Change of Address

Today I moved from my little east village apartment to my little west village apartment and I could not be more smug about this development. Little west village apartment is perfect- it has a shower that lives in the bathroom and a stove, and a refrigerator, and a microwave, and a dresser, and a Belgain beer bar across the street... I could go on, but I would start to get boring, telling you over and over again how charmed I am by my neighborhood, plus as I was in the process of writing this, a piece of the ceiling in the hallway outside my door fell down and dumped a big pile of very old and very scary looking celing parts onto the ground. So I guess it's not perfect.

More than you ever wanted to know

I suck at this meme thing, because I'm so bored thinking about what's in my closet I can hardly bear to type it, let alone subject you to it, but then I remembered that I always enjoy reading these when other people do them, so I'd better sack up. Thanks to SamJo for giving me my first tag! I’m flattered. Five items in my freezer: I do not currently have a freezer (see “teeny tiny shitty apartment,” below). Thanks for rubbing that in. Stupid meme. But I will try to remember things that are in my lovely freezer in my lovely kitchen in my lovely apartment in Chicago. Sniffle.

1. A carton of Ben and Jerry’s coffee toffee that’s so close to empty its not worth eating, but over which John and I have nonetheless reached an impasse as neither of us wants to throw it away because that would be wasting food
2. Half a baguette
3. Trader Joe’s sweet potato fries
4. Basil ice cubes
5. Mojito sorbet

Five items in the closet:

1. Tupperware box of knitting supplies
2. Red feather boa from bachelorette party
3. 47 unworn flannel nightgowns given to me by my grandmother for every birthday, Christmas, Easter, Arbor Day, etc since I was 10.
4. Pair of hipster jeans stolen from little sister.
5. Two Frisbees; one dog-chewed, one not.

Five items in my car:

1. two empty diet Pepsi cans.
2. my employment law textbook
3. my constitutional law textbook
4. an old parking ticket (oops)
5. a well worn Road Atlas

Five items in my backpack:

1. A book for my morning commute
2. Two Wild Sweet Orange teabags
3. Flip flops
4. Moleskine notebook I’m using to try to break my bad habit of writing down terribly important pieces of information on scraps of paper that inevitably get lost
5. Bodyglide (it prevents blisters, pervs.)

Five people I tag: Um, I’m really no good at tagging. I also suck at chain letters, petitions I’m meant to pass on through the internet, and returning phone calls. But if this speaks to you and you’d like to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.

Also taking recommendations for good deodorants

When I first was looking for sublets in New York, a lot of people I talked to about their apartments told me right away that their apartments lacked air conditioning. It had been about 98 degrees in New York for most of July, and these people were melting- their popsicles were melting, their soap was melting, their hairdos were melting- and they really wanted me to know what I was getting into if I rented their apartment. I appreciated that, if only because it seems like someone who confesses their apartment’s temperature regulation problems on the first phone call seems unlikely to be trying to rip me off or scam me into some sort of "Cheap room in exchange for backrubs!” kind of arrangement.

While I appreciated their candor, however, I did not actually listen to what they were trying to tell me. I didn’t much care about whether the apartments had air conditioning or not. I actually kind of hate air conditioning. I can’t sleep with it on at home or I wake up with a sore throat. I despise the chilled, sterile feeling of over air-conditioned offices. I’m a big fan of fans.

I had, of course, forgotten what New York is like in the summer. I lived in the Bronx for a summer four years ago (as an aside, it freaked me out when I counted back and realized it was four years ago because where the hell did those four years go?) when it was also record-breaking hot in New York, and I have never looked or felt so awful and dowdy for such a prolonged period of time as I did that summer. My hair was an unmanageable mess of frizz, my clothes clung to my body from the unstoppable sweating, and I was covered with a fine layer of chalk dust at the end of every day (more a function of my job as a summer school teacher than the heat, but it definitely was not helping me look any better.) I slept in an un-air-conditioned building with the other girl teachers in my program and would have killed any one of the boy teachers if it meant I would have gotten to take their spot in the air-conditioned building. I don’t know how I could have forgotten all of this. It was miserable.

And so it is in New York in the summer: miserable. (And smelly, but that’s for another post.) I’ve been okay with actually sleeping in my apartment so far, with a ceiling fan droning all night to keep me cool, but the exertion that comes from waking up, showering in the kitchen, and getting ready for work is enough to drench me in sweat. The subway is, of course, the hottest place in the city, if not on all of God’s green earth, which causes me to sweat even more and develop attractive armpit sweat stains to add to my already sort of deflated appearance. I arrive at work damp, frizzy-haired, bangs plastered to forehead sleeping toddler-style, and very very hot. Within 5 minutes, I’m shivering from the dreaded air conditioning. This is not a good look for me.

