The Seversons

So you may recall that this week is the beginning of my new “life of leisure.” What you learn when you have most of the day to do with as you please is that you can’t do nearly as much as you’d expect. Then again, it probably doesn’t help that I’ve spent most days so far watching multiple episodes of Mad Men, which I love with an insane passion.

One thing I’m trying very hard to do is exercise more. I made an attempt at this during our engagement like I imagine every girl does. It wasn’t that successful. It was too hard to find the time to get in my car and go to the gym. I couldn’t be bothered to get up early to do it and after work there was no way I was doing anything but relaxing. I’m still not much for getting in my car to exercise, so I’ve decided the answer is lots of exercise videos. Especially because yesterday when I was compiling photos of Eric for the blog I happened upon this picture of me, taken the first month we were dating.

Several things caught my eye in this photo. First, look how much shorter my hair is. Which is notable since I’m about to cut it at least that short again today. Second, hey, there’s my old friend Barilla farfalle pasta! But there is one thing in particular which has to be discussed.

I’m not trying to make you look at my butt (or my lordosis, which is fairly obvious in this picture, see how my back tilts just so?) but the tag on my pants. That is from “abercrombie” which is not the same as A&F. No, this is from the children’s part of the store. They are my kids jeans! I doubt I’ve worn them since this picture because there is no way on earth they would fit. I may have given Eric a false impression when we started dating because I was at one of the skinniest points I’ve ever been, skinny enough for the elusive kids jeans. A year ago when we went to D.C. I went out and bought a pair of “fat jeans” which have now just become my “jeans.” This must be corrected.

So I am exercising. Which is basically getting my butt kicked by a perky little thing with incredibly defined abs and a nonstop smile. One major perk of the videos is that the sassy drill sergeant giving orders has no clue when I’ve stopped to get a drink of water or stopped just because I don’t want to do yet another set. She keeps on telling me how great I’m doing even when I’m just sitting there.

But really, I don’t understand this. She cannot see me. I know this and so does she. I feel sad for all the other girls in the background who seem to have been told they are not allowed to stop smiling ever. (Or, in pilates videos, to keep a look of calm and wise serenity on their faces at all times.) It is bad enough that they do these moves without breaking a sweat or seeming to take any effort, but do they have to look so happy about it?

I think women would respond much better to a workout video that acknowledges how hard it is. The instructor will look sweaty and tired. She will not smile. She will not say, “You guys are doing so awesome! I knew you could do this! Your abs are gonna look so great!” Instead she will say, “Look, I wish I didn’t have to do this. So do you. But let’s just get through it, okay? And let’s think about the big cold smoothie we’re all going to down when this is over.” When introducing a really tough exercise, she wouldn’t say, “Oh, this is my favorite! Think of all the muscle groups you’re working!” She’ll say, “This one is really hard. Your arms are going to be killing you when it’s over. But that’s why we’re here.” She and her little minions will not make the moves look effortless, instead they will be visibly exhausted. “We’re supposed to do 8 more. I’m not sure I can handle 8 more. But let’s at least give it a shot.”

I think this would make my workout much more enjoyable. Misery loves company, but it hates company with smiles glued on their faces.

Eric wrote a post the other day on exercising and I’m very proud of him because he didn’t blame his couch-potato-esque status on me.  Lately he’s been saying, “I used to exercise.  And then I met you.”  As if I came into his life plotting how I could get him to quit exercising.

Actually I’ve always encouraged his exercising.  Even if it means he spends an entire morning on a very long run.  Or an entire day on a long bike ride.  Or many days for a big race.  And for the races, I am good to have around for photographic evidence.

Early in our relationship, I went with Eric and our friend Craig to a half-ironman up in the mountains.  (Yes, they have “mountains” around here.  For you westerners, just think hills.)  A half-ironman has a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run.  As you can imagine, that all takes a really long time.  I think it shows my early devotion that I agreed to come along.  And that it meant getting up before dawn for checkin.  And that it was FREEZING so I ended up sitting in the car trying to get warm for pretty much the entire bike ride.  I read a few books and tried my best to take pictures.  I did okay, considering that every single bike looked the same, as did every single biker’s jersey.  And they weren’t really slowing down for my benefit.  So I think it’s fortunate that I ended up with pictures of the right people at all.  After this race, I instituted my Green Jersey rule.  Eric must wear green in races.  No one else wears that color and that way I can see him coming from a long way off.

