Rest in Peace, Diego

Dear furry friend, I happily babysat you while your mommy was away and I never undertood why you hid food all over the place. But your silly little gerbil feet and your oblivious pooping in my hand will be missed. May you enjoy many turns on the great gerbil wheel in the sky.

So it's one of THOSE apartments

I recently moved into a new apartment. It's a sweet, small space in an area I love and I'm quite happy to be on my own again. My description of its location usually goes something like this:

Inquiring Friend: Where are you living now?

Me: Do you know the Excelsior & Grand area?

Friend: Sure, that's an awesome location!

Me: It is. Do you know those gorgeous condos right at the intersection?

Friend: Yeah, wow, way to go! Those places are beautiful.

Me: *laughing* I live in the ghetto apartments behind those gorgeous condos.

Friend: Oh. Cool. I didn't know there were apartments back there.

Me: Yeah, they like to hide us away, we po' folk.

Anywho, I love my somewhat ghetto place, warts and all. I called my landlord a few days ago because for the life of me I could not get my windows to lock. I pushed and sweated and cussed and still, no locking. I live on the first floor and I watch too much Law & Order SVU so, really, locking windows is kinda high on my priority list. The landlord explained to me, very sweetly, that the windows DO lock but everytime you open the windows you have to realign the panes. You have to pull the lower pane out, push the upper pane up, and finally slide the lower pane back into place.

Ah. It's one of those apartments. One of those lovely little places where every moving part has a system. My bedroom door in New Orleans had a similar process that involved having to reattach the doorknob every 5th opening. And 4th step in the hallway had a dip in it that, despite living there for 3 years, I could never master the height of and I always half stumbled my way upstairs.

I'm not complaining. I'm happy I have one of those apartments. Who needs perfection when you can have a slightly contrary, slightly annoying, but totally individual place? Perfection is overrated. I have my own idiosyncracies (applying condiments alphabetically, being moderately intimidated by escalators), so it only makes sense that my new home should be equally eccentric.

My thoughts exactly

Rocko, looking none too pleased that his trip outside involved a snowy backside and frozen whiskers. I feel ya, little buddy, March 31st is WAY too late to be getting 8 inches of snow. Where, oh where, is spring?

Why I'm Voting For Her

I do not fall for it. I am an eternal optimist but I do not believe that gives me license to ignore reality. Obama's incessant talk of change does not convince me of anything beyond his ability to speak in pretty, inspiring tones. He holds himself well. He smiles and exudes warmth in ways that Hillary does not. But I am not electing a buddy. I am not electing someone I want to go have a beer with. I'm electing the next Commander-in-Chief. I'm electing the individual who will get us out of Iraq, who will effectively maneuver the halls of Congress, who will do what it takes to clean up the mess Bush leaves behind.

Regardless of the nominee, 'change' is imminent. After eight years of Bush incompetence, a Democrat in the White House will mean a restoration of good sense, good choices, and hope for all Americans. So this constant harping on 'change' by the Obama camp frustrates me. 'Change' is the buzzword used by candidates who lack the credentials to support their plans for the future. I should hope any candidate would be working for change, otherwise what the hell is the point? Obama assumes his ideas are enough, that what he lacks in experience he can make up for in heart. How sweet. Cute, almost. And I don't consider myself to be a cynic. But I will take experience over eloquence any day, especially when the fate of the country is involved. Hillary supports our military, our health, our environment, our position in world politics, in ways bolstered by years of experience and inspired by a lifetime of public service. Obama has convinced me that he wants the job. Hillary has convinced me that she can do the job. Period.

Whoa Nelly!

My car, a 2003 blue VW Golf, has been through a lot. Her name is Nell (a shortened form of Dub-Yuh-Nell, which is the nickname for my undergrad, Washington and Lee...I couldn't name her 'Dubyuh' for obvious reasons). She was purchased in St. Louis after I returned from Peace Corps in Morocco. She then traveled highway 70 between St. Louie and Kansas City routinely for a year while I was living in KC and visiting family in St. Louis.

Then I decided to move to New Orleans for law school. This meant three round trips between Kansas City and Nola as I looked for an apartment, moved my belongings, and visited friends. Living in Nola also meant multiple hurricane evacuations to Little Rock, trips that resulted in 1 flat tire, 1 busted headlight bulb, a handful of bad mix CDs, and the murder of one unfortunate turtle crossing highway 55N. Evacuations aside, Nola was not a good place for a car. A sinking city means a city of potholes. And in New Orleans these are not your average potholes. These are not tire-sized potholes. These are large cow-sized. These are VW Golf-sized. I saw an 18 wheeler get stuck on a city street because its front tire sank into the road. And still, despite the potholes, heat, and humidity, by dear Nelly survived. Not unscathed, of course. A couple of teenage hooligans stole two of my hubcaps right in front of me. And I lost a third due to a faulty U-turn. But she's alive and kicking.

