Even though my posts have become much fewer and much farther between, I haven’t resigned this blog because I know that the moment I do, I will be instantly struck with the urge to write another post.  I am keeping the blog here so that I can return periodically with updates on the life of SF.  So, for my dear readers (if any), here is a brief recap of the last couple of months.

1.  I was stranded in L.A. for Christmas because of the freakish weather in the Pacific Northwest, but happily I got to spend a lovely Christmas Day with friends.  I also discovered that one of the perks of being an only child is that my parents saved our Christmukkah celebration until I got home, so we opened all our presents and had a nice meal with my grandfather on Dec. 27th.  I was so happy to see my family, albeit belatedly.  I also had the good fortune of seeing my best friend who lives in England and was in town.  And the whole week, my wonderful BF was taking all sorts of photos on his camera phone (he was back East with his own family) and texting them to me so that we felt like we were together.  Shmoopy?  Who, us?

2.  Yesterday was my 29th birthday, or as I was reminded by several people, the beginning of my 30th year on this planet.  This is poised to be a very interesting year.  In some ways it will be a scary and uncertain year, with the state of the economy and the general feeling of flux.  But I still (perhaps naively) have high hopes that this will be a fabulous year.  I think it will be a year of change and a year of growth.  And I can’t wait to see where it brings me. 

3.  This year I will be in two wedding parties (so far – you never know what might happen!), attending at least two bachelorette parties, and going on a couple of cool vacations (in just a few days, Vail; at the end of the year, Australia!).  

4.  In sadder news, the girl who has been my best work friend and lifeline since we started as summer associates together in the summer of 2004 is leaving me (what about my needs?!) and moving up north.   I am still in complete denial about my life after she leaves the firm, so I am trying not to think about it.  (SF covers her ears.  La la la la la la!)

5.  My relationship, which is now four months old, is still swimming along perfectly.  I am at a loss for what to say about it that will adequately describe it, but I have been feeling a LOT of warm fuzzies.   I don’t think I ever realized that I could love someone so much, and I know we are just getting started.

6.  My New Year’s resolution is to dust off my elliptical machine and use it for something other than a clothes hanger, and so far so good.   My trick is that I am totally obsessed with renting DVDs of the show “Friday Night Lights” on Netflix (I am at the end of season 1.  It’s so good!!)  So I put on the DVD and watch an episode while I ride.  I know it’s a bit premature to boast about my resolution-keeping on January 12, so hopefully it will continue!

7.  This weekend I am going to try to learn to snowboard.  Again.  Wish me luck, and no severe injuries.

8.  Noodles is doing well, and I only sustained minor scratch wounds when I tried to get him in his cat carrier over the holidays (and two holes in my sweater).

With that, dear readers, I am calling it a day.  If anyone is still reading and you have particular things you are curious about, feel free to comment or email me!

Till next time, happy 2009!

xoxo

SF

Is this cute Halloween decor or crazy cat lady?

I have to admit, I’m sad that I’m done with my trip recaps already, because now I am faced with the daunting task of deciding what to write about.  I fear this will be very stream-of-consciousness; consider yourself warned!

Everyone has been lovely in welcoming me home, but I think no one is happier to see me than he is:

My beautiful furry friend has been following me around like a puppy, nuzzling me at every turn and even sleeping with me.  I hadn’t been sure whether my absence would provoke lots of love or vicious attacks upon my return, but thank god it’s the former!

Last night I went to a networky get together with my friend J.  A guy she knows who is also an attorney put it together.  He seems like one of those people who knows everyone and is really good about staying in touch with people and networking and shmoozing and all that good stuff.  I wholeheartedly admire people like that, but I myself am just not like that.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually love meeting new people.  I try to always be friendly, and given the right situation I can be really outgoing.  But sometimes in big groups I am more inclined to just hang back and take it all in.  And when it comes to marketing myself, I’m sometimes shy.  I never want to seem like I’m being pushy or obnoxious, so I feel like it’s a fine line.  My firm has gotten really gung ho about the marketing thing lately too — today we had a workshop on “elevator pitches.”  So I know this is something I need to work on.

