blind insight

Pinch.

Laugh, reassure, or poo-poo all you want, but I'm having a hard time believing I. Am. Really. Getting. Married.

Whether consciously or not, however much I "knew" that Steve and I would spend our lives together, I really never though all of this would happen for me. Nearly twenty years of dating disappointment, heartbreak, and not-quite-rightness had me pretty well convinced that I'd never see the business end of the seemingly impossible conjunction of attraction, love, commitment, compatiblity, and timing that would lead to the whole happilyeverafter gig.

Now that I'm here, it feels wonderful and heady and delicious. Still, I'm waiting to wake up and discover that it's just another of the oh-so-vivid dreams that plague my sleep. Then again, my mom reports that the very first engagement gift is en route, so I'm thinking it might be for real.

Does this mean I'm finally getting the KitchenAid mixer?

I will.

On Saturday night, high in the Rockies, in a faux-Swiss-village hotel, in a lovely suite punctuated improbably by (I am not joking) a heart-shaped jacuzzi tub in the middle of the living room, following an indoor picnic of bread, cheese, olives, and wine, Steve asked me to marry him. But first, he presented me with a series of beautifully wrapped jewel boxes, each one a tiny work of art, and each one containing a ring.

I opened a small, carved wooden box to find two tin-and-rhinestone rings in the shape of an “L” and an “O.” The second box, in beautiful white stone, contained “V” and “E.” Then a round box covered in white silk and embroidered in gold held a silver toe ring with a heart in its center. An onyx box revealed a rose-colored resin ring with three rhinestones, representing our past, our present, and our future. A round, polished wooden box carried a rappel ring, which Steve promised to use to protect me from falling. A ceramic box painted in red produced a small-gear bicycle chain ring, to help us along our occasional uphill stretches. Perhaps my favorite, a porcelain box painted to resemble a tree branch, complete with mushrooms growing from blades of grass and topped off with a nut-chewing squirrel, housed a huge, green rock-candy ring. Steve explained that this would provide us with nourishment on our journey together, but the rock-candy engagement ring also has been a running joke between us for months.

Finally, I opened a beautiful, rectangular stone box with a rose inlaid in the lid to find a sterling silver ring holding a large, rounded-triangular cubic zirconia. Steve declared this the size of the diamond I deserve, but probably won’t get, and asked me to accept all of these rings as his symbolic gesture. (Symbolic only because his paternal grandmother has promised him (me? us?) her ring, which I will receive some time after I meet this generous woman at Thanksgiving and Steve executes Part II of his Top Secret Proposal Plan.) He was already kneeling, and I was already pouring tears, when he popped The Question.

And I said yes.

Time out.

Ah, the lazy days of ennui. It seems only a blink-of-an-eye ago, I was whining about rut-stuckedness, yearning for drama and adventure, and bemoaning the familiarity of my sameoldsamey routine. What's that thing they say about being careful what you wish for? Whoever they are, those self-righteous wish-cautioners, they're right.

So we are no longer under contract on the Boulder manse. This is no great tragedy, because we've got other prospects and have yet to sell my place, but we're sad to have to walk away from such a unique and promising house. And the decision was far from lightly made. The past week has been a whirl of discussion and investigation and further discussion and further investigation, by and between Steve and me, with our parents, our wonderful realtor, assorted other professionals, government officials of varying degrees of knowledge and patience, and anyone else who would listen. Ultimately, we discovered insurmountably deal-breaking issues and concluded that this would not be our first home together. There's far, far more to the story, of course, but this is neither the time nor the place to recount it.

The house drama alone has been enough to rip my schedule to shreds and send my blood pressure into the stratosphere. But throw in a new appeal, the receipt of not one, but two long-awaited and truly voluminous case records, assorted client mini-crises, and some non-work-related organizational politics drama, and you've got one exhausted, stressed, and stretched-thin me.

You might think that my impending vacation would offer respite from the madness. And it damn well better, once I'm actually vacating happily in a sea kayak off the Dodecanese Islands. But right this moment, the thought of being gone for two weeks in the middle of so many decisions and obligations feels terrifying and overwhelming. As does the knowledge that at some point very, very soon, I need to find time to organize my gear and pack my bags even while keeping my house in showroom-ready condition.

I suppose I have only myself to blame for the insanity. When things once again return to humdrum normalcy (as they must, they simply must, because I'm truly on the edge here), I need to learn a new way of looking at the day-to-day. Somehow, I'll have to redefine the routine, undramatic sameness of life as comfortable and familiar, and to find in it a zone of contentment.

