This way a chill wind blows...

...no, wait. That's just my mom. She's coming for a visit.

It's also the coldest butt end of March that no one should have to endure. Go awAY, Winter! God!

I haven't recorded in these annals the agonizing process of deciding in favor of New York, and y'all should be real, REAL glad about that. But I will say that today I woke up from a night of tossing and turning, determined to call Nice Government Job and say, "At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot, I made a mistake. Can I have that job after all?"

I didn't, in the end. But it was hard to write back to my supervisor -- who needled me gently tonight about not having told him my decision yet -- that I wasn't going to take the job that he really wanted me to take, that he had served as a recommendation for, and for the funding of which written a recommendation for a fellowship application. As I told him, the reasons I could articulate for taking the DC job resonate so much better with virtually everyone I spoke with -- better hours, better mission, more responsibility, more interesting subject area, rarity of opportunity, and so on. The reasons I could articulate for the New York job were so much more personal and less logical -- social support network, the desire to try something new in a new place, the lack of desire for responsibility in a legal job -- but probably have a better chance of greater happiness for me, despite the brutal hours and pace of the city and the position. Strangely enough, taking the firm job turned out to be the tough choice, because I couldn't defend it as well.

I don't know if I made the right choice. I regret not choosing the Nice Govt Job, just as I would have regretted not taking the Big Corporate Job, had I gone the other way. But my biggest regret is having set up this decision
between two options, neither of which I truly look forward to. It was a sobering realization to have on one's birthday. I wish I could say that I resolve never to be in that position again. If this were a movie, I'd wish it to be that moment where the heroine looks up from a crushing defeat, her face slowly shifting from an ashen, shaken visage, blurring into a wiser, grimmer, steelier face of 10 years later, the face of a person that doesn't take shit from anyone, especially not herself. I don't know how to become that person. Do you? [Sigh.]

Match dot con

Just came back from a 4 and a half hour second date with a very nice, smart, sweet scientist, and am totally exhausted. It takes so much energy to be pleasant. Dating seems like a big con, if you ask me. You want to put your best foot forward, so you talk about common interests and current events, and you smile and nod and act interested like the extroverted person you're not, when really you'd rather be sitting in a darkened room with bags of Smartfood and Cheetos, catching up on past episodes of Heroes and Ugly Betty.

This is possibly a sign that me and this very nice, smart, sweet scientist should not be going on any more dates.

This is also possibly a hint to me that I should not drink a bottle of soju for my birthday and expect to be chipper the next morning. You're not 22 anymore, hk!

God, which reminds me, did I really engage in some drunken emailing last night with the Destroyer? Yes... yes, I did. In fact, I stumbled into Joiner's room completely tanked, asked her for the Destroyer's number, which, when she pulled it out, was written on a Post-it on the top of which was written: "DO NOT CALL." Instead, I engaged in... drunken emailing. With the Destroyer. Oh god, the shame of it!

What's worse is the stupid ass content of the emails, which I reproduce here because it is part of my penance for engaging in such moronic behavior:

Me (11:45 p.m.): Hey Destroyer, how goes it?

Destroyer (12:35 a.m): Sweet, dude. You?

Me (12:39 a.m.): I am totally fucking awesome. Also, totally fucking drunk.

Destroyer (12:41 a.m.): Alone on the computer?

Me (12:46 a.m.): Now I am. Before, I wasn't.
Up late partying? Packing for exotic spring break locale?

Destroyer (12:49 a.m.): You weren't alone on the computer? V. uncomfortable...
No. Just up late. Not going anywhere for spring break. Must stay and fucking help people... damn pro bono hours...
You traveling?

Me (12:55 a.m.): You are so evil. You haven't done your fucking pro bono hours? Dude, I finished those in the first semester of 1L year.
Not traveling for spring break. Wish I were. Somewhere warm, sandy and snow-free. With lots of drinks.