This is the picture I took of Eric crossing the finish line.  You wouldn’t think he’d been out there for 7 hours from the look on his face.  And yes, that look has more to do with me and less to do with the fact that he’s finishing the race.

Here is a picture I didn’t take from the Twin Cities marathon later that year.  He doesn’t look happy, does he?  That’s because his baby wasn’t allowed to stand waiting for him at the finish line.

Watching a race is more work than you’d expect.  You have to get up early, get to the starting area and then wait.  And usually the starting area isn’t much fun because everyone’s so packed together that you can’t see the person you’re cheering for.  You must also find a point somewhere in the race where it’s cleared out a little and where you can offer unexpected support from the sidelines.  Sometimes this involves getting a big sweaty kiss.  Usually at this point there isn’t enough time to find another place along the route so you get to the finish line, which will already be crowded.  At this point you’re usually not going to be able to stick out of the crowd enough for your baby to notice you, so you mostly just want to check their finish time and then meet them in the approved gathering area.  Marathons have too many people, I think.  I much preferred the cozy half-ironman where there weren’t more than 30 spectators.

To finish things off, here is another picture I didn’t take from last year’s Disney World marathon.

You can pick out Eric because he’s the one in the green jersey.  I would have liked to take this way-cool picture with the fog around the castle, but there were tons of people and I was lucky to get my big sweaty kiss a few minutes before this picture was taken.  Marathon Support is a difficult job, but it gets much more difficult at the Disney World marathon, where there are millions of people and lots of kids.  Last year we went with Eric’s brother Lee and our soon-to-be-sister-in-law Elycia.  It had a 3:30 a.m. check in, leaving us girls to figure out where to go for our stop on the route.  The race goes through Magic Kingdom before the park opens so you can get in for free as a spectator.  This seemed like the obvious choice.  So we tried to get there early to get a prime spot.  The race started near Epcot, so we had to get on the monorail to get to Magic Kingdom.  The monorail takes a loop from Epcot, to the Grand Floridian hotel, to the Magic Kingdom, to the Contemporary hotel, and then back to Epcot.  We thought we were very smart when we got on the monorail almost completely alone.  Except it didn’t stop.  They just kept circling and wouldn’t let us out at Magic Kingdom.  More and more people got on, but no one got off.  It was like the Twilight Zone.  Finally they let us out and we did get some excellent race-watching real estate on Main Street.  After the boys came by, we took part in what has now become a Marathon Support tradition: brunch.  You’ve got a couple hours to go before you have to be at the finish line, you’ve been up for a few hours and you’re probably hungry, you deserve a good brunch.

I really like musicals. I think they’re great. I know the great majority of people don’t share my feelings. Which is why I watch them when Eric’s not home. But I wanted to post a link because even if you don’t like musicals, this is extremely awesome. Because even better than musicals is the idea of spontaneously breaking out in song whenever anything of notice happens. This, in my opinion, would make the world a better and more musical place. So go watch this video to see what our world might someday become if we all just tried a little harder and learned some choreography. Although you’d think someone could give the girl a friggin napkin.

And yes, today is my first day of staying home all day.  And this is what I’m doing.  Time well spent, eh?

Today, my second-to-last day of work, Eric and I both got home early.  (My Mom called me in the middle of the day today and said, “Wait, are you at work?”  I don’t know that she remembers that whole two week notice thing.  And, once again, it’s obvious she doesn’t read the blog.  I know I’m now the least interesting of my siblings–not an aspiring musician, not going to New Zealand, not expecting the first grandchild–but come on now.)

Anyway.  Back to Eric and I.  We had a senior-citizen-early dinner and then went to get Eric a new lamp.  During our adventures, Eric was not allowed to contribute fully to the conversation.  We’d been talking about residencies.  It’s Match Week for med students, and in two years we’ll be matching, too, and it got us talking about possibilities.  Then we talked about research and somewhere we got back into our undergraduate work.

I dated a couple lawyers before marrying my future-doctor.  And it didn’t always go terribly well because I felt like both those guys were just too cerebral and smart-smart.  It was a toss-up who was the smarter of us, but I always felt just a little uncomfortable in my concern that I might be the dumb one.  It’s difficult to avoid competition of sorts when you’re both in the same field.  So it’s great for me that Eric isn’t a lawyer and is dazzled by my lawyerly skills.  It’s an excellent trait in a domestic partner, I highly recommend it.  In turn, I am regularly dazzled by his science skills.  He is so obviously good at what he does that I get it without necessarily getting it.  I expect in a few months to be blown over by his doctor skills.  And someday he will be floored by my awesome parenting skills.

