Two Sides of the Same Lawyer

When you're a lawyer, coming to Washington, DC feels like coming home.  You walk the streets and know that at least 50% of the people walking past you have passed the Bar.  They would probably get whatever dorky lawyer joke pops in your head and would also understand, without additional explanation, why deleting comments on your own blog violates exactly no one's right to free speech.  They're your people, or at least the people of one facet of your being, and you're in their mecca.  Also, the Home Office of your new job is very fancy and you feel fancier for being able to say you work there.  Even if your "there" is actually a regional office in Fort Worth, which is decidedly less fancy.

And for me, being in the city, even in sweltering temperatures 10 freaking degrees higher than the ones I left behind in Texas, felt like home.  Walking to everything, taking marvelously efficient public transportation, being asked by a homeless man to run away with him to California (yes, really) -- home!  On Tuesday night I met up with one of my best friend's from law school to travel to Alexandria, Virginia- another state, and yet a short metro ride away (having lived in Texas most of my life, it will always blow my mind that you can cross multiple state lines in a matter of minutes) to meet up with law school friend #2 and her adorable 4-month-old baby.  A baby I got to snuggle while he looked at me with very blue, very skeptical eyes.  You can tell both his parents are lawyers.  After hubby-lawyer came home, we girls headed out to a wine and cheese bar to chat and eat cheese and drink wine.  After dinner I rode the metro back to DC with Friend #1 to see her absolutely gorgeous apartment in Dupont Circle and drink more wine until we realized it was midnight and a Tuesday and holy crap I need to get back to my hotel to take advantage of the springtail free bathtub before my early day began on Wednesday.  And though I was (am) completely in lust with her little apartment, and I loved loved loved getting to see my friends, I think my favorite part of the night was leaving her place at 11:55 p.m. on a Tuesday, turning a corner, and finding cafes with people still in them, cabs circling about waiting for me to flag them down-- so much noise, activity, LIFE at midnight on a Tuesday.  I smiled the whole cab ride back to the hotel.  I was born and raised in the suburbs of Houston, but The City - Any City feels more like home than any suburb of anywhere ever will.  I used to think it was just Chicago, but now I know it's not.  Wherever we move next, we're downsizing even more and living downtown.  And after JP mows the grass every weekend during another 110 degree summer, I think I can get him to move with me.

Unfortunately, despite the late hour, long day, copious amount of wine, and FABULOUS hotel room (I think it might be the nicest I've ever seen, and I've stayed in some very nice hotels thanks to the BigLaw amex), I didn't sleep all night.  I canceled a much anticipated early coffee get together with my cousin, and patched together 3.75 hours of sleep before packing up, getting dressed, and racing out the door to my big meeting.  This was probably my second favorite moment of the trip: wearing my favorite dark grey slight houndstooth print suit, with super long pants legs that have to be worn with my 3.5" black hidden platform heels, and fitted jacket (and lilac colored satin shell underneath, and silver pearl necklace and earrings to complete the outfit), walking quickly out of the Mandarin Oriental with a suitcase and shoulder briefcase purse, and hailing a cab to headquarters.  In that moment, I felt like a lawyer fullstop.  I may be low on the totem pole of a large government agency, I may not understand half the accounting terms the guy I was interviewing kept saying, and I may not know much of any practical law (do not call me if you get pulled over by the cops, I have absolutely no idea what you should do), but in that moment, I looked and temporarily felt the part, and that made me smile, even on less than 4 hours of sleep.

Then the day got crazy - prep prep prep with the assistant director; interview, question, and take notes with the guy I was there to meet; successfully move up my flight home by 4 hours; RUN out of the headquarters to hail a cab out to Dulles where I fidgeted my way through security, staring at my watch every 2 seconds, still in my suit and very high heels.  At 3:20 I'd made it to the terminal of my 3:45 already-boarding-flight and realized I hadn't eaten since 7 p.m. the night before.  And that was the meal where I drank more wine than I ate bread and cheese, and before that I hadn't eaten since a snack in the DFW airport at 10 a.m. the day before, and oh, maybe that's why there's black dots hovering in the periphery of my vision and my hands are shaking. Right.  Well at least I profited from the per diem.  I inhaled some white rice and orange chicken, bought the first book I saw in the bookstore (Julie Garwood's the Ideal Man; it's terrible, cost me $8, and only took 2 hours to read on a 3 hour flight).  I re-read the first half of the (terrible) book to keep the guy next to me from talking to me the rest of the flight (he was nice, but oh so chatty, and while I am normally friendly, I see no point in investing in temporary airplane seat relationships).  But the mad dash and near blackout was worth it- I got home just before the kids went to bed and I got to talk to JP- really talk to JP- for the first time in many days.

All in all it was a great trip, minus the insomnia and total lack of eating, and I want to go back.  Friends, hailing taxis, super fun interviews of helpful experts, feeling like a power lawyer, and soaking in a springtail free marble-surrounded-absolutely-gorgeous bathtub in a room I cannot believe we get to book it with the standard government rate... it was a very fulfilling 36 hours in The City of Lawyers.

And then tonight, long after the power lawyer glow had worn off and I was in a normal lawyer skirt, cropped cardi, and open toed heels, I decided to make the tasty summer beer cocktail to go with our inaugural meal from JP's Father's Day grill.  I mixed all the ingredients- frozen pink lemonade, beer, vodka, water, sprite- and lifted the heavy glass pitcher and SMASH.  The bottom falls out, shatters on the floor, and liquid- sticky sweet pink liquid flies everywhere.  All I can think of are the bugs that are going to come over, drink my cocktail, and invite all their friends to come back and get drunk.  I must stop them.  I pull off my beautiful leather peep-toe pumps and skirt, both soaked in tasty beverage, and start mopping and scrubbing and mopping some more in my cardigan and pink thong and think, wow, what a change in 24 hours.  From suited up and out on the town, to half naked and scrubbing floors and hoping neighbors don't drop by- two rather extreme sides of the coin of me.  

But dinner was tasty, my kitchen is now very clean, and it's extra nice to be home.