I've learned

In my life, no news is not "good news." In fact, no news is usually bad news that you have not yet received. In my quest for optimism, I must remember this.

Back in the day, I worked for some d-bag attorney who hired me "under the table." I was an aspiring lawyer. Yawn. Fast forward 5 years later, I'm about to take the bar. The bar application asks if I've ever not filed a tax return (or something along these lines). As they're looking for honesty, I confessed my transgression & explained that I would file a tax return for 2004 ASAP. I hired an accountant & did just this. Ladies & Gents, it wasn't pretty. I had to pay New York State AND Federal taxes-- A total of about $2500. And this did not include interest. I wrote a pity letter, explaining that I was young & dumb (very true) & did not realize I was working under the table until I never received a w-2 (also true). I moved shortly after I stopped working there because I graduated from college (true) &, as I never did my own taxes before (true), it never occured to me that I had to file taxes DESPITE never receiving a w-2 (mostly true).

Anyway, I hadn't heard from the IRS....until Saturday. I owe another $2000 by July 6. Lucky me, right?

Urgh. I mean, I know I had it coming. But who didn't work under the table as a high school or college student?

I feel very depressed about this financial expenditure. I'm actually contemplating becoming a fiscal Conservative (completely separate from the Sarah Palin & religious right bullsh*t), since Republicans are at least averse to raising taxes... Although, on the flip side, I feel as though I will be needing the Democrats' welfare program, so perhaps I should re-think any drastic change in political party affiliation.

Woe is me.

Nephews

Here they are.... it appears as though I collected 2 of them. Oddly, I haven't yet fallen in love with the baby, ("C"), yet. It was love at first sight w the handsome 8 year old ("P"). I feel confused & guilty about this dichotomy.

Nonetheless, I attended cute-bottomed P's baseball game yesterday. Again, when I fail the bar, remind me of this. Whilst at the game, I fell IN LOVE with his chubby little teammate, "Xander," pictured below. I absolutely love chubby little boys. How cute is he??

For the record- I didn't intend to take this picture- my nephew is the kid on 3rd base (pictured slightly to the right). Xander walked in front of my cell phone, but I didn't mind.

Back to procrastinating.... Happy Sunday! I got the Sunday blues...

PMS

Today, I'm grumpy & tired. I felt fine after my coffee. But it went downhill from there.

Remember when you were young and had to live w your crazy mom? Remember how you knew the MOMENT she had PMS? I promised myself a few years ago that I would be (a) rational or (b) self-aware enough to know when I was being irrational & then apologize ASAP. I *think* that most of the time I remain sane & chipper. But sometimes I'll feel myself slip.

For example, J will ask, "M, where are the scissors?" Instead of saying, "In the drawer," I will respond, "Pause for a moment. If there were scissors ANYWHERE in the house, where do you think they might be?" J will pause & respond, "In the drawer." "BINGO!" I exclaim. And I usually don't apologize after this because I feel genuinely annoyed. Is this b*tchy? I remain on the fence.

Another tell tale sign I have PMS is I don't like to be touched by the dogs. Hannah will lay a little too close to my legs & Lou will keep rubbing back and forth on my shins as I sit at my desk. I get the creeps, kick Hannah out of the room & tell Lou to stop touching me.

I am the stuff out of which terrible mothers are made.

Sister-in-Laws

I have the WORST luck w sister-in-laws. It baffles me, as I consider myself truly a girl's girl & easy going. I've NEVER had trouble making friends.
My Brother's Wife (SIL 1)

Disclaimer: I'm working very hard on making this relationship work.

When they first started dating, I was in college & didn't give their relationship much thought. She seemed nice, innocent, easy going. I liked her because... why wouldn't I? And anyway, who cares, right? Then on a short plane ride to check out law schools, my mom informs me that she's beginning to suspect SIL 1 is clinically insane. SIL 1 was telling my brother she was secretly diagnosed with breast cancer & was hiding it from everyone, including her parents (Note: During her "chemo therapy" sessions, she was living at home, on her parents' insurance, & had a full head of hair). My brother was so worried he needed to tell someone. My mom was skeptical, as SIL 1 was at her house every single night by 6 and staying until 11:30 pm & did NOT look ANYTHING like someone who was undergoing intensive chemo-therapy. When my mom confronted SIL 1 about it, SIL 1 looked like a deer in headlights, stammering & explaining to my mom that she won an award for being the youngest cancer survivor at the hospital. Not a smart move because (a) my mom works at that very hospital & (b) my mom has also, believe it or not, heard of CHILDREN getting CANCER!

