|
Reading: The River King by Alice Hoffman. Finished it this
morning, actually. It was... interesting. Unconventional. But I liked
it.
Watching: The Job. I got home just in time for this last night, and since West Wing was a repeat (although I've since been told it wasn't even on because of that Weakest Link business) I watched The Job. It was very, very funny. Listening: Not the radio, I can tell you that much. Due to a faulty knob on my car stereo (faulty meaning I tore it off one day because it wasn't working properly) getting the radio to actually come on is kind of a challenge, and adjusting the volume is a whole other issue entirely, so I've been down with the CDs and the occasional tape during my commutes. I'm sure when I do turn it on again, I won't recognize a thing. Drinking: Still with the Grape Crack. Water has been tasting funny to me lately (and it's me, because all water, bottled/tap/Brita'd, is tasting funny) so I've been drinking even less than I usually do, which was not enough anyway. But according to people in the know, if it has no caffeine, sugar, or bubbles, it counts as water. So I'm guzzling this stuff. Plus, it makes things feel like spring. (Not that the 70-degree weather and the thunderstorms weren't doing that already.) Laughing: Some poor soul sent an e-mail firm-wide saying they were looking for someone who was at either the Kent State riots or Woodstock. So someone replied with Jimi Hendrix, and then someone said Forrest Gump, and then someone said no, it was Jenny, not Forrest, and someone said something about Steven Stills living in his garage, and this went on for a couple of hours and probably 25 e-mails until the Managing Partner put the smackdown on the whole thing. Thinking: That I have been using the phrase "put the smackdown on" waaaay too much lately.
|
So, it is a whole week and three days left until payday, and I am broke as broke can be. My father finally cashing the check I gave him to reimburse him for my plane ticket to Hilton Head plus the lovely little bar exam application fee plus my student loan payment equals one broke-ass Elizabeth. I seriously have fourteen dollars to last me until the 30th. I'm not really worried about it, though, as the 30th corresponds with the transition deadline at work, so I'm going to be working my ass off between now and then and will likely not have any time to spend any money I might have had. Oh. Right. The transition. I've forgotten that a few things have happened during my hiatus. Remember how I was working on New York cases? Well, the Firm no longer has control of the New York cases because the client decided to transfer those cases to another firm, one in, well, New York. It is our local counsel firm there, one we've been working with for quite a while, so fortunately they have most of the discovery and joint defense work product already. But we have to put together everything they don't have, all of the things we've produced in-house for all of the 120 or so plaintiffs still remaining in New York. By the 30th. Ha.
 I've been asking my cat lately if she wants a friend. Every time I do, she looks at me with eyes that say, "If you so much as look at a picture of a kitten, I will be very, very disappointed in you." (My cat is not mean, she's just conceited.) And yet, still I ponder. Before anyone writes to me with horror stories of bringing a new cat into the domain of an old one, I know. I probably won't. Besides, I really want a dog, anyway. And a piano. Which is why, at the end of the day, I need a house. Everyone seems to be buying a house lately. My friend Mary moved out of the third apartment building up from me and into her very own house not three weeks ago. Meredith is settling into her own place, and Dora is packing for hers. And I want one, too. However, it is all about priorities, and France is still there. I could use the money I'm saving for that for a down payment on a house, since the time I was planning to go (next May) is probably the earliest I would actually be ready to become a homeowner. But I still feel strongly about this trip. It is important to me. And the fact that I still feel that way after four months of deciding to do it is a strong sign that it's what I'm supposed to do. So I go to France instead of buying a house. I'll buy a house in 2003. And I'll get the dog and the piano then, too, because with any luck I'll have more than fourteen bucks by that time. 'Cause, see, I'm not sure I can get a house, a dog, and a piano, with just the fourteen bucks.
 |