Trip to Hilton Head

So apparently I freaked out for nothing.  Josef's parents didn't bother me as much as I thought that they would.  His grandmother got in a few comments about how she wouldn't go to our wedding ceremony next year if we had it in the Northeast rather than the Midwest, but even that didn't bother me as much as it normally would have.  I've learned that no one pays any attention to her, and anyway, I know that she'll end up coming because she goes wherever Josef's parents go, and so it'll be fun to rub it in her face that she's in the Northeast when she does come to our wedding.  Mwahahaha!

Overall we had a good time.  I really like Josef's sister and brother, and we scored some new clothes.  Josef's parents took us to an outlet mall and bought us business clothing.  Normally I would have NEVER let them pay for something like that, but we're totally broke and I literally have three shirts to wear with suits and Josef needed a few more suits, so it was either let them pay for the stuff, or put in on credit.

While I was in Hilton Head I talked to my father on the phone.  Perhaps sometime I will get into his back story [it's long, complicated, and sordid].  It's too complicated to get into all of it now, but basically my father has stopped focusing negative attention on me, and now has decided that he needs to save my half-brother.  [My father had a child with a woman named Vicki.  My brother's 8 years younger than I am.  Since my father and Vicki broke up, my mother and Vicki have become best friends, and so they talk every day.  I see my brother more often through my mother hanging out with Vicki than through my father].  Well, I don't know what's worse - my father deciding that he hates me - or deciding that he's going to save my brother, who he is convinced has an autism spectrum disorder.  He doesn't.  My poor brother.  Apparently, my brother's going to be staying with my father for a week this month before he goes off to college.  It'll be interesting to see how that goes.  I refuse to visit my father anymore.

In other news, it turns out my mother needs a pacemaker.  She's had heart problems for years, but her heart keeps stopping for 2-3 seconds at a time even while taking the heart medication, and so now they need to put in a pacemaker.  She also just found out that the school that she runs is closing down.  So now she's looking for another job and she's decided that she's going to move back to the Northeast so that she can live near me [and anyway, she misses it there too - she currently lives in Florida].  Well, now that she needs to have surgery, she thinks [and I agree] that it would be best if she took a few months off working to recuperate from her surgery - especially since she'll be getting unemployment anyway.  So, she's going to come and stay with Josef and I for 3-6 months.  Luckily we got a 2 bedroom apartment so we have room for her, but this ought to be interesting.  I love my mother a lot.  She really tries her best, and she raised me entirely on her own.  However, she has an ability to annoy me like no other.  I was so relieved when I went off to college.  When we lived together for my 3rd and 4th years of college, however, we got along just fine, so I'm crossing my fingers.  I'm just thankful that Josef, as usual, is being completely supportive.  He's such a wonderful man!

We sold almost all of our furniture here [and made approx $1800!].   All we have left is the couch.  Last night we slept on the floor.  We move on Monday.  I'm looking forward to getting to our new apartment and buying new furniture.  I'm not looking forward to driving up there and taking the bar exam.

I keep having waves of depression.  I think that's because (1) it's almost that time of the month and hormonal changes really affect me, and (2) there's so much upheaval with us moving.  I've also been really worried about my mother's health.  I'm hoping that I stop feeling depressed once we get to the Northeast.  I haven't had any serious bouts of depression since undergrad, and I'd like to keep it that way.  Usually if I just let myself feel my feelings, but at the same time don't let myself completely succumb to them, I'm just fine.  I fear the way I'm going to be when I'm pregnant.  Luckily that won't be for a little while yet. 

I'll keep you updated.

I'm going on vacation! (sort of)

Debt: $186,542.33 [it's up $3,000 due to the copay for the gallbladder operation that I just had]

Income: $0

Days Until We Move: 17

So what is this blog about?  Is it about my personal life?  Is it a feminist critique by a young professional living at the turn of the millennium?  Is it about political ranting?  I still haven't decided.  I'll let you know when I figure it out.  I think it's a little bit of all of that.

Whatever the "point" of this blog - this post is about my personal life.  Currently my husband Josef and I are in the process of selling all of our things before moving to "the Big City" on July 15th.  We bought some really shitty furniture six months ago, and we figured it would be a lot easier to sell all of this furniture on craigslist and buy new stuff there then to pay a bunch of money to move furniture that isn't worth much that we don't particularly like [we're moving about 850 miles].  We still owe $1200 on the furniture, so we're hoping to at least get that much for all of it.  I would really hate to owe money on furniture I no longer even have.  We made inroads toward that today when we got $500 for our television.  Considering that we paid only $545 for it originally, I was quite happy about that.  

