LegalMama

Goodbye Natalie

Natalie died, and I've been very weepy since I heard.  I wrote about Natalie once before.  She's a woman I "knew" from inciid, which was the infertility site I visited many times a day when I was going through infertility, and then pregnancy and parenting.  Her daughter was born August 22, 2001, my son was born just a few days later.  Then later she had twins just a few months before I did.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2005, and she died yesterday.

I never met her.  I'm not sure if we ever even exchanged off-line e-mails.  But I am just devastated at her death. 

I know what it is like to lose a parent at that age -- I was 5 when my father died.  And I know how desperately my children love me and need me at this stage of their lives.  It just tears me up thinking about the pain they will suffer, and the pain Natalie must have suffered when there was nothing she could do to stay with them.  She fought so hard, but in the end, cancer won.

I have a lot of stresses in my life right now, many of them of my own making.  I have a lot going on today that I need to focus on, and I can't spend my day weeping about a beautiful stranger and her family.  So I thought I'd just get it out here and try and save it all to think about later.  I am going to focus on my work so I can spend more time with my kids. 

My son told me this morning that he wished I was like other mothers he knows who don't go to work.  I said well, you are in school all day anyway while I am at work, but he said that he wishes that I could be home when he came home.  I worked at home one day recently, and he was so excited when I greeted him at the door after school.   

I have been working late all week, and they really do miss me when I am not there.  It was much easier when they were younger, they didn't care as much.  People want to stay hom when their kids are babies, but I think their need for us grows, not lessens, as they get older.  I never used to want to stay home and not work, but more and more I wish I could.  Of course, I may have no choice, as I worry about my job in this current atmosphere.  So I have to remember that there would be a bright side to me losing my job, and that would be the extra time I get to spend with my kids. 

It is absolutely heartbreaking that Natalie will never be there again when her kids come home from school. 

I hope Natalie got to say a beautiful goodbye to her beautiful children, but I know there are no words that could ever suffice.

Life is so cruel sometimes. 

Rebecca

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier. 

This book is on "the list."  I kept checking it and unchecking it.  I've seen the Hitchcock movie many times, and I thought I'd read the book years ago, but not positive if I was confusing the book and movie.  So I saw it on a table in Barnes & Noble, and decided to pick it up and read it, just to keep myself honest.  I thought I'd enjoy it, even if I'd read it before.  And I did.  And I'm still not sure if I've read it before.  The movie follows the book so closely that I just couldn't be sure. 

I thought it would be sort of trashy, but it was actually quite good. 

The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble next.  Maybe with Beloved by Toni Morrison at the same time.  One for home, one for the office. 

The latest from "the list"

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien

I said in my last post on "the list" that I was going to read "House of the Spirits" or "Beloved" next.  They fall a bit into the "requires mental effort" school of fiction, although not in the "Ulysses" category, of course.  I wasn't really in the mood for mental effort, so I picked up The Things They Carried at lunch time yesterday, and I am just about finished.  One thing (the ONLY thing) I like about commuting again is that I get uninterrupted reading time each day, time that I don't have to feel guilty about.  So between lunch yesterday, the subway/train ride home last night and the subway/train ride in this morning, I'm just about finished.

Great book.  Not a novel.  Supposed to be a collection of short stories, but does not read that way at all.  Called a work of fiction, but feels more like non-fiction.  I think it is a mix of all of those.  Not a novel because there is no "plot" so to speak, but all the "stories" are connected and refer back to each other, involve the same characters, proceed in essentially, although not strictly, chronological order.  Non-fiction, plus.  Calling it fiction gives the author power, power to shape the stories as he sees fit, to alter them here or there, to make them tell the story of the Viet Nam war the way he wants to tell it, without fear of being called out on for failing to tell the "truth."  Allows the author to step in and out, as in the Notes to Speaking of Courage.  Powerful and moving.  So glad I read it.

I hate to give this "list" so much power or credibility.  It is hardly definitive, it includes many minor works, too much recent fiction, no drama, leaves off great books, etc.  But it is giving me direction, leading me to gems I would otherwise have missed.  I walked past this book at the bookstore, and vaguely remebered that it was on "the list" so I picked it up.  Most likely would not have even paused on it had it not been on "the list."  So thanks, list. 

