5.21.2013

Tell Me A Little About Yourself

The summer associates landed in our office yesterday, and it is a trip. That entire experience is still seared into my brain, and to watch someone else nervously maneuver their way through it made me realize that (like probably any industry) law has a pretty bizarre, windy path governing how you get from spending all day in the library to spending all day at a desk.*

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Here’s how it works: at the beginning of your second year of law school, hiring partners from all the major law firms descend on the city and take over a hotel. Everyone in your class shows up in the lobby of said hotel in suits, clutching leather portfolios stuffed with resumes. You all spend a lot of time commenting on how professional everyone looks; until then, you’d only ever seen each other in jeans, unbrushed hair and exhausted-face. There’s a lot of comparing notes: which firms, in which cities, did you bid to interview? What was their grade cut-off? Hmm, maybe I should’ve done that one instead; whatever, my entire career only hinges on this one decision. Then, every twenty minutes, you and your classmates line up in front of the doors to the hotel’s suites, counting down to the minute of your interview. You look up the corridor and get a little weirded out at how Matrix it all looks, your friends all in conservative grey or navy jackets, hands poised to knock at exactly 9:30 or 10:40 or 4:15ohmygod how am I still able to converse with a human, I’ve been speaking in small talk allll day. And then the interviewer comes to the door, (“Hello!” “Hello!“) and you have twenty minutes to convince a partner at a national firm to hire you. Based on two semesters’ worth of grades.

If it goes well, you make a trip out to the firm’s office to do an all-day version of the above with different partners and associates. And with wine, always, even though that makes it a little harder to keep your professionally amazing filter in place. If it doesn’t fall out too intensely, the firm offers you a position as a summer associate.

So, six months later, after your whole second year of law school is complete, you arrive at the firm to spend your summer being a practice associate. You’re given substantive work to do, on which you’re graded, and also spirited away to various social events. There are (purposely) more cocktail hours and super-long lunches than there’s time for, given the amount of work you have to accomplish, so your juggling skills are front and center. After three months, if you’ve kept all the plates in the air, you’re sent back to your third year with a job offer for after graduation.

It’s a pretty intense process; I operated mostly on stress and cappuccinos from the machine next to my office. The thing is, though…it usually works out alright. I’ve made several real friends among the other people in my class, and the months-long exposure to the office told me I’d fit in well and be happy here. The fact that I knew I had somewhere welcoming to land made jumping off into the pit of bar-studying a little less terrifying. My only advice to anyone currently wending their way through this process? Proof-read your work endlessly…and do not schedule your wedding for one week after your summer position ends.

*Or, you know, the local Starbucks. I refused to participate in library-going after the first week or so of classes…too many stress vibes, and not enough coffee or passers-by with cute babies.

5.15.2013

Planting the Flag: Part Two

Might you (like me) need a fun new workout to mitigate the effects of yesterday’s steak sauce? (Side note: why does the addition of attractive sauce always turn the meal from “steak and broccoli, I am a poster child for good eating habits” into “sauce on all of the things, and more things as a vehicle for more sauce?” In the dip person vs. chip person debate, I am so dip that chips can just not even bother showing up.)

Anyway. Ready for this? And by this, I mean Crossfit, not (unfortunately) ring dips in tiki huts. Although, who knows? That could be in our collective future very soon, and we just don’t know it. Obviously, the correct move is to get in ridiculous yellow bikini shape, just in case.

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Warm Up

Workout Number Two

Like last time, I’ve linked to videos showing how to perform the exercises that might be unfamiliar. May or may not have selected the links based on the hotness of the guy demonstrating the movement.

Most Important Thing of Ever: Don’t freak out and not do this workout if you can’t do pull-ups (although, if you can, way to be! I’m feeding you grapes and fanning you with a giant frond leaf in honor of your awesome). Instead, use the weighted assisted pull-up machine, and plug the weight-stopper thing (correct technical verbiage) at about 15 pounds less than you weigh. You can adjust it, of course, but that’ll be the right general area of weight such that you don’t step onto it and dislocate your shoulder/go shooting off the platform into the stars. Save that rocketship-blasting for after the workout…with these endorphins, you won’t need any help taking off.

