Undefeated!

So, I've been gone for awhile but I had a really good reason. I just returned from a monthlong trial in Houston...my first jury trial. And we won. I can't really post about the trial itself, as much as I might want to, but I can say that I learned a great deal.

One of the most important things I learned is what really matters, based on what you can and cannot live without for an extended period of time. I've read or watched almost zero news or sports over the last few months, and I haven't missed it. I haven't watched a single moment of television except for the Indy 500 since sometime in March. I slept very little. I felt at times completely out of touch with what was going on in the world. And it was very disorienting, but I could live without those things if I needed to, because it was important.

What I could not live without, even though I had to try, was the love and support of my friends and family, the people who really matter to me. Being out of touch from them was nearly physically painful, so much so that I jumped at an opportunity to run home for a quick weekend to spend with those I really care about. It was glorious, and it kept me sane. And now that I'm back, I still haven't gone grocery shopping, done laundry, restocked my fridge or my bathroom cabinets, or anything essential like that. Instead I've spent 2 days being around the people I missed so much, and will continue to do so for much of this week. I am home, in every sense of the word, and it's what I craved and felt so deprived of for the past month of trial and even the weeks leading up to it.

The greatest lesson I learned is to appreciate and revel in that wonderful feeling of being home with those I love, because it's the one thing that I will desperately long for when I don't have it. I'm looking forward to not knowing that feeling again for a good long while.

A Eulogy

It was late September of 2001, and I was a first year associate in a big law firm, living on Beacon Hill with my soon to be ex-boyfriend. We were still trying to find our way through the collective national nightmare and hangover of September 11th. Gabe had started smoking again, and we were both pretty frayed from the stress and anxiety. One of us, I don't even remember which, had the bright idea that what we needed to bring us out of our funk was to get a kitten. We both loved and had grown up with cats, and it seemed like the sort of thing that would bring us a sorely needed dose of happy playfulness.

We went to a pet store in a nearby suburb and signed up for a waiting list with a local shelter they worked with. A few weeks later we got a call that two black and white kittens, brothers from a mama cat that had been hit by a car when they were still just tiny, had come in from the shelter and were available for adoption. We needed to come get one that afternoon or it would be offered to someone else. So, we raced down to the pet store only to discover that one of the two kittens had already been adopted. The one that was left had been named Linus by the shelter, a beautiful little black and white kitten with one black ear and one white ear, a mask of black covering about 3/4 of his face, and along his back with a white belly and feet. His tail was black with a tiny little white tip. I wanted him immediately.

As the pet store was filling out the paperwork and loading us up with all of the gear we would need, we heard how we had just missed the family that had adopted Linus' brother Pigpen. I wondered if they had gotten the "better cat," but as we were leaving with Linus in a carrier and a sack full of food and toys, the family came back with the other kitten because they had forgotten something. Linus' brother was almost entirely white with just a few flecks of black here and there. We had clearly gotten the cuter of the two. We drove home with him in the carrier, and it was only when we exited Storrow Drive at the Esplanade that he meowed for the first time. The first of so many.

We renamed him Claudio, at my ex's urging because he was an obsessive classical music fan and at the time his obsessions were with Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. (He first wanted to name the cat Ludwig or Wolfgang and I said no, so Claudio seemed like a bargain.) He was almost 12 weeks old when we got him, so not a tiny kitten for very long, but extremely energentic and curious. He made us so happy right away, even as he attacked our feet under the covers in the middle of the night, or bit Gabe on the nipple once when he got out of the shower, or fought a little too hard and drew blood and cries of pain when we play fought with him. Claudio played to win, all the time, every time. And as much as I didn't like the slash marks on my arms, the middle of the night attack dive-bombs as he tried to kill the snore monster in my face, or the finicky way he'd been sweet one second and then nasty the next, I loved the little booger.

He was mean to almost everyone, including sometimes me, because he very much did not like people trespassing in his home. He would howl and hiss at visitors when I had parties, and though I tried to tell them not to pet him, he invariably drew blood from someone who pushed it too far. He defied any attempts to keep him from eating people food, including thefts of meat or fish directly off of my plate on more than one occasion. When caught, he would stare you right in the eye and say "what?" like it was your fault for being dumb enough to turn your back for even a second. Even at the end, when he'd poop on the living room floor, he'd just look at me like shame or guilt were the last things on his mind. He had to go, and that was where he happened to be at the moment the urge hit, and I could just forget about talking him out of it. That's how he was.

But he was also capable of being so incredibly sweet, particularly when I was at home alone and feeling lousy. Claudio knew when to give me a nose-to-nose rub, or curl up with a purring belly at my side when I was sick, or hung over, or crying because yet another guy in my life post-Gabe decided to act like a jackass. Most of my friends and family never saw this side of him, but he brought so much comfort to me through some really tough times. Gabe and I broke up 3 months after we got him, then I got laid off and went through a period of extended unemployment, then I went to work in a job I came to hate, I moved several times, then I quit that job and moved to Georgia, then I moved twice more before settling into my house, and through all of this change and turmoil, Claudio was a source of great comfort and peace to me.

He was ridiculously smart for a cat: in Boston, when still very young he would climb my clothes while hanging in the closet, which as you might imagine was not desirable because of all the pulls and tears it caused. I put child-proofing sliders on the tops of the closet doors that were intended to keep him out of the closet. One day as I sat gape-mouthed in amazement watching, he climbed onto the elliptical trainer, jumped from there to the top of the bookshelf next to the closet, and then reached over and slid the childproofing off the door. He then dismounted and opened the closet. I have never seen anything like that in my life. But he was also stupid, and would do ridiculous things like try to sniff a burning candle and singe off half of his whiskers (this actually happened), or go chasing after a bug head-first into a wall.

He loved coffee and cigarettes, which caused my mother to call him Garfield. I don't drink coffee or own a coffeemaker, but when my parents would come to town while in Boston or as they were building their house in Georgia, they would go out to get coffee, and the cat would just go nuts to get his head in their coffee cups. Somewhere in the nascent days of this blog there was a picture of Claudio with his head stuck in a Starbucks cup, but sadly that photograph is now lost to the ether. He would lick the fingers of any smokers I brought home (of which there were...a few), right on the spot where they held their cigarettes. One night a particular guy left an open pack of smokes on the table while we slept, and Claudio ate a part of a cigarette. He looked pretty sick the next day. He also ate virtually anything I put a piece of on the floor for him, including cake, avocado, tomatoes, mushrooms, biscuits, potatoes, you name it. I think most of the time he was just happy that he didn't have to sneak bites when he thought I wasn't looking, so he was damn sure going to finish it.

