Good things from today

1. Last night I went to bed early enough that I woke up feeling clear and rested. 
2. At work they upgraded my computer to Windows 7. I had this at my previous job but took a little step backward when I took on this role in July.  It made me incredibly happy to have all my old fonts and settings back. 
3. I had lunch with the kids at Five Guys, Alice's favorite. It was her idea for us to have lunch and I could tell it meant a lot to her.
4. At work I continued this weird new pattern of being extremely productive from approximately 4-5 pm.  This had never before been a good time of day for me, but it's working out right now. 
5. Our wonderful nanny told us she'll be staying with us for the foreseeable future, which is a huge relief. 
6. Our Christmas cards came today -- I am basically the chair of the Christmas card committee in this apartment, and they turned out really well this year. 
7. L gave me a special dispensation to go to the gym tonight, so I did one class and really worked hard and it felt good.
8. Nice quiet evening with L and "Survivor."
9. And that's it -- more than enough. 

A capella

So much for the last eight weeks, huh?

Two nights ago I attended a fancy dinner to encourage admitted students to attend the University.  They pulled out all the stops -- a cello quartet, a lecture by an esteemed professor.  For part of the lecture I was standing in the back of the room, where I could see a gaggle of kids hanging around in the foyer outside.  They looked young and uncomfortably dressed.  "Are they here for a bar mitzvah?" I wondered. 

After the lecture ended the kids trouped in and - voila! - they were an a capella group here to perform.  They gathered in a semi-circle by the dais and sure enough, the familiar pum pum pum's and beat-boxing began, and they were off.

The sound immediately brought me back 12 years or so to college, to cold nights when we would trundle outside the dorm to the quad where an a capella group was putting on a brief performance at 11:30 or midnight.  The sounds would bounce around the brick buildings surrounding us and the singers would cast long shadows from the streetlamps speckling the walks.  I loved the way the voices would merge and part, the layering of sounds and tones.  Such passion, such defiance, to send those songs up into the cold night!  Such freedom.

All of that came back as those kids sang, bouncing on their toes and gesturing as waiters awkwardly served dessert around them.  When the singers finished I was filled with a rush of pride and love for the University, the kind of unabashed school spirit that is not often found here.  I looked around and it seemed like the parents of the prospective students seemed a little befuddled by what had happened.  But I looked at the prospective students, and the current students, and even the alums, and I think they got it.

November 15

Today I had an interview today at work.  I spent a lot of time last night figuring out which suit I would wear, which shoes, which tie.  The interview wasn't until 4:30 pm so I had all day to sit and worry.  I felt too well-dressed, with my conservative pleated suit pants -- pants that I profoundly hate now, and don't understand why I ever purchased, unless I was in some law-induced stupor of backwater menswear conservatism -- and the janitor told me I looked like a Kennedy cousin with my fancy clothes and the apparently boyish swoop of my bangs.  The interview itself went really well.  I felt like I expressed everything I wanted to, and if I missed anything it's something I never saw coming at all.  I didn't know what I didn't know.  At the end of the interview after I asked my questions I said, "well, that's it, thank you for coming," and the laugh that I earned seemed to represent how the whole thing went.  I got a Chipotle Coke on my way home, stripped out of my suit immediately and read the New Yorker on the couch.  Then L and Alice came home and there was a present for me -- Alice had colored a picture on blue construction paper, and in the middle of the page, written in marker in L's steady hand, was: "Nov. 15th."

"I'm pregnant and that's when the baby is due."

Since last summer, we have spent every month (minus two) hoping and praying that we would get pregnant.  Each month has been punctuated by a few sad days when these hopes were dashed, days that became cumulatively worse as each month passed.  After Alice was conceived practically immediately, this long process of waiting has been difficult.  We both went to the doctor to get things checked out and everything seemed to be fine.  They told us to be patient, but we (I) are not patient people.  I started to worry that we couldn't have another child, and I felt guilty for feeling bad about that when we already have Alice, the greatest blessing of our lives.  My first reaction to the news that L was pregnant was that we didn't have to be sad this month.

Today L had been working with Alice to teach her to say "big sister."  She hadn't told me in the morning because she didn't want to distract me from today's interview, but the secret had been eating her up since she found out at 2 am last night.  Her strength is unbelievable.  After she told me we had a family hug that Alice scurried over to join.  L had gone on the internet to figure out that November 15th due date; that means we'll have a Thanksgiving-time baby.