Still, I’m never quite sure how others perceive me, so it’s always interesting to find out.  Last night one of the guys was extremely charming and gregarious and J. and I and two others were talking to him.  He turned to J. and said, “You look very Nordic.”  [We cracked up.  J. is petite and blond, but I think "Nordic" may be a first.]  Then he turned to me and said “You look very…tall.”  Then he continued, “…unassuming…and gentle.”

Hmm….okaaaay.  I suppose there is nothing particularly wrong with unassuming-ness.  And there’s certainly nothing wrong with being gentle.  I’m just not sure that’s the image I want to be projecting to the world.  In the dating world, unassuming is probably just code for boring, no?  And in business?  I mean, I’m a litigator for God’s sake!  If you were going to trial, would you hire the “unassuming and gentle” trial attorney?  Unassuming and gentle makes me sound like this:

So yeah…guess I need to work on that. 

Baaa.

Open up my head and let me out…

I have a lot I could blog about but I haven’t had the time or energy in between my adventures to do so, and so…it will just have to wait until I return!  That’s right, in a few short hours I will be whisked by car down to LAX and will be flying across the pond to touch down in lovely England.  I can’t wait!!!  I think this is the ideal time for me to be getting out of the city, out of my everyday life, and off to do some adventuring.  I will do my best to photo-document it (better than Vegas, anyway)!

First up, Keswick (in the Lake District) for my friend M’s wedding celebration, where I will be staying in this quaint house.  Then to London, then Paris.   Squeeaaaall!!!  I would be even more excited if I wasn’t so sleep deprived.  I hope I can sleep on the flight tonight…

I somehow managed to pack all my stuff into the large backpack on wheels (though I had to omit some of the clothes I wanted to bring to make way for the hiking boots.  Oh well.  )  I then had a comedy of errors this morning trying to wrangle poor Noodles into the cat carrier to take him to the vet where he will be boarded.  At one point I was on my stomach on my bedroom floor, in my work clothes, trying to coax him from under the bed with my shoe (he has a bit of a shoe/foot fetish).  When that didn’t work, I was forced to resort to his nemesis, the vacuum, which always scares the bejesus out of him. Sure enough, the instant I turned it on, he went peeling out from under the bed where I was able to tackle him with a blanket and shove him into the carrier.

….Whew.

And now, just tying up a few loose ends at work before I head home to do the final packing (aka, zipping the suitcase).  Have a great couple of weeks, dear readers, and I promise some big ol’ posts when I get back!

xoxo, SF

This is courtesy of a friend’s Facebook page.

The original caption reads, “Honey, DTMFA.”

Before today I had never even heard that expression (I guess I have been living under a rock!) and now I have heard it twice!  Love it.

You’re jealous, admit it.

I wanted to write a real post tonight but I’m too sleepy!  More tomorrow.

I meant to go to bed early tonight.  I really did.  But I was talking on the phone, then I was eating a belated dinner, then I was watching something sappy on TV, then I was chatting online with my friend A., and somehow the hours just slipped by. 

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately and I think it’s a combination of factors.  First — drinking Diet Coke in the afternoon/evening, as always, is a killer.  Bad SF, bad.  Need to wean myself off DC and at the very least, if I am not capable of cutting the soda cold turkey, back onto Diet Sprite (which I convinced myself I loved but I think I may have had one two many of and now the thought makes me feel a bit ill.)  What’s that you say?  Water?  Yes, I know, I know…that is the next step.

Second, stress always does it to me.  Tomorrow I have to take not one, not two, but THREE depositions, and I have a feeling I will wake up in the middle of the night (read: two hours from now) in a cold sweat with my heart racing.  The partner on this case seems to pretty much trust me to do anything, which in my humble opinion is a questionable judgment call, at best.  You remember I’m a lowly third year associate, right?  Right?

Third, my darling cat (bless his attention-whorish heart) has seen fit to start waking me up with meows, steadily increasing in volume, beginning at about 4:30 in the morning every day.  If only he weren’t so damn cute… (Story of my life, right?  Big sigh.)  He won’t even do the normal cat thing of jumping on the bed; instead, he’ll lay outside of my door and meow plaintively until I 1) shut the door (somewhat muffling the meows); 2) fall back asleep (highly unlikely, given the stress factor above); or (and this is the most likely scenario, because I’m a sucker) 3) trudge sleepily out of bed to feed him. 