The day we got him from that pet store, we purchased a cat toy that is essentially a tiny fishing rod with a string and a piece of denim at the end. He loved this toy. When I would take it out of its hiding place in the table next to my front door, he would start making this eh-eh-eh-eh-eh noise that he also made when he was hunting a bug in the house. We would play with this toy for hours, until his nose was so red that I knew he was wiped. I still have that toy, which is now reduced to a bundle of frayed denim threads at the end of that string. We played with it one day this week, but he was too tired to do too much with it.

As I wrote about a few months ago, Claudio was diagnosed with lymphoma in November just before Thanksgiving. I opted to put him on steroids, which temporarily shrank his tumors and gave me nearly three months with him at almost full speed before he started to rapidly decline last week. On Monday, he had vomited a large amount when I got home from work, and I knew the end was coming. He was better on Tuesday and Wednesday when I worked from home while sick with the flu, but he seemed tired. By Thursday and Friday, he was eating far less than usual. On Saturday I could only get him to eat a little bit of tuna, and by Sunday even tuna and chicken were not enticing him like they usually would. The vet had told me that after the steroids stopped working at the tumors started growing again, that eventually I would know it was time to end his life when he stopped eating. That would be the sign that the tumors were starting to close off his digestive system. So, knowing what was about to happen, yesterday I made an appointment at the vet. He seemed so tired and weak all day on Saturday and Sunday, and I knew I wanted to end it before he was in real pain.

Before we left, I brushed him and blow-dryed his back, which I knew he loved and made him purr for the only time that day. I carried him out to the back deck and let him feel the sun and the wind, see the trees and squirrels and birds out there, and to spend a calm and quiet moment with him before changing things forever. The vet examined him, said the tumors were fairly large and pushing on his stomach which was causing him not to eat, and confirmed there was little they could do to treat him at that point. I couldn't be there at the moment he died, so I signed the paperwork and authorized them to give him a sedative with painkiller, and then a controlled overdose of anesthesia to stop his breathing and heart. He growled the whole time while I cried and petted him, praying for a moment of peace as our last few minutes together. Then, they left with him and I waited and cried.

My baby cat is gone. He was 9 years old, would have been 10 in June. He was beautiful, and crazy, and sweet, and mean, and brazen and brilliant, and defiant, and stupid, and loving. He left scratch marks on the walls, stains on my rugs, scars on my arms, unrelenting white fur on every surface of my house, and I will miss him terribly every single day for a very, very long time.

So, yeah

I'm still around but it's going to be far less frequent going forward. Too much else in my life demanding my time right now: work, dying cat (more on that in a bit), personal entanglements, more work, etc.

I would apologize for my scarcity, but I really don't feel all that bad about it. It is a good thing to be too busy to have time to document my life here, and since I primarily used this place as catharsis when I had far more to whine about than I currently do, I instead see my lack of time or interest in blogging to mean that I am in less need of therapy than previously might have been recommended. Maybe? Let me dream for a bit, OK?

So I mentioned the dying cat, and that is something I've been reluctant to blog about precisely because it is so upsetting to me. As I posted about last year, Claudio has had an ongoing puking problem for almost 2 years now. Last year, he developed Chylothorax, which is lymphatic fluid in his chest, of unknown origin. I spent a lot of money to hospitalize him for a week and then it sort of magically got better, but the puking continued. I thought about taking him to the vet for more tests, but he seemed for the most part fine despite the puke problem (which admittedly is not ideal for the appearance of my house, but still.) I also was afraid they would want to run numerous expensive tests that would continue to reveal nothing about what was causing the problem.

Then, back in November, Claudio started pooping on the floor. He was doing it every day, and I read online that often cats do this because they are feeling ill and are trying to find a way to tell their owners. I started thinking more seriously about taking him to the vet. Then, one night a few days later, I was rubbing his belly while he was laying on my desk, and I felt something hard in his abdomen. It concerned me. I decided I would take him later that week, and he suddenly started acting like he felt awful. He was hiding under the guest bed, not eating very much, and moving very slowly. I made a vet appointment. The vet initially thought the mass I felt in his belly was just feces, and that he likely had irritable bowel syndrome after seeing some thickening of his intestine on X-ray. I went home to await the results of bloodwork, after he got some IV fluids.

Two days later the cat was not only feeling better, but I noticed that his left pupil was permanently dilated as compared to his right. In humans, differences in pupil size is nearly always a sign of serious neurological conditions (stroke, brain tumor, etc.) so this was an emergency. I took him back to the vet, and they said it could be Horner's Syndrome, a neurological condition that can be caused by infections, trauma, or tumors that result in pressure on the optic nerve that causes the dilation. He had an ear that was very sensitive and had fluid in it suggestive of ear infection, so they gave me antibiotics and told me he would hopefully get better once the infection in his ear was cleared up. I was also supposed to bring him back in a couple days for an abdominal ultrasound, because his bloodwork had been for the most part normal and they wanted to look at his intestine.

The ultrasound was finally performed, and revealed what I had been afraid of all along: a large abdominal mass either very near or wrapped around his intestines, and another spot on his liver. The vet took a sample of fluid from the mass for testing, and told me that the most likely cause of the mass was lymphoma. She started him on steroids, and told me that I could consider chemotherapy, steroid therapy alone, or do nothing. It sounded like his options ranged from a few weeks at best to potentially much longer if the chemotherapy was a success.

I'll spare you the details of some uncertainty that was injected into the diagnosis, but the steroids worked wonders--his eyes returned to normal and he was acting like his old happy self the next day. A week later the vet did a second ultrasound, and already the mass had shrunk. Though I lacked a definitive diagnosis, she told me that nothing else would have reacted so well to steroids, other than cancer. So, my kitty has lymphoma and is living on borrowed time. The vet hopes that I will get 3-6 months with him while on the steroids before they stop working, the tumor starts growing again, and he has to be put to sleep. I decided against the chemotherapy because the cat would hate it, it is insanely expensive, and ultimately in about half the cases it doesn't really prolong the cat's life that much anyhow.

