blind insight

And now it is time to move on and observe elsewhere.

As of tomorrow, I'll be absent from these parts for several days. On the off chance you're anywhere near Memphis and/or the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division conference, you can hear me wax eloquent on "How You and Technology Can Help Accommodate Lawyers With Disabilities" at the Peabody Hotel from 9:40 to 10:40 on Saturday morning. Because I'm sure there's nothing you'd rather do to celebrate May Day.

From Memphis, assuming I survive the wild rumpus-raising and copious alcohol-consuming that allegedly take place at YLD conferences, and don't get lost in the maze of barbecue stands at the Memphis in May festival, I'll be jetting up to Our Nation's Capitol. There, I (and several other honorees) will be receiving the Anti-Defamation League's Daniel Ginsburg Young Leadership Award, hopefully without any of my aforewritten fears coming to pass. So if you're hanging out near the Mayflower Hotel early next week, pop in and say hello.

I don't own a laptop, and I don't know how to "mo-blog" even with my schmancy new cell phone, so it is highly unlikely that there will be anything new to read here until sometime on Wednesday. And so I leave you with a few questions to which -- as ostensibly rhetorical as they may appear -- I really would like the answers:

1) When a morning person and a night person engage in a romantic relationship, is it always the morning person who ends up sleep deprived?

2) Assuming the answer to question #1 is "yep, sorry," is there an under-eye concealer anywhere in existence that can actually conceal the enormous bags that have unpacked themselves and taken up residence below my eyes?

3) On an entirely unrelated note, is there some global janitorial manual that instructs the maintenance dudes to place those yellow "wet floor" thingies squarely in line with doors and entryways, so as to maximize the likelihood that I will walk into them?

4) If two people are in line at a coffee shop, and the second one is kind of in a hurry and wants only a simple black coffee to go, is there a fundamental law of nature that ensures the first one will order a double tall skinny soy half-caf latte?

5) If the entire American population is up in arms about racism perverting the American Idol voting results, and no one I know has ever watched a single episode of American Idol, let alone voted on it, then who the heck voted for those untalented white folks?

6) If I have a schmancy new cell-phone with a camera attachment, and I can take delightfully quirky pictures of the bags under my eyes, the Betty Boop collection in my office, and the really scary-cool clouds out my window, HOW THE HELL DO I GET THEM OUT OF THE PHONE AND INTO MY BLOG?!

Later, gators. Let's have some answers, please.

Essentials.

Evan Schaeffer over at the Legal Underground offers this post today about the lawyer's briefcase. This is part of Evan's latest series on "Things Important to Every Lawyer."

Perhaps a briefcase is important to every lawyer. We're the ones who read and write and carry around the briefs, after all. But eight years out of law school, I still don't own a briefcase. I carry around my daily stuff in a beat-up blue backpack (which I affectionately refer to as the backseat of the car I don't drive). I schlep papers to court or prison in piles and accordion files or, on rare occasion, in a black trial case (as ugly as Evan observes) borrowed from the office supply room.

I used to fantasize about owning a gorgeous, soft, supple leather Coach bag. You would think that someone would have gifted me with a properly professional briefcase upon my law-school graduation, but no such luck. And all the cash I amassed at that time went straight into paying the loans and supplementing my measly clerkship salary.

Even later, when I was raking in the big-firm bucks, I could never quite justify the expense. There were skis and bikes and climbing gear to buy. There was the down payment for my little house. There were trips to Europe and Asia and Hawaii. And I didn't really go to court all that often.

These days, I'm in court about once a month, on average. I still experience a few pangs of briefcase-envy as I stroll through the courthouse halls or watch my opponent unpack her papers from a snazzy leather bag. But I've managed pretty well without one, and I expect there will always be something else on which I'd rather spend $400. Come to think of it, isn't it about time to upgrade the wheels on my tri-bike?

A few choice words.

