Challenge Declined

6:00 pm, Tuesday evening

“Chicagoan, you look tired.”

“Maybe that’s because I am.”

“Why? How many hours did you bill last month?”

“280.”

“Oh, well, once Partner X billed 433. That’s more than half of the hours that exist in any month!”

“That’s nice.”

“What? You aren’t striving for that?”

Filing that one away in the category of things I don’t need to hear after averaging 9 hours of substantive work for each day of the previous 31-day month.

Mother's Day

My married friends tell me that as soon as you tie the knot the parental pestering aimed at getting married turns immediately to parental pestering about when the grandchildren are going to arrive. I am very familiar with the marriage-related parental pestering: although the most of the bothering emanated from the matriarchs of my family, as is the usual course, they began to bother me at the rather unusually early age of 18. Recently, however, the pressure has somewhat subsided. Perhaps it’s because they think the last time I had a date was 2002. And since the truth is not all that much more encouraging, I’m content to keep them in the dark.

They’ve replaced the marriage pestering, however, with the charming habit of bothering me about when my married friends are going to have children. So, just in case you didn’t hear it enough from your own families, my family wants to know when you are going to have babies (because they are tired of waiting for mine).

Selling Out

Not that there was any doubt that I would do it, and not that there was any doubt that I had already done it, but last weekend made it abundantly clear that I am officially part of corporate America.

My firm held its "all-attorney" retreat last weekend, where it flys the entire firm to a sunny location for a whole host of activities with the ultimate purpose of achieving what one only reads about on the self-help shelves or learns in an MBA program. Although the retreat was actually a really great program, full of high profile and largely interesting speakers, with minimal forced socialization with the most boring of the attorneys, there were a few unmistakable signs that my life is nothing like it was just a few short years ago:

1. Three days in Palm Springs
2. At a luxury resort
3. Laying by the pool
4. Playing in the firm golf tournament
5. And collecting random bits of memorabilia emblazoned with the firm's name (my favorite, the beer stein).

Yes, I believe I have become that person.

Monday, Monday

9:30 am, Monday morning:

"Chicagoan, when are you going to be finished with that letter I asked you to draft?"

"Later this afternoon."

"Great! Did you have a nice weekend?"

"No."

"Why not? You weren't here the whole time, were you?"

"Yes."

"Chicagoan, you need to get a life."

Filing that one away in the category of things I don't need to hear first thing on a Monday morning.

Spring Is In The Air

A new season has arrived along with the erratically warmer weather—tourist season. Like most District residents, tourists annoy me. But many more things annoy me than annoy most District residents, so having a city full of tour groups (from middle school age to elderly) really does not demand the percentage of my attention that it seems to demand from others. Sure, I’d like to be able to go for a jog near the monuments without dodging roving packs of people, and I’d love to be able to eat at my local Chipotle without having to fight 30 high schoolers for a table. But tourists are just a fact of living in the capital.

Of course, like all District residents, I am somewhat fixated on my right to walk up the left hand side of a Metro escalator while the non-walkers stand to the right. If I’m unable to exercise that right, though, I’m surprisingly not usually miffed. I usually just wait behind the offender, or if I’m in a hurry, politely excuse myself and pass on by. I generally find myself more annoyed with the DC residents who spill countless ounces of ink and waste ridiculous amounts of breath complaining about people who do not understand the “fundamental laws” of Metro escalator riding. But when the tourist stands on the left side of the escalator to take a picture of himself on the escalator with his camera phone, I draw the line. I know the escalators are long and very interesting, but please use the right side for all of your picture-taking needs.

Giving Thanks

I was raised to be obsessed with the performance of acts of gratitude. Whenever I received a gift from anyone, I was ordered to express my thanks in person and in written form, regardless of the size of the gift. As I grew up, I chafed at the ritual of writing the half-sincere thank-you note—thank you very much for the [blank]…your generosity is very much appreciated…thanks, again! But I knew that the sentiment conveyed by the note meant something to its recipient, and although I no longer believe in the multi-pronged thanks-giving strategy, I still make sure that the words are said in some form whenever I receive something from another. I thank those who hold doors open for me, who hand me change, who serve my food, and who help me do my job.

And this is why it is inexplicable to me that a simple thank you is so often omitted when I complete an assignment in the workplace. I know very little about managing people, but I do know what I was taught about how to treat others. I know it sounds petty, but a simple (even insincere) expression of gratitude goes miles when someone is asked to perform a task that she is not interested in performing on her own accord (even if she is being paid to do so). It doesn’t take managerial genius to figure this one out, only the simple politeness that most of us were taught as children.

Severe Weather, Part II

It snowed on Sunday. This snow was somewhat unexpected, as the forecasters had predicted rain, but because even rain when the temperature is under 50 degrees will send this city into a frenzy, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the DC-area reaction to the weather. I was, however, a bit surprised by my mother’s Monday email:

Are you snowed in? The news reports are saying that it was quite bad there last night and this morning. They said that there was a "Weather Emergency" issued for D.C. What is a "Weather Emergency"? Does it mean that no one is to go outside?

After I finished laughing, I was glad to know that our weather hysteria reached all the way back to the Midwest . . . and that three inches of snow can be the impetus for an Emergency.

Severe Weather?

This past week, DC ground to a its typical wintertime as the city was coated with a few inches of the infamous “wintry mix” of snow, ice, and freezing rain that strikes fear into the hearts of the Capitol-area residents. My office, the federal government, and schools (if they bothered to open at all) closed early to ensure that everyone could be home before the roads got too slick. The government and offices opened late if at all the next day, and schools remained closed. The few inches of snow on the ground—2 inches? 3 inches?—hardly seemed sufficient to justify all of the hoopla. But, after surviving one winter in DC, I’ve begun to get used to chaos caused by just a little bit of snow.