Also finished "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" a week or so ago.  Don't have it here, so I forget the author's name.  Another book that I had seen sitting on the shelves for a while, but never felt the urge to pick it up.  They carried it in the newsstand in my old office, which sometimes was my only source of books for lunchtime reading.  I saw it was on the list, so I bought it.  Enjoyed it immensely.  Definitely falls into the "not much mental effort required" category.  I don't mean that label to diminish this or any other book. Not at all.  I just mean that the story grabs you quickly, the structure is linear and easy to follow, not too many characters to keep straight, etc.  Sometimes straight out is the best way to tell a story.   

Curious Incident is written as if by a boy with Aspberger's syndrome, which is a high-functioning form of autism.   I found it quite compelling.  I did a little reading afterward, and found that people in the Aspberger community found it to be an inaccurate portrayal.  Not sure if they are just nit-picking, or if the book is totally off-base.  I enjoyed it either way, on a lot of levels.  I wish I had the time and energy to write full-blown reviews of the books I'm reading, but honestly I had only meant to keep a list of what I was reading and when so I could go back and look at it someday.  So I'll leave it at these brief remarks. 

Probably should focus more on my work, so off I go. 

Books

I'm on a kick of reading the "great books," the ones that you are "supposed" to read.  I am a huge reader, but I read too much crap, and there are too many great books that I have never read.

I've found a few lists of great books, and I'll use those as a guide.  One list had more than 1000 great books.  I have read a few more than 120 of them.  Not horrible, but not great. 

I just finished Thomas Mann's "A Death in Venice."  Sort of cheating because it is only 75 pages, a novella.  But I happened to have it in my bookcase, have had it for years, but never read it, and it is on "the list," so I read it.  Enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Started off slow, but picked up.  It was just the right length.  Nowadays, someone would take this little story, of obsession and abandon that was really just a tragic vignette in a life and made it into a 250 page novel, because no one really reads short stories any more. 

August 6, 2008:  I just finished reading "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood.  I started it several times, and didn't get into it right away, and mostly likely would have put it down forever if I had not gotten on this "great books" kick.  It is on "the list," and since I'd started it, I decided to give it another go.  It is a story within a story within a story, and it was hard at first to follow exactly what was going on.  But I persevered, and was well rewarded.  It was wonderful, masterful, I really enjoyed it, although it was quite sad.  I've gotten a little lazy, and have to remind myself that reading a great book sometimes takes a little mental effort.  Not sure I will have the mental energy to tackle Faulkner until my kids are older, but I will try.

Now, I am certainly not going to limit myself to "the list," particularly because the list is only of novels, and I am a great lover of non-fiction, and, I will admit, of popular trash, and sometimes, even better, popular non-fiction trash.  I guess I will keep this post as a running post and update it with my latest books.  It will be fun to look back and see what I've written.  Probably won't have time for actual reviews.

So, in addtion to "The Blind Assassin," I just finished a book on mountain climbing, by Ed Viesturs.  I forget the title, I'll have to go look it up, but it was about his quest to climb the 14 peaks over 8000 meters.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it made me like a slug.  Not because I'm not out climbing mountains, but because I feel that I just float through this world, taking life as it comes, while someone like Ed is setting serious goals and working hard to achieve them.  Shouldn't I be doing that?  Why can't I?  I'm approaching my 45th birthday and my 10th anniversary, and doing a little navel-gazing as a consequence, and feeling that I've wasted a lot of time. 

I've also recently finished "The Diana Chronicles" by Tina Brown.  I thought this would have fallen into the popular trash category, but it was really quite well-written, and thought-provoking.  Much less biased than previous books on the topic, much more journalistic in style than other books that I have read.  Strange, this fascination that so many people, me included, have for the life of this one charismatic, but deeply flawed woman.  Can't help it, I do.  I actually found it hard to sleep after reading about the night that she died, and how many stupid mistakes led to that accident.  I remember when she died, and I was just about to get engaged.  Of course, at the time, not knowing all the facts of her life, and the fact that Dodi was mostly likely just a fling for her, I thought she'd finally found her true love.  I thought it such a tragedy that she'd finally had real happiness in her grasp, and it had been taken away from her.  One of my work colleagues could not stop crying over her two sons losing their mother.  I am ashamed to say that I was a bit "yeah, year, whatever" about that.  Now, as a mother, that is what I found so sad about the whole story, those boys having their mother taken from them.  Children lose their mothers every day, all over the world, in circumstances far more tragic, yet it still haunts.  Why?  I guess all the photos and media obsession made us feel as if we knew her, as if we had lost a friend. 

Well, anyway, next up I have "Beloved," and "The House of the Spirits," I think.   