I just finished reading this piece* on last weekend's March for Women's Lives, and I'm feeling a wave of emotions. Pride that hundreds of thousands of women, including all sorts of celebrity types, were willing to stand up and shout for reproductive freedom. Fear that the freedom today's college girls take for granted is hanging by a thread, and that unless we put John Kerry in the White House, we may return to an era in which religious conservatism and thinly-veiled misogynism conspire to strip women of the right to make their own decisions about child-bearing. And a little wistfulness that I couldn't be there on the Capitol Mall to raise my own voice for choice.

Twelve years ago, I was there. In 1992, along with fellow members of the Vassar Pro-Choice Coalition, I boarded a bus in Poughkeepsie filled with excitement and energy and a bit of trepidation. I disembarked in Washington (actually, somewhere in Virginia near the Pentagon City metro stop), and found myself in a sea of women. Winding my way through the crowd, armed with a "Pro Choice, Our Choice" sign, I remember feeling as though I had given myself over to the throng, as if we were moving with a single body and chanting with a single voice, and that the hundreds of different colors, sizes, ages, and styles we represented were blurred into oneness.

The other thing I remember is this. As my friends and I made our way to the start of the March, we made a little game out of trying to spot men. A few of them (in addition to Bill Clinton and Al Gore and assorted other politicos) were in attendance, as brave and as passionate about choice as we. But they were only a few, perhaps one percent of the total number of marchers. And I remember thinking that we would never truly secure reproductive freedom unless the men were fighting by our sides.

I still think that's true. As thrilled as I am to see that so many women, particularly the younger crowd, are still passionate about protecting reproductive choice, I'm afraid we have not done enough to bring the men along with us. One anecdote in the Salon article recounts a teenage boy's credulity and dismay upon learning that women once used coat-hangers to give themselves abortions. This boy, and the millions like him, are growing up complacent and oblivious to the significance of choice. They need to know that when abortion is not legal, safe, and affordable, that their girlfriends and sisters and classmates have fewer options in life and work and education and career, and that the shrinking of those options in turn contracts their own independence and the range of their own possibilities. And they need to be angry about the hypocrisy of politicians who would restrict abortion while also eliminating family planning resources and sex education, stripping poor women and children of affordable health care, allowing public schools to deteriorate, and reducing welfare benefits.

Back in college, I had a button that read: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." This is a little more strident than suits me now. But as we continue to fight a fight that should long ago have become a non-issue, we need the men on our side. It's our bodies, it's our choice, but we need their voices, too.
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*I think this article is premium content on Salon. So go ahead and subscribe already!

Setting boundaries.

OK, so my last post was really bitchy. I considered deleting it, but what with the zapping of the post before it and the fact that a whole bunch of people have already read it, I decided to use it instead as a segue into something I've been thinking about a lot.

First of all, I absolutely did not intend to offend any of you fabulous people who bother to read my writing. I love your blogs, and I do want to know 100 things about you. Really, I do -- I wish you would all tell me 100 things about yourselves RIGHT NOW, and then we can go to Starbucks and get lattes together and talk about those incredible powerful coffin photos and then, speaking of coffins, wasn't that buried-alive scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2 just about the most disturbing cinematic moment since Linda Blair's head swivelled around in a complete circle on her puny, possessed shoulders?

Are we still friends?

Anyways, what I really want to write about today is boundaries. Blogging is cathartic and therapeutic and ego-feeding. Particularly with regard to my disabilities, I've been writing about stuff that I've rarely verbalized, and writing about it has helped me express in the "real" world my fears and needs and insecurities. Sometimes I write about my cases, but I can't tell you nearly all that I'd like about my clients and the hell they've been through and how their rights have been chewed up and spit back out at them and how totally fucked up the criminal justices system is, because for all I know, my opponent is reading this, or the judge's law clerk, or the judge him or herself, or maybe my boss. I share with you my views on issues like reproductive freedom, gay marriage, the death penalty, church/state separation, the debacle in Iraq, and the upcoming election, so you know my politics, but even there I try to toe a careful line (frequent digs at Republicans notwithstanding).

I write about my sweet boyfriend, my family, and some of my friends, but I try hard not to put anything out there that might embarrass or upset the subjects of my prose. I keep the intimate details to myself, for the most part, because I'm not at all anonymous here, because I'm just not as funny with that stuff as dooce or Mrs. Kennedy and because my grandmother reads this!

