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.

Hire me

Does anyone need any legal work done? You can be my first real client... I can form corporations, file family law matters, handle personal injury or worker's compensation matters, draft wills, trusts, powers of attorney, most anything. Please?

Beds we lie on

I got sole custody, physical and legal. I felt sad for my ex afterwards, for the choices he's made in life, or perhaps the dearth of choices he's actually made. He's missed a 7 year old Suz swimming in her first swim meet, winning the championship relay for her age group. He's missed a 5 year old Char crying at her first soccer game because she can't score a goal every time she shoots. He's missed Suz's very first band concert, where she played clarinet in public for the first time and where she looked so grownup, I almost cried. And he's still missing events.

Years down the road, I wonder if he'll even know what he's missed.