Category Archive

Every once in awhile, I find myself in situations that make me stop and think, look around me and realize just what this life of mine involves at the more superficial level. The hot showers I take every day. The refrigerator where food molds because I’m just one person, I can’t eat everything! The eight-dollar sandwiches I buy at lunch, and charge it, please.

Back when J still worked in a law firm, he took a pro bono case, a man seeking asylum in the United States. The judge granted that asylum this week, and last night, we all met in the cramped apartment of his translator to celebrate.

It’s a studio apartment, situated directly across from the National Cathedral. The walls are brightly colored, and hung with tapestries; Arabic music plays softly in the background, and we’re all seated in low chairs and sofas around the coffee table while the ancient window air conditioner whirrs. The translator is from Iran, and this room is her sanctuary, her home-away-from-home. Just walking in, I feel like I’m crossing the divide into some magical realm; sitting there, I could be in an apartment in Karachi, in Baghdad, in Kabul. Not that I’ve been to any of these places. Only in my head, and the odd Thursday night.

I’m sitting on the blue sofa, neighbor to plates of hummus, of yogurt, of chicken. The lawyer’s wife to my left takes small portions; she’s pregnant, and her appetite has grown persnickety. Misunderstanding how much more is coming, I serve myself generously as the painted platters pass.

Across from us is the newly-minted asylee, speaking rapid French with his four African-born young cousins. Or second cousins? They’re in school in Maryland, we learn; they’ve been in the US for four years now, and won asylum on similar facts as the evening’s celebre.

Victims of oppression, of tribal clashes, of governments built on belief in black magic. Running from bounty hunters and convictions that the rains won’t come, the crops will die, the sky will open its wrath if certain conditions aren’t met, certain covenants aren’t fulfilled. A promise to a god a long time ago, silently whispered in a witchdoctor’s tent: he needs a baby, give me a baby, I don’t want to end up like the rest of them. Give me a baby and I’ll give him right back; I’ll offer him back, he’ll be my offering to you. A conception haled as an omen; a baby boy born, and revered, but predestined.

A baby boy grown up, and grown skeptical; a baby boy defected while on scholarship in Europe. A people enraged and death threats sent; curses cried out and the witchdoctor’s magic again sought. A mother shamed, and stoned. An asylum granted, an American greencard, and a celebration.

The lawyer’s wife strokes her belly, the diamond on her finger causing light refractions to dance across the children, systematically, just for a moment.

She yawns, and they stand to leave. We stay for tea; yes I’ll take sugar, and what grade will you be in? How do you like it here? Oh, wonderful; I liked that class too, and yes, it’s sad that summer is ending.

Back at the car it’s life as usual. The magic of all of us together, all the world under the happy tent of the evening, fades. J’s mad about something, and I’m anxious for another workday.

A workday where I sit, still full from dinner, and no longer particularly interested in studying petty disputes over domain names. I remind myself that the truth is in perspective, but I think I’m still suffering a bit of culture shock from my evening in such a faraway place.

Respect is:

• the very excellent song currently running through my head
• completely lacking in this office
• really important to any healthy relationship

Disrespect is:

• my boss’ pattern after returning from a two-week vacation: in at noon on Monday; failed to appear Tuesday; out at noon on Wednesday
• the miniskirt I am wearing today. Denim, cut-off; on sale in the junior’s department at Mervyns and originally purchased as a swimsuit coverup (HA)
• the hour and a half of company time I just spent in the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret

I feel like I’m in good company by deciding that my job is a joke, and I hate it, and it makes me miserable. I don’t know exactly when these feelings came; were they recent? Maybe my boss really was once the nice guy I remember. Or maybe I was just deluding myself, high on the accomplishment of starting a career, convinced that it was excellent and everything was perfect because it had to be, I’d put so much at stake.

Whatever it is, the shine has worn off.

The hardest thing for me right now is that facially, my job is still perfect. It’s a perfect blend of my education, interests, and aspirations. If I could run my day through a mesh colander and filter out the snark, and the attitude, and the laziness of the people around me? If I could take the action here and set it up in front of a green screen of goodness? I’d be set.

I can’t, obviously, so I’m sitting here with a couple of different options. I could keep this job, because really, at the end of the day, it isn’t bad. I don’t feel challenged nearly enough, and I think there’s a lot of bad energy—but it pays very well, allows me to spend the odd afternoon out at the mall and rattling away on the keyboard, pretending to work (cough), and while it frustrates me to no end some days, it’s a pretty cush way to live.

Or I could look for something else. Something related or something totally different; the jury’s still out on that one. I sometimes get in these moods where I decide that retraining—maybe as a teacher, or a nurse—would be loads of fun. Other days I’m not so sure I’m ready to give up on the law.

Short of sorting out these universal questions, I took a back-door approach and updated my resume last night; oh, my goodness it felt like I was slapping my boss just opening that dusty file. “I’m moving on, you see,” I said to his specter. “I’m turning all the skills I’ve learned under your dictatorship and am polishing them into something amazing. I’m planning a coup.”

I still couldn’t shake the skank feeling of writing about myself with the harsh brevity the resume demands, though. Hi, it’s me, knocking on your door in my barest, most revealing elements. Why don’t you let me in, and let me show you how I use these assets, and you can pay me? Yeah. It feels pretty much exactly how it sounds.

This was the first time I updated my resume since school, and I’m pleased to report that it’s looking a lot meatier. A lot less “obviously I needed to fill space so I stuck this in.” It totally got my confidence going, so I moved that blinking cursor on over to a cover letters file.

For inspiration, I started researching job postings. It started out as “let’s pretend” (yes, this is what I do for fun late at night), but I actually stumbled on an opening that I’d be perfect for. Except that it’s in New York. I don’t live in New York. J is starting a business in inland Virginia, which is the opposite direction of New York. Troubling.

I don’t know that I’ll apply, but I wrote myself a glowing cover letter just the same. It was such a positive exercise, actually sitting down and writing out how great I am and what a good job I’m doing, and why I’m ready to move on. I am excellent here, even if no one sees it. And won’t they be sorry when the girl behind all of those great things slips away?

The New York job is with a major competitor. And there are others out there. Game on, bitches.

Recently, collecting the mail has been the high point of my day. Is this sad? I feel like this is pretty sad. I normally don’t check the mail but a couple of times a week, since all I seem get is slips from people telling me I owe them money. The nerve. I’m growing impatient for those IRS fascists to surrender my check, so I’ve been a veritable mail slot vigilante of late. No check. But, I have had some nice, nice surprises:

• A card from my law school roommate, saying that she misses living with me. So. Sweet.
• A letter from my mom, complete with cutouts from the Crate & Barrel sale catalogue with little annotations: “how about this by your table?” “Wouldn’t this be cute in your bedroom?”
• A letter and an update from my sponsored child in Albania. Holy goodness, this child is so cute, it breaks my heart. He had his hair all styled and his ears totally stick out and I love him SO MUCH. He’s seven, in the second grade, and in satisfactory health. His best friend’s name is Gerald. At recess he likes to play with a ball. And when he grows up? He wants to be a doctor. Why? “Because I like it.” I’m seriously considering making that my default answer for everything.
• A box yesterday full of these:

Pink champagne! It’s possible I ordered those for myself (cough). But still! A nice surprise!

I’m on such a roll that I almost hate to check tonight, in case I break the spell. Or, you know, I could always just ship more alcohol to myself.

I almost brought one of those champagnes into work today, except for the minor inconvenience that I’d probably get fired for that. I get the distinct impression that it’s difficult, nay, near impossible to get the ol’ pink slip around here, though I suspect that acting like a floozy and drinking on site in the week I’m charged with playing supervisor would do a fine job of testing that theory to its natural limits. I’m not really that curious.

The thing of it is, I’m meant to be here:

Ah, Paris. No joke, I was slated to cover a conference, in Paris, this week. Since almost a year ago. It’s a long, long story that would showcase (I fear) some very unattractive bitterness on my part to fully explain. [But first a quick aside: my boss views conferences as paid vacations. He transposes the same on me, which is ungrounded as (a) I historically work my ass of on every assignment; and (b) I have won awards for the same (since which time, I will note, I have gone on zero out-of-office assignments). Also: I’ve been to Paris. I speak (passable) French. Not a vacation, you jackass]. Short story thus: boss pulls the plug in April, citing “budget concerns”; blames upper management, washes his hands of it, and goes to Disneyworld. Nice.

