renegadeRICEcracker

kiss my ass

congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud


which happy bunny are you?
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bleh. i am tired and hungover. yesterday we had our big party of the summer, which was island themed and involved various types of leis. afterward we all went to a co-worker's house for the after-party, where we drank, played pool, and got into the hot tub. this co-worker keeps a ton of extra swimsuits around so that when he has parties anyone who wants to get in can, but, of course, being a guy, he only has trunks and bikinis. as such, i believe yesterday was the first time i had ever worn a bikini in my life. it was fine -- it has been a long time since i've been in a hot tub as cool as this guy's, and the drinking continued in the water, and all was good.

i had a random dream last night in which sue johansen of talk sex called me and we had a conversation, and then i was watching tv and they had edited the conversation to make it look like i had called in about something all personal and they used my full name.

anyway.

i saw saved! on friday. it was good, but a little too schizophrenic. it was marketed as an anti-christian movie and is pretty harsh on the christian characters, but it also wanted to grapple with important social issues faced by teens, expose hypocratic unquestioning faith and show the kids emerge with *true* faith. the end result for me was that there was too much seriousness to comfortably laugh at the *bad christians* the movie was making fun of, but because the movie was also trying to be light and satirical it was not really in depth enough to really cover the issues it wanted to (on the movie site it discusses how he was trying to show bad faith/good faith). i think in order to really laugh at how he breaks some of the characters down you have to have a pretty existant anti-christianity streak such that you revel in watching someone's faith be exposed as hypocritical or false -- in a pretty mean way. i don't know. i probably just had too high of expectations. it was a good movie. i kind of want to watch it again in order to figure out what i think of it.

pre-1985 video game character

I am a Defender-ship. I am fiercely protective of my friends and loved ones, and unforgiving of any who would hurt them. Speed and foresight are my strengths, at the cost of a little clumsiness. I'm most comfortable with a few friends, but sometimes particularly enjoy spending time in larger groups. What Video Game Character Are You?

(If I was not a Defender-ship I would be Pacman.)

I am Pacman. I am an aggressive sort of personality, out to get what I can, when I can. I prefer to avoid confrontation, but sometimes when it's called for, I can be a powerful character. I tend to be afflicted with munchies constantly. What Video Game Character Are You?

shifting gears.

can't complain anymore, looks like i am not going to be able to get a change because they want to train my secretary to be a litigation secretary. oh well. time to shift into positive thinking about, i don't know, how this will build character.

ack! i'm scared.

so the head secretary woman and the office manager want to meet with me this morning at 10. this scares the crap out of me because there is also the office relocation request in the air -- if they are unhappy with me they could really mess with me and move me somewhere i don't want to be.

plus i'm scared because the lady was so confrontational last time. aw man, i hate this.

the trouble-maker

i think i have been deemed the whiny trouble-maker with the office and secretarial managers. this worries me because my general understanding is that it's bad if people who have control over your workspace hate you.

what's sad is i don't quite understand what i did to bring this on. a few months ago, when a co-worker left, everyone told me to request her office. so i did. after they told me i could have it, it turns out that they made an offer to a special counsel, so i wasn't going to move (probably) after all. fine. we still haven't heard from him, so who knows what is happening now, but my impression is that they are sick of me, so i expect to stay here or have them move me somewhere i really don't want to be rather than into this empty office that i love.

a month or so later, we had a big problem with filing, which i wrote about before. this was on top of numerous problems that i've had with my secretary because she doesn't know litigation. putting aside any grievances about how she tends to let things slide until the last minute because she spends a lot of time on the phone, i find it takes much longer than usual to get anything done because i have to either look it all up and explain it to her in great detail, or else whatever we are working on won't really resemble what it's supposed to. and while i understand that she says to her boss that she really does want to learn litigation, i hear continuous streams of complaints (not to me, but to anyone else walking by) about how much she hates litigation. problem being that we are very litigation heavy and heading more that way more and more.

so back then, at the behest of the attorneys i work for, i requested a secretarial change, being very careful to explain that it has nothing to do with my secretary, but instead the fact that she is not trained for litigation. i was told that the only reason they couldn't switch me was because there were no litigation secretaries who had room.

so then it comes to my attention that a paralegal who works with this kickASS litigation secretary on my floor is leaving, and that she has been reduced to a workload of 2 people, when usually secretaries carry 4 (my secretary is carrying 4, but one is on sabbatical). this seems to make sense, so someone suggested that i mention this to the head secretary.

