Thanksgiving Update

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day. Our meal was wonderful and unexpectedly quiet as a result of last-minute cancellations by my brother and cousins. The bright side of this was that I was able to enjoy the longest uninterrupted conversation I have ever had with my uncle, a great guy whom I do not see often enough. Having arrived a bit early, I was even able to enjoy a private visit with my aunt and uncle while I constructed a salad. (No, the world has not ended, as I did not actually "cook" anything . . . I merely assembled pieces of a salad). By the time my Mom and I returned home, it was after 5 pm and I was exhausted, having only slept for a few hours before catching my early morning flight to Chicago.

On another note, there is something strange about waking up in one's childhood bedroom. There was a period of time between high school graduation and my father's death in which I did not sleep in this room, because I always stayed with my Dad when back in Illinois. But now, by default, I stay at my mother's house, which is also the only house I ever lived in as a child. The room has now been painted, the Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stephenson posters are gone and there is a new and much more comfortable mattress on the narrow twin bed. But still, I cannot shake the feeling of being watched here by ghosts of my childhood. Being here returns me to the silence of my childhood, where feelings were never discussed, except for jotting them down in my diary.

Thoughts for another day, as I go off to take my grandmother's boyfriend to breakfast . . .

Well, it worked.

I had hoped to come back from vacation with a plan for my life. I did, though not quite in the way I expected. Instead of a step-by-step plan for my career, which is what I had in mind, I came back with something different.

At work today, more than one person told me I look very rested and peaceful. I've taken many small trips and even a few lengthier vacations before, but never before have people said this upon my return. I spent a good bit of time today thinking about this. If I appear rested and peaceful, my appearance matches the way I feel inside, even after I was reminded this morning of a certain aspect of my employment which I totally despise.

Here's what I came up with: I believe I appear peaceful because I feel in touch with myself again. I feel a renewed sense of confidence that I will survive whatever life throws at me--I once knew this for sure, but had forgotten it. I know there are some things I need to do for myself in the short term which will help me accomplish the things I want in the long term, and I have committed to do those things. I feel more focused. And perhaps most importantly, I feel a zen sense of calmness that comes from knowing the things that bother me most right now do not matter in the long run, that I won't care about them at the end of my life, whenever that may be, and that things truly work out for the best in the end.

I think these girls, whom I saw while photographing a bridge in Vermont, know that:



And I'm hoping their photograph will help me remember it, too.

The Letter.

I fly out at 6:55 tomorrow morning and am wondering how I will get everything done--including packing--before then. But before I hit total whirlwind mode, I wanted to jot something down about the old-fashioned letter.

I don't have a vivid memory of many things from my childhood, but one thing I do remember is my mother teaching me how to write a letter. She drilled me on the importance of good penmanship, grammar and spelling, as well as paragraph structure. As a child, however, most of my correspondence was limited to short and simple thank you notes. Then I moved to Texas for college and found (after my long distance phone card privileges were sharply reduced due to my abuse of such privileges) the best way to keep in touch with my friends who chose Midwestern schools was by writing letters. So we wrote lengthy tomes about everything under the sun, mailing them off at least once, but often two or three, times per week. I wish I still had those letters!

My friends and I don't write those kind of letters anymore. I suspect this is because we think we are too busy to write and now have cell phones that don't charge extra for long distance calls. But I realized this week, on reading a lengthy and satisfying birthday letter from my aunt, that I miss both writing and reading letters. For me, the pleasure of writing a letter lies in the choice of a solid and comfortable pen, beautiful writing paper and, most of all, thinking about what will make the reader laugh or otherwise read with interest.

My aunt lives in the town where she and my mother were born, a tiny village of 400 found about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. Reading her letter reminded me of the pleasure of a detailed glimpse into the life of someone you care about, presented in their "voice," which you can almost hear as you read their words on the page. Here is a little example of this:

I got me a new phone with call ID. I got so mad at [J and B (her teenage grandchildren)] calling & hanging up. J says it's B and B says it's J. A few days after I got it I had a hang up. I looked & it was a Colorado no. If I didn't have caller ID, I would have blamed them.

She wrote of a summer of corn and beans and fresh tomatoes. She talked about how she misses my uncle, who died almost two years ago, and how he used to be the one to take care of the yard. She asked when I will come home at Christmas time again. These latter items are things my aunt and I would never discuss quite like that in person, but somehow they fit just fine into a letter. I think I'll write her back from Vermont.

Anniversaries and A Decorated Office.

