So, where ya been?

Oh, internet, I know I've neglected you. But here I am now, trying to make it up to you. I have plenty of excuses. In the past week I've traveled to Athens, TX, Houston and San Antonio. I'm co-chairing a major fundraiser for the Lilith Fund (donate here) in April and the National Network of Abortion Funds summit in June, so that's been keeping me, oh, a little occupied.

At the beginning of the month I spent 4 days in Dallas for the National Network board meeting and there were many conference calls leading up to that. Right after that I spoke on a panel at a public interest law conference at UT, on a topic that I am not an expert (yet), and I totally procrastinated all my preparation until less than a week before. And my good friend, Jill Adams of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, was in town from Oakland for the same conference & I had to spend quality time drinking Mexican martinis with her instead of practicing my talk. Turns out it was pretty informal and I was mega-overprepared, except for the whole not being an expert thing like the other panelists, which I couldn't have helped with all the preparation in the world. I've got another presentation coming up in a couple of weeks, but I'm much more comfortable with that topic.

Then there's all the other responsibilities I've taken on with Lilith since I became board president again in January. I don't even want to talk about it!

I'm also desperately trying to keep up with my health goals. I've set a goal to be a triathlete by Memorial Day, well, actually on Memorial Day. I'm working on getting over my whole "I hate running and not particularly fond of swimming either" thing. And I need to get my bike fixed. Yeah, right now I'm zero for three in the triathlon sports. I'm working on it.

I'm also grappling with realizing that I'm really single for the first time in over six years. I'm not sure how to describe how I'm feeling. Sad at times, but other times just exactly the same. I'm not ready to get on the dating horse, although I enjoy my boss's stories of Match.com dates. Perhaps once all this other crap settles down (i.e. after mid-June), I will do some online dating purely for the entertaining blog fodder. I'm actually digging that idea a bit - I could experiment with different wording in my ads to see what kind of responses I get and I could purposely pick the freakier responses just so I'd have more to write about. And the free meals would just be a bonus. So you see, internet? I'm going to make it up to you. I will sacrifice my dignity in order to entertain you.

Then there are all the San Antonio trips. It all started with a call from the immigration detention center about a sexual assault survivor/political asylee being detained there who wanted an abortion. I did my job and got the money together for her. Then immigration decided they didn't want anything to do with this woman and her messy predicament, so they released her on her own recognizance to a homeless shelter, leaving her with no way to get to the clinic. She's African and speaks a language that isn't exactly widely spoken outside of her area of the world. Fortunately she knows a little English, thanks to the history of colonization, so she can communicate a little bit. I didn't have time to find someone else to take on the task, so I took a day off work and spent the bulk of it in an abortion clinic two Fridays ago. Unfortunately, I just can't view social services in a vacuum and when it became apparent that the shelter was woefully ineffective at tending to anyone's basic needs, I got more involved. Oh, and by the way, Salvation Army fucking sucks giant donkey dicks dripping green schmegma. Have you been in a Salvation Army thrift store lately? They charge up to three times retail price on some items! The cheapest thing in there was a ripped and stained shirt from 1982, priced at $2.99. And it's not like they're some trendy thrift shop. Their stuff is hideous, practically hipster-repellant. And they're all smug about it, too. I asked the manager how they have the audacity to exploit the poor and the generosity of unsuspecting souls by price gauging like that & he told me that he couldn't do anything about prices...the manager! So he gives me the name of Major Dumbfuck, who apparently controls the prices. What's up with the stupid army titles anyway? It's not really an army! How fucking dumb is that? And they totally have an army mentality too - them against an enemy (the poor, not poverty), don't question anything just act, think as laterally as possible, take orders without question. Then there's the shelter, which has casemanagers who aren't allowed to provide their clients with much in the way of services. They can't give out bus passes or take clients to important appointments. They have to kick everyone out onto the street for the majority of the day. They aren't allowed to give out clothes or hygeine supplies. They basically do very little. But the case manager for this woman is a good guy & I can tell that he's frustrated having his hands tied by upper management, I mean, his superior officers. Anyway, I helped this young woman get the clothes & supplies she needed. Then I helped her get in touch with an immigration attorney and even tracked down an interpreter for her. I've been trying to find better housing for her and have been researching ways to get her some form of ID, but so far I haven't been successful. I recently met with the interpreter who is also trying to help me find others from her country who might be able to help. I'm totally sucked in and as soon as I started talking to her attorney about some of my immigration work in the past, he immediately tried to get me to take a U-visa case that actually seems really interesting and I'm seriously contemplating taking it. Oh lord, I'm like the crazy cat lady who keeps taking in strays.

