[22] choices

It always surprises me to go to events with law students and find that they have questions and I have answers. It feels like just yesterday that I was in law school. But suddenly when I describe my experience, it spans almost seven years. Seven years is positively respectable to be in a given field. 

Even stranger is when I think about the fact that it's been almost seven years since I've been to Africa.  That seems impossible. This is the longest I've gone without a trip to the continent since my dad and brother and I returned to Liberia in 2000. 

I guess I didn't realize, when I decided to try practicing law in the US, how trapped you become. Between the hours and the pay (neither of which I've ever managed to arrange in the proper manner, namely manageable hours combined with a reasonable salary), I have barely left the country since I started working as a real lawyer. And going to Africa, which is now an extra four hours of flying further than it was from the Midwest, is even more prohibitive. 

What they don't tell you is that a real lawyer job of the save-the-world type means that every time you take a day of vacation, there is someone panicking because they can't reach you and their life is on the line.

When I first started this work, I used to take real vacations: I didn't check my email. I didn't check my messages. 

By year 3, I had figured out that things are a million times worse when you come back if the email has gone unchecked. I haven't been completely free of it since. 

And many have been the weeks when I worked over 40 hours between Sunday and Wednesday so that I could take Thursday-Tuesday off, only to come back and work more than 40 hours from Wednesday to Saturday. 

Saving the world is a lot of work, and it turns out that it never ends. 

It also keeps you from seeing the world. There is a whole world out there, and I'm not seeing it. I was once on track to get my countries-visited numbers up near my age, but I've fallen behind. 

It's that very adult discovery: you can't have everything. I can't be an accomplished, experienced lawyer in this field while also being a world traveler. I have to choose. We always have to choose.

[17] suit

I am forbidden to shop, my sister tells me. (I can't afford it anyway.)

But there was a niche in my clothing that needed to be filled. Despite the fact that I have a job that requires the wearing of professional attire on a daily basis, there is a difference between professional and professional, if you know what I mean.

Maybe you don't know what I mean. 

What I mean is this: I wear dresses most days, and when the occasion calls for it, I put on a jacket over my dress and ta-dah! Professional.

This is significantly different from wearing an entire suit.

Back when I used to wear full suits, they were mostly trouser suits, I think (although maybe I only ever really owned one or two?). Now I am not a trouser fan. Now I am a skirt girl.

So there was a significant gap there: no full suits (except one whose trouser hems have fallen out, rendering it too long. I need to hem them or get them hemmed).

In between, I moved a number of times, and in the process I got rid of a lot of clothes. Some of the things I got rid of were the shells that I used to wear under suit jackets before I discovered dresses. They were mostly a little small, it seemed, because I gained some weight (see: stress, heartache). I am not one of those people who is going to keep too-small clothes on the chance that they someday fit again.

Only now I have lost some weight (see: stress, heartache), and I could have used those shells. 

But! They are gone. And I had rewards certificates for b@n@n@ repub1ic, so I got myself a black skirt that alllllmost matches my suit jacket, and a shell in a neutral color. In total, they cost me $5, thanks to sales and discounts and rewards. 

Now I can walk confidently into the situations that really do require a full suit. I am hoping and expecting that there will be a number of them, soon, and I am ready.

[10] humanity

I don't generally write about the work I do because, well, there are lots of rules about such things when you are a lawyer, and I prefer to continue to be able to practice as a lawyer. 

If you know me at all, you presumably know that I have never chosen the easy kind of law. I don't do the kind of law that fights over money between companies that can handle the price either way. I do the kind of law where individual people's futures are at risk.

The thing about doing this kind of law is that, at the beginning, there isn't much at stake because you are new and no one trusts you with much. As time goes on, though, there is more and more risk to every decision you or your client makes, and many of those decisions were made before you ever met your client. 

And sometimes, there is nothing you can do, and you stand next to a person, a person who you have come to know pretty well, while a very large chunk of his or her life is taken away. 

It should never be easy, because that would mean that you have lost some of your humanity.

It isn't easy.