We have a Paris correspondent who allegedly will be covering “key portions” of the proceedings. Except he lives an hour outside of the city, and can’t really go to all of it, an e-mail today informs me. Thus, here I am, reading the transcripts, calling my contacts (long distance to Paris—take that, Mr. No Budget), and editing his work into the stories I would have written. Tears, bitter tears I choke back.

A good companion to stifled sadness, though? Espresso walnuts. Yum-my. And so easy!

For those coffee-inclined out there (and friends of the same), I’ll present the directions:

• spray a baking sheet with nonstick vegetable oil, and preheat oven to 325’
• combine 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons finely ground espresso (like you’d put in a machine), ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon kosher salt in a small bowl
• in a large bowl, whisk one egg white until it’s frothy
• add 4cups of walnut halves to the egg white, tossing to coat
• pour the espresso mixture over the walnuts, again tossing to coat
• spread the walnuts over the baking sheet, and bake for five minutes. Loosen with a spatula and shake the nuts around, then bake for an additional five minutes.

Voila! Espresso walnuts, with many thanks to the Bon Appetit Christmas issue for the inspiration. They also had prettier pictures, but whatever.

They’re a fantastic pick-me-up, and aside from the sugar, they aren’t so bad. Nothing artificial, no preservatives; cinnamon is totally good for you, and nuts are healthy, right? Protein and coffee. Brilliant.

A word to the wise, though: if you make these at night, don’t just stand over the pan and eat them because oh holy goodness, they’re just that delicious when they’re all hot and toasty. Ground espresso has a funny way of inhibiting sleep. Don’t even ask me how I know.

There lots of reasons why I am IN LOVE, to a likely unhealthy degree, with my macbook.  It’s slick, and beautiful, and little, and perfect.  It’s true love.

I brought it out here to the pool deck to draft responses to the five billion e-mails starred in my gmail (all long overdue–of course).  Most fantastic of all discoveries: I am connected to the internet!  Specifically, to the crappy comcastic internet from my apartment! Sure, I just live upstairs, but the internet should not, in my limited wireless experience, extend this far.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the airport express.  Sheer genius!  Dear Apple, I heart you.  xx, magda.

The week ended better than expected.  It was a busy day, sure, but I feel like I’m pulling through; things are looking a little less grey. (And no, I do not credit that solely to the fruity cocktail disguised in a waterbottle here to my left.  Not solely).

My boss left this afternoon for vacation; two weeks in Disney World.  Two weeks!  I’d appreciate probably, um, a weekend.  There’s only so much Mickey Mouse a girl can take, you know?  The good news is, he’s out of my hair.  The bad news is, I’m the pro tem manager of our preposterous little publication.  It’s a lot of hard work, that, and I’m entirely unamused at how it all boiled down. 

I’m one of those sugar and spice and everything nice type of girls, though, so I’d never let him know.  I swear, sometimes I’m so sugary I could be mistaken for a giant cavity with little arms and legs. 

“Have a great trip!” I said.  What I was thinking: “I hope your train explodes after a harrowing experience being molested by Donald Duck!”

“No, managing everything will be no problem!” I said.  What I was thinking: “I plan to run a feature article on how much of a jerk you are!” (If only…)

Fun times.  The good news is, I’m feeling close to peppy again, things are looking up, and everything is starting to seem manageable once more.  Sometimes it’s easy to lost that focus, I guess. 

Moments like this bring that focus back.  Where I’m sitting here on the terrace, pretending I’m on a tropical vacation, and everything is molto bene. 

Here’s a postcard, wish you were here:

I tried to go all bloggy, and just do nose down or something—but they all came out sort of looking like photos of my chest, with a little smile attached at the top.  Not exactly what I was going for.  But really? Photo booth? Has seriously entertained me for about an hour now.  Ingenius! 

So here I am, another day in my office with no windows, watching the clock tick, tick, tick by; looking at the picture of me and J from his Christmas party two seasons past and convincing myself that it’s real. I’m also eating thin mint cookies that miraculously presented themselves in my freezer this morning when I was looking for berries for a breakfast smoothie, so my mouth kind of tastes like Christmas, which is a nice tie-in (All right, magda, you’re cut off from caffeine effective: now).

I was talking with a friend of mine last night; she called to invite J and me to a barbeque she’ll be throwing next weekend. My calendar was free but, in typical J fashion, he had an outstanding obligation.

“You know, Magda, I’m beginning to wonder if this guy exists!” she said. Jokingly, of course, but it gave me pause: I’ve been dating the guy for a year and a half, and she’s never met him. She’s been my friend since college.

Granted, I don’t see her all that often, but every time we have managed to coordinate, J’s been absent, or has had to duck out at the last minute.

Now I’m trying to think if there are other people out there who suspect, even subconsciously somewhere in the back of their heads, that I’ve just hallucinated him: the ghost guest perpetually on magda’s arm. He wanted to come, but. He wished he could be here, but. He may drop in later, but. A distraction born of desperation, do they think? Or maybe a brain tumor?

J is one of the most over-involved people I’ve ever met, and that’s where I lay the blame. He rides on a bicycle team. He trains for and runs marathons. He plays and takes lessons for the mandolin. He plays in (I’m sorry to say) a mandolin band. He manages/provides legal advice to a “real” band. He does a lot of “on the side” legal work for musicians/entertainment people. He works on the Hill being all legislatively influential and important.

Here’s a little contrast. I go to work from 9-5. I sometimes grade essays. I read a lot of novels. And that’s all, folks.

Sometimes it’s really hard being in a couple with this kind of imbalance; it leaves me with a lot of sort of “grey area” time on my hands.

I’m constantly saying no to my single friends, the friends who tend to call spontaneously on a Friday night and want to hang out. Especially on weekends, there’s kind of a presumption that I’ll be spending the evening with J, and maybe I’m just getting old, but at the end of the week sometimes I like to just stay in. Even if we do nothing but hang out on the couch and watch dvds, it’s us time, and it makes up for all that we miss mid-week. I need more notice to disrupt that status quo, and it doesn’t take long for the phone calls to slow, slow, slow down. Ah, magda’ll be with her boyfriend, they say.

With my luck, the nights he’s out and I’m wishing said single friends would call and we could plan something, it’s my coupled friends who rise to the occasion (go figure) and they (naturally) want to go out in pairs. It’s easier to be a single girl amidst couples than one half of a whole, though neither is an enviable position; I feel like I spend all my time out with these friends missing J, and fixated on what they’re all thinking. “Oh, poor magda, couldn’t get her guy to come out,” they say in my mind. “Poor magda can’t find a boyfriend who’ll stand by her and be there.” Or, worst of all, “poor magda, this J character probably doesn’t even exist.”

He does, though! And he would come out, he’s just busy! Right? Right.

Really, though, he’s been SO busy recently that we’ve really only talked for a few minutes each night, right before I go to bed. I wake up and I start to wonder if it was all just some crazy dream. It’s only Wednesday, right, and the weekend wasn’t that long ago … but something about this week has felt so long, like it’s been AGES since we’ve seen each other, like he’s on the whole other side of the world and our only communication comes via very crackly, WWII-era transatlantic phone lines and the calls are so expensive and the background is so noisy that we can only get a few words in.

Right.  So now if you’ll excuse me, I have some cookies to eat and a boyfriend to call, just to hear his voice and prove that he’s out there, right here, in this same city. And not just in my head.

My co-worker and I have a deal where every Friday that our boss doesn’t show, we go to a long lunch at the thai restaurant down the street.  Today was one of those days.  We order a few glasses of plum wine and pad thais, and dish about work, about life, about each other.  I’ve worked with her for nearly a year now, and for as small a staff as we are, it’s a real travesty that I know her so little.

She was talking about being stressed; deciding whether to renew her lease, going through a breakup, thinking about taking another bar exam. 

Hold up.  Breakup?  I love how she just snuck that in there.  She told me she was okay; break-ups are just always hard.  I said something distanced, yet designed to be comforting; something like “boys are jerks, don’t worry, you’ll have moved on from him before you know it.”

Except.  Her soon-to-be-ex is not of the male variety.