For the most part, our skills don’t overlap.  Which is weird when I think of how similar we are.  But there is this one thing.  We both had the same major in college.  Except for Eric it was all a four-year yawn-fest with a beautiful stretch of A’s.  And for me it was four years of misery, barely breathing, and desperately trying to get to the end.

At the time, Biochem sounded like a good idea.  I’m not one who enjoys a cake walk.  But I realized rather quickly that everyone else I was taking classes with was doing it because they were actually good at it.  Whereas I just thought it would be neat.  I told Eric today that, in retrospect, had I known I would completely destroy the LSAT and be able to make a living off that one thing for years to come, maybe I would have felt like I could dump Biochem and major in something more gentle.

I’m still not sure how I survived.  I don’t have the stomach for anything that intense these days.  But in it, I didn’t see any other option but to slog through yet another day.  It was that much harder when my closest friends in my major were way too good at it.  And perhaps those wounds never healed because I can’t stand hearing Eric talk about how easy it all was.  Our conversations usually go something like this.

Me: So this one time in P-Chem…

Eric: P-Chem was easy.

Or this:

Me: And then in O-Chem…

Eric: O-Chem was easy.

If I still had my report card, I would show him my beautiful C+ (if I recall correctly) that I barely made in that class which was full of nasty pre-meds who took nothing of substance except O-Chem so they could keep their GPA up while I was taking a full 18-credit semester that was nearly all Chem classes.  (Yes, I hated pre-meds.  Any self-respecting chem major does, especially when you work in the lab they all have to take.  It has forever affected my opinion of the medical profession.  Eric has to swear to personally oversee all my medical care from here on out.)  And that’s the heart of it.  I am not mad at Eric or jealous of his abilities.  But I like to pretend this part of my life didn’t happen sometimes, and hearing how great it was for Eric tends to remind me of my own dismal experiences.

So, as you could guess, at one point during our conversation today Eric realized he wasn’t allowed to talk.  But I think this is fair.  After all, he can talk about an infinite number of things as long as they don’t include how easy his undergrad was.

But Biochem has paid off in some ways.  It gave me a major that impresses people.  It expanded my horizons, which was really why I did it in the first place.  But at least it gives me a small background to better understand what Eric does.  Because it’s not really that easy to get and I do my best to keep up.  I have to remind him that I’m not even qualified enough to be a tech in his lab–I was hands-down the worst at running gels in lab–but I can listen.  As long as he just avoids that one topic.

Daylight Savings is killing us.  Every morning this week has been torture.  And it’s not just me, Eric is just as bad if not worse.  We don’t quite understand what’s throwing us off, but we can barely get out of bed.  Despite that, we still have trouble getting to sleep.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Speaking of sleep, I’ve recently discovered that just a little bit of melatonin goes along way if I really need to get to sleep.  It’s available over the counter.  This is a wonderful discovery, though extremely belated.  In high school I probably had some serious sleep deprivation since I rarely got to bed before 11, but had to be out the door before 5:30 every morning.  Despite my extremely early wakeup call, I had constant trouble sleeping.  Knowing that melatonin was just sitting there, not requiring any kind of prescription, makes me very sad for my teenage self.

JoLee: the other night Eric and I were laying in bed talking about our drawing abilities.  (Eric has mad design skillz, as you may have noticed if you’ve been to his blog lately.)  I described for him my two great masterpieces.  One, a drawing of a lion I made in 4th grade.  To this day, when I mention my terrible artistic talent to my family, my Mom will counter by reminding me what a great lion I drew.  Two, the full page of stick figures I made you one summer and scanned so I could email them to you.  I want to say it involved a lot of Paul Simon references, but can’t remember it clearly.  Do you still have that?  I was trying to describe for Eric the whole concept of your stick figures (I have a bagel, I have an orange, etc.) and it didn’t really come across.  If you do, you should post it so people don’t think I’m crazy.  (Although if they’ve just read this paragraph, they probably already do.  And if it was posted, they might actually have further evidence of my craziness.)

It is Friday night.  I have to go to work in about 10 minutes.  This sucks royally.  Fortunately, test prep never involves classes on Friday night.  Only 4 full work days left for me, not including tonight.

