that's it, i'm moving to iceland

some random thoughts:

1) I have never been the type of person to overheat, but this summer, I feel like I've spent more time sweating and looking generally disgusting than I have with smooth hair and dry clothes. There's something so gross about walking the dog at 7 am and coming back into the house with a sheen of sweat covering my freshly showered skin.

What I find especially hilarious is that when I typed in Google Images "sweaty skin frizzy hair" this is the first result:



um, sure.

2) I'm not the type of girl who gets scared by every creak in my house. After having lived on my own for so many years, it doesn't bother me to come home to a dark house and know that I am my only protection against the potential threats and dangers that supposedly only arise when a single woman is home alone.

However, when I'm deep asleep at 2 am and wake up to my dog simultaneously waking up barking ferociously at my locked master bedroom door, I'm not going to lie...that scares the crap out of me. This is what I experienced last night as my dog sat on the edge of the bed barking persistently and intermittently growling. He then turned to the other end of my bed near the patio door. I wasn't about to open my master bedroom door to any prowlers, but I figured the third floor patio door was safe to open. Imagine my terror when I opened the door and realized my neighbor's rear motion detector lights had been set off. My dog eventually calmed down and laid down, only to stir and start whimpering at the corner of the bed. Now, let me tell you. Barking, growling, any type of seemingly aggressive behavior is scary, but comforting in that it sounds scary to someone who doesn't know my dog is scared of brooms, laundry baskets, gift wrapping rolls -- pretty much anything you hold menacingly. However, a whimpering dog? That is scary. But I've seen enough movies to know that you don't open the door to danger. So I did what any sane (and lazy) person would do. I moved a chair in front of the door, got back in bed with my cordless phone and pressed 911 so that all I'd have to do is press dial if danger presented itself...and that's how i awoke this morning...holding my cordless and cell phone with my dog spooning me. And that's when I realized. It was hot last night (read above thought) and I had set the AC to 74 degrees, but because I was too lazy to go downstairs and lower the temperature, I went to bed in a tank top...so if that masked murderer had invaded my home, I would have had to throw myself over the 3rd floor patio wearing next to nothing and traumatizing any witnesses..then again, come to think of it, if it was a masked murderer, maybe the sight of my fat and sweaty body would have been enough of a deterrent.

3) I'm starting to write again. I've been working on a story treatment, but I find the story line going in different directions. I've never been a fan of short fiction, but maybe short stories will be more my speed for my first endeavor. Anyway, stay tuned for some sneak peaks of the future Pulitzer/PEN/Hemingway/O. Henry prize winning short story collection.

2/3 of my life gone by...

It seems like for as long as I can recall, I've always had this albatross around my neck. the specter of issues with weight has been my constant companion through every stage of my life since the age of 10. I'm not sure when i started developing those issues, but i have a pretty good guess. at any rate, the source of the weight issues aren't relevant. what matters more is figuring out how to move beyond it.

I remember weighing myself when I was in 6th grade. Until that time, I had always been slender and underweight for my age. My identity was wrapped up in being the scrawny one in a group. I weighed myself something during the 6th grade and realized I was slowly approaching the 60 pound weight mark. I was horrified at such a large number, but after reading some teen magazines, I realized I was still underweight, much to my relief. In seventh grade, I approached the 70 pound mark, and again, I viewed this weight gain with much trepidation. The very idea of weight 70 pounds boggled my mind. I pretty much started starving myself on and off at that point to maintain a weight in the 70's...After awhile, I realized it was a losing battle because I was also hitting a growth spurt. I tried to rationalize it and reassure myself that with my height gain, my weight was still proportional to my size. It seemed to make a strange mathematical sense to me that my weight should be a multiple of 10 of whatever grade I was in. This rationale consoled me for a few years while my grades were in the single digits.

However, by the time I hit 10th grade and actually did see a three digit number on the scale, I was determined to do whatever it took not to be any fatter. I starved myself, took diet pills, worked out like a mad woman...anything I could do to keep the weight off. To the outside world, I was a normal narcissistic teenager who was possibly too preoccupied with my weight, but no abnormally so. I managed to fight off concerns and questions about my weight for a few years, or so I thought. Sometime prior to entering college, some friends approached me because I was really gaunt and unhealthy looking. Their concerns seemed unfounded to me because while the numbers sounded alarming to others, I knew what I looked like under my clothes it was a repulsive sight.