I consider myself a very open and accepting person, but still I’m surprised by how readily I assumed she was just like me.  I also hate how easily she accepted my gaffe in judgment; like she gets that all the time.  That must be so hard.

I probably shouldn’t have taken such a long lunch, retrospectively, as it basically dashed all hopes of hey, it’s an unsupervised Friday, I think I’ll take off early and go sit by the pool.  Hopping into the elevator to find the executive vice president, though? And knowing that she knows I was there till 6 on a Friday? SO worth it. 

And yet here I am, sitting here in my living room while all the cool girls of the world are out and getting all ready for the SATC movie.  If I was back at home with my *real* friends, I like to think I’d be joining that throng.

I was never a fanatic fan of the show; I never watched it in primetime, but I have come to really enjoy it now in its on-demand form.  I’d like to see the movie, but I think more for the sensation—beacause it’s just “what you do.” It’s not something I’m cloying to see so badly that I’d force J to endure it.

I’ve lived here for a year and a half, and have no friends to call up for a girly movie night.  How is this? (or, more accurately, how sad is this?). I have friends, don’t get me wrong. My best gal pal hates the show with a fiery passion.  A handful of my other friends are of the uber-Catholic variety, and thus even admitting that I think about sex would probably earn me no more phone calls.  The rest are cool girls, from college and otherwise, but not really the buddy-buddy type.  Great to call and say, hey, I’ll be in the city, let’s get dinner, but easy for me to write off as “not that serious.” I could probably organize something with them.  It’s undoubtedly an indication of how much I care that I haven’t.  If this was a movie I was dying to see,or something I really wanted to do, I’d find people to go with. 

Still, though, sometimes I don’t really know what drives me to just sit here and wait for life to happen.   I want that close Charlotte-Miranda-Samantha-Carrie bond, but I don’t know what makes me think I’ll get it if I just stare, willing the phone to ring.  Something to work on this summer, certainly: take friendships more seriously.  And work to build them up.

Till then, I can’t say I mind this sort of Friday night; I’ve uncorked a bottle of wine, am cooking a giant vat of mashed potatoes (so. freaking, delicious), and have cranked up the Brad Paisley.  Not at all a bad way to go. 

When I think of people who do “amazing work,” I envision Peace Corps volunteers, people working on disaster relief, and low-paying service to the less fortunate. I see people working for change, be it social, humanitarian, or political. “Amazing,” to me, connotes something with a bigger purpose.

Predictably, then, I was rather surprised to receive this weekend an e-mail from my high school, asking to profile me in an “alumnae doing amazing work” feature they’re preparing.

At least in my mind’s eye, a girl who sometimes works hard, but sometimes writes her blog, who analyzes cases, but only for a narrow sector of stiff IP lawyers, and who’s constantly bopping down the elevator for more coffee because woe is me, work is so dull sometimes doesn’t quite qualify.

The most troubling question on their prepared survey asks me what my ultimate career goal is. My high school, true to its elite all-girls mentality, is clawing for an answer along the lines of “I want to run my own internationally-traded, Fortune 100 company. After that, I aim to be President of the United States. I’ll be so successful, that I’ll run the world! And it’s all because of the confidence I gained in high school!”

They want to see ambition, and power, and prestige. Honestly, I’m a little torn up on the issue.

Part of me does want to move up, to move on, to be a booming bright star. She’s a legend, my bio will say, printed out in neat script under my photo on the programs at my speaking engagements. I want to wear a power suit in a big city and authoritatively lead meetings; present big ideas and really do something. I don’t think a life like this is out of reach, if I worked at it.

Sometimes I want that life, that identity. Other times—today being one of them—I’d like nothing more than to milk the money and the benefits from this job for a few more years, then get married, move somewhere quiet with big sidewalks and the ocean nearby and a mailman who whistles as he greets our dog. I want to bake cookies and be a room mom and forget that being a lawyer ever happened. I want to write creatively while the children are at school, and read stories when they get home. I want to send them to fancy schools like mine and I want them to have the wherewithal to be what is outwardly “amazing,” but I want them to know that that isn’t required, and that being amazing, if it doesn’t fulfill you, is an enormous waste of time and energy.

This sometimes-conviction fares poorly, I fear, in print. I can see it now: Angie is a high-powered businesswoman and aspiring CEO. Theresa is a human rights activist risking her life for radical change in Darfur. Magda wants to quit her job and be a housewife (cough). Amelia has started a hugely successful fund to improve health and low-income housing in the inner cities, and she and the orphans she’s saving regularly testify before Congress on the travesty of American poverty.

It’s enough to make me want to change my e-mail and never write back, disappear in an “oh! You were looking for me? Really!” cloud of feigned ignorance.

I probably should be doing more, helping people and whatnot, and I probably should be challenging myself to be just one step better here at work. Maybe I will. In the meantime, I’m going to work on being content with what I am doing and with what I want to be doing, even if it’s not as envious as the work of my ex-classmates. Because really, you never know. I may have a serious go-getter, world-changing daughter who, 30 years from now, says she owes it all to her mom, to the attention she got and the love she felt at home. That, I’d say, would be pretty amazing.

Incompetence really frustrates me. People who drive or walk too slow do, too. But I think people who try to shift blame and avert responsibility top my all-time list of supreme grievances.

I find the offense especially egregious when parents try to make someone else responsible for the rearing and discipline of their children. I was spoiled, I suppose (though I certainly didn’t see it that way at the time); I had two very involved parents who wanted everything to do with how we grew up. We heard “no” a lot. Do we know her parents? Will her parents even be there? You’ll be out till what time? No. Resounding.

The world has changed a lot since I grew up, in a house that had no internet till the tenth grade. Looking back, the landscape seemed a lot safer then: everything was visible; it was knowable and seeable. Parents today have a lot to more deal with, but I don’t think the mysticism of the internet is any excuse to let your duties-as-mom-and-dad slack off. Know when she’s online. Know who she talks to. Know where she goes, and what information she’s telling the world about herself. Harder, sure, but not impossible.

I read a case today where a thirteen year old girl registered for a MySpace page by pretending to be 18. She uploaded pictures of herself, some of which were scandalous, then made internet friends with some guy. After extensive chats, she then arranged to meet him, and was assaulted. Tragic, really. But her mom? Her mom sued MySpace. Negligence, she said: MySpace hadn’t adequately protected her daughter. EARTH TO MOM, that’s YOUR job.

Back when I was younger, if I would have broken the rules and gone out late and been by myself and talked to strangers downtown and gotten hurt, could my parents have sued the City of Seattle? Obviously the analogy is flawed, but really?

The judge in this case was a guy I like. I might even write him some fan mail. This from the transcript:

THE COURT: I want to get this straight. You have a 13-year-old girl who lies, disobeys all of the instructions, later on disobeys the warning not to give personal information, obviously, and does not communicate with the parent. More important, the parent does not exercise the parental control over the minor. The minor gets sexually abused, and you want somebody else to pay for it? This is the lawsuit that you filed?

COUNSEL FOR THE DOES: Yes, your honor.

He threw the case out, and the appellate court affirmed. Good news all around. Still, though, parenting like this makes me want to punch people in the kidney. Laws are important, and technological protections for kids online can go a long way. Nothing, though—nothing at all—will protect a child better than a parent who’s involved and on the scene, who communicates and listens and is there.

That’s about my two cents on that. Time to get back at it now, lickety split; it’s always more fun when work gets you passionate, yeah?

You know it’s summer in DC when the interns start swarming in, all hungry for a stab at the opportunities, all abuzz at being part of the proverbial action.  They’re easy to spot, running around in their new suits and proudly clipping their picture IDs to themselves—wearing their red-lettered TEMPORARY credentials as a badge of honor, strung on lanyards beneath crisply ironed collars.  See, I’m one of you, I belong here.  I’m doing this, too.  That’s the message, and I’ve been there.  I remember that first badge I had.  It’d be a lie to say that the thrill of buzzing myself through doors and past security has worn off.  I’m easily amused, sure, but I remember feeling like the coolest person ever when it was all brand new.

We had a few interns start in our office today.  When I stop and think on it, my intern summer wasn’t that long ago—two years is all—but oh, do I feel a world away from their bright-eyed enthusiasm.  Remember when it was all new? And all exciting? And working in an office meant you were going somewhere and doing something (as opposed, say, to staring at a computer till you need glasses and learning mental gymnastics to tolerate the imbeciles down the hall?).