I was bursting with the need to tell someone when my parents called to ask about the interview.  I successfully managed not to tell them.  We went over to John and Anna's to tell them the good news, because I still had to tell someone.  They had figured it out -- John opened the door with an expectant look, and I nodded yes.  They were so excited for us.  John and I had bourbon and we all had some shepherd's pie.  After a while we came home (Alice pooped tremendously on the bus ride home, crooning "yucky poop" as some indulgent commuters smiled wanly) and the stress of the day receded. 

I can't believe we're about to do this all over again: an impossibly tiny baby, minimal sleep, a new name for a new life.  All of our conversations about jobs, moving, childcare seem completely obsolete.  Game change!  But all those conversations can wait for another day.

If I let myself, I become aware of the meaning and weight of today's news.  The capacity for love, the responsibility, the legacy, the growth of our family, the playmate and lifelong friend for Alice.  Tonight I can skirt around these ideas and know that soon we'll be thinking about them all the time.  But tonight I am still struck by the idea -- L is pregnant.  We don't have to be sad this month.  And that relief is overwhelming.

Status updates

Today I was walking along on the street when I inadvertently stepped on a Capri Sun juice thing on the ground, causing a stream of liquid to shoot through the straw and across some girl's thighs and butt.  She was audibly shocked, and started gasping and looking around.  I had to explain that I had stepped on a juice box, apologize profusely, and walk the hell away as fast as possible.

Also today I went to get a haircut, and the woman cutting my hair said to me, "How much do you want on top, well you don't have much on top, heh heh."  Only women barbers say things like this.  And yet I tipped her. 

I didn't see much of L last weekend, because of the hurricane.  And I haven't seen much of my family either, because work has been crazy.  This is one of the most hectic weeks of the entire academic year, as we launch a new academic year and welcome the new students.  There are moments when we participate in the life of the school community, when the students' youth and naivete erupts in moments of genuine enthusiasm and gratitude, that are actually quite moving.  And then there are moments when I have pull back the reins on my irritation, such as when students march directly into my office without invitation and start talking at me, or when I receive an email from someone with a completely inscrutable email address who doesn't sign their message.  "Who sent this email to me?" I replied back, before I could stop myself. 

I have been a negligent marathon trainee, I regret to report.  For the first time ever, I missed my long run last weekend because of hurricane-related childcare responsibilities.  I only had time for one early-morning three mile run this week.  And I don't know if I'll get in a long run this weekend.  But then I will get back on track. 

But tomorrow: we are packing up a rental car and driving to Rehoboth.  A couple of days at the beach, a couple of days to introduce Alice to important things like Funland and Grotto Pizza and Browseabout Books.  Jumping in the waves.  Walking in the cool evening sand.  The cry of the seagulls, ice cream on the boardwalk.  It's important that she knows this.

Dateline: Clearwater

I'm in Clearwater Beach, Florida, for a few days to attend a conference.  The privilege of sleeping in a big pristine bed, uninterrupted by the cries of an anguished or surly ten month-old child, can't be overstated.  But it's definitely a little lonely here.  Today after 10 hours of conference activities I went for a walk on the beach -- jean cuffs rolled up, name tag discreetly folded over -- to watch the setting sun dissolve into the gulf.  It was beautiful, and also melancholy.  It reminded me of the solitude of my first year in New York, before L had arrived, when the city was the perfect place to languish in your loneliness. 

Since my last post, things have gotten much better with Alice, thanks in part to some quality time we got to spend when L had to work late or early.  The baby and I had a lot of fun clapping, playing, reading, eating, etc.  She will now feed you a Cheerio or a morsel of some other food if you ask her, and reinforce the request by opening your mouth and aiming towards her food.  I think this is the first real sign of generosity or compassion we've seen from her, and it's encouraging.  She's also just a lot of fun right now, with her endearing wobbly movements, her vocalizations, and her overwhelming cuteness.  I'm glad I'm back in the fold.  (I would also note we went through a low point when she fell off the couch and landed on her forehead, then proceeded to flip over.  I was a wreck on wheels that night, and being on Concussion Watch for the next two days wasn't fun either, but fortunately she is fine and doesn't hold a grudge.)