One day, I was at Taco Bell with some friends. I was never really interested in fast food, but I wanted to be like a normal teenager. I ordered a single bean burrito and tried to eat it while my friends ate 4 times as much as me. After eating about two or three bites, I thought about the act of eating. I imagined that I looked like a cow with my jaws masticating the disgusting food. As the food went down, I felt my stomach lurch at the idea of food sitting in my stomach. I barely made it to the bathroom before I projectile vomited the contents of my stomach into the toilet. That was the beginning of a bad summer for me. I realized that I could stave off the concerns of my family and friends as long as they saw me eating. Thus, I began a summer of eating small portions of fat free foods and then throwing up when no one was around. By the time summer ended, I was 5'7" and 107 pounds. My mother was in India that summer, burying her father and settling his affairs. She came back, took one look at me and started crying because she hadn't been there to take care of me too. I felt a deep seated shame for my selfish obsessions and willful obliviousness to the concerns of others.

It took a few more months, but I slowly came around to a healthier approach to food. The biggest intervening factor was my new residence. My new home was in New York City, a location where your senses are bombarded on a constant basis. I learned to love food while living there. You can't live in New York City and love it without loving the food. So I explored the city with my stomach and taste buds leading the way.

Thus began the beginning of the end of a ten year struggle with weight. By the time I turned 20, I was nearing 125 pounds. Although I still felt like a heifer, nothing was going to intervene in my love affair with food. It didn't seem worth it to be skinny and miserable when there was a wondrous world out there to be tasted and savored. From the outside, I might have even appeared "recovered." I ate often and with blatant enthusiasm.

However, that feeling of repulsing others with my behemoth size never went away. I'm a few pounds over what the experts say is healthy, but I'm many, many pounds away from where I want to be. It's come to the point that I hate being in pictures because there is no way for me to shrink myself. The struggle of dressing myself is a chore I dread every day. If there was a way to shower with my eyes closed, I would. There is no limit to the things I would do if it meant I didn't have to see myself as I look now. The crazy thing is that I can finally see myself accurately for the first time and when I do, I'm constantly surprised by how I now look the way I always thought I did when I was at my lowest weights.

I no longer suffer from body dysmorphia, but it's not really a consolation. I'm 30 now and my outlook on my life hasn't changed. I'm reverting back to hating myself because I cannot accept how fat I feel. It's not really about the reflection in the mirror as it is about how I feel about the person staring back at me. There's no magic pill, prayer, meditation, self-affirmation or anything else I haven't tried to just accept myself as I am, regardless of the size of my clothes or the number on the scale.

When I think about having children in the future, I can't help but hope not to have a daughter. I feel anxious because I would never want a daughter of mine to go through these self-image and self-worth issues. I want to tell my non-existent daughter that she is beautiful just the way she is and that her self-worth is a result of her amazing personality, not the size 0 jeans or double digit weight. How do I explain to her that it's ok to love yourself for who she is when I cannot do the same? How do I do this when the very idea of getting pregnant and gain the subsequent weight terrifies me beyond belief? I want my non-existent daughter to stand proud without worrying about holding in her stomach for pictures. But in order to pass down any such lessons and instill a sense of confidence based on inner beauty, I have to start walking that walk.

After wasting 2/3 of my life on inane concerns about self-image, I'm ready to take that step. I just need someone to point me in the right direction.

password changes

It's funny how some completely annoying and/or menial tasks seem not so annoying when you put things in perspective. Yes, I'm sure you can say that about a lot of things in life, but today I was thinking about password changes.

As I was getting off the metro and making my now weekly stop at Whole Foods on the way to work to pick up some healthy foods for snacks and lunch at work, I looked at my watch and sighed that yet another hour and a half of my life had been spent on a work commute. I try not to get frustrated at the utter waste of 3 hours I endure each day because I truly am grateful to be going someplace where I love working.

Last year at this time, I was on the way to becoming extremely pessimistic about my chances at every getting back to this job or to another job where I felt challenged and occasioanlly valued. I hated coming into work and my attitude showed. When I started that job last year, I promised myself that I'd be out before I had to change my password. Well, when May came around and I was being prompted to change my Windows password, I kept delaying it because I was hoping that a miracle would occur. Eventually I changed it because I had no choice, but make no mistake, I did so under duress. (obviously I'm prone to exaggeration). Anyway, when I had to change my password again in August, I was again really frustrated, but I kept trying to tell myself that eventually my situation would change. It changed shortly thereafter because by September, I was out of that hellhole and back to my great old job that I was foolish to leave.

