decisions, decisions

choices

1. continue working as a temp

pros

the people are okay, except for a few who tend to get on my nerves.

i get to work autonomously and don't really answer to anyone.

a lot of cute eye-candy tend to stop by the office to ask me for assistance.

the head of the operations has taken an interest in my legal career and, if i play my cards right, i think he can groom me to ultimately join the legal department there, which he seems interested in doing.

the job is easy.

cons

the job isn't very challenging, and most of the time, i'm either blogging or half-heartedly going through the motions.

the people i can't stand? i really can't stand them.

i get paid shit.

no guarantee that the head of my office will or can help me. just a hunch.

2. nag my undergraduate alma mater about that teaching job.

pros

i get a taste of teaching to see if i like it and am capable of doing it.

i get to share my love for reading and writing

i'd be teaching college students, e.g., adults.

i can go back to an academic environment.

i can move back to the beehive state.

cons

i get paid shit.

i'd be teaching intro-to-writing type courses in which, worst-case scenario, i'd have to read a lot of haphazard, effortless shit writing.

i'd be back in the beehive state.

3. anticipating having failed the bar, don't do anything, stay at my current job, leave in november, and immediately start studying again for the february bar exam without taking up another job.

pros

i persistently pursue the bar exam and learn the importance of not taking no for an answer.

i hate working and will have plenty of free time to do my own thing while balancing that with bar study.

i can spend the whole day with my cute lil' dog, who sometimes helps me study.

cons

i'm poor as it is and may have to sink into even more debt just to fucking study.

i'd have to study again and begin battling premature greyness.

4. anticipating having failed the bar, wait another half-year to take the july bar exam and, in the meantime, go back into state service to start building up my savings again.

pros

go back to a sturdy $ 4500/month salary and life is fine because i can go back to going out with friends, having splendid twenty-something girlish fun, and not have to worry about making payments on any of my bills.

i can continue to learn more about the intricacies of california's bureaucracies at a whole other department and appreciate just how much the state government really does keep the whole state going.

i'd get all my benefits back -- delta dental, vision service plan, and my ol' kaiser healthcare plan. i haven't had any coverage for any of these things at all for the past six months or so. it freaks my mom out.

cons

window-less cubicle life. 'nuff said.

return to the terrible, horrible, very bad commute to downtown.

i'd go back to taking orders from idiots and bitch and moan about my lame bosses to my mom until it drives her completely mad.

5. screw the bar exam results, chill with this temp job until january or february of next year, when the office begins searching for a permanent employee for my position, let the temp agency find me another job, and just hang out wherever they place me until grad. school starts -- assuming i even get in anywhere.

pros

i don't have any responsibilities, can lay low, and relax, and let the anticipation build about a return to an academic life.

i can start writing the next great american novel.

cons

it's against my nature to be lazy, unmotivated, and spend so much time getting by. grad. school is still a whole year away. i've already wasted the past couple of years of my life.

i continue to get paid shit.

decisions.

either way, every now and then, i start to feel like this little boy:

-----------------------------------

i love stevie nicks. here she is with her girls sharon and lori doing a live version of "leather and lace."

give me strength

do not go buy cigarettes. do not smoke.

do not go buy cigarettes. do not smoke.

do not go buy cigarettes. do not smoke.

do not go buy cigarettes. do not smoke.

do not go buy cigarettes. do not smoke.

. . . . . .

actually, maybe it would be okay if i just got a pack of ultra-lights. . . .

right??

this is going to be a long, long fucking day.

non-smoking zone

i smoked my third and final cigarette this morning at 10:11 a.m.

it was hard, but i refrained from going across the street in front of my office to the ghetto cigarette shop to buy a new pack in desperation.

despite the cravings for a deep lungful of a good cigarette puff, i will hold strong and true and not buy another pack.

at least not until this sunday, when i get a 5k/10k race in s.f. out of the way. :-D

i am starting to feel better. to only have had three cigarettes today is quite good for me lately. unfortunately, i had stepped up consumption to a pack every three days, which is not good. i'm already seeing a difference in my running -- i was doing pretty good on the outdoor track near my house. i took yesterday off from running but will probably run every day from now until sunday so that i don't lose my groove or endurance.