I realized this week that this summer marks a number of anniversaries for me. Twenty years since I moved from Illinois to Texas to begin college. Fifteen years since the summer I spent with the man who set the benchmark for me on what love is. Ten years since I moved to Dallas as the result of a transfer with my former firm.

Thinking about these anniversaries has brought a mix of emotions: nostalgia, anger, the sweetness of one's first grown-up love and disbelief that I have survived for so long in this conservative Southern city among them. I cannot help but believe that the convergence of these anniversaries makes this a sort of milestone year for me. I have finally grasped some long-sought after prizes and now is the perfect time to sketch out what I want my life to be, then turn the wheel in that direction.

I will think about this in a few weeks, while I explore the nooks and crannies of Vermont and New Hampshire during my fall vacation. But for now, I'm enjoying the open vista before me.



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On a less deep note, the re-decorating of my office is nearly complete! It began with firm-provided loaner furniture and a very dark little corner. It now looks like this, with only an end table, some art on the walls and a bit of tidying up left to do:





This is one of my two identical lamps . . . I love them!



I am proud that I have made such significant changes so economically.

You can't make them.

A few months ago, some friends and I attended a Bright Eyes concert in Dallas. I already loved Bright Eyes from their "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" album (is it still called an album?), but my friends were Bright Eyes novices. Excited to introduce them to the wonderfulness, I said, "I want you to love it!" while one of my favorite songs was being played. A tall, nice looking young man standing nearby said gently, "But you can't make them love it."



It was one of those kinds of quotes that has stayed with me, even though I typically have a terrible memory for such things.

Contented

The last three days have been a whirlwind. I spent two of them in San Antonio on business that included several very intense meetings. However, I stayed with friends there and had a lovely evening with them and their kiddos. Arrived home last night, to complete preparations for today. "Today" entailed a 6:00 a.m. visit to the office and a 7:30 a.m. flight to Lubbock, followed by a day's worth of deposition, from which I just returned.

Typically, this would leave me feeling exhausted and worrying about what awaits me at the office. But I feel calm, on top of it and satisfied that I have done solid work for my clients over the last three days. And while doing that, I have somehow touched base with the humanity I have felt was lacking.

As I'm fond of saying, these are baby steps . . . but important ones!

An update from the trenches of depression

Just wanted to post a brief update. I'm sorry I haven't been posting more, but my attention has been turned so far inward lately that I have had little of interest to offer anyone, unless you are charmed by self-analysis mixed with serious mood swings.

I am perplexed by the level of unhappiness I am experiencing, because "on paper," my life is amazingly full. I should be on cloud nine given all the good things in my life, not the least of which are the rapid expansion of my responsibilities related to my favorite civil rights organization, recent work successes, my wonderful and supportive friends and the ability to indulge my beloved baseball and travel passions on a not infrequent basis. So why will I not permit myself to feel happiness, even taking action or inaction that seems destined to ensure my unhappiness?

This weekend, I read a book called "Living a Life that Matters" by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. After being immersed in his introductory chapters and their focus on integrity and the need to live a life that matches "who we are," I found myself skimming the passages about the Bible. I haven't completely given up on the idea of God, but the Bible does not feel to me like the place where either God or the key to unlocking this existential crisis may be found. I quickly realized that I do not need a book to know that the legacy I am creating right now is not the one I want to leave behind.

Sadly, it seemed as if I stumbled upon an epiphany--at least a partial one--while watching an old episode of my beloved Sex and the City series, in which Carrie accuses Miranda of being so judgmental that she simply cuts out of her life the people who disappoint her. It doesn't take a television critic to see that Miranda imposes those same exacting standards on herself, serving as her own worst critic. Surely, my life would be lighter and happier if I could loosen up, both on others and myself. I believe I have done that to some extent in recent months, but certainly not enough. I feel haunted and overwhelmed by the number of broken or simply faded relationships with family, friends and others who matter to me. The prospect of rebuilding those bridges is a daunting one, even if it is possible to do so, which I am not sure is the case.

Last night I caught up with my friend J. who, upon hearing a few anecdotes from my life over the last few weeks, insisted that I immediately make three (not just one--three) appointments over the next week with a trusted advisor who has helped me in the past. This may have scared me more than anything else that has happened recently, but it also gave me hope that J. thinks there is help to be found. I need to hope for that, too, as the foregoing clearly indicates that this is bigger than me.

Just musing . . .

It probably isn't a sign of success

when a person drives home from work on a Friday night, tears streaming down her face, because she cannot think of a way to kill herself that will not endanger her dogs or cause others to experience pain.

