Despertar

wrist-deep

There's a descriptor you want to immediately forget. Jesus.

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It's snowing cats and dogs out there. More appropriately, it's snowing pumas and huskies. (Cold-weater cats and dogs?) It's not sticking, so class won't be cancelled tomorrow or anything, boo, but it is pretty, and exhilarating. I just walked through it, feeling totally sleepy at the start of the journey, and by the end I was wide awake.

On the downside, there's no hot water around here. Sigh.

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This, you see, is my argument for always wanting the lights turned down. I get a lot of flak for it, a lot of questioning, the implication being that if I insist on having the lights off, I must be trying to conceal some glaring physical flaw, a spare tire or a penis.

And, there isn't one. I'm probably still too skinny, but I have a nice figure, pleasing curves, and I get Brazilians regularly, and my skin is sensitive but that can't be helped and I use a lot of shea butter. I look fine, is the counterargument, so why the Blanche Dubois, why hide, why wreck the mood at its onset to make a dash for the light switch?

Because. Just because. If I were into dumb guys, or unobservant ones, it would be different, but smart guys notice everything, and even if they don't hurt your feelings by TELLING you you're hideous underneath your clothes, they might know it, and think about it every time they see you. You just never know.

Jesus, though. Wrist-deep? That's going to stay with me all day. Lord, let me never.

Please do whatever, whatever it takes to make sure she never finds your journal. I mean, seriously.

*

Got an interview with that firm I went to visit. A job, too, probably. This means it's for real, I'm really entrenched in all this, which is scary This means I really can't teach over the summer, that if I want to work with kids, it'll have to be in some agitating voluntary capacity.

I think Valerie judges me for not being as rah-rah law school as she thinks she is. I'm learning, recently, that conversations with her, even friendly ones, almost always come back to bite me in the ass. We were talking, confding in each other about some of our general law-school anxieties, and I was telling her why I chose law school--that I want to do my career to be meaningful and lucrative, and that I could have done something else that satisfied one condition or the other, but this decision offered the most overlap.

She can't imagine that there's something else I want to do more than practice law, but, when she makes herself accept it, she can't imagine why I wouldn't be doing that other thing, instead. She didn't follow my explanation that there are just so many things I have to consider, beyond just my personal happiness Right Now, or also that I don't necessarily think I'm sacrificing everything I want to do by being here. It's almost annoying how narrowly she sees this. I want to help people, and I can do that with a law degree. Even this first summer I'll be doing public agency work, making less money than I would with a paid clerkship or an intern position somewhere, because I want to cement my own ideal of the law degree as a ticket to public service.

I also, to an only slightly lesser extent, want to have a good life and financal security. I never had to struggle, growing up, and I never felt like there was anything I deserved to have (basic amenities, field trip money, my choice of colleges) that my parents couldn't provide for me. I'm not some silver-spoon spoiled rich kid, either--I have friends my age whose parents are still bankrolling their impromptu trips to Europe, who don't have jobs and aren't looking for jobs and don't think there's any reason to hurry into getting jobs, and I'm not like that. I want to have kids, and I want them to have reasonable freedom. I'm sure you can be poor and happy, just like you can be affluent and sad, but all other things being equal, I'd rather be happy with my job AND be able to afford to give my kids choices than be maybe slightly more happy and make them struggle. You make choices. Jeez.

If I found out today that I couldn't or wouldn't have kids, that I wouldn't get married or travel or be a complete person outside the office, that my career would be the extent of my life forever, I'd definitely quit school and do something else, so, for what that's worth, I do still have some uncertainty. That's why it's a good thing we can't see the future, because we'd make rash decisions based on the known fruits of our sacrifices. Things would suck. For right now, I have to believe I'm working toward something I want.

For what it's worth, also, I seriously doubt Valerie will still be in law school at this time next year. So she can shove it, anyway.

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It's snowing SO HARD.