I have giant holes in my brick walls

I got home from work at an ungodly hour last night.  Couldn't wait to see the windows, but there are no lights in my kitchen, so I stumbled around in the half light to see.

I'm so glad we did this.  Now, when I stand at the sink, I will be able to see my kids playing in the backyard. 

Kitchens at the time my house was built served such a different function than they do now.  Sure there was a window.  Maybe the sink was even under this window.  But the window was so high that you couldn't see into the backyard well unless you stood on tippy toes, and not so well even then.  It didn't look weirdly high.  It was only noticeable when you tried to see if the kids were still there and alive, or if the car was parked in the driveway.  (The giant circular driveway, which takes up most of my backyard, is the subject of another post.  It was clearly designed for a horse and buggy to turn around.  Lots of houses had them, I think mine is the only one in the neighborhood that still has it.) 

I guess the lady of the house didn't stand at the window much. I assume that there was a cook.  Or maybe the kids (or kid, in the case of my house) didn't play in the backyard.  Or if she did, no one felt the need to be able to see her.  The horse that would have been parked back there is taller than a car, so it would not have been hard to see the horse from that window.  I'd love to know more about how that all worked.   

My first contractor, who did some work on the house for us, practically refused to lower the window.  He said that the giant block of stone that is the base of the window was too big.  (This has a name, I just can't remember it.  Not the sill, something else.  No time to google.)  Anyway, he seemed to think it was immovable, unbreakable.  He implied that it would be a hugely expensive task. Clearly, it was just too much of a pain in the ass for him.  This contractor said "pshaw" to that, and my KD said "you HAVE to lower the window."  I honestly don't know how much we paid for this project, I don't know if it was even a line item.  But it is done.  And apparently, based on reports of earthquakes in the house yesterday, it was a huge pain in the ass.  But it is wonderful.  I stood where someday I will have a sink, and could see the whole backyard.  The house suddenly feels so much less oppressive.  I never want to let the kids play outside unless I am actually out there with them.  (My husband does not feel so constrained.  I'm surprised he's never lost one out there.)  Now, I can imagine them playing on the swings, while I putter around, a simple glance out the window telling me that they are just fine.

When I inspected my new window in the dark last night, the kitchen felt really cold, like there was a door open somewhere, but the giant piece of plywood was nailed across what will someday be a doorway, so I just went to bed.  It was surprisingly cold in the house this a.m.  No wonder.  When I went into the kitchen in the light, I saw that there is a large hole in the brick wall where the gas range will be vented.  I knew the range had to be vented.  Just never really thought about the fact that that would require cutting a hole in the 15-inch brick walls.  I think that had a lot to do with the noise and dust yesterday.  I hope it doesn't look really ugly from the outside.  My poor neighbors. 

We're making progress.

   

I think I'll come back and hang out in the kitchen for while

I stopped blogging last summer because I found myself feeling very constrained in writing about the things that were on my mind, for fear of being "found out."  I tried when I first started doing this to "disguise" myself, but I had a hard time keeping it up, and anyone who knows me and read this blog would know this is "me" very quickly. This started to become a problem for me.  The biggest things going on in my life, that I wanted to muse about, were related to my job, my firm, and my career, and I just didn't feel comfortable blogging about them.  Blogging about your job is always fraught with peril. 

You don't necessarily want your boss to read about how much you hate your job, or your boss, or how much you are goofing off.  Dooce, a mommy blogger, famously lost her job because of things she wrote on her blog.  And airing internal politics is especially dangerous.  There were very big things afoot careerwise in the fall last year, much of which was truly confidential, and it would have been wrong, even a breach of my fiduciarly duties, to write about it on a public forum.  Even trying to leave out the names to protect the innocent didn't feel safe.  So last summer and fall I wrote many posts about my life, and my career, and how I felt about it all, but I could never seem to hit "publish," so I just stopped, kept those as my private diary.  And because I couldn't write about the things that were occupying my mind most of the day, I just stopped writing. 

The culmination of all the turmoil is that I have a new job, at a new firm that is about 10 times the size of my old firm.  I came to this new firm with lots of people from my old firm.  It was a painful break for many of us.  I'm commuting to NY on a daily basis now.  It is different, in some ways that are good and some ways that are bad, and I think I'll leave it at that.