What I want to know is this: how do all the other women in my office manage to look fresh and well-pressed in this shit? Seriously. It’s like some sort of New York secret that they aren’t sharing with outsiders. So if you know a way that I could arrive at work looking more like an office worker and less like someone who’s just come from birkam yoga class, please please please tell me how.

Dear Person from the United States Military Academy who was referred to my blog by doing a google search for the word "nudist:" Ew. Same goes for whoever it is who visits EVERY SINGLE DAY based on a search for "anna/nicole/smith/fat." Seriously. Ew. Stop.

I would have posted this sooner, but I've been hiding my laptop in a pillowcase under the bed for safekeeping.

Back when Stark Raving Crazy Bitch still said she intended to sublet to me, she told me that her apartment would only be available from August 5 through 26th. Since I arrived in New York on July 22, this presented something of a problem. So back to craigslist I went, looking for a place that was available from July 22-August 5. So anxious was I to find a place for these exact dates, thus avoiding double booking myself and having to pay for two apartments on some nights, that I sort of ignored some of the finer points of these craigslist postings, like “proximity to public transit” and “existence of a kitchen in the apartment.”

So it is that I come to be settled in the East Village’s coziest shoebox, which was available for exactly the dates I needed and thus I practically threw myself at the feet of the craigslist poster, begging her to pick me. It has some charming, if somewhat unexpected, features:

* The “kitchen” consists of a hotplate and a mini fridge that appears to be older and more decrepit than the mini fridge I had my freshman year of college, which is unlikely to mean much to you but I ask you to take my word for it is a Very Bad Thing.

* The lamp above the bed, with the all-important attached fan, appeared for the first four hours I was here to be completely nonfunctional until, in a fit of frustration, I picked up a remote control that I assumed operated the stereo, pushed “power,” and the lights and fan came on. Hallelujah!

* The “bathroom” is the same room as the “kitchen,” by which I mean the shower, a jerry-rigged contraption of pipes and curtains suspended above a free-standing tub, is right next to the kitchen sink and less than two feet from (a) the fridge, (b) the hot plate, and (c) the front door. Using the same sink for kitchen and bathroom purposes has turned out to be much more unsettling than I expected.

* There is no closet, dresser, card table, plastic bin, or any other storage area to place clothes. I am beginning to suspect that the person who lives here full time is a nudist, which is making me feel even more creeped out than I was before about sleeping on her bedding.

There are some good points, though. What the apartment lacks in creature comforts it makes up for in musical elements. I have concluded that the permanent tenant is a musician (a nudist musician?) and the place is crammed full of cds of all types of music, many hundreds of them, thousands and thousands of dollars worth of music. This is, I suppose, an excellent way to invest your money when you are living in an apartment with a faulty lock (did I forget to mention that part?) as it is sort of hard and not that rewarding to steal hundreds of cds in their jewel cases (“Stop! Thief! The one with cd cases falling out of his backpack!”) There is also, sitting by the front door, (immediately opposite the shower/sink/kitchen) the string board of an old piano that makes loud, dissonant, horror-movie sounds when it is accidentally struck by something like your keys or your bookbag, which adds a nice measure of ambiance. I’m sort of hoping that any thief who is tempted by the faulty lock will barge in, knock the door into the string board of the piano, hear the resulting ominous dissonant chord, be terrified, and run away screaming. It’s a Nudist Musician Burglar Alarm System! ™

I move into my new place on Sunday. Five nights. Not that I’m counting.

Brace yourself, Big Apple

When I started law school, I did not ever intend to be a law firm lawyer. (In point of fact, I never even intended to take the bar exam. I intended to be some kind of low-income person’s renaissance woman, teaching the little ones and dispensing free legal advice and cooking casually elegant meals for the crowds of people who would flock to my charmingly rustic yet well-appointed apartment to enjoy my company. I was woefully misinformed about the technicalities of legal licensing and also perhaps the teensiest bit delusional.) But, as Dutch put it so aptly recently, I envisioned myself as some sort of female teacher-goddess version of the next Clarence Darrow, committed to serving justice and righting wrongs and, in my particular case, working to make educational equality more of a reality through carefully-planned legal action instead of just more talk and blather.