Let me ask you — is there ANY reason for a cat who gets fed every morning and night and who always has dry food in his bowl and who weighs at least 15 lbs as of the last vet appointment, ANY reason why he should be fed in the middle of the night like a baby?  No, of course not.  Will I do it anyway to shut him up?  You bet.  Who’s the boss of the house, anyway?  Not even a contest.  In the month of June so far, Noodles: 15, SF: 0.

And finally, I’ve just been feeling a sense of general malaise (really wish I could use that word without thinking of Dr. Evil, because it is so apropos here).  I swear that I will elaborate more on this, dear readers, but for now my eyelids are closing (miracle!!!) and I need to take advantage.

till then,   SF

….I’d plot a course to the source of the purest little part of me…

My last post was such a Debbie Downer post, and I am feeling so much better now (thanks to all of you for your kind words — sometimes I really just need to whine to get it out of my system) that I want to share with all of my dear readers some things I’m excited about (big and small).

1.  The Weekend

Tomorrow’s Friday and it continues to be the calm before the proverbial storm…even though trial is coming up way too soon (la la la la I’m in denial!!), somehow it looks like I won’t have to work this weekend.  Which is glorious.

2.  Nesting

My desire to decorate my walls (esp in my bedroom, where until today there was a lone framed photo of a sunset) has coincided perfectly and serendipitously with my ongoing de-cluttering project.  In going through the depths of my closet, I came up with a poster I love that I bought in Barcelona when I studied in Spain in college (um…EIGHT years ago!  sigh).  The poster is quite battered, having seen the walls of at least two dorm rooms and my old apartment, but no matter, I still love it.  So it is now gracing my bedroom wall.  Even better, I was going through a bag of goodies that I had kept from my post-bar trip to Spain, Greece and Italy three years ago, and I found no less than 15 or 20 awesome postcards — mostly of cool pieces of art like Dali, Picasso, El Greco, etc.  I think I bought and kept them all expecting that I would scrapbookmy trip (I sadly never did) or put them on my wall (I never did).  So now I’m creating sort of a cool arrangement on my wall with the beloved Barcelona poster as the centerpiece.  I only managed to get a few up tonight before I realized that it was 10:30 pm and an apartment resident could get killed for lesser crimes than hammering at that hour, so I tabled it for tomorrow.  But seeing all these things come together gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling, especially since I adore Spain and it brings back nothing but great memories.  Maybe I will post a photo when it’s all done.

3.  Pampering

My back has been hurting lately for no reason, and today I mentioned to my friend T. that maybe I would get a massage this weekend.  It turns out she still has a gift certificate to Burke Williams that we bought for her birthday, so now we are doing a mini spa day on Saturday.  Yay!  I feel more relaxed alreadt, just thinking about it.

4.  Dreaming

I know I don’t talk much about my job, but for the most part I do enjoy being a lawyer — even though it’s stressful.  I love the people I work with, it challenges me, and I have a lot of great opportunities.  Still, even when I’m relatively happy at work, I like to daydream about what other paths I could follow.  Having a stressful job at 28 when I’m single with no kids is one thing.  When I have to work late or on the weekends, no one misses me but my cat, so i can put nose to the grindstone.  I just don’t know if that’s something I want to do forever and ever.  So, my brainchild of the moment?  I have been contemplating what it would be like to open my own bookstore.

The way this came about was this.  I had been joking with some of my friends that if the law thing didnt work out for me, I would open a boutique that sold things for cats called “Crazy Cat Lady” (or CCL for those in the know).  My plans for the store became more detailed, and over the weekend I was sharing the joke with my mom.  She commented that there was a bookstore we used to go to on the Oregon Coast, where there were cats that lived in the store, and when I was a little girl I said that I was going to open a bookstore someday.

And the crazy thing?  I still remember that store even though I probably haven’t been there in 15 to 20 years.  I still think about that store, and what it would be like to own a place like that.