Making all of our moving preparations more complicated is that we are leaving tomorrow for a week to go to my husband's family's timeshare in Hilton Head, South Carolina.  Attending will be Josef's grandmother, mother, father, brother, sister, and sister's boyfriend.  Last year while we were studying for the first bar exam we decided not to go since it was two weeks before we were to take the bar.  Since then they've been in full guilt trip mode.  For a year whenever we tell them about potential job opportunities or health matters [i.e. "Addy needs surgery because she has a polyp that could be cancerous"], their first follow up question is unwaveringly, "But you'll be able to go to Hilton Head this year, right?"  My in-laws are, hands down, the most self-involved people I've ever known.

After law school I agreed with my husband to move to where he's from so that we could be near his family.  I figured that this was fair because most of my family had moved away from the Northeast, and we both wanted to live near some family.  As much as I'm frustrated that we couldn't find jobs in his hometown [especially considering that his parents are both lawyers and have political connections that they refuse to use to get us jobs all the while bitching about how my husband should be using more connections - but I digress], I am so glad that we will no longer be living near his family.

Now, on the one hand I am annoyed by those in my generation who have a sense of entitlement to things without working for them.  I don't believe that parents should allow their children to sponge off of them for the rest of their lives.  However, I also believe that parents should help out their children if they're being responsible and in a time of need.  

My husband's parents are the WORST on both counts.  They allow his 28 year old sister to sponge off of them with no end in sight.  She lives with them, paying no rent.  They've given her their old car [which she complains isn't nice enough, but continues to use].  Oh, and did I mention that she hasn't finished college yet, has been working at Outback Steakhouse for the last 5 years, and has no plans for the future?

My husband on the other hand graduated Magna Cum Laude from NYU undergrad, and Summa Cum Laude [second in our class] from our law school, and what has been his reward?  No monetary help during law school.  No help with our wedding.  Oh, and now that we're destitute and we need help with the break lease fee for our old apartment and the deposit, fees, and first month's rent on our new place, are they going to help us?  Yes - by giving us a loan - that they expect to be paid back promptly.  The way they see it, we have good jobs now, so why should they give us any money?  The way I see it, in their world if you're lazy you're handsomely rewarded.

Oh, and did I mention that they're rich?  The two of them bring in at least a combined $400,000 a year, they've paid off their home, and they have no other major expenses.  I have no idea what they do with their money.  Their house is in disrepair: one of their showers doesn't work, their refrigerator's door hasn't closed properly in five years, and their dishwasher hasn't worked for about 15 [I am NOT exaggerating].  Neither of them ever buys new clothing.  The only vacation they go on is this trip to Hilton Head each year.  They have no expensive collections or drug habits [that I'm aware of].  When they die, based on my calculations, they should be leaving us millions of dollars.  The problem is that we won't need any money in a few years - we need help now.  If it were me, I'd want the joy of seeing my money being put to good use.  At least we'll have the satisfaction of knowing we've done everything on our own.  The problem is that I've had quite about enough of that satisfaction.

Both Josef's mother and grandmother are the queens of passive aggression and it seems that at least one of them has a problem with me at all times.  His father is just sort of a self-involved doofus who does whatever his wife or mother-in-law tell him to do.  This week really ought to be interesting.  I'll update you throughout the week to let you know how it's going.

Women CANNOT do it all

Neither can men, for that matter, but no one expects them to.  

Recently I was perusing Ms. JD (a website for female lawyers), and a few postings got me to thinking.  First, there was a seven part series by Peg, on the 7 Truths that Every Working Woman Should Know Before Having Children.  She's a junior associate at a big law firm with two small children.  The gist of her advice falls under the category of: if you have children, you're on your own.  Your firm won't be particularly helpful.  You can't rely on your family.  You can't even expect your husband to help you at all.  Oh, and by the way, your body will most likely fail you as well.  There are many similar posts on the website, and they all have a familiar theme: it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to devote the necessary time to be both a great lawyer and a great mother.  After reading all of this, I came to another post.  In it, a 30 year old woman wanted advice regarding whether she's too old to go to law school - especially considering that she wants to have children in a few years.  EVERYONE starts gushing about how it's not too late to go to law school and that she should do it, etc. etc. 