Past that now. But desperate to find some way to be happy. Sooner rather than later.

Searching one's soul

Something happened last night that caused me to slow down and think. I can't talk about the specifics, but they probably are not that important anyway.

What is important is that before searching my soul, I had to locate it. I have never felt more out of touch with who I really am. I have never felt more out of control of my life. I have never felt more strongly that I must stop doing things that sabotage my effectiveness, happiness and well-being. Unbelievably, one aspect of last night's situation--running unexpectedly and improbably into an old friend who helped to make it so much better than it otherwise would have been--even made me seriously rethink my agnosticism. Miracles certainly will never cease.

I am not writing this so you all, kind-hearted people you are, can tell me not to be so hard on myself. In fact, I agree with you. One way to be less hard on myself is to stop doing things, or not doing things, that directly cause my life to be harder.

I spent all of today sleeping, thinking and freshening the one bit of the world I felt I had control over today: my bedroom/bathroom. I feel the need to slow down and do one thing at a time, think carefully and be true to myself. I will try very hard to do that during the busy work week, which is much harder than on a lazy, rainy Sunday.



Flower at Seattle's Volunteer Park Conservatory, by me, June 2007.

New Leaf

I accomplished barely anything with respect to work this weekend, and I came home for the weekend armed with enough work to kill a pig. (What?!?) How is that new, you ask? It isn't.

But this is: I will get to work at a decent hour today (i.e., by 8:00 a.m.) I have fallen into the habit of late of staying up too late, making it hard to get up early, and then once I get up, I spend a few hours procrastinating. Today, I will leave my house by around 7:30, dash in happily and roll up my sleeves to work.

If I say it, it will come true, right?

Memorial Day Thoughts

According to the AP, 3,452 members of our military have died in Iraq and 325 others have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since 2001. Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows how I feel about the Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.

I cannot offer any thoughts more appropriate or eloquent than those in these two columns in today's New York Times. First, please read Paul Krugman's column, titled "Trust and Betrayal." If you cannot read it (it appears to be a Times Select offering), here are a few short excerpts that give you the flavor:

“In this place where valor sleeps, we are reminded why America has always gone to war reluctantly, because we know the costs of war.” That’s what President Bush said last year, in a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Those were fine words, spoken by a man with less right to say them than any president in our nation’s history. For Mr. Bush took us to war not with reluctance, but with unseemly eagerness.

. . . . .

To keep the war going, the administration has brought the original bogyman back out of the closet. At first, Mr. Bush said he would bring Osama bin Laden in, dead or alive. Within seven months after 9/11, however, he had lost interest: “I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure,” he said in March 2002. “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

In all of 2003, Mr. Bush, who had an unrelated war to sell, made public mention of the man behind 9/11 only seven times.

But Osama is back: last week Mr. Bush invoked his name 11 times in a single speech, warning that if we leave Iraq, Al Qaeda — which wasn’t there when we went in — will be the winner. And Democrats, still fearing that they will end up accused of being weak on terror and not supporting the troops, gave Mr. Bush another year’s war funding.

Democratic Party activists were furious, because polls show a public utterly disillusioned with Mr. Bush and anxious to see the war ended. But it’s not clear that the leadership was wrong to be cautious. The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.

Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.

But they aren’t, at least not yet. And until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.

After you read Mr. Krugman's column, please read the contribution of Mike Kondor. This is the introduction to his story:

EVERY evening at 10, beeps emanate from the top drawer of my dresser. The sound comes from a watch that has resided there for just over three years. The 20 beeps signify that another day is dawning in Iraq. The watch belonged to my son, Specialist Martin Kondor, who was killed in action with the Army on the morning of April 29, 2004, in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad. Martin was 20 years old.

I dare you to read his work without a tear forming in your eye.

Thank you, all past and present U.S. troops, on this Memorial Day. Thank you for all that you do, all that you have sacrificed and the lessons of devotion that you leave for us all.

A Funk, The Weekend, and A Story

Have you ever experienced a major let down after accomplishing a life's dream (or at least a dream)? I am afraid I am in the midst of a major post-achievement funk. I have almost no desire right now to work on the things I'm supposed to be working on--meaning the things I am paid to work on, as opposed to my civil rights stuff (though I'm doing it anyway, of course). It is impossible for me to remember the last time I felt so bored. But my workload does not permit me the luxury of laziness at this time. ARGHHHHHH!