Well, I thought I had gotten used to the fear. On Saturday night, four days after it had last snowed, I managed to get my car stuck in a parking space. Although the exact sequence of events is a bit embarrassing for someone who grew up driving in snow, it is sufficient to say that I overestimated the abilities of my car on ice and found myself in need of the services of a tow truck. I called for assistance, and a tow truck arrived 5 hours and 15 minutes later. And why did it take so long? The severe weather, of course.

Bears Down

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Each time it was repeated to me last Monday, I couldn’t help but ask myself, who died? But then I remembered that it was my team’s Super Bowl loss over which I was in mourning. Yes, sports mourning is a rather inane concept, and I’d like to be able to say that I did not shed a tear over the loss of my beloved Cubs in 2003, but on occasion I fall victim to a bit of depression after my team almost wins the big one. Indeed, it’s taken me over a week to be able to write about this loss.

It’s not so much that I’m a sore loser, but that after all of the excitement it is difficult to return to the norm. I’ll miss being able to wear my new favorite hat with extra pride. I’ll miss having a reason to excitedly read sports coverage. And most of all, I’ll miss my weekend excursions to the Billy Goat Tavern to cheer for the Bears with the Chicago expat community. It was comforting to be able to find a little piece of home—complete with South Side accents (real or fake) and stories about the bitter cold—in a city that so shuns such strong identities.

Okay, so maybe I’m not really in mourning, but I have unquestionably experienced a loss.

Cooking Classes

I've been cooking for years -- food is central to my family, and everyone cooks something, usually many things. So, although I can find my way around a kicthen without too much trouble, I've signed up for some cooking classes to learn more about proper technique. I thought that a basics class might be below my skill level, but I hoped that I would pick up some new skills, meet some new people, and collect some new recipies.

Little did I know how basic this class was to be. My favorite moment was when another student asked what color chicken should be when it was fully cooked. Isn't all meat supposed to be pink?

Well, at least I now know where not to eat...

Maybe I'll sign up for some intermediate classes next.

Bear Down

I am an exhausted, hoarse, somewhat hungover, but damn excited, woman -- Da Bears are going to the Super Bowl! And now, for a musical interlude...

Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way to victory;
Bear down, Chicago Bears, put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation with your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears, and let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois, Chicago Bears, bear down!

GO BEARS!

A Christmas Story

There is very little that seems more idyllic than sharing family time in front of your grandparents' Christmas tree after having opened gifts on Christmas Eve. Everyone is full from dinner, but contemplating the trays of cookies on the coffee table, and conversation is generally focused on the stupid things that the dog does when it snows. At this time, one might start to think how nice it is to be around family at the holidays. That is, until your grandmother turns to you and announces out of the clear blue:

"Chicagoan, your biological clock is ticking."

"Tick-tock. Tick-tock."

Family, indeed.

Ambition

A week or so ago, I met someone who told me that he wanted to be President of the United States. My natural urge to giggle at such a pronouncement from a twenty-six year old guy was suppressed by the earnestness with which the statement was made, but this earnestness did not save me from awakard conversation when asked the inevitable follow-up, what do I want to be.

The answer to that question used to be easy -- a lawyer -- and people would stop pressing for a more specific answer. And anyway, I used to have much more defined idea of what would come after the JD. I'd spend a couple of years at a law firm doing what lawyers do, then do those things in the government for a few more years, and eventually make my move into the political realm. I didn't really know how this was going to happen, but I knew that it would.

Now two full years after receiving the degree and the bar memberships to make being a "lawyer" a reality, I find myself without a clear answer to the question of what I want to be. I still want to be a lawyer, but this is hardly an answer that shows ambition (earnest or otherwise); I've already met that goal. But what I want to do as a lawyer is probably one of the hardest questions I'm often asked -- my answer varies daily and in response to my audience. A judge? A professor? A federal prosecutor? A politician? A parnter in a law firm? I certainly don't mean to complain about bevy of options that remain available to me, but for the first time in my life, my career path is much less clear. Without the next step in focus, it's very easy to lose the ambition that has driven me this far.

Maybe it wasn't just the earnestness that made me suppress my instinct to giggle, but the sense that even the loftiest goals can provide direction that I sometimes wonder how I've lost.

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...

I have grown up constantly being warned by my mother and grandmother that they are omnipresent--if I ever were to do something untoward, they would find out through their mysterious powers. And while I still lived within a 100 mile radius of the matriarchs of my family, I often did not want to chance it.

My mother likes to tell a story from her teenage years: Not exactly being the wild and crazy type, my mother and her friends misused some shopping carts as vehicles in the local grocery store parking lot, far from the watchful eyes of my grandmother, only to return home to my grandmother's speech about how embarassed she was to know that her child was making such a scene. This story served its purpose; I spent my formative years in fear that they knew everything that I did. Eight hundred miles away now, I feel relatively secure that their powers don't extend quite this far.

Over Labor Day weekend, I attended a wedding of a high school friend in suburban Detroit. I knew no one at the wedding-- being the sole high school friend of the groom to attend--and I made a brief accquaintance with only a few others. Over this past weekend I opened the door to my friend's apartment to see the bride's cousin sitting at my friend's dinner table, a friend of a friend of my friend, apparently.

Not exactly my mother's ominpresence, but it does make me wonder that maybe eight hundred miles is not quite enough to escape her powers. It's a good thing I behaved at that wedding.