5.14.2013

M’s Steak Sauce

The husband in the kitchen (where he belongs) would like you to know that he is not trying to segregate steaks. This sauce can be used for anything. Dip your vegetables in it, spread it on your eggs…although I would argue that it’s better paired with nighttime foods, because wine is a pretty great way of staunching the river of fire it will ignite in your mouth. Just kidding, it’s not that hot. (Lying a little bit).

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Equal parts garlic, sriracha, brown mustard and red wine. A little less wine than everything else, such that you may have more for actual drinking. Priorities, guys.

5.13.2013

It’s Always Mother’s Day

My phone absolutely doubled over yesterday with pictures of people’s mothers. Shots swiped from scrapbooks, with young, beautiful women beaming at the photographer over a chubby baby’s head. Recent ones, with older women’s arms encircling the waists of those babies, who hold champagne glasses and cell phones and other markers of their adult, separate lives.

My mother doesn’t have a Facebook page. I’m pretty sure she understands what Instagram is–we’ve gone over it once or twice–but I won’t be able to tag her in photos anytime soon. But she does read this; hi, Pup! And so I can tell her again, in a bizarre via-technology way that she’ll be sort of bemused about but like anyway, that I think she’s the absolute everything.

We call her Mama Pup, because our family is deeply, deeply strange. My little brother was trying to get her to agree to something she just wasn’t having, and so he rolled up a newspaper and bopped her on the nose. “Bad pup!” She might have retaliated via some tickling or pulling his curls, but ultimately it was an insufficient resistance. All her intra-family correspondence (text messages, birthday cards, the thing you first yell when you open the front door) now bears that name.

And she is the ultimate correspondant. The notes on my school-lunch napkins (complete with animal stickers) became, as I got older, safety nets that she snuck into every bag I ever packed to take away from her. Out of a suitcase, that first night in my dorm room, fell an envelope addressed to “Miss Ju-Ju,” with every possible assurance of success and fun scrawled above three smiling stick figures. Into one of the carry-ons I lugged to Boston, a funny, silly note about how this adventure was Legally Blond Part Two; don’t be intimidated, just be your sweet self. And a million times since she learned how to text, a message that threatens to talk some sense into “those silly people that keep giving you so much work!” and ends with a thousand x’s and o’s.

Everything I know about being a koala and a woman, I learned from her. Not only that being a working mother is possible, but that you can carry on a profession that makes you roll your eyes at the world every day, saying “I should write a book“… and still have enough energy to throw Nancy Drew themed birthday parties with scavenger hunts and blown-up posters of the book covers papering the walls. I believe women can “have it all,” because I’ve watched her help hundreds of children and raise the two of us, and be a truly wonderful partner to my father. I can’t imagine there being any more to “all” than that.

Pup, I love you so much. Thank you for setting an example I’d never dare disappoint, even though I know you’d be my safety if I did. You’re just the greatest.

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5.9.2013

She’s Back!

One of the funniest bloggers in the known universe, Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half, just returned after a zillion year hiatus. She is so incredibly talented, and I’d like to be mad at her for depriving the world for so long, but…her newest post explains that her MIA status was due to an incredibly crippling depression. I’m so happy she’s climbed back out of that pit, and thrilled that she’s blogging again, but even more than all of that, I’m glad that she’s turned her gift to explaining this condition to the rest of the world.

I don’t have depression, but I do think that we as a society are just grossly underinformed when it comes to mental health issues. They’re real and debilitating, and they undercut people’s lives in the same way that cancer and diabetes do…only, when a friend tells you they’ve been diagnosed with a physical disease, you never say, “Well…have you tried not having cancer?” You can’t see inside a mental health problem the way you can a physical one, and so (I think) the only way to develop empathy for these conditions is to listen to the people who’ve suffered through them.