I was thinking similar thoughts over the weekend.  J remains serious about his future career in music, and we took a day trip to Charlottesville where he had a dinner meeting set up. You’d think we were an old married couple or something; like I was shackled to his business plans.  I tagged along voluntarily, though; I love love love Charlottesville.  It’s a nice drive, too, and getting out for some country air? Always a grand idea. (Yes, I have very simplistic, 50’s era ideas of spectacular weekend plans.  A drive in the country? Charming! Let me pack us a picnic, put on my good hose, load up the station wagon, and we’ll be off, at 20 mph on an old country road.  My imagination? Often my best friend for a reason).

What I didn’t realize was that it was UVA’s graduation weekend.  What I thought would be a nice few hours of me sitting on the downtown mall, novel in hand, watching the world go by was, once it met reality, more like a chaotic scene of strollers and wheelchairs; well dressed younger brothers tugging the hands of newly minted 20-somethings with big dreams. It was a pretty spectacular scene to sit witness to.  I found a cutesy patio panini bar with a spare table, which served as a perfect window to the transitioning world around me.

More than anything, it got me thinking about the very best friend I had in college. We roomed together for three years; we were practically inseparable.  I majored in English, and minored in Biology; she majored in Biology, but minored in English.  We helped each other and loved each other, and oh my goodness we were BFFs and we would star in each other’s weddings and our children would be best friends.  Forever!  Of course!

Our junior year, she was preparing for the MCATS, I for the LSATS, and we timed each other and did hard-core drills.  She went to med school in St. Louis when I moved back to Seattle for law school, and I think the miles and the stress of those years really damaged something great. 

We trade detached e-mails, and sometimes voicemails, but the last time we actually talked was on my birthday in the fall.  She was engaged, she said, to a guy I’d neither met nor so much as heard of. 

They got married on Saturday.  They were standing up in her parents’ living room, saying forever as I sat eating a sandwich and sipping wine, a backdrop to the start of other peoples’ new lives. 

She called me from the airport yesterday, on her way to the honeymoon.  It was different than she’d always thought, getting married, she said, and sitting there in that terminal, she wondered how we’d gotten sidetracked.  How we’d gotten lost.    

I think that there are things in life that you just have to go out there and get.  You have to hold on to the eager enthusiasm of the moment, because getting there? Reaching that last day, finding that best friend and that perfect guy, getting that prized internship? It’s a blip.  Life happens in between those markers, and you have to keep fighting for it.  You have to call those old friends and keep in touch with why you dress up and leave each morning, because that energy, once it gets a kick-start, is really quite catching.  And it’s what holds it all together, as fleeting as it sometimes seems. 

Why? Because I love alliteration.

[An aside: does anyone but me hear “Why?” and automatically think “Because we like you”? As in, “M I C, see you real soon … K E Y, why? Because we like you!” I swear that’s what I was thinking just as I was typing. The ad council and all those “just get outside already” advocates may have got it right, I think ... after school television really can affect young minds far into adulthood. It’s certainly left its mark on this once-wanna-be mouseketeer, in any event…]

The coffee, as one may have already begun to suspect given the rather haphazard organization of the post thus far, is a lovely grande triple shot, which is fueling me through another fun filled day at the office (blogging again at work, magda? Ahem?). This week has been nothing short of frantic. I think someone upstairs, in the ethereal marble and mahogany palace hovering somewhere above our communist-grade offices, has gotten a handle on just how unproductive this company is most of the time. They’re tightening the screws and spurring production. In a way, it works out; working hard when everyone’s at it is much more fulfilling than charging on alone while the slackers screw around on facebook. There’s little worse that fearing you’re the only one left who actually cares.

I have got to jet out right on time tonight, however, as an aunt and uncle are in town and I’m meeting up with them for dinner. This is my dad’s brother and his wife, so naturally I’m taking them to enjoy the largest beer collection in the world (here’s to you, dad!). Were it my mom’s sister, I’d likely book somewhere civilized where we could have a nice chardonnay on the terrace, irrespective of what her husband would prefer. I can’t really justify my bright line distinction. But if it’s dad’s family, it’ll be beer. Cheers to that.

The thing of it is, I’m not bringing J. He wasn’t exactly invited—they said they wanted to take me to dinner—but he wasn’t exactly disinvited—I never asked if he could come along. It wasn’t really conscious; it just didn’t even cross my mind.

I think, at the bottom of it, I’m still just not sure.

It’s not than I’m embarrassed, and it’s not that I doubt my love—I’m just not sure-sure, not positive I want to bring him out to meet my extended family, not sure I want to risk them meeting him and then it not working out. I see this aunt and uncle so rarely, and it seems every time I’m with another soon-to-be-shed boyfriend. No good.

We compromised, J and I. I’ll get some catch-up time with them during dinner, and he can come for an introductory beer at the night’s end. No one is shunned, but no one feels smothered; a perfect balance.

So that’s the coffee and the compromise. That must mean it’s time for the contest!

Earlier this week, I was the lucky winner of Pay it Forward over at Penelope’s place.

The rules of the game are simple. Leave a comment on this post, and you’re entered. At the end of the week, a secret magic randomizer will choose one lucky blogger to receive a special surprise from yours truly. It’ll be good. Mouseketeer’s promise, girl scout’s honor, etc.

The only catch is that if you win, you must pay it forward on your blog. Share the love, y’all. You, too, can be the happiness fairy.

I’ve pinned this comic over my computer. The pig is cracking me up.

Somebody please, take away my starbucks card. But leave a comment first—the contest closes at 11.59p Friday, May 2.

There are lots of reasons I should have studied Spanish. The Cinco de Mayo parties, for one. The global usefulness, for another. Oh, Hmm, MY FUTURE, say.

In my own defense, I was thinking long term when, as an innocent sixth grader, I chose to follow the big imagination of Le Petit Prince down the French track. It just wasn’t the right long-term. I was thinking glamor, fashion, semester in Paris. Turns out I should have been thinking of resumes.

J, tired as ever of me bitching about the at-times audacity of my daily life at work, today forwarded me an awesome job opportunity as a writer/editor with the government. It’s here in DC, matches my interests and qualifications to a near T, pays a considerable amount for federal work, and though I’d planned to hang on here for a little longer, I thought eh, I’ll look into it.

The key requirements: US Citizenship, background check. Yup, yup. All clear. Eligibility and qualification requirements: “one year general experience.” Got that and then some.

It wasn’t until the substantive application that in “in English and Spanish” started cropping up in questions about past writing experience. I was just skimming though it—I’m still at work, you see—and I’m awfully glad, because before long it asked me to answer with an essay response in both English and Spanish.

It would have been one thing if, in the general or key requirements, it would have said “Spanish fluency.” But it didn’t. It would have made sense if this was a job with the Spanish embassy, or a committee on Latin American Affairs. But it wasn’t. This was just a normal, “hey come work for the feds” type of posting. And now I’m kind of mad.

I would be so great for this job except for the whole not bilingual part. As far as I’m concerned, if the federal government wants to make Spanish fluency an inherent requirement of federal jobs, it should damn well make studying Spanish a requirement in public schools. Students should not be allowed to be seduced by cartoons and crepes if it’s going to harm the country later. (And yes, it may well be an extrapolation for me to equate my non-candidacy with harm to the country. I would have been fantastic, though. It’s a loss to the American People that I do not speak Spanish. If I could, I’d clearly get this job and save the world. Or something.)

Dear, sweet Little Prince, you were great and all. But you were a big mistake.

When I was growing up, I had this system.  If I looked outside and it was raining, it was a little sign from God that everything was going to be okay. I took great comfort in it; no matter what was going on, no matter the complexities of circumstance plaguing me, I’d let the rain wash it away. Ah, I’d say, the rain’s here.  Everything is righting itself again.

I think I’d watched too many documentaries on parched African cultures, or had studied too many Native rain dances.  I grew up in Seattle, where the constant drizzle is as signature as the latte addiction. My dependence on the rain, then? Possibly self-serving.  Still, coming out of work today, the droplets on my skin reminded me of that comfort I used to find.

