--{ wrapping up }------
It is August, and I have reached the end of my tenure as a law clerk. I have spent my year back home in Memphis. I have till the end of this month, and then my job is over. I have till a little into September, and then I am on the road again. So now I am wrapping up.
It is a strange feeling, this wrapping up, because I have become surprisingly used to it here. Not that it's been exciting--it hasn't. But it's been smooth, and smoothness is what I'd been needing for awhile. What I hadn't realized I'd been needing until I'd actually experienced it. It has been good, this year of regularity, this year of living at home, this year of (almost) celibacy and intellectualism, and I am finally ready to go.
So I am printing what I need to print, writing what I need to write, ordering what I need to order, getting what I need to get, and doing what I need to do before going off. It should not be as tough as other moves I have made. I have learned organization in my old age.
I am looking forward to it, this being wrapped up, this being in between things and places. My next job doesn't start till November. So for at least two months, I will have no permanent residence, no official contact information. I suppose I'll be using a temporary web-based email address, just so people can find me. Here:
That should be good way to reach me, starting September 8 or so.
I have to say, I'm rather looking forward to it. Not being . . . rooted. Not that I'll be one of those crazy touring people who go from city to city to city, god no, I don't like moving about that much. I just won't really have an actual home for awhile, I'll just be staying with dear friends. I'm really excited about the whole thing. I'm looking forward to shedding my skin.
And psst, here're the other things I'm really excited about. I'm excited about taking a class again. I'm excited about spending a month writing both fiction and nonfiction. I'm excited about checking out a totally different country based on very little information. I'm looking forward to shaving my head and dying it blue again, if only for a short while.
But wait, there's more. I'm excited about being absolutely obnoxious, and hanging around bars and telling people that I'm a "novelist" and that I'm "in between jobs." I think it'll be the most hilarious thing. I think I'll annoy people. I think it'll be deliciously horrible. Oh, am I looking forward to that. I especially am looking forward to goading some "professional" people (read: lawyers) into saying annoying condescending things. Oh, and I'm also looking forward to saying annoying condescending things right back at them, the type of annoying condescending things that a pretentious novelist would say to me if they knew I were a lawyer but here I'll be, mocking novelists, mocking lawyers, and mocking me, all at once. I'm looking forward to pretending to being a poseur (and thus also being a poseur), and I'm looking forward to all the internal contradictions involved. I believe this will be a whole lot of fun.
And I'm excited about the elements of self-mockery that will be involved. Because, really, I won't be lying. I will be finishing that long fiction thing I am writing. And I will be one of those awful lawyers. So in many ways, I will be that pretentious novelist who thinks she'll write something big something huge, and I will be that pretentious lawyer who thinks she's off to do something important. And making fun of both at once, that'll be lovely, just oh god so lovely.
I'm looking forward to hanging around in bars again, pad and pen in hand, nursing my beer very very slowly so as to make it last because I am cheap cheap cheap, watching the people all around me and listening to all that noise. I love that noise, I love the conversations one overhears, I even love the people, so long as I don't have to interact with them too much.
It'll be good, it'll be fun, it'll be whimsical, it'll be cleansing, and I'm looking forward to all that. And when it's over, I suppose I'll be looking forward to having regular work again.
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