hello again...for now

like occupy wall street, the future of this blog remains somewhat unclear to me. this used to be a mishmash of random thoughts--generally speaking, things i wanted to bring to others' attention but seemed unfit to be shared elsewhere. maybe this forum lacks the instant gratification of a "like" button or an immediate audience that basically is also somewhat captive.

anyway, enjoy the above. deep thoughts by jack handey are my madeleines.

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.

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.

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who knew that lcd soundsystem would make its last tv appearance on colbert? not i. and before you scoff, i have to explain: you see, i've kind of put a moratorium on blogs. i still surf the facebook and occasionally glance at huffingtonpost, but that's about it. why? i dunno. probably because i think my brain was starting to suffer from a bit of overload. and yes, yes, i too learned about irony and realize that i am writing about my blog respite...on a blog. of course, egypt just had to go and start an incredible democratic revolution during this time. (if you haven't read this article on how the movement was organized, i highly recommend it. it makes you swell with some strange, unfamiliar sense of optimism, but also kind of bums you out that you've never been part of anything so significant even though you are their contemporaries. also, as i mentioned to my coworker, if it were up to us and our current team of morons at work, we'd still be living in a police state).

anyway.

i went to see some classical music and one of the musicians cracked a joke that really was suitable only for an audience this old and, um, curiously dressed. (why so many nehru jackets?). it reminded me of two things:

1. in the beginning of a modern music class in college, my prof tweeted a couple of trills on a flute and asked us to guess the tune. when we were all stumped, he yelled in mock exasperation, "c'mon guys! mahler's 4th!" and the class erupted in laughter. (hear for yourself.)

2. in college, i first discovered one of the pieces performed tonight. it's the only schoenberg piece i have and probably will ever enjoy, and i played this recording of it very enthusiastically on my friday afternoon classical music radio show. c'mon y'all, orpheus! the conductorless wonder!

like alec baldwin who, as he watches a home movie of himself as a kid opening presents at a birthday party, wonders what possibly could have made him happy enough to yarf, i sometimes play an (imaginary) highlight reel.

to get a bit cheeze on you, i think a fairly sizable percentage of lawyers have either seriously contemplated completely different careers or are currently dreaming about and/or actively planning an escape. and you know, sitting in the studio playing a bunch of CDs and records (wha?) and presumably talking to my listening audience, but really just talking to myself over a microphone: it sounds pretty damn awesome even now.

so i don't know what this post is about except to say that you get old, you move onward, you find enjoyment in many other ways, etc. but you know, ask yourself: have you been happy enough to barf lately?