Anyway, it is the Memorial Day weekend, and I will be working a lot, but also preparing my house to welcome a guest on Wednesday. The guest is my friend M and it seems a good time to share the story of how I met M and his friend J, with J being one of my closest friends.



Sometime around 1995 or 1996, I was sent to Torrance, California on a document review project for a client. My law school friend/then colleague D and I were lucky enough to be assigned to stay at the client's preferred hotel, which was on the water in Redondo Beach, California. The project began one week and we had to stay in CA through the following week to meet with some other lawyers. Accordingly, we were required to stay through the weekend, with our only duty being to have reviewed all the documents by the following week, at whatever pace we chose. Rough task, right?

Neither D nor I had visited the Los Angeles area before, so we started each work day early and finished by late afternoon, which was an "early day" under law firm standards. We would dash back to our hotel, change into play clothes, and walk or roller blade or bike along the nice pedestrian path that traced the edge of the beach. There was always a nice place for dinner (D introduced me to sushi on this trip), followed by mellow evening activities. For the weekend, D and I wanted to really get out to see the city of Los Angeles in style, and we decided to try a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. Despite the hype, however, the Big Saturday Night was a bit of a flop, as we realized we had chosen a Puck restaurant that was a chain (think California Pizza Kitchen) and that it was a bad idea to drink and drive around an unfamiliar city.

Feeling deflated, we returned to the hotel and wondered what we would do with the remainder of our evening. Entering the hotel lobby, we saw a group of well-dressed people milling about, with the unifying theme being that they were all drinking beer and having fun. Perhaps they saw us looking longingly at their merry group, and before we knew it, D and I each had a cold drink in hand, he was pulled into a poker game and we were happily visiting with the folks (they were the wedding party in a wedding that occurred earlier that evening). By now you will have guessed that both M and J were groomsmen in the wedding who lived nearby and that we got to know them over poker chips and beer.

Somehow in the midst of all the festivities, there was a little spark between M and me, and I found myself spending quite a bit of time with him in between reviewing documents. We continued to talk and see each other after my return to Texas, even going on a wonderful camping trip in the Redwood Forest in Northern California with a huge group of his friends. While getting to know M, I also got to know J, as J was his roommate. The romance with M was apparently not meant to last, as I abruptly ended it for reasons I no longer clearly remember. But J and I had become good friends by that time and we continue to be great friends to this day. In fact, it was J and the lovely girlfriend I "introduced" him to (by forcing him to sign up with an online dating service) with whom I had such a great time in Hawaii earlier this year.

In the last 10 or so years, M and I have stayed in touch through J, even spending some time together while attending a Cubs/Padres game with J and others last spring. He'll be in town this week on business and I am looking forward to showing him a bit of my world and catching up while he's here.

And now, I'm off to "work." Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend!

Drumroll, please . . . The Five Questions

Okay, Jay and Jenn,

I took advantage of a night with a late-starting Cubs game and a lack of interest in performing billable work and have, at long last, written your Five Questions. The pressure on me was great, as Phil is a truly amazing question-asker and I finally tossed up my hands, giving up any hope of even approaching his Terri Gross-like interview prowess. So here's what you get:

Five Questions for Jay

You know how there are certain moments in life that feel magical, whether because they make you feel spectacularly good, or because they make you look at life a different way, or act differently than you did before? Tell me about one such moment that stands out in your memory and how it changed you.

You have been writing your blog since January 2006. What made you start your blog and what has most surprised you about the effect of your blog on your life?

You live in a small town in Arkansas, but through your blog you meet people all over the United States, and in other countries, too. Have you ever met someone “in real life” whom you first met through your blog? If so, tell me about that experience. And on a related note, if you actually met French News Anchor Melissa Theuriau, on whom I believe you have a small crush, what would your approach be in speaking with her (assuming you spoke French or she English)?

Speaking of your blog (again), you are so good at chatting with people and making them feel comfortable. You are also smart and an avid follower of things political. Have you ever considered running for office? If not, why not? If so, what office would you run for and what would your campaign theme be?

I remember you saying your Dad died about 10 years ago (I remember this because my Dad died almost nine years ago). Was your Dad’s death one of the most significant events in your life? And how did it change you as a person, if it did?

Five Questions for Jenn

You mentioned you are on the verge of converting to being a Cubs fan. What will it take to push you over the edge? Just kidding! J Here is my actual question: Jenn, you are nothing if not a lover of books. What do you see as the qualities necessary for a truly great book and what book is, in your view, the greatest you have ever read?