D

I sat outside in the sunshine with my computer this morning. The sun was so bright that I had to cover my computer with my jean jacket to keep it from roasting and to try to make the screen visible. I may or may not have spent significant time with my face in a little tunnel of jean jacket around the screen. 

I think I picked up a sunburn. 

Skin cancer, yes, I know.

Where I used to work when I first moved here, there was a cartoon cut out and pinned on a bulletin board in a public space that went like this:

First square: guy says, "I need a good sunblock."

Second square: other guy hands him a booklet.

Third square: #1 says, "What is this?" #2 says, "A map to [State of Happiness]."

I don't think I've ever been as pale as I've been since I moved to State of Happiness. It is not a coincidence that I sit in front of my happy light 12 months out of the year here. Even in the summer, when the sun does shine most days, it doesn't warm up until 5 pm, and by then the sun is not that strong. 

That, and I seem to have picked a career that keeps a person inside all day year round. 

Oh, law. Ruining everything all over again.

The good news is that I don't get enough sunshine to get skin cancer, probably, unless I already have it from years near the Equator/in the Midwestern US. 

The bad news is that I will forever be low on Vitamin D.

2013 accident #2

I was sitting in my room, playing way too much Bejeweled on my new iPhone, if you must know, when I heard a car honk long and loud and then a thud.

It wasn't a very loud thud. I actually considered just ignoring it, but my car and my roommate's car are both parked right in front of our house, and I dragged myself away from Bejeweled (it is a serious addiction) to go check on them.

What I found was a very small woman standing outside the door of a big sedan, yelling about how the other driver had hit her while she was stopped at a stop sign. 

The other driver, a tall man about the same age as her (mid-sixties) got out of his car just for a moment, and then got back in his car and drove away.

Lawyer that I am, that was when I started down the steps, because I wanted to tell him that driving off was the worst thing he could do. 

I was too late, of course, to save him from himself.

I really do not like being a witness to things that might require me to testify in court. We law-like people would rather be the ones asking the questions.

Fortunately, the lady took my name and number and went to a friend's house to call the police, and I have not yet had to talk to anyone. Maybe we can keep it that way.

 

[7] clavicle

Two nights ago, at fighting class, we were practicing tackles. When someone tackles you low and fast, you are supposed to sit back, catch your leg around theirs, use your momentum to flip to the side, and come out in a full mount (still cannot help giggling over that term like a 13 year old).

We do the tackle technique on an extra set of padding, for obvious reasons. 

The former Marine, my friend A., was the tackler when I was the tacklee, but he caught his feet on the edge of the mat, and instead of tackling my legs, he just sort of fell on top of me. All 180 or 200 pounds of him, directly on my clavicle.

I finished the scenario, pushed off his chest with both hands, and stood up, and only then did I realize how very difficult it was to breathe. 

That hurt. 

I was pretty okay by morning, but all day yesterday when I sat wrong or tried to take too deep a breath, it hurt again. Apparently you need chests in order to breathe? Strange. 

We sat around at work today trying to find all the legal liabilities for tackling someone and injuring them in a martial arts class. Civil? Criminal? Torts? Negligence? Reasonable standard of care in the situation? My clavicle became our own little law school class. If I ever become a law professor, the clavicle is going to feature prominently. 

[3] judging

Today I was a judge for a law school competition. 

It was... weird. I still think of myself as the judged one. I could hardly imagine that I would have something to offer the contestants in a legal skills competition, and yet there I was, volunteering to be the first judge to give comments on the first set of contestants.

Because I had things to say. I had comments. I had suggestions. I had praise. 

This being a grownup is a strange world. 

I remember the first time I was on an interview committee, how odd it was to be the one asking the questions, and how I wanted to give the opportunity to everyone, you all seem so nice, I don't want you to feel bad being rejected.

I felt the same way about my evaluations today. I wanted to give them all high marks so they wouldn't feel bad when they saw the sheets, but I had to be fair and honest, and I was. 

I still want to scoop up all the contestants and hug them and say, "You did great! Good job!"

