unfortunately, I only belatedly realized that my car does not actually have a protruding antenna upon which to affix said ball. 

Just got home from work. It’s been a long day, and anticipating a longer one tomorrow. On the positive side, I really like the people I work with, even if one of them did laugh at me today. I think I caught him off guard with my utter lack of any pratical legal knowledge. He was actually really great at explaining what I was supposed to have done and how to go about doing it, and at least I was comfortable enough to tell him to stop laughing. Although he didn’t.

Wow, I really can’t sing.  At all.  That became painfully obvious tonight.  After ducking out of work before seven, virtually unheard of in the corporate legal world, I headed out to Handel’s Messiah sing-a-long at the nearby Walt Disney Concert Hall.  That’s right folks.  You heard me:  Handel’s Messiah sing-a-long.  Minutes after sitting down and picking up the score, I realized that I’d somehow forgotten everything I had learned in my six years of playing the piano and clarinet.  And that I’ve never had to sing in public without a couple of beers in me.  Fortunately, the rest of the crowd was more than loud enough to cover the fact that I was only mouthing the words, as well as the fact that I stopped doing so about five minutes into the first song because I realized even that required too much work.  The music was good, the venue was neat, and the crowd was enthusiastic though, so all in all, it was a good night.  And on that note, good night all. 

So as some of you know, I went to a co-worker’s party last night. There was hot tubbing involved. Yes, a hot tubbing party in the middle of winter. Only in LA. Party was a fun, nice mix of people rather than a lawyer-intensive affair, which has been the norm for me recently. There was food galore, a small, contained fire in the backyard to roast marshmallows for s’mores, and alcoholic drinks freely flowing. And in an odd twist of events, the combination of an open flame and obscene amounts of alcohol did not result in any hilarious hijinks. Although there may have been some nudity in the hot tub. I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors (but y’all may be relieved to know that I, myself, remained fully clothed).

Hot tubbing aside, had a productive and educational weekend. A little bit of shopping at The Grove. Saw the sequel to Bridget Jones with my new-found friend (who had the misfortune of being seated next to me on a flight to New York a few months ago and hasn’t been able to shake me since). By the way, I agree with the critics, regardless of the movie’s ostensible message, the real message is that fat is unattractive. Met with one of my best friends from high school for brunch at the Grand Lux Cafe. Yum. Finally got Tobe Too washed. It turns out you can only skip washing a car for about two months before you’re unable to see out of the windows. Also learned never to get into the cash only line at a grocery store unless you know (a) exactly how much cash you have on hand and (b) exactly how much your groceries are going to cost. Otherwise, it’s a nerve wracking, nail biting (Hey, let go. Ouch, that hurts!), thoroughly unpleasant experience.

My litigation group had our team dinner at a partner’s house tonight.  We all exchanged gifts and warm and fuzzies we had anonymously written earlier in the week.  My personal favorite started with “I know Harvard graduates don’t have the best reputations” and basically said I was a nice person despite the fact that I graduated from HLS.  I’ve actually received several comments along those lines in the last few years.  Honestly, what are other HLSers doing out there in the world that’s giving us such a bad reputation?

I don’t know when it happened.  I was at lunch yesterday with another first year associate and two of her friends.  One is the VP of something in a big bank and the other is a money manager.  And while it was supposed to be just a lunch among friends, it felt more like a networking event to me.  Both were very nice, but it was disconcerning how we all shifted into our “professional” voices when discussing our, for lack of a better word, “careers,” and then slid easily back into the slang of our every day lives when discussing things like our friends and past times.  It left me wondering.  Am I slowly turning into an adult despite my best intentions? 

It was nice to get back to my grad student roommate, who was giggling with excitement over an A+ she’d received.  Now that’s the kind of world with which I’m familiar.

Now, I don’t want to be one of those whiny LA people I make fun of, but my God, it’s FREEZING here!  I did not leave the East Coast for this!  Thankfully, I didn’t burn all my winter clothes, as I had contemplated, because I wanted to save them in the unlikely event that hell froze over.  What do you know?  It did. 

Aside from spending most of my day shivering, I’m finally wrapping up a document review project that’s taken me, oh, let’s say, my entire existence up until this point.  At least that’s what it feels like.  

Went to the UCLA/USC game Saturday and while we lost, as anticipated, it was a respectable game.  UCLA didn’t get its butt kicked too badly. =)  It gives me hope that the USC streak will end one day.  I finally got a glimpse of this “tailgating” that people are always talking about.  Interesting.  Not my scene, but interesting…

Also went to my firm’s holiday party at the Natural History Museum Saturday (slogan:  Dancing with the Dinosaurs) with one of my best friends (who was mad at not being mentioned in the previous, unedited version of this post).  Very different environment.  Didn’t win anything in the raffle, but had fun nonetheless, if for no other reason than because I got to witness the awesome power of the statement “I’m getting a PhD in astrophysics.”  I’ve never seen a conversation killed quite so quickly and efficiently before, not even back when my girlfriends and I had to drop the (obnoxiously monikered) H-bomb at The Kell’s. (And yes, I realize use of the word “moniker” is obnoxious in and of itself, but what can I say?  I didn’t escape Cambridge completely unscathed.)

Finished most of my Christmas shopping.  Yay!  (Had my sister over to wrap the gifts; she enjoys it – really!)  Whew, such a relief.  Now, it’s just sitting back and waiting for the gifts to arrive. =) 

The State Bar’s swearing in ceremony was today. I’m now officially a lawyer. Wow.