this, apparently, was not a good idea. she seemed really annoyed as soon as she realized why i wanted to talk to her, and then in a rather harsh tone told me that i should not think of it as bad that i have to check all these small requirements for proofs of service and formatting because, really, as an attorney i should know this anyway (forget the idea of me being able to rely at all on my secretary's work), said in a sarcastic tone, "oh, and you think it would be better sharing a secretary with x, implying that the other secretary also couldn't handle my workload, implied that if i kept pushing this my secretary would end up with out a job, threatened me with moving me up next to the attys i work with and sharing their secretary, who even with just the two of them is way over-worked and would have no time for me, not to mention the fact that she knows i want to stay where i am, and when i kept trying to smooth things out and apologize and explain that i didn't mean to cause so much trouble, just gave me a blank stare that implied "you are a pain in my ass and i hate you."

i went up to her office a few minutes later to diffuse, and said i think there was a misunderstanding and that i had thought the only problem was finding someone who could take me, and that i understand that all sorts of factors i don't know about go into these decisions, that i respect her staffing decisions and that i will work with whomever she wants me to. this seemed to help a little bit, but i think i am now a pariah in her mind. i did explain that i thought sharing the secretary with the attys i work for probably wouldn't work because she was overworked as it is, and she admitted that she didn't think that secretary could handle it either, and that her thinking had been, if they want to keep goading me to get another secretary, they should share theirs with me -- which to me indicates that, yes, she was just trying to be mean earlier when she implied that i could do that or shut up.

this all confuses me because this woman is generally really really warm and nice, and i've always really like her. it has been posited to me that either she felt i was challenging her authority or my secretary has behind the scenes been complaining about me, which is sad considering how much i try to make it clear to my secretary that i am never blaming her, and how i generally try to be as patient as i can when she doesn't seem to know really basic things that other attys tell me they never learned because their secretary just does it.

i think one of the problems is that my secretary keeps telling this woman that she is really eager to learn litigation, but to us she is always saying she is super swamped and i know from other people that she continuously complains about the work that i give her.

oh well. that's my rant. i just dislike this unsettled feeling i have that there's nothing i can do about this negativity that these people have toward me. ugh. okay. i have to get to work.

happy pride

today was that l.a. pride parade. we rode on the float for the ohana house, a (the first and only) resource center in the country for the api queer community, our affiliation being that mimi volunteers there. my job was to blow bubbles from the float, which, to my dismay, turned out to be much more difficult than i anticipated. after many frustrating and unavailing attempts, occasionally interspersed with a successful dispensation of bubbles, i put the bubble jar down and spent the rest of the time dancing around with a rainbow fan and waving at the crowd (every once in a while i took another stab at the bubble thing, but it just proved too stressful for me). we had some politician people on our float, as well as the actress who played the mother in "all american girl." before and after the float were people with banners and people dressed up as fairies (the "ohana fairies"). every once in a while the girl with the mic would announce the ohana fairies and they would run in circles around the float. this was a real crowd pleaser.

afterward we grabbed greasy food and then relaxed on the porch at barney's, where some guy who had been in the korean war told us that he didn't think they should call it a "parade" because it was amateur-ish and people weren't in sync. he kept comparing it to when he had military men marching in a parade, or bands marching in a parade. he didn't seem to understand any distinctions i pointed out, so i left it at that.

anyway, happy pride.

eroticaLA

so yesterday morning i was talking to my co-worker about what he was doing before another co-worker's birthday party, and he invited me to join him and a couple other work people as they headed a few blocks away to the Erotica Los Angeles convention being held at the LA Convention Center. this, of course, i wanted to go to. they were leaving work a little early, so i spent the rest of the afternoon worried that i wouldn't be able to go because we were trying to get something out the door, and then after i had been given a green light to go home i almost missed it because the atty i work for called an impromptu meeting in my office that lasted through when my co-workers left. they were nice enough to hang out and wait for me at a bar nearby, and then we were off.

outside there were protesters telling us to "read the bible while you can" and "you may not believe it, but you CAN be worse than you are." we traipsed past them on into the convention. it was awesome. and there was artwork.

putting aside the skeazy old guys drooling over the playboy girls and the scandalized people who clearly showed up to be shocked at all the *weird* stuff, it was a lot of fun because it was filled with people who were open and enthusiastic about all things sexual (and with a larger variety of sex-related items than i think i've ever seen in real space). and there /was/ some weird stuff to look at, such as the "futurotica," which seemed to be sex toys fashioned from things like dustbusters, breast pumps and desk lamps. but to people who insist that i want to buy anything with an "i-" in front of it (iBook, iPod, etc.), i note that i did not buy the iVibe.

anyway. it was fun. one of the stores had these awesome goodiebags that they gave to anyone who bought stuff, filled with random things like playing cards, dildoes, underwear, lube, etc. now i'm all fired up to see the erotica museum that had a satellite display there, too. wee!

