Legal Mystenigmary

Gasps from the Past

I do not know what's going on, but lately, there's been an outbreak of highly unpleasant ex-law-school-classmate sightings in places I used to consider my exclusive domain. Possibly because a lot of them probably took clerkships that meant I wouldn't have seen them for the first year, or because they have the more typical type of associateship where they're chained to a desk until at least that dangerous first year is over. Whatever it is, it must STOP. I hate it. In the last week, I have seen:

1) Heinous, Devil-Worshipping, Fellatio-In-The -Communal-Kitchen-Giving, first year roommate who dedicated her three years at law school to sleeping with any and all breathing males and spreading truly delightful rumors about her first year roomates (three of us).

2) Weird Girl who always made out with other girls when she was drunk and somehow always hung out with my drinking group** which never made her seem less scary to me

3) Staple-of-Drinking-Group Quasi-Friend who asked me out once unsuccessfully, accidentally hooked up with later, and spent every minute thereafter regretting it, especially once he decided it would be *genius* to play compare-and-contrast OUTLOUD in the middle of a huge group of people with a guy I'd once dated.

and today, the ickiest of all:

4) The Girl Who Brought A Basket Of Muffins to the Teacher on the First Day of Class. Does that not say it all? Okay, she was also the self-appointed "Most Popular Girl In School" (funny how she couldn't get herself elected to class office, though...) and the largest propagator of baseless, cruel gossip I've ever met -- fake as hell, too, to boot -- the kind who breaks off her whispered story about A's nasty case of crabs to give a big ol' smile and wave to poor A who happens to be walking past her. Horrible. We don't even pretend to be friendly to each other, though, Miss Popular and I -- chemical hatred of each other having set in within eight seconds of meeting. But when I saw her today after two delightful years of forgetting she existed, I gave her a big ol' smile and wave...

Of course, unsurprisingly, sightings of Irksome, who I'd actually kind of ENJOY seeing are completely absent in the last week. As are phone calls. As are any indication that any of the things he said last weekend are even vaguely true. (Get your mind OUT of the gutter there -- over lunch, people, over lunch. Fully clothed.)

** a handy alternative to the word "friends" for those of us who felt that law school was social punishment for four fabulous years of witty, loving, brilliant college friends, and displayed a stunning lack of anyone who could be remotely described as a sympathetic soul -- or someone with a soul, even.

A Girl Can Always Count on Her Daddy

(I feel like that title should be ironically-intended... but it's not. I blame the pretty pretty weather.)

Really. Now, granted, my dad has done some not-so-fabulous and some downright awful, stupid, catastrophic things in his life (although, to be fair, most Wall Streeters in the eighties did, just ask Jay McInerney -- who apparently is once again taking questions.). And sometimes, he says not-so-nice things, and sometimes he's just so annoying you want to smack him.

But. I called him last night to cry about my bank account going nuclear on me. It was awful. I was so embarrassed. I'm an adult, for god's sake -- an attorney at that! I have no business having red checking accounts. I'm supposed to represent defendants, not be one. (Speaking of, that's a serious post I want to do at some point when it's not Friday afternoon -- the pressures on attorneys to be somewhat superhuman in their personal lives as a side-effect of professional ethics rules, etc.). I have (stupidly) no reserves and there was no way I could possibly see to fix the situations, short of throwing myself on parental mercy.

And Daddy came through. He called this morning to say he'd made an antedotal deposit with enough to fix the deficit, pay my bills and a little extra for a "nice dinner" because of "all the stress you've been through." It was just the best feeling -- to know that, yes, he's got some major flaws, but when I'm really in a crisis, there's someone there to bail me out, who won't throw me to the wolves and just tell me to tough it out, maybe bankruptcy really is fun... And yes, I realize that too much of that and you end up a weak spoiled brat, but this isn't an everyday thing. It's more than I just realized how fantastic it is to have someone in your corner in an emergency who gives the kind of help needed when it's needed and how it's needed (which is actually pretty rare -- people usually only manage one or two of the three, if at all), without getting all judgemental about it.

So, today is "I Love My Daddy" day. yay!

Angst and Demons

(with no credit whatsoever to Dan Brown, whom I firmly believe to be a talentless hack, albeit a talentless hack sitting on umpty-million dollars)

Remember that kid's book "Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day?" This is my life. Today, alone, I discovered:

1) a lovely parking ticket on my windshield when I got into it to go to work today. The ick factor is compounded by the following: there is NOWHERE else for me to park when I'm home except this particular lot, this is my FIFTH parking ticket in two months, and the asses at the town hall just laugh at me when I ask for a resident parking permit as they claim that no such animal exists.

2) my checking account is (gulp) $400 IN THE RED. the red. the big fat ugly red. I about had a heart attack when I logged on this morning, as I usually do, to make sure things are ticking along properly in the world of checking (since I have no trust whatsoever in banks, checking accounts or credit of any form). I have no other money in the whole wide world except for what's in that checking account. The tiny pittance of a paycheck I get is directly deposited into that account. Which MEANS that not only am I broke now, but that I will continue to be broke right on through to the NEXT pay period, notwithstanding the fact that there are some delightful things like rent, car, insurance, student loans to be paid in that time. I am freaking out. Why oh why did I choose to believe that quality of life/work was somehow more important than the almighty dollar? I must be crazy. That's unAmerican. But more to the point -- WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??! how much do you get for selling blood?

3) My little sister is coming to work at my firm as an intern for the summer. (OK, if anyone from the firm has randomly stumbled upon this blog and doesn't know who I am, they now know, and should stop reading. Thank you.) I am eight different kinds of nervous about this. I will sound like (even more) of a complete nut if I elaborate, but suffice to say: nervous.

4) I'm out of cheese, bread, milk, cookies, cereal and pasta. Due to recent discovery #2, this means that dinner tonight will be a) a can of tomato paste, b) the dusty peanuts at the bottom of the cupboard that even mice won't eat or c) crayons (for some utterly unfathomable reason, I have not one, not two, but three boxes of them -- sadly, not the good kind with the sharpener in the back. Becuase if you have to eat crayons, really, you want them at least to be sharp crayons).

5) The gigantic screw-up at the motion hearing of two weeks ago has been compounded by Judgie-Poo's recent issuance of an Order that not only does not grant my motion, but that grants the other side's motion to dismiss our Complaint in a completely impossible way. A panicked call to Judgie-Poo's clerk confirmed that he had, indeed, intended to say exactly what he said on the Order. Now. First off, the Order is phrased so as to dismiss a type of suit which we have not filed. Second (off??), he can't dismiss our Complaint globally; only two of the nine defendants made the motion to dismiss. Third, he can't dismiss our Complaint at all, as it states a cause of action, which is basically all you have to do at this point to survive that motion, and even if crazy nutso Judgie-Poo allowed the motion to be recast as a motion for summary judgment, the defendants supplied no evidence that the facts are other than as pled. Fourth, the fact of the Order coming in is going to remind SSP to be irritated with my general incompetence again and he was just starting to get un-irritated finally from the argument itself.  Fifth, now I have to add yet another brief to the towering pile waiting to be researched, written and filed between now and next Friday.

6) I have, so far, spent the ENTIRE DAY, short of forty-five minutes I spent with a client, trying to figure out how to draft a settlement agreement. Not even fully draft it, actually -- just how to update a form in a similar case for the case I'm working on. It's a seven page agreement. HOW HARD CAN IT BE???! Apparently, impossible.