He is his old sweet self, waking me up early every morning with plaintive wails for food, scratching all leather shoes and all wooden doorways, curling up next to me every night to purr while we sleep, and generally being adorable. I have to give him liquid steroids every day, which he became a total shit about taking via syringe by mouth, so I mix them into some milk. He is eating well and seems to have no obvious signs of a problem, other than a stomach that growls loudly for at least an hour after he eats.

He is on borrowed time, and my fervent desire to make sure I spend as much time with him as I can in the little time we have left together is yet another reason I never post anymore. I will miss this cat so much when is gone, that I can already feel the heartache. I'm scared of exactly how hard it will be. He has been with me for 9 years, through multiple breakups, a layoff, a move from Boston to Atlanta, an ice storm in which I had no power for three cold days, and so much more. He has been my constant little slice of happiness ever since we got him from a shelter a month after 9/11. And soon, way too soon, I will have to make the terrible decision to end his life before he suffers too much. It's going to be awful.

Oh, hey

I nearly forgot to mention, for any of you who are not Twitter followers (those folks knew 2 wks ago)...

The night before I left for my vacation, I found out I was being made Of Counsel at my firm. This is something I initially asked for at the end of last year but was told that the timing was no good, and I thought I'd have to wait until the end of this year. But then my boss decided that since I was busting my ass extra hard in 2010, she would push to make them do it in mid-year. It almost didn't work, but they caved. This is sort of like "making partner" but not...it's a promotion to being one of the leaders of my group, and some job security to an extent, but I still have to keep busting ass and see if they make me a shareholder next year if that's what I decide I'm after. (If someone knows the answer to this question, can you clue me in?) It did come with a sweet raise, although with cuts over the last 2 years this has really just brought me back to my starting point.

At many times over the last 4 1/2 years I have thought about jumping ship, as I have blogged about here from time to time with varying stages of vagueness, but as I look back I'm SO glad I didn't. Once in awhile, sticking it out through something tough and finding a way to turn it around and make it work really does pay off. I wish more people would realize that when they become unhappy with where they're at.

Today I got the handbook they give to new Shareholders and Of Counsels. I spent an hour reading it, and was sad to learn there were no secrets in there. They must save the good shit for verbal telling only, never to be committed to paper.

Sadly, I have to become a shareholder before I'll get to go to the annual retreat in Vegas with the crazy parties. I am now not eligible until end of 2011 at the earliest. But I'm 100% fine with that.

In which I sound like a shill for a diet plan, but have a serious point under it all

So, I haven't been around much lately. (I'm sure all six of you noticed.) Work continues to be insanely busy, my personal life experienced a short-lived but dramatic uptick in activity, and I really just find political and legal developments too depressing to even talk about.

But there is something I've been meaning to write about for awhile, so here goes...

One year ago, on March 7th, I got up and registered with Weight Watchers. The morning before I had caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that I just could not live with how I looked a second longer. I had always been resistant to the idea of organized diet programs, believing that I could do it on my own using common sense food choices and portion control. The problem was, of course, that I'd never actually used that common sense to lose any weight.

Being a technology lover and resistant to anything involving meetings or expensive food programs, I decided WW was the right option. For a monthly fee, I could enter my daily food and exercise into the tracker and it would calculate my daily and weekly point limits. I wasn't terribly busy at work at the time, so I quickly realized that the more I worked out, the more flex points I could save up for the weekend. I had bought a treadmill 3 years earlier but never used it, so I decided now was a good time to start. I walked on the treadmill while watching on DVD entire seasons of TV shows like Dexter that I'd been meaning to watch. Every other weekend, I'd try to do a longer walk (perhaps with less incline or at a slower speed) while watching a movie. I got to the point where I could do a 7 or 8 mile walk every once in awhile, though the last mile or so was usually pretty brutal. I had never been a regular exerciser, and I came to really enjoy it.

I also figured out that I could eat anything I wanted, as long as I planned for it. A week of fruit for breakfast and Lean Cuisine meals for lunch would mean I could eat relatively "normal" dinners and still have my 35 flex points saved up for one weekend day of drinking and eating bar food with friends. If I went out to dinner, I just tried to either have points saved up or only eat half of whatever I ordered, and I started looking up point values on the internet if I wasn't sure. I switched to Amstel Light, which is terrible but is the most widely available light beer that I can stand to drink. As a friend remarked to me recently, it wasn't even that noticeable of a change for my social life, since I could still go to the same places I always did, but just had to be careful about what I chose.

I lost 20 pounds and dropped a dress size in 5 months from March 7th-August 15th. That was a huge milestone, but about 15 pounds from my goal (which would put me back where I weighed in college.) That might sound huge to some people, but when you're 6 ft tall, 20 pounds is a mere drop in the bucket. But it still felt good to have people notice. It felt good to have my jeans become too big to wear because they were falling off and baggy in the butt. It felt great to wear a bikini in New Orleans in July for a bachelorette weekend and not feel completely self-conscious about it.

About once a month, I also went off the wagon for a few days entirely. First it was a trip to New Orleans in late March, then it was Easter Sunday with my family in April, then it was my birthday in May, then it was a conference in Vancouver in June, then it was the bachelorette in July. Every time, as long as I limited the damage to a few days and got right back on plan afterwards, I avoided any real backsliding. It slowed down my progress, but also kept me sane.

Then, in September I got busy again at work. I recall that over Labor Day weekend in Biloxi, I ate whatever I wanted and didn't work out at all, but I also was only eating one real meal a day so I didn't gain anything. I had no time to work out, though, so I knew I would stall out. Then I got sick at the end of September, and ate whatever I wanted while I was recovering. I got sick again in October, and again in December, and again last month. I might have worked out maybe 5 times in that time span until last week, because between billing 200 hours a month at work, the holidays, and constantly struggling with illnesses, I just couldn't muster the energy or the time. I also used my busy-ness at work and the holidays as an excuse to go off the wagon on tracking my points. By the new year, I had gained back 10 of the pounds I'd lost.

By last week, my one year anniversary, I'd decided I had no excuses left. I worked out 4 days last week, and I got back to calculating my points. It was hard (particularly because of some personal life drama that decided to emerge late Friday night and make me want to eat all of the fried food and chocolate in the known universe) but I stuck to it. And I'll hopefully keep sticking to it, because in 3 weeks I need to be able to wear a swimsuit in Vegas without wanting to cut myself.