What brings me back now is my latest obsession -- my kitchen.  And my porch.  And my driveway, and my basement, and my vesitbule, and my stairs.  And light fixtures.  Paint colors.  Porch roof.  All of it. My description of this blog includes restoring my Victorian house, but I haven't written about it much. But the house is such a force in my life that it deserves commentary.  In fact, it is occupying so much of my energy and emotion right now think I need to write about it.  No one reads this anyway, so it is really like talking to myself, and I don't have to feel so stupid for obsessing so much.  It is like going to therapy.  Therapy is so great because it is the one place you don't have to feel bad about spending all your time talking about yourself. 

I was inspired to do this by a blog written by Susan Serra, a very talented kitchen designer, www.thekitchendesigner.org (oh how I wish I had found her blog sooner). She recently had a couple of posts about the Dream House Diaries, a "blog" by a couple building their supposed "dream house" in a town in Florida.  One could hardly call it a blog, there was no give and take, it was incredibly impersonal, etc.  But it had a pretty big following, lots of comments, mostly by people who seemed to hate what this couple was doing with their house.  When I first read it, I thought that people were just so nasty, and I found it almost offensive, but after reading more, I realized that these folks were shouting into the wind, which I think made it easier for them to be brutally honest.  There were no retorts from the bloggers, no protests of hurt feelings, so people just fired away.  Pictures of the end result of this house prove that the negative comments were mostly warranted.  It is an okay house.  But it has so many mistakes, blatant, ugly, unfixable mistakes.  Anyway, reading this "blog," made me wish that I had been blogging the process of renovating our house, designing the kitchen, etc.  I know that I could not bear all the criticism the Dream House Diaries couple got, but I've never had more than a handful of commenters, and those mostly from mommy bloggers, so there' s not much danger of that happening anyway. 

We're actually pretty far along in our renovation now.  We've had our plumbing, building and electrical inspections (and passed, thank goodness!).  A new subfloor has been installed.  Insulation is going in later this week.  Windows are being installed today.  Pretty exciting, the first time something new and pretty will actually go in. 

I think I'll go back and talk about how we got here, a bit at a time.  It may help someone, if anyone ever reads this.  And it will definitely help me.  I've been going slightly insane, worrying about how it will all turn out, having second thoughts about so many decisions, feeling paralyzed about other decisions. 

As I said on another blog, this has been such a long process, it feels like I am about to give birth, and I'm so worried that my baby won't be healthy, that there will be something wrong.  I think I also felt this way before my wedding.  There was so much planning, so much money spent, so many details.  I tried not to think of it as "THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF MY LIFE" but it was the biggest party I had ever thrown, and I was a wreck.  I didn't need everything to be perfect, but I didn't want to have any regrets.      

Because of my increasing insanity, we asked our kitchen designer to meet with us this weekend.  I had been feeling very worried about how things were going to turn out, and felt that the process was getting away from us, so we met with him on Sunday morning, to go over all the details of the design again, the timetable for completion, etc.  I had mis-remembered some things, and in going over all the details, there were some things I wished we'd done differently, but it is too late now, so I won't dwell. 

Overall, I feel much better now than I did a week or so ago, when I left a bit of a vent on Susan Serra's blog about my kitchen and where it was headed.   Our KD brought two of our actual cabinet doors with him, and they looked really nice, to my relief.  Our main kitchen cabinet color is a creamy white with a charcoal glaze, and our island and butler's pantry are natural cherry.  The doors looked beautiful, especially the cherry doors, which made me happy.  We made some choices based on cost, and I was beginning to worry that, with all the money we are spending, our cabinets would look cheap, but they really looked good.  Our designer also brought one of our actual floor tiles, which also looked very nice, if browner than I remembered.  We are doing a terra cotta floor, which has me a bit worried in terms of maintenance and durability, but I love the look.  The sample we saw in the store had a shiny glaze, and we asked for a more satin glaze, and it looked great.   

I have to actually do some work, so I can't go back in time now.  But maybe later tonight, I will try and go back and start from the beginning. 

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a very old house, with a very small and unattractive kitchen, and a family who dreamed of something better. . . .

Sometimes I just know it when I see it

I have spent countless hours looking for sconces for our butler's pantry.  There is a swinging door between the butler's pantry and the dining room, and there is only 5 inches of clearance for a sconce, so it has been a fairly arduous search for a sconce that I like and that won't project from the wall too much.  This sconce projects only 4 inches from the wall, so it should be okay. 

I like this because it is a nice mix of classic and modern.  And it is 22 inches tall, which is pretty dramatic.  Of course, I'm not exactly sure if that is going to look way too big and silly, so I ordered an alternate selection in case I don't end up liking this in person.