Not sure what else I have to say about Florida.  I've been eating a lot of grouper and key lime pie.  The people are friendly, and nice, and slow, and they seem unafflicted by the neuroses and chronic impatience that characterizes me and everyone I know.  Like most other places I go, I look around at the white beaches, and the broad sky, and the sweet pace of life, and I ask myself, why not live here?  Why not live and be happy here?  It seems like it could work.

Two more days in Florida, then back home to my ladies.  And my birthday.  Not a bad week.

Awkward

Normally I am a cool and suave dude, but not today.  I should have known today would be weird when I found myself this morning scraping the bottom of the business-casual barrel.  No good shirts left.  No reasonable pants.  So instead I was rocking a pair of cords and one of those flowy, non-fitted dress shirts with several yards of extraneous fabric billowing gloriously around one's midsection.  Wisely, I stuffed this fabric under a sweater, which made me look like I was smuggling a wedding cake.  This is how I chose to approach the world.  Consequently, several unfortunate things happened:

First, as I was leaving the men's room at work this morning, I walked directly into another colleague who was on his way in.  This was fantastically awkward.  There was torso-to-torso contact.  Why did I not see him?  Later in the day I considered apologizing, but I thought this might actually make it worse.

Second, later on I was speaking to a colleague of the female persuasion, and I somehow mentioned that I had game, and she then said, "you have a wife and a baby daughter, you don't have game."  Trying to salvage the conversation without seeming unduly lecherous, I cried out, "But I used to!", which made me feel like no less of a creep.

Third, in the afternoon I was eating a brownie as part of the office's Holiday Cookie Exchange (somehow we never had one at the law firm, perhaps because the lawyers were too busy at night resenting their loved ones to bake) when a colleague came up and poked me in the stomach, Pillsbury-dough-boy style.  And of course he got me right at the point in my midsection where my sweater masked about eight layers of billowy dress shirt fabric, and his finger just sort of continued on, unimpeded.  It reminded me of the burrito I ate yesterday, which had guacamole in it, and when I bit into the burrito in the guacamole part the whole thing just collapsed because there was nothing solid there.  That was kind of like my midsection today. 

In an effort to redeem the day, the brownie, and my dough-boy-esque physique, I went to the gym tonight for a little lifting and a good spin class.  I was wearing a shirt with no sleeves, but thankfully no one made fun of me.  The class was great and it was a good workout.  And best of all, when I came home I saw that L had picked up the drycleaning, which means that tomorrow I will be much better-equipped for the day that is to come.

PTSD

The other night I had a dream that I was working again at my old law firm on some kind of special project.   They had call me in because they needed my expertise (as profound as it is) and familiarity with the firm.  Even in my dream state I was doubting why I had accepted this job.  "I need the money, but not this badly."  At the firm, I saw all of the old people, as well as a few strangers who had joined the firm since my departure.  I was dressed casually and felt uncomfortable, yet I was sitting around a big conference table getting ready to dive back into a particular kind of work and working environment. 

When I woke up I thanked my lucky stars once again for my change in circumstance.  I think I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about that place -- mentally mapping the hallways, checking out the current roster of attorneys on the website, skimming through Google News.  As time has passed my impressions of that place, and my role there, have changed.  In some ways I invested too much there; I put too much value on others' opinions and gave them the same tools they later used to cut me.  But who could have foreseen that.

Of course, the enduring legacy of that experience has been a lasting doubt in my own professional ability, the deflation of my self-confidence.  On some days I'm angry about that.  But all of that is over now, and only in my dreams would I ever cross that threshold again.

44th floor

The other night I attended a law firm cocktail party with some former colleagues of mine. I made sure to bring a tie to work to put on for the occasion. So around 5:30, instead of leaving the office and walking a few blocks north back home, I descended with the hordes into the subway and barreled into midtown. At Times Square I was walking against the mob to get to the shuttle to Grand Central; the throngs of people were jostling around me and literally twisting my bag around my body with their constant, thoughtless motion.