And now. Now I bring her to Minneapolis. I cover her in so much salt and gook and mess, she doesn't even look blue anymore. I freeze her senseless so that half the time I come back to the bus station after work I say a little prayer for her to start. I can't blame her orneryness, I wouldn't want to wake up either if I'd been hanging out in a -5 degree garage all day. So today, I gave her a bath. I never spend money on car washes, they were a waste in New Orleans since it rained so much. And here it seems silly since she'll just get salty again with one trip downtown. But she looked so sad and grey, I had to perk her up a bit.

Nelly, in her clean and hubcapless glory, says hello.

Cry for Help

I miss the jazz on Frenchman's Street. Someone find me some jazz.

I Miss the Sidewalk

Well, I don't really miss the sidewalks in New Orleans. They're the most awful, ankle-twisting sidewalks in America, ripped apart by oak roots and the constant sinking of the streets. But I do miss walking up and down my street, State Street, to and from school. I miss seeing houses I'd never noticed before, in colors I'd forgotten about, with flowers I could never describe.

This was my favorite house. On the corner, the yard always smelled like clay and jasmine. It was beautiful.

A New Day

For the last few years, ever since the Cardinals were defeated by the Red Sox, my family has burned a Red Sox cap in the fireplace to welcome the new year, bring good luck. We're a rabid Cardinals family, and watching the Red Sox cap melt and pop and disintegrate in open flames is a welcome sight. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

May the New Year bring similarly bizarre joys to you and yours.

The Perfectly Iced Cookie

Trinity, the very adorable young lady with her mouth stuffed with sugar in the pic, probably ate more frosting this past Saturday than any child should ingest in a week. My little sister (behind her in the picture) later helped Trinity decorate a construction paper stocking and was a keen competitor in a vicious Heads Up, Sevens Up duel.

It takes so little to make children smile. Giggles are so easy. Children should be tickled and hugged, laughed with and played with, danced with and chased, every single day.

And adults need all that, too. I hope this Christmas all my friends are blessed with perfectly iced sugar cookies, hugs as huge as can be handled, nifty toys, kisses under the mistletoe, and most importantly, peace from God. And sprinkles, can't have icing without sprinkles.

In case you were wondering...

I PASSED THE BAR EXAM! On October 26, 2007 I will swear in and be an official, true blue, card-carrying member of the bar. A lawyer! A REAL REAL REAL REAL LAWYER!

My kid sister

Isn't she beeeeeeeautiful?! Sometimes I can't believe she's MY sister, she's so much more poised and mature and adorable than I ever was at that age. I like to pretend that some of that awesomeness she gleaned from me but I think most of it's just God-given fantasticness.

Little Blessing

I was raised in a Southern Baptist family and saints are not part of that religious picture. Saints, to me, were always odd, almost pagan focal points that didn't belong to my faith. I thought they detracted from the most important aspect of Christianity, that a belief in Christ's sacrifice was the singular requirement for salvation. So I largely ignored these so-called saints...

Maggie, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, had a St. Christopher medal with her while we were serving in Morocco. It was from her that I first learned St. Chris was the patron saint of travelers. I felt the medal was about as religiously significant as a rabbit's foot but something in me liked the idea of a guardian, of a Christian sentinel protecting my steps in new countries, new cities, new everythings. I found out later that he is also the patron saint of epilepsy, which made me smile. Guardian of adventures and seizures, good to be protected in both regards.

Before leaving New Orleans I bought a St. Christopher medal. It's small and silver and tarnished already but it's mine. I kept it in my pocket as I moved from Louisiana to Minneapolis and it will be in my pocket again this weekend, when I will learn whether or not I passed the bar. I don't think it does anything. I don't think it's magic. I don't think it provides any additional heft to my prayers that I pass. But it's something extra, one more pair of watchful eyes, maybe. I imagine St. Christopher, if he is what he is and does what he does, sitting somewhere just above me with his chin leaning into his palm and a half-smile on his face. He reminds me of my grandfathers. His fingers are crossed for me.

Well what did you expect?

When I'm stressed I do things to my hair (see 2005 post re: The Perm). In less than 10 days I will find out if I passed the bar. Hence, a haircut was in order...