This lie snow-balled into mroe elaborate lies: The following Xmas, she told me that she was a stripper at 15 & had her own "private room" at the local strip club. I immediately told my OTHER brother, who informed me that that particular local strip club doesn't HAVE private rooms (nothing but class, all the way...). She also told me that at that time she became pregnant with a patron's baby, had a serious drug addiction (that she magically recovered from without incident) & currently was partying very hard behind my brother's back & "doing drugs." I bet that biotch has never even seen a joint. Interestingly enough, when it came time for them to get married, she asked ME to be her maid of honor. Awkard? Affirmative.

It's difficult to keep it real with someone who corners you at every holiday filled with such stories. I didn't REALLY mind... I mean, around this time, I showed up to every holiday stoned anyway. What can I say? But I always wished she were cooler. Like, someone I could have a real convo with. Because my brother rules.

SIL 2-

J's dreaded sister. She's 5 years older than me, painfully single. I liked her at first. We chatted on the phone, I felt like maybe she was misunderstood (her family is NOT among her biggest fans, J included). Until she began to make extraordinarily rude comments to me. I would tease my nephew, he would laugh (getting the joke), & SIL 2 would loudly ask, "M..... uhh.... why are you lying to a young child?" Yeah. How the f*ck do you respond to THAT one.

At a wedding, one of J's aunts was describing to me her breast cancer diagnosis when SIL 2 walks up & asks me to leave so that she may speak in private to her aunt (rolling her eyes at me). I drunkenly stumbled away, unaffected.

She also corners me at every holiday, telling me why she's so f*cked up: her dad isn't interested in her (while J's dad sitting 3 feet away!!!!), she has vague memories of being molested & nobody cares (bullsh*t), her dad hated her uneducated boyfriend so she broke up with him (15 years ago...) & she now realizes that this was her one true love (umm... yeah). She had J & I uninvited for dinner the last time she was home. For realz? I can handle the psychological melodrama but I canNOT handle the rudeness. So I stopped answering her calls.

Anyway, maybe it IS me. Maybe I'm asking for too much- in wanting a cool SIL that I can be friends with. Come to think of it, my quality of life was better when I showed up to holidays stoned & didn't give these random chicks a second thought. Damn my drug free, adult self!

And These Other Kids...

I also used to babysit for this family with 2 boys: Dylan & David (who, oddly, are now like 21 and 19). It was a young Jewish family & they were super, super friendly. They lived in my neighborhood, always ate Vienetta, & hung large, framed Ansel Adams pictures around their house. David had a serious overbite.

One evening, I found myself in need of a tampon, so I went into the bathroom & looked under the sink. She had a box full of what appeared to be tampons (long, thin, wrapped in white paper- standard). So I open one up, and inside is not a cotton tampon, but METAL. I wish I had a better visual of it. I decided she might be a robot. I started to panic. Were they spying on me? Would she know I knew her secret? Where was I going to put this opened metal tampon? After examining for an extended period of time, I stuffed it in my coat pocket to deal with later, sweating profusely....& still in need of a tampon.

To this day, I don't know if this is a special KIND of tampon (??), or something to clean out the drain with? If you have a clue: please advise. It's been 13 years, and I remain on the proverbial edge of my proverbial seat.

Anyway, the only other drawback of babysitting for this fam was the fact that she would try to have girl talk with me on the way home. These days, when someone, anyone wants to discuss child birth, periods, cramps, boobs- I'm on board: "How bad are your cramps? Have you ever thrown up? Did you find them to be worse than giving birth? Did you have a C-Section or natural birth? One of my college roommates gave birth in a hot tub! How big are your boobs?" But those days-- I was a bit more reserved. And I felt violated by these talks.

I vividly recall her walking me home at dusk, stating, "And soon you're gonna start going through changes ("& start wearing metal tampons?" I wondered), boys will be involved, and you'll have to start making seroius decisions..." & "Child-birth hurt very badly. Much worse than I thought it would."