I also tried to sleep with all my stuffed animals when I was a kid, in a row around the edge of the waterbed in Liberia. All of them at once. And I rotated which ones got to sleep up by me, so their feelings wouldn't be hurt. 

I haven't quite gotten over that urge.

following the law

Yeah, hi. I've been busy. Living and stuff. Whatever. As I say every time this happens, blogging about blogging is boring.

You know what I do when I start in on a blog post about blogging or the art of blogging or search engine optimization or anything of that sort? One of two things: I pretend to skim and then click away, or my eyes immediately glaze over and I click away.

I currently am having my morning tea in a town that I describe as one of the two armpits of State of Happiness (the other is Universe City's neighboring town). I came up here for a little work thingee, and now I am procrastinating beginning the 1.5 hour drive back. It seems awfully unfair that even one of the armpits has a better downtown than Universe City.

Periodically, about every other day or so, I think that I am in the wrong profession. If I win the lottery ever (difficult, when you buy a ticket almost never), I am going to go back to school in something more helping profession-y and less fighting-y. (Shut up. Those are words. I just made them words, upon my decree.)

This work thingee reminded me of that again. I did a social work type job before I moved to Rwanda, and this morning I felt for a moment that I might be back in that world, just with grown ups instead of kids. I miss it.

Having a law degree is clearly a great privilege. Part of the reason i went to law school, at the final moment, instead of finding a way to do relief work in Darfur, was because I realized that being able to go and not going would be a slap in the face of all the people I knew in Rwanda who so desperately wanted an education but couldn't afford it.

But it is also a burden, sometimes. Once you have taken out well over $100,000 in student loans, you can never just go back to some low-paying job you love. You are stuck in this profession, for money or loan repayment help, and you can't get out. (And it seems to me now that spending that much money on schooling is also a slap in the face of all the people I knew in Rwanda who could not afford even the relatively low school fees there.)

Some of my most panicked moments in the last few years have been when I realized again that I don't have the option of leaving law, not for quite a while.

damage

I fully intended to wear a skirt and heels for Work Thing Day 1 on Thursday, but on Wednesday night at fighting class I was running across the mat and caught my toe and jammed it, hard. I only managed not to fall flat down on my face because I was almost to the row of people waiting to run, and I grabbed at them and thus held myself up.

By the next morning, my toe was swollen and painful. This isn't the first time this has happened on the studio's mats, and I know that it takes a while before I can wear heels. I wore trousers, instead, and flats, against every rule I've read, but I didn't care. I was comfortable, thanks to the flats and some ibuprofen, and when I was in front of the crowd, I didn't feel the least bit self-conscious about any of it, including the fact that I was also wearing big earrings, against every rule I've read.

...

Between Work Thing Day 1 and Work Thing Day 2, I went to advanced fighting class, where we are still doing ground survival. I love ground survival. I especially love it when I get to work against someone who knows what they are doing and therefore does not damage me. I am instead the damager, unfortunately, due to clumsiness, but the experienced student went and got a mouth guard after about the fifth time I hit him in the mouth by accident, and then all was well.

I need to find a way to do more grappeling (I might actually have to take jiu jitsu at some point), because I love it when I work against a more experienced person and we actually grappel rather than just practicing the motions over and over. What I mean is that with the experienced people, if you pause for too long and they know you can handle it, they fight back instead of just lying there as a practice tool.

Most of the time, this devolves into me tucking my head and trying not to end up squashed like a bug, and it ends with me being squashed like a bug. It's so much fun. I just wish I were better at reacting with the correct response, immediately. I might get squashed less often and possibly even be the squasher on occasion. (The whole upper body strength factor in being a girl, though, and being shorter and lighter than these guys makes it likely that I will probably usually be the one who is squashed unless I actually do employ some of the shock and awe hits that we practice. We generally try not to actively hurt our practice partners.)

It doesn't hurt, the squashing, but I did notice, when I took off my suit jacket the next day, that I had bruises up and down my arms.