I'm not writing this as some sort of testimonial for Weight Watchers or seeking a pat on the back. I'm writing this because up until a year ago I was one of those people full of excuses and distrust when it came to diet plans or my ability to get anywhere with something like this. I said I "only run when chased," I talked about my bad knees and back, I made fun of the cultishness of WW meetings. I said I knew everything I needed to know to be healthy, but food was just so delicious. I was a skeptic of the highest order, and yet a year later I have been proven wrong. And I know so many people who are in those same shoes--making excuses, doubting they could ever do it, giving all the reasons why the mere thought makes them so uncomfortable. But I want them to listen to me and think about giving it a try.

And I'm hoping that by this time next year, I'll weigh less than I did in college. Which would be awesome. If I meet this goal, I'll post a picture of myself in a bikini as proof. I make this promise to you now.

I'm also thinking of running a half marathon. Yes, really.

Counting My Blessings

I've done a lot of bitching and moaning here about life in a big law firm and my desire to escape this climate at some point. But I'm not going to do that today. I've been at my job for over four years now, and at times it has been intensely frustrating and something I just wanted to walk away from. But I didn't.

And at times I am quite certain that some people at this firm wanted to walk away from me, such as when my workload suddenly dried up and I was the heftiest salary among our group's associate ranks with not nearly enough work to stay profitable. But they didn't walk away from me even though over 10,000 BigLaw associates all over the country lost their jobs in the last 2 years, often with a lot less justification than my firm would've had for pulling the rug out from under me. They stuck by me, and so I've stuck by them. After a very rough year or so, I have good cases again, I'm busy as hell (hence no blog posts), and I have a chance for the brass ring promotion at the end of the year if I play my cards right. Much to my great amazement, things are good again.

It's been sort of like a tough marriage to a good man who can be mighty annoying sometimes. Neither of us is always happy about our mutual obligations and commitments, but during the worst economic crisis of my generation, I feel tremendously lucky to have found loyalty from a big, soulless corporate law firm...the last place I would have ever thought to find it.

I personally know at least five people who have been laid off during this recession, and it feels like that number grows every day, often when I least expect it. Every single time I hear their pained announcements of the unexpected news, I feel a gut check--like I know I am tremendously lucky not to be in their shoes. And who knows? I still could be before it is all over. But for now, I am turning over a new leaf. No more whining about it here. My law firm ain't perfect, it has its quirks and drawbacks, but we've stuck it out all these years depsite all the difficulties, and that means something.

To draw the relationship analogy out as far as it can stand, maybe after getting screwed over so many times by the dashingly handsome assholes I've made questionable commitments to in the past, I now understand and can warmly appreciate the simple pleasures of life with a decent, honorable guy who may not seem as superficially perfect at first meeting, but has turned out to be much more real and enduring than anything I've ever known.

I would never have thought I would still be here by now, but I am, and I'm learning to be happy. For a girl who has said often that my theme song is Steve Earle's "I Ain't Ever Satisfied," that is a surprise. A happy accident.

And what a decade it was...

Everyone's doing not just year-end lists, but end of the decade lists...and it has me feeling seriously nostalgic for my 24-year-old self. When the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, I have no idea where I was (either Boston or Orlando) but I know I was about to graduate from law school and embark into real adult life for the first time ever. I had a sweet job at a big firm lined up, a boyfriend who'd asked me to marry him, and the whole world was ahead of me.

Of course, a funny thing happened on the way to perfect bliss. I got laid off from that law firm job 2 years later, I broke up with the boyfriend/fiance after finally realizing it was never going to work, and I spent months unemployed and terrified I had lost everything. And then I spent years building back to the life I wanted and hoped for, first in a small decrepit apartment in the North End where rats ran by my bedroom window every night, then getting a job at a small firm making half my former salary and barely scraping by, then on my parents' intuition and some tremendous luck buying a condo in Jamaica Plain. I spent the middle of the 2000's treading water in this way, until I realized I just wasn't going to find what I was looking for in Boston. And even though it was the scariest thing I have ever done, and perhaps the scariest thing I will ever do, I decided to quit my treading water job and leave my little condo in J.P., and move to Georgia to be closer to my family and start a new life.

The last four years have been full of highs and lows, but mostly highs. I arrived with no job, living in a small house in a small town where I only knew my aunt and uncle. I got my current job, which has been great in a lot of ways (and burnout-inducingly awful in others.) I bought my house, which has been great in a lot of ways (and terribly expensive and frustrating in others.) I made a large, wonderful and supportive group of friends that far eclipses anything I have experienced in life to this point, and who make me absolutely certain Atlanta is where I was meant to be. I have almost everything I want in life, with the glaring exception of a partner to travel through it with me.

But, if you had asked me back in 1999 where I expected to be in a decade, I would have assumed it was probably right about here. I would be at a big law firm trying to decide whether to bury myself in work and push to make shareholder, or seek greener less stressful pastures in an in-house position, government work or academia. I would be living in a house that I love, with a cat, but not married or with any children. (Somehow I knew those things would always be difficult to come by for me.) I would be closer to my family as they get older and as we need each other more. And I would be mostly happy, but still never satisfied, and always striving for more.

As I sit here and think about where I want to be on the stroke of midnight on December 31st, 2019, I am not sure what to hope for or expect. I will be 44. I would love to believe I will be a happy wife and doting mother by then, but know it becomes less likely with every passing day. I hope I will be firmly ensconced in a legal career that provides at least a little prosperity and prestige AND a liveable schedule. I hope I will have renovated my house into what I envision it to be, or sold it and moved to a new project I can keep working on. I hope I will still have this wonderful circle of friends who I adore and draw so much strength and joy from. I hope I will find time and money to enjoy life a little bit more than I currently manage to squeeze in. And I hope I will finally find peace and contentment so I can finally plant roots and be happy where I'm at, rather than always searching for something more. But, I know myself too well, and this last one is least likely of all. The road goes on forever.

Unmatched

(Photo from TTessori's flickr page.)

I come not to bury Bobby Bowden, but to praise him. Yes, I recognize this may surprise you, since lately I have been less than kind towards Saint Bobby. But long before he angered me by holding on past his time and hurting my alma mater, I adored him. And now that he is leaving, and finally letting go of the team that he made great, it is time to thank him and to recognize that we have witnessed something that may never be matched again.