yosemite

so, last weekend the firm had a weekend trip at yosemite. we left at the buttcrack of dawn to get on a bus and ride the 7 1/2 hours up the mountain, during which we slept, ate, played taboo, and watched office space. when we got there, we were discussing what to do with the few hours we had before dinner, but the margaritas over which we discussed our options sort of turned into our choice, and we were all nice and loaded by 3 pm. after that we had dinner at the nearby fancy hotel, and then headed back to our tents, vaguely concerned about the threat of bears, about which we were warned continuously. of course, these frequent and dire warnings were not really enough to make me put my lotion and toothpaste and all that in the food locker -- my roommate and i figured that probably enough people would have forgotten to lock it away that, really, what was the chance that a bear was going to really want /our/ toothpaste so much?

the next morning, i headed out for the hike. on the bus on the way to yosemite, everyone had been discussing which of the hikes they were going to do. everyone was doing this trail called "panorama up," which worried me because it was described on our little sheet as "strenuous." but all these people around me kept telling me that they were out of shape and that if they would be fine, i would be fine. also they pointed out that it probably meant "strenuous" for old partners who hadn't exercised in 10 years. this coupled with the fact that it was the only hike for which you had to sign up in advance, to ensure a ride back down the mountain, was enough to compel me to raise my hand when the head count for the trail. this was a bad decision.

this hike goes 8.5 miles up to the top of the following mountain.

yeah. well, i reasoned, i did do that peru hike last year without really preparing for it, so maybe it would be okay. as it turned out, it was not. it was, indeed, VERY strenuous. we kept turning these bends, and it would just keep going up. i fell toward the back, which was being headed up by one of the LA partners, such that i had to make him wait should i want to take a 30-second breather. after about an hour, i said fuck this, i don't want another 7 hours of this, and turned around.

i got back in time to leave with the bike crew, and biked around yosemite. we biked 15-20 miles, and then had lunch. then i went rafting, which was fun and amusing considering that the summer associates in the other raft kept falling out.

we got back just in time to clean up and go to dinner, where one of the summer associates told me, "i wish i left with you. that hike was a personal struggle for me. at NO point was that hike fun." after this, we headed back to the camp and i taught everyone the finger game.

it was cool. we played for almost two hours before i finally lost a round. of course, true to form, this one loss got me drunk. then i lost 70 bucks in poker and went to sleep. and that's my yosemite trip.

i want g-mail!

apparently g-mail is by invite only, and i think today is the last day to get a free invite. DAMMIT!

if you have g-mail, INVITE ME!!!

(i guess this shows i am an even bigger dork than jkt, since i have been coveting ever since i saw this on her blog.)

and in sets real life

i've realized over the past week that the nice lull that i have intermittently been enjoying since april really isn't the kind of thing that can last should i want to make a *good* impression. as such, i'm going to have to work a lot more and as a result cut down a lot on the social activities, which i have been shoveling into my schedule with some frequency and regularity.

so. i guess this is it. i'm a grown up now. goodbye spring breaks and random long weekends and winter breaks and summer breaks.

which is not to sound all doom and gloom. i'll start working harder after the catalina trip and my spain trip and my boston trip. and i wonder how much longer until i earn a sabbatical???

argh

we're back to the past connie fucking over the present connie problem. apparently screwing around for a week or two was really counterproductive in relation to the big assignment i have due tomorrow but do not yet understand. now i just have that panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach. ach.

i went to yosemite this past weekend as part of our summer associate program. it was fun and i am sore and tired and i will blog about it later but now i'm all freaked out about work. :(

education law

at work we get these mass e-mails all the time asking about how to do certain things, or for exemplars, or for referrals, etc. today we got this:

"A friend of the firm is looking for a referral to a lawyer with experience in education law -- i.e. the process for contesting a grade his daughter received in error (an internal appeal has been rejected). Know of anyone, especially in the Bay Area?"

what exactly is this parent suing for? an undeserved 'C' in gym class? i suppose there might be situations in which a parent would be justified in turning to the judicial system to overturn a grade his daughter wrongfully received, but i am hard-pressed to think of one.

if i am unhappy with something in my review and an appeal is turned down, i am totally taking it to the courts.

tequila BAD.

last night a co-worker, vanessa and i hit a couple work parties. the first one turned out to be more of a dinner soiree, where we drank wine and i and my co-worker were told by the host's husband (civil rights attorney) that we were hookers prostituting ourselves in exchange for money from the big law firms, where "any experience [we] get is almost entirely irrelevant." i was more sympathetic until he started dogging the ACLU and saying something about how they cherry-pick and only take controversial cases (nevermind that their LA office has fewer than 10 full time attorneys and that they generally try to take cases that will change the law and therefore impact more people than the number of those turned away).

