This and that

Today I feel like things just clicked for me. I finally got into the zone where I could approach a legal problem from a higher level of perspective than just the nitty gritty details I'd been sussing for weeks. I got to thinking - what if I were in charge of the world - what would I want this solution to look like? It was really empowering.

Often I feel like I should work hard to earn others' approval. Today was not so. I had a platonic guy friend over today to cook at my house and while he cooked, I just did my own thing. I didn't fuss over him or bother him and there was absolutely no drama. I think it was remarkable simply because it was so unremarkable.


I had the most interesting dinner conversation today with a group of lobbyists, engineers, and one stealth attorney. I learned about how climate change works and about the ethical qualms that lobbyists maintain and the traditional way of shaking a groom down for money during a Nepalese wedding and stealing his shoes. It was refreshing to talk with such a varied mix of people. Discussion heated up when we started talking about the Batman movie - practically everyone loved that movie but there were many suggestions concerning the ending.

I came home and there was a message for me from a friend - Have a great first day of class! It was just nice to read that someone was rooting for me. I'm thinking that this is the year of law school that I finally turn things around to where I want to go. I can just feel it.

Youth Power

So tonight I had a fantastic dinner with a galpal and her friend from Chicago, who is also the founder of a professional/educational program called Code Academy in Chicago. The website, http://codeacademy.org/, shows that the program is geared towards individuals who want to create and monetize web apps and general tech industry programs. I don't know anything about coding, so maybe I'm in the target demographic, since it's geared towards beginners. What really impressed me is that this CEO is only 25 years old.

Tonight I found that more and more of my conversations with good friends who are my age gravitate towards how old we think we are. Chilling in a place with 80's music. Complaining about aches and fatigue when it's about 10 p.m. Realizing that all of the folks who are dancing are at least five years younger than we are. While waiting outside a restaurant for my friends, I was greeted by a pickup line and I actually thanked the young man delivering it. Not because I was interested, but because it's rarer that I hear that sort of thing from men under the age of 50. Five years ago I would have acted like I hadn't heard him and just looked at my phone.

Frankly I'm tired of it. I'm not going to get any younger, and if people are still complaining like this ten years from now whenever we have a get-together, I don't know what I'm going to do. I know I'm just as guilty of it.  Perhaps the best thing is to avoid situations that I've perhaps outgrown. Maybe the problem is not that I'm too old, but that the patterns that define my weekends are just too young.