This has been a workweek that’s lasted a lifetime.  Really, I love my job—but the environment is, I fear, slowly growing toxic.  I hate my manager, and quoting my mother, yes, hate is a strong word.  I’m quickly growing disenchanted with the tedium of the day-to-day, and sure as this happens with any job—really, wasn’t it so much better when we were still in school?—I’m drowning in the thought that this is it, the final train, my destination this lonely depot.

I should say not. 

The rain spoke to me today.  The common “it’s going to be okay” message remained, but with teeth: it’s going to be okay, and better; different things are coming.

I spent the ride home drowning out reality listening to really loud Postal Service.  I think everyone has moments when the constant hum of the commuters is too much, when the buzz of the doors opening, doors closing routine seems altogether stifling.  The only escape is within, and thank all goodness for the iPod. 

It can, at times, be easier to just move forward than acknowledge the stops and starts along the way. Still, though, there’s something about that routine that’s comforting.  It’s dependable, it’s calculated, it’s certain.  I think that’s what scares me the most about this thing called adulthood.  I’m worried I’ll lose myself in the wash of sights and sounds, colors and movement and, adrift, grasp sightlessly for the parameters I’ve so long clung to.

I think it’s going to go like this.  I’ll stick around courting the rain at this job until 2009.  Then, come January, I’ll look elsewhere and I’m out like a sprout.  A charming, if unconventional, simile:  I’ll be out like a sprout and doing new things, growing in new places, meeting new people, and sinking my roots into different soil.  Which makes the next eight months so much more bearable, somehow. 

I think the best April Fool’s trick we pulled as kids was when we rubber-banded the sprayer in the kitchen sink closed so mom got hosed when she tried to rinse our breakfast dishes.

I really appreciate April Fool’s pranks. Missing doors from bathroom stalls, wildly rearranged furniture, desk accessories glued in place: all of this I find endlessly entertaining.

It’s the plays on reality that get me. Like when I logged into my gmail this morning: I was all guns a blazin’ to write a post blasting the new time stamp campaign.

Says gmail: “Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything — if only it hadn’t slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.” Cheaters! I was ready to cry. No fair!

And then it occurred to me: it was a joke. Google has one every year. I’m just a little slow like that. (More details from those clever, clever Google guys and gals here: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html)

Our boss had a bit of fun with me, too, when he sent the specs for our issue, which I was putting together today. He designated the lead report to be “the write-up on the increasing online prevalence of pet-on-pet pornography.” I was thoroughly confused, and frantically searched our folders for nearly half an hour looking for that file. I was really ready to walk over to his office, apologize for my ineptitude, and admit that I just couldn’t find that piece anywhere when I caught myself. “Wait a minute,” I said. “We don’t write about pet porn!” Ha Ha. Very funny, stupid boss.

I don’t know what it is about me that so persistently takes the world at face value. I do, though, and I always have. You’d think I would have overcome this, seeing as both my parents are serious jokers. One year, my dad had us going that my grandma, his mom, was pregnant with twins. I was totally excited to have aunts and uncles who were younger than me; it seemed such a novelty. When I was an exchange student my junior year of high school, my mom sent me a terrible e-mail informing me that my English teacher from home, a very harsh and not tremendously friendly nun, was insisting that I take her mid-term, even though I hadn’t been there all semester. “I’ll mail it to you,” Mom wrote, adding “sorry about this.” Not real. Not at all.

Notwithstanding this upbringing, still I have countless stories of ways I’ve been duped, outlandish tales that I’ve swallowed hook, line and sinker for no other reason than that the teller seemed so serious, and I’m just so willing to believe.

Though it will certainly wear off, for the rest of today, at least, consider my guard up. Time-altering e-mail and pet porn, sheesh.

The blog totally saved my hide today. This is unusual, since it generally proves itself to be the Greatest Work Distraction Known to Man.

I’d drafted out some thoughts last night in Word that I wanted to work on later in the day, but I realized as I was leaving—after I’d already put on my shoes and I had exactly two minutes till take-off—that they were just languishing there on my desktop. I fired up the macbook and emailed them off to myself, but not before seeing a message from my idiot boss in my personal email account.

He needed me to be at a conference. At 9.30. Downtown. Timestamped? 11.44pm. I’m flattered (maybe?) that he thinks I’m the kind of girl who’s online till all kinds of crazy hours. A lot of times, yes, this is true. But not today. So I jetted off, and squeaked in just in time.

The funny thing is, it was a technology conference. I analyze technology law all day long. And yet? No blackberry. No corporate cell. No tech-age appropriate way to get in touch with your staff after hours when, say, you’ve decided they need to go to a conference. We’re so behind the times it’s a positive embarrassment.

But moving on. What I intended to write follows, with apologies for the long-winded introduction.

There’s a dinner I’m dreading tonight. My immediate ex-boyfriend, Mr. Quiet, is in town for the week. I’ve written about this character before (here), and it really is a rather unfortunate saga.

The cliff’s notes version: Magda is in her last year of law school, and is coming off the high of two back-to-back implosions of relationships. Mr. Quiet appears on the scene. He’s low-maintenance, very smart, quiet, and unobtrusive. Just what she needs to get her morale/confidence/groove back. [Ed. note: never, ever use a man for these purposes. Read on]. She never takes him wholly seriously as a potential mate. He, meanwhile, falls madly in love. Magda moves to the other side of the country after graduation. He stays put. Magda puts them “on a break.” Magda meets J, and terminates the break, and the relationship. Mr. Quiet goes haywire, tries to become Mr. Perfect, embarrasses himself and makes Magda feel miserable.

There. Now you should be just about caught up. Oh, you know, except for the fact that now he’s here. In DC. He’s staying with “a friend” (who I suspect is the “friend” who called me at 2.30 am last Thanksgiving, from JAIL in BALTIMORE where he was supremely intoxicated and I, like a sucker, went to pick him up. Long story. Later post. But anyway).

Mr. Quiet wants to hang out basically every night and over the weekend. Endearing, yes. But no. We narrowed it down to Wednesday. And the Oscar for best actress in a dramatic delay-tactics scene goes to …

I don’t even know what I’m worried about, exactly, though I’m sure whatever comes of it, I’m going to have to look across the table, into the eyes I once hurt, on my home turf. Difficult. Made more so by circumstances, it would seem.

J and had an “altercation” last night. (And before you say, incredulously, “again?” let me remind you that relationships are hard, y’all). It was, predictably, ridiculous.

The Scene: Magda and J are sitting on Magda’s sofa, watching a movie. Magda, extricating herself from J’s embrace, heads to the kitchen.

Magda: I’m getting another muffin, you want one? [Ed. note: still warm from the oven, and so delicious]

J: Um, I’m good, thanks.

[pause]

J: Hey, before you reach in there, let’s do some sit-ups.

Magda: Score one for me! Did those already [and lo, she speaks the truth].

J: Yeeah, but you cheat. Let’s do my sit-ups. You’ve got to do them, blahdity blah, you’ve got to stay in shape, etc. etc., yattity yah I don’t want you to get chubby.

Hold your racing horses just one minute. Did I hear this correctly? He doesn’t want me to “get chubby?” Let’s just get this out there. I am a SIZE TWO (2). Okay, sometimes a four, and yes, there are parts of me that are more squashy than I’d really like, and no, hardly any of me is toned. I’m not really in danger of getting “chubby,” though I will concede that I need to get in shape; however, this misses the point. The point isn’t who was right or why, as really, that’s water under the bridge. The point is, I haven’t had a chance to truly talk to J since then; he’s said he’s sorry, and I know he means it, but still, it’s there. It’s just hovering there, waving its little finger in my mind and saying “see, you were right all along, you’re never going to be good enough for him.”

The voice says this, and I can’t shut it up. And I’m going to dinner with a man who sees me as a goddess who can do no wrong. Mr. Quiet would happily feed me cheetos and chocolate cake all day long if I said it would make me happy, and he would never see any chub that came of it. The major flaw here is that I just don’t love him. I don’t believe I ever really did, or ever really will.

Recipe for a fun night? Ha. Ahahaha. We’ll see.

When I logged into my computer at work this morning, I had to change my system password.  I swear it took about 15 minutes to come up with something that uses a capital letter, a lowercase letter, a number, a symbol (from an approved list—not any symbol!), is at least eight characters, and has not been used in the last 24 passwords.  Eh? What?

I’m a girl who totally keeps a password family.  I have several variations of basically the same two passwords.  Work?  Is having none of that. 