Turning to your actual life, if I had never met you before and knew nothing about you, what one story from your life would you tell me to give me an idea of the kind of person you are and the life you have lived?

Your musical favorites, as listed in your “about me” page of your blog, are quite interesting. Please give a brief narrative of your life in terms of which artist and/or song represents each phase.

About writing: have you made any progress on the novel that involves a sport about which you do not (did not) know much? Tell me about your writing process—how does it work? Do you have to be in the mood to write? In what setting do you write most prolifically? When are you most pleased by your writing?

I just saw this story on your blog:

My Christmas Memory

Christmas of 1996 I was a poor graduate student with a full time job, living in Greensboro NC. I was also very alone, as my family was in PA and most of my friends were heading back to their own families for the holiday.

It was my first Christmas away from home. I could not afford a plane ticket and did not have the time, because of my work schedule, to drive.

Until my ex-boyfriend, who I followed to North Carolina, called to ask if I wanted a ride as far as Latrobe. And one of my co-workers offered to switch vacation days so I could take the ride.

So Christmas Eve found me wrapped in a blanket, sitting in the passenger seat of the ex's Miata with the top down, driving through the mountains of West Virginia. The sky was clear, the stars bright and the radio was playing Elvis' Blue Christmas. It was a perfect moment.

My brother picked me up in Latrobe and drove me home, where I surprised my parents by walking through their bedroom door at 2 am.

Four years later, on a clear, cold, starry, January evening, I married the ex-boyfriend.

Could you please bridge the gap and let us know what exactly transpired between hitching a Christmas ride with the ex-boyfriend and marrying the ex-boyfriend?

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Here are the instructions, if you've forgotten them:

So if you want to play along and now be interviewed by me, please leave me a comment or send an email saying: "Interview me."
* I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
* You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
* You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
* Then others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions and so on.

Phil's Five Questions

Phil at The Archer Pelican was kind enough to humor me by asking me five questions (actually, because he's sneaky, six questions--but who's counting?) after he posted a meme in which he answered five questions that were asked of him. As you will see, Phil is not only an amazing researcher . . . he is also quite thoughtful and perceptive. Without further ado, here are the Qs and As:

1. I've often wondered about your blog title, "A Clear View to a New Life" and your Blogger subdomain, "eyebrow-raisingfolk". Care to comment a little on their origins? If you've written about these elsewhere in your blogs, feel free to just point us to the permalinks.

When I first created this blog (this one being the first of the trilogy), I called it “eyebrow-raising folk.” I dreamed then of writing for a living (writing things other than legal documents, I mean) and wanted to force myself to write every day for practice. My thought was that I would write about interesting people and things I saw, get in the habit of observing and find something to do that was not law-related. I did not know enough about blogs at the time to understand that this was a title of which I would quickly tire, and one that would not fit what my blog would ultimately become. But there it is still.

I later realized I could change the title of my blog as it appeared on the page, and thus “A Clear View To A New Life” was born. I believe the idea for that title sprang from a night in an Oklahoma City hotel room, smack in the middle of a week of out-of-town depositions. I was talking on the phone with my friend Jay, who had only known me for a short time and who only had (at that point) met me online, but who was intuitive enough and understood me well enough to observe that my way of making a living is not aligned with my—well, soul. We kept talking about what I could do that would be in line with me and came to the inescapable conclusion that I needed to be working on civil rights issues. I returned to Dallas and literally cried tears of relief as I thought over what Jay and I had discussed while driving out to the country kennel to pick up my dogs. Suddenly, my life took a new direction, as I had a goal and a dream.

2. Speaking of your blogs, plural: how do you feel about having three personal blogs instead of one? If you could start over from scratch, would you have organized your digital world any differently? (In my own world, the excess of options drives me a little nuts.)

Other than the titles and occasional pangs of annoyance with Blogger and its quirks, I am actually quite content with my three blogs. The first one (this one) is the most heavily used, and is where my words go. The second (“Travels Through The Lens”) is where I store the tales of my travels . . . it is as much for me as for anyone who might visit. I love going back to it and reminding myself of a particular trip and feeling briefly transported back into that moment, though I want to do a better job of truly capturing the nuances of those experiences. The third one (“Portfolio of Hope”) was created rather recently, as I started working on a portfolio of my photography to show to the guy who selects artists for the wall at my local coffee shop. I planned to use that blog to see which pictures worked together and which didn’t, so I could assemble a nice collection on disc for him to review. As you can see, I have not gotten very far with that yet, due to a shortage of time and computer transition issues. I think if I had more time to cast about on the internet (meaning, beyond the crazy amount of time I already spend there), I might find more attractive options than this, but I’m committed to it, and contended.