Destroyer (1:02 a.m.): Evil? Yeah, I guess that's about right.
I did it my first year but didn't get credit. Only the fucking nerds knew all the documentation rules.
Is it just me, or is Avril Lavigne hot? I mean, fuck.
I wish I were going somewhere crazy, unknown, unpredictable. Screw warmth and alcoholism.

Me (1:07 a.m.): Fuck your crazy/unknown/unpredictable. I went there for winter break and it was battering/difficult/thirsty.
Nerds RULE!!!
Avril Lavigne is, like, 12 years old. Creep.

And thus ended our scintillating "banter."

You know, Korean American women really are terrible people. It's not that we mean to be mean. It's just that it comes out that way, and can be extremely baffling and hurtful. Like tonight, I was talking to this KA woman about my decision to go to NY, and she was all, "Do you even know what it's like to work in NY? Good luck with that." Dude, I just said it was not an easy choice for me. Thanks for the support. And yet, an hour later, she walked out and urged me to call a friend of hers at the firm I'm going to be working at, and smiled with genuine kindness.

Damn. We really do come off as total bitches. But we're actually softies on the inside! We just don't know how to express it, because Korean parents don't communicate!

Speaking of which, I've had two conversations in the past week about Asian families and the lovely unhappiness that characterizes many. The silence, the refusal to acknowledge any problems, the disconnect between reality and surface impressions, and on and on. I am proud to say, however, that when I told my Chinese American friend from Texas that I don't know what my mother does all day because the several times I have asked her, she refused to answer the question and I now no longer ask her, he looked at me in amazement and said, "That's the stuff of novels right there." Yep.

Pick me. Choose me. Love me.
(with apologies to Shonda Rhimes)

I have. I do. I will.

New York.

Satan can’t read savior!

So on the day Winter roared back into Crimson City (last Friday), there was a reunion of sorts of the subsection I was in during my first year here. I was not looking forward to it. Satan (aka Mr. Destroyer), The Bride (aka Ms. Destroyer), and the Mormon Who Loved Them (aka MWLT)? Uch. And the fact that I was going to have to walk over a mile in six inches of snow to get to the host’s house was not … inspiring. To say the least.

But the snow wasn’t so bad. It was a warm snow, not the driving, freezing hail that blows into your eyes and numbs your face. I overshot the MWLT’s place by a quarter mile, but I didn’t mind much. It was hushed and calm, there were few cars or people out (except the crazy undergrads). A group of kids were playing in the snow in the courtyard of MWLT’s apartment complex; to my surprise, a girl about 10 years old called out a greeting, and said, “Look, we’re making an igloo.” Cool, I said, and walked around to the kids’ side of the mound of snow to see. There was a small hole and another kid digging industriously. “We want to make it big,” the girl confided, “all the way through.” Cool, I said again, and told them I’d check on their progress on the way out.

Kids! Friendly kids! It was kind of awesome. I just don’t expect that kind of friendliness from people.

Inside, seven of us eventually made it to eat … dessert. Which was kinda weird in itself, because the evening was scheduled for 7:30, and I think a couple of us expected it to be dinner, with the guests providing dessert. Not an irrational assumption, is it, when the evening starts at 7:30? Whatever.

Mr. Destroyer (aka Satan) arrived last, even after me, but the anticipation for his arrival was high – he had made chocolate mousse, put it into glasses, put the glasses into one of those six-pack boxy things you buy beer in, and biked 2 miles on icy roads with the whole contraption in his backpack. So people were eager to see if he’d made it.

We chatted amongst ourselves. It was fine. I caught up with people I usually didn’t see. And then, because we are huge geeks, we started playing an electronic version of Taboo, which consisted of getting your teammates to guess your word and then passing the gamebox on until time ran out, at which point whichever team was holding the box lost a point.

(Yes, this has a point.)

