Listen Up

The radio informed me today that there is some sort of belief that is starting to gain traction that walking while either listening to your mp3 player, talking on your cell phone, or texting your friends can be a distraction. I have no doubt that the latter is true, as it is very hard to both look at your cell phone as you type and pay attention to the traffic, but I question the first two. Granted, I imagine it does matter how loud you listen to your music. If you listen too loudly, you aren't going to hear the ambient noise around you. However, I also wonder what is to explain all the people out there that don't do any of these activities yet still seem incapable of navigating traffic.

It seems every single time I go through parking lots, there are people walking down the middle of the lanes reserved for automotives. Because, after all, it's not like there are cars in parking lots, right? Parking lots are built for pedestrians - so that they can spread out and meander and walk three to four abreast. That's safe, right?

Would the limited number of peopler that were involved in some sort of accident while listening to their mp3 player or talking on their cell phones have avoided the incident if they had been walking or running sans auditory technology? One of the people the news story talked about to support their position was walking down the middle of train tracks. Another person failed to notice the bus coming at her. Sure, you could say it was the technology but I see people without any technilogical devices to their ears behave this way nearly every single time I drive through a parking lot. Maybe it's just a complete lack of common sense. However, we can't say that there are just dumb people out there can we? We have to say that they are "distracted." That sounds so much nicer; it implies that these people are otherwise quite bright - if only this damn technology had not distracted them. However, I question its validity, maybe not in every case but certainly in quite a few.

I suppose if the issue really is a problem, the government has an interest in protecting the poor folks having to contend with these technology fiends (as well as the fiends themselves, I guess). However, what about all the other folks? Is there a way we can legislate to eliminate stupid?

I am Middle Eastern?

This past week or two, the food I have been making has taken a decidedly Middle Eastern direction, as I have been perfecting hummus and tabbouleh recipes. Growing up, I was taught you are what you eatbut if that's the case, I am beginning to doubt my heritage.

For the past few months, i have been trying to see how many meals I could comfortably eliminate meat from. There's no vegetarian or higher purpose to this goal. (Perish the thought - a life without bacon is simply not one I want to live.) It's more a matter that I am exceedingly lazy and I do not feel like I consume enough vegetables each day. There are two choices, as I see it, to rectify this. First, I could cook more vegetable side items, which is ok but, again, I am lazy. Second, I could simply make the vegetables the entire main course or an interagal part of it. Well, that's how it all started but now it has sort of become a goal. What healthy thing can I make from vegetables? Does fried eggplant count as healthy?

I seem to know how to do lots of things with meat, but now I want to branch out and do more with vegetables. I have to do something to keep myself busy other than working all the time, and clearly, blogging is so not one of those things. Did you see me post twice last week? Me neither and I am not sure this week looks much better. However, I have added two new recipes to my repretoire and as long as I am eating, things cannot be that bad, right?

Popcorn

I had popcorn for dinner last night. No, not even the delicious kettle corn popcorn or even popcorn cooked in oil with yummy buttery goodness cooked right in. No, I had simple popcorn, popped in an air popper. I am fairly sure it had absolutely no fat and yet it somehow satisfied me. Don't ask me why or how because if you did, I couldn't tell you.

All I know is that I woke up and began working by 10. Somewhere in there, there was a short break for lunch and then I worked, without moving, until 7 that night. I suppose I didn't have to finish all of that work this weekend. I could have tried to delay or postpone it but it would have just made the work that much harder because each time I went back to it, I would have had to remember where I left off and remember my system and it would have ended up taking longer than it did.

Saturday was a little better. I actually got out of the house for a little while. When I came home, I passed out on the couch. I awoke wondering how I ended up on the couch instead of in bed, convinced that it must be 3 or 4 in the morning. Fortunately, I hadn't slept the entire night away and there was still a little time left in which to eat and return phone calls.

What was my point? I have no idea. Other than the fact that popcorn is freaking magical. I think I may be working too hard. I guess I muct be working too hard, as I did not liveup to my goal of two updates this past week, but I am working and that is good. I like paychecks. They help me pay for really cool things like ... popcorn.

