Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday.

No religion, no gift-giving.  No overt consumerism, no 'angle'.

A time to indulge in good food and better company.  The only requisite act is a happy hug.

Let's all be grateful - for our good fortune, our completely unearned luck, for the people who love us even though they REALLY KNOW US WELL.

Cheers!

And good luck over Christmas.

My Current Exercise Regimen

I try to get to the gym about four times a week to swim.  Of course this is fraught with issues such as "Tot Time" swimming lessons; lane sharing, and not-so-subtle drowning attempts.

For one thing, WHY ARE CHILDREN CALLED "TOTS"?  They are not tiny chunks of baked potato starch. They are small people with no bladder control and they never offer to pick up the tab.  Speaking of, I don't trust those supposed "Pool Time Diapers".  I just try not to think about it.

And the whole Tot swimming lesson thing (They are TOO YOUNG to learn how to swim, People!  They exist on CHEERIOS and JUICE BOXES!) means less dedicated lap lanes.

So you have to share lanes, which I get on an intellectual level, being a socialist and all, but really you do not want to share a lane with me and this is why:

I'm a crappy swimmer.  I do the backstroke because I like facing up, I can breathe without panicking, and it is quiet, with your ears in the water.  It's an easy stroke, I concentrate on my kicking and I repeat in my head the number of the lap over and over as I take each stroke, so it is a little meditative.  However, you can't see what the hell you are doing.

So I tend to zig-zag my way down the lane, bonking into the floaty lane dividers, like some drunk rat in a maze going from left and right as I lurch from one end of the pool to another.

A friend of mine suggested I should also do some upper-body weight lifting and I suppose I should.  I used to lift a lot and I enjoy it, but I figure I'm getting an okay all-over work out since my arms are dragging my 155-pound FAT ASS back and forth across the pool.

Where was I?

Anyway, woe be onto you if you have to share a lane with me. 

So I'm on the side of the lane that has another lane next to it (so I won't be next to the TOTS) and this MASSIVE DUDE decides to share the lane next to me. 

I'm taking a breather at one end (because I'm a pussy) when this guy walks up.  As mentioned, he is HUGE.  Easily well over six foot, broad-shouldered, hair on his chest and at least 275 if he was an ounce.  He had on a speedo which conventional wisdom would suggest MISTAKE, but uh, it was okay on this guy, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

But then - he turned around to ease himself into the pool and I have never seen that much hair on a man in ever.  It was a veritable PELT.  I mean, I'm a red-blooded chick and I loves me the dark-eyed hairy-chested Alpha male as much as the next girl, but, Oh Dear.

And THEN - he starts pounding up and down the lane, crazy splashing as he butterflied.  When he'd get to the end of the pool he'd do that thing where you are underwater and you kick off the pool wall as you turn?  And then come out of the water like eight feet later?

But he'd surface like a fucking BREACHING WHALE and here I'm all slowly swimming along face up and he totally swamped me more than once and I thought he was gonna drown me.

In case you think I'm exaggerating, I sneaked a shot:

Manly enough to wear a pink swim cap.

Bar Results

If I did not send you an email, you might have heard on CNN that I passed the Washington State Exam.

I'm pretty stoked about it, although I am not too good on personal pride of accomplishment.

But you know what?  I had an excellent advertising career.  And then I applied, and got accepted, and finished law school.  And then I passed both the Maryland Bar and the Washington Bar.

So although my personal life is not what I'd want it to be, I can, objectively, take pride in my professional accomplishments.

I don't suck!

But the best part?

The very bestest part is, the below picture.  I asked friends to send totems and talismans and anything at all that I could tuck into a pocket during the exam.  No matter the result I decided to make a little project of all the thoughtful totems, and the final letter in the center.  Happily the letter from the WSBA is one of congratulations.  But why this is the bestest, is the love and support that all these talismans represent.  That is what I am most grateful for, most proud of.

Thanks Peeps.

Going to the Doctor

I haven't been myself lately.

Can't seem to get enough sleep.  Constantly tired, not hungry not thirsty, vaguely nauseous all the time, especially in the morning.

I can hear my friend Berens snorting from here, That's not illness, SweetCheeks, that's a HANGOVER.

As most of you know (I think there was a special about me on the O Channel) I'm menopausal.

It's been about 7 (8?) glorious years now.  I had what is called premature ovarian failure.

OVARIAN FAILURE, People.  Ever heard of testicular failure?  No?  Yeah NO OF COURSE NOT.

Some lucky ladies wake up one day in their late 50s and say, Hey, I haven't had my period in six months, what's the deal?  And they then go skipping merrily into pregnancy-free sex.  I wish all my lady friends the same.  My symptoms started at 39 and are on the other end of the spectrum - look up any effects of menopause and I've had 'em, including the cysts and permanent memory loss.

EXCEPT:  My sex drive has not diminished.  Yet I haven't had sex with another person since the Clinton Administration.  Mother Nature, you are truly a bitch.

So back to medicine.

While in law school I was totally effed up and my GP sent me to a gyno, suspecting I was menopausal.  Gyno did a hormone test and the ideal results would have been a level of 8 to 10, 12 at the most.  Mine was 42.  My ovaries had shut down years earlier, bought a condo and moved to Florida.

I was in my car, on my way from school to my job two hours away in Olympia,
and I cried as she told me.

"Are you okay?" she asked.
"I just...I can't have children.  I'll never be able to choose... I won't be able to, to have a child, a child of someone I love."

"Yes," she said, "It sucks to get old."

The Washington State Bar Exam

I had intended to write on this a few months ago but I never really rallied, but now the results come this Friday at noon.

The WA Bar is unlike the rest of the states which in general use the MultiState Bar Exam (MBE), an exam which is federal and, as one would want, objective.