3. Not long ago (30 April, to be exact), you wrote about a wish to change, and the double role of fear. If you had one wish that you could use to either dispel that particular fear and issue, or gain a modest strength that you've often wished for -- which would you pick?

Gosh, this is such a good question—it actually provoked me into using the word “gosh”! I would use it to gain a strength, though I am not sure it is a modest one. I would wish to gain the wisdom or finesse or magic or whatever was required so that my brother would speak to me again.

4(a). For part (a) of this question, you will need to put aside both stubbornness and modesty for at least two minutes. M'kay? What are ten things that your friends enjoy (like, appreciate, etc.) and/or respect (admire, envy, wish for themselves, etc.) about you? TEN. And they don't need to be unique, either -- they can be great things that lots of people have, not just you.

Phil, I’m guessing that you wanted me to come up with ten things myself, but unfortunately, given my current frame of mind, I just couldn’t do it. I tried. But I could not conceive of a list of one thing, much less ten things. So I conducted a highly scientific survey of two of my dearest friends: Beth, whom I have known since we were 14 years old (we met when she poked me in the rear with a sharp pencil in a high school algebra class), and Jim, whom I have known for approximately 12 years (Jim and I have a great meeting story—I’ll have to share it with you sometime). So anyway, the following is a rough amalgam of Beth’s and Jim’s answers, which I was able to combine into a list of 12 . . . I found it interesting that they overlapped perfectly on two items (the “x2”):

1. good listener

2. caring x2

3. appreciates my quirkiness as much as i appreciate yours/ fun to be with

4. ambitious/ independent

5. not materialistic

6. dog lover

7. adventurous x2

8. loyalty

9. loves to laugh/ humorous/ wit / wisdom

10. someone who i am comfortable enough with to pee while we talk on the phone

10. openness

12. sports lover-loves chicago sports but will be immersed into any sports game even if it was 8 year olds playing

4(b). For part (b) of this question, you may respond publicly, privately by email to me, or just in your own head. Of the ten items above, which ones are you most delighted about (either openly or secretly), whether or not such feelings of delight might be considered a vice.

Of the items on the list above, the ones that leave me most delighted are:

1. good listener

2. caring

3. appreciates my quirkiness as much as i appreciate yours/ fun to be with

7. adventurous

8. loyalty

10. someone who i am comfortable enough with to pee while we talk on the phone

5. Your Blogger profile's list of favorite books would indicate that you can't be pinned down to an easily labeled ideology (i.e., dyed-in-the-wool Ayn Rand Objectivists are not, in my estimate, heavy consumers of U2 and Indigo Girls politics). Any thoughts on that? Feel free to answer this question in the context of an alternate and perhaps better question: whose baseball writing do you like better, George Will's or Frank DeFord's? No need to comment yet on Deford's new book, The Entitled. But feel free if you've already read it.

My ideology is somewhat eclectic. Politically, I consider myself more of a small “l” libertarian, in the sense that my ideal government is no more that is absolutely required and is “hands off” both socially and fiscally. I oppose the death penalty, without exception. I treasure the individual spirit and believe it should be permitted to thrive unimpeded, so long as others are not harmed by it. This is the Ayn Rand-loving part of me, I suspect. I only learned later, after falling in love with “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” that Rand is thought of by many as hostile to the concept of helping others. If that’s true, it is the place where she and I diverge in our thinking, as I love people (the global “people”) too much to let them suffer when we are in a position to help them get back on their feet. This dichotomy is also reflected in my work and volunteer choices . . . at work, I defend employers being sued by their employees for alleged mistreatment, and am comfortable with doing so, in that I have no problem battling to defeat employees who were not treated unfairly and are trying to get something for nothing. When that isn’t the case, I work toward a result that is fair for all involved, while representing my client’s best interests, of course. In my volunteer work, I stand up for the rights of individuals against those who try to infringe upon such rights. I don’t know if this is the explanation you were looking for, but basically, you are right and it’s complicated!

I really wanted to write about Will and DeFord, but I don’t read either of them. Though now I will.

So if you want to play along and now be interviewed by me, please leave me a comment or send an email saying: "Interview me."

* I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
* You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
* You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
* Then others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions and so on.

By the way, as Phil said, too, I'd looove to write questions for anyone, so don't be shy.