anyway, it was very heavy and they started talking a whole lot about war and whatnot so i just wandered around and drank wine until we left. the second party was great, but we got there as it was winding down -- they had had live bands taking 1/2 hour sets since 3pm, and the cops were called around 10pm. since we got there late, we took shots of tequila and then i switched to beer. i think this is probably where i went wrong.

we hung out there for a couple hours and then piled into a cab back to hollywood, ostensibly to hit another bar. this, however, did not happen because we were all passing out and very drunk. we went our separate ways instead, and once i got home i puked my guts out. yum. this will be the last time i mix alcohol in a long while.

on the upside, i have no hangover.

yay wireless!

so back in november i set up my wireless router and, for a period, it was good. then my wireless router rebelled. putting aside the fact that i never could figure out how to make the wireless card on my work pc function, the router was patchily uncooperative with certain visitors' computers, resulting in my being bitched at, and then became completely uncooperative with my own. when i tried to hook my computer back up to the router so i could reset the settings, it completely refused to see the router. so i figured i would figure it out one day, and left it at that.

a month ago i tried to hook it up again because the work IT person said to just turn everything off and then back on in a certain order. it didn't work.

TODAY -- TODAY i got it to work again! i realize that you don't care (why would you?), but this is actually incredibly exciting for me. not only did i get my mac to see the network again, but i also figured out how to make my wireless card on my pc to work as well. woo-hoo! now i can, um, work at home.

YAY! and only 6 months after i bought the damn thing.

I HATE THE FREEWAYS

when i first moved to hollywood last fall, my one reservation about the active and fun area i was just adjusting to was that it falls in the great freeway hole of l.a. the closest thing one to me is the 101, which i have been warned by various people and at various times never to take. i have to take surface streets to work, and for the last few months have bitched about not being able to speed down the 10 to work, as i did as a summer associate. all the while, a certain know-it-all someone continuously informed me that my dependence on the freeway is due to my upbringing as a westside kid and that after a while i would known the city better and would opt out of the freeways. i didn't believe her. i mean, yes, the freeways are bad around 9am, but if you leave a little earlier or later they are always faster than surface streets, right?

NO. i had to go to the airport this morning, which means that i had to take BOTH the 405 AND the 10, which were BUMPER TO BUMPER PACKED even though i set off from the airport at SEVEN THIRTY IN THE FUCKING MORNING.

i HATE the freeways. grrr.......

no bread face!

i decided that rather than roll in late this morning, i would "work from home." while eating lunch in front of the tv, the power went out, so i figured it was a good time to get ready and go to work. my revelations today include: 1) the power being out means that my car gets trapped in the garage, 2) the garage door is VERY heavy and hard to manually open, and 3) traffic is no better going to work around lunch than in the morning and in fact seems worse.

anyway, i came across this poster taped to a window in a chinese medicine section of a monterey park chinese grocery store. i especially like the advice from "ms. fat" telling you how this drink can make you "ms. thin," and how you don't want "bread face" or "pig arms" (which is strange, because i've always striven toward pig arms. well, to each their own.) AND, remember that one has constipation in every two adults!!!

first summer blunder

today we had our first summer associate blunder. a co-worker planned a birthday lunch for me (yay! sweet girl!), and while we initially left the summers out we decided we should invite them after all because the partners might get mad if we took all the young associates out to lunch and no one was left to hang with the summers. so we did, and all of the summers said they could come.

then my mentee e-mails me this: "Hi Connie I just wanted to let you know that unfortunately I wont be able to join you for lunch today because to be honest I went to [insert restaurant here] last week for lunch and didn't like anything. I hope you have a great time though and I will see you for dinner tomorrow!"

now, i realize this is not an official summer associate event, and i swear to god this has nothing to do with my birthday. but we have put together a lunch of about 15 people, and all of the summers were going -- if you are a summer associate, you suck it up and go. OR, you graciously say you can't make it. you do NOT say "i'm not going because i don't like the restaurant." how well you mesh with the associates is a HUGE determining factor of what your summer is going to be like, and most of the social associates who don't have to work are coming.

i was mostly surprised by this because my mentee is one ambitious little girl -- from all evidence she appears to want to take over the world, starting with our law firm. one of my co-workers says he thinks she was probably thinking, well, no partners are going so i can just back out. this may be true. unfortunately, that is not really the way we work around here. hopefully she will get a heads-up about how summer associate programs are not actually just about the work and won't be doing this again on more significant occasions. as for this particular situation, i don't feel like i am particularly well-placed to explain to her why she should have just gone, so i guess she's left to sink or swim.