And so, before you, great Internet, I hereby vow (as soon as I possibly can) to slow down, kick back, and chill out. I will take time to smell the roses, to feel the wind in my hair, to sit quietly in a cafe with a book, to snuggle in front of bad late night movies with my sweetie, to go for long, mellow bike rides, and to take leisurely lunches with my girlfriends. I will work undistracted and patiently on complex legal issues. I will conduct organized meetings that begin with an agenda and finish on time. And I will get more than 6 hours of sleep on a regular basis.

Really, I will. I just have to.

Milestone.

In the midst of chaos, exhaustion, overworkedness, and random drama, I managed to accomplish something special this morning. No, I didn't sell my house, get rid of some of my insane amounts of stuff, finish the brief I need to write or the 2,500-page record I need to review, do laundry, or bake a pie for my women's gathering tomorrow night.

I did, however, nail my first trad lead in Eldorado Canyon.

OK, so it was a ridiculously easy climb (rating it 5.4 would be generous) with great holds, great stances, and great protection, but it was pretty long, pretty exposed at the top, and plenty exciting. I was so focused on finding good gear placements that I never managed to get nervous, and my climbing buddy concluded that all my placements were solid and only one was even a little questionable.

For a long time, I've been afraid to try trad leading. I've dabbled a few times with placing gear while on top rope, but I don't really trust my eyes or - more important - my understanding of physics. For the past two seasons, though, I've been seconding a lot more on trad routes because Steve's such a solid lead climber. Pulling the pieces out has helped me gain a deeper understanding for where and how to place them, and my overall climbing ability has improved enough that I feel pretty solid on moderate routes. I'm comfortable leading sport routes up to 5.9 on most crags, and am consistently climbing 5.10s clean as a second. Anyone else with these credentials would have started trad leading long ago, but I've kind of avoided it and Steve hasn't pushed me to try.

I've long recognized that it would be good if I could comfortably lead moderate trad routes, since this would enable us to do longer routes where switching leads is helpful, if not essential. Plus, I feel like I can't really call myself a serious climber unless I can take full responsibility for everything happening on the rock. So today, I was climbing with a friend who's patient, low-key, experienced, and supportive, and the moment felt right to give trad leading my best shot.

I still need to work on building anchors (this route had a fixed anchor at the top) and making sure my cam placements are perfect. Still, I did it clean, solid, and reasonably fast, and pretty much everything I placed was bombproof.

Damn, I feel good!

P.S. Upon request, I will provide a post translating the climbing lingo sprinkled liberally throughout this entry.

The post that may very well result in my being disinherited.

I am now the proud (?!) owner of an official Justice Sandra Day O’Connor bobblehead doll, courtesy of The Green Bag (to which I subscribe only for the articles, of course). While I’m not necessarily a fan of Sandy and her (case) swinging ways, she does have the distinction of being the very first Supreme Court Justice of whom I was aware in any tangible way.

Back in 1986, the Supreme Court decided Bowers v. Hardwick, which held that Georgia constitutionally could outlaw gay sex (and which - in case you've been living in a cave with Osama bin Laden - was overrulled last year in Lawrence v. Texas). Later that year, my mother wrote and performed a show-stopping number at the Boulder County Bar Association show. The song, to the tune of Sweet Georgia Brown, lambasted the Bowers decision in brilliantly rhyming fashion. But the best part of the act was my mother herself as Justice O, prancing around the stage sporting a black judicial robe, white puffy collar, blonde wig, and (oh yes) a green foam Miss Liberty tiara.

And people wonder why I wanted to become a lawyer.

In which I break some news and apologize for perhaps building up your expectations more than is truly warranted.

Ok, so here's the scoop:

By early October, Steve and I and Shasta the Cat will be happily ensconced in our beautiful new home in the fair city of Boulder. The Love Shack has floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the Flatirons, four bedrooms and a large office (really a fifth bedroom that has been converted to an office with great built-in stuff), two full baths, a living/dining area we plan to convert to a great room, and a lovely deck and back yard. The kitchen is fine, though our long-term vision includes a total remodel (granite! stainless steel! flat cooktop! island! $20,000 to play with!), but aside from some simple painting and maintenance stuff the place is in fantastic shape. We'll be walking distance from a supermarket and many shops and restaurants, Steve can bike to work, I'll have great bus access to Denver for work and all around Boulder, and we've got beautiful areas for hiking, biking, running, and even climbing right out the door. Needless to say, we're rather thrilled about this development!