On Park Avenue, on the way to the right office building, I passed a few open-air bars where men in business casual attire stood holding their beers and looking boorish. When I found the right lobby I made my way through security and entered the high-speed elevator to zip upward 44 floors. The offices were beautiful and plush. From the wall of windows Park Avenue was an elegant stream of taillights, cabs moving smoothly below us. The southern view seemed strangely quiet and peaceful, an unexpected valley splayed out before us. From other vantage points I could see the lights of Brooklyn and Queens; the far-off sunset sinking into the western sky; and the Chrysler building, tantalizingly close, a friendly giant.

It was interesting to see my old colleagues again. Everything is more or less the same in that world. People I didn't know very well would ask me about my new job, and when I explained that I was now working in higher ed, I received a lot of quizzical, vaguely pitying looks. It was like I was answering their question by chirping back, "Oh, I'm a housewife now!" I felt like I was a complete visitor to that world, a world I was immersed in for a long time. I don't know if I had ever embraced it, though. I always felt weird about being yet another uniformed young man in midtown, off to my skyscraper perch to practice law or twiddle with spreadsheets or something.

After an extremely pleasant evening with the two old friends I had come to see, the elevator gently plummeted me back down to earth. Outside I loosened my tie and chucked the name tag I had received. I walked through some old familiar streets, from Rockefeller Center to my old stop on the 1 train. I felt very lucky to be the beneficiary of corporate largess, at least for an evening, and then for the freedom to return home unburdened by unbilled hours and demanding partners. Sometimes I feel like a genius for escaping that world, or a rogue, or a thief. I still can't believe I got away with it.

Morning sprint

L's alarm goes off at 6:15, but chances are she's already awake. I may stir when I hear the soft morning voices of NPR float from her nightstand, but L is probably sitting on the couch half-asleep nursing A. Some mornings I find L and A asleep together, L's neck arched to rest her head on the couch and the baby lying still in her lap. On occasional mornings the alarm actually wakes her up, as the baby has deigned to let us sleep -- but these mornings are rare.

My alarm goes off at 6:45, but I am usually awake by then. Once I have showered and dressed I find out how A has dealt with her morning; whether she is placid or fiery, whether she slept soundly or battled through the night. L leaves around 7:30, propelled by currents of unconditional love and professional ambition and a subtle but unrelenting guilt; these are the forces that drive us.

If I am lucky A will let me eat my cereal and read the paper. A happy compromise is to hold her in my lap and let her wreak havoc on the bottom half of the paper while I read something on the top. I always worry about her ink-smeared hands but apparently her constant coat of saliva repels the stain. At 7:55 we are out the door; the baby is in the stroller, my work bag is stuffed underneath her seat, the baby bag (my old backpack, which has seen me from college through Asia to A) is draped over the handlebars with my lunch sack. If I am smart I have remembered the daily log to be completed by the nanny, and A's food. Then the apartment is silent.

We walk up Tiemann to Riverside, heading forcefully up the hill that flattens out around Grant's Tomb, near 120th Street. At this point I have broken in a sweat. The walk to our friends' is about a mile from this point; it's a mile and quarter from door to door. I walk quickly through Riverside Park, under the canopy of leaves and over the uneven paving stones. I pass a few joggers, a few kids in strollers staring outwards with a look of tired perplexity, a man doing some kind of martial art in the middle of the way, and dog-walkers. Today one woman informed me that A's blanket was dragging along the ground with an unnecessary measure of spite. I don't listen to any music, but I do make inane comments to my daughter occasionally to remind her that I'm still there. She is content to stare at her surroundings and feast on her blanket, or perhaps her hand. There is an unexpected measure of balance and companionship.

We cut over on 108th Street and head down Broadway for a couple of blocks, and then we have arrived. After visiting with our friends and passing A, who is aware yet compliant, to the nanny, the dash continues. I walked ten more blocks north and arrive in my office. Despite my efforts to pace myself I am sweaty by the time I get to work; damp under my shirt, the occasional bead trickling down my neck. The back of my hair is wet. Compose yourself. You have arrived at work.

In the evening, on a good day, L will pick up A and continue walking north to retrieve me from work. The three of us stroll home together, enjoying the slow pace and temperate breeze that is an unattainable luxury in the morning. If we are smart and diligent, A is in bed by seven. Then L is still working to make us dinner. In the evening we watch television, because it asks nothing of us. L will pump more milk. At eleven we shut down the apartment. L sleeps immediately, and I try to read a few pages before I can't even remember the words on the page. At some point A will wake herself up by rolling over, or she will interrupt the quiet with a piercing cry that must represent a nightmare. Her eyes won't open, yet she is inconsolable.

