Aging

I am twenty-eight years old. I can say that for only so much longer, so I am saying it as much as I can. Twenty-eight, twenty-eight, twenty-eight.

The Captain's thirtieth birthday is also this week; his day has taken precedence over mine, of course. Twenty-nine is still a significant number, [FN1] however, so I offer some reflections on my twenty-eighth year:

It was pretty good! Lots of great things happened: I ran my first half-marathon, the Red Sox won the World Series, I achieved anonymous fame by way of this blog, I graduated from law school, and I moved in with the Captain.

(I took the bar, too, but that wasn't a great thing. Here's hoping that twenty-nine will bring news of my admission.)

Twenty-eight, twenty-eight, twenty-eight...
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FN1. The Chinese, for example, consider the nines (19, 29, 39) more auspicious than the whole decades. The word for nine, jiu, sounds like a word meaning longevity and long duration. On the other hand, the word for the decades, shi, sounds like the word for death. I think that's all I really need to say about that.

Grad student redux

I am sitting in a cafe and I am blogging.

How cliched is that?

In truth I am surprised it has taken this long for me to do this. The sweltering heat probably has something to do with that; I was a prisoner of central air-conditioning until about a week ago. Now that I don't need to bring a handkerchief wherever I go, though, I've found the neighborhood to be pleasant indeed. At the moment I am sitting beneath a bookcase stocked with back-issues of Bon Appetit, Food&Wine, and Gourmet Magazine. More importantly, a collection of delicious cupcakes sits on the other side of the wall. It could be a long time before I head back to P St...

As an aside, I note that I am only one of many people sitting with a laptop. There must be seven or eight of us; there are definitely more laptop-users than plain old coffee drinkers. When it comes to computer make, however, I am definitely in the minority. That's right, almost everyone else has a Mac.

It's a brand new world.

Get a job

Two days ago I applied for a job...at Banana Republic. I saw they were hiring, and thinking my rotted brain could handle retail at least, I filled out an application.

I'm not optimistic.

The manager was very friendly, but as he scanned my employment history, he got a very quizzical look on his face. He thought he saw some retail experience, but dummy that I am, I swiftly corrected him, "I'm a lawyer." Then I explained that my full-time job didn't start until January and that I was just looking for short-term work. He seemed to understand, but I left feeling...well, dumb. Especially because I do have retail experience, at that fabled Princetonian institution, Thomas Sweet. I just conveniently forgot to mention it either on my application or to the manager in person.

It's all right. On my way home I saw that the Gap, Zara, and Restoration Hardware are hiring, too.

Yeowww!

Per CaliSeaStar's suggestion, I took an ice bath yesterday after my long run. Lucky for me she sent along an article instructing me how to do it correctly and even luckier for me, I read it.

Truth 1: It's an ice bath in name only; the water needs to be between 50 and 60F. I'm a fairly literal person; without proper instruction I probably would have unloaded my ice trays into the bath tub and then suffered the consequences.

Truth 2: There can be consequences. When I mentioned to the Captain I was doing an ice bath, he told me that crew kids have died when jumping into rivers after long, hard races. Great.

Truth 3: It's better with a lifeguard. While most people don't die upon taking their ice baths, some people do faint, so having a buddy nearby is a good idea. This was a particular concern for me, as I have been known to faint, in public, without so much as a drop of cold water - or alcohol! - nearby.

Truth 4: Yeowwww! Ice baths are cold. But I am feeling much better today, so thanks Cali. See you soon.

Badge of Honor

There is a lot of time between taking the bar and starting my job. To kill all this time, I chose to run a marathon. Some people travel, some people stay on the couch, but I, I chose to run twenty-six miles. Because I wanted to.

This makes me wonder about myself.

It takes a certain amount of nerve to run a distance associated with a soldier who died after running it. It also takes a certain amount of denial, which I am not so sure is different from nerve. When my knees and my ankles ache at the end of the run and when I barely can climb the stairs at the end of the day, for example, I practice a form of denial.

Whatever.

The marathon is at the end of October, and I have been training since...not enough ago. But I’ve been working hard and I have the hat to prove it. I almost don’t want to wash it.

Living with Boys

Several nights ago, I went out to dinner with a large group of friends, and as often happens with large groups of friends, some of us got our entrees before others. I got my entree fairly early, while the man seated next to me got his fairly late. He urged the rest of us to start, saying he was a fast eater so we didn't have to worry. He told us he'd grown up in a house with two brothers, where the only way to get seconds was to get them first.