*dismounting from soapbox*

Aside from this contribution, though, she’s just legit the funniest writer/cartoonist I’ve ever come across. M always tells me I hype things up too much, but on this one I stand firm. After you read the depression post and are having all of the feelings, check out these other ones from the archive. I am not responsible for your cheek-ache.

This Is Why I’ll Never Be An Adult

A Better Pain Scale

Sneaky Hate Spiral

5.8.2013

Travel Tip: Pollo Rico

Alright. This may go down in history as one of the most random recommendations ever, but bear with me. I was not working scrolling through Europe pictures, and realized I had utterly failed as a “travel blogger,” because the majesty that is Pollo Rico has not been communicated unto you. Ready, set, rectify.

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If by chance you find yourself in Barcelona, there is one (1) place that cannot be missed. Pollo Rico is exactly the kind of out-of-the-way, totally-nothing-special place that becomes integral to your memory of a city; all the euros you pony up for a linen tablecloth experience among other tourists seem misspent in comparison.

M and I first walked in years ago, straight out of college and starving after wandering around, getting lost with our non-existent Spanish. The waiter brought some tiny tin cups to our table, and we shrugged at each other across this smallish pitcher of sangria. “Whatever,” we thought, “we’re just as fun sober!”

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A few hours and exactly no further sangria ordered, we were holding hands and posing on statues and taking the long (very lost) route back to our hotel room. All of the brandy, guys. It was in that one little glass jar. (And vino roja and orange slices and probably magic; sangria from Pollo Rico is a lead foot on the pedal to delirium).

There is one thing to eat. To clarify: there may be many things on the menu (don’t remember: sangria) but there is one thing to order…one half of a roasted chicken with fries. The kind of meal where you begin with a napkin and civilized intentions, and end up making tiny sandwiches of fluffy, greasy fried potato and pieces of chicken you’ve ripped with your fingers, and downing them in between laughter and sips of dangerous wine.

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There is nothing green on that plate, and don’t even try to re-work those ratios. Asking the waiter for “vegetables” gets an awkward saucer of onions and carrots delivered to your table, and there just isn’t time for that. You don’t want to miss the impromptu dance parties on the way to the bathroom…

IMG_1273…or the pretty tile, against which many grainy iPhone group shots have been taken. Or maybe just ours. It’s not clear.IMG_0468 The important thing is that you go, and that if you ever have the good fortune to pass through a city like this twice, that you bring your new companion along to “see if that place is still there.” It will be, and it’ll be as loud and fun and delicious as the first time.

5.7.2013

Lady Brunch

Question: What’s the best way to spend a Sunday morning?

Answer: Lady Brunch.

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It’s this brand new crazy thing we invented. Are you ready? It’s brunch…with all your ladies. Ok, so it may not be a super original concept, but it is the most fun new tradition to grace these parts in a while. The first Sunday of every month, we pack all the men off to the golf course and don pretty dresses to sip champagne and talk about pregnancy; we are nothing if not occasionally very gender specific.

In the interest of making room for more tortilla, I started my day at Cardio Barre with these ladies…

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…and then they came back to my apartment and set everything up with beauty and grace while I showered. Because they’re awesome and pretty.

Then this lovely bride-to-be came over (which I was way more excited about than this picture suggests. Might have been a little distracted by Smash’s “be normal” photo tips. Which I will never master, so long as I live, amen)…

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…and pretty soon after that, the combination of bacon and chocolate-dipped strawberries made some people want to go up on the roof deck and take dance pictures. Ok, it could’ve been the fantastic jalapeno-infused tequila that LK brought.* That she made herself. In a mason jar. Child takes her domesticity seriously, and we were more than glad to be the beneficiaries.

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If you’ve never had the experience of not taking ballet class for months and months and then taking a whole lot of inebriated arabesque pictures, the above should give you the short-cut to what it feels like: “Oh Baby Jesus, my back!” plus “Ohhhhh, let’s just slow-clap the awkward away.”