Is there a limit to the amount of self-loathing one can have?

I do not feel good about myself tonight. I feel as if I do not know myself anymore.

Overly critical.

Gossipy.

Short-tempered.

Selfish.

Irrational.

Fat.

Unlovable.

And that's just for starters . . .

How do you change?

I have been struggling for a while with trying to make a change. Well, to be honest, there are several things I want to change, but this one is particularly important. I have thought and thought and thought about it. I have tried to simply make the change. I have tried to envision my life after making this change. I returned to my therapist after a long absence in search of the wisdom I need to do this. All to no avail.

The thing I'm trying to change is a relatively new thing, something that wasn't even a factor in my life until the last five years or so. So why am I having such a difficult time rooting it out?

Speechless.

I have spent the last two days sorting through my feelings in an attempt to make some kind of sense of the Virginia Tech shootings. My reaction to this horrible incident has been intense beyond understanding. I thought at first this was because of the uncertainty immediately following the event, the wanting to know who did it and why they did it. We are so accustomed now to having instant answers that I found it surprisingly frustrating not to know these things right away. While the answers to those questions now seem somewhat clearer, I still find myself feeling wracked with sadness to a degree I cannot fully understand, given that I do not know any of the victims. I hurt for them and their families, who are experience the shock and grief that come when one loses a loved one unexpectedly and grapples with the reminder that life is so fragile and our hold on it so tenuous.

I think I am also sad in part for us, meaning the American people. How did things go so awry that the kind of mental health issues that many, many people observed in the shooter can go unaddressed for so long? Why do parents continue to allow their kids to play the kind of mindlessly violent video games that I understand played a significant role in the shooter's free time as a boy, the kind of games that can only desensitize a person to the horror and pain that comes from spilled blood. My heart aches for the teacher who cared enough to tutor him one-on-one when her colleagues and students were too frightened to be around him, even working out a signal for her assistant to call for help should something go wrong. But I am angry with a system in which university officials felt too afraid of the legal ramifications or too powerless to act to get help for such a seriously disturbed student. Had help been obtained, 33 lives may not have been lost and countless others not shattered by the horrifying experience of the shooting.

I am also sad for the shooter. It makes me angry when people speak sadly of the loss of 32 lives, discounting the shooter's life as not worthy of mourning. How must his parents and his sister feel right now? I think their pain must be the worst of all, because not only have they lost a son and a brother; they also are living with the guilt and shame of what he did and probably have far fewer friends flocking to their door to comfort them than do the victims' families. Surely, the shooter's family knew a time when he still had light and laughter, before he descended into what by all accounts seems to have been a profound darkness in recent days. But his life is a loss, too, for him and for his family and for us, in that he had the potential to do things of value in the world, as do we all, and that potential is snuffed out. It is just that we gave this boy up for dead much sooner, while he was still living, when we failed to get him the help he needed.

Don't get me wrong. He did an awful, inhumane thing to innocent people. But I understand, albeit on a much smaller level, the power of mental illness and I am not comfortable falling back on the platitudes about him being "an adult who made a conscious choice." Maybe it is because I cannot find it in my heart or mind or soul to accept that any person in their right mind would or could do what he did. That is simply unimaginable to me.

I have no answers. I can only hope that some good will come of this, that after the healing has begun, we will begin to look at how to make it possible to get help for someone so desperately needs it, before it is too late. The price of ignoring mental illness and hoping it will go away is far too high.

The Power of a Few Thoughtful Words

I wish I was a more thoughtful person. For years, I thought about writing a little note to thank the man who founded my first law firm, a kind and decent and humble man who took time to talk to silly first year lawyers like me. But I didn't, and then he died last year, and I was sorry I never sent him the note I thought about writing all those years.

Tonight, I ran across a note someone sent me seven years ago. I have managed to keep track of that note all this time, despite having the least organized home ever. I have taken care to keep track of it because it meant so much to me. The note is from one of the attorney/instructors from a great trial advocacy workshop I attended that summer. I came out of the workshop with the confidence that I knew how to construct a good cross-examination, but feeling unsure about my "style." We talked a lot about style and I saw people with all kinds of styles at the workshop . . . I worried that I wasn't crisp or commanding enough to impress a judge or jury.

And then, a handwritten note came in the mail, penned in green ink by one of my favorite instructors. I won't transcribe it here, as to do so would somehow seem to make it a little less special. But I still pull out his note and read his words again whenever I doubt myself. He assured me that I can excel at this thing called the law while being myself, finding particular qualities in me that I sometimes find myself having to strain hard to see.