After lunch, the computer froze.  And I couldn’t remember the new password.  It was ridiculous.

A very similar thing happened over the weekend, when I changed my wordpress password: I think I was seduced by the “password strength” box at the bottom, and so kept coming up with outlandishly ridiculous things to get the rating higher.  Only it took me a lot of self-guessing to remember what I finally settled on.

I’ve been locked out of voicemail, kicked out of my online health benefits, and blocked from “privileged” information on our network because I have to keep changing the @#$%& passwords every 60 days or whatever, and I just can’t keep them all straight.  I have a post-it that’s grown onto a larger piece of paper in my drawer with hundreds, probably, of passwords scratched off and reformulated, and I can’t ever remember where they all go. 

I appreciate security and all, but I can’t help but feeling like we’re crossing over into some pretty high extremes.  I do not work for the CIA.  The work I do really is not that sensitive.  And these security doors that force me carry my card every time I want to run to the kitchen, the bathroom, etc.? So not needed, especially since I waste a lot of time hanging out in the hall because I’ve left my keys on my desk.  Sigh.

New to the ridiculous security measures scene is the  “inappropriate content” block that the intranet keeps slapping across my browser when I’m on the blogs.  I got booted from my own blog today—I checked in in the morning, but then I came back and was met with an “Access denied, no inappropriate content on company time” label.  Um.  What?

I couldn’t access most any wordpress blog today from my office computer, which was vexing in the extreme.  Those that I could see would cede to the “inappropriate” content screen once I tried to comment.  Boo.

Hypersensitivity might be the end of us all, seriously.  Till then, I’ll hang out in the hall, thinking up comments to make once I’m home on my own uncensored internet, on a computer that remembers all of my passwords for me.  Yay. 

You know you’ve hit new lows when you start spicing up your workday with inane office competitions. At a happy hour last week, a group of editors decided it would be fun to have a “word of the week” challenge: see how many times you can fit said word into news stories and court write-ups.

This week’s word: cabal. Code for scandal; plot; intrigue.

We managed three entries on this staff, which is a rather weak showing but, for an uncommon word, too much exposure could bust it all wide open.

Here were our sentences:

• “The complaint alleged that [Company X]’s advertising practices were deceptive and misleading, a cabal to profit off of that which was freely offered for exceptional protection.”
• “In the alternative, the plaintiff argued that [Party1] and other [Party2] operatives had a cabal encouraging consumers to post defamatory content for their own financial gain and were partly responsible for the development of the messages.”
• And, my favorite, “[Mr. X] believed himself defamed by a blog authored by his former coworker, [Ms. Y]. On her blog, [Ms. Y] described sexual cabals and exploits with various men on Capitol Hill, one of whom she identified as [Mr. X’s initials.]”

All this fun aside, things have been pretty screwy around these parts. Our little leap day mishap—where we erroneously published an entire issue—was only the beginning. Last week, we (read: I) somehow managed to release an issue to the general public with a little xxx where each page number should have been. Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Today’s goings-on, though, top the all-time list of why Magda should be sacked immediately for gross incompetence. I interviewed a somewhat important legal guy last week. I met, we talked, it was nice. In my story, though? I totally spelled his name wrong. Totally. Say his name was John Johnston. My crazy little mind turned this into Joe Johnson. No reason, really; just plain careless stupidity. I had his card right there. I had met him, just hours before. His press manager called me today, when the story hit their desk. I don’t think I could apologize enough; it is exactly my job to get this right. And it’s too bad, too, because I will probably never talk to them again, and they were really nice. GOD I hate my life sometimes.

They say bad things come in threes, yes? So I should be off the hook for awhile? Memo to the universe: cease your badness cabal. Anytime now. Seriously.

My boss is a tool, plain and simple.  The man’s ways largely defy logic, and certainly transcend common decency (and, I daresay, corporate ethics). If he was actually practicing law, rather than dancing about calling himself a lawyer while doing god only knows what at work, I’d consider reporting him to the Maryland bar.  Trouble is, I suspect he’s smart enough to keep in just ever so slightly inside the lines.  Mostly, he’s just as asshat.  [Ed. note: I never knew this word until I started blogging.  I’ve seen it employed so many times by other bloggers and commentors, however, that it seems it has actually crept into my vocabulary.  I read that last sentence, and I was all, wait a minute.  Is that my voice?  But hey, if the shoe fits… ]. 

I could write a manifesto on the various ways in which he vexes me.  Probably several impassioned sonnets, too.  I won’t.  I don’t want to give the man any more of my thoughtspace than I have to, besides to say that if I didn’t really love the substantive content of my work, I’d probably be plotting an intricate revenge instead of just running a selected soundtrack of spiteful songs in my mind on a near-constant basis.

Instead, in the words of Bridget Jones, I choose vodka.

Specifically, blackberry-plum vodka tonic, infused by the creative hand of yours truly.  HURRAH Friday.

Best enjoyed when baking cookies.  The cookies are just standard chocolate chip, nothing spectacular, but so delicious just the same. 

YUM-MY.  But the fun doesn’t stop here, my friends.  As it happens, I have a wonder apron.  Sometimes, I bake things for the express purpose of wearing it.  Odd? Maybe.  It’s so cute, though!  I swear it makes everything taste better. 

Clearly I’m easily amused if I’m spending Friday night photographing myself in an apron.  I got it for Christmas; each of my sisters got a matching one, too.  Here’s us, in headless blog-y fashion, in the kitchen at my parents’ house:

The only thing that could make this night better is if they were here.  I miss them both like crazy. Plus, I know I could count on them to help me consume the deliciousness.  Ah well.  More for me, and a very good start to the weekend indeed.  

I feel I ought to post something today just to earn it the rare “February 29” designation. So odd to see the date in print; I want to memorialize it somehow.  I also feel I ought to pay tribute to the thousands of publications bearing today’s date that were, tragically, destroyed.  And I? Just call me the destroyer.  The executioner for the written word. Here stands I, in my black hood; here stands journal, it’s leap day neck in the guillotine. Au revoirs all around.

Our publication has an ugly stepsister journal, a sort of “greatest hits” issue that runs every two weeks: every other Friday.  Our associate editor put it together yesterday, and sent me the proof copies before I had to jet out in the afternoon.  I read them over, approved them, and sent them to publications.  They published, and were sitting in distribution today when I get a somewhat frantic call.

Evidently it isn’t, in fact, a strict every-other-Friday sort of deal.  It’s a first-and-third Friday sort of a deal.  This just oh-so-conveniently happens to be every other Friday unless your month has an unprecedented five Fridays.  Like a leap year.  Specifically, only a leap year.   Our managing editor is off on about his billionth vacation of the year, and the calendar said publish.  Not exactly our fault, and yet … HA.  Ahahaha. Oops. And what an awesome surprise for our boss when he gets back.  Well, we nearly burned the place down, but not quite!  Not quite.  Destroy, I said, and they did.  

On a less destructive note, it’s also my cousin’s birthday today.  He’s, let’s see, 6;  24 if you count the in-between years when he’d celebrate on the 28th.  I’d like the rarity, but probably not the reality of that fate. 

My Buddha celebrated the day in style, with another offering—this week, a rabbit.  “Leap day,” the offeror said.  “Rabbit is leaping.”  Adorable.  I’ve got to start documenting this.  I’ve practically got a shrine going in my office these days.

In my own style of zen, I celebrated the night out with a whole riotous table from the office.  Off in the corner, I noticed my boss’ boss having a quiet martini with some other suits, and I do wonder what they thought of us (and if they noticed us at all). 

As for me? I’m tired.  And slightly drunk.  And planning to head to bed, sleep late, and be responsible later.  Much later.  Like, in March.  (Is it really almost spring?!)

It’s amazing how I can go from insanely lazy, hmmm I’ll check my e-mail five billion times days to days where everything seems to be coming at me with little jet engines attached. 

Today was definitely a jet engine day.  I had to be at Commerce (as in Commerce, Department of) for an early morning hearing, yet I stayed up far too late last night drinking margaritas to make that a very pleasant encounter.  Tequila has a tricky way of making everything seem like it’s suddenly all better.  I’ve got to stop wanting to believe.   