So, we’re playing along and it’s Satan’s turn. I’m sitting next to him, so I lean over and take a look at the word, and I’m totally baffled when he says, “There’s no way I can describe this! This is impossible. I don’t think that’s even a phrase in English!” I’m baffled, because the word is “savior,” and it’s should be relatively easy to get that out of people, especially with a Catholic guy on your time. But no, Satan complains a bit more and starts saying things like, “Um, it’s French! And it’s like, knowing how to do things!”

I’m baffled a bit more.

“It’s part of a French phrase!”

And then it clicks. He thinks it’s “savoir,” which is part of “savoir-faire,” which I believe is in the lyrics of Puttin’ on the Ritz, but that’s neither here nor there.

So I say, “That’s not the word, fool! Read it again!”

And he does.

And the buzzer rings.

And I laugh. So do all the others.

But I laugh harder. Because of COURSE he couldn’t read the word “savior” right. He’s Satan!

(Hey, I didn’t say this story was meaningful or anything.)

Feverish

Hi, Crimson City. It’s me, Spring. You know, the season after Winter? Now, I know we have a … tricky relationship already. You usher me in very quickly, so that it’s 70 degrees the day after it was 19 degrees F, and then you usher me out quickly for summer, so that it’s a nice, livable 75 degrees one day, and then 95 degrees with matching humidity the next. No, don’t deny it – you just like Winter and Summer more. And I get it, I mean, they’re like, real seasons, whereas I am more… transitional, let’s say. (Although who’s more popular is another question that I just DARE you to answer.) Whatever. You have favorites, the populace has favorites – potato, potatoe. Or something.

But last weekend – I mean, for real? You’d welcomed me in last week -- really welcomed me. You said – and I quote – “Let ‘em have it, Spring, baby. Those Crimson City dwellers, they’ve had a moderate winter, but it’s been really frosty lately, and I’m sure they’re itching to take off those layers of woolen underclothing and microfiber fleeces. Have at ‘em.” So I did -- I did! I pulled out the stops. Winter’s a grouch and never likes to leave the area, but I enticed him with a casual remark about Moscow looking mighty nice and warm for early March, not to mention Christmas, when there was no snow in the Red Square, and he blustered on out of here, all “I’ll show that damn global warming what’s what” and muttering under his breath about climate change – to be honest, I don’t really know, since he does tend to mumble into the icicles in his beard a lot. So hey, I get Winter on his way and I step in with my balmy air. I get the robins to chirp cheerily. I coax a couple trees to think about looking greenish. I get the earth to give off that warm, promising smell of rebirth. People shed their winter coats, some hardy souls put on flip-flops, smiles erupt city-wide, and there is joy upon the land.

And what do I get? A freakin’ snow storm this weekend. Six inches of the stuff. Six inches!

It is March 21, Crimson City. March 21 – I am supposed to officially arrive today. Do you have any idea how this makes me look? I look like a fickle, unreliable temptress. Do you know how many Crimson City dwellers woke up, looked at their calendars, and cursed me this morning? Okay, not that many. But the ones that did – those curses hurt, Crimson City. They got me RIGHT HERE.

I’ll just let you think about what you’ve done. No – I don’t want to hear about Winter coming back and grumbling that Moscow was plenty cold. Tell that to Al Gore, honey. I just want you to think long and hard about what kind of lasting damage you’ve done to my reputation. And don’t even think about inviting me back until you’re good and ready to commit. In the meanwhile, I’ll be lolling around in California, where they KNOW me and LOVE me.

Freshly and mint greenly (NOT) yours,
Spring (The Season)

From all sides

Busy time of the term, it is, and though some of it is due to my own idiotic volunteerism, it's just not pretty. I had the ethics exam on Saturday, which was... amusing, I guess, in its way. After I took it, I wrote recommendations for two of my friends for a public service award that they won't win, because there are some very, very uber-focused people here who have apparently started entire movements about Darfur and have been engaged in highly confidential work on womens' rights in war-torn Middle Eastern countries for international institutions, and though my friends are really lovely, dedicated public servants, they don't really do headline-grabbing work like that, they do good in the form of trying to reform the health care system and prevent fools in the lower and middle classes from getting ripped off by predatory lending schemes, and THAT, my dears, is just not flashbulb sexy enough. I admire the uber-focused leaders of movements and such, I do. And I am thankful that they exist. But I'd rather hang out with my exceptionally dedicated but unsexy friends, because those uber-focused people? They scary bitches.