This is the kissy face, which I do (in conjuction with the fish face) when I'm nervous. Nervous is a small word for how I feel about the bar results.

I think my eyes are kinda buggy in this picture but my nose looks nice.

Yes, these pictures were taken with my two year old camera phone. Don't judge. Yes, they were taken in my parents' basement on a Saturday night. Don't judge.

I Want to Be Ina Garten When I Grow Up

Seriously, she was a budget analyst under Carter and worked at the White House as a nuclear energy consultant and now she's the coolest Food Network personality. I'm totally making her pomegranate cosmopolitans for my birthday (yes, it's two months away but I can daydream, right?) and if my souffles EVER turn out as pretty as hers I will move to Paris, open up a cheese shop, and flirt with dark-haired men in too-tight pants.

I miss it

I miss riding in Stephanie's car. She parallel parks much better than me. I miss green salads, ham and brie pitas, diet cokes in wide plastic glasses. I miss wondering what will happen after law school, talking about boys, stopping by Shoenami to try on yellow shoes with gold heels. I miss living in the same city as my girls. I miss parking behind that SUV with the offensive bumper sticker around the corner from Kat's apartment, calling "hellooooo" as I walk up her steps, hearing Stephanie's "yay!" as Kat opens the door. I miss opening wine bottles, slicing up cheese, eating nuts that Steph made too spicey. I miss the Wicker Wonderland.

I miss New Orleans so much it hurts sometimes. And I miss my ladies even more.

My not-so-secret dream

I am baking a double chocolate cake with vanilla cream icing on Friday for Julie's birthday. And I'm making pralines for my dad tomorrow.

Why didn't I go to culinary school instead of law school? Someday I will open a bakery. A beautiful, yellow-trimmed, red-bricked bakery. With tiers of cupcakes. Vanilla bean icing. Ganache ripples. Rosemary focaccia. Apple dumplings. Wrought-iron chairs with soft floral cushions. Each seat will have a warm blanket draped over the back, in case customers get a chill from the fall air and want to wrap themselves in love-worn chenille while they sip cider and lick chocolate off their fingers.

I will do it.

Weddings are so fun!

I think every bride should look like this on their wedding day--so happy their face kinda looks like it's going to explode. Katherine was a beeeeeeeautiful bride and the wedding was so sweet and perfect and fun. Three cheers for true love!

A bit of a hiccup

Obviously there has been a bit of a temporal hiccup in my postings of late. I blame leaving New Orleans, graduating from law school, moving to Minneapolis, studying for the bar, taking the bar, and my present daily panic attacks for my absence. Life is okay, but odd, up here up North, living with the family again.

I've been reading again, real books not law books, and it has been at once exhilirating and depressing. I remember reading pre-law school, pre-bar study, and I remember it being fun and rejuvenating and inspiring. Now, it is still those things on occassion, but it kills me that my attention span has been destroyed by months of cramming. Bar exam studying, for those who have had the pleasure of not experiencing it, involves 7-10 hours a day (on light days) of learning, re-learning, memorizing, practicing, outlining, graphing, comparing, digesting, and beating various rules, theories, and tests into an unwilling brain. It is impossible to learn everything that can be tested so you become a master at focusing on the key points, the big tests, the most logical outcomes, which means you skim ridiculous amounts of material very, very quickly. This works well for the bar exam. It does not work well for experiencing Susan Sontag's In America or anything written by someone other than a law professor. I have to remind myself to slow down, to read every word, to picture and imagine each sentence. I have to reacquaint myself with READING, for pity's sake. READING. This is me. Reading has been my greatest escape since I was five. And now I've lost it, or temporarily misplaced it. Very sad. Very pathetic.

I am in limbo these days. I don't know if I've passed the bar and won't until October, so finding a job is difficult since I'm unable to practice law until I'm licensed. And the job search itself is painfully complex since I'm interested in many things, some which require bar passage and some which do not. I'm not emotionally invested in the idea of practicing law. Litigation seems interesting enough but from my perspective today it doesn't thrill me. I'm curious about transaction work and feel I'd be good at it but curiosity seems a strange thing upon which to base a career. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the search is talking to people about what I'm interested in. It's odd, when you talk about going to law school, everyone applauds the choice because law school "opens so many doors" and there are "so many opportunities" to use the degree OUTSIDE the practice of law. This is quite true, to an extent. But these days, if I mention pursuing positions outside the realm of Law & Order or The Firm I feel like I'm met largely with cocked eyebrows and questions as to why I don't want to practice. It isn't that I don't want to practice, it's that I'm very interested in many non-practicing career paths. Why is that so hard for some people to digest? And more importantly, why do I care?