I didn't grow up with two brothers. I also try to eat slowly so I don't overeat. Now that I am living with TWO big boys, however, I need to pick up my game. Food just has a way of disappearing around here.

Smarty pants

Tonight we celebrated Dr. Caro's birthday. She was my roommate in college and is now a rocket scientist.[FN1] Sixteen of her friends assembled for the festivities, and at some point over dinner, someone noticed that of us sixteen, six had PhDs.

I thought this tremendous. Having been questioned over and over again for getting not one but two advanced degrees, I found it absolutely. refreshing. to be one of the less-educated people at dinner.

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FN1. More or less. Her card doesn't say "Rocket Scientist," but her department is Space Exploration, so good enough.

In Memoriam

The legal world has lost a shining star.

Charlie Whitebread was a legend, a very present help in times of trouble (i.e., BarBri). Without him, I never would have known about glib understanding, and this blog never would have had all the traffic it had.

Thanks, Charlie.

Smile and wave

Today I crossed a street.

I mention this because any Bostonian knows that pedestrians have the right of way when crossing the street. It could be rush hour in Harvard Square with cars bumper to bumper behind innumerable red lights, but if an uppity little undergraduate wants to cross the street, then everything must - and will - stop for her. Any Bostonian knows this. Any guest of a Bostonian knows this as well. When I took a group of friends around Boston this spring, one of them marveled, "You're just gonna walk into traffic?!" Well, yeah.

Conversely, any non-Bostonian knows that pedestrians don't have the right of way. Maybe the statutes say otherwise, but the reality is that cars rarely, if ever, yield to crossing pedestrians. This can spell trouble for former Bostonians. Georgetown is riddled with four-way stop signs but cars rarely ever stop. So far, I have not been deterred. My Bostonian feet just walk into traffic. I'm sure this will result in some sort of honk-and-scream, and today I thought it had come.

With no cars in sight, I stepped into the crosswalk. An SUV pulled up right as I reached the middle. It honked. I looked up and expected to see a red-faced shirt type furious with my audacity (even though, when I looked, I hadn't seen anybody). Instead I saw four young and very handsome Georgetown students, each smiling and waving. Not knowing what to do, I smiled and waved back.

Later I asked the Captain, a Georgetown graduate himself, was that just a custom? Some sort of south-of-the-Mason-Dixon courtesy everyone learns at orientation? Or had I somehow crossed the line into cougar-ville and those fine young men had taken notice?

He said cougar. Thanks, honey.

Rah, rah, Brunonia.

Sarah Rosenthal '11: The Palin-ization of Brown - Columns

Putting aside the fact that the author is from the Class of 2011, her piece is a clever satire.

Well done, Ms. Rosenthal. And hey, at least we're the same reunion year.

Feeling at home

Right now, the Captain and the Genius are downstairs in the living room and watching a movie together. I am upstairs in my bed and thinking about how much fun I had today and how much more at home at feel in my new environs.

It probably helped my mood that today was a rest day on my marathon training regimen.

Even if I'd had to do a training run, though, today couldn't be beat. To start, and as I said before, the Captain and the Genius are downstairs watching a movie together. I find this adorable. The Captain might be fixing up a beat-up house and trying to find a job, but he still takes time to take care of his little brother. Reason #49810 I am glad I went to that bar review two years ago.

Second, I found a fantastic, delicious, affordable sushi place in DuPont circle. Ms. J dreams of someday eating sushi with impunity, and I definitely resonate with that dream. Today, however, I needn't have worried about cost because the lunch special I had was so fresh and so expertly executed I thought I had died and gone to gustatory heaven. Even better than the food itself, though, was the discovery of the restaurant. It was packed...with locals. Scarcely a tourist in the joint; it was filled to the gills with professionals on their lunch hours. I felt so proud to have found a place claimed by the locals. It's only been two weeks for me, but I'm trying to learn as quickly as I can.

Things you don't think about

After living by myself for three years, I was apprehensive about moving into a place with two, soon to be three, new roommates. I was worried about all the usual roommate worries: dishes in the sink, leaving on the lights, late rent payments.

So far, it's been all right. (It's also only been one week.) But there is at least one thing I didn't think about, when moving from a studio apartment to a three-story townhouse: having to lock the door when I'm in the bathroom. That's a habit I'll have to revive.