Now, when I get prompted to change my password every 3 months for 3 different password required systems, I stifle the urge to sigh or roll my eyes. While it might be a minor inconvenience to think of easy to remember passwords that have a capital letter, a number and a symbol every 3 months, I'd much rather do it at this job than anywhere else. And while there days I'd really like to spend less than 3 hours on the metro or 1.5 hours driving, I will be continue to be grateful to going to a job that I enjoy. Plus, at least my commute gives me time to read a book everyday!

Reason 8,384,692 I love my mother

Saturday was my Sammy baby's first birthday. Before having Sammy come into our lives, Pork Chop and I used to laugh at obsessed dog owners. That all changed one Sunday in early August 2008. I was at work when Pork Chop called me to tell me he found the perfect puppy for us. I was skeptical because I'm terrified of dogs and because I didn't think Pork Chop was up to the responsibility of caring for a little beings. A few hours later, I was sitting on the floor and going through the paperwork required to buy a dog when Pork Chop brought Samson over to me. Poor little guy was suffering from kennel cough and was really exhausted from all the manhandling he'd gone through that day. At 11 weeks old, he still needed a lot of rest. Pork Chop put him on the floor and Sammy came over to me, looked up at me and (I swear), sighed and put his head on my thigh where he proceeded to fall asleep promptly. I took one look at that adorable face, felt his tiny little body quiver in his sleep and fell in love. In that instant, I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows too big. I knew I'd be taking Samson (soon to be known as Sammy baby to me) home and that I'd be wrapped around his little finger.

I run home everyday with excitement to spend time with Sammy. I can't go to the store without thinking about what toys or treats to buy him. He's my favorite companion on a Friday night when Pork Chop is out with friends. I'll stop at McDonald's for chicken nuggets and French fries for Sammy to eat contentedly while we lay in bed together. He'll gnaw on a treat while I read. We're perfect buddies together and during moments like that, I can't imagine a better way to spend my alone time.

My parents took to Sammy immediately. He's adorable and he's got a lot of admirers, but my mom loves him almost as much as I do. When we visit my parents, I leave him with my parents to babysit (not dog sit, because they really do baby him) while I hang out with friends or run errands in NJ. My dad takes him for walks while my mom prepares Sammy's favorite meals and scrounges around for new toys for Sammy. My mom's doting on Sammy makes me love her more. Not only because she accepts him and treats him how I want him to be treated (ok, fine, spoiled), but because she loves him on her own too.

However, my mom totally caught me off guard on Saturday with the absolutely cutest thing. I told her that it was Sammy's birthday. She then immediately scolded me for not telling her earlier so she could buy him a birthday present...and then she asked me to put her on speaker phone so she wish him a happy birthday. I put her on speaker and watched Sammy's ears perk as my mom cooed, "happy birthday Sammy! You're a big boy today!".

There are no words for how much I loved my mom at that moment.

Reason 8,384,691 I love my mother

This isn't a Mother's day post (which is good because it would be way late). This is more of an acknowledgment of the little things my mom does and says that surprise me because I don't expect her to understand me so well...nor do I think I understand her either.

A few weeks ago, my family had a huge argument. Many hurtful things were said to each other, while I mainly stood apart and tried to mediate. I've always somewhat felt like an outsider in the exclusive club that is my family. That day was no different. Although I had no part in the fighting, I was blamed by all the participants for simultaneously not taking sides, taking the wrong side, not understanding, trying to understand things that were beyond my comprehension, etc.

Anyway, my mom indulged in the usual dramatics wherein she moaned about all the sacrifices she made as a mother, related the horrors of her c-sections to bring my brother and I to the world, etc. Basically, she just read from the universal mothers' handbook that every mother seems to have memorized. Anyway, I've heard the guilt trip before and tuned it out. However, then my mom veered from the script. She cried about how she still remembers being pregnant with Brown Clown. She told me about her fear and excitement as her belly grew, her sleepless nights when she would stand over his crib and marvel at his tiny appendages and worry about how such a vulnerable body would make it in this cruel world.