Of course the hearing ran so long it could legitimately have been called an early-afternoon affair, which left me scrambling to get back to the office in time to file a short report before I had to head out at the ungodly early hour of 3.30.  Ordinarily this kind of early dismissal would delight me, and ordinarily tight deadlines bring out my best work.  I was just too frantic, though.  ”Think, Magda, Think!” I said, over and over, to an oppressively blank screen.  I filed something of undeterminable quality at 3.28, and ran home to get my car to drive to J’s to take him to Baltimore so he could catch a flight.  Then breathe.  

Far more movement entered my day today than is usual.  I took the train into the city, then a cab back to work; a train home and the car for the hour trek north to the airport.  And all the walking and scurrying in between.  

Mid-day metro rides are a different experience in a lot of ways, I realized (or remembered?) today.  At 3.30, say, not too many people are commuting.  They’re just traveling,  just going.  The aisles that house crammed be-suited urban professionals with ipods and impressive briefcases are empty, and almost refreshingly so.  People dot the seats; a guy reading the paper here, a mom and a little girl there, but the empties far outweigh the occupieds.  It’s quiet.  It’s calm.  I should leave at 3.30 every day, seriously. 

There also were a considerable number of uniformed military personnel onboard.  This does not surprise me; it’s DC, afterall, and the fatigues are a sort of city uniform. Sometimes, and I know this is odd, I see them all walking about near my office and I pretend I’m a spy.  Like, a real spy in some eastern-bloc country, where the work I do in my windowless hovel is of critical national importance and I, magda, must infiltrate the enemy and bring justice and peace to all.  Or something.  

Today, though, I wasn’t feeling so spy-like.  A serviceman in my line of sight was on his cell phone, his beret perfectly (perfectly!) pitched on his head.  I looked at his wedding band, and I though of the sacrifice.  The long nights, the fear and the anxiety, the trials of the love answering on the other side of that call.  

Two women–one in fatigues, one in rather masculine pressed khakis and, dare I say, dull black flats–talked and laughed nearby.  I mostly watched them in the reflection, covert-like, but they fascinated me.  What it must take to trade normal hours and cute business suits for the front lines, to take combat boots over manolo blahniks for the every day. 

I flashed them all the warmest smiles I could conjure on exiting.  If I could have, I would have hugged them all, thanked them all sincerely for giving so much.  For giving their skills, and their talent, and their lives so that I can wear impractical heels to run with freedom across the chambered halls of our government, to hear about the challenges of internet governance and know that it matters and we have a say, to travel how I want when I want with whomever I want, to live my life as me, howsoever much tequila that involves, and to realize that nothing is ever all that bad.  Thank you.  A million times over, thank you.  

The mere fact that the calendar today reads 2/14 does not suddenly mean that the world turns pink and glittery (bummer, I know). Still, seeing the rose above the thorns is, perhaps today more than other days, a rather rewarding exercise.

* the thorn: I woke up alone, holding a pillow instead of J.*the rose: I made fab pink pancakes and a very strong coffee, and had breakfast in bed.

* the thorn: So far today I’ve received exactly nine spam messages to my “good” e-mail address telling me a variation of this theme: a giant valentine will happen in my pants if I order their pharmaceutical now. gross.* the rose: My incredibly adorable littlest sister, studying abroad this semester in geneva, sent an e-card featuring a video song by her host siblings, who (a) speak French and (b) appear to be about 5. So precious.

* the thorn: It’s 3pm and my desk is experiencing an extreme dearth of flowers. Repeat: NO FLOWERS. Yes, I said we didn’t need to make a big deal out of valentine’s day, and I don’t care that much, but really? All the other paired girls got flowers. Even my buddha got flowers, in the form of another origami offering. I am pouting.* the rose: I have a boyfriend who is fabulous, and my desk is lonely not because I am unloved, but because he who loves me takes me too literally sometimes. Sheesh.

* the thorn: Work is crazy busy, suddenly, and I barely had time to scoot out for a quick “lunch” to the library.* the rose: After the madness closes tonight, I’m headed directly to J’s, where he is cooking a surprise dinner. This, for the record, is much much unlike last year, when we trudged through a near foot of snow to go to a chi-chi restaurant where the air conditioning was inexplicably blasting our table. One the way back, J threw his back out and I, attempting heroism, drove my sport sedan to the pharmacy for painkillers. Except the pharmacy was closed and, in a case of great parking spot goes terribly wrong, I managed to lodge my car in a snowbank. As I stood kicking the snow in my highly impractical shoes, three kind people stopped to help me out: a small geek-style guy; a man in a giant SUV with vanity plates reading “GODSQUAD”; and the Alexandria City Police. It took our combined effort to dislodge me and send me on my way. Staying in this year seems like such a nice plan.

* the thorn: tomorrow is another work day, so I can’t stay up till all kinds of crazy hours drinking pink vodka and, um, celebrating. You know.* the rose: it’s a long weekend after that, and J and I are going to New York. Hooray!* the thorn: I have a meeting in approximately three minutes, so must get back at it.* the rose: it’s valentine’s day! YAY. And, not one but TWO google searches for “conversation heart bingo”–yes, with the quotes–directed people to my blog today. This makes me extremely happy, for reasons largely unknown.Rose-filled valentine wishes to everyone!

The weather here has suddenly taken a turn towards the deranged.  Yesterday, despite a cloudy, menacingly winter appearance, the gaudy neon time and temperature sign I passed on the way to work displayed a steamy 70’.   I came bundled in a wool coat and a massive scarf. 

I think this may have been symptomatic of the ridiculousness that was to follow in my Wednesday.  It was a preposterous day in all respects, and I came home so exhausted I was really near passing out on the couch.  I still had work to do, though, and an Ash Wednesday mass to attend. 9pm found me in bed with my laptop, staring blankly at work I was meant to be doing.

I was not really inclined to abandon this setup when J called around 10.30, wanting to come get me so I could spend the night at his place.  Anyone else, I would have put up a fight; this guy’s really my it-man, though, and we hadn’t seen each other all week.  As soon as we were off the phone, I was up and getting dressed for Thursday’s workday.

I want to note, for the record, that at this point it was pouring down rain outside.  Absolutely POURING.  This was not a Seattle sprinkle, people; it was all-out water warfare.  Accordingly, I added an umbrella plus these little darlings to my ensemble:

 Ahh, my frog galoshes; so ridiculous, yet so adorable. 

Driving to J’s, it was a veritable thunderstorm.  Cracks of lightening, booms of thunder, totally my favorite.  The whole car ride I was filling my head with ridiculously gushy thoughts, mostly along the lines of “thunderstorms!  They’re highly likely, just like my blog!” I know; sad, right?  Of course I could share none of this with J, as he has not been apprised of this internet space.  But moving on. 

I woke up this morning to a closet not mine and a perfectly sunny day.  And frog galoshes.  I changed at work, happily, owing to the collection of work shoes on temporary assignment to my office bookshelf.  They’re all pretty strictly office shoes, though, as their heel height completely disqualifies them from the commuter-friendly category. 

I took the high-heeled challenge over lunch, and walked, hounded by what was likely an arctic wind-chill, to the body shop—one of my favorite, favorite stores ever.  A friend is having a birthday tomorrow, so I thought I’d pop out for a bit and find her something good-smelling to celebrate. Because, you know, I’ve clearly planned way ahead. 

The girls working there today were so nice, and it was obvious that they were really enjoying themselves.  I was keenly jealous for a few moments. I want to be that happy at work!  I want to work where there’s color, and beauty, and light!  For a moment there, I wanted, more than anything, to be those girls.  I thought seriously about phoning my boss and saying hey, I’m just down the street, but I’m never coming back because I’ve found a new job with people who are nice and kind and good, so suck it.  But alas.  I wouldn’t have been able to abandon this froggie footwear, anyway. 

P.S. here’s a shout to the kind, kind people at the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary:  thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for canceling tomorrow morning’s hearing.  I really didn’t want to go.  You’ve made my night.  Love, magda. 

I don’t know what my deal is with maintenance men.

I was sitting at my desk just after lunch, willing the words to appear on the screen and, ok, probably checking my gmail over and over again. In comes one of our floor’s maintenance guys.

In lilting English, he tells me how much he likes coming in each night and seeing my buddha statue. He likes it so much, in fact, that he has brought it an offering.

He brought an offering to my decorative, “focus on zen and not on homicide, magda” buddha statue.