All that beating people up was the perfect stress reliever between two very stressful days.

lawyers

Periodically I do something law-related and I realize again how very many men there are in this profession. The funny thing is that in my law school, and in the kind of law I do, there are about equal numbers of men and women (although the women in my kind of law skew younger than the men). But when I go to a training and they split us up into small groups and I am the only woman in mine, it comes back to me.

Maybe it isn't even so much that there are so many men, but more that the differences between men and women become evident in a small group that is all men except me. I have to interrupt and stand up and say that I want to go next, unless I want to be last. I don't think I ever feel quite that need in a mixed group, where things seem to sift out a little more evenly.

In a group of women and men, when each person has to stand up and talk individually do the men tend to go first? Because what I kept noticing was how entitled the men seemed to feel, how they had no problem interrupting one another to go next.

At least, I attributed this to the group being all men, but now that I think about it, I wonder whether it is the because they are all men and I am a woman, or if it is because lawyers tend to be so type A and I have some distinct slacker-ish tendencies, or if it is because lawyers tend to be assertive people and I, while I can be assertive one-on-one with people I know, am a little shy in groups or with people I don't know.

actually, the opposite

It isn't that I'm exactly glad that my doctor spent a long time looking up my nose with her little light and then said, "Yeah, it's really swollen in there. I can't see much. You're going to need a CT scan so I can make sure that all the swelling hasn't trapped bacteria in your sinuses," but it was sort of gratifying to know that I'M NOT CRAZY. OR A WHINER. (I mean, obviously I am a whiner. Why else do I have a blog but to whine? I am not a needless whiner, is all.)

It turns out that it is really easy to make your doctor think you are drug-seeking. First, she tells you that she is prescribing you an allergy medication with a decongestant. "Is that going to make me sleepy?" you ask. "Can I take it in the morning and still be awake for work?"

Then she says, "Yes, actually, it's the same ingredient as Sud@fed, so it generally has the opposite effect. It tends to amp people up."

Then - and this part is KEY - you just say, "Oh, right, that's what they use to make meth, isn't it?"

Mission accomplished! Now she thinks you are a meth-head.

"Uh," she said, "do you use meth?" (Subtext: because how else would you know what meth does?)

"No," I said, oblivious, having not even realized that she would take it that way, "but at work I see a whole lot of people high on meth." It wasn't until later that I realized exactly how my comment had sounded.

She gave me the prescription anyway. Seriously, though, she has no idea how many stories I have heard in a professional capacity that start with, "Well, I hadn't slept for three days because I was on a meth binge..."

politicking, round 2

A while back, I wrote a post about Judge Sotomayor, which got a comment, which I ignored, because I have absolutely no desire to join the world of political blogs, and I figured the comment probably came from someone who happened across my blog while googling for posts about the judge. I write this blog first for myself, second for family and friends, and third for other people with connections to Africa. I don't need a wider audience. Just today, though, I figured out that the comment came from my cousin (hi, C!), who I didn't even know read my blog. Well, then. Cousins get responses where random commenters would not.

It's unfortunate that the word "empathy" got thrown around so much with regard to this nomination. I actually used the word in the opposite way - not referring to Judge Sotomayor, as most people did, but to the old white men who currently make up 7/9s of the Supreme Court. I said that these men "will never have anything more than empathy for people who experience daily discrimination," whereas a person of color has had the experience of racism. Experience, I said, leads to the making of better decisions.

C., I hope you don't mind if I quote part of your comment here. It said, "Last I heard the purpose of a judge was to determine the legality of an action, not if he or she "feels" the pain of the person who is being accused of a crime. Hopefuly, a person could be tall or short, gay or straight, right or left handed, purple or orange... but if he or she knows the law, then should be able to interpret (without bias) if someone did or did not break the law."

