Tweet my fears

Now that I'm a grownup, I've decided to face my fears. What am I afraid of? Monkeys, over all else. Also, touching raw meat. And the feel of gristle in my mouth. Plus also I have a paralyzing fear of failure and of disappointing my loved ones. However, I have decided to address my fear of Twitter at this time.

I'll let you know when I've decided on a username, which could take a while. Why? I am afraid of committing to one username.

I'm a big girl now!

I watched Juno the other night, finally. Really liked it. But there was a scene that got me thinkin, which doesn't usually produce good outcomes. The scene was where Juno tells her stepmom that she hung out with the guy who made up half of the couple who were going to adopt Juno's baby, and that he was really cool, played guitar, etc. The stepmom then says that it's not right to hang out with a married man and that there are rules.

What are these rules? Where can I get a copy?

Other than a glib thought that, in 2008, a woman should be able to be friends with anyone she wants, including married folks regardless of gender, I've never really thought about the propriety or impropriety of friendships with those in marriages or serious relationships. When I was a preteen, I remember my mom saying that proximity breeds desire. I thought that was just old-woman-crazytalk back then, but now I think there's something to that. Think about interoffice romances, the boss doing his secretary, Jim and Pam, Dwight and Angela. Think about Jaime Gumm: We covet what we see every day.

Now that I'm in the most mature relationship of my life (mature as in we are both trying to act unchildish, not mature as in we are both approaching middle age, for Christ's sake), I no longer act like the cool girlfriend (Mental Note: blog about that later). I see that it's necessary to be vulnerable, to express emotion, to let the other person know I appreciate him and think about him. And I found all this out when I met pretty much my equal in this relationship. He can be as hard-to-read and aloof and fiercely independant as I am. A good friend of mine characterized our early relationship as 2 icebergs colliding. Yikes. But now we both talk about our hopes for this relationship and about each other. It feels like a new & different place for me, but it's warm & comforting too.

Mrs.

So, a couple weeks ago, I thought it would be a good idea to volunteer for my 5th grader's field trip to Marshy Point for a "hands-on experience with nature, get ready to get wet!" (that's what the permission slip said) Now, in my 20's, that description would be supremely exciting, but now, not so much. Anyway, I did get chosen from among the throngs of excited parent volunteers. Oh boy! No, it'll be fun and I'll have done my penance for all those evenings I've been spending working on cases, instead of playing Uno.

In anticipation of the field trip, my 5th grader brought home a sheet of paper today listing the parent and his/her assigned handful of children to watch over while at Marshy Point. The paper referred to the parents by a Mr or Mrs and then their last name. So, I am Mrs. Hugh. I married myself, apparently. What happened to Ms., goddamnit? Women don't need to be married to have a child, jackasses. Hello, the 1950's called and they want their rigid, backward notion of a traditional family back, before Mrs. Cleaver has changed into a dress, chilled the gin, and put the pot roast on the table.

Happy

What is happiness? It has to be a static state of being. Watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy and eating a bag of salt & vinegar chips while drunk may be happiness for, oh I don't know who, but it may be pure nerdy misery for others. And when you try to define happiness in a relationship - holy hell, everything (and nothing) goes.

More to come... there's a scheduled outage now.

Do this right now

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions if you want to.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Here's mine: "The documents listed are intended to be illustrative and not all inclusive." (Mitchie's Annotated Code of Maryland, Commercial Law 1-202, comment 2)

My New Job Status

The other day I met with a woman who wanted me to represent her son, who is currently being held pending trial, for a misdemeanor assault. She was Greek and didn't speak English; her other son was also in the room and he translated. I asked her all sorts of questions and then she asked me if he could be locked up for good. She was crying as she asked that question. She didn't want him to go to jail; she wanted him to get psychiatric help. Of course the answer to her question was "no" but it really makes me think about a mother's love for her child.

This guy stole from her, pushed her around some, and has put her through a lot of grief while he accrued a long list of arrests. And yet the thought of not being able to see her son reduces her to tears. I'm sure the cynics among us would say that she didn't raise him right, or she's being dramatic. I can't think that way. As much as people in general tend to annoy me, I do see potential in people, a capacity to hope for better things. The day I start hating people in general is the day I will no longer be a proper mother to my girls. It is also the day that I will buy a gun. Just kidding.

And when it came to my fees - the part I hate the most so far about practicing law - the woman pulled out a white envelope and handed me cash, telling me to take care of her son. No pressure there.

Here I am

I am really startled to see I haven't posted in a month. Here's what's new and what's still the same:

1. I am now my own boss ("self-unemployed" is how my boyfriend refers to it). Check out my website: www.hughlegal.com. I have business cards and everything. Whoohoo.

2. I like being able to walk my kids to school in the morning and walk back with them in the afternoon.

3. I've started reusing plastic Ziploc baggies, just like dear old mom. I hated it when she did that as I was growing up. I remember thinking something along the lines of "I don't want to bring my used sandwich bags home so you can use them again in tomorrow's lunch. I hate it when my apples smell like yesterday's bologna sandwich. Jesus Christ, could you stop being so f-ing cheap and just throw the bags away? And for that matter, could you stop buying toilet paper with the same thickness as pantyhose?"

4. My daughter's guinea pig is a crap machine. The moment it gets put back in its cage after new bedding has been put down, it runs around the cage, dropping curiously uniformly-sized pellets all over the goddamned place, like F2 bombers spreading George Bush's joy all over the Middle East.

5. I feel like I have no time to return phone calls or have an actual social life and yet, I also feel like I waste so much time agonizing over tiny details. Maybe I have adult-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder. See how I use all those hyphens? Notice how I thought the guinea pig poop was "curiously uniformly-sized"?

6. The gym teacher at my kids' elementary school is pretty hot. He stands by the safety patrol in the morning and says hi as I walk by with my kids. His shoulders look good in the fitted polo shirts he wears. It's the stuff of good pornos. Not the bad ones featuring whores with dirty feet and ugly men, always one guy with a ponytail, one with a mustache, and at least one with zits - the kind of porn that leaves me gagging (not for THAT reason, you dirty, dirty thing) and repulsed by intercourse in general.

7. Physically, I think Michael Phelps is the male equivalent of Sarah Jessica Parker.

8. I want to go to a Ravens game soon (and often). Also, I need a team jersey.