Did We Skip A Month And I Didn't Notice?

Labor Day was less than five weeks ago, we have barely had any real fall days yet, and Halloween isn't for another three weeks. Yet, if you've been walking the streets of New York City these past few days, you might think that it was the middle of November, rather than the end of October.

Case in point:

Last Thursday I walked from Grand Central to work, minding my own business, absorbed in the last chapter of Amor Towles' The Rule of Civility. Now I don't generally read as I walk, but my law firm book club was meeting at lunch, and I really needed to finish the book before I started my day. So there I was, crossing 51st street, when I very nearly tripped over a mound of wires lying on the sidewalk.

I looked up to find that the mound was actually a giant pile of Christmas lights, and there were similar mounds in front of every tree on the street. Apparently NYC decided to hang Christmas lights early this year.

I went about my day and forgot about the morning's early holiday brush, but now, every time I walk up 51st Street, I have to remind myself that Christmas is, in fact, quite a ways away, and not exactly just around the corner.

And today it got more complicated. This afternoon, I stopped by Papyrus at lunchtime because my best friend turns 30 on Saturday, and I was looking for an appropriately fabulous card to accompany the present I will be giving her Saturday night at her birthday dinner. The habitually crowded store was even more so today, and it took my brain a second to register the reason why.

When the crowd parted, and I was finally able to make it all the way into the store, I was faced with two tables of this:

It seems someone decided that it's holiday card season already.

So faced with this overwhelming evidence I have to ask: Did we skip a month of the calendar that I didn't notice? I mean, I've been pretty busy lately what with all the Jewish holidays and the family and travel that accompany those manic weeks, so it's not out of the question that some newsworthy events would fail to ping my radar screen. But I think I would realize if we suddenly went from September to November, right?

It's not that I don't like the holiday season, I really do. But there are some important things still on the horizon before we get there. Like our anniversary. And our first suburban Halloween. And the one-year anniversary of our move. And my best friend's wedding. And the once in a lifetime "Thanksgivukah" in Pittsburgh.

I know that holiday excitement gets earlier and earlier every year, but if it's all the same to you, I'll just enjoy the here and now for a little while longer.

The Day My Career Finally Started

It was 4pm. I was still in the office.

Every few minutes someone would pass my desk and give me a "why the hell are you still here?" look that was part astonishment and part pity. I was feeling a fair amount of both.

It was my last day at work.

Two weeks before I had accepted an offer from a law firm and promptly given notice, relishing the prospect of ten low-stakes days of coming in late, leaving early and two hour lunches.

But reality was far less glamorous.

I got the job I would be leaving seventeen months after I graduated from law school, and I graduated from law school two months after the Bear Stearns collapse and four months before Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Not a good time to be a new lawyer in New York City if you aspire to more than doc review.

A big investment bank was starting a private wealth management group, and I would be a lawyer on the trusts & estates side. It was the job I had been waiting for, with only one catch. Since the group was new, they couldn't hire both a junior lawyer and a secretary, so for awhile at least, I would have to be both.

I was grateful for the job, and didn't ask a lot of questions about how long this dual role would last. I just jumped into the position, eager to finally be a lawyer.

Only I wasn't.

What legal work there was was handled by my boss while she lectured me how to answer the phone, file to her satisfaction, and properly format the agenda for our weekly meeting.

Every now and then I would do some legal research, but the bulk of my time was spent as a secretary and I was too busy worrying about the legal job market to stand up for myself and ask to do the work I had been trained to do.

The months dragged on. Every time my boss dropped a business card on my desk to add to her contacts I fantasized about throwing it in her face. Every time the phone rang I considered not picking it up, something I had been warned never to do.

So when the law firm came calling, I jumped at the opportunity.

After I gave notice I was handed a list a mile long of everything I had to finish before I left. So instead of spending my last two weeks shopping and lunching, I spent it writing a manual for my successor on how to do this legal job that contained virtually no legal work.

Which was how I found myself sitting in front of my computer at 4pm on my last day, instead of having drinks to celebrate my fancy new job.

I shifted in my chair and began the final section of the manual. As I typed the words "booking a flight," the stupidity of one lawyer instructing another how to properly book a flight for a third hit me.

I was done.

I shut down my computer for the last time, and headed for the door, leaving the manual unfinished.

I had a career to start.

"Celebrate Me Home"

I am thinking of the words to all the best farewell songs from the American Idol seasons, and a video montage is playing in my head.

Because, alas, I was the first of the Top 13 voted off of Blogger Idol last week.