And then, after whatever kind of night we have, it will all start again. This is how a home becomes a household.

Transitions/champagne

Last week was my final week at the law firm. On Thursday they surprised me, and another attorney who was about to go on maternity leave, with a champagne toast to celebrate our new milestones. All week long I heard a lot of kind words from partners, associates, and staff, which really meant a lot to me. On Friday, I labeled all of my files for storage and cleared the last lingering items from my inbox, and then sent my farewell email late in the afternoon. I talked about how I felt grateful for the opportunity to work with, and learn from, all of these colleagues. The final lesson, though, the thing that surprised and heartened me, was the warmth of the goodbyes and the sincerity (or so it seemed) of their best wishes for the new job and the new baby. I was really touched.

On Friday afternoon, around 4:30, it seemed like there was nothing else to do. My stuff was all packed up, my desk was empty, and the usual stream of emails and phone calls had dried up. So I packed up my bag, left my security cards on my desk, and said goodbye to the two grinning partners who had been hanging around my office. I gave my secretary a hug. I said a few quick goodbyes as I waited for the elevator one last time. Although there were moments when I felt very ambivalent about leaving this position, this feeling would always burn off in a dawning sense of excitement and relief for the next chapter. Once I got to the lobby I put on my headphones, selected "Imma Be," and strutted out into the clear spring evening.

Today was my first day at my new job, at the university. I saw many old friends and had some promising conversations with people who seemed warm and friendly and personable. In the afternoon there was a champagne toast to welcome me to the office. They said how excited they were that I was there. The differences between this work environment and my previous one are many, although I can't say that one is objectively better than the other. But after this first day I am feeling very confident in the decisions I've made, and grateful for the new opportunities before me. It's exciting to enter a new environment, a new culture, with a new mission to guide you. And the fact that all of my comings and goings have been punctuated by these champagne parties -- I have discovered a new depth of my gratitude, for working with kind and gracious people who have been so warm and welcoming to me.

There were three big things I had to wrangle this spring: End the old job. Start the new one. Those two are basically taken care of. Now there's only one thing left.

Pull the trigger

Today I resigned from my job. This was a long time coming. Last night I received word that my new job had come through, that I had found a place to land. I was nervous to tell the folks at work that I would be leaving, and that I would be leaving the firm to work at a university in a non-lawyerly way. I expected them to snicker and say that I could never make it as a lawyer, and that now I was tucking my tail between my legs and slinking off to a different and easier world.

Obviously no one said this. They were actually very supportive, and very surprised. They even said they'd miss me. I told a bunch of different people today, basically relating the same narrative of opportunity, decision, and commitment, and the reactions varied: some were shocked, or aghast, or euphoric, or proud, or even jealous. And they all wished me well.

The foundation below the happiness and relief I felt today, though, was a sense of my own autonomy. Seeking out this new opportunity, winning it and committing to it reminded me that I am a free man. Not on anyone else's track, with no one to answer to but my family; my choices are my own. And I'm making them.

To be honest, I hadn't felt this strong and burly and in control and convinced that I'm the man since I found out I knocked up L. Today I felt proud of myself for finding a way out of an untenable situation, and for finding a new opportunity that is better-suited for my family and me. I was also thinking that this is how life is -- choices and consequences, transitions and opportunities. All of it in the service of a vision that is growing clearer every day.

Looking ahead: my last day of work is next Friday the 19th. My first day at the new job is Wednesday the 24th. And this baby girl of ours is due around Saturday the 27th. At this point the only thing I'm sure of is that all of my careful little plans will most likely be blown to bits, whenever this kid decides to make her entrance. And that's all right too.

30 Rock

Even in dark December, there are moments.

Nights

Hello, my dusty old blog. I am trying to remember how to write again. Bear with me.