Bobby Bowden was not a great football player on his own (he enrolled at Alabama as a QB but stayed only one semester). He did not rise to the pinnacle of football coaching because a fanbase fondly remembered his playing days, or because he was from a family of football royalty. He became a coach because he loved football, and had studied it while confined to his bed for nearly a year as a child. He started off small at colleges nobody has ever heard of, then moved up to colleges nobody wanted to coach, then had moderate success at a moderately successful football program. Then he finally was recruited into a school that had only started a football program 2 decades earlier, and had lost all but one game the year before he arrived. As a friend who has a few years on me is fond of saying, things were not always rosy for Florida State football. This is something that those of us who have only known Bobby Bowden as head coach for our entire lives have a tendency to forget.

I grew up in Orlando, smack dab in the middle of a three team rivalry that was unique in the quality of the teams, the notoriety of their coaches, and the closeness of the finishes. I remember Wide Right I and II, when FSU inexplicably lost to Miami two years in a row by missed field goals in the final minute and had their national championship hopes derailed. I remember the hatred we held for Spurrier even then, before his teams were REALLY good, when he was just a nasty visor-throwing smirky jackass. And I remember how each of us along the way picked the one of the three rivals we cleaved to, either from family tradition, local proximity, or instinct. I had neither of the first two going for me, being centrally located between all three and with a family that had attended college in Iowa and Minnesota. So I was drawn to Florida State, and it was because of Bobby Bowden.

My childhood memories of Bowden are of his wisecracking press conferences and halftime interviews. He was always so blunt and honest, so down to earth, so REAL. If his team was losing at the half, he shrugged and told the reporter he was going to whip them into shape and hope they played better in the second half, as he ran to the tunnel. If his team got beat on a last second field goal missed AGAIN against the same team, he had no choice but to make a joke about it and shrug it off, because there was always another game coming and he intended to win it. His honesty and his resiliency were endearing, and made me root for him. And by rooting for him, I came to root for FSU. When it was time to pick a college, I didn't have any intention of going to Florida State. I applied to the likes of Duke, Wake Forest, and Emory, but didn't get enough scholarship money and FSU offered a full ride. My parents made me go for a weekend visit, whining all the way, and to my great surprise I loved it. I never intended to go there, but it felt meant to be the second I arrived. I never for a second considered even visiting UF, even though Gainesville is considerably closer and was arguably the "better school" academically at the time. I was an FSU girl, and if I had to go state school it was the only choice.

I enrolled in the fall of 1993, a glorious time to be an FSU student. Charlie Ward would win the Heisman, we FINALLY held on to beat Miami, we blew out every other home game by double digits, and thanks to a BC field goal against Notre Dame that sent a cheer through the campus of FSU, we played Nebraska for the National Championship and won, fittingly on a last second field goal. Bobby Bowden had finally put all the pieces together and nobody deserved it more. We did not lose a single game I attended during my four years at FSU.

In the 1990's Bobby Bowden ran up a string of records and accomplishments that may never be equalled. Just a few off the top of my head:

• 14 straight top 5 finishes and 10 win seasons
• Most wins in a decade by any FBS/Division I-A team ever (109). This is particularly notable because in the 90's there was no ACC championship game.
• an .890 winning percentage for the 1990's
• Played in 5 national championship games from 1993 to 2001, won 2
• First wire-to-wire AP #1 in 1999
• 28 straight bowl game appearances, the longest active streak in college football
• Longest streak of bowl game victories (1985-1996)

We were definitely all spoiled. A "down year" for FSU was one in which we had two losses and did not play for the national championship. For the entire decade, Bobby Bowden was known as a great recruiter, a 5-star general overseeing his highly skilled assistants, and a man that his players and fans loved. Along with the other fans, I was in heaven.

But things had to turn eventually, and they did. With benefit of hindsight, the decline has been precipitous and it is not surprising that many of us eventually turned on Bobby. After Mark Richt left to coach Georgia, Bowden elevated his son Jeff to offensive coordinator with disastrous results. Bobby refused to fire him despite the team's rapid offensive decline, and eventually the boosters paid Jeff $500,000 to walk away quietly. Bobby was reportedly furious about the boosters' forceout. While the offense has rebuilt thanks to new offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, the team still has not managed more than 9 wins since 2000, and Bowden steadfastly resisted the many calls for change year after year. If anything, he became more defiant in the face of the criticism. But he should not have been surprised that the torches and pitchforks eventually reached his door. As one writer said today, "the first time the team went 6-6, they came for his son Jeff (offensive coordinator). The next time the team went 6-6, they came for him."

I was ready for Bobby to go three years ago. After graduating from FSU I'd moved to Boston, where college football is unimportant and it was easy to barely pay attention and only watch the big games, which we suddenly started to lose a lot of. Then I moved to Georgia in the fall of 2005, and decided that my newfound proximity to Tallahassee and my newfound prosperity meant that I should get season tickets. As a sign of how far we had fallen, I not only had no trouble obtaining season tickets, but did not even have to give a donation to get them. And so, in the fall of 2006 I walked into Doak Campbell stadium for the first time in a decade to watch us play Clemson. We lost in a squeaker and so I had my first experience of walking out of Doak forlornly while an opposing team's fans cheered. Since that game, I've been an FSU season ticketholder for four seasons now, have attended 10 games, and we've won two of them. TWO. It was bizarro world, and it seemed like it was never going to end.

But for all my rancor, and all of my wholehearted belief that the team needed a change at the helm, when Bowden finally announced his retirement yesterday I was overcome by sadness and appreciation. I was sad because I knew Bobby's heart was breaking over leaving, and how it had all come to pass. I was sad because the man who has been the coach of my team for as long as I have been alive was being shuffled off to retirement, where he had once famously said there was only one big event left, and he wasn't ready for that yet. I was sad because just like Bobby wanted to be the coach for one more great season, I wanted that for him too. But unlike Bobby, I had recognized that he could keep hanging on and hoping for that, but it just wasn't going to happen while he was there. And so I was sad that the football gods had denied him the sendoff season with a great team that he richly deserved. It simply was not meant to be.