I absolutely agree with you that the job of a judge is not to feel anyone's pain. If a judge tried to feel the pain of every person who came through their courtroom, they would quickly be overwhelmed. It is not enough, however, for a judge to know the law. Judges make nuanced decisions not just about which law applies (it's more complicated than it seems, often), but about how the law applies in various situations. That is where experience is helpful. It is not about bias, but the simple fact that a Latina woman will see, and emphasize, different aspects of the situation than a white man, based on her experiences of the world as a Latina woman. By virtue of the fact that their entire lives have been spent enjoying the privilege of being white and male in our society, there are things that white men simply will never see in a situation (unless perhaps they have spent a significant amount of time working on learning about feminism and anti-racism).

I think Justice Ginsburg made some excellent points about this in her interview with the New York Times (available here). For example, in the recent Redding case involving the strip-search of a 13-year old girl, Justice Ginsburg pointed out that the experience of being strip-searched will very likely be different for a boy than a girl. Male judges, I hardly need to point out, have never been a girl. They may empathize, as I said in my first post, but they will never understand.

White straight male judges often do not even see the problem presented in a case, or believe that it is a problem if they do, because it doesn't hurt them or people like them. If everyone could be like them, the opinions sometimes seem to say, there would be no problem. But the fact is that not all people are like them. It is dangerous to have a Supreme Court made up primarily of people who do not see the problem and are not willing to have it pointed out to them. This is why diversity (of race, gender, sexuality, etc.) on the Supreme Court is vastly important. We need people who see the problem, so they can decide what to do about it. This doesn't mean that the Court will universally decide for one group or another, but that they can make fair judgments about the issue before them.

It is never as simple as just interpreting the law. It would be great if laws were all clear and constitutional, but they just aren't. They are the work of human beings. Interpretation of the law is a hard job, and biases will inevitably enter into it.

We often make the mistake, in this country, of assuming that the biases of white straight men are the norm, and that anyone whose biases are different than those are "biased." Every person has biases. Biases are not the same as experience, but they can form from a person's experience. The question is not "Is this person biased?" but "Is this person aware of her or his biases and able to determine when the biases are helpful and when hurtful?" White men, because they are the "norm," may assume that they have no biases, which is dangerous (has anyone read a Scalia opinion lately?). Far better to recognize one's biases and deliberately lay them aside when necessary. I admire the fact that Judge Sotomayor is aware of her biases. I have never heard the white male members of the Supreme Court exhibit the same self-awareness.

Finally, for a Supreme Court justice, just interpreting the law is not an option. Lower courts do that, based on the criteria that have been laid out by the courts above them, but the Supreme Court is an independent branch of government, equal to the Presidential and Legislative branches. The Supreme Court decides which laws are constitutional, and therefore may throw out laws that the other branches have made or limit the situations in which they may make laws. The Constitution is specific in a few places, vague in a few places, and leaves out most of what we wish it would tell us. The Supreme Court does not make laws, but it does determine when laws are unconstitutional, and what standards should be used to apply laws. It cannot just "determine when someone broke the law." Its responsibility is far higher and greater than that.

And in my experience, whether you agree with what the Supreme Court does depends more on your politics than it does on the constitutionality of the law.

C., I know that you and I will never agree on the politics. I'm not trying to persuade you here, certainly not politically, but merely telling you why I wrote what I did in the first post. I respect your opinions, even when they are very different from mine. I know that we both formed our opinions about politics based on a desire to see this country at its best.

ticket

I've been waiting all day for updates on my parents' exact location. They are driving from Michigan out to Gone West, and they did not detail their itinerary with sufficient specificity to satisfy me. So when they called at 3 pm, I sighed with relief. At last, I thought, at last they are going to use a cell phone for the purpose it was intended and update me on where they are.

But no. They were only calling for my legal advice.

People. I do not do traffic tickets.

Well, okay, I don't actually practice as a lawyer either. But I do know a bit about the laws of New State. Just not, you know, traffic laws, except what was covered in the booklet I studied to take the test for my New State driving license.

My advice was the same advice I've always given, the same advice I gave before I was a lawyer: go find the people with the power to handle it, and explain the situation in such a way that that person can best show his/her power by helping you.

Hey, it saved them $192.