So then I began giving it some thought.  Isn’t there something powerful about your childhood dreams?  It’s like it goes to the essence of who you are.  Some of my childhood dreams, like becoming an elementary school teacher, I discarded and have never regretted.  But there are some that still hold all the wonder and fascination that they did when I was a child.  The bookstore is one.  Being a writer is the other.  (And really, don’t those two dreams go perfectly hand-in-hand?)

So call me nutty, but I’m doing some research on what a venture like this would really entail.  For now it’s a pipe dream, but at some point it may become something real…I’ll keep you posted!

What were your dreams for your life when you were a child, dear readers?

***********

“1983″ by John Mayer

I’ve these dreams I’m

Walking home

Home when it used to be

 And everything is

 As it was

Frozen in front of me

Here I stand

 6 feet small 

romanticizing years ago

it’s a bitter sweet feeling hearing “Wrapped Around Your Finger” on the

radio

 and these days

I wish I was 6 again

Oh make me a red cape

I wanna be Superman

Oh, if only my life was more like 1983

all these things would be more like they were at the

start of me

 had it made in 83

thinking bout my brother Ben 

I miss him every day

He looks just like his brother John

But on an 18 month delay 

Here I stand

6 feet small

and smiling cause I’m scared as hell

kind of like my life is like a sequel to a movie

 where the actor’s names have changed

oh well 

well these days

I wish I was 6 again

Oh make me a red cape

 I wanna be Superman

Oh, if only my life was more like

1983 

all these things would be more like they were at the

start of me

If my life was more like 1983

I’d plot a course to the source of the purest little part of me

and most my memories

have escaped me

or confused themselves with dreams

if heaven’s all we want it to be

send your prayers to me

 care of 1983

you can paint that house a rainbow of colors

rip out the floorboards

 replace the shutters but

that’s my plastic in the dirt

 whatever happened to my

 whatever happened to my

whatever happened to my lunchbox

 when came the day that it got

 thrown away and don’t you think I should have had some say

in that decision

My day today: Left the house before 8 am and drive up to Sherman Oaks. Defended a deposition All. Day. Long. (Not very well, I might add, since I was unable to keep my client from going on long rambling tangents.) Arrived back at the office after 6 pm feeling thoroughly bedraggled. Sat and stared at my computer. Remembered that there was a law student reception going on at my firm. Put on a happy face and went upstairs to shmooze. (By the way, to any law students or former law students – would you ever go to a law firm reception wearing high heeled boots over jeans? yeah, didn’t think so.) Headed home. Stopped at Gelson’s where I bought: wet cat food, dry cat food, cat litter, and a salad for me. Had the awful realization that I see the cashiers at Gelson’s more often than almost anyone else in my life, aside from perhaps my legal assistant. (Oh, how I so wish I were kidding.) Arrived home where I stripped off my suit, so I am now wearing a tank top, undies and knee socks. (No, not nearly as naughty schoolgirl as it sounds.) And now my cat and I are sitting on the couch watching America’s Next Top Model.

Don’t lie to me. Is that pathetic or what?

As much as there are things I love about my job, I sometimes can’t help but begrudge just how busy and overwhelmed I have constantly felt recently…actually, more than recently. I know there are lots of lawyers, including some I know, who work more than I do and still manage to have a life, but frankly, I just suck at that. When I am tired and busy, my whole life falls into shambles. I don’t call or email people, my dishes pile up in the sink, my laundry piles up in its basket. And I know that I need to suck it up and realize that things aren’t going to get easier anytime soon, so I just need to get used to trying to do more with the time I have.

I’m a single girl in her late 20’s. That being the case, I feel like it would be good for me if I joined organizations and groups, went out for happy hours, was generally social. But instead, it’s all I can do to have occasional dinners with my girlfriends and to call my mother a few times a week.

A few months ago my mom asked me, not unkindly, just frankly: “Who’s going to want to date you with your schedule?” And, like most things my mom tells me (e.g. “the C. situation is a train wreck”) I ignored her because she was right but I didn’s want to hear it. But really, who will want to date me? When I get home I am most often exhausted, and in general, I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever been a particularly good girlfriend anyway.

And you know what that means. I’m going to end up married.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Except, instead of being married to a man, I’ll be married to my job.

Sorry, dear readers, for the whining. Better luck tomorrow.