But Don't You Believe Them

Hillary always uses a song lyric as the title to her posts. Given that she is much better at updating her blog than I am and makes me laugh on a regular basis, I thought I would take a page from her.

I almost decided to giving up blogging entirely, owing to time constraints but then a funny thing happened, people started emailing me, asking how I was doing and what was wrong. I didn't even think anyone still bothered reading me, given that I hardly ever update anymore but it seems I was mistaken.

In answer to your question, Sally, yes, I am still working the same insane hours. This is the main reason for my lack of updating. Many of my friends who are attorneys work absolutely ridiculous hours, but many of them see light at the end of the tunnel. "I only have to work this hard for the next few months and then I will be caught up." I do not have this luxury. I am fairly certain that I will be working these hours for as long as I choose to remain at this job (or for as long as they desire to keep me, whichever feeling lasts the shortest.)

I have been a little out of it. I no longer know what to write or what to say. I lost my rhythm for writing. I spend most of my time keeping up on other people's blogs and commenting whenever I have something reasonably intelligible to say. (Also, for most of the last week, I have been sick.) However, I know that it important that I retain some outside interests and some sort of a life. So, I will make an effort to update here at least twice per week going forward. We'll see how I do.

I hope all of you are doing well.

Disconnect

People sometimes say things that are foreign to me. Most often, I feel it around the holiday times when people speak of how important family is and the special bond that connects them. "Blood is thicker than water," they say. I often find myself very resistant to these concepts, but it was not until recently I determined why. This concept just does not make sense to me and is completely opposite to what I have learned.

I am not what anyone would consider close to my family. The thought that people would actually look forward to seeing and being with their family for longer than an hour or two is shocking and ridiculous to me. Why would they possibly want to do this.? However, I know people who actually enjoy their family. They cannot wait to see their siblings and parents and spend time with them. It is not just something they say to sound cool and popular. Although, I also know many people that say these things just to say them. Meanwhile, in their hearts the actual act of spending time with their family makes them wish for death ... or at least morphine. They have been taught, and somewhere in their minds believe, that they enjoy it - deriving some perverse pleasure from the misery. Much like Stockholm's syndrome.

I wonder how many other things might be like this. I often find that I will tell people things that they have never heard or thought about and they are initially uncomfortable with the concept and dismiss it immediately. I know others that languish in relationships, of one form or another, that clearly have no hope of satisfying their needs or making them happy. People like to believe things that are comfortable familiar and I believe for me, it was comfortable to believe that no one really enjoys their families. However, I think the real answer is I just do not particularly enjoy most of mine and it is foreign to me to think that anyone else could.

New Job, No Life

So, you see, I started my new job and now have no life. I know I am supposed to be happy that I have a job at all in this crazy, wacky economy and in many ways I am. It's just the no life part that is slowly sucking my will to live. On the bright side, I have so far kept my new job and they do not seem to hate me too much yet. I am not entirely sure what they think of me yet, quite honestly. They may think I am great or they may be thinking, "Great gobbly googly, what have we done?" Either way, they are paying me.

I am, however, working 12 hour days and sometimes on Saturday. My entire gym routine ... what gym routine. I eat dinner after 8 every night and by the time it's done and we have cleaned up, it's almost 9 and almost time to go to bed so that I can wake up and do it all over again the next day. The really scary part is the partners there work longer hours than I do. I do not know how they ever see their children.

I still wait to see ever week if they will tell me that I am just not working out and that they are looking for someone else. However, every week, I seem to finish and they do not say it. Granted it has only been a couple of weeks and they would probably wait until after the holidays anyway, but this is how my brain works. It all started with my first three miserable law jobs working for attorneys that were either crazy or inept (or both) and ever since then, I have become exceptionally jittery with new jobs. I was at my last firm for four years. I was quite used to it and sort of knew what to expect. Now, I do not really know what to expect. It lacks the stability I have learned to love.

And, so, this is why I have been so absent. The good news is that I still have a job. The bad news is that I mostly have no life and I do not know how my new job is going yet.

How I Spent My Holiday Weekend

Nighttime
Originally uploaded by -J:

I spent it in the Keys. I hope to write more here soon. Sorry I have been so bad about writing. I think with the job and everything else, I have just been overwhelmed and swamped.