elegy

so, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that i started a new job. so far, so good! but today was my first day and i think i'm predisposed to not sleep the day before the first day of anything, so, y'know, unreliable narrator and whatnot.

i'm going to get so emotional, baby.

i feel an enormous sense of loss. i suppose that is a cliche, and i probably should explain in greater detail. despite all of the problems at my old job, i wholeheartedly feel it was the first time pretty much ever i enjoyed being a lawyer. and that includes all three years of law school. i worked 12, 14, 17 hour days (consecutively!) completely voluntarily. sure, i was tired, but it was nothing in comparison to how empty i felt whilst working at the firm. i always thought people who told you to do what you love were privileged assholes spewing their trust-funded bullshit. but you know what? those people, whatever their station in life, are 100millionpercent right. if you are ever so lucky to find something you enjoy doing AND it pays a living wage?! by god, i hope you can hold onto it.

this does not mean that i'm not excited about what's ahead. emotions aren't mutually exclusive. it's perfectly logical for me to simultaneously feel bereft over the past and hopeful about the future. if you don't think so, perhaps that's a limitation of your emotional range. and the american obsession with everything sunny all the time always. nonetheless, i would say the lowest depth of misery is to have something you love taken away from you through no fault of your own.

i was feeling rather self-conscious about just how deep this shit was, then someone pointed out that if you're supposed to be passionate about what you're doing, then it's impossible for you to not feel equally passionate upon its sudden departure.

so there you go--i have no answers. i'm tremendously grateful that i got to experience that period of belonging. and here is to hoping that i can regain that, and that you can experience it, too.

final countdown

so...last day! seriously, i cannot believe it's here. i almost don't want to say anything because i fear i am going to jinx myself. but hey, why not go out on a limb--i'm done! this is the first time i've ever really had a transition between jobs. i've held limited-term jobs (internships); i've been summarily dismissed from a job (layoff); and i've been allowed to leave some jobs on virtually no notice (working for my parents). otherwise, i quit my first post-college job on a friday and started work at a new job the following monday.

all that is to say, i've never looked forward to a vacation more than this. i'm going to shore up my liberal bona fides by finally watching the wire. i'll let you know whether it blows my mind.

duh news of the week: korean edition

actual research was needed for these conclusions??

Korea’s typical CEO is in his 50s, is surnamed Kim, lives in Gangnam – Seoul’s most expensive neighborhood – and graduated from Seoul National, the country’s top-notch university, according to a report published on Tuesday by Korea Listed Companies Association.

He is also a Seoul native, majored in business management, and is likely to have founded the company he runs or is a member of a founding family. He goes to church on Sundays, and is most likely to be enjoying a round of golf in his spare time.

Shootin the shit with smart people

I suppose some of you who actually care about, uh, the law and read the new York times before attending a 9 am conference on a saturday morning may ask Walter dellinger about the scope of executive power and the Obama white house's recent actions in Libya and the consequences therein. Yeah, well, I'm not that person. I heard what he said during the affordable care act panel and his comments during the executive panel. I won't bore you with those details.

I was standing around in the hallway before lunch waiting for a friend, and I noticed dellinger (wearing an adorable black leather backpack - I find it really endearing when old guys wear backpacks. RIP Brian simpson) talking to someone. I was wracking my brain, "I know there is a reason I wanted to talk to him and it is not about the law.". Then it hit me: he writes an incredibly thoughtful and enjoyable blog for the Wall Street Journal on, of all things, Mad Men. His co-bloggers include one of my favorite profs, Alan Brinkley. So I approached him and let him know just how much my friends and I enjoy his analysis.

He beamed, and said something along the lines of, "that's just what I want to hear!". What caught me by surprise was just how friendly and solicitous he was. I'd expect someone of his stature to be more standoffish. Take that Nicholas lemann. I never know how to end one of these exchanges - does Walter dellinger care for my business card? Probs not. I may drop him a note, though. I'm sure all the other attendees were too eggheady to drop the Mad Men reference. Sometimes being a dilettante has its advantages.