I also wanted to make sure that the greatness that Bowden brought to my alma mater is not forgotten in how it all went down at the end. He has become an old man, lost a step as some said, but that is exactly why we should not remember him as he is now, but at his best. William O. Douglas was a lion of the Supreme Court who wrote some of the most important landmark decisions of an era, but at the end he refused to retire even after he suffered a stroke and could barely speak or read. He waited too long to go, but we do not remember him for how he fell at the end, but for how he rose before it. And we should do the same for Bobby Bowden. The man lived the life of a legend, built a program from nothing into a powerhouse that broke records and left everyone in the dust for an entire decade. That is the Bobby I will choose to remember fondly going forward. That is the Bobby who I will see in the statue outside Doak Campbell Stadium when I go to a game next year, when I watch my team run onto Bobby Bowden Field.

There is another statue outside Doak that features a Seminole warrior on horseback, holding a spear above his head. It says on the base "Unconquered." The Seminole tribe of Florida is known for having never been conquered by the U.S. government or any other tribe, despite many attempts that included driving them deep into the swamps of Florida. They may have been diminished, may have lost control of the lands they once held, but they were never conquered. Bobby Bowden may give up control of the Florida State football team, but the heights he brought our team to will never be matched again. And all of us who live this team must honor that tradition, and honor the man who gave his life to Florida State.

Goodbye, and thank you, Saint Bobby. We will never see your kind again.

Mood Music: Old school Lucinda edition

Shouldn't I have this
shouldn't I have this
Shouldn't I have all of this and...

Video clip of the day

In re-reading my probably quite naive and starry-eyed healthcare wish list post below, I was ashamedly reminded of this scene from Mean Girls:

Quick Hits

I haven't felt the urge to blog much this week (as you might have noticed), but here's a few quick and dirty things on my mind today:

* Troy Anthony Davis lost his appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. The Court ruled in a 2-1 decision that Davis had not met the high threshhold necessary to establish an actual innocence claim. I'm so angry and demoralized by this development that I don't even have the heart to analyze the decision. The important point is that he lost.

Davis essentially has two options right now: he can petition the entire 11th circuit to rehear the case en banc (which is discretionary, and rarely granted) in the hopes that he can get a different ruling from the entire panel, and he can petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari on his appeal. Chances are good that he will do both, and be denied both. The 11th circuit's stay of execution last 30 more days while he works out his appellate options, and then we will see an execution date if none of these legal maneuvers work out. I wonder if Thurbert Baker's decision to run for governor might influence his decision to take action or not take action in connection with this case...

* Starwood Hotels is suing Hilton Hotels in a very interesting corporate espionage case. It's not interesting merely because it alleges corporate espionage, but because of how Starwood learned of the espionage. Apparently some well-meaning Hilton lawyers found some Starwood documents in boxes while reviewing Hilton records in a completely unconnected case, and returned them to Starwood in an "abundance of caution." Turns out those Starwood documents were stolen from Starwood, and the best of intentions led to a lawsuit. I suspect we will see a legal malpractice lawsuit against Hilton's attorneys as well.

This makes me wonder what I would do if, while reviewing a client's documents for potentially discoverable material, I came across stolen documents from another company. Would I report it? Woudl I tell the client they had to report it or return them? Would I insist that I couldn't work for the client anymore? Would I pretend I had never seen them and hope nobody else ever noticed? It would present a huge ethical dilemma. This makes me wonder if maybe those Hilton lawyers chose the faux-mistaken return route as the best way to save their own asses while upholding their ethical obligations.

* By now you have heard of Susan Boyle, unless you have been living under a rock for the last week. For you rock-dwellers, or for those who want to relive the amazing moment when this dowdy strange woman shocked the world...here it is. And here is Susan singing Ella Fitzgerald's "Cry Me a River" for a charity CD in 1999. What a voice. What a story! I love it when people make us all challenge our preconceived biases and assumptions.

* Last night I ate at Alfredo's for the first time, and it was delicious. The restaurant's decor is straight out of "Goodfellas" but the food and service were both excellent. (Except for the waiter who asked everyone in the restaurant at least twice if they were driving a certain Toyota outside...that was annoying.)

* And finally, congratulations are in order for local blogger Garrett Vonk and his wife Heather, who are currently in the midst of having their first baby. No word yet on whether sympathetic lactation has occurred, but we all wait on pins and needles to hear both the official birth announcement and word about the state of Garrett's breasts.

Mood Music

This weekend, a group of friends were discussing the awful music that topped the pop charts in the late 70's and early 80's. We started perusing the charts from those years, and I ran across this song, which I absolutely love even if most people think it's terrible. I just had to post it.

Quote of the Day, inspirational edition

"It would be a tragedy if all of you who are so talented and energetic -- if you let that go to waste, if you just stood back and watched the world pass you by...Better to jump in, get involved -- and it does mean that sometimes you'll get criticized and sometimes you'll fail and sometimes you'll be disappointed -- but you'll have a great adventure. And at the end of your life, hopefully you'll be able to look back and say, 'I made a difference.'"

--Our President, in response to a question from a German woman in Strasbourg as to whether he ever regretted running for President.

Missing the Point

The events of the last few weeks have convinced me that everyone in this country--the public, the press, the politicians--has decided that what we need is a really good scapegoat to hurl our anger at, in order to distract ourselves from the long tough road ahead. Why worry about how to dig ourselves out of this hole when we can instead figure out who is responsible for pushing us in?

Time magazine did a feature on the 100 people to blame for the financial crisis. Then we were mad at "Octomom" Nadya Suleman for being a public mooch who used disability payments to get in vitro fertilization, and will probably end up receiving public assistance for the rest of her childrens' lives. Rick Santelli blamed those "losers" who couldn't pay their mortgages and obviously had not planned well enough when buying a house and allocating out their paychecks. Then Jon Stewart told us that we need to blame CNBC for giving bad financial advice and not doing enough real reporting or tough questioning of CEOs who appeared on CNBC programs. Now everyone hates on AIG all the time for paying those "bonuses" to employees even though the bailout legislation specifically allowed it, and even though the bonus payments were owed under preexisting contracts. When we're not being angry at all of those people, we're throwing tea parties to display our anger over the rise in government spending, and organizing rallies around a suddenly discovered desire to adhere to constitutional principles that nobody has ever cared about before now.

All of this populist anger is off target. CNBC didn't cause the financial crisis, though certainly they fell down on the job when it came to prognosticating the future or getting real answers out of the CEOs who appeared on the station. Would better questions or fewer bad stock calls have changed anything or prevented this crisis? Not really.