So yeah, I spent a couple hours nominating them and then went right into major stress mode about this stupid letter that I drafted in a slightly drunken haze last Thursday. No, it's not some sort of regrettable booty call missive. Get your minds out of the gutter. And it's not stupid ... I don't think. Not really. It's a school-related political statement criticizing the administration, and because I dreamed it up with a friend of mine who is better connected with an interested polity, we got more than 30 signatures and it came out in the school paper today. And I haven' t heard anything about it, but I was and am in a terror about opening my email because I'll probably get some sort of message telling me I don' t know shit about shit and that it wasn't the way the statement made it sound at all and yadda yadda blowhard bullshit.

I'm temperamentally unfit to be a rabble rouser, is all I can say. So it was kind of dumb of me to write this in a public forum (I'd written to the administration privately last year about this issue). What's even dumber, though, is that oh, 15 years ago, in high school, I did the exact same fucking thing: wrote a column criticizing the headmaster of my high school, which had just merged with the local private boys' school, for not showing up to events enough like the headmaster of the girls' school had done. Damn, I still remember the title of the column: "The Case of the Fucking Missing Headmaster." It may not have had an obscenity in it, though.

I got flack for that column from a teacher, as I recall, who said I had my facts wrong (he was actually pretty nice about it), and from others whom I don't remember off hand. It was uncomfortable being That Kid, even for a short while. Of course, there were a lot of politics going on that I didn't really understand -- the merger of the two schools had been vehemently opposed by a certain portion of the girls' school (some parents even brought a lawsuit to stop the merger, which was ultimately dismissed), and the fact that most of the top administrators of the girls' school melted away within a year or two after the merger was an obvious sign of which way the prevailing winds were blowing.

Anyway. I haven't gotten any flack about this letter, even if my name is prominently situated under it, but I'm living in fear. I hate confrontation. If you're a public figure, and you make lots of decisions, you're gonna make some wrong ones, and you gotta expect some criticism from time to time. We all head up our own personal ventures (i.e., lives), and hey - you make a mistake, you get some flack, you shrug, mentally make a note to think harder about it next time, and move on. So I don't feel bad about the criticism. I just don't want to get attacked back.

Okay, I guess that is hypocritical. FINE. I'll just shut up about my terror now.

But I'm going to whine some more about my workload this week. HA.

So the deadline for turning in the letter was yesterday at 3. I had a policy paper due at 5 -- for WHICH, by the way, I had totally miscalculated the length. When did 2500 words become 10 pages? I always think of 500 words as being a page. I guess I know this from the days before double spacing? Dunno. Anyhoo. Tuesday night I was up til 4 am trying to analyze the North Korean human rights situation, and then yesterday I spend some quality time panicking, I tell ya, trying to finish it before the deadline. Quality.

I turned that crappy waste of paper in, and then had a small reprieve. And drank. And smoked. And it was good.

Oh yes, and while all that's going on? My mother, dear batshit crazy lady that she is, still hasn't made up her mind about coming out here or not, and I'm like, please dear lord, make her decide in the next day, because airline prices are going up the closer we get, and it's a little nervous-making, not knowing if my spring break is gonna consist of squiring my mother around or not. I mean, don't get me wrong, I had a good time when she came out here last year. But it's not exactly relaxing, you know what I'm saying?

Anyhoo. She finally decided yes tonight, so that's that. Except it's not, because family never is just THAT. Why, why, why hasn't she gone to see The Nephew yet, now going on 2 months? Heavenly painted saints above, what is wrong with the woman? I mean, I can explain what is going on in her mind with fairly spot-on psychobabble analysis, but my GOD, woman. Get a coping mechanism.