Is that really good advice?  I found it somewhat shocking that after all the kvetching about work/family balance, everyone would be so positive about the prospect of starting a family while trying to make a start in the legal profession.  The way I see it: (1) It doesn't make any monetary sense [in my law school's orientation we were told that a lawyer doesn't make back the money (s)he spent on law school through increased earnings until after 30 years of work];  (2) Lawyers work some of the longest hours of any profession [which obviously is a huge negative if you want to start having small children]; and (3) The profession of the law is still heavily male dominated and many firms will not make concessions for working mothers. 

Am I saying that women - especially those who want to be mothers - should not go into the legal profession?  Of course not.  I recently graduated from law school, and I fully intend on having children in three years.  What I am saying, however, is that the system will NEVER change until women stop pretending that these real issues don't exist when planning for the future.  I'm tired of the knee-jerk female response to whether a women should clearly overextend herself being: "Go for it!  You can do everything!  Just jump right in!"  

It's not that I don't understand why women react this way: they're so used to arguing against the notion that women are not as capable as men that they forget that women are no more capable.  It's just that this sort of mindset is not helpful.  No man would ever consider being the primary caretaker of an infant child and jumping into a demanding new career at the same time.  If he asked his guy friends if they thought such a move was a good idea they would at the very least counsel him to really think about it before making such a move.  Most likely many of them would actively counsel him against such a plan.  No one would say "Go for it!  That sounds like a fantastic idea!  Wonderful!"  Why should women counsel each other so unwisely?

I can already hear a bunch of angry comments about how women can do anything.  I repeat - I'm not saying we can't - I'm saying we can't do everything.  That simple fact may not be a truth that many people want to hear, but it is a truth nonetheless.  Perhaps if we take it to heart then, unlike Peg, we will demand more from our husbands, our family, and our workplace which would allow us to successfully take on the solemn duty of raising the next generation, and having a fulfilling career that we can be proud of. 

*By the way, if you want to read a great book on this topic, you should read: The Mommy Myth:The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Undermined Women.  It really shaped my thinking in this area.

Universal Freedom: The Only Hope for Fair Safety Services

"Socialized Safety Services" has been advocated for years by those who want Americans to place all responsibility for their safety services [i.e. Firefighters, Police Response, Rescue Teams, 911 service] in the hands of government.  They say safety services require us to put aside such considerations as personal choice and individual freedom as outmoded ideology that should be dispensed with.  First drop the context of individual rights, private property, and privacy - then the government is liberated to micro-manage every detail of the safety service that you are allowed to have.

The loss of freedom may be unfortunate in this view, but is necessary because most Americans cannot afford to pay for their own firefighters, personal body guards, rescue teams, or a private 911 service, or even a significant fraction of the cost.  Of course if that were true, the government could not afford safety services for everyone regardless of cost either.  However those who might be relieved to learn that they are not responsible for the cost of their own safety services would soon discover that they have become responsible for the cost of everyone else's.  There is a much higher price than that: a government that pays for all of our safety services would inevitably come to think and act as if it owns our bodies and homes.  That is a big bill to pay to avoid the difficulty of paying for our own safety services.  The talk about a "right" to safety services really means that no one should have the right to any safety services at all except through the government.

Many of us find paying for safety services challenging.  Many more have difficulty making it a priority in our spending - often because we think it should be someone else's responsibility.  Some who sincerely make the effort can't pay for everything they need.  Others, especially the young who think a fire will never strike their house or who think that they will never need to be rescued from a cougar attack, etc., choose not to make provision for safety services even if they could afford it.  That does not mean we should resort to the government to force others to provide it, or that everyone in the country should be herded into the gray and barren landscape of a compulsory government safety system.  The fact that some people are hungry does not mean that everyone should be forced to obtain their food from the government, and be taxed to pay for it.  The existence of the homeless should not mean that everyone be forced to find shelter only through the auspices of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

We are told that because we all need safety services so badly, considerations such as individual freedom and especially the rights of safety professionals [i.e. police, 911 operators, firefighters, coast guard rescue workers, etc.] must be over-ridden, even if all of such safety professionals must be drafted into government service as if they were property--so their services can be micro-managed by the safety professional police.  But is is precisely because safety services are so important to each of us that we need to be especially careful to preserve and protect the rights of safety service providers.