i won't have my butt kicked by this race! even more importantly, i won't be the last one among my friends to cross the finish line. :)

that's the only reason why i'd give up the cigs for the remainder of the week: pride.

i love this song -- boston's "amanda." brad delp has a fantastic voice. the song makes me want to flick my lighter on and start waving it around.

the return of the feeling of dread

i am starting to dread coming to this blog -- so i often don't.

it's that count-down timer i have on here. i hate being reminded that time is ticking down to a particularly dreaded yet morosely antcipated event. i am usually successful in forgetting the existence of that particular event during the day. . . .

today, what that count-down is telling me is that, in just three days' time, i will finally be under 2 months' wait time until the bar results come out.

god. i dread the results like nothing else.

i plan on escaping so that i need not be around here, surrounded by familiar family and friends, when the results come out. wherever i find myself, it will definitely be somewhere where internet connection is available so i can check the results on-line that day, along with thousands of other california bar-exam takers . . . .

i can't imagine seeing the horrifying results, then having to face everyone. so i'm just not going to be here when i do find out.

i know. it's just a test. and i've already made career plans that don't even depend on successful results for this test.

but i still want it. i want to pass so badly.

these red hot chilli pepper songs capture my mood and thoughts about it all perfectly; underneath each vid is the lyrics to each song:

"soul to squeeze"

I've got a bad disease
But from my brain is where I bleed.
Insanity it seems
Has got me by my soul to squeeze.

Well all the love from thee
With all the dying trees I scream.
The angels in my dreams (yeah)
Have turned to demons aggrieved at me.

Chorus:
Where I go I just don't know
I got to got to gotta take it slow.
When I find my piece of mind
I'm gonna give you some of my good time.

Today love smiled on me.
It took away my face say please
All that you had to free
You gotta let it be oh yeah.

Chorus

Oh, so polite indeed
Well I got everything I need.
Oh make my days a breeze
And take away my self destruction.

It's bitter baby,
And it's very sweet.
I'm on a rollercoaster,
but I'm on my feet.
Take me to the river,
Let me on your shore.
I'll be coming back baby,
I'll be coming back for more.

Doo doo doo doo dingle zing a dong bone
Ba-di ba-da ba-zumba crunga cong gone bad

I could not forget
But I will not hey never
Simple pleasures are much better
But I wont regret it never.

Chorus

Where I go I just don't know
I might end up somewhere in Mexico.
When I find my piece of mind
I'm gonna keep you for the end of time.

"road trippin'"

Road trippin' with my two favorite allies
Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies
It's time to leave this town
It's time to steal away
Let's go get lost
Anywhere in the USA

Let's go get lost
Let's go get lost

Blue you sit so pretty
West of the one
Sparkles light with yellow icing
Just a mirror for the sun
Just a mirror for the sun
Just a mirror for the sun

These smiling eyes are just a mirror for

So much as come before those battles lost and won
This life is shining more forever in the sun
Now let us check our heads
And let us check the surf
Staying high and dry's more trouble than it's worth
In the sun

These smiling eyes are just a mirror for

In Big Sur we take some time to linger on
We three hunky dory's got our snakefinger on
Now let us drink the stars
It's time to steal away
Let's go get lost
Right here in the USA

Let's go get lost
Let's go get lost

Blue you sit so pretty
West of the one
Sparkles light with yellow icing
Just a mirror for the sun
Just a mirror for the sun
Just a mirror for the sun

These smiling eyes are just a mirror for
These smiling eyes are just a mirror for
Your smiling eyes are just a mirror for

a devout lover

A Devout Lover

By Thomas Randolph (1605–1635)

I have a mistress, for perfections rare
In every eye, but in my thoughts most fair.
Like tapers on the altar shine her eyes;
Her breath is the perfume of sacrifice;
And wheresoe'er my fancy would begin,
Still her perfection lets religion in.
We sit and talk, and kiss away the hours
As chastely as the morning dews kiss flowers:
I touch her, like my beads, with devout care,
And come unto my courtship as my prayer.