And only delayed them by, er, two hours.

behold, the cranky

This happens to me every time I so much as open a document that could be interpreted as an attempt to look for a job. I am embarrassed to admit how many people I have snapped at today.

it's getting to me

I stepped into the elevator, looked down, and thought, "Hm. Skeletonized blood spatter.* With a smear."

...

* Skeletonized blood spatter occurs when a droplet of blood begins to dry (the edges dry first) and then the inside, which is still wet, gets rubbed away by something. Don't ask me how I know this.

Here, it appeared that someone probably stepped in it.

Now I'm writing like a lawyer. How annoying.

bumbling lawyerly-like

I was wearing my (only decent pair) of black trousers today. They are a little bit wide-legged and I was wearing them with flats and a jacket that tied around the middle. I felt pretty good about this outfit until I was sluffing my way down a hallway and realized that what with the flats and the tied jacket, the clothes I was wearing felt suspiciously like pajamas. With slippers. I have confidence, from looking at my reflection in doors as I passed them, that I looked a bit more put together than that, but there was a moment of panic.

I am one of those people who we could kindly call overthinkers. Less charitable titles might include UTTERLY INSANE. For example, I am incapable of sending out a job-search related email without writing, editing, saving as a draft, re-reading, re-editing, pondering, re-reading, suddenly sending with a mental promise to never think of it again, opening the sent folder to read it one more time, and then being terrified every time I open my email thereafter IN CASE THE PERSON ANSWERED. You don't even want to know what out of the office auto-replies do to me, because they are toooooo soooooon! Too soon! This whole process often results in late bedtimes, because of just too much pondering when I've vowed to send out an email that night. I can't figure out if this whole thing occurs because 1. I have a tinge of perfectionism, 2. I lack self-confidence, or 3. I haven't quite figured out how to act like a lawyer yet. Or maybe a bit of each.

daily events

I am giddy with excitement about my new black dress trousers, arrived today from a N0rdst0m's store in another city (this city was plumb out of the size I needed). Friday was the last straw for the old pair, when my friend E. looked at me from the back and said, "You could fit another entire butt in there." Also, they had faded to a funny shade of brown.

In other news, I need to not watch true-life murder mysteries on television. I might not sleep tonight. Chills. I used to think I wanted to work in criminal law, but I've recently become a wimp. The benefit of doing almost any other kind of law is that I can live in a house without feeling like I have a target on my back all the time.

I have become super boring. I live in the US and I work every day. Who knew I would love it?

in pieces

We played chess in the sun. I squinted into it and asked, "What does this castle piece do? Can it move backwards?" N. got to checkmate in a few moves, and then to checkmate again, while I stared blankly at the board. I haven't played chess since I learned in the Netherlands when I was 8. Then I wandered in circles around the pool, talking on the phone to my dad on Father's Day. The grass was soft and cool under my feet. I miss having a yard.

...

A week or two ago, an older-wiser person drew a picture of a mountain on its side, wide end on the left and point toward the right, like this: >. Only much bigger. Then he started writing things along the line of the mountain. "First Job." "Second Job."

"Your options decrease with every job you take," he said.

This is, I hardly need say, not what I wanted to be picturing as I look for a real live permanent job in Gone West. LIMITED OPTIONS?? Comforting. Not to put any pressure on the first job you find or anything.

...

I hate interviews. I get so nervous before them, even before informational interviews, that I shut down and say, "I don't even WANT this job [or to be a lawyer, or whatever]." And then, inevitably, I am energized and exhilarated by them and I want to skip down the sidewalk. For good or ill, there are a lot of them coming.

hateful day

am hating of this day. cannot make complete sentences. or use pronouns. just stumbled through door, put on comfy clothes retrieved from floor in entryway, and sat on floor for a while before could find energy to get bonbons to restore self.

this day has been like that screensaver everyone used to have on their computers (i have rediscovered pronouns) in which a seemingly endless stream of asteroids comes flying toward the viewer.

