a crisis of shoe

I like to think of myself as MTM (Mary Tyler Moore) as I strut through the city and toss my hat in the air, being a gal who works downtown. But I'm having to face some awful truths about myself. Here's what it comes down to: I have so far resisted the urge to wear my trainers (british word for tennis shoes) to the bus stop and to work. I wear whatever pair of fabulous shoes I'm going to wear all day when I head out the door. But lately, after the most recent round of blisters and bandaids (I'm wearing three right now!), my hearty womanness is beginning to falter. I had considered myself to be much more Sex In the City, but recently I am coming to the conclusion that I'm much more of Working Girl stock.

I don't want to carry a pair of heavy trainers in my bag. I hate that look of professional from ankle up and ready to shoot some hoops from ankle down.

So I'm looking for shoes that won't make my poor feet blister but are fabulous and fashionable. I bought these, but they gave me some of the nastiest blisters ever! Danskos, because they are so comfortable and so not blister inducing, are very expensive. And now I have a very expensive pair of shoes I cannot wear to work, which is where I wear 98% of my shoes.

Right now I live for casual Fridays when I can wear something akin to a funky tennis shoe, like my new pair of Rocketdogs. They have rubbery pink spikes down each side. They kick ass. But I can only really get away with shoes with rubbery spikes on them on a Friday, honestly.

I have a couple pairs of flats, but I can't wear them with my wide-leg pants because then my pants drag the ground.

So I'm on a quest for good, comfortable, non blister-inducing work shoes. The heel can't be too high, because I'm not completely functional in 3 inch heels. And no stilletos, because I can't balance my considerable heft on such a fine point. I'm calling all Easy Spirits, all Aerosoles, all Cloudwalkers. But they better be cute. Because I refuse to "granny-up" in a pair of orthopedically friendly nursing shoes. I'll keep you posted.

a better version of me

On the bus this morning, I was thinking that wouldn't it be great if you could send off branches of yourself to live a different life? We were turning the corner to head over the bridge into downtown, and I was thinking about what my life would be like if I were single. Would I be living in one of the fabulous lofts that overlook downtown? Would I even be living here in Denver?

Don't get me wrong, I love Mr. Bump and I don't want to "find" myself, I just wish human experience (or more specifically, mine) were more multi-dimensional. It isn't that I want to me someone else. I want to be every other version of myself. One of me could be the Singleton about town. One of me could be the stay-at-home mom. One of me could be the busy working, married gal I am now. One of me would have stayed in California. Every once in a while these versions of me would get together for a drink or a coffee and talk about what they've been up to, filling the rest of us in on what each branch has led to. Then we could all kind of get to live all those choices.

I know it isn't terribly profound, but think about it. All the decisions you make could be simultaneous, rather than sequential. Sometimes I really wish I could sit down with former versions of myself and ask hard questions, make those versions really think about their choices. An opportunity passes and is gone. Wouldn't it be better if there was a version of you that had lived each possibility for you, and let you know how it had turned out?

And then, of course, there are times when all those versions of me just want to pull the covers over our collective heads and stay in bed.

Sometimes I imagine the different versions of me out there, buying their coffee, petting their cat (oh yes, there is a version out there who got a cat instead of Ms. Ruby Dog), pursuing other dreams, blogging other blogs. One of me is skinny. One of me is brave enough to flirt. One of me is a vagabond with no roots. It would be nice to meet me. It would be good to know me.

pete and repeat go up the hill. pete falls down. who is left? repeat. pete and repeat...

Whenever I have nothing to say, I change my template. Ta dah!

I have nothing to impart, mundane or profound. I've been spending too much of my days getting through my days and I can't think.

I get up, I ride the bus, I work, I eat lunch with Mr. Bump, I work, I ride the bus, I walk home, I collapse in a heap and do nothing. I don't watch tv or take a walk or clean the house. I set up my new coffeemaker each night and make my bag lunch. I go to bed.

It isn't the job's fault--that's the only part of the day that is challenging. It's me. I'm stuck on repeat.

And I have nothing new to read--anyone have any good suggestions? I want this, but I can't think of anything else.

things for our heroine take a sudden turn for the routine

Today is pay day, so it's official. I work for the gov'ment.

My coffeemaker arrived this week and I've been trudging it in on the bus. The coffee is excellent but my travel mug situation is poor. I've got to remedy that.

Working downtown has been good for the amount of walking I do in a day, as has this office, which is long and narrow.

Mostly Mr. Bump and I have lunch every day but sometimes (like today) we take a break from each other to run errands or just do different things. I like seeing him in the middle of the day. The only negative is that I usually have fewer stories to share at the end of the day because they only consist of the afternoon's events. Sometimes I feel like the monkey in our relationship--I've always got to have some funny story to tell or information to share to keep him interested.

I learned this week that my id to get in the building and use the elevators didn't work. I thought I just wasn't allowed to use the elevator, but no, apparently something had just gotten screwed up. Now my id works and I've got it on a lovely lanyard I wear around my neck. Very fashionable, black, it goes with everything.

I've had no more run-ins with security. The guys are mostly nice. Still getting to know the people I'm working with.