----------------------------------

the timing of my re-kindled interest in poetry intrigues me.

the first year of my graduate studies in english literature, i took a class on poetics.

not being much of a poet and not having much interest in poetry at the time, i can't say that the class was very interesting to me. but i took it because it was available, and i had to select lit. classes that worked around my law school schedule at a time when i was still a 2L. yeah, that first year of grad. school, it was not at all fun to have to select english classes just to get some credits and not for the sake of the subject-matter. at the same time, i'm glad that's what happened to me because i did end up taking classes that i otherwise would've probably avoided like the plague.

poetics is one of those classes. basically, it consists of exploring critical theories pertaining only to poetry. easy enough to conceptualize what the class would be about -- but definitely difficult to understand once you were in the class. especially for a person of my limited mental capabilities, this was, hands down, one of the most difficult classes i ever took.

if any one thing stood clearly out from the class, though, clear enough for me to understand, was that poetics, at least as taught by the particular professor, sure was limited. it was taught implicitly and yet oh so obviously from the new criticism point of view.

new criticism was a literary approach that was quite popular during the early twentieth century. as a school of thought, it appealed so much to literary scholars, who at the time mostly consisted of white, christian men. its main thrust was that a single piece of literature could have only one singular, overarching, objective meaning. it sought very much to ensure that the reading and interpretation of a text was free of the reader's personal biases and views.

as we all know now, it's not objectively possible for a reader, no matter how hard she tries, to completely disentangle her personal viewpoints from the reading of a book.

but one would be hard-pressed to remember this when sitting in on the poetics class i was taking.

long story short, i gave a short presentation to the class about this very issue, and i pointed to all the poetical works we had analyzed in class -- emily dickinson, mark strand, sherrod santos, and a few others, all of whose works, i thought, catered so neatly to the new critical school of thought, worshiping western thoughts and christianity.

apparently, my presentation was an eye-opener for the professor who was appointed as that state's poet laureate a couple of years later. i always heard inklings from other students about my presentation and its impact on her, but i'd always demurred. i didn't think it possible that my thoughts and ideas could have an impact on her way of thinking. at the same time, i realize, in a way, that it must have discomfitted her to hear my presentation because it implied that she was not open to multi-culturalism.

anyhow, i just discovered, though, that the professor is currently on a panel that is soliciting recommendations from anyone on poets they'd like to appear at a poetry reading event, which happens to be a really big deal in that state.

her main wish, as she welcomes suggestions in an e-mail i just received today, is that while she welcomes any suggestions whatsoever, she'd like people to consider a diverse array of poets they'd wish to hear a reading from.

i guess i got to her after all.

my work is done. :)

three girls

Three Girls (1920)
By Hazel Hall

Three school-girls pass this way each day:
Two of them go in the fluttery way
Of girls, with all that girlhood buys;
But one goes with a dream in her eyes.

Two of them have the eyes of girls
Whose hair is learning scorn of curls,
But the eyes of one are like wide doors
Opening out on misted shores.

And they will go as they go to-day
On to the end of life’s short way;
Two will have what living buys,
And one will have the dream in her eyes.

Two will die as many must,
And fitly dust will welcome dust;
But dust has nothing to do with one —
She dies as soon as her dream is done.

the road not taken

The Road Not Taken (1920)
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

----------------------------

i was just thinking today -- and i really have too much time to think, i think -- about how much easier my life would be if i were straight.

it really would be the easiest route to go.

i'm really the most ideal girl a guy could ever want to have. and when i did try to be straight and in relationships, i could see just how perfect i would be as my then-boyfriend's girlfriend and potentially wife.

i'd be a spectacular little het'ro wife.

it would take a lot to convince me to have children, though. in my mind, the idea of a living organism growing inside my body cavity, then kicking my innards out, like that one scene in the movie alien when a little monster starts coming out of that guy's body, freaks me out. and then the painful process of child-birth . . . .

hell no! i'm a chicken-shit.

i'm also not very convinced i'd make a great mother. either i'd be a terribly crummy push-over of a mother or i'd be too stern and disdainful. most kids under the age of 16 don't like me much anyway. i have a 2-year-old nephew. the cutest little rug-rat in the world. he looks exactly like his mom. cute! but he's not very comfortable with me -- and the most he'll do is stare at me. there is no judgment or opinion writ on his face; he just stares..

i actually get that quite a bit with kids under the age of 5.