For the four or so of you from law school who read this blog, I want to ask you a question.  Do you remember law school graduation?  Because I remember only three things.  1) Being hooded.  Very nice.  2) Buster spoke and he was funny.  3) Harry Reid is crazy.  At the time I didn’t really follow politics and didn’t know who Harry Reid was, I assumed he was a minor politician since I didn’t think we’d be able to land anyone huge.  And now I see him on the news all the time and I think, “This is the Senate majority leader?  That’s nuts!”  And it’s not because he gives really random and bizarre sound bytes.  It’s because he gave the worst graduation speech ever.  Do you guys remember this?  I remember sitting there in my robe, feeling really hot under it, and trying to figure out what his speech had to do with us graduating.  Because I was really excited and pumped.  But his speech, in my memory anyway, was in large part about his father’s suicide.  Yes, uplifting stuff.  Was it a pleasant speech in large part that I blocked out?  Or was it really that bad?

Finally, I am having some serious problems with my nemesis: Steak’n'Shake.  The dreaded steaknshake has never been close enough to me to cause serious problems.  At my old place it took a good 10-15 minutes to drive there and the food would be cold by the time I got home.  Sadly, they have built one just down the street.  I don’t even have to go to a stoplight to get it.  It’s so wrong and yet it feels so right.  And Eric is letting me go there way too often.  He is even giving me the option on a semi-regular basis.  I was hoping to set up a once-a-month steaknshake rule.  But this is crashing and burning.  I just keep telling myself that I will start working out in a couple weeks and hopefully that will make up for all the steaknshake goodness.

Saturday Update: Don’t worry, the tornado was a couple miles south of us and we have no damage.  Though the lightning and thunder definitely affected our sleep.

Blogs are great.  You can stay in touch with people and check in on friends and family.  And when you have an announcement you can save yourself the 5,000 phone calls it would take to fill everyone in and just post it and be done with it.  And you can title your entries with references to David Bowie songs you really love.

I (Jessica) am going to be making a slight career switch.  Well, not really slight.  Only slight in that I’m not really going to something new, rather I’m going back to something I’ve done before.  Those of you practicing these days know what the legal market’s like.  And those of you married to students who have a while before they reach full earning potential know what that’s like.   I’ve had a great job this year where I got to expand out of just government work in a nice, relaxed small office.  It was about as good a gig I was going to find.  So why would I leave?  And what would I leave for?

The short version is I’m going back to teaching LSAT prep full time.  I’ve been working for the same company since 2002.  It started out as a nice job to make up for my complete lack of income while I was in school.  And then it was a great transition job after school while I was studying for the bar and looking for the perfect job.  And since then it’s been a nice little trickle of cash every now and then when I move or make some other transition or just when they need someone.  And the short version of why I’m going is: $$.

Given that Eric’s got over two years of school followed by five years of residency, financial stability is worth a lot to us right now.  It has to be our main priority, more than me having just exactly the career I’d like to have.  I like being a lawyer, although I guess I should honestly say I have a love/hate relationship with being a lawyer.  I really love being in the courtroom.  I love establishing a relationship with a client and knowing that I will fight for them.  I love putting together motions and arguments.  But on an emotional level it’s a hard thing to do, especially because you know your clients won’t always win and any mistake you make can be damaging.  Lawyers are usually involved in people’s lives when there’s a lot on the line.  It’s hard to have everything you do matter so much to someone.  As much as I think I have the talent to be a lawyer, I’m still not sure it’s the best fit for my personality.

Anyway, enough with the touchy-feely stuff.  Time for the bragging.  My new job will have me working 4 nights a week most weeks and the occasional weekend.  I’ll have times between classes where I won’t have anything going on.  And there’ll be students I tutor during my free time.  My classes are from 6 to 10 p.m., which is going to require some fancy scheduling for Eric’s lab time (until he goes to his clinical rotations, when all bets are off).  But for me, it means plenty of time to do anything I could possibly think of.  Already on my agenda:

• Start working out again.  In the morning, I’m too tired to get up early.  After work I just want to relax.  Now I can get up and work out at my leisure.  And I must.
• Do lots of housework.  Those of you who have lived with me know I’m not the neatest person.  But lately this weird change has taken placed and I’ve become obsessed with having the house clean.  However, I lack the time to do it during the week.  So I spend all weekend cooking, cleaning, scouring, vacuuming, etc.  It’s gone so far that I’m looking forward to being able to do a few chores every morning so our apartment is guest-worthy.  Eric says I’m nesting.  You be the judge.
• Get through my netflix queue.  Which is hovering somewhere around 50 or so.
• Write a book.  At least this way I can put my legal knowledge to work and write a tidy little legal thriller-slash-mystery.  I will also have time to read lots of mysteries for research.
• Be an ambitious cook.  I usually spend almost all day Sunday cooking, doing a big dinner and preparing something for Eric to heat up for lunch during the week.  Now I can actually cook every day or two instead of making something big that we’re stuck with for days until we hate it.