This Bar covers 28 subjects but you are only potentially tested on 18; and some subjects are tested more than once so you are looking at maybe 12 subjects.  Contracts, property (including wills, estates and trusts); civil procedure, criminal law and torts are all givens.  Which makes sense because if you don't know how to draw up a contract or follow the rules of CivPro then yeah, No Bar license for you.

But you better know all of them.

The WA Bar, in my opinion, is not objective.  You write 18 essays, trying to hit every issue presented, and maybe you get a grader who thinks Yah that statement of the law is worth 1 point, but maybe you get a grader who says the same statement is worth half a point.  Six points out of ten is passing.  NO ONE makes a ten ever, on any essay ever.  Hope you nail your strong subjects (for me, Admin, Criminal, Con Law) and score a seven or even an eight to make up for the weaker five and a half you made on the Banking/Secured Transactions essay.

Two days of substantive essays, three sessions each day, nine essays per day.

After the very first session, we  got a short break to re-caffeinate and I overheard a guy taking to his friends.  "Dudes, that Torts essay was a total bitch!  I couldn't find crap to talk about!"  Said friends looked at each other, then to him, and said, Erm, that wasn't a torts essay - that was criminal law.
All three looked pale and the guy who analyzed it incorrectly looked like he was going to be physically ill.  I can see why - because not only did he blow that one essay, he blew the Bar.

He failed.  Right then, on that one essay, it was over.  He might as well have gone home.

Of course, I might have done the same thing at another point in the exam, I have no way of knowing.

The third day is Professional Responsibility.

The PR rules are somewhat involved but it boils down to  - don't bang your client, don't break the law, don't lie to the court.  The shades of gray (especially when it comes to attorney/client privilege or breaking existing law) center around what you SHALL do, and what you SHOULD do.

Shall is absolute, as in, Thou shalt not kill.  Should, on the other hand, is discretionary.

The very last PR essay involved an attorney who - shocker - was banging a client, mixing law firm funds with personal funds, then took said client to a Mariners game got drunk and punched out a fan of the opposing team.

I was so tired, and so kinda didn't care at that point, I ALMOST made a joke as I wrapped up the essay - Attorneys shall not assault or batter a baseball fan, unless said fan is for the Yankees, then the attorney should not assault and batter.

But I thought the better of it.

Bar results this Friday, noon PST.

Forty-One Days of Sun

What in the Wide Wide World of Sports is a-going on here?

Hello Friends and welcome back to Disclaim and Deny where there are no rules and the points don't count.

I don't have a particular theme or subject today, but I can report I have a couple drafts in the works - the Joys of the Bar Exam, how depression works, and some new photog groups (which will probably end up on Flickr, haven't sorted that yet.)

 So just a few updates:

Parents visited.  Short of comments about my current weight and a rape joke from my Dad (and yes he knows), it went fairly well.  On the therapy session scale of one to four sessions, I give it a session and a half.

Had an unexpected visit from The Greek Boy of Falls Church and met his beautiful lady.  That was a treat.

Friend of mine reports he's lost 30 pounds.  Go You!  Your heart, and probably your liver, thank you.

Back to writing a little on the screenplay.  I started it as a creativity-as-therapy exercise, and some of the scenes were still too tender to my heart to write.  But I think I'm ready now.

Toying with taking a pottery class. I've done some slab work in the past but never worked the wheel (or 'thrown pots' or whatever it is called.)

Had the best weekend over Labor Day than I've had in a very long time.  Both stimulating and relaxing, spent with excellent friends.  Also picked up these new shoes:

wellies that look like frogs!

The Emerald City continues to be graced with nary a drop of rain in almost six weeks.

I'm also pretty darn happy these days, and I hope I take full advantage of my positive mood.  I've been eating better, drinking less.  Finally dug up my swimming gear and plan to get in some exercise.  I don't know if this happy phase is a result of my depression in retrograde and a rising manic cycle, but whatevs.  I'll take it.

Work-wise, I have a few ideas on making some things happen while continuing to troll job sites.  Passing (or not passing) the Bar will of course play a huge role in what I am capable of doing here in Washington State. 

Tune in October 12th, noon PST for those results.

Hey I can always move back to DC.  My SCB boss openly admits his Policy left hand does not know what the Lobbying right hand is doing without my assistance.

And I can move in with my friend Chippy, her fiance, and their two cats!  Three people and four cats in a two-bedroom.  I'm sure fiance will not mind in the least.

More when there is more to report.

I'm Not Old Yet

As we all know, when I don't make any effort I tend to dress like a twelve year-old boy.  And for the past two months I have made NO effort.  I've been living in draw-string pants, floppy shirts and the occasional hoodie.  When it's warm I go crazy and wear cargo shorts.

Yesterday I was in my usual Are-those-your-boyfriend's-pajamas? outfit, having a cigarette outside with one of the librarians I see around a lot.  Let's call her Bertha.

We shall call her Bertha, because now you have an idea of what she looks like.  She's in her late 60s, potato-shaped and skinny-legged.  She is a little fleshly around her unfortunate chin(s).

You know who she looks like?  She looks like a friend of your mom's.

As we were chatting we watched a very pretty girl walk by.  I say she was pretty - I didn't look at her face.  She had on a short pink sweater dress that fit her perfectly, and she had a lovely figure, nice and curvy.  Long blonde hair and longer legs.  She was very attractive.

As she passed, Bertha turned to me and said, she said to me right there in front of god and everybody,

"Must be nice to still look like that."

GAH.

I guess Bertha has never seen this shot of me.  Take that, Bert!:

 

Me and my friend 

Yvette SanRegrette, backstage

I promise to start dressing like a girl again, starting a week from tomorrow.