Not counting the minutes

Tomorrow is my birthday.  There is nothing even remotely exciting about having birthdays at my age. 

I feel particularly negative about this birthday because I am feeling particularly negative about my life. 

Oh, my life really is great in so many ways.  I have the most amazing kids, who I love so much more than I ever thought it possible to love anyone or anything.  They make me proud every day, and I feel so increbibly luck to have them, every day.  I have a great husband, who is a great father, who I love very much, and I think our marriage is strong, although I wish it were more romantic.  I could not ask for more. 

I love our house, and the lives we are making for ourselves in our town.  Four years ago, I could not imagine anything worse than having to move out of NYC to the suburbs.  Much to my surprise, I don't miss living in NYC at all, and if I won the Mega Millions drawing, I would not move back.  When we thought about moving out of the city, we always thought that some day we'd move back if we could afford a spacious-enough home.  When I have my not-infrequent fantasies about winning the lottery, I no longer ever think about buying a place in the city.  It took me a while to realize that it really no longer held any appeal for me.

Our life in our little neighborhood is nearly perfect, at least as far as the kids go.  There are lots of kids in our neighborhood who are the same ages as our kids.  We have new neighbors across the street, and our kids are always running back and forth to each other's houses.  And lately they have been playing with the kids next door, too.  Yesterday, a big gang of kids were playing in the next door neighbor's yard, and playing in the loft in their garage, which they called their club house.  I could not ask for anything more for my kids.  It brings back memories of my own youth, hanging out on my block with all my friends through the long, lazy summers.  They would not have this in NYC.  Sure, they would have other things, like weekly trips to the Natural History Museum, but we do live less than 20 miles from the city, so it isn't as if they will never go there, although we go far less often than I had thought we would. 

I love our house.  But it is such a money pit, and we have so much work to do on it, and so much furniture, artwork, light fixtures, window treatments, etc. still to buy for it after two years, not to mention landscaping, hardscaping, and just regular maintenance.  There is never enough money.  And I am so tired of my job, my career, my profession that I almost can't stand it for one more minute.  My husband's company is doing really well, so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel for me, but the tunnel is very long, even if things continue to go well, it will be a very long time until I get to the end of that tunnel, unless we want to give up the house, summer camp for the kids, etc.  And I don't want to give those things up.  And sometimes, particularly the night before my birthday, I see my life passing me by.

Because here I am in the office on a Sunday, where I have been all day, overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do, and the pressure I am under, and so bored with what I am doing, and so overwhelmed, that it takes longer than it should to get things done.  And I wonder how much more I can take, and whether anything is worth this.

Sure, I have good days.  Friday was very busy, but the day went quickly, and things went well, and I managed to get everything done in time to get home for my husband's little birthday party.  But I am tired, I don't want to be here, and I have no choice really. 

This has been an awful year at work.  Between the bar exam, and the big writing project, and the need to make up billable hours because of those two things, I have spent a huge amount of time in the office, and I'm worn out.  And I see no light at the end of this tunnel.  The only way to change things here, I think, is to leave here.  If I could find a job that paid even half of what I am making here, for normal hours, I would consider it.  But despite looking, I haven't come up with anything like that.  I am trapped.  I saw a reasonably interesting job listing today, for a job that pays 25% of what I am currently making.  Maybe some day we could afford that, but not yet.  And I am getting older and older, and it will be harder and harder for me to find a new job. 

And having so few options makes me feel old.  And I never used to feel old.   

But I have to focus on all the many things I have to be grateful for, and I have to remember that, as trapped as I feel, I am where I am by choice.  We could move to a more modest home, take more modest vacations, etc., and get by on a lot less.  My mother worked hard her whole life just to put food on the table.  But knowing that I have chosen this life doesn't make me any less tired. 

So I'm going to stop whining, and start writing, and finish my brief and go home.  And I'm sure by the time I leave here, it really will be my birthday.  So happy birthday to me. 

   

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/04/toddlers.carolina.ap/index.html

The bar exam is tomorrow

And I'm glad I'm not taking it! 

Good luck to all you first-time takers and especially to all the re-takers out there.  Keep your head and you'll do fine.  Get some sleep.  And know that almost everyone feels unprepared and worried that they will fail.  It is normal to feel that way, and it doesn't mean that you really are unprepared and going to fail! 

And most important of all, don't forget that, no matter what happens, in a few days it will be over, and out of your hands until the results come in.