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I’ve never been in a sorority, but if this is what it’s like, I missed out. Sign me up for all of the lady time…it fills a serious need for communion and fun. And lemon-coconut muffins.

*Maybe a little too fantasticI revisited it a little more often than was advisable. (Side note: I’ve decided that Hostess Nervosis is a real condition that needs to be recognized by the wider world. It’s that thing when you’re having a party, and a whole bunch of people you don’t know very well are coming over, and you just want everything to go smoothly and for everyone to have fun, and so you keep drinking whatever’s nearby, almost as a nervous tic. Could be water. Could be jalapeno tequila. After-effects may vary).

5.6.2013

Planting the Flag: Part One

Or: How to Feel at Home in the Man Section of the Gym.

Pre-Crossfit, when I would wander over “to do some weights,” I was distracted by the flying sweat and lumps of iron, and started to feel panicky. Am I standing too close to this guy? Is he about to reach for that same barbell? Maybe I’ll just go do some sit-ups in the corner…ABORT!!!

Having done that one (million) too many times, I figured out how to make this area work. The one and only important factor for success here is: have a plan. If you go in knowing exactly what you’re going to accomplish, and you’re trying to do it as quickly as possible, you just don’t have time to pay attention to the fact that you’re on foreign soil.

In the interest of a mass lady invasion of the fitness world, I’m starting a new workout-focused series. Each week, I’ll post a Crossfit workout modified so it can be done with simple, accessible weights or just your own body, in a park or hotel room. These workouts might be old news to some people, and they’ll probably look unusual to those who are used to working on the legs-one-day-arms-the-next model. The aim is to work your whole body every workout (or, close to it) and to complete each one in Speedy Gonzalez mode. (This is where the gansta rap comes in).

Every workout starts with the same warm-up, which I love. I spend my entire day making decisions, and the last thing I want to do at the gym is work my way through a Choose Your Own Adventure Workout; I’m there to collect my endorphins and go home, thanks. The idea that I burst* through the gym doors and know immediately to run to the sit-up mat is so clutch.** Here’s the warm-up, which I’ll repost with each workout.  I linked to a video for any movements that Crossfit teaches specifically, so you can get the (not super complicated) idea. Note: I can’t do pull-ups (yet!) so I use the weighted assist machine at the gym.

Warm Up

Workout One

  • Run 400 meters
  • 21 Thrusters
  • 21 pull-ups
  • Run 400 meters
  • 15 Thrusters
  • 15 pull-ups
  • Run 400 meters
  • 9 Thrusters
  • 9 pull-ups

This might not look like a lot, but trust me: it’s a beating. I use 15 pound weights for the thrusters, but I started at 10. The idea with these workouts is to time yourself and repeat them decently often; obviously I celebrate riotously if I’ve improved by even a second. And you should, too!

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*We all know there’s no bursting.

**I’m lucky enough to belong to a gym within running distance, so the first part of my warmup is just getting myself there. That’s why I start with sit-ups.

5.1.2013

The One-Two Punch of the Double C

This is a “go, girl!” shout out to my wonderful friend Baller who is starting her first Whole 30 today. We were dancers together in college, and I pretty much never stepped foot in a gym that entire time. When everyone scattered and I was left to my own devices, I started tagging along with M, doing Crossfit workouts with him. Then I felt bulky, so I did some yoga…and got bored, so headed back to the gym. Seventy million years later, I arrived at a pretty elementary discovery: variety is key. No one form of exercise can be everything to you (or to me, at least). You have to mix it up to stave off both boredom and chubbles. Lately, I’ve been alternating between Crossfit and Cardio Barre workouts, and it’s kind of the best combination ever. For your fitness-planning pleasure, I present Crossfit and Cardio Barre: the badass benefits of each.