But sometimes, I lose sight of the boundaries, and forget that I'm not scribbling away in some private journal where I'm free to share my innermost thoughts and snarkiest observations. On a similar note, Scheherazade censored herself the other day after realizing that in processing by blog, she'd put a little more out there than felt comfortable. It's not that we don't want to share what we're thinking and feeling and doing. But you know who I am, and you might know the people I'm writing about, and it's really not fair to them for me to hang all the laundry out the window. And though my inner bitch may need to rear her head from time to time, she's better unleashed over a glass of wine with my best girlfriends.

Too much information.

In my procrastinatory journeys around the blogosphere, I've been clicking through to the blogs of people who comment on the various blogs that I read or who've linked to me themselves. Even with the aid of bloglines, I can only keep up with so much blogginess and remain gainfully employed, but I am enjoying my random forays into other people's worlds.

Many of the blogs I've read recently include a "100 things about me" section, which I gather results from a meme that made its way around the internet before my time. Some of the "100 things" sections I've skimmed through are really well-written and funny. Some are enough to turn me off the writer before I venture further into his or her blog. Most, though, are a little too labored and provide a little too much information, even if they convince me to read some of the writer's posts.

What is most interesting (to me) about these 100 things is that in reading them, I feel like I'm on a first date. I tend to click into the "100 things" section full of anticipation, after a quick look at the blog in question has caused me to imagine that the writer has enough in common with me that we two could become great blog buddies. The first few entries in the list tend to reinforce that initial impression. But around item 30, my mental checklist kicks in, and I start identifying the dealbreakers. Republicans? Forget it. People whose obsessive habits run to knitting and scrapbooking? Not so much. Women whose list contains more than 30 things that are actually about their husbands? Think for yourself, girlfriend. People whose lives revolve around shopping malls and reality TV shows? See ya. People who claim they "love to travel," but don't have a valid passport, "love to cook," but list more than 5 foods they hate, or "love to read," but identify John Grisham as a favorite author? I just don't think it would work out with us.

Among my regular reads are authors whose daily lives differ dramatically from mine, whose politics might make me cringe, and whose passions spark little fire in my own heart. Without exception, though, they are superb writers, who pepper their commentary with sharp wit, keen observation, or deep insight as the occasion demands. They are like old friends, whose differences enrich our relationship and provide me with perspective, balance, and gut-checks. Few of them have bothered with a "100 things" list. As much as I'd love to learn more about these marvelous writers, I'm afraid that doing so might shatter my impression of them and cause me to write them off as I've done all too often with prospective suitors who fall victim to TMI syndrome on early dates.

So I'm not going to tell you 100 things about me, even if I could think of 100 things about myself that I'm willing to share with the world and that might be entertaining to the masses. And I'm deleting Friday's "ask me anything" post, because several of the requests I've received (mostly via e-mail) go where no reader really needs to go. I hope we can still be friends, though.

And the painted ponies go up and down.

Suddenly, I have become intricately aware of the passage of time. Or, more accurately, of how unawares I was of time's quick and quiet escape from me. It has been over a decade since I entered law school, yet at times I still feel like a young lawyer, wide-eyed, idealistic, and insecure about my place in the practice of law. Nearly seven years have passed since I returned to Colorado, but often it seems as though I've only just come home after a long absence. My job feels new, still, but my tenure here is the longest of any job I've ever had. Friends of whom I still think as newlyweds are on their second child (or are signing divorce papers), and the kid I used to babysit turned 30.

The other day, some friends and I were talking about a party we'd attended a while back. The memory was fresh and vivid, and I was jolted to realize that the gathering had taken place five years ago. I've had similar reactions to a host of other events of late. I can still remember how I felt and who I was in relationships that have been history for ages. In my mind, the children of friends and relatives are still infants, though in reality they are soccer-playing, bar-mitzvah-having, high-school-graduating kids. (The latter problem may be exacerbated by the outdated pictures on my refrigerator, which I am attempting to update or at least replace with countless photos of my gorgeous nephew.)