My mother, never one to hide her feelings, took me aside after a particularly insufferable outburst on how I intended to save the world and said: “If you graduate from law school without ever having worked at a law firm, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.” Now, it’s true that Mom is drawn to hyperbole (this is, after all, the same woman who said, after I told her I wasn’t planning to change my name when I got married, “well, I hope you’re prepared for a lifetime of heartache and confusion!”) but she had a point. Without ever working in a law firm, and without ever knowing in real life anyone who worked in a law firm, I had ruled them out entirely, which was maybe not fair. Plus, they pay gobs and gobs of money to their summer employees, which became more tempting as the student loan debt began to mount. So I decided to take my mom’s advice and work at a law firm for half of this summer (thus also conveniently sidestepping 40 years of her saying “don’t you ever wonder what might have happen if you’d just given it a shot at a law firm?”) And, as you might have read here, it was pretty good. The people were truly great- smart and funny and interesting and well-informed- all the things I longed for when I was teaching, frankly. And, as promised in my interviews, law firms (or at least the one I was at) do good work. My firm was kind enough to sniff out my public interest leanings and staff me almost exclusively on a pro bono case for the second half of my time there, and the case was fascinating- important, with the potential for nation-wide impact, and an opportunity to work with some really smart people.

I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking that this is where I’m going to tell you that I had it all wrong about law firms. I’m going to tell you that I’ve seen the light, and really the best way to practice public interest law is from within a law firm, where you are wrapped in a cozy blanket of financial security and you can “leverage the firm’s resources behind the pro bono work to really make an impact.” That’s certainly the line law firms feed you during on-campus interviewing when you ask about pro bono work. Indeed, I did see how nice it can be to be working on behalf of poor people with the benefit of unlimited copy paper, unfettered use of Westlaw, and a word processing department to type in all the changes we made to the dozens of drafts of our amended complaint and memorandum of support. It takes some of the stress away, that nagging tension you feel when you’re trying to walk the tightrope between effective advocacy and responsible financial choices and wonder whether your cost-saving measures come at a cost to your client’s case.

But I didn't drink that deeply of the Kool-Aid. The resources are great, but I also know that as a full-time law firm lawyer you never get to spend 50% of your time working on a pro bono matter, because you have to bill hours to paying clients. And while I don't like worrying that I’ve shortchanged my client in my cost-cutting measures, I do like the sense of ownership that comes from doing all pieces of a case. When there’s no word processing department, you’re typing the brief and editing it and making changes and filing it yourself. And sometimes that’s stressful, but it also lets you see the whole process. The attorneys I worked with did a great job of explaining my assignments to me and giving me a sense of the larger case and the big issues at play, but when it got right down to it, I was a very well-compensated research assistant.

So today I head to New York, and on Monday I start my public interest internship, where there are sure to be fewer lunches at swank restaurants and where there will definitely NOT be a Word Processing department. But hopefully, during my six weeks there, they’ll be short handed enough that they’ll give the intern some actual work of consequence to do, and I’ll get to learn a whole lot more about foster care and how it works (and, more importantly, how it doesn’t,) than I know now. Hopefully, I'll come to the conclusion that underpaid but meaningful-to-me public interest work is the direction I want to take for my career. I’ll also be sure to entertain the non-law interested people among you with tales of how fantastically I manage to screw up using NY transit and sad sad stories of eating cereal for dinner 14 days in a row. You’ll be riveted, I promise.

Not their target market

Recently seen on one of those poster-sized advertisements pasted to the inside of the door of a bathroom stall in a bar: Putting on lipstick won’t make your butt skinny. --Bally Total Fitness My response? “Shit, I forgot to cancel my gym membership!”

Going up?

Today I seemed to be some sort of crazy person in the elevator magnet. I don’t know if it was the heat or what, but all the crazies came out. First there was this exchange:

Woman who got on the elevator on the 36th floor: I hate this place Psuedo: (Am I supposed to know this person? What should I say? ‘Hm’ seems noncommittal. Yes, let’s go with that): hm. WWGOTEO36: I told ‘em I won’t work 8 to 5. It’s totally unreasonable. If I work until 5 there’s no way to catch the 5:18 train home and the next train isn’t until 7:18. Pseudo: (Wait, isn't 8 to 5 totally standard? Am I missing something? Do I care?) Hm. WWGOTEO36: And I’m already getting on the train at 6 fucking 30 to get here by 8. Pseudo: (maybe I’d better mix it up a little): Huh. WWGOTEO36: I told them If they want to run a sweatshop, they’re going to have to find someone else to work for them. Pseudo: (Is this ride almost over?) Mm-hmm. WWGOTEO36: Motherfuckers.

