BipolarLawyerCook

Dear Redwood Bank at 241 California Street, San Francisco:

I cannot believe your ATM machine ate my ATM card. And that I chose to use my ATM in a far-away-from-my-house-city in a local bank, that isn’t open on Saturdays, in order to get my card back. I also can’t believe you can’t release my card remotely through your 800 number. But, your Member Services person, Eric, was very nice, if unhelpful. I will see you at 8 a.m., Monday morning. Until then, I will reserve my can of cranky whoop-ass.

Until Monday,

BLC

* * *

Also? I broke a nail. And a toenail. Still trying to figure out how I did that last one.

Never let them say women don’t dress for each other.  They do.   Significant others of either sex have nothing to do with it.  It’s about friendship, and platonic crushes, and admiration, and awe, and just a little envy.  It’s a desire to shine for people who might, just might, like us, if we do everything just so.

I have seen more awesome earrings, sexy skirts, desireable dresses, swoonable shoes, hot haircuts, jealousy-inducing jeans, and other costumes of all stripes, all dressed to impress.  It’s funny and sad and beautiful and raw and honest and inspiring, as so much else has been today.  We’re all of us admitting we want to be loved, and that we want others to know they are loved, writing from a place of our own insecurities, and wanting to save others the same pain.

I dress up for you the same way I write for you; to keep you coming back, because your compliments make me feel better, but also because I want you to know– you’re worth dressing up for, conference weekend and every day.

***

The afternoon “keynote” speech was a community forum– 22 bloggers on blogging, our bodies, rants, and more.  I am in awe at the talent that’s out there, humbled at the honesty, and looking forward to sharing with you the bloggers whose stories we were so lucky to hear tonight.  As a prologue– Moosh in Indie, Lesbian Dad, and Mr. Lady– my goodness, there’s wonder to be found in our blogosphere.

I see . . . Bossy and LeahPeah and A Greek Tragedy and AimeeGreeblemonkey and Avocado8 and Nerdy Renegade and High Heels and Dust Bunnies and Dooblehvay and Simple and Lovely and LawyerMama and, and, and. Thank goodness for Moo cards and enough wine to push me out of my shell. I met and spoke to so many interesting and amazing women tonight, whose blogs I am looking forward to reading and sharing soon. (Of course, given how behind I am in other stuff I wanted to post, who knows when I will get around to an aggregation of BlogHers I have met… but we’ll see.)

Tonight reminded me of the joy that there is to be had in blogging– in the first comment we ever got, in the first time that someone affirmed that you had something worth sharing, in validating your response to something in the hurtful past, or in just laughing at whatever silliness you put out into the blogoverse. I’ve been bummed, recently, as I noted, and then got so busy with work (a good thing, there being bills to pay, and all) that I’ve been not only not posting, but not reading as much as I want, even with all my nears and dears. Tonight was a kick in the pants to get back into it– and to thank you all again for reading, for laughing, for affirming, for being there. And that’s just from two cocktail parties. Imagine what some actual substantive conference content will do!

Um, OK.  So, I’m all cool and stuff because I just won a hard trial and got big ups from a judge who hates out-of-state lawyers, right?  And, um, ‘cuz I am still doing freelance writing on the side, albeit at a slower pace than when I was underemployed, right?  And, um, ‘cuz I have an awesome husband who took me to an awesome lunch at Zuni Cafe today that he thought to make reservations for, right? And ‘cuz, I have cool readers, right? (Please insert self-administered back patting here.)  So explain to me why I just spazzed down in the lobby when I saw Bossy, and couldn’t even introduce myself, and then further spazzed when I ran into LeahPeah and her husband, and introduced myself by just my first name, without even using my handle?  Um, yeah.  Because I am sure she doesn’t know a bajillion other Erikas, especially when they’ve just gotten in and look really tired.  So now I have to say, um, sorry I am a spaz and this is who I am, right?

Ugh.  It’s like high school all over again.  Good thing one of the sessions tomorrow is about Blogging v. Introversion.  I could use a refresher.  I might have been my high school valedictorian, but I was still a dork.  Still am, apparently.  Sigh.  Wish me adequate lubrication to make friends tonight, without indulging in antics that get me posted as “first table dancer of the conference.”

You wouldn’t know me, to drive behind me in my boring-looking gold Jetta wagon, with 80,000 miles and several nicks and dings and counting. But then I cut in front of you, one hand on the wheel, the other on the windowsill, tapping my fingers to the Beasties and Bosstones blaring from the radio, and singing “you can’t, you won’t, you don’t stop!” at the top of my lungs. Or maybe I sped by you on the left, one hand on the wheel, as I eat my large roast beef with sauce and cheese on an onion roll, and inhale the salty air of high tide on the harbor inlet. In any event, pull alongside me, and you see a 33 year old, slightly overweight woman in a silk sweater and pretty earrings, who’s been pounding out coverage opinions all day. It’s in my driving, and my singing at the top of my lungs, and in the way I laugh, more freely than usual, that tells you my inner seventeen year old is thrilled. It’s a beautiful day and I’m driving fast and singing loud, because despite that annoying coverage opinion, we won our case. (”Won” being insurance defense attorney-speak for “settled for less than we offered before jury deliberations” plus the jurors told us they would have found for us on comparative negligence and stiffed the guy on 3 of the 4 damages counts, and that the deciding factors were the cross-examination you did, and the cross points you gave to the partner with you to make.) It’s enough to make even analyzing competing coverage and exclusion clauses exciting.