I remember when my first serious boyfriend and I broke up during my clerkship, I had a silly, sobbing conversation with my mother about my fear of being 30 and alone. I was barely 26 at the time. Yet here I am in my 30s, still single, still dating, still doing the same things in my spare time, still experiencing many of the same fears and insecurities and frustrations in life and love and work. I suppose that I am a little bit wiser, more mature, and more capable than I was three or five or ten years ago. I have progressed in my career, and I've had marvelous travels and adventures. But those around me seem to change and grow and progress and move forward in their lives, while I stay mostly the same.

And suddenly, in recent weeks, I have become aware of just how much time has sped past me. Not in the proverbial bio-clock-ticking-away sense, but as a rush of memory and history and age and wonderment and sadness. I find myself searching for where the years have gone and wondering what I have to show for them aside from the bags under my eyes and the callouses on my feet and the not-quite-so-perkiness of my perky parts.

It's a phase. I know it's a phase. As much a part of the passage of time as my awareness of time itself. But at once, I want to slow everything down to a pace at which I can see and evaluate all that has passed and is happening and accelerate it all so I can get to what comes next and learn whether and when all that I wish for will come to pass.

Facing my fear.

The always-eloquent Rebecca wrote this post earlier in the week. Rebecca and I spend a lot of time e-mailing back and forth in response to one another's blog posts with comments like "exactly," "spot-on," "me too," and other testaments to the similarity of our experiences with hearing loss. In her most recent post on the subject, Rebecca describes how a two-week hearing-aidless stint caused her to withdraw from socializing and conversing and daily human interaction. Among her many insightful observations, Rebecca writes:

I was acting like someone who was impaired - not just in terms of volume but in terms of socialization. It wasn't like I was thinking "I can't hear, therefore I don't participate" but it was much more subliminal than that. Mostly I just wanted to avoid the conflict and strain of trying to be involved. There's also an odd comfort to it, of not being jarred by sound, of not having to interact with the outside world.

I have found myself falling prey to this same withdrawal pattern. I come up with excuses to skip parties, happy hours, and other large-group gatherings, and only later realize that I didn't want to go because I anticipated not being able to hear or understand. Other times, I will go, but find that I am tense and irritable for hours or days in anticipation of the event. On occasion, the reality of the situation is far easier for me to navigate than feared, and I have a wonderful time and mentally kick myself for wanting to stay home. Other times, the reality is as dark, loud, and stressful as I expected, and reinforces my reluctance to attend such functions.

Now that both the district court and the 10th Circuit are wired for infrared amplification, I no longer dread court appearances. But whenever I am expected to speak in public, I get a little nauseous, not about the presentation itself (I like that stuff), but with the fear of not being able to follow what is happening and respond appropriately. I worry that I will make a fool of myself on my way to and from the podium (I crash into tables and chairs, I misjudge the height of the riser, and inevitably, a hand extended for me to shake flails emptily while I focus on the person's lips, oblivious to the proffered appendage). I worry that I will be asked question but will not hear well enough to respond. I worry that I'll miss my cue or repeat someone else's statements or misunderstand the content or context of the topic at hand. For the most part, these fears are unfounded, or at least exaggerated. To the extent they are valid, they can be addressed easily by speaking with the appropriate powers-that-be. That they are solvable, though, makes them no less fearsome.

When I learned last week that I would soon be receiving a big award, I was alternately thrilled and terrified. Thrilled for the obvious reasons, and terrified because I not only will have to give a short acceptance speech in front of some 2,000 people (many of whom are important folks like senators and ambassadors and titans of industry and stuff), I will also have to survive three days of intensive schmoozing in very crowded, marginally lit hotel conference rooms. I thought about coming up with an excuse to accept my award in absentia. I contemplated skipping all the cocktail parties, receptions, and similar events and sneaking in at the last minute to scoop up my prize. But I know I can't get away with this, and I'm so very honored to be getting this thing that I couldn't possibly justify shirking its related responsibilities.