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  • Mastering “hard” things that you obviously can’t ever do oh wait you just did: Examples include: running a mile without stopping, doing man pushups, and planting your flag in the sweaty dude/heavy weights part of the gym. My entire life, if one smelly man in a tank top with drooping arm-holes was standing anywhere near the weights, I backed slowly away in the direction of the ellipticals. No longer. I know how to swing a kettlebell, and I can do it next to any bicep-curling dude. Their grunts are kind of a nice background rhythm! (Why are they always grunting?)
  • Taking control of your own fitness and expecting radical results from your workouts: Like I ruminated in this post, a lot of the time girls are (self?) segregated in the cardio war room, flipping through US Weekly while on the stationary bike. I love magazines, but I really love putting everything I have into a much shorter workout and then reading that magazine while lolling on my couch, sipping wine.
  • Solo time: This doesn’t apply to those who work out in an actual Crossfit box, but if I’m doing these workouts, I’m going to the gym with no company but my headphones. If I’m feeling rage-y, or super tired, or really really interested in what’s coming next in the audio book I’m listening to (so….always), it’s nice to have an intense workout that’s all my own. You decide how hard to go, and you can probably go a lot harder than you think. When no one’s watching, I’m more likely to try that extra lat pull-down. Who cares if I look like an awkward squiggle-monster? I’m by myself (with everyone else in the whole gym, but we’re not friends so they don’t count).

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Cardio Barre

  • Dancer lines: While pushing yourself to the limit produces results, they can be slightly muscle-ier results than I’m comfortable with. As a life-long dancer, I feel much more “in shape” with elongated, agile muscles than the more bulked-out frame that true Crossfit dedication would achieve. Barre classes focus on smaller movements with lighter weights, so you still get to muscle failure while looking like a lady. (A very, very sweaty one). Cardio Barre in particular is great for this, because the non-weighted movements mimic a ballet class closely; exercises like tendus to build up your foot muscles and bigger, sweeping movements like grande battements (giant leg swings) to tone larger muscle groups.
  • Female community: There’s something so girly about barre classes, and I just love it. You can bring all your friends and have a date that doesn’t revolve around eating. (Or you can go and then go eat, which is my favorite). The instructors are all, “Yeah! Work that booty!” and it feels encouraging and loving and reminds you of all the afternoons a leotarded Jane Fonda coaxed your mom into one more sit-up from the TV screen. The best part? When it gets really really hard, you can make evil faces in the mirror at your friends and mutter, “You. You did this to me,” even though going that day was probably your idea.
  • Accountability: Sometimes the only thing that is going to get me out of bed/off the couch is the fact that someone’s going to be at my door in two minutes, and they’ll be quite annoyed if I don’t have my hot pants on and up. Or yoga pants. The point is, making a workout date is basically a set in stone confirmation that I will be exercising that day; I hate disappointing my friends. Of course, you could make a joint plan to do anything, but it’s a lot easier to just show up for a group exercise class than to coordinate a gym workout. Treadmills have to magically open up next to one another, machines are crowded, etc. Group class = win.

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What are your favorite workout combinations?

4.30.2013

Buckets

I’m having a hard time with my buckets these days.

Not the metal tubs you use to schlep water down a hill; metaphorical buckets. In this one, your job; over there, your family relationships; that other one, your romantic partner; another, your friends. It’d be a delusion to think you could keep each one full all the time, but you try to keep the levels relatively even. I felt like I had a good rhythm going there, for a while…time with M, actually seeing my friends and parents fairly regularly, and blogging as a creative outlet, which is this giant open space to both improve as a writer and to connect with other people. Turns out all of that was only running smoothly because I had yet to ramp up at work. Now that the more senior attorneys see that I’m (marginally) competent, my Professional Bucket has a gaping hole; all the resources flow right on through.

I’m not complaining. I feel lucky to be where I am, and I’d rather be stretched and put to use than spinning around in my swivel chair. (One time. And of course a partner walked by.) I’m just trying to strategize. This space is hugely important to me, and I want it to not only stay alive, but grow. I want to pour energy into this bucket, even while everything else is approaching capacity.

How do you stay a creator while earning your daily (not-)bread? Is the secret to work from here?

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