Maybe you've heard such reminiscing from your parents; maybe I have too and I just never listened. This time those words pierced my veneer though. She explained that the love and worry I feel for my Sammy baby is just an inkling of the terrifying, all-encompassing love that only a mother can feel for her child. I already know this, but now that I'm at the age when having a child is commonplace, that sentiment seems more real.

My love for my dog is so huge that I feel like my heart breaks on a daily basis just to accomodate the new love that develops daily. One of my fears about starting a family is that I don't think my heart can handle it. Love is heartache; for the first time, I truly understand that. I already imagine the physical, professional, academic, and social sacrifices a woman makes when she becomes a mother. I just never appreciated the emotional sacrifice. As a mother, your feelings and thoughts are never your own again. You are held hostage from day one of realizing that you're carrying a baby (or that your adoption is going through). You spend your life worrying, hoping, loving...all for a child who will never appreciate a tenth of your dedication and commitment. You trust that God will protect your baby and guide him when you cannot. You place your faith in the idea that your love will compensate for your parenting mistakes.

I don't know if I can do any of that. I'm sure no mother feels ready to do that, but I'm paralyzed by the mere suggestion of motherhood. I've been grappling with this fear constantly lately because, again, I'm at that age when everyone seems to be starting families. I can't imagine "my turn" anymore than I can imagine having a sex change operation and becoming a man.

I haven't told my mom about these fears because I didn't think she'd understand. It's expected in my culture that when you're "of age," you get married and start expelling babies from your body. As a result, I just assumed that my mother didn't understand the uncertainty and overwhelming fear I have regarding parenthood. However, when she started talking about watching Brown Clown grow everyday and being astonished at the way his perfect little body grew bigger and stronger to the point that he was crawling, walking and then running to my mother...and then away from my mother...I finally realized what I hadn't understood before. Motherhood isn't an obligation. It's a lifelong duty, but it's also a privilege. It's heartbreak, but it's also heart-filling.

I don't know how my mother knew to put her unhappiness with her child's actions into terms I'd understand, but she did. She targeted my fears but also put them in context of the great rewards of motherhood.

I'm so happy because today I found my friends

...they're in my head.

Over the past few years, I have been going through some uncomfortable growing pains. When I first moved here, I did not concentrate on making new friends. I was perfectly polite (at least I think I was) to people, but I always withdrew from any type of intimacy or deep friendships with people here. This was in part because I had a few wonderful friends back in NJ and NY and I didn't see the need to start anew. However, if I'm going to be honest with myself, my behavior was largely in part because I am afraid of forming friendships with people. I counted myself very fortunate to have a very small number of good friends back home, but I also found them to be somewhat of an anomaly in my life. I didn't know how I got so lucky to make those friends or why they continued to be in my life, but I also didn't know how to make new friends here that would hold similar value as my dear friends back in NJ and NY. As a result, I contented myself with being slightly remote and emotionally inaccessible.

I've never had a great track record with friends. For that reason, I've always avoided any groups of girls because inevitably they morph into "mean girls." That's obviously oversimplifying the facts, but generally speaking, I find it really difficult to be friends with a group of girls because I simply do not understand the girl dynamic.

Anyway, so I amused myself for a few years by having a few vague acquaintances. I told myself this was all fine and dandy, but the strain of having few people to call friends here has worn on me over the past few years. Simultaneously (or perhaps this caused the strain), I realized that certain acquaintances who I had a fondness for were largely consumed by their feelings of enmity towards me. It's a really sobering feeling to realize that you aren't well-liked. I've gone through a great deal of self-analysis over the past few years as a result of these epiphanies and while I realize where I'd gone wrong with my behavior, I also realized that I had to be much more selective in terms of who I deemed "worth" my time and energy. Just because someone is in my peer group doesn't mean I have to be bff with her, right? Right.

Anyway, so last year, my resolution was to become more social, make myself more vulnerable (and thus more exposed and open to friends with quality people) and reach out to people whose company I enjoyed. A year later, I can't exactly say that I've got a zillion friends, but that was never my intention. However, I have made a very small number of new friends through work and some outside interests of mine. I've even intitiated going out for coffee/drinks, shopping or invited those friends over to our home. It's been slow progress, but I feel like I'm finally coming out of my shell. I feel more blessed for the people I've let into my life and I've learned a lot from these great people.