Tuesday I'll be headed to Katherine's wedding in California. It's odd to think it's happening, that such milestones have finally arrived. I remember when she called me to tell me Nathan proposed. I was in Little Rock, after Katrina (there's an earlier post about it somewhere), and I was in bed staring at the sparkly stucco on Mamaw's ceiling. When I saw Kat's number pop up on my cell I knew she was engaged. I just knew that was what had happened. It was so nice to have a slice of celebration during those months of waiting and watching the news. And now The Day has arrived. A week from today she will have been married for over 24 hours. Life happens so fast. Sometimes I wish it would slow down so I could breathe a bit. But some days, like today, I wish this year would be over, wish I could skip ahead 12 months and have the reassurance of knowing I'm employed and possibly happy and living somewhere fulfilling (here or elsewhere). But then I'd miss Kat's wedding, and who knows what other happy moments, so it's a wish that I don't mind God ignoring.

I'm Currently Studying for the Bar Exam

in Minneapolis.

The weather's nice.

I drink a lot of coffee.

And I go for walks.

Leaving New Orleans was awful. But I think maybe I'll like it here, too.

There is a great Ethiopian restaurant, so that's a bonus.

Mardi Gras, Caenaveron, A little Louisiana for everyone...

Beads on wires, beads on trees. I think it's one of my favorite times in the city, just after Mardi Gras. The crowds are gone, the streets are quieter, no more parade traffic, but the beads are still there, still shiny and pretty and hanging from anything that can be hung on to. Eventually, maybe a couple months from now depending on the rain, the beads will fade and dull and bleach in the sun. Eventually, they'll be sad little reminders of a party, mini-invitations for next year's shenanigans. Kinda pathetic, really. But for now they're still lovely.

But there is another Louisiana I saw today. I'm doing a project on river diversions to create new wetland. My partner, Brandi, and I, with her husband, drove to one such diversion, Caenaveron, this morning. After what can only be described as an adventure getting to the ferry, we crossed the river to the side heavily hit by the Katrina surge. It's amazing, really, and I don't understand the science of it. How one side of the river is fine and the other leaves nothing but shattered skeletons of homes and empty foundations. I think the diversions are important. I think they could work, in theory. But, heavens, it seems like chump change sized up next to all the destruction. And I suppose that is my state's dilemma these days.

There is so much that's gone wrong for Louisiana, some by luck and some by its own lunacy, inaction, and readiness to sell to the highest bidder. How many price tags are there? How many homes to rebuild? How many street lights to repair? How many deaths to mourn? How many businesses demolished? How many schools still unopened? How many acres of wetland destroyed? And that last one, that wetland question, it pales in comparison of importance for almost everyone. Including myself. If you asked me today would I rather see an uprooted family back in their pre-Katrina home, rebuilt and happy, or see an acre of wetland restored, I would quickly choose the former. And I am one of the educated ones on this issue. Environmental impacts, environmental law: this is what I've chosen as the focus of my legal education. I KNOW the link between wetland destruction and New Orleans' fragility to future hurricanes. I know that the wetlands are our best defense. I know that we brought this on ourselves to some extent, that the failure of the levees is one thing, the wholesale prostitution of our wetlands another. But wetlands do not have a face, despite their importance, they do not evoke the same emotional reaction as a family left homeless. Because I can vaguely imagine that feeling of human helplessness, what it would feel like to have your home rotting and worthless before you. It did not happen to me, but it came close, close enough for me to smell what that flavor of despair must taste like. How do I empathize with a wetland?

Unfortunately for the future of the wetlands, Louisiana's best hope, they do not cry loud enough. Which isn't to say that you can't have both, restoration of the communities themselves and the wetlands. But I feel like there must be an end to the money somewhere, that it's impossible to get in the first place, and when there's a shortage the windfall will go to building more homes in flood plains, and the wetlands will be left to fend for themselves (with the small but mighty support of environmentalists) against OIL and DEVELOPMENT (such wealthy patrons deserve all caps).

Today, after seeing a diversion which made me hopeful, and the destruction, which made me sad...the emotional balance weighs heavily in favor of pessimism. But despite everything, driving back, seeing the beads in the trees, I could not imagine a world without this city, this deltaic wonderland, so it has to work. River diversions, green spaces, urban planning, education and health care reform...all these ideas swimming around, they simply have to work.

(picture courtesy of Jason Rinehart, photographer extraordinaire)