One  rationalization of advocates for Socialized Safety Services is that private companies can have high administrative costs, and that government provided safety services like 911 are models of administrative efficiency.  This ignores the cost of the more than 100,000 911 employees who answer the phones, as well as the tremendous administrative burden to government safety service providers of trying to understand and comply with thousands of pages of regulations regarding safety personnel.  Yet those regulations have not been effective in preventing billions of dollars in fraudulently obtained safety services, such as when people dial 911 and there really isn't an emergency.  People wouldn't make such a call if they had to pay for it!  You can save a lot on overhead if you don't mind sending out safety personnel without any assurances that the caller is really in danger.  The administrative cost of burning money can be quite low.  It is not explained how the efficiency of government works for safety services and not the post office.  Markets work better than Socialism.  One wonders if any of the current Socialist Safety Service advocates have noticed the twentieth century as it was going by.

Universal Freedom is the only proper moral and political foundation for any policy.  "Socialized Safety Services" must be rejected as a government threat to our liberty.  American safety services must be based on American values. 

[The original article entitled "Universal Freedom: The Only Hope for Health Care" was written by Richard E. Ralston and can be read here.  It's equally retarded when it's about health care.]

You can get blood from a stone

I donated $10 here to exact revenge for Democrats not standing by their convictions.  It's bad enough when Republicans treat the constitution like toilet paper, but the only thing worse than a wolf is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  

I probably shouldn't have even given that with our financial situation at the moment, but every little bit counts, and money is all that talks to these people.

Gas prices could be $2/gallon

I'm not the only one blaming speculators for ridiculous gas prices.  Even Market Watch agrees with me.  Stupid tech bubble causing the housing bubble which has caused the oil bubble...

When being smart isn't enough

Current Debt: $183,542.33

Current Income: $0/month

Bridget Jones always listed her weight and number of cigarettes smoked at the beginning of each of her journal entries.  I don't have the luxury to worry about how much I weigh [not that I don't try].  I'm too busy figuring out how I'm going to pay the bills.

I graduated from law school in May 2007.  I have yet to start working.  I have finally found a job, but not in the state that I was originally planning, and so now I'm taking a second bar exam.  Ugh!  After the bar at the end of July I will be starting my new job at a small litigation firm.

My husband Josef and I recently got married by a justice of the peace.  We had no witnesses and no reception.  I cried the entire day before our wedding.  We didn't even know we were getting married until two days prior to when we said I Do.  Why?  Because since I've been unable to get a job, I've had no health insurance.  We were planning on getting married, but since I didn't have a job, we couldn't afford one.  I had been sick on and off, but eventually I got so sick that I really needed to see a doctor, so our only viable monetary choice was to immediately get married. Once I got on my husband's insurance, I saw a doctor and eventually had my gallbladder out - damn thing was causing all of my problems.  So now I've been married for two months.  Now that we both will have jobs, we've decided to have a ceremony next year on our anniversary.

I really want to pay off my debt as quickly as possible.  This year of unemployment has taught me how oppressive having so much debt is.  I can't even afford to take a government job because it won't pay the $1000/month loan payments that I have [I couldn't even begin to think about a nonprofit job].  Last night my husband and I sat down and figured out a plan of attack on our debt.  We will both be making $4000/month after taxes once we start working.  It will be tight with our loan payments, but we should be able to live off of just one of our salaries [rent and loan payments alone are $3200 so it'll be VERY tight].  Then we can take the other salary and use it to pay off debt.  Living that way will mean that we can have all of our debt paid off by July 2013.  That's nearly exactly 5 years.  I guess that's not so bad.  I'm just so happy that I have a husband to share expenses with.  If I was single, I'd never have this debt paid off.  

All of this has made me increasingly more liberal.  I feel like I am feeling the brunt of all of the bad civilian decisions made by the current administration [although apparently I'm not the only one].  I have felt the [literal] pain of not having health insurance.  My husband and I both had difficulty finding jobs due to the current recession.  We're strapped by debt because of rising educational costs compounded by reduced government assistance.  I lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit and lost half of my stuff.  

Kanye West was onto something, but the quote should have been "George Bush doesn't care about Poor people."

My husband and I move to the Big City in three weeks.  When I get there I want to somehow get involved with politics.  I've been particularly fired up about all of this FISA nonsense.  I religiously read Glenn Greenwald's Blog.  Even though I'm not working for a non-profit like a lot of my friends, I want to feel like I'm doing something.  The first step I'm going to take is to join my local chapter of Drinking Liberally.  Hey, I'm a lawyer.  Drinking is always the first step!