The weather has been changing, a shift is taking place. The night air comes in and we sleep cool under all the blankets. Saturday morning was a grubby, gray day, gusty winds and half-hearted rain. It was the first day in a while that I've worn my jeans and sneaks for the day. We went to the farmers market, loading up on the last of summer vegetables and welcoming a new array of pumpkins and squashes. We read for a while at home (I'm plowing through Richard Bausch's stories - what a master he is) and then ventured out for a movie. We saw "Julie and Julia," which, honestly, was not that good. I had a weird altercation with the man sitting in our aisle, which was actually the fault of a miscommunication between L and me, which left me feeling like a jerk.

After the movie we wandered over to The New French on Hudson Street for a late dinner. There is really nothing I like more than sitting across a table from L, seeing her in night-time sepia: a little candle light, the street lights shining through the dark slatted blinds. We talked about everything, ate some white pizza and home-made sausage. I felt so lucky. I had three glasses of wine and a bowl of mussels. Our hipster waiter was friendly. We ate dessert. It was wonderful. We came home around midnight and I had dance hour for a little bit, singing low songs like "Can't Help But Wait" and "Officially Missing You" and "Do You Remember When" - songs that really let me dig deep.

Then I got an email from work saying they needed my help on Sunday, and when could I come in. I deflated.

Today we had lunch with John and Anna and young Naomi. I left to head into the office to tackle my work. Radio City was decked out for the MTV Video Music Awards. The building was ensconced in rigging, lights and cranes and cameras. People were already gathering behind police barricades, armed with their cameras and craning their necks to see across the way. Throughout the afternoon and evening I could hear the roar of the crowd from my office. Sometimes their sound would become strange and urgent, rising to a new pitch, provoked by some unseen stimulus. For a while I could hear Taylor Swift singing "You Belong With Me," a great song with some really endearing lyrics. Her voice sounded warped and rounded by the time it reached me in my perch, like she was singing underwater. The crowd seemed broken by ecstasy.

One of my first years in New York, I remember watching the VMAs with friends in someone's apartment -- friends I have mostly lost track of, most of whose names are long gone -- and afterwards, around midnight, we all went to a secret Justin Timberlake concert at Roseland Ballroom. I don't know how we had tickets, and I didn't find out about the concert and I found out we were going. That afternoon I bought a cool new shirt at some vintage store near my apartment at the time, a shirt I wore exactly once, for the concert, and never wore again. After the VMAs ended on TV we left the apartment and headed down to the show. After waiting in line outside, we were packed in the room, and finally around one or two in the morning the concert began. I was stunned by the celebrities who were there, like Cameron Diaz and Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, who seemed important in some way, and John Mayer and Pharrell up on stage. It was a night that seemed to justify everything.

Before the concert we had to relinquish all of our cameras, so the disposable camera I had brought, which was full of pictures from a friend's recent wedding, disappeared with the security guards. After the show I was shocked to find out we couldn't recover our cameras, and soon I was poking through garbage bags in a useless effort to find it. It's funny to think about, and kind of embarrassing. How young and foolish you can be, stumbling into secret concerts and then pawing through the trash, trying to find pictures you could barely remember taking, pictures that are of course long gone now.

It's a happy memory, don't get me wrong. It's just funny to think about.

Tenacious

I haven't written in a while, and that's because things have been generally awful. But after two weeks of misery, work has been a lot better in the last couple of days. Before I would feel a pit in my stomach as I approached the building, and would spend the entire day braced for something bad to happen. I lost a lot of confidence in my own ability and intelligence, and I still don't feel like I trust myself to be sharp. As it happened I got yelled at/reprimanded/embarrassed every Thursday, and I'm hoping tomorrow can break the pattern.

Lately I've put a lot of time in at work, in an effort to prove my stamina and dedication. Some of it was misguided, some of it was wrong. But nobody questioned my commitment. Now I have a new feeling about work, and the new buzzword is: tenacious. I feel like I'm holding on to some bucking bronco, I am getting jerked around and beat up and bruised, I am landing in the dirt and getting mud splashed in my eyes, there might be people laughing and jeering at me, but I don't know if I can hear them -- all I know is that I'm not letting go of that damn bull.

Last night in bed I felt it again, the same sense of nervousness and anxiety seize my body as I lay in a dark room, waiting for sleep. I thought about tasks that had to be done and mistakes I feared I had made. I felt imprisoned.

There are some really good things going on, too, but I haven't had the stomach to write about them: our friends' beautiful new baby, the Tobias Wolff stories I'm still reading, the great sandwich place on 12th we just tried. All of these things waiting if and when I can break the surface and come up for air.