Fortunately, I'm just too freakin' busy to dwell on this bothersome piece of family screwiness, because -- let's see now, I've got a fellowship application due tomorrow at 5 pm, as well as a group project due the same time, a class presentation to give on Monday, two board meetings on Monday night, and -- oh yeah! I have that small decision to make about what job to take!

It's a busy time.

That is why I smoke.

Plus, I actually do make it look sexy.

P.S. What I got out of all that stress about the letter and the recommendations and shit? That when it comes down to it, I love to write. I ... I can't even joke about it, it's so unfunny to me how much I love it. My subjects here may be petty, small-minded and boring; my tone may be petulant, irritating, repetitive, self-pitying and self-absorbed; my style may be derivative, ham-fisted, clumsy and unreadable -- but I fucking love the act of writing, and I don't care. To my surprise and delight, a number of people have directly or indirectly complimented my writing in the past week. Being recognized for it is meaningful in a way that dwarfs everything else.

My career shrink, my friends, my own brain -- they're all right. I know what I want. I just need to figure out how to make a living doing it.

Let's get ethical, ethical/I wanna get ethical
(apologies to Olivia Newton John)

I took the Multistate Professional Responsibilities Exam yesterday at another local law school, and I have this to say:

1. To Ms. Destroyer, whom I saw before the exam but who didn't see me: "Hey, Ms. Destroyer! What, no love? Is it because I made a souffle with your (ex?)-lover Mr. Destroyer last term? Look, it was a doomed souffle. Can't we let bygones be bygones? Also, please stop changing your facebook profile photo every day. We know you are beautiful and did some modeling work. There is no need to rub it in."

2. To the guy who asked the proctor to repeat instructions for Section K: "Dude. It's the state you're going to take the bar exam for. It says as much on the form."

3. To the girl who asked the proctor to repeat instructions for Section K 5 minutes after the first guy did: "Does filling in bubbles really take that much focus? You didn't hear the instructions the first time OR the second time? Damn, girl."

4. To the LLM who asked, "I'm in a one-year LLM program. So am I a first year student or a third year (last year) student?": "Good question. Actually, you could also be a 'law school graduate,' technically."

5. To the girl who turned around after I said this and said, "No, she's an LLM": "Uh, yeah? And an LLM is an advanced law degree? And most LLMs already have a law degree?"

6. To the same girl, who then gave me a look of death: "I'm just saying."

7. To the Crimson Law School guy who raised his hand when the proctor asked whether we needed more time to read the instructions on the back of the booklet -- TWICE: "Really, though? You really need to read the instructions for a multiple choice scantron test?"

8. To the guy who asked, "What do we do with the rectangles in the bubble columns?": "Hi there. Have you ever taken a standardized test? Are you a complete moron?"

9. To the proctor, who could not simply say, "Fill in the rectangles where there's a blank space, like between the number and the street name" and instead kept reading the instructions like an automaton, resulting in the guy following up with the same question three more times, worded differently: "Why are you doing this? Please shoot me now."

10. To the girl sitting next to me, who asked, "Can we go to the bathroom during the exam?": "Good question. Please shut up so we can actually start the exam."

11. To Mr. Destroyer, whom I saw and with whom I did speak after the exam: "What is with your hair? It's sticking straight up on about 85% of your head, and flat on the other 15%. By the way, did you know that I refer to you as Satan and Ms. Destroyer as The Bride? It's dated now, but Joiner and I made it up when you guys were going out. It just sounds nice, especially when we add in your Mormon friend, like this -- 'Satan, his Bride, and the Mormon Who Loved Them.'"

12. To myself, after 5 hours of sleep and way too much caffeine: "Good lord, girl, please just shut it."

Career shrink meeting 3
the haiku session

Monday. bigbro here.
You owe it to yourself to
make lots of money.