Then this:

Man who was obviously leaving work early: God, what a great day. Pseudo: (This one seems cheerful and harmless. Let’s be a little friendlier than last time): Hm! MWWOLWE: Jesus sure must love us. Psuedo: (Ah. Horrible miscalculation. Must scale back the enthusiasm): Hm. MWWOLWE: Praise Jesus for letting me leave at 4 today. Pseudo: (Elevator slowing down now. Praise Jesus indeed.) Mmm.

I kept looking over my shoulder to see if someone had pasted a “I want to talk to crazies in the elevator!” sign to my back without my noticing.

Then I realized something. I have a perfect solution to this problem: the TV in our elevator! I always thought it was kind of dumb that there is a TV in our elevator, (seriously, are we so chained to our televisions that the thought of riding a whole 45 seconds without tv is enough to send us into fits?) but I now realize it provides a perfect excuse not to make small talk with your fellow riders. You can just enjoy the trop from 37 to ground, watching today’s headlines, tomorrow’s weather forecast, and Travelocity ads. So here’s a proposal, fellow tenants of my large anonymous office building: from now on, I will just ignore you and stare intently at the little tv in the corner, and ride in silence. It may seem cold, but I really just don’t want to talk to you. Deal?

More talk about food that will probably bore you

One of my favorite movies in high school was Better Off Dead, an absurd John Cusack 80s angst classic that I still love today. In it, Lane (John Cusack) is plagued by a pair of Japanese oddballs who are constantly challenging him to drag races and who learned to speak English by impersonating Howard Cosell. Some of the funniest scenes in the movie are the ones where they’re tearing down the street with the Cosell-ites doing running commentary on the P.A. system that’s inexplicably attached to the top of their car. (Wow, that’s a long setup for what is almost certain now to be a disappointing story…..) Today, John and I went to a new “Nuevo Latino” restaurant near our apartment (Is saying “new Nuevo Latino redundant? I can’t decide,) to have our Last Dinner As Just Us before John’s college buddies descend upon us tomorrow and we start running a hostel out of our home office. The place was nicely all done up in cool colors and subtle Latin music and $10 mojitos, and was all in all a very pleasant place to eat some enchiladas. But I couldn’t quite enjoy our experience because our waiter was just like those Howard Cosell-taught Japanese boys in “Better Off Dead” except it appeared that he had learned to speak English from Rod Roddy. It was totally surreal, and John and I had to stifle laughter every time he asked us “hoooooow’s everything going? Grrrrrreat!” I kept waiting for him to invite use to "coooooommmme onnnn doooowwwwwn!" It was really quite funny, though now that I write it I think maybe you had to be there. Someone reminded me today that when I head to New York at the end of the week (a) I will no longer have Law Firm to buy me swank lunches, (b) I will have to start making food for myself again, and (c) I will no longer have any income (stupid public interest law with its stupid unpaid internships.) No more new Nuevo Latino, or three-course midday meals, or evening events featuring open bar and heavy appetizers. Back to my standard teacher salary dinner: a bowl of honey nut shredded wheat and a piece of fruit. Since all of my clothes are starting to become a little tight and I refuse to buy new ones, this is probably a good thing, but it makes me a little sad nonetheless. I hereby vow to savor all 4 of my remaining ridiculous lunches with lawyers. I will order a salad and a dessert. I will pick the swankiest spots I can think of, those Chicago restaurants that John and I will probably never be able to afford on our own. If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll even give updates. Although, as Maggie is quick to point out, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, so maybe you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Woe, part one million

Regular readers will remember that I have had some trouble with my sublet, a crazy lady who could not decide when she was leaving New York and who cheerfully kept my $850 deposit hostage while I inquired politely and then cajoled and then abandoned all dignity and begged for her to finalize things. We'd finally got it all sorted out, and then today, as I arrived home from a nice weekend in Michigan (more on that later,) I discover this email in my box:

Subject: URGENT re: sublet Pseudo, Something has come up and I will be unable to rent you the apartment since I need to stay in New York for August. I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding something else. Forward me your address and I'll send your check back. Sincerely, Stark raving crazy bitch

WHAT? I am arriving in New York in six days and I HAVE NO PLACE TO LIVE. So! If you live in New York, or know someone who does, and might be interested in having a charming law student blogger crash on your couch, feel free to email pseudostoops (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks. UPDATE: I have a new place! It’s the size of a laundry basket and it technically has no air conditioning and not really a closet either and I suspect that I won’t be doing all that much cooking on the teeny tiny stove, but it’s in a fun neighborhood, available for exactly the dates I need it, and cheaper than my last place. Best of all, I know this one won’t fall through: it’s currently occupied by a law student studying for the bar, and if there’s anyone who is going to leave town and go on vacation, come hell or high water, it’s a law student who has just finished the bar exam. Hooray for craigslist!