My role model

This was a singularly, spectacularly, bogglingly shitty week at work. I didn't think I would make it, and yet somehow here we are again on Sunday night, standing at the precipice, at the brink of another week.

I had an epiphany a couple days ago about how I need to approach everything, and I feel dumb that it took me this long. When I first started, one of my colleagues told me that I remind her of Kenneth the page from "30 Rock." She said it was about my willful good cheer in times of strife. Kenneth the page needs to be my role model at work. He is competent, relentlessly cheerful, and blithely unaware of the slights and insults and stresses that thunder down on him on a weekly basis. He just keeps chugging forward with his permanent grin, homespun wisdom, and maddening courtesy. I need to be more like this. Do your job, keep smiling, don't break a sweat, and let everything else just slide on past you.

The other little thing that's helped me figure some things out is a Coldplay song. Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm lost.

Zombie law firm

Whenever I find myself alone in the office, late at night or on the weekends, my mind often turns to how I would defend myself if I was attacked by zombies. Inside the perimeter of offices along the exterior, the core of the floor is a dense warren of narrow hallways and alcoves. There are elevator shafts no one uses, doors that are never opened, behind which you can hear the building groan and howl. Coming up through the night elevators deposits you in a dark, empty room, and a security card is required to gain entry into the offices beyond. When the partitions to the main elevators at shut, even the old print-out sign seems ominous: "Use the night elevators as a LAST RESORT."

Six months in, with a lingering confusion over those inner hallways, the mysterious elevator shafts, and most of all, the constant whine from behind those doors -- honestly, it's as if we're a couple dozen floors above the gates of hell -- I do find myself thinking of zombies. Not the slow, stately kind, with their predictable lurching and almost adorably simple agendas -- I'm talking about the hyperactive, "28 Days Later"-style zombies: fast, enraged, and mean. Presumably these zombies were lawyers once.

Sometimes when I look down the long, empty corridors, lined with vacant offices and silent from the usual weekday din, I imagine seeing some agitated zombie scuttling down the hall, mouth agape and screaming a loud shrill cry, like the sound from that damn elevator shaft. I dart into a nearby office and slam the door behind me. It won't or can't lock, and the Aeron rolling chair is useless to keep it shut. Leaning against the door with all my might, there is a sudden thud as the zombie throws himself against the door from the other side, and I feel a ringing in my body from the impact. I can briefly see the zombie's twisted face mashed against the frosted glass panel beside the door. Enraged, he snarls and momentarily retreats. Holding my breath, knowing what's coming, I try to ground my feet into the muted colors of the carpet, desperate to find some leverage to keep him out, to strengthen my hold on the door. With a piercing scream, a sound like the air itself tearing away in front of me, the zombie hurls himself against the door. I am filled with horror as he comes blazing into the office, a gust of bitterness, coppery and pungent, filling my lungs as as he tumbles on top of me and we fall behind the desk. Animal panic rises in me as I sense the zombie's teeth gnashing near my skin, as I realize that his brittle dry fingers are clamped on my body. Feeling as if I am on fire, as if there is nothing else in the world besides my own survival, I slam him against the credenza and he yelps -- I shove his head back with the butt of my palm, momentarily disgusted by the softness of his forehead, and drive him into the cheap wood paneling of the office furniture. Taking advantage of his confusion, I reach to the shelf above to grab a copy of Siegel's New York Practice, 5th edition -- 900 pages, hardback, of everything a young attorney needs to know about the practice of law in the Empire State. Standing up and gripping it tightly, I strike him backhandedly and shove him upwards, over the credenza and against the glass of the window -- after a moment of pressure there is quick sharp rush as the glass shatters, and the zombie is yelling in fury and then horror as he goes tumbling out the window, a thrashing figure engulfed in a rain of glass, plummeting down to 50th street far below. I am standing there in the wrecked office, breathing heavily as a new wind gusts inward from the street, holding my New York Practice as loose papers -- cases and briefs and memos and articles -- swirl around me, until eventually the coppery bitter smell is gone and all that is left is the air of the city, forcing itself inside this new unexpected home I have created.

