Watching: The West Wing, excellent as always. I don't know if it was intentional, but I noted some definite sparkage between Leo and Ainsley. She isn't annoying me nearly as much as I thought she would.
And I like the fact that they never actually dealt with the departure of Moira Kelly. She's just... gone. I like that about television. I wish some people would act like that in real life.
Anticipating: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I've only seen the commercials, but it looks like it's going to be magical. I hope I'm not wrong.
Laughing: At Jay Leno, which is kind of unusual for me. But when asked which candidate he wanted to win as a comedian, he said he didn't really care, because neither one of them will ever provide the amount of material that Clinton did. Says Jay: "It's going to be like Happy Days after the Fonz left. It's just Potsie and Ralph Malph."
Mourning: The death of Deadline. My darling little... er, big Oliver Platt has been cancelled. I'm totally bummed, although I admit that the show did not live up to its creative potential. Not that it was Ollie's fault.
Correcting: Some bad information about my Nader-trading friend Rob. He doesn't live in New York, where, as it turns out, Gore has something like a twelve-thousand point lead. Rob lives in Seattle, which is good, because Gore and Bush are in an absolute dead heat in Washington. (I have no idea why I thought it was New York.) Anyway, we've been having the loveliest little e-mail conversation, about twenty-something political apathy and the need for a strong third party and whether or not voting should be mandatory like in Australia. (We both think not.) I guess this is just a long way of saying I made a friend.
Wondering: You know how they fly you to New York and put you up in what I'm assuming is a reasonably nice hotel if you make it on Millionaire? I'm wondering what they do for people who already live in New York City. I mean, I think I'd still want a plane ticket and a hotel room, but somewhere else. I'd see if I could get ABC send me to Hawaii for a couple of days.
Random Fact About Me: My voice is in an episode of the old Lorenzo Lamas series Renegade. I call in to a radio talk show. I have no idea what made me think about that today.
-- Clarence Darrow
Link of the Day:
I found this site while searching for the answer
to my stock market question. I didn't find that answer, but
I found a whole bunch of other useless information.
So, I have a meeting with Mary's coworker.
It's a meeting. It's not a date.
He had Mary sort of set it up, but he did call me tonight to iron out the details. He actually called while I was online, so I had to call him back.
I cannot tell you how traumatic that was for me, because I cannot tell you how unfamiliar this is for me. It took me like a half an hour to work up the nerve.
He was very nice on the phone. He asked about my job, and I blathered on and on and on, like I do when I'm nervous. He offered to pick me up, but I jumped in with the old "I'll meet you there." Too much pressure, actually riding in a car together.
So we shall see. We shall just see.
I'm so excited to start my job I could spit. I went down to meet Gillian for lunch today, and I drove around downtown, checking out parking garages around my building. I could get a space in the actual building but it's way expensive, more than what I get as a parking allowance. So I scoped things out and I found a lot two blocks away, which will suck in the winter but I think it will be the best option.
Speaking of work, I forgot to share about my swearing-in ceremony, but truthfully, there isn't all that much to share. It was at the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association offices downtown. They sent us our licenses in a blue mailing tube, and I knew I was at the right place when I was parking and saw two other people in their conservative little suits walking into the building with blue tubes.
We signed our licenses, the judge signed our licenses, and we signed the attorney enrollment book, which is this big huge ledger with the names and signatures of every attorney in Missouri since 1910 or something. Mary and Tara showed up, which was nice, because I didn't know anyone else there and I would have been kind of bummed to be there all by myself. We read the first oath with a judge from the Missouri state court, and then she gave a nice speech, all about how the "let's kill all the lawyers" line from Shakespeare was spoken by a character who was plotting to overthrow the government, so it's actually a compliment. Then we read another oath with a judge from the Federal court, and he blathered on for a bit.
And then it was over. There was a reception, so we had some snacks and a drink, then went out to dinner at this fabulous restaurant called Jazz. It's a Cajun-type place, where I had some extraordinary blackened chicken and garlic mashed potatoes, and beignets for dessert. Delish.
As it turns out, I am going back to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving.
At first, I wasn't. I knew I had the day after Thanksgiving off, but I didn't know how cool it would be to ask for the Wednesday off, since I'll only have been working at The Firm for two weeks beforehand.
Then my brother, who lives in Hilton Head, said that he didn't think he was coming, because if he wanted his girlfriend to come along, they'd have to drive, and that takes a day, so he was going to skip it. At which point my mother said that if I really wanted to come back, I could, but since my brother wouldn't be there, we could just wait until Christmas.
At first I was kind of sad about it, but then I was okay, and then I started looking forward to it. Everyone who was going to be here invited me to spend the day with them, including Elise (Hi Elise! Go home, you work too hard!), who is coming home from California, and who I haven't seen since January. We made plans to go see the Plaza lights come on, a Kansas City tradition -- they string the Plaza with over 100,000 Christmas lights and light them up on Thanksgiving night. It's really stunning, I'll post a picture when it happens.
Anyway, I was completely okay with not spending Thanksgiving with my own family for the first time ever until my mother called the next day and said that my brother decided to come home after all because his girlfriend is Venezuelan and doesn't really care about Thanksgiving all that much, and since he was coming home, I had to come home too.
So I'm going Wednesday and coming back Saturday, so I ended up having to take Wednesday as a vacation day anyway, which I'm sure they'll understand, and even if they don't, I don't think they're going to fire me for it. And I will be back Saturday late afternoon, which means I will still have quality time with Elise (Elise? I told you to go home! GO HOME!) because she doesn't go back to California until Monday.
I'm not complaining. I would have been happy either way, and this is most likely the last year I'll be getting airline tickets from the folks for my holiday travels, so I'll take advantage. And I am one of those completely freakish people who has just as much fun with my family as I do with my friends, and this way I'll get a little of both over the holiday. Woo-hoo.
I will end with a random piece of information that I heard today that just astounded me. Tiger Woods is playing in a golf tournament at the moment, and if he wins it, he will have won over ten million dollars this year. The astounding thing is that there have only been 16 professional golfers who have won ten million dollars in their entire careers. He's just unbelievable.