Go Forth and Prosper!

So, this week I will be out of town with Perfect Husband and the Offspring. I will be back bloggin' on Monday, August 30.

I want to take a minute and wish all of my bar applicant blogger friends THE BEST OF LUCK THIS WEEK!! The July bar exam starts Tuesday. Ugh, I just threw up a little in my mouth. This one is a biggie, with 3 new subjects added to the already insurmountable list of fun subjects tested.

There is no doubt in my mind that every one of you can, and will, pass this exam and go on to use your new superpowers for good and not evil. I can't wait to hear what was on the test and what your thoughts are.....GOOD LUCK, MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, NAMASTE, AND MAZELTOV TO ALL OF YOU!!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race.

Not really. I didn't win the race. In fact, it may be something of an overstatement to even call it a race. For what I did, perhaps a more accurate term is crawl. So, slow and steady finishes the crawl. That's hot. Not.

But seriously, the half marathon I was training for took place yesterday. And I finished!! And that was really my only goal; I wanted to finish and I wanted to finish in under 3 hours. I whizzed past the finish line in 2:47. Yep, that's 2 hours and 47 minutes. I quite possibly might have been able to walk it in the same amount of time. However, in my own defense, I was good up until about mile 10, when my feet, legs and hips went on strike. The last 3 miles or so is what really cost me some time.

While I was training, I was so concerned with my endurance level, cardio, hydration, etc., that I cut back on the weight and interval training I was doing for my lower body. Note to self: bad idea; don't do this next time. Consequently, at about mile 10, I felt good energy/cardio/hydration-wise, but like I said, my lower body was committing mutiny. I could hear my quads saying, "You need to sit your ass down and eat a muffin." And from my feet, "Oh HELL no, bitch!!" And let me tell you, my hips don't lie: "Stop the madness sister, no one is chasing you!"

I will say the course had WAY more hills than I had anticipated. This could be one reason for the attitude from my lower body. And the attitude just keeps on coming, since today I am limping around much like someone who has recently contracted polio or some other debilitating disease that renders your legs non-functional.

I have two words for some of the women joining me in this half marathon: Sports Bra. You better batten those girls down if you don't want them hitting your knees in the next couple of years. Seriously, this is no joke. It was painful to watch.

However, not as painful as watching some of the men bust out of the gate at breakneck speed, only to be passed by the glacier-like Blonde Blogger, as they ran out of gas 6 miles into it. I was shocked at how fast a lot of the men started the race. And these men looked like your average everyday Joe Sixpack; what were they thinking? Even I know better than that...I mean, you take one look at some of these people and you know they are runners and that they have done this a million times and that they might actually be trying to win this thing. But Joe Sixpack over there, sprinting through miles 1, 2, and 3 is a different story. WTF??

A couple shout-outs (OMG, that is SO eighties!):

Crazy Running Friend: Even though you have made it painfully obvious that you attribute your post-race soreness to me, because I made you run so slow, I appreciate the fact that you did this with me. Thank you.

Sister In Law: I don't know what you were smoking when you told me that, "It's a mind game...if you can run 10 miles, you can run 13.1. Just relax and enjoy the scenery." Thank you for the cute martini glass socks and I love you in spite of your apparent insanity; it was not so much a mind game as a foot/leg/hip game. That I lost.

Dad: Thank you for remembering and calling to wish me good luck.

Offspring #2: When I told you that I finished the race in 2 hours and 47 minutes, a really slow time, you looked at me and asked, "Why do you need to go any faster than that?" Precisely. Thank you for reminding me that the whole point was just to finish. This is the same child that asked me why I would want to take a test that no one can pass.

Perfect Husband: Thank you for thinking I look hot in running shorts and calling me an "athlete."

To all my Other Friends That Were Interested and Supportive: Thank you so much for all the emails and text messages and voicemails. It felt good to have a distraction from the misery of the bar exam and the fact that none of you laughed out loud when I told you I was going to do this tells me that I have chosen the right people to be my friends. It is greatly appreciated.

I signed up for another half marathon in October.....all you skinny bitches blowing past me with your fancy running gear are going to....Eat. My. Dust.

Something to Look Forward Too.....

OMG. Today, the heavens opened up and the angels sang. Sex and The City Movie A Big Deal. Yes, the girls will be back for a movie. Amen! I have been waiting for years.

Oh, and here are my two new favorite tanning salesgals.......Holly and Molly, better known as The Olly Girls.

And Warmer......

Happy 4th of July!! I actually made it to the gym on a holiday. Gotta say, I was a little bit impressed with myself until Perfect Husband and I got to the gym and evidently, the entire free world had the same idea. Annoying.