At the time I couldn't get away from her fast enough, but these days, I kind of feel like we could be best friends. I'd have a million questions.....

Babysitting

So back in junior high, I baby sat like for like a million families & I believe that I genuinely enjoyed it and grew particularly fond of the kids. Especially one girl named Caitlin who had two brothers and was always up to no good. She reminded me of myself in a way.

I baby-sat for this particular family very regularly. I got the gig because our mothers worked together (which makes the ending of this story all the more painful and embarassing). At one point I was watching them every Wednesday evening because the mother worked second shift & the dad worked until probably about 630. Wednesdays were a half day for the school district, so I'd go over at like 2 and watch them until 630-700 or so. This went on for years. Until I was fired.

I hit an age- 14-15 maybe? Where I liked talking on the phone too much. So I arranged for the kids to watch a movie/play video games (they were older kids-- like 7, 9, 11 or something) while I chatted on the phone to some unnamed friend- no clue who. I know some ridiculous jr high drama was occurring & I, like, needed to talk on the phone with all these people to secure my place in the social world. Well, probably about 2 hours later, I get off the phone. It starts ringing. I pick it up and an angry (understandably so) mother is on the other end explaining to me how worried she had been for the past 2 hours. I hem & haw, making up a half excuse & apologize, PETRIFIED that she would tell my mom & I would be busted. She asked to talk to the oldest kid & I heard him tell her that I was on the phone.

After he got off the phone with her, I asked him why he told his mom. This kid is a boy scout-- I think I checked him out on MySpace during HIS senior year of high school & he posted a picture of himself wearing his super high ranking boy scout uniform (to give you an indication of how this kid probably felt about lying to his own, dear mother). He said to me, "M, it's true. You were talking on the phone for a long time." I obviously had no response.

The dad came home at the usual time & drove me home. I can't recall if he gave me a lecture or anything. I don't think so. He was very kind & very non-confrontational. (I recently found out that years after my babysitting experiences with them he went crazy- had all sorts of delusions about people spying on him/following him & had to take a leave of absence from his very good job. I feel really bad about this & hope that he has fully recovered).

Anyway, they never called me back. And, to make matters worse, they never told my mom. Obviously, neither did I. My mom never questioned it probably because I was getting older & less interested in watching other people's children and more interested in my own life. Either way, though, I always felt bad about the way things ended with this family because I really, truly liked them.

Yet Another Rant

I affirmatively decided to attend law school while working for the biggest f*cking b*tch I've ever met. I was very broke & very miserable & at that time, in a lukewarm relationship & to earn my sh*tty salary, I had to put up with some unbelievable abuse. Abuse sounds like a strong word, but in retrospect, I've concluded that that is precisely what her behavior amounted to. So, PH, I hope you are miserable &, frankly, maybe even physically ill, wherever you may be.

So I realized I might as well have a job where I make some money. Enter law school. The first year I worked my a$$ off. And the 2nd yr too. My grades were really good. I worked 2 jobs during the first summer out- both were awesome: 1 as an extern for a federal court judge & a 2nd as a waitress. I also landed an awesome gig after my 2nd yr resulting in an offer (which I totally loved). But it was downhill from there. My 3rd year f*cking sucked. I ran out of steam. I did whatever I had to do to get by- & begrudgingly- So even minimal work felt terribly hard. I was tired of missing out on things like Xmas parties (because that is finals time) & Mother's Day brunches (also finals time-- & I even hate Mother's Day!) & regular brunches with mimosas (bc I had to study later on that day!). I didn't want August off-- I wanted/want my life back during the rest of the year! I want weekends. My bitterness increased with the passing months. Every time I took the day off or attended a social event- in my mind I was "not studying." Or getting behind on homework-- which takes weeks to catch up on unless you pull a super long day. Miserable. The guilt is the worst.

My only happiness was the 6 day window between my last final & the day this bar class began. It's pretty f*cking pathetic when you are excited when the contractor building your porch informs you that you need to make a trip to Loew's to purchase a deadbolt. That happened to me this morning. I ecstatically drove to Loew's, Target, Manhattan Bagel. As my car neared my home- where books, practice exams, & the dullest of subjects.. anxiously awaited my glossed over eyes & deadened spirit, I drove more slowly, wondering if my life would ever again amount to something more than dread & disbelief at that future exam which lay before me.