Oh, and then there's my actual job, the one that puts food in my big belly. It's been pretty busy. I'm heading to Dallas again in the first part of March for a conference. I'm taking on more with the human trafficking coalition, which I'm really pleased about but really don't have the time for. And I'm about write my first real appellate brief, and I haven't written one since my first year of Legal Research and Writing class. However, I am undaunted & strangely, nerdily stoked about it. It was one of my assisted pro se cases with a particularly nutty opposing party who is also in prison for a very long time, with lots of time on his hands to find cases from the 1800's. My former assisted pro se client is in and out of the hospital and I worry that she may not live to even see the end of this appeal. I'm not the attorney of record yet, mostly because I haven't gotten the okay from my boss to do this. It's really not in my job description or in our agreement for limited legal assistance. But I want to do it so bad. I've been following the case and waiting eagerly for this guy's brief. Oh, and it is 42 handwritten pages of glorious absurdity! The best part is that throughout the brief, he keeps talking about the judge's abuse of discreation. Oh, you creator-diety and your abusing of your creation powers! How dare you! It's a whole new standard of review and I love it. The clerk wasn't going to give me a copy, but I totally charmed her and she ended up giving me the actual original to take to the law library and photocopy. But then who's the loser who only had $2 in her wallet? Me. Dammit! Fortunately I have recently drunk the iPhone Flav-R-Aid and was able to take actual photos of each page, which I then printed out at my office, yielding copies almost as nice as the 10 pages I managed to photocopy with my whopping $2. So, yeah, I don't have a whole lot of time to hammer this thing out. There goes the weekend. Fortunately it's for something I'm dorkily excited about.

Oh, and the rest of my time? Where has it gone? There's an app for that. Yeah, I'm constantly checking my four emails accounts, Facebook and Twitter on my phone. For a couple of years now, I have shunned the iPhone and its hipster image. Resented those catchy commercials. Mocked the tiny internet. And then I decided I needed a smart phone and started researching the options. And I realized that deep down, I totally fucking wanted an iPhone. Then I spent two week battling T-Mobile and my inability to get into my voice mailbox. And my crappy phone kept spontaneously shutting off, sending calls straight to the voice mail I couldn't access. So I marched right down to the AT&T store and plunked down my credit card. Now I'm hooked. I love that I can google map something (yes, I just used "google map" as a verb) and then watch a little blue dot that represents me getting closer and closer to my destination. (Okay, so technically I'm driving while I'm doing this, but I can multitask.) I think the only danger is that I tend to check my email while I'm in the car, driving. I'm trying to force myself to limit this only to stoplights, and eventually I'm going to ban it entirely. I have no real need to check email that often anyway. I do miss texting with one hand while driving (and not looking). I had become a master of the old school texting style, knowing exactly where the keys were and how many times to press each one to form the words. The touch screen QWERTY is taking some getting used to, but I'm getting better, chubby fingers be damned. Overall, fantastic purchase. Phone, you complete me.

And now I have just admitted to the entire world how pathetic I truly am.

World, let's get me a real life, shall we? Sure, I'm so busy I can barely settle down at night long enough to grab six hours of sleep, but considering that my phone is my best friend right now, I think I might need some help. Or to get laid.

So, I'm signing off for now. It will probably be a while before I knock out another meaty post. Until then...