Yeah– you can’t, you won’t, you don’t stop the legal geekery.

I’ll be at BlogHer starting tomorrow, and running through Tuesday.  Posting will be light, and although I’m planning on being in rooms full of people who are as slavishly tied to their computers as I am, I am not sure how much email I will be doing.  I will check once a day, at least, though.  Hope you have a wonderful, long weekend!

That bastard horse bit me on the ass while I was trying to pick out his hooves the first time.  Rat bastard horse.  I grabbed the underside of his halter, unfolding to a standing position, and pulled his head down firmly toward mine, until we were looking eye to eye.  Then, with a closed fist in the middle of his nose, I thumped him firmly– “No,” I said.

We were friends from there on out.  He let me clean his hooves, brush him before lessons, rub him down at the end of a walk/trot session in which I’d FINALLY managed to get up on his sway-back Hunter’s back without a mounting block.  Other girls in the class (and I do mean girls, in the most derogatory manner) who would get there before me and try to claim him for the lesson because he was still “pretty,” would learn their lesson.  While I was currying Bear, a Quarter Horse whose name should have been Molasses, he was so slow, I would listen to outraged yelps and “he BIT me!” from the girls too timid to look him in the eye, and say, firmly, “no more of that, my friend.”

Dealer walked, he trotted, he obligingly cantered at the end of the semester, hopped over logs three inches off the ground, and he stood still as I tried and repeatedly failed to heave myself onto his tall back from the stirrups alone.  And when I finally got up, three tries in a row, I could see his ears flick back, and feel him blow in what felt like approval.

He was only a school horse, and an older gent at that, but for that semester and a bargain price, he was my horse.  He loved butterscotch candies– not so much with the baby carrots from the dorm salad bar.  I don’t reminisce much about college (1000 angsty, hyperintelligent, hyper-critical, sexuality-curious women in the middle of nowhere?  Um, yeah.  Too close for comfort, often.), but I’ve got a picture of me on Dealer’s back, dorky school helmet and all, taken right before graduation, and every time I see it, I smell hay, and see his russet hairs embedding themselves into the cheapo fleece that was only good for riding after I wore it to lessons the first time.  And I remember the love nip; it doesn’t hurt now like I thought it did then.  Instead, it feels almost like a horsey hug.

I have been cooking, just not recently. Tonight, I actually got to make some dinner with the produce of a shopping trip to Roslindale Square. (Or “Rozzie,” for those in the know.”) Dinner was just a caprese salad, a simply pan-roasted pork chop, and broccoli sauteed on high heat with onions, red pepper flakes, and fresh oregano.

The steam engines were muttering pukkita-pukkita in the background, and toward the southeast end of the fairground, you could hear the sheep bleating as their 4-H handlers straightened out their rear legs, tried to get the still-but-lambs to stop moving their heads long enough for the judges to take a look, to stroke flanks, to dole out the blue, red and gold ribbons that made all that bottle-feeding since lambing mean something. To the back left of the fairgrounds, there was the lemonade, the cotton candy, the meat on a stick. He always loved the steam engines, though the diesel fumes made her sick to her stomach. They both loved the poultry barn– the birds with their variegated feathers, some buff, some black and white, others with plumed feet and warty wattles, the rabbits, lop ears and angoras, the babies and full-grown bunnies looking disapproving in their competition-grade hutches. Too, they loved the agricultural exhibits. Paper plates of green beans, 49 apples in a diamond shape, multicolored eggs in baskets downstairs– quilts and flower arrangements, pies and tea breads upstairs. Sometimes, they rode the ferris wheel, or wandered the pellet stove and fudge stalls, perusing power tool displays and watching magic shows with huge white poodles instead of rabbits– other years they walked the barns, admiring the fringed lashes, shell pink ears, and chocolate eyes of the brown swisses keeping company in the barn. They always made time for the sheepherding exhibition– those ridiculous white ducks, scared silly by a quivering, harassing, perpetual motion border collie on speed.

And then there was the oxen pull. Who knows why they never wanted to miss it– they’d both grown up in the city. But every year, they cheered on the teams at this fair, a preliminary competition running up to the Big E at the end of the fair season. Watching the teamsters hitch their teams to the log, and gee and ha their beasts through the orange traffic cones topped with tennis balls. One nudge, one toppled ball, and it was over. Same thing if one of the boys was feeling ornery, and chewed the tennis ball instead of pulling, despite his yoke-mate’s interest in getting this over with. Dick and Dime were giant Holsteins over six feet tall, perennial winners, except when Dick had a hankering for tennis balls. In non-spec competition, they did actually haul lumber from a rural piece their handler owned– no wonder Dick goofed off sometimes at the Fair. It was just like work, except there were no pretty traffic cones and tennis balls in the woods. At the two later fairs, there were also horse races and swine showings and the all-important smack-up derbies, which allowed them to see their across-the-street neighbors smash their SpongeBob Squarepants 86 Buick Regal in mere minutes, undoing the months of effort gone into creating the car’s costume beforehand.

They rarely split up, to do their own thing. They had the whole day, there was plenty of time to see a little of everything, even if it bored the other, without splitting up the pair. They were yoked, but happily so.