I hope to look fasionably business casual in my safety vest and bike helmet.

I've been sort of skittish about writing too much about Law Firm recently, because of what happened at a meeting a few weeks ago. Someone from the summer committee was saying something about "if you have a problem, you can always find a member of the summer committee, because we'd really like to know if you're unhappy so we can make it right." And then another member of the summer committee said "or we could just read it on your blog," and my heart dropped to my feet right there in the middle of the meeting while I tried to play it all cool and laugh with all the other non-blogging people while in my head my internal monologue was racing along: "he's kidding, right? he must be kidding. What if he's not kidding? My blog is anonymous, there's no way they'd have found it, right? What if they did, I'm only sort of thinly veiled! Have I said anything bad? Is blogging a reason not to give someone a job offer? Oh my god I'm not going to get a job offer! John and I are going to have to give up the apartment!" So I overreact sometimes. But I realize that it's not that big a deal to mention law firm every once in a while, because (a) I really like the people at my law firm, and don't really have any bad things to say other than the normal stuff about adjusting to a new kind of job (note to law firm, if you're reading this: I love you crazy guys! Love!) and (b) the following is too good not to share, anonymity be damned: We are going on a Segway tour. As a firm. All together. On little rolly machines with dorky helmets. I might die, partially from embarassment, but mostly because I am the world's least coordinated person, and if there's a way to fall off a Segway in front of a group of your potential future employers, I will find it. John, who is reasonably good-spirited and generally doesn't make fun of easy targets, makes an exception for Segway tours. He particularly loves summer in Chicago because it presents him with more opportunities to mock the Segway tour participants in all their slow-paced, locomote-by-leaning glory. I haven't told him yet. I'm a little afraid I may not live this down for the rest of my life.

Oh, so THAT'S why it was so cheap

Because I fancy myself your go-to source on all things business casual, allow me to give you a bit of advice: That linen blouse you saw at H&M? The one you thought would look cute and cool and crisp and very summer office appropriate? Don't do it! All linen is not created equal, and linen blouses that cost $14.99 will, by the end of the day, make you look like a discarded Kleenex. You've been warned.

Reasons I will never be a scenester (or, "What I learned at last night's event at fancy scenester restaurant.")

1. I wear flip flops. After a long day of working in business casual shoes, my feet want to flop freely, if you will. (I actually sort of love the business casual shoes part of business casual dress code, because allows me to buy fun high heels and not have John bitch and moan that they make me too tall and make him look short by comparison because, hey! He doesn't work with me!) But flip flops are for amateurs at places like this. Girls who make the scene wear high heels in colors like red patent leather. They also get into clubs after dinner that choose to forbid entry to me becuase of my inappropriately clad feet. That's right, folks! The law firm went to the club and I GOT SENT HOME FOR INAPPROPRIATE DRESS. Hot. 2. I left my mirror and razor blade at home. Okay, so I have seen my fair share of drug use in my day, having hung with a stoner crowd at college in California and having worked in a mountain resort in Colorado where drugs were just part of the package, but I have never officially seen the classic, cliche, woman hovered over a counter in the bathroom doing lines thing until last night. I all of a sudden have a searing insight into why these red-patent-leather-pump-clad women are stick skinny. 3. I will not shoot Patron Silver. Period. I will sip it, because it is that good. Call me a snob if you must, but there you have it.

Words that actually left my mouth this morning in the park: "We do not eat other dogs' poop in this family, young man!" As if this was a totally reasonable thing to say to a dog. So yeah, Oscar's back.