Other nonlegal observations:
Heard snoring audibly behind me at the executive powers panel - justice Stephen reinhart.
Seen nodding off at the panel on the first amendment - Linda greenhouse.

comment of the day

law firm associate to me: "you are one of the happier attorneys i know."

goings on at work

now that I work at a nonprofit, especially one that works so closely with law firms, I compare the two a lot. I guess I can't really help myself, as most of my working life has been spent inside a firm in some capacity. You're so jealous.

I work with a great crew of firm associates: they're intelligent, respectful and actually pretty creative, something firms don't generally encourage. They've shown an incredible level of initiative through some trying times.

so where do I fit in? My perennial nightmare is becoming the "crazy nonprofit lady." Who is she? She is always harried, never quite on time, responds to your email like 2 weeks too late, and doesn't quite ever tell you what you need to do.

The thing is, there is a tremendous amount of personal pride on the line here. I know how for-profit attorneys sometimes underestimate their nonprofit counterparts and I don't want to confirm their prejudices.

Of course, I've kind of set myself up to be disappointed. there are 8 associates plus two paralegals from the firm. And just me on my side.

recently, the associates showed me the prototype of a database that they built for our project. You should see this thing. It's streamlined, logical, intuitive and easy-to-use. I was floored. They had built this in 2 weeks. But because it's me, it also kind of massively bummed me out. I would never be able to create anything even remotely close, and whatever piece of shit I could build would take months, since every box of rocks with delusions of grandeur on my side would meddle. it also made me sad because this database also showed that all these well-meaning, affluent, impeccably-pedigreed (and white) associates were working at a firm of a different caliber. One that would allow an IT team to create this enterprise for free. This was just one example of the many resources at their disposal. These kids, who had always been ahead in life, would remain ahead.

you can see why the initial euphoria dissipated pretty quickly. I know. Having been one myself, these associates hate their current lives. No doubt about that. Let me just not have any perspective here, ok?

anyway, I let the associates know that they had managed to both impress and depress me at the same time, minus the class stuff. I think they were somewhat proud that their creation elicited such emotional highs and lows.

this is too easy

adding to the din of those doubting the merits of a J.D., the times published a lengthy article on how law schools manipulate employment statistics. yes, turns out law schools are very creative when it comes to revealing their graduates' employment rates, and there is virtually no oversight or market correction.

the article highlights the tribulations of a recent graduate of thomas jefferson law school (wha? yeah, fine, i sound like an elitist here, but wha??) saddled with $250,000 of student loan debt and minimally employed. i really am unable to discern why this person agreed to be profiled because, frankly, he comes off as an utter idiot. let's see here:

1. hmm, well, at least he'll be marrying a fellow moron:

Mr. Wallerstein is chatting over lunch one recent afternoon with his fiancée, Karin Michonski. She, too, seems unperturbed by his dizzying collection of i.o.u.’s. Despite those debts, she hopes that he does not wind up in one of those time-gobbling corporate law jobs.

“We like hanging out together,” she says with a laugh.

oh yeah, big firms love THOMAS JEFFERSON LAW SCHOOL. the school's name doesn't even make sense. why is there a school named after TJ in san diego?

2. Mr. Wallerstein rented a spacious apartment. He also spent a month studying in the South of France and a month in Prague — all on borrowed money. There were cost-of-living loans, and tuition of about $33,000 a year. Later came a $15,000 loan to cover months of studying for the bar.

$15,000? how?

3. Today, his best guess is that he should be sending $2,000 to $3,000 a month in total, to lenders that include Wells Fargo, Citibank and Sallie Mae.

“There are a bunch of others,” he says. “I’m not really good at keeping records.”

no, c'mon dude. as someone presumably seeking to stay as an attorney, please do not announce to the world that you lack one of the profession's most fundamental skills.

4. “It’s a prestige thing,” he says. “I’m an attorney. All of my friends see me as a person they look up to. They understand I’m in a lot of debt, but I’ve done something they feel they could never do and the respect and admiration is important.”