When a contestant is voted off of American Idol, they sing their farewell. When a contestant is voted off of Blogger Idol they, appropriately, write their farewell.

So this morning, I sat down and wrote my farewell to the competition while Ruben Studdard's Celebrate Me Home wafted out of my computer speakers.

At first I was embarrassed that I was the first one voted out. I thought that maybe I hadn't written a good enough piece, or wasn't taking the competition as seriously as the other 12. So for some time on Friday, as all of the conciliatory Facebook messages came rolling in, I went dark and absorbed the news.

But after I pulled it together I realized that none of what I was thinking was true. I wrote a piece I was proud of and was lucky enough to have been chosen for a competition alongside some writers and bloggers that I admire.

So really, things were good.

So this week I am now officially a Blogger Idol alum, and will follow the competition for the next 11 weeks until one of the other of the top 13 receive their Blogger Idol crown.

And I'm happy.

Because I was number 13 out of more than 200. And that isn't bad at all.

26.2: May 4, 2014

Three years ago, I decided to run a full marathon.

It was November 7, 2010, and I was standing on the corner of 96th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, otherwise known as Mile 18 of the New York City Marathon. I had just registered with a friend of mine for my very first half marathon through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's famed Team in Training, and the head coach asked us to come stand at a TNT cheer station on the marathon course as a little motivation before our training season began.

So on that unseasonably cold fall day, we joined the sea of spectators and, cowbells in hand, cheered for the purple-clad TNT runners as they made their way up to the Willis Bridge which would take them into the Bronx, and through the home stretch of the Marathon.

Having grown up with two distance runners for parents, I was no stranger to the mystique of the marathon. One of my first really clear memories is actually cheering for my dad when he ran his first. So running was in my blood.

I had tried, unsuccessfully, to become a runner for years. There was a stretch in high school when I would run three miles after school a few days a week, but by the time senior year arrived with its SAT and college application mania, that habit had fallen away. Then there was that time in college when I dabbled in distance running, but there always seemed to be something better to do, like eat pizza, or frequent the soft serve machine in the cafeteria.

But five years after college, when I found myself still carrying the 20 extra pounds caused by the aforementioned pizza and ice cream, I decided to try again. This time I was determined to make it stick.

And it did.

I got rid of those 20 pounds and then a few more. Central Park became my home and it was there that I really learned to run, and to love to run. And when we left the city last year, it was running that helped me through the anxiety and confusion that came from the move, and from trying to find a place for ourselves in our new suburban home.

I missed that Team in Training half marathon due to injury, but the following year I ran my first half in Pittsburgh, and then last year I ran it again. And when I crossed the finish line for the second time, I knew I was ready. I knew that I would be back next year, and I would run the whole thing.

I registered this past Tuesday, so exactly seven months from tomorrow, I will line up in downtown Pittsburgh at dawn with 26.2 miles stretching ahead of me. I will run the streets of the city of my heart, and fulfill a dream years in the making.

Training starts now.

Here we go.

This Person Leaving Us Tonight IS...

For some reason, Ryan Seacrest's voice saying "the person leaving us tonight IS..." is playing on a loop in my head. If you don't know what that means, well, you're probably better off. Because once American Idol gets its hooks into you, it's nearly impossible to break free. I should know. I've watched twelve seasons, and this coming January, I'll be back for lucky number 13. This show has become so ingrained into my pop culture persona that I'm not sure I even like it any more, but that doesn't seem to matter.

So why, you may ask, is the voice of the fair-haired host on my mind today? Because today at noon, voting starts for Week 1 of Blogger Idol. 

The rules of the competition go like this: Every Saturday the finalists are given an assignment, and we have until Tuesday at noon to write. The judges read the posts and score them, and then on Wednesday at 1:00pm the link goes live for all of you to read the posts and vote on your favorites until Thursday at 11:59pm. Once all the votes are tallied, the person with the lowest score is kicked off, and then it starts all over again.

The assignment for Week 1 was to write our own eulogy as a way to introduce ourselves to each other and to all of you. Morbid? Maybe. But I thought it was pretty fun.

So, if the idea of reading thirteen eulogies appeals to you, click on over to the Week 1 voting site to check them out and vote on your favorite, which I really, really hope is mine.

Playing Catch-Up

I'm playing catch up this week.

I'm looking forward to getting back to this blog, and to the amazing Yeah Write next week, once the dust has settled from my month of holidays, but until then, I leave you with these pictures.

I spent this past weekend in Cleveland at my sister's house playing and chasing these kiddos around.

Being an aunt is awesome.