The big news here is that after 20 years, we're getting new cubicles! Compared to the ones we have (there is a suspicious stain on one of the walls of mine) anything will be an improvement. Apparently they'll be taller, more private, and have a small closet for coats. It almost makes up for the crap post-its they have here. Almost.

In other BIG NEWS, my parents house is almost done--they'll be moving in by the first of July. We're so happy for them. No one deserves it more. Also, we've been looking at property near Leadville for a Bump family cabin. We've looked both at pieces of land and at houses, and our interest lies in one house in particular. If we go that direction it will still need work, but the views it has are beautiful, and that isn't something you can improve with paint or re-tiling.

I miss my friends at my old job. I miss being on footing with someone that you can give them crap and know that they know you're just giving them crap. I miss knowing all about their lives, their vacation plans, the kind of cookies you make that they like.

On Sunday night I made dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting for my new co-workers. They were damned good and tasted like a high-end ding-dong, if you can imagine such a thing. I brought in 14 cupcakes in, and that night I took home 9 cupcakes. (?!?) At my old job they would have all been gone before noon. I just feel out of place a bit. I don't know what to do if I can't bring in snacks and have them eaten by the end of the day.

I don't miss billing my time. I don't miss having to stress about deadlines and motions for extension of time. I don't miss the old firm's time off policy. It is good to have reminders of what I don't miss.

I am (so far) enjoying the challenge of the work, though. My brain seems to be running at a higher rpm these days.

Happy weekend, all.

i get a little oral

Oral argument, that is. Get your minds out of the gutter!

One of the things about my job is that the judges sit for oral arguments five times a year, and occasionally for special sessions outside then. Today was one of those "special" days, and I, as part of my well-packed training schedule, got to sit in on oral arguments in several interesting cases. In oral arguments there are 3 judges who preside over two timed 15 minutes sessions in which each side gets to argue their case, or in reality, defend it as the judges pummel them with well thought out, probing questions. Some of it was difficult to follow as I didn't know the case at all, but mostly I could follow the arguments. On the judges' side it seemed to be somewhat informal--they interrupted where they wanted to, asked whatever they wanted to, cracked jokes where they wanted to. The lawyers, on the other hand, were obsequious (wouldn't you be if you were standing in front of not one but three judges who were frowning down at you over their reading glasses?) to a point, but struggled to disagree with the judges when then boiled down any issue to a simple sentence. Ah, lawyers. They like to split the hairs.

Other than that I'm meeting people and beginning to remember names (at least the names of the people who are on my side of the clerk's office--it is one long narrowish room with a great wall of windows on one side).

I thankfully have someone to eat lunch with every day (Mr. Bump), but even if I didn't, working downtown provides a myriad of distractions one can take during the lunch hour. The other day I went for a tour of another piece of the court not housed in the courthouse and discovered the building next door has a wonderful atrium space that has tables for lunching (in the air-conditioned indoors). We've spent the last two lunches out of the horrible heat in that building.

The pressure on my brain is beginning to ease with regard to all the information coming in, but I know it will ramp up next week. But for now I'm focused on picking out a jean-related item of clothing to wear on my casual Friday and looking forward to dinner tomorrow night with my old co-workers.

Happy weekend everyone!

post dashed off before collapsing into exhausted sleep

This job seems to be suck suck sucking the energy out of me. Mostly it is because I have to concentrate so hard on learning something the first time, that my brain gets all squeezed out during the day and I can't do more than watch tivo and stare at the mess my house has become in the evenings. Add to that record heat, trudging to and from the bus stop in said heat, and miscellaneous other walking on 16th Street Mall, and you've got one tired, flat puppy.

That being said, Mr. Bump and I passed a gloriously cooler weekend in Leadville where I read two and a half books and generally sat around and ate rice krispie treats and various other junk. May be why last night on the way home from the mountains my stomach was killing me. And why it was still killing me this morning.

Also this morning--the bus was late, I was stinky with sweat BEFORE I got to work, I had an argument with the security guard about where I could set my coffee down to return various items to my purse (not on the x-ray machine, apparently), I shed a few irrational tears and then I was off to get fingerprinted by the US Marshalls office.

We had to go past the holding cells for federal prisoners to get to the fingerprinting room, and let me tell you: it was nicely air-conditioned, the cells looked quiet and removed from the rest of the world, and no one was asking you to re-docket anything. It looked kind of nice for about two seconds. The fingerprinting was less exciting than it sounds and just as filthy--I had to wash my hands three times and still there was a sticky residue left over.

Things ground to a halt for the three and three quarters hours I was training in the afternoon, and I had to play catch-up to try and get stuff done after that.

This week proves to be filled with the lengthy distraction of "meeting and greeting" a bunch of people. Hopefully I'll get some work done in the meantime. At least I've finally work to do, which is nice. There's nothing like sitting, twiddling my thumbs and being unable to even blog about it. (The nature of this job does not lend itself to me working on personal projects throughout the day, unlike the last one.)

Add to that a sweltering wait for the evening bus, a trudge home with sweaty everything, and a pizza attempted in the grill (because of aforementioned heat), which incinerated the bottom and did not quite cook the top in 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Now I'm off to bed to lie awake and try to banish thoughts about what I learned in training--not so I forget it, but rather so that I can actually calm down enough to sleep.

G'night.