But I'm really, really nervous about all the seeing and hearing I'm going to have to do in impossible circumstances in the coming weeks. I know that it will all be fine, that people will be helpful and understanding about my communication hurdles, and that the conference and the award ceremony will be fantastic. But as Rebecca so aptly observes, it's not about any conscious, rational knowing. It's about staying in my comfort zone, avoiding conflict and strain, and being a complete wuss.

Whew!

Every once in a while, all the stars align with the planets and all the round pegs fall neatly into round holes, and stuff works. Last night was the culmination of months of planning by my spectacular committee on a reception for 200+ young professionals following a huge, community Holocaust commemmoration event. We'd put out the last-minute fires (chief among these was the discovery on Thursday afternoon that only half the necessary quantity of alcohol had been received), taken it on faith that almost everyone who RSVPed would actually show, and held our collective breath in the hope that things would flow smoothly.

And they did! They really did! The room was packed, the food was great, the booze was more than enough, and the energy was infectious. Once I'd made my way through the room a couple of times to shake hands and schmooze and introduce people to one another (and play yenta a bit), I was able to sit down with Steve and other friends (and my parents, who are young and professional at heart) and just enjoy the buzz. I'm still a-glow with the satisfaction of a job well done, though I doubt I'll ever again have as wonderful a planning committee with which to work.

Perhaps by tomorrow I'll be back to blogging about things edgy or insightful. For now, though, I'm just trying to dig out from the pre-event piles and come down from my adrenaline high.

Family matters.

I suppose that when your significant other is a kind and sweet and honest and smart and interesting and liberal and open-minded and grounded and funny person, it should come as no suprise that his parents and sister also possess all of those good and important qualities. And it should be no great shocker when your own (equally-good-quality-possessing) parents hit it off famously with his clan, and manage to carry a delightful dinner conversation with no assistance from your background-noise-challenged self. Nor should it be cause for astonishment when his family turns out to be as rabid and competitive a bunch of card-players as your own, or that they are equally fond of food, wine, and witty repartee.

Sure feels good, though.

Baby, you can drive my car.

I am going through a phase in which not driving drives me crazy. Sometimes I resignedly accept my self-imposed pedestrian status. Sometimes I even revel in it, justifying impulse purchases (think of all I save on car expenses) and cabs to the airport and lovely pedicures (ooh -- need one now!). But really, unless you live in New York (or Washington, or Paris, or perhaps Chicago), it's a drag.

By the time Sunday rolls around, I will have bounced from Denver to Golden or Boulder and back again over and over and over. Because of bus logistics and time constraints and the fact that other people do not exist purely for the purpose of schlepping me around, I will have lost hours of both sleep and productive time, had to tote ridiculous loads of crap to the office with me, and crash elsewhere than my own cozy bed. It's not terrible, and I'm going to those places to do fun things with great people, but I'd like to be able to get there on my own schedule, to throw all the accoutrements of my various activities in the trunk of my very own vehicle, and to go home whenever I'm ready.

In case you are wondering, I am still licensed to drive. But I haven't really driven since law school, and it has been more than a decade since I drove on a regular basis. During the year I lived in Boulder after college, I found myself increasingly frightened while behind the wheel, as objects and people and other vehicles seemed to appear out of nowhere in the corners of my vision and driving at night became almost impossible. So I took myself off the road, which was a tough decision but really the safest thing for everyone concerned.

I'm lucky to have my parents nearby, and they regularly go above and beyond the call of duty to assist me with my transportation needs. Steve's put hundreds of miles on his car in the time we've been together, and has willingly assumed the role of designated driver. My friends, too, are generous and accommodating, and make sure I have rides to parties and meetings and gatherings even when I'm too shy to ask or simply don't want to impose.

But there are times, and this is one, when I just want to get in a car and drive. Or at least to have my very own car at my disposal whenever I want to go wherever I feel like going. I've looked into car services (but this is Colorado, where the SUV is king) and into establishing some kind of standing arrangement with one of the local cab companies (nope). And I've thought about hiring one of my laid-off friends to be my on-call chauffeur, but I can't really afford to pay a living wage.

Then again, I make a mean double-chocolate-fudge brownie.

Any takers?