It is an origami basket with a pinecone in it.

I don’t at all know what to make of this. I wonder, though, if he noticed that just above the buddha’s left shoulder is an icon of the Holy Virgin. It’s tough to tell, but she may be frowning.

Things are looking up on the magda-at-work front.  Way up.

Around 4.30 today, a caravan of executives left their penthouse perches and trotted on down to my windowless hovel-style office.  

They came bearing gifts and accolades; they came to congratulate me on winning the latest editorial excellence award.  As in, I beat out everyone; my story was the best one of everything published in the third quarter.  

I deserved it.  It sounds cocky to say that, and I’m not generally one for tooting my own horn or anything.  Sometimes circumstances merit a little bit of boundary-shifting, however, and this is definitely one of those instances. 

The story that won was the product of an insanely difficult assignment my boss sent me on last June.  It was an assignment that really should have been his, but his wife scheduled a family vacation that same week. I kicked ass and took names, but it was. not. easy.   Hence, I’m granting myself a brief window in which to jump around and congratulate myself with as many flowery and over-the-top adjectives as I like.  Yay yay yay.

As much as I loved the surprise visit today, one of the best things was the look on my boss’ face.  He didn’t even realize I was a contender, see; I nominated myself.  Being all stealth and crafty-like, I read the small print correlating to the asterix asking managing editors to submit stories from their staffs.  * Editors may also submit their own work, accompanied by an explanatory letter of merit. 

My boss generally considers my work “in progress” or “developing,” I think mostly owing to my age and just-out-of-school status.  Let’s see him belittle me now, now that a mass e-mail has gone out to global corporate saying “bow to magda, she’s the best EVER.” Or, you know, something similar.  

My morning mantra remains “your mission is to take the building with minimal loss of life,” but that mission should be getting a heck of a lot easier to execute. 

(And a word about the weekend: amazing.  Absolutely amazing, and currently hanging out in my drafts folder.  Coming soon, stay tuned, and all that).  

I work for a weekly publication that arrives in the inboxes of the elite (aka, our blessed subscribers) each and every Wednesday morning. Tuesdays thus are reserved for assembling the issue and, ultimately, releasing it: this latter bit falls to me. Ta da! I’m imagining a light beaming down on me, there’s wild applause, and I’m doing a little curtsy. But I’m getting beside myself.

We publish in-house, in what I have always suspected is an industrial revolution-era workshop somewhere in the basement, where there are heavy metal printing presses, men in ink-stained aprons, and loud clanking noises that permeate the day and night. We send them our proofs before checking out at 5.30, then they stay up all night arranging the little letters on the plates and running them off, manually. Despite these somewhat throw-back conditions, these printing-men appreciate an e-mail letting them know your pages are on the way. I’ve still not figured how this fits into my mindscape, but I’m working on it.

January 23 was our release day (obviously, you say; let’s get to the point!). I wrote the same in my e-mail, but I caught myself just staring at it. January 23, January 23, hmmm, there’s something that looks really familiar about that.

Dad’s birthday.

Today is my dad’s birthday, and I only remembered with about six hours to spare. Shame! On! Me! I actually bought a card a few weeks back, but some sort of disconnect since then has left it to languish in my desk drawer.

My dad, my hero, the man with the plan and He Who Does All Most Excellently. I never, ever forget a sister’s birthday, or my mom’s birthday, or even an aunt’s birthday. What’s up with me, seriously?

I think karma must owe me one, because my parents are up in their mountain house this week. This means that he’ll get my card along with all the others when he returns back home. Unless he notices that the card was postmarked, um, today, he’ll never know. Thanks for that one (upward nod). I’ve e-mailed, and will call, so all seems smooth.

But still. I’ve got to get my act together! I’ve got to make paying attention, living not so much inside myself, more of a priority. Aarg. I really am such a piece of work sometimes; it’s a bit amazing that a man as clever and put together as my dad is so much a part of me.

New to me, new to you; all this since 9 a.m. 

I have pockets in my coat.  They aren’t actually pretend—the stitching is only temporary so dust doesn’t get in at the store, apparently.  I’ve had this particular coat for more than a year now, but just this day cut those stitches free.

It’s snowing outside.  Really, really hard.  My office has no windows, see, and my boss—despite being blessed with a fantastic corner office—keeps his blinds tightly drawn at all times.  Odd, surely. 

Writing a story about electronic contracts and cross-border trade is unbearably boring and invites numerous distractions.

Online French newspapers publish comics in French.  I don’t know why I never thought of that, and am seriously impressed with myself that I understood most of what was going on therein. 

One of my top-ten list ghetto-cheap wines was on sale when I bought a sandwich.  Two bottles are sitting in my desk.  I find this outrageously amusing. 

Drafting this list in the publishing template makes it look, to passers-by, like I’m actually doing work.  Which, I daresay, I should be.  Alas.

Dear Sucky Boss,

Don’t think I’m not onto you.  Your congenial, happy-go-lucky attitude is such a sham, and even if I’m the only one, I know that you do jack shit in the office. 

I hate that you’ve made me senior staff a year out of school without giving me any of the corresponding training or coaching.  It’s not fair to hold me up against veteran writers and tell me in front of the staff that I need to “kick it up a few notches.”  I did not apply for this position; you forced me into it.  And the kickbacks you received for coming in under budget? You know, for all those months you failed to hire anyone, then found a girl just out of law school, at the lowest paygrade, whose training falls largely on my desk?  Enjoy that money.  Or, better yet, put in a college savings plan.  You’ll need it, with all those bastard children running around.  Yup, I know all about them.  Know why?  I’m nice.  People talk to me.  People feel sorry for me, because I work for you.  I know all about how you knocked up a former editor, then left your wife and kids when your girlfriend got pregnant.

You treat me like shit.  I thank God every day that you are not my father.  My dad is my hero; he’s a role model of everything good and wonderful. 

I’m tired of working hard so that you can smile stupidly and get recognized.  You tell me to work harder, to do better, without demonstrating one iota of what that might possibly look like.  Count yourself lucky that I don’t follow your model, or our publication would be scrapped.  Would you still be calling my work “a low value stuff” if you knew what you’d be without it?

I’m not holding my breath that you’ll realize how valuable I really am.  You’ll be disappointed with me as long as I work for you.  You’ll be working there far longer than I will, however, which is strangely consoling.  I can’t WAIT for the day I can tell you I’m out.

Till then, I remain,

Your tired-of-being-walked-on employee.

P.S.  You shouldn’t leave the ringer on your iPhone on so loud when you’re out of the office for 3-hour lunches.  I’ve wanted to smash its shiny screen in so badly, but have resisted because the constant ringing reminds the whole floor that you suck and are out of the office, again.  Don’t be surprised, however, if the ringtone changes from your obnoxious daughter’s “Hey Dad, answer the phone!” To “Hey Jackass, GO FUCK YOURSELF.” Preferably also in her voice.

This is one of those weeks that’s been going just so. ridiculously. slowly. I hate living for 5:00, and I’ve done it three days in a row now. I’ll just find myself staring at the little oppressive clock in the corner of my screen, and it’s miserable.

Here’s the thing: I’m torn (No, do not cue Natalie Imbruglia). Generally, I’m very satisfied at my job. I’m paid comfortably for what I do, and my days are rarely very stressful. I have no reason to complain. Except.

In June my boss told me that, in appreciation for all the great work I was doing, they were promoting me. I was doing said great work, I’ll note, because our other staff writer quit in march. Quick aside: he was not replaced until September. Repeat: September. This means I was doing essentially two jobs, so I took the promotion without much hesitation.

But it didn’t come. And didn’t come. And didn’t come still. Finally, management said they thought I’d be better off if they waited until my hire-anniversary date. This is how passive of an employee I am: I even bought that. Sure, I said; I’ll wait. Sounds good.

My hire date passed in October. Do not pass go, do not get a yearly review, do not get promoted.  It is December this week, people. What! The! Hell! I talked to management. “Paperwork,” they said; “it takes a long time.” It was about here that I went to the grievance committee. I could have just sucked it up, but you know what? I’m tired of sucking it up. The grievance board said they were appalled, and proceeded to tell me that I’m within my rights to demand backpay to March, when I became the solo staffer, the ridin’ the range cowgirl of a writing hero. Or something.