That's what I end up thinking about, being alone in the office on weekends or at night. There are some benefits in realizing you're the only one around. Obviously, you can bring reading materials to the restroom with impunity. Yet eventually my thoughts always turn to this kind of thing: the rooms I haven't seen, the hallways I can't master, and the constant churning sound of the elevator shaft, rising up from someplace unfamiliar into the the office we think we know.

Boy, this turned out kind of weird, didn't it?

Is this thing on?

THE SCENE: After-work happy hour at a midtown bar. ME, LAWYER 1, LAWYER 2, and LAWYER 3 stand around holding beers and chatting. The topic: good places near the office to take clients out for a drink.

LAWYER 1: I had a bad experience taking a client to Bar X. It was too loud, horrible drinks, bad food.

LAWYER 2: One time I took a client to Bar Y, and it was awful. Never again.

ME: Well, one time I took a client to the American Girl Cafe, and let me tell you, that did not go well...

[LAWYER 1 and LAWYER 2 look at ME expectantly. LAWYER 3 laughs a little bit]

LAWYER 1: Well, what happened?

LAWYER 2: What was wrong with it?

ME: Oh, uh ... nothing. It was a joke. I never took a client to the American Girl Cafe -- I don't even have any clients.

LAWYER 2: Oh.

ME: See, the American Girl Cafe is this place where little girls go to drink tea and buy these really expensive dolls.

LAWYER 1: Huh, that went totally over my head.

LAWYER 2: I thought you said American Grill Cafe.

LAWYER 1: I heard you say that too. I asked myself, where is that?

LAWYER 2: What's the American Grill Cafe?

[PAUSE]

ME: I said American Girl Cafe.

Young, gifted, and white

Tonight I was at a country club steakhouse in Carlsbad with six other partners and associates from across the country. After a couple vodka gimlets and a glass or two of red wine, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and asked the hostess if I might borrow a pen and paper, and I wrote this:

To be young, gifted, and white: arrive at a steakhouse in Carlsbad - gilded walls, warm familiar lights. Loud red-faced men in dark blazers represent a possible future. A room of garrulous laughter, multiple cocktails per setting - rich men, white men, salads of prosciutto and greens and thick beet juice dribbling down our chins. The power! The ease! Who have we become?

Yet the music - Jill Scott, John Mayer, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo. "Cross My Mind," "He Loves Me," "I Don't Trust Myself," "Didn'tcha Know." Even here, in Carlsbad, among the privileged class, with a blazer and a soft belly awaiting me in some hazy potential future - this is who I am. I tell the waiter the music here is fantastic - amid everything else, he agrees.

Blogging by blackberry

Right now I am in Los Angeles, blogging with my thumbs on my brittle little blackberry because this is my lone connection to the internet. I'm here for new associate training, where they teach us how to be lean, hungry, fire-in-the-belly type lawyers. We came here as boys but we'll be leaving as men.

Soft, pasty men, actually, since we haven't really left the hotel compound where we eat, sleep, abd slump in conference rooms all day (except for last night's dinner, drinks and salsa dancing downtown, which should not be underemphasized--these hips, after all, do not lie). Tomorrow we move on to a resort in Carlsbad for another three days of rest, relaxation, and powerpoint. For now, here's a poem I wrote during a session today:

Hotel conference room
Downtown Los Angeles
Beige room, chairs
Outside, California dream
Tangle of freeways
Cars' dull roar
Bright empty sky
Stifled behind glass.
My golden state
Of nowhere. California!

The email I expect to receive every time my Blackberry buzzes on evenings or weekends

Why aren't you here? Everyone is here working hard, and you're not. That's really disappointing. You really screwed the pooch on [some work issue] by (a) being bad at your job and (b) not being at your job right now. If you're going to be bad at something, at least be bad at it here in the office. That's just common sense.

You know what we all thought you were? A team player. But it turns out we were wrong. You're not a team player. Playing on a team with other people is not something you're good at. Maybe that's why running is the only sport you're sort of good at. One of us came up with the idea (but the rest of us agree) that if you were running in a relay race, you would probably mess that up too, because you would toss the baton into the street, or just not show up for the race, like how you didn't show up for work right now. Because you're not a team player.

We are so disappointed in you. Don't even bother coming back. Learn to play on a team. But not our team.

Best,

Everyone