5. “Bank bailouts, company bailouts — I don’t know, we’re the generation of bailouts,” he says in a hallway during a break from his Peak Discovery job. “And like, this debt of mine is just sort of, it’s a little illusory. I feel like at some point, I’ll negotiate it away, or they won’t collect it.”

art vs. commerce, etc.

i found out that pavement will be appearing on jimmy fallon. and they're holding a contest to see who can jam with pavement. you can enter here, guitar hero.

so how do you feel? yeah yeah, if you care for pavement, i know, c4ts.

1. yay, pavement on a mainstream tv program!

2. jesus, pavement on jimmy fallon?

this, combined with the fact that i corresponded with a 2L today who was born in 1987, i need to up my fibre intake. or something.

checking in with...

james franco. he played the sensitive punk rather well on freaks and geeks. then went onto co-star in the spider-man movies. his interview on fresh air, circa milk, was rather painful. he's pretty inarticulate despite enrolling in like 4 or 5 colleges, including, infamously, columbia.

well well well, turns out i completely underestimated him! he's operating in a meta-universe that is way beyond me.

- first, he decided to play some crazy artist on general hospital, also named franco. those who bothered to think about it probably thought, why would a pretty famous and established actor go on a soap opera?

- then he wrote an op-ed in the wall street journal (confirming my long-held suspicion that the journal is actually way more out there than the times ever will be, caveman diet or not) about how said stint on GH is actually performance art.

- asked why he went on GH in the first place, turns out he will be in a movie playing a character who used to be on a soap opera, so he decided to go on a soap opera. what??

anyway, the point of this whole post, of course, is about his role last week as himself on 30 rock. explaining his decision to play a creepy version of himself obsessed with a japanese body pillow, he said, "I thought it was pretty weird at first, but then I met Kimiko and she's so pretty and sweet. I kept her. She's at the apartment. I haven't been around for a while, so she's been a little lonely."

you win, franco. i will never doubt your career choices ever again.

oh yeah, c4ts, stop pooping on all my posts. why don't you go ahead and post your 7000 favorite songs of the aughts already.

I'm Not Going to Spend My Life Being a Color

E, You're feeling down today, since Lloyd Blankfein, your ertwhile hero and future husband, turns out is not the stand-up dude we thought him to be. I want to cheer you up. If I knew how to Photoshop, I'd put your face in place of this girl's--although I don't know that I have ever seen you with as pained an expression as hers. It's like the photographer captured the very moment her appendix burst. Still the picture is saved by our boy M Sizzle. You crazy for this one, RNC! Urban suburban hip communities be my jam!

ps -- I really wanted to put a still from the Michael Jackson "Black or White" video next to this picture. You know the still I mean. The one where after the rap interlude, MJ and Macauley strike the same timeless, hoppity hip shoulder blade to blade, arms-crossed pose. But all I could find was this.

Rolling Wid Da Homeez (Clueless Reference, a film from 1995)

Haha. I am the best at doing occasional non-posts. But what can I say -- this picture makes me so happy, I have to share it with the world and cover it in gold dust and post it on my ceiling and look at it every night before I go to bed. Not like ironically happy -- I mean kittens napping with babies on a bed of world peace, for-realsies happy.

ps -- E, wtf do we have a Brittany Murphy tag? Oh, yes, because we're awesome. Sorry, forgot for a second.

haven't we been through enough, new york?

our tax revenues have plummeted, our governor is supposedly inept (although someone please give me a cogent explanation of why this is so), and now we may have to look at this fuckface again? why???

pity for fleury???

wow, theoren fleury was like the closest thing i had to an imaginary archnemesis as a kid. this tiny little player (well, for hockey anyway. he's about my height) was pesky, annoying and hated by any mildly knowledgeable canuck fan. fleury's new-ish memoir, playing with fire, is the number one nonfiction book in canada. take that, andre agassi! on a side note, agassi's interview with terry gross was pretty surprising. he apparently totally hated tennis! how is that even possible?!

