Into the woods

There's a paralegal at work with whom I occasionally but regularly have meaning-of-life conversations -- well, more specifically, meaning-of-my-life conversations. I ask him how his plans are coming along, he tells me the latest idea or outlook he's adopting or considering. Yesterday, he said he was going to just relax for a few months and let the ideas kind of come from within. And then he asked, "So how about you?"

"Um..." I said.

He laughed. "I love that every time we have this conversation, I talk and talk about my life, and then I ask you, and there's always a silence."

"Well," I said, half defensively, half humorously, "I'm going to the woods to commune with nature, so maybe I'll come out the other side with some ideas."

More likely, I'll come out the other side with a desperate need for a shower after 8 days of backpacking. But at least it's time away from the office. The amount of anxiety I feel about not having a Blackberry on me for over a week is a bit worrisome in itself.

I'll try not to get eaten by bears.
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Dubya loves me

I went away this weekend to Junebug's beautiful new digs in Providence. After living more than a decade in the same two-bedroom apartment, she up and moved a few months ago to the airy, spacious second floor and attic of a house a few blocks away. Her attic bedroom, with its own bathroom, is bigger than my studio here in midtown.

It was heavenly being with Junebug and away from town for a day. I slept peacefully in the suburban quiet, got the priceless hours of advice and guidance of an REI gearhead (not to mention her tent, polarized sunglasses and other sundries on loan) for my upcoming trip to the Sierras, and felt the incomparable comfort of being with an old friend.

Junebug is not a Dubya fan, to put it mildly, and neither am I, to put it mildly. But Dubya loves me, because I did what he wanted. I was planning to put my entire economic stimulus payment, which I received last week, toward my loans, but then I went to REI. One thing lead to another, and I decided after hours and hours that I just didn't want to deal and that I would just buy everything, god dammit, and the total came to $2 over the amount of my check. Kismet! So there you go, Dubya. This is me, being a patriot.
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Out of the woods (and into them again)

Three months and a day ago, I started my second rotation at the Firm.

I kinda hate it.

The work is unpredictable, the client is king, and the partners in the group don't seem to be able to manage the clients or the associates very well. During the last two weeks I routinely worked 15-hour days, and last week I worked the hardest I have since I started working as a lawyer, but without the sense of gratification and satisfaction I got from working in my first rotation similar hours.

Ugh.

It's let up a bit so far this week, but with the international deal I'm on, I'm looking at some more 9 pm phone calls (leading to 2 am nights) this week. If this is how it is when the market's down, I gotta get out before the economy picks up again.

Speaking of getting out, though, I'm headed out of office, town, state and region in a week to go camping in the Sierra Nevada with Double M on a Sierra Club trip. Over 7 days we'll hike up to 9,000 feet and over 35 miles of California wilderness. It'll be the longest backpacking trip I've ever taken, and I'm afwaid, very afwaid. Of what, you ask? Mostly of possible altitude sickness, since I've felt ill at that altitude before, but also of being unable to carry the 35+ pounds on my back without major discomfort, plus not being able to shower for a week. Ew.

Well, it'll certainly be a test of my inner nature girl.
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It's good to know the king

On Monday, I had lunch with the partner I worked with in my last rotation, who has since become the head of the New York office of the firm. Being a pleasant but direct kind of fellow, he waited until we got our salads and only then asked, "So, we love you, we want you to come back. But what do you want to do? What do you want to be when you grow up?" He immediately added, "That's an unfair question, I know. I don't even know what I want to be when I grow up."

I told him the truth, which was that I didn't know, that I would like to return to his practice group if I stayed in New York, but that I had an itch to go work in Hong Kong.

He was about to launch into a speech, but stopped himself and politely asked, "Do you want my advice?" I nodded.

"You should do it."

This was not the reaction I expected.

"If you don't do it, you'll always look back and wonder what would have happened," he continued. "And at this point in your career, it's easier to do it. You might meet someone. You might not be able to justify it as much later. You should do it."

"Um, okay. So how do I make it happen?"

He went on to ask a few questions about people I had approached or not approached, and then offered to talk to someone for me and get back to me. "If you wanted to go to Singapore," he said with a smile, "that would have been easy -- the managing partner there owes me a favor."

I must have still been goggle-eyed at this turn of events, so he explained, "That's kind of how things work."

When we returned to the office, I paused before heading downstairs to my floor. "Thank you," I said, with an almost quizzical tilt of my head. "Thank you for lunch."

"You're welcome. I enjoyed it," he returned. "I'll talk to so-and-so for you and get back to you."

I thanked him again and wished him a good day, and went downstairs to my office, marveling at how serendipitously things had turned out. A year ago, I had put down his practice group as a preference, but hadn't known anything about the group. When I discovered that I had been assigned to it as my first rotation, I looked at the group's webpage and was dismayed to discover that I understood nothing on the page. I considered trying to get out of it, but inertia set in (plus the distinct feeling upon a mild probing of HR that it would be futile).

It was chance again that a pro bono project happened to come the partner's way. It was chance again that the deal turned out to be a huge mess, leading to a simultaneously horrible and hilarious December that culminated in me closing the deal being the only associate officially on the deal and in the office, thus cementing a reputation, rightly or wrongly, of being a Very Good Associate. I had lots of help, particularly from a lovely associate now departed from the firm, but since then, it seems, the partner has held me in high regard. And then he became the head of the office.

This is the kind of turn of events that keeps me an optimistic realist. With so many things that could go wrong, it's sort of miraculous that they don't. And in my case, things left to chance seem to often go very, very right.
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