There is truth to that.
Dry my tears of misery
On big fat paycheck.

Today. Career shrink!
I tell him about the choice:
G-job or the firm?

He sighs and replies,
I wish I could make your life
easier, kiddo.

Thanks. Actually --
I think I make my own life
Harder than I should.

He says as I leave,
Look to that place that connects
Your head and your heart.

Ruefully, I shake
my head. It's been a long time
since I've been in touch.

Secretly, I think:
If I go there, I shall cry.
That is why I don't.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Dumb: Deciding to color my hair red last week -- at 10:30 the night before I had to get up at 7 to go mediate. The bathroom looked like a bloodbath by the time I was through, my arms were killing me from bending over the tub to wash out the dye, and my shirt looked like I had been playing in a slaughterhouse. Then I had to wait for my hair to dry, as the water would not run clear, even after rinsing for 20 minutes, conditioning, rinsing, shampooing, rinsing, conditioning, and rinsing again. Powerful stuff, that Clairol. But not THAT powerful, since after my hair dried, it looked pretty much the same color as it always has. D'oh!

Dumber: Not remembering that I did the exact same thing six or seven years ago with Junebug in her apartment in Providence, with the end result being Junebug squinting at my hair and saying encouragingly, "Well, it looks sort of red when you tilt your head that way, like, right in front of a very strong backlight."

Dumb: Again asking my aunt and uncle again to visit over spring break, getting the same response, and feeling pretty rejected and dejected about it.

Dumber: Telling my mother about it immediately after and crying on the phone, which of course elicited the usual sympathetic response, "You can't do anything about it, so stop crying!" engendering a rather reasonable reply back from me (I thought) of: "Well, I'm going to cry because I'm upset, so if you don't want to hear me cry on the phone, I'm going to hang up." Which I did. And because she was upset about me being upset, she immediately called my aunt and uncle and guilted them into calling me and offering to go visit. Which necessitated me calming them down about their guilt, and reassuring them that if they didn't want to make the long trip out here, it was okay. Ah, the delights of family.

Dumb: Waffling about yet another decision.

Dumber: Waffling about yet another decision because even though I know which choice is the better one for me, I can't let go of the possibilities the other choice offers. Oh Mammon! To think I'd ever be in your clutches!

Date

I mentioned before that I put myself on match.com, much to the delight of my one friend at law school (and perhaps a handful of others who are chortling out there unbeknownst to me). The delight is not so much "now you're really putting yourself out there and you might find true love!" as much as "oooh, now we get to go online and pick guys for you to wink at and hear gruesome dating tales!"

So I went on my first official match.com date last night, and the official tale? Eh. I was really not in the mood for love last night, and it showed: I went to meet the guy after a long day of classes and meetings, my hair was a mess and shoved on top of my head, I was carrying my backpack, I had no make-up on, and I had (and still do have) a ginormous zit on my nose. And when I say ginormous, I am not kidding. I can see it out of the corner of my eye when I'm looking straight ahead. It is in its own zip code -- perhaps even its own time zone. It is large and round and red, and it is taking its own sweet time to decide the course of things: "Hm. Shall I become a large, round, disgusting whitehead that will need to be popped, thus creating a crater of ooze in hk's face? Or shall I simply hang out here, round and large and red and slowly -- oh SO slowly -- deflate over the period of a few weeks? Doop dee doo... the choices! So hard to decide!"

I hate you, pimple on my nose. I feel like a rhino.

And so, feeling thusly, I decided last night to go the "Oh, fuck it, there's a zit the size of Mother Russia smack in the middle of my face and nothing I do can hide it so I'm not going to even TRY, okay, Mother Russia Zitsky? You WIN"route.

So. We met for coffee (except we both drank decaf drinks since we have insomnia issues). He was nice, with no overt signs of serial-killer-ness. It was awkward in that first date kind of way. He emailed me afterwards. Maybe we'll see each other again. Or maybe not.

Like I said. Eh.