according to his memoir, fleury was sexually abused over a two-year period by his junior hockey coach, then spent the rest of his life succumbing to virtually every temptation: cocaine, alcohol, prostitutes. at one point, he even attempted suicide. i don't really understand how these athletes can abuse their bodies to such a degree yet still manage to outperform any average human being.

in case you thought this was all confessional self-actualization fluff, fleury doesn't disappoint, describing forgotten one-time phenom alexandre daigle as follows: "What a beauty, that guy. He had all the tools, but no box to go with it. Dumb as a post."

haha, god, only if sarah palin could make her memoir half as interesting.

everything is coming up blankfein

did you see this? i know, the headline is just so predictable that you couldn't bring yourself to read it, could you? can you really stomach yet another article about how goldman sachs is, in its own words (wink, nudge), doing "god's work?" how many ways can these assholes win?

last year, banks awarded its bonuses in stock instead of cash. everyone approved, except the recipients, of course. bitching and moaning ensued. [insert some sarcastic comment about how they're going to have to settle for X equally extravagant item instead of Y prevailing extravagant item.] stock prices circa late-2008 were in the toilet. government hands over gobs of $$$. stock prices appreciate, and what happens in late-2009? windfall! underwritten by whom? you, me, other taxpayers. how about a quote to drive the point home:

"And so the bonuses Wall Street received last year, billed as paltry at the time, are turning out to be among the most lucrative payouts ever."

what happened to the legal industry at the same time? oh right. this.

groan, moan, eyeroll, envy, exclamations of disgust, throwing hands in the air in defeat, etc.

anyway, c4ts, i think you should send ben sisario a piece of your mind.

separated at birth - the genocide edition

aw fuck it, i can't get the formatting right. you get my drift.

look up schadenfreude in the dictionary...

and i believe you'll find this article there.

in other news, thank goodness 30 rock is back! yeah, i guess it was a little bit weak, but you gotta love "we no longer wanna hit that."

things that are older than c4ts

not eliot spitzer's "kristen"!

happy birthday, dude! (don't ask - i googled "birthday" and that image showed up. seriously. try it).

your party will self-destruct in 5...4...

during this interminable primary season(...s?) the democrats continue to wring their hands over which candidate will be able to withstand the republican attack machine. oh, i am not underestimating the republicans' formidable power and organization. nonetheless, there was so much hope among the democrats: the strength of the main dem candidates (yes c4ts, including edwards), the questionable viability of all of the republican frontrunners, not to mention the sad state of the bush presidency. how can the democrats possibly do wrong? but you know, it turns out that all the republicans had to do was to sit back and watch bc, surprise, the dems can't get themselves together to save their lives.

if i'm getting this straight, michigan and florida first decided to move their primaries to january in violation of party rules. the DNC stripped michigan and florida of their delegates as a result. the candidates also promised that they wouldn't campaign in either state. clinton won in both states, with obama not even appearing on the michigan primary ballot (unbeknownst to me. i kind of magically tuned all of this noise out before).

all through the primaries the clinton campaign grumbled about how they will eventually seat those hard-fought - not really - delegates. i kind of ignored this and this asinine statement from clinton herself. once a lawyer, always a lawyer. i've noticed this instinct to parse everything to death in myself, even at this very early stage in my career.

anyway, now the obama and clinton campaigns are at war over what to do about said michigan and florida delegates. the head of the DNC is flip-flopping himself. seat the michigan/florida delegates in accordance with their january vote? hold new primaries? spend even MORE money?

i kind of want everyone involved in this fiasco to all get on a really big bus, then drive themselves off a cliff. this is maddening.

neocon fashion show part 2

anticipation

is not just a carly simon song. it's also what you're feeling now that i'm telling you that the 1 year milestone for this tour de force in the blogosphere is just around the corner. c4ts and i are gonna do something totally awesome. or not. but maybe!