Octomom is just a symbol for people who we feel are milking the system at a time it can't afford to be milked. She is the 2009 version of they mythical welfare mom driving a Cadillac. If stupid people didn't keep sending her donations or following her story so intently, she wouldn't get any reality show offers or media attention and she'd have to muddle through just like the rest of us.

AIG is going to be put out of business soon enough, and meanwhile no matter what legislation Congress passes, those bonuses will almost certainly not be clawed back. Even if they are, they represent a mere drop in the overall bucket of what we've had to give to AIG in order to sort out the credit default swap debacle. We won't even feel those dollars coming back in if we ever recollect them. Does it make anyone's life better to know that some executive he's never met, who had nothing to do with the mortgage fiasco, has decided to give back his $800K in contractually guaranteed compensation if it means that the death threats will stop, and that the protesters will leave his front yard?

Look, a lot of people deserve the blame for where we have ended up. Republicans in the 90s voted to deregulate the financial services industry and Clinton signed the legislation into law. George W. Bush continued that weakening of existing regulations and presided over an SEC that seemed to believe its mission consisted of looking the other way. Each individual who took on a risky interest-only mortgage, or a mortgage for far more house than they could safely afford, bears responsibility. The mortgage brokers and lenders do too. There is plenty of blame to go around.

But all the anger in the world won't bring your money back, your job back, or your house back. Unless anger is turned into something constructive, like a willful resolve to do better next time and fix the broken systems, or a desire to see the people who committed TRULY criminal acts in all this mess brought to justice, it just becomes something ugly and destructive. We have plenty of ugliness and destruction already.

For weeks now on Facebook, Twitter, and among my friends and family I have seen and heard people expressing their outrage. They want answers, they want someone to blame, they want Geithner's head on a platter, or for Obama's mission to fail. What we should all want is for our leaders to figure out a solution that WORKS. We need that. And no amount of anger is going to bring that about sooner. If anything, it's instead distracting the administration from what it needs to be doing right now to make things right. Nobody wants to work in Treasury because of the level of public vitriol being directed at Geithner, so he toils without deputies or even much of a staff. Could you fix the financial crisis all by your lonesome, even if you were an economics wizard? Obama has been on defense over these AIG bonuses for the past week, something so insignificant to his plate of problems that it's stupid we are forcing him to waste his time over them. Congress is crafting reactionary clawback legislation that is possibly unconstitutional and almost certainly completely ineffective, and holding public spectacle hearings instead of actually trying to write legislation that will help fix things. Everyone is a slave to the public bloodlust right now, and we're all missing the point.

I am legitimately angry at the administration and Democrats in Congress for one thing primarily: not explaining the issues to the American people like they are semi-intelligent human beings. Obviously the media isn't going to do it, as toothless and dumbed-down as they have become, but someone needs to. We shouldn't just accept that people won't understand this stuff so we'll fully engage the public misperceptions. Someone needs to stand up and explain these complex issues to the people who are spinning their wheels in search of a scapegoat.

Someone needs to explain that AIG is a HUGE company with so many different parts, that insures and reinsures against financial losses in addition to material ones, which is why they are nearly bankrupt right now. The stock market has lost more in the last year than it has ever lost in terms of dollar amounts, and most of the losses in the financial sector were insured and reinsured several times over. Insurance contracts have to be paid, and insurance is largely a betting industry in that the company bets that the premiums paid in will end up being more than the reserves that have to be paid out. AIG's insureds are all coming calling at once, and only part of their problems are as a result of any financial malfeasance. The rest is just plain old reality: when big losses really pile up, insurance companies eventually go out of business.

Someone needs to explain that the AIG "bonuses" are not the same as the bonus you get from your boss if the company had a good year and you did a good job, but are contractually negotiated compensation that is not dependent upon company performance objectives. Explain they are only called bonuses and paid in one lump sum in order to achieve tax advantage. Explain that there are policy reasons why the government might not want to require companies to break their contracts with employees as part of new legislation, and that there are legal ramifications to both the company and the government if they do so.

Someone needs to explain that these problems did not develop overnight but are years if not decades in the making, and so the people "responsible" for them are now largely long gone from companies like AIG, Merrill Lynch, or Citibank. Explain that punishing the people who are working at those institutions now is useless, because those people have done nothing to deserve punishment for the sins of their forbears...except maybe choose a shitty place to work.

Someone needs to explain that we are all in this together, and that it is going to take some of that same spirit we have seen in hard times before in order for everyone to pull through OK. Just because you were making $50K before you got laid off and a Lehman Brothers employee was making $500K doesn't mean he is less deserving of compassion, respect or assistance than you are. (If you don't believe me, just read the story about the hedge fund CEO who is now delivering pizzas.) Explain that we are all truly in the trenches together, and we need to stop being so divisive and start helping one another again.

This is the conversation that I wish Obama and his administration would have with the American people. And then I wish that the people would listen to it, and realize that all this anger and blaming is counterproductive...it achieves nothing. We are also better than this, or we should be.

Mood Music -- St. Patrick's Day edition

Driving back from Fayetteville today, I had my radio turned to Sirius where they were playing music by Irish artists. This song came on and I was instantly transported back to drunken nights at the Littlest Bar in Boston. Singer Mike Barrett does a version of this song called "the Lesbian Song," in which the singer wishes he were a lesbian instead of wishing to be a fisherman. Every single week, Mike hopefully dedicated the song to Samantha and I, and every single week we laughed and shook our heads that no, this was not going to be the week his dream came true. I love this song so much.



With light in my head
With you in my arms
(woo hoo hoo)

"Life’s short and we all go to the same place when we die."

Those are the words of Elwin Wilson, a South Carolina man who came forward recently to apologize to John Lewis for beating him during a civil rights era protest at the Rock Hill, S.C. bus station. Formerly an unabashed racist, Wilson has recently disavowed his former views and sought redemption and forgiveness, first with local civil rights activists and then from Congressman Lewis once he discovered that the man he had beaten nearly 50 years ago had become a member of the House of Representatives. Read both accounts of the reunion, and tell me if you don't start to feel like change really has come to America.

More and more often I am getting the feeling that old school bigots and segregationists must be realizing that the country has left them behind, and told them that there is no place for their views at our table now. This is a wonderful thing.

