Well folks, I finally went out and did it. I accepted reality (it’s hard not to when you’re out of school) and the fact that there’s an excellent chance I’ll be single forever. As such, I’ve realized I need to go get a real career, one that will support all my expensive habits (yes, horses are more expensive than crack) as well as my male harem of kept men who, aside from giving me good loving in exchange for the BMW M5s, Harleys, 60″ plasma TVs, yachts, and golf club memberships I will offer them to buy their favor, will also fix my car, lift heavy objects, and squish spiders at my request. As we all know, men who fit the bill don’t come cheap.
I went out and bought an LSAT book. And I’ve even begun reading it. With all the seriousness that comprises my crazed, obsessive-compulsive mind, once I spend $35 on something I insist on getting my money’s worth. Whether this $35 leads to a $32,000 a year tuition or not and whether that is worth it is a logic that escapes my inexplicably absurd sensibilities.
The sad matter is, I have no intention of following my job to Bangalore once they decide to ship it there. I also can’t afford to live in California anymore (never could). As my home loan gets ever closer to approval, I’ve been more and more depressed (not disillusioned, mind you; I know what’s out here) at my prospects of finding a place to live that will fit both my tack box and my hockey bag. If you think that’s sad, check out this house for sale in San Bruno. At 590 square feet that’s $618.65 a square foot. Also note the private driveway and sparkly white rock garden! I’d have to say $365,000 is a steal. And who wouldn’t want to live in charming San Bruno, California, where the sun never shines through your barred windows into the closet which you call home? When a “tub” is considered an added luxury, you know it’s time to move out of the state.
I haven’t actually decided whether I’m applying this year or next year yet. It depends on a number of feelings and circumstances, of course, one of them being my level of perceived desperation. Another item to consider is the appreciation of any real estate I end up purchasing, or whether or not I think I’ll be able to rent out said real estate once no one lives in the SF bay because they’ve all moved to India. A third item is my lack of a good essay topic, some spiritual revelation or volunteer work. I couldn’t even donate my old clothes to the battered women’s shelter the other day, because they only take monetary donations now. I ended up giving all the stuff away to Goodwill. After briefly browsing the UNICEF web site, I decided I didn’t have the resources to go give vaccinations in Iran, nor is that a particularly sound idea in the current state of affairs.
“I hate this place,” I sobbed to my mother in her kitchen as she washed the dishes in yellow gloves. “I know,” she acknowledged, oddly. “Do you want to move back to the east coast?” she asked. “I would,” I snapped, “if I could find a job out there. I only came back here because they made me.” “They” being some nameless, intangible force that cruelly offered me a single, lonely job, four miles from the house in which I spent twelve years of my life, and within fifty miles of everything that wore me so thin after returning from U.C. Davis.
“Why don’t you go to vet school?” B said. “Law is so boring. And engineers and lawyers don’t mix, so I could never talk to you again,” she added smartly. “The day a rich man pays all my bills and I can just go to school and do my prereqs,” I answered, “then I will go to vet school. Right now, logic dictates I do what I’m already qualified for.” “And who says you’re not logical?” she said.
“I could have stayed with her and been her kept man,” J-man remarked about his ex, over dinner. “She was rich?” I asked. “She was a manager at Microsoft; she made $250,000 a year.” “I have no interest in being anyone’s kept person,” I said. “Me neither,” he concluded, as we simultaneously poked the dessert with our forks.
What I do have interest in, however, is support. More so than someone else’s dollars and cents, I need someone who believes in me, in my attempts, in my very unclear path through life. I’m not saying, “Please don’t provide constructive criticism about my choices,” but I need more than disapproving frowns and furrowed eyebrows without thoughtful alternatives. Anyone can disagree, but not everyone can provide a better suggestion. I need that better half of me to provide a second opinion, that half that has a vested interest in me as well, who is directly affected when I succeed or fail. I’m missing that, and the search for such a person feels like the quest to find something very dear to me that I have lost, like a sentimental piece of jewelry lost somewhere during the day’s excursions. The hopelessness of it claws at my heart.
In a hockey digression, one on ones stress me out. I am nervous going both forwards and backwards. When I’m skating towards the goal a single defender might as well be a brick wall. When a forward is coming at me I feel like I’m playing tennis with a stringless racket. To my shock this morning, however, I managed to poke check a puck away from a small girl in gray who later caught on to me and eluded me by changing directions as fast as she could. I guess it’s getting pretty obvious that I can’t crossover backwards. Coach is now teaching us to check people up against the boards to steal the puck. Is this legal? I don’t care but I’m starting to like it.