I'm going to continue to work on my relationships with people. If you're reading this, don't let me fall behind on my self-improvement goals. Also, if you're reading this, thanks for giving me a chance. Those of you who I've befriended in person and spent time with laughing and chit-chatting away are high on my list of reasons why 2008 was a great year for me. I hope I can continue to deepen those friendships in the coming year.

a new day is dawning

It's my last day at the job I've loathed for the better part of a year. I've woken up each day in 2008 having to talk myself into getting out of bed to go to this job. Without meaning to, I let this job suck the life and passion out of me. I was overly negative, pessimistic, joyless and bitchy. I complained and whined and was an altogether unpleasant person. When I've come across intolerable people, instead of reacting with the manners my parents raised me, I found a fleeting satisfaction in being impolite and dismissive.

I'm not proud of the person I was here.

Fortunately, today is my last day here. I'm finding myself somewhat sad about leaving. I've met some interesting people, had many fun conversations, laughed at inane things and altogether found myself passing time faster than I realized. It's nearly October and 2008 is almost over. All things considered, this place wasn't so awful. Sure, the work environment was uninspiring and the tasks were laughable. However, in the end, it was a job. A job that paid. A job that enabled me to secure a mortgage with my husband, pay down my car loans, student loans and credit card debt and while away many a day by chit-chatting with friends and catching up on blogs. Now that I've put it in context, I guess it wasn't so terrible.

I can say that now that I have perspective. I'm going back to the job I took straight out of law school. I'm excited to return to the field in which I thrived. I'm looking forward to the work, the people, the cases, and even the bureaucratic nuisances involved. However, I'm most excited about the prospect of feeling that my legal education, enormous debt that I incurred and years spent pursuing intellectual property were worth it. I will finally feel validated. I will finally feel like a real attorney.

I hope that along with this newfound confidence and optimism, I find the "happy" part of the old me. I've missed her and I think everyone who knew the old me would much rather welcome the 2007 happy roy than deal with this unpleasant 2008 version.

a good litigator does not make for a great spouse

[Let's pretend that I haven't been absent from the blogging world for the past 14 months. At some point, I hope to address the months of inactivity and how my life has changed during that period. However, during my absence, every time I thought about returning to blogging, I became discouraged by the idea of having to backtrack. So...let's just pick up with the present.]

Married life has been really interesting. Pork Chop and I have grown a great deal both as individuals and as a couple over the past 14 months of marriage. I now understand what older married couples mean when they state that they continually learn about themselves and their spouses during each day of marriage. I used to find that concept hard to believe because I have a tendency to take things so literally. However, lately, I've come to understand more about myself and how I fit into the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

MMEJD and I had an interesting discussion a few weeks ago about our argument styles. Being a natural born litigator, she has a tendency to fight like a "lawyer." I thought this was interesting, but didn't think about her revelation beyond that discussion. This past weekend, Pork Chop and I had a minor disagreement about something. In his frustration with me, he accused me of always "fighting like a lawyer." Since I had recently heard MME tell me that about herself, I was curious. Pork Chop's main complaint is that I'm emotionally removed from arguments and that I'm not so concerned about being "right" as I am about winning the argument. And to that extent, I use my rationalization and analytical skills essentially to "debate" with him. Pork Chop has many great talents and abilities, but I am definitely the better debater. So lately, I've been winning more arguments...but to what purpose? I'm definitely not right most of the time. I just happen to articulate my point and substantiate my claims better.

Your choice of profession does not necessarily dictate your interpersonal relationship style. I know plenty of successful therapists and social workers who cannot maintain functional and healthy personal relationships. I also don't think that all lawyers argue the same way. Transactional attorneys definitely approach problem solving a different way by envisioning and sidestepping future problems. Mediators and arbitrators practice their conciliatory skills. The various professions in the law require diverse skill sets. Those skills apparently often permeate an individual's personality. I obviously chose the area of litigation because of my personality strengths. I just never thought of myself as a typical litigator. I'm non-confrontational by nature and I always thought I didn't like the current state of the adversarial system in American litigation. Apparently, I have been fooling myself. I'm more of a litigator in my personal life than I realized.

To this extent, I have come to realize that I need to adjust my argument approach. I don't need to win every argument. There is no judge or jury to issue a verdict. No one will be wowed by my charismatic and convincing closing arguments. I have to view people as people, not opposing counsel. I need to find an emotional connection to people and work on developing my empathy for others. By doing so, hopefully I can be a better friend, daughter, sister, and most importantly, spouse.