In which I get a little Tony Robbins on you

I found this video about failure to be surprisingly inspirational. A good reminder that what feels like complete loss at the time can often end up being the start of your success. When all of us are feeling like everything is at risk of failing, this is an important reminder.

Inauguration Day Photos

I promised these a few days ago but just finally am getting around to posting them...blame the illness I contracted from my roommate on this trip, which is making me want to do nothing more than lay in bed and sniffle.

Anyhow, here are my pictures from our very cold but wonderful day witnessing history. Enjoy.

Our view of the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony, which we could hear but not really see:




A look backwards at the million or so people behind us on the Mall:



The crowds in every direction were HUGE:






We were so so very cold, but so happy it didn't matter:



Afterwards, some fool people were walking across the ice of the frozen reflecting pool (and a few fell):

Mood Music

Shawshank Redemption is one of my absolute favorite movies, and this is my absolute favorite scene. The transformative power of the music, the human voice and the amazing things the right composer can make it do.

If you watch the clip all the way through, here's to hope. Even when it's dangerous, it keeps you alive. We all need something to hope for in 2009.

Random Post-Christmas Babble

I've lost my blogging mojo. There's so much going on at this time of year, and yet so little that feels like it's worth writing about. But because I feel guilty when I go more than 5 days without posting, I figure I should give a little quick and dirty snapshot of the things bouncing around my addled brain.

* Despite the pronouncements from the family that this would be a low gift giving year due to the economy being in the shitter, I really did clean up quite nicely. I got some wonderful bath stuff, a buffet from Pottery Barn, a Kitchenaid stand mixer (finally! and I didn't even have to get engaged or married to get one, either!), a new wreath for my front door because my mom decided the current one is "sad," and a terrycloth loungewear set. I am also allegedly getting a 2 parent painting crew to finally finish the painting of my house. And finally, I got at least one of the intangible cosmic sort of things I was hoping for, and still have my fingers crossed on a couple others. Hopefully the universe will deliver on those too.

* We had three vegetarians at Christmas dinner this year, and you would think my mother was told that these people would die if they accidentally touched meat the way the news threw her into a state of confusion and panic. She could NOT figure out what to make for a Christmas dinner meal that would be appealing to vegetarians, and then suddenly she decided that as long as we had eighty-two types of vegetables on the table, she could serve ham AND turkey. The vegetarians brought a quiche with fake tofu ham in it, and all was well. But the week of menu planning with my mom before she just decided to make every vegetable in the known universe, that was not fun to be a part of.

* We have this new stupid Christmas tradition here in the office that I'm very unhappy about. The new head of our department brought in a little stuffed elf doll that is supposed to "do mischief" to people's offices. Basically, whoever gets hit by the elf is supposed to pick another target and mess up their workspace somehow. Predictably in a place filled with soulless lawyers, this has been taken to serious extremes already. Last week saw one poor secretary's workspace blocked off with boxes floor to cieling, behind which there was tape 12 feet across in all directions from her filing cabinets to her desk to the walls of her cubicle. It took her several hours to undo the damage.

Despite my prounoucement that I found this whole thing stupid, some brave soul decided to mess up my office in the elf's name sometime before I got here on Friday. We're supposed to send a cheery little email to the group about how Paul the elf messed with our space, but I refused. Instead, I fixed everything he'd messed up, took the elf to another associate's office, and took every piece of paper on his desk and stacked it on top of his bookshelf. That was enough. There was no taping, no crazy decorating, no fire hazardry. And this associate has not sent a cheery little email about the elf's mischief, either. I think hopefully people by now have realized that a) Christmas is over and b) this idea was pretty dumb to begin with.

Bah Humbug. (Yeah, they say I should be more positive at work. What of it?!)

* Pray for my friend Jen, who is going to the dentist for the first time in years tomorrow because she has a serious tooth issue. She's very nervous, and she will need the support. I sent her to my dentist, who you may remember treated me mostly OK when I showed up there after nearly 9 years without a dental visit back in 2006. It helped that they gave me Nitrous, and then Valium when I didn't like the Nitrous. I told Jen to ask for both!

* I have absolutely zero plans for New Year's Eve as of right now, though I must say that the event at the Graveyard with a burlesque striptease that Tessa wrote about certainly sounds like it has potential. Or, there's always the incomparable Francine Reed at Blind Willie's, if I want to pay $50 for a reserved table seat. (Probably not.) I am not someone who feels the need to have crazy New Year's plans every year, and in fact I have not particularly enjoyed some of the more memorably over-the-top planned events I went to in years past. But still, I want to do SOMETHING to ring in the new year. (Other than watch a certain wedding webcast...)

* So maybe it's because we were drunk, or maybe it's because we were reminiscing about the geeky former life in which we both met, but Jen and I had a hilarious conversation just before Christmas about....bacon. We were talking about the problem with earthy crunchy people--the type who always eat healthy, do outdoorsy shit and are environmentally responsible (you know who you are--and I prounounced that I do not trust anyone who does not eat bacon. And I meant it! Seriously, bacon is one of life's great unexpected pleasures, and anyone who does not recognize its innate wonderfulness is suspect in my book. Fine, eat turkey bacon if you must, but do so with the recognition that you are attempting to compromise between bacon-y goodness and your earthy crunchy ways.

Along similar lines, I proclaimed on Christmas Eve (again a little drunkenly) that "mayonnaise makes everything better." You might expect to see a new blog dedicated to these concepts in the near future, as soon as Jen and I get off our asses and make it look like an actual blog.

* I can feel the natural progression of my sports allegiances to Atlanta teams occurring now, particularly as the Falcons and Hawks are actually pretty good this year. (Braves are going to need to work harder to win me over from the Red Sox.) You may recall that I have a pretty solid record of bringing sports championships to my city, and yes I do take all the credit for it. I've now been in Atlanta for 3 years, so it's about time for things to start turning around. I believe in Matty Ice! And I would totally have his babies.

* Congratulations to Jen and Tony, who in just 2 short days will be tying the knot in Vegas on New Year's Eve. I can honestly say this will be the first wedding ceremony I will have watched over the internet, but somehow it all makes sense. Have a great time, and best wishes for a wonderful life together.

See, thinking and talking about those two taking the big leap snapped me right out of my curmudgeonliness from earlier in this post. If that isn't a sign of real inspiration, I don't know what is.