My ride

I love public transport. Really. Even with its interminable delays and innumerable service interruptions, I love public transport because when it is working well, which is more often than you think, it offers a valuable, valuable service. It is a service so valuable I cannot believe I get to use it. It is, to me, magic.

My love for public transport stems directly from my hatred for driving. I love public transport so much because I get to have someone else do what I most abhor, and for a paltry, paltry sum at that. With me, riding the bus has nothing to do with not being able to afford a car of my own, but everything to do with not being able to afford another minute of road rage. Indeed, I road the bus to church yesterday in all of my newfound Georgetown splendor: silk dress, patent flats, cashmere wrap, pearls. Did I look a little out of place? Maybe, but only because it was my first time on that particular bus and I didn’t know exactly where it picked up.

I love public transport.

Church

Today I went to church, and it was great. As some of you know, one of the only disappointments I had with Boston was that I never found a suitable church. I more or less grew up Presbyterian, and Boston is so Catholic a town that few people even know what a Presbyterian is. Week after week I would try various Protestant churches, some as far as Wellesley, in hopes that I’d find a new church home. I never did, and I gave up somewhere around final exams 1L year.

Imagine my delight, then, when I found online a Presbyterian church near Metro Center that described itself as all-inclusive and outlined its homeless ministries right on its home page. I found that incredibly telling, that the church’s mission to the needy was so important it appeared front and center, rather than behind a link. To Metro Center I went.

I loved it. It was a small, [FN1] but robust congregation. A man with a beautiful tenor voice sat down next to me and sang the hymns with such sincerity I thought his singing another form of prayer. An elderly woman on the other side of me asked me if I ever had been to that church before, and whether I had met any of their “young people.” The Associate Pastor was a young woman, perhaps even younger than I, whose updates about the life of the church were so thorough and so earnest I was inspired. The only downside was that the preaching was mediocre, and had any of my mentors from Princeton been there with me, they probably would have turned up their noses. Thankfully, I am not so exacting after three years without a church home.

To Metro Center I’ll return.

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FN1. My idea of small is probably skewed. My church in New York had 3,400 members.

Only in Washington

The Captain and I went to dinner the other night with the Coxswains, two of his friends from college and now two of my friends as well. As we were making our way to the Tombs (I put that in for the Hoyas), we saw a young man wearing a bright red hat walking towards us. We paid him no mind as we passed him by, but he immediately recognized Mr. Cox and wanted to catch up. By now I was close enough to see that the friendly young man was wearing no ordinary hat, but... a hat for McCain.

I think it shows how thoroughly flawed the Republican nominee is this year that my Captain, a gun-toting, Bronze star veteran who voted for the President - both times - said to me later, "At first I thought that hat was ironic, because surely, no one would have actually worn that in public."

All-American Family

As I mentioned last night, the Captain and I have moved into a townhouse with his youngest brother, the Genius. What I didn't mention is that the Genius has special needs which warrant some supervision. He's remarkably intelligent, hence his alias, but he still benefits from the occasional reminder about social norms and the like.

He also benefits from the Captain's supervision of his homework. The Genius is a math major so he doesn't require any actual help from either of us. But when the Captain asked the Genius about whether he'd reviewed his homework, the Genius paused, then replied, "I'll be back." Next he proceeded up the stairs to prepare more thoroughly for class.

Which prompted me, of course, to remark that our new set-up felt like the all-American family: a house, a college-aged "son," a (potential) dog.

It's good practice.

My new digs

I'm a Washingtonienne! This morning I boarded the train from NJ to DC and officially moved into the townhouse in Georgetown. I've moved in with the Captain, and even though we've been planning this for weeks, only today did it occur to me that we were moving in together. The Captain's baby brother lives here, too, so I suppose that's why I hadn't thought of it as moving in together - I was just getting two new roommates. When my feet crossed the threshold, however, it hit me: the Captain and I are a cohabitating couple.

Wowie.

This new reality will sink in over time. Until then, some reflections on my new digs:
I love it. There's free transportation to the center of town, and I'm walking distance from all sorts of fun amenities: the gym (yes, I already have a gym), a running shop, two bike shops, a shopping mall, a cupcake shop, and...A RED SOX BAR.

There is a Red Sox bar just blocks from my house. I am thrilled. The Captain already has warned me that it's really a meat market, but I'm a tough cookie. I'll keep my eye on the ball.