So yes, it’s all definitely helping me feel better about turning into a non-practicing lawyer.   I’ve thought about it long and hard, and honestly, I wouldn’t make the change if I didn’t really enjoy teaching.  I love having my own classes and helping my students.  I’ve taught this stuff so many times that I know I can help them in ways most teachers couldn’t.  And I usually have a lot of fun.

In other news, we are doing a bit of travel in the coming months so look for updates from the road in the future.  In early April, I am tagging along to Eric’s yearly conference which is going to be in San Diego.  Last year we went to D.C. where I laid around our hotel in Crystal City and went sightseeing all day while Eric worked hard.  This year, I will lay around our hotel and maybe go to the zoo and the beach and loads of other fun stuff.  (My job change has decided for me how I’ll spend the time on the long flights there and back: taking the 2006 and 2007 LSAT’s!)

While San Diego will be a great relaxing trip for me, Eric will actually have work to do.  And before the trip Eric is going to be working very hard while I start laying around and sleeping in.  So we decided he needs a little vacation.  We thought maybe we’d go up to the North Georgia mountains, maybe a bed and breakfast.  But after browsing on the internet a while, I thought that probably wasn’t the best.  After our honeymoon, Eric and I happily realized that we are vacation-compatible in that we both want to do mostly the same things.  Knowing Eric, I know he has requirements for a vacation, including a big TV, room service, a pool, and hopefully somewhere he can get a massage.  I also know that he’s not the type who wants to sit and chat with other vacationers or his host.  So I figured a B&B wasn’t the way to go.  Instead we are off to Chattanooga, Tennessee, only a couple hours away.  They have a great aquarium there, we’ve heard, and a fun downtown area with lots of restaurants.  We found a reasonably priced hotel that meets all our requirements and so it’s just a matter of making the reservation.  Hopefully on this trip there will be no hospital visits involved.  (And if you don’t know what that means, you obviously haven’t read our honeymoon story on the old blog.)

Normally if we get anything, it is some kind of electronic device for Eric. Or it is nothing at all. The latter is business as usual, as you’d probably guess in a house with a professional student in it. But this weekend we got a fancy new purchase that is actually for me!

Say hello to our new little car. I know it looks like some kind of mammoth SUV or something, but he’s quite petite. Observe how little of the parking space he takes up:

It is an amazing thing to be able to park without worrying about hitting the person next to you. He is quite spacious inside, despite his small stature. And he was easy on the wallet. Or as easy as a car is going to get these days. He has a little bit of wear on him, but we love him like we got him off the lot ourselves.

This morning, Eric left for work. And then a while later, I left for work. Last week this would have been possible only by bending the laws of space and time. Since my car died back in September, it’s been a big balancing act getting both of us everywhere we need to be. We literally must know the other’s whereabouts at all times. And I believe I’ve spent hours just sitting in the no parking zone outside Eric’s building, waiting to pick him up. But both of us admit that we miss those few minutes together in the car each way, and the goodbye kiss when I drop him at the corner.

Also observe my attire for the photo-taking occasion:

Yes, those are in fact flip flops and cut-offs.  My poor little feet haven’t seen the light of day since our honeymoon.  Although on their last showing, I was told by one of the ladies at the pool that I could be a foot model.  Despite their winter confinement, I think they’ve still got it.  According to the thermometer, it’s about 76 degrees outside. No, I’m not saying this to torture all of you. (Well, maybe I am just a little.) But because I believe fate is going to send us off to some frozen wasteland for Eric’s residency in a couple years and I want to be able to look back and remember the day when I could wear flip flops in March.

Given the car buying and the nice weather, it was a pretty decent weekend. I spent most of Sunday making one of those Italian meat sauces that simmers for hours and hours. Eric managed to work a little but saved plenty of time to read on the couch. Time well spent.

Today when I