I mention this because I'll bet you know someone, whether a family member or a coworker or an acquaintance, whose day would be made by receiving a kind note from you. It would only take five minutes for you to write such a note. What are you waiting for?

Sleep musings.

Today I woke up early because I'm giving a speech at a breakfast meeting and I find myself thinking of sleep-related things:

How does the "brain alarm clock" work so well? I am not a morning person. I unconsciously turn off my alarm and go back to sleep for a few minutes or an hour on more days than not. But today, when I absolutely had to be up early, I not only woke up, I woke up a few minutes before the alarm was set to go off. This seems a tiny miracle to me.

Also, is there anyone who feels they get enough sleep? Other than when I am on vacation (and sometimes not even then) do I sleep until I wake up and reach a state of maximum recharge. I try every day to get to bed early enough to get a full night of sleep, but that rarely happens other than on the weekend. If anyone has a trick to share, I would love to hear it!

A Lisa Weekend, Ending With a Thread

There was a time a few years ago, before things became so hectic, when I faithfully kept a tradition my friends laughingly called "The Lisa Day." Once a month, I set aside a Saturday for a haircut, massage and whatever other non-work related thing my heart desired. Nothing was allowed to interfere . . . in response to invitations that might interfere with the day, I could say only, "I'm sorry, but I have other plans." Then work and other must-do's intervened and The Lisa Day went the way of the Edsel.

This weekend, however, The Lisa Day was revived--for three days! I was able to scoot out of work at the "early" hour of 3:30 p.m. on Friday, and I beelined for my friend Sandy's house, where we celebrated an early happy hour with a nice Chardonnay. Then I zipped home, changed clothes and headed to an event for that group that I love. Here is the sky I saw on the way to my meeting:



The event was a nice one, and afterward I brainstormed with others about some future projects, then hung out with some friends and even recruited a new future Board member for my group!

Saturday morning came bright and early, with an 8:00 a.m. massage appointment. Here's the strange thing: I thought I would find at the appointment that my long-neglected back was ready to cave in on itself, but my massage therapist, who has known my back intimately for nearly 10 years now, said my muscles are more relaxed than she has seen them in years. That may not sound like a big deal, but on all of my prior recent visits, my muscles were tied in knots by stress. My job hasn't become any less stressful on a daily basis and Louise thinks this change is closely tied to no longer having the "will I make partner?" question hanging over my head. Maybe she's right. But I couldn't be more surprised about the change or the reason for it.

I left the salon and, on a whim, drove to Fort Worth for breakfast. I lingered over perhaps the best migas I have ever had at the well known Joe T. Garcia's. The view of the courtyard/patio was so beautiful on such a blue-skied, crisp morning that I was able to pretend I was somewhere in interior Mexico, spending some time relaxing before beginning my day. There were small moments so warm they seemed to glow: a handsome young waiter listening intently to a bar back telling him a story, a middle-aged man and woman earnestly talking about how his family will receive her, the nice ladies who sweetly said goodbye as I left.

Tearing myself away from the warm dining room, I headed to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, my favorite museum in the DFW area. I would love the museum's Tadao Ando-designed building even if it was completely empty, but it isn't. There is art, really wonderful art. Today's visit revealed no exception, with some parts of the permanent collection:





and an exhibition called "Pretty Baby" that showcased some interesting pieces around a kiddo theme:







This is all I was able to photograph with my phone's camera before learning that no photography of this exhibit was allowed. Two videos also formed part of the exhibit . . . one with side by side home movies of similar events--birthday parties, Disney visits, Christmas dinners--from the lives of Black families and White families, the other with two kids telling the story of a fraternal twin's birth in an amazingly poetic, sweet and imaginative way.

I left and, feeling spiritually wakened, drove slowly home, where I took a lovely long nap.

Not finished with the creative immersion, this afternoon I saw a wonderful production of Twelve Angry Men, starring George Wendt (of "Norm" fame) and Richard Thomas (of "John Boy" fame). The play was intense and absorbing and very well acted, so much so that it brought tears to my eyes a few times in the way that happens when I hear a particularly beautiful rendition of the National Anthem before a baseball game.

Do you ever go through a phase where you feel as if you are one with the world? Right now I feel like a thread woven snugly through the tapestry that is life and mankind, not a particularly beautiful thread or even a very strong one, but a thread which benefits from the strength and beauty of all those around it and knows that, for now, that is enough.