I have been working out and running consistently for a while now...the race is a week from this Sunday. Crazy Running Friend and I may do another one in October. I joined a women's soccer league that starts next Tuesday. I am on a roll and determined to stick with it ~ my Quest for Total Hotness lives on!

I am down a couple more pounds this week and am starting to feel like my old self, just a little bit, back before law school and the two bar exams broke my spirit and turned me into the Princess of Darkness and Anger.

But anyhoo, Perfect Husband and I got home from the gym and I proceeded to lay on the couch for the next 2 hours and watch a new show on E called Sunset Tan. Has anyone see this show?? It is about a group of ridiculously good looking and self absorbed individuals running a chain of tanning salons called Sunset Tan. Much to my husband's utter horror and disbelief, I was riveted and promptly proclaimed it my New Favorite Show, and here's why: there are a couple of hot little Britney clones named Holly and Molly that call themselves The Olly Girls..."You just take off the M and the H!" You can't make this shit up!!

Anyone who has failed the bar needs to watch this show immediately as you will instantly realize, as I did, that we are taking life way too seriously. As I was laughing my ass off watching this vapid boob-fest, (Jose Canseco's ex-wife #2 has one of the Tanning Goddesses come to her house to hose her down with the tanning spray...now that one's a mental giant, all right, but hey, what do I know? She is now engaged to a plastic surgeon) all I could think was, here I am crying over the bar exam and how I am going to be stuck being a paralegal for the rest of my life, blah, blah, blah, I will never be a lawyer, boo hoo, and all these hot people are fighting each other to airbrush Paris??? The cat fights and drama over who gets to open the Vegas Sunset Tan (at The Palms, of course...apparently George Maloof has some sort of agreement with all TV channels everywhere that he must appear on every reality show there is...) was of such epic proportions that I couldn't help thinking that I have veered tragically far from reality and an even keeled perspective on the world ~ why am I so obsessed with passing this test? No one else wants to be a lawyer!! They all want to own their own businesses and look good!!! It's all about gettin' ahead in L.A. What am I doing here? If I were to have a conversation with one of the Olly girls, I could imagine them asking me why the hell I went to law school. I could picture one of them saying, "Omigod, that is totally too much work!! And SO not fun! Want to get a Mystic?"

Maybe the world would be a better place if people were less litigious and had a better tan. I think I am going to throw my hat in the ring to be manager of the new Vegas Sunset Tan.

Thank you.

Blawgin’ recently posted about how she created her blog to relieve stress and vent, as well as to think out loud and memorialize her musings; and to elicit feedback on certain issues pertaining to life, the law or the bar exam. I could not agree more.

I have a great circle of friends. Friends from every job I have ever had as an adult, friends from law school, college, high school and even grade school. I am very lucky and put a substantial amount of effort into maintaining those relationships. However, I am finding that I no longer want to discuss the bar exam or law school, or whether or not I will ever be a lawyer with my friends. My law school friends are right there with me and they don’t want to talk about it either. My friends that I have made in the work place are all in the legal industry; they are sympathetic and know the overwhelming magnitude of anger, despair, and frustration I have with the process. They are embarrassed for me, and with me. Some have been through it themselves and others have watched people similarly situated go through it.

From other friends, sometimes I get the feeling that they are thinking, “Why doesn’t she just study harder?” “Why can’t she pass?” and “Maybe she’s not as smart as I think she is.” They don’t understand the process and the mind games the bar plays with you. And perhaps more significantly, I don’t think that they believe that one’s ability to pass the bar is in no way related one’s ability to practice law.

My family too, does the best they can to support me. Most of my family has a lot of other things going on, thank god, and I avoid bringing it up; in fact, I wish everyone could just forget that I even went to law school.

Which is why this blog, and the other blogs that I read, have become invaluable to me in terms of dealing the bar exam(s) as well as the aftermath of failing twice. I can obsess about it privately. I can read and read and read about it all I want and no one will know. I do not have to appear pathetic or angry or that I am unable to move on to anyone, especially my husband.

I find it comforting that others are dealing with the same issues I am. I take solace in knowing that some who are going through this are the same age as me, some older. I am relieved to find I am not the only one who gained weight during bar review, not the only one who didn’t wear makeup for days on end, and not the only one who had a nuclear meltdown because Starbucks was out of pumpkin scones. I am also not the only one who wanted to set fire to their law school diploma. And it appears everyone I know online knows some vapid troglodyte that passed the bar exam. Everyone has their own Jackass.

Knowing these things has given me great comfort and for those of you whose blogs I read and who read mine, know that I appreciate your thoughts and rants and diatribes and hope you will continue, until all of us can put this bar exam issue to bed.