...

now time has passed.

bullet point number one: call from ci.ti.b@nk at 7:00 a.m. that went approximately like this:

person: you are $456 behind in payments.
me: that's nice. i can't pay it.
person: you are out of forbearances.
me: that's nice. i can't pay it.
me: i have to go to work now. [hangs up]

bullet point number two: we are involved in this huge, um, project at work, and all of us involved are getting cran to the key. (that's cranky, if you couldn't tell.) at least two of the four people involved are the sweetest people humanity has ever known, but even they are getting cranky. (i am NOT included in the sweetest people, because while i think i am fairly nice, sweet is not a word i feel applies to me. i like sweet people, but i am not one of them. but i am fairly good at hiding the cranky. i get happier the more things go wrong.) and the project drags on and on, through the fault of outside forces.

bullet point number three: someone asked me to LIE for him/her today. am a lawyer! took an oath not to lie! or even mislead! plus i have a (HUGE) problem with it, and if you knew my job, you would know that lying is not a good thing to make a part of it. plus, hi! lying! so i flatly refused and then said person said desperately, "but what should i do, then?" er... let's see... TELL THE TRUTH.

seriously. this is my life.

had to invite a friend over so as to alleviate utter despair about humanity. fortunately she came with, eh-hem, beverages. law school failed, but gone west might just turn me into an alkie. if i weren't so broke. and tired all the time.

i think i need to get into wine. it is good for you, according to the nytimes. also relaxing. and you don't have to feel funny about drinking it on a work night. which, let's admit, vanilla vodka, coffee liqueur, and jaager shots on a work night? that's sketch. i am sketch, right now.

this is what we call blogging under the influence. sorry, y'all. am now off to a bath and early bed.

girly moment

Why yes, it is June. One might be fooled by the chill in the air and the fact that I'm wearing my winter coat to work, but June it is. I wore a sweater to work today.

Is it bad that my real goal in finding a real live permanent job that pays real live permanent money is not to practice law but so I can buy clothes? One can only make so many combinations of two suit jackets and one jacket-like sweater. Fortunately jobbing does not require a suit every day this week, because when it does I am forced to pretend that NO ONE NOTICES that I'm wearing the same two jackets every day. Will I wear the gray jacket three times this week or the black? Life is so very exciting. Especially when the alternative is to wear it TWICE this week.

I had another jacket, of the expensive pre-law school J.Crew variety, but it has outgrown me. Or I have outshrunk it. Or something. I weigh less now than I did then. Also, as my roomie M. liked to tell me in law school when I complained about the largeness of pre-law school clothes, "You just dress like more of a slut now." I prefer to think of it has having discovered how to buy clothes that fit. And in my defense, suit jackets have gotten shorter and more fitted. Anyway, this old one is a very nice wool jacket, but I look in it as if I'm a ten year old trying on my dad's suit and carrying his briefcase.

(Random side story: I was actually really excited about briefcases when I was about ten. I got one as a birthday present and I used to carry it to school, just like my dad carried his to work. Then there was a war and stuff and we left it behind to come to the US. And then kids in the US carried backpacks on one shoulder and I had to work on being cool, so the briefcase was a non-starter. The last thing I needed was yet another *NERD*DORK*CULTURALLY INEPT AFRICA GIRL* sign on my forehead. I had several already.)

Anyway, when I get a real live job, I'm going to buy new suits. Maybe even some that are not on the $59.99 sale rack at Macy's. Maybe even some that, gasp, FIT. Maybe even a TALL, so the jacket has sleeves that come all the way down to my wrists.

It's going to be brilliant.

(In case, you were wondering, this was, in fact, an entire post about clothes. I'm SUCH a girl today.)

P.S. Speaking of clothes, and clothes that fit, has anyone bought trousers at the G@P lately? What is up with 1. the STRETCHING, so that the trousers that fit you when you buy them are heinously large a day later and 2. the size enlargement, or whatever you call it, that require me to buy clothes that are labeled two sizes smaller - sometimes three - than anywhere else? And what do people who are actually small in stature do? Are they making 00s there now? I love their trousers, and the fact that they come in X-Long (love! love!) but I want to beg them to just let me go back to my regularly scheduled clothing size.