still, every now and then, i think about what "should" or "could" have been. i think about the one boy whom, if i had been straight, would have been perfect for me. we were friends first and foremost. i don't think either of us, at first, thought of each other as our respective types. but a close friendship built quickly. he understood me and could read me. we would watch football or the world series poker event on t.v. and actually have an on-going, interested conversation about what we were watching. we would talk about his two prior marriages (yes, the bastard had been married -- and divorced -- twice before the age of 26), his kids (4 at last count), and how fucking fertile he seemed to be. we talked about history, politics, and how much of a redneck he was (he admitted it wholeheartedly). and he didn't mind me asking all the questions about the religion he renounced -- mormonism -- and how his experience going on a mission during his youth changed his life forever.

and he was always so fucking wicked. so devilish. it made for some really great times. :)

in terms of physical appearance, he was a jock. and as a rule, ever since high school, i've always disdained jocks. they're assholes. and i'm a nerd. nerds and jock assholes do not mix. but he surprised me. yes, he was a jock -- but a charming one who had a nice easy smile and wicked blue eyes and white blond hair. he's thickly built, all muscle, but lazy -- the type of guy who could kick serious ass if crossed, but without really trying or wanting to exert himself.

me? i was a rather scrawny girl when we met. it took me a while to stop being so self-conscious about how small my boobs were in his hands. he rather enjoyed this about me, though -- because i still had a temper and attitude. to him, i made for an incongruous little package. i've always had a problem with guys who thought the best way to control my attitude and tongue was by physically subduing me, as if my physically overpowering and controlling me, they could also control my personality. not him. he always made fun of me for being so slight, but he never took advantage. unless i wanted him to.

so i was thinking about him today. he e-mailed me out of the blue a few days ago to say hi. it surprised me to see his e-mail because i had kind of left him on bad terms and have felt badly about it ever since. it's been at least a few years now . . . . just the sight of his name in my inbox brought a fond smile immediately to my face. and my mouth wanted to move to say his name.

but my thoughts about him and all these what-ifs that have popped into my mind are certainly not being seriously entertained by me.

i just have so many great memories involving him. we really had quite a few good times together. and when things got rough for him on a personal level, he shunned the company of everyone else he knew -- family, friends -- but i was the only one he wanted to see. and we would go out, get shit-faced, smoke all the cigarettes we had between us, then go back to his place, start making out like crazy (he was a fantastic kisser, i'll give him that), then fuck.

that whole time, i never actually stayed a whole night with him.

to me, that is the road i have chosen not to take. and i don't mean just in regards to him but to the opportunity to live a nice, normal het'ro life.

and i am so fucking great at being the perfect girl. maybe that's what my trouble is, in relationships and in general. it is just so easy for me to mold my personality to suit any given person, and it would be that easy for me to find "happiness" with someone just by doing that.

but that is why i'm so jaded about relationships and don't really want one. because i'm not convinced i can truly be myself without sacrificing a good chunk of my personality for the sake of the other's happiness.

it's machiavellian. it really is. one of the most interesting quotes from niccolo machiavelli's the prince:

men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

can i seriously and realistically see myself settling down with a guy, even a guy i did love in my way like him? a resounding no. i was just thinking it would be just so easy. sure, i'd be a step-mom to four kids -- and the evil enemy of his ex-wives, two, solidly built (i.e., heavy-set) mormon white girls.

but it would be easy.

all i know is that i've been privileged to know quite a few amazing guys, and he is one of them.

now, i'm smiling. the more i think about it, no, what ridiculous musings. i could never be happy trying to be straight. i don't regret how i've lived my life at all until i came out, and i wouldn't trade my life now for anything. i've met so many fantastic girls -- many of whom have had the same difficult journeys and a few of whom who had a better, different form of luck. but in the end, we're all the same, whether we're men or women, gay or straight, or somewhere in-between.

two roads diverged in a wood, and i— i took the one less traveled by . . . .

and that has made all the difference.

temporary fun relief

all right, i just cheered myself up slightly by creating a meez for myself, thanks to a link provided by dj kirkby. here i am:



yeah, her legs are a smidgen longer and more lithe than mine, and my chihuahua is blond, not white. but the concept is there: i love summer, summer clothes, and the urban atmosphere.

:)

and this is me doing what i usually want to do after a good run: satisfy a jamba juice craving.



oh, what fun this is. :)