We've assured our parents and grandparents that our Living in Sin status will be normalized with all due speed, and you might perhaps stay tuned to this space for further developments on that front. For the moment, we're focusing on the inevitable house-buying chaos, which is compounded by the fact that we're also dealing with house-selling chaos since we need to sell my place to buy the new pad. So I'm now living in a state of Extreme Obsessive Cleanliness that probably cannot be sustained by a normal human being for any stretch of time (particularly a normal human being who, though clean, takes great comfort from being surrounded by her stuff).

I'm crossing my fingers that my unique and beautiful house will sell quickly, and that the new owner will love it as much as I have. I've enjoyed six wonderful years in the Carriage House, and I'm feeling more than a frisson of sadness at the thought of leaving it behind. It will always be my first real home, the first place I lived (other than my parents' house) for more than a year. I was incredibly lucky to find and snag it. I'd gone out one day thinking it might be time to jump on the homeowner bandwagon, and by the end of the day (after looking at only one other place), I was under contract. I'd made a verbal offer within minutes of walking into the place (if you click on the link above and check out all the photos you'll perhaps see why), which was entertained only because we'd arrived a few minutes early for an open house and the seller took a shine to me (and my mom). By the time we were sitting on the patio writing up a contract, several back-up offers had come in and my realtor had to do a bit of arm-twisting to keep the seller from reneging on our handshake deal. But just two weeks later, the place was mine.

Still, it's wonderful to be starting this new chapter of our lives together, and to have found such a terrific place to do so. And we'll have plenty of room for guests, so come out and see us sometime!

Uphill battles.

The news is evolving, so I'm not quite ready to lay it all out here. Soon, soon.

I did want to jot down some thoughts I had while we were camping and climbing around Independence Pass this weekend. I've started to have more-than-before trouble hiking uphill. Not the kind of strenuous-exercise, breathing-hard trouble you might expect while hiking uphill, but rather seeing-where-I'm-going, staying-balanced, feeling-stable kind of trouble. I've always been wobbly on boulder fields and whatnot, but lately even the more routine hiking has seemed orientationally challenging.

When I first noticed this I attributed it in part to the fact that I usually bring poles for long hikes and backpacking trips, but rarely schlep them along for rock climbing excursions. We've done quite a few climbs lately with longish, steepish approaches, and though I've finally learned not to attempt these walks in my sandals, I have yet to remember to bring my poles.

But I think it's more than just the absence of a balance aid. My field of vision is so small now that when I'm walking uphill on a steep grade, I can't see what's ahead because it's actually above me, out of my visual range. So the uphill process becomes mentally draining and physically frustrating as I repeatedly make contact with bushes, low-hanging tree branches, and logs, struggle to find solid footing, and miss switchbacks or lose track of the meandering trail because I'm focusing on the uneven terrain at my feet. Going downhill still entails some careful stepping, but at least I can see the obstacles and danger zones spread below me.

Recognizing what's causing these approach hikes to be so difficult has made them a little easier for me and for my climbing companions. Instead of getting angry at myself for my slow and awkward progress this weekend, I was able to articulate what I was experiencing, crack wise about it, and press on to the top without ever reaching the edge-of-tears point in my frustration that has become so annoyingly familiar.

Stay tuned.

Breaking news is in the works - details soon, I promise. Right now, there's just too much chaos and excitement to merit a coherent or un-cagey post.

Help, please.

Here's a question for all (?!) you law students, law professors, and recent grads out there (and anyone else who feels moved to comment):

In about a month, I'm speaking about federal habeas practice to a bunch of 2Ls and 3Ls who are taking a wrongful convictions seminar at a local law school. I've been trying to figure out the best way to present the extremely technical, complicated, and depressing set of rules and decisions that comprise my chosen field without boring the students to tears or totally disillusioning them.

What suggestions or ideas can you give me about the most interesting and effective way to present the basics of federal habeas? For example, how much detail I should go into? How interactive I should make my presentation? What type of written materials are most helpful? And how much of the 100-minute class should I plan to fill?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I'm just saying.

There really should be a law against excessive (and by "excessive," I mean "any") use of Polo cologne. With a severe sentence enhancer for such use in crowded public places. And triple time if the offense is committed before I've had my morning coffee.

Ew.