Walking

A few years ago, the finance and I watched a documentary on John Muir. The man is fascinating. What stuck with us was how he would go for long, long walks that would last for days. The finance and I have often been inspired to make an epic trek. We've gone a few miles, but nothing that quite lasts for days.

Well, this morning I decided to go into the office. And I decided to walk there. It was awesome. I had my music on, cool weather, stopped for coffee on the way. Total was 4.12 miles and took me a little over an hour. I walked to the rhythm of the music playing and made up little poems in my head that matched the beat of my feet on the sidewalk.

Nothing quite so head-clearing as a good walk. Nothing like it.

Another strange dream...

While about 97% of the time I'm the most practical person you will ever meet, there is always a small part of me that believes in almost magical things. My childhood was spent mostly in the fantasy land of my brain, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I still believe in magic and deeper meanings in everyday occurrences. One thing I take seriously are my dreams. Especially when they are vivid and stick with me. I've already written in this blog about a strange dream I had recently. Well, last night I had another.

I dreamt that I was in a bar. A lonely, quiet bar with plush red velvet seats. I was the only person there other than the bartender, who was friendly. I knew, in the dream, that the bartender and I were friends, but only in the context of the bar. I remember sitting in one of the velvet seats, drinking whatever concoction the friendly bar tender had made for me. I also remember being incredibly depressed. Almost hopeless. The bartender was asking me what was wrong. And I told him how unhappy I was with my job, and I wasn't sure if things were ever going to get better. I'm assuming, from what happened next in my dream, that before being at the bar I was given the opportunity to go back to school. While at the bar, the bartender was trying to cheer me up with that news. He asked me what I was going to study when I went back to school. I told him I wasn't sure, and then I thought about it for awhile. Then I told him that I was going to go back and study to be a teacher. In my dream, the idea of doing this was very exciting and lifted my mood.

I remembered this dream in a rush as I was driving to work today, feeling down and a bit hopeless. Do I love my job? No. Do I think I will someday love my job? I can't honestly say yes or no. Do I think I would be happier doing something else? Maybe. It's been almost six years since I decided to go to law school. In 2007 I took the LSAT. I started my first year in 2008. I graduated in 2011 and took the bar exam that summer. I was sworn in in December 2011. I got my current job May 2012. And here we are. It's been a long road. And maybe I had blinders on during the process. Maybe I was just so focused on getting to this point, that I never considered if I wanted to get to this point.

Though, in the spirit of magical thinking and deeper meanings in every day occurrences, I have to trust that I am here for a reason. It's just that I haven't quite found my place in this world. At least not just quite yet.

To Parents of Children (especially daughters) Who Have Read Twilight

I'm a fan of books. All books. Good books, bad books, long books, short books, books with pictures, books with big words. I'm of the belief that any type of communicative medium we expose our minds to is an opportunity to consider what we think about it and evaluate how it fits into our view of the world. This analysis gives you not only a better idea of how your own brain works, but also insight into how others' brains work and how all those brains work together in this thing we call "society." Teaching people how to analyze what they encounter is, in my belief, the most important tool we can impart because it allows the learner to become truly independent and, hopefully, self-evolved.

So, to get down to the point of this post, I must first confess that I recently read the Twilight series. Now, this isn't anything too outside my realm of interests. I'm an avid reader and have rather enjoyed several young adult books, including The Hunger Games, a few of the Harry Potters, and several books written by AVI, Lois Lowery, and David Levithan. So my beef with Twilight has nothing to do with its intended audience. I also don't mind vampires, werewolves, and the like. I'm also not hating on it because it has a massive following of die hard fans.

My problem with Twilight is the message it sends to readers, particularly young female readers, about relationships. After all the media hype about "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob", the entire time I was reading the series I was asking myself, "What about Team Bella?" Why isn't her own life a third, and possibly better, option then living with a werewolf or becoming a vampire? I'm well aware that the book is suppose to convey a message about fate and love and the idea that no matter what you are meant to be with one person forever and ever and ever. Fine, that's a literary device that has been used for centuries. But, in my opinion, such a device is cheap and easy and goes way too far in justifying how Bella is treated by the boys vying for her attention.

No matter how many times Edward tells Bella that he loves her, these words do not make up for the fact that he is an abusive partner. Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship. Consider this: he keeps her from her other friends, he abandons her, he's mean to her other friends, he stalks her, he marries her at a ridiculously young age against her wishes, he won't let her out of his sight, and, in the throes of his alleged love for her, he physically harms her, repeatedly. This series is not only telling young readers that such relationships are okay, but that they are actually the best thing ever and worth losing everything for. And, to top it off, Bella's own self-esteem dwindles as the books go on. And what does Bella get out of this relationship and lack of self-esteem? She gets to be the hero.

As I indicated in the beginning of this post, I'm a fan of books. I will always support books and avid readers. But, I also think its important to not take all books at face value. To that end, if you are a parent of a child who has read Twilight, I'm imploring you to sit down with your child and discuss the themes in the book. Talk about Bella and Edward's relationship. Talk about what your child expects from a relationship. Talk about if what happens in the books is a good thing or a bad thing. And use this opportunity to tell your child what you think a healthy relationship looks like, feels like, acts like.

We have to stop telling girls that the biggest choice in their life is choosing between Boy A and Boy B. Sometimes a girl needs to choose the Girl.

Strange Dreams

I really won't be able to get any work done today until I write about this. I had a very strange dream last night. I dreamt that my finance went to the hospital to ask to be euthanized. It sounds strange even typing it. Of course, in my dream, I went to the hospital to try to talk him out of it. His rationale, in the dream, was that he was already suffering from some minor medical ailment (something like arthritis or the flu) and he figured that he was just getting older and things would just get worse so he should just end it now. I was frantic trying to convince him to not kill himself, that I was worth staying alive for, that life was worth staying alive for, that we were going to get married and all that, but nothing convinced him. Then there was a period of darkness in my dream. In the next scene I was in a house, and I knew that he was gone. And then, out of nowhere, he showed up. He hadn't gone through with it after all. And, while I was happy that he hadn't, part of me was still upset that he would want to in the first place. Then I woke up. And then I emailed my finance and told him to be safe today. He said he would.

To answer the question, no.

For starters, I should tell you the story about the creation of this blog. I'm an attorney. A young one. I'm not necessarily a young person, but I am a young attorney. This designation will, sometimes, lead to very strange requests from more senior attorneys in my firm. A few weeks ago, one of said senior attorneys called me on my cell phone because he was in his car outside the parking garage and didn't have his access card to get in. He asked me to go to my car, get my access card, go outside, and let him in to the garage. I didn't mind doing this. I like the guy I work for. But, I did come back to my desk and ask the age-old, young attorney question, "Can I bill for this?"

This blog in no way will be about billing, or the law, or being a young associate. Well, things might allude to those topics, but I can't guarantee that there will be any single focus of this blog. I guess if I were to sum up the point of this blog it would be this: I often find myself at work, knowing that I should be working so that I can bill, but my mind is just not in it. I'm hoping that this blog might serve as an outlet for my mind, give me something to distract myself so I can get back to work. Plus, from the casual observer, blogging at my desk looks something like working at my desk.

While I don't intend for anyone else to find this blog or much less read it, if you do happen across it, enjoy!