When good manners and eating issues collide

DISCLAIMER: Before I launch into today's diatribe, I wish to establish, from the outset, that I know that eating disorders are serious, and are an actual illness, not something to be mocked or dismissed. I also know that there are plenty of people in the world with incredibly frustrating, debilitating gastric disorders that wreak havoc on their systems every day. I know this because my sister is one of them and has been chronically ill for seven years. So I am not trying to make light of serious things, okay? That said, where has all the politeness gone? Several weeks ago I talked to a friend from law school about doing something for Chicago's Independence Eve (motto: "why have fireworks on the 4th of July like everyone else? We do it on the 3rd because in Chicago we like to BUCK CONVENTION!") I had thought it wasn't going to come together but then it did and all of a sudden there were 12 people coming over to my house for dinner. 12! So I got my 4th of July grill on, making the traditional burgers, veggie dogs, corn on the cob, veggie baked beans, and pasta salad with baby spinach, tomatoes, and feta (okay, so that one isn't on the menu at Grammie's in Kansas, but I took some urban liberties with the tradition). I plunked some Cat Stevens on the stereo and waited for the guests to arrive. When my friends arrived, they brought with them a girl I'll call "annoying girl" (AG.) AG works at the same law firm as my friends. She talks. A lot. A lot of the talking somehow makes reference to her being fat. I start to get suspicious, because girlfriend is TINY. Then it's time to eat, and everyone goes through the line, taking corn and beans and burgers (side note: I have approximately 14 extra ears of corn and 7 pounds of pasta salad left over if anyone wants to come to dinner at our place tonight.) AG, however, does not go through the line, and instead shaves the tiniest sliver of cheese I have ever seen off the block of cheddar I'd set out for the burger eaters, digs into her handbag, and brings out a ziplock bag full of RAW BROCCOLI, which she proceeds to dump onto her plate and bring to the table with everyone else. Then, she goes BACK INTO THE HANDBAG and brings out a four-pack of screw top chardonnay, describes it as "bone dry and totally unsugared!" in sort of this gross chipper way, and proceeds to chow down. Now listen. If you want to bring your own broccoli to a party instead of eating the food that's being served, I feel sorry for you, but that's fine. My sister, for example, keeps one of those energy bars in her handbag in case she can't eat whatever people are serving, which seems totally reasonable,(and also a little more subtle than broccoli, but whatever). But don't you think that it would be courteous to alert the host to whatever it is that's compelling you to do that? I don't mean she should have given me the whole lowdown on her Atkins fetish or sucrose allergy or whatever it was at work here, because I respect people's privacy. But it seems like if I was in her place, I'd have at least given the host a little "heads up, I've got some pretty severe dietary restrictions so I brought some of my own food because I didn't want you to have to make anything special on my account." Right? Is this asking too much? Because let me tell you, there is no better way to get a group of 12 people to play "guess my eating issue!" behind your back than eating a plate of broccoli for dinner without so much as a word of explanation.

A midsummer day's review

I'm halfway through the law firm portion of my summer (t-minus three weeks until New York!) and I had my "midsummer review" on Friday. It didn't even occur to me to be nervous about it until afterwards one of my friends said, in sort of a hushed tone, "how was it?" It was fine. They like my work fine, like me fine, things are "on track." "On track" seems good, I guess, though it seems unlikely that I'll ever take an offer from them. Not because I don't like the people (I do! Much more than I expected! Some of them even appear to have senses of humor! Who knew?) but because I am more convinced than ever that I'd prefer working in public interest. The imbroglio just got his Montana public defender job (I am VERY JEALOUS of all people who get to do what they love and live in Montana!) and though I probably won't be going pd job next year, I find it reassuring when I hear of someone else who took the risk and passed up the easy jobs to wait for the right public interest job and it works out for them and they get the job they want. It seems like everything will be okay with job-finding when I hear stories like that, even though it would be so much easier to just take a firm offer and a firm salary and never really have to sweat it. In this vein of trying to find the right job and the right thing, I have a question for you, internets. I'm toying with a couple of different options for fall term internships. I planned to continue working with the clinic, and will hopefully get to represent client or clienette in court, which will be awesome. But two other opportunities have come up, and I can't decide what to do. One is to intern at the state appellate defender's office, working with the death penalty team, which would be cool and unlike anything I've done before and thus very good for gathering information on the different kinds of criminal defense work out there. The other is to work as an intern in the public housing public interest firm I worked with last summer, where I'm seriously considering applying for a fellowship when I graduate. I'd get more time with my potential future coworkers, and could get a better sense of the kind of work I'd be doing if I went to work there full time. I cannot do all three of these things. I have to make some choices. SO, my choices are: a) work in the clinic only and maybe have a little free time once in a while to give myself a pedicure or, you know, sleep b) work in the clinic and the state appellate defender's office and help work on death penalty appeals c) work in the clinic and the public housing law firm and further develop my understanding of one of the city's lowest-functioning bureaucracies (the housing authority, not the firm!) d) some other arrangement I haven't though of I really want to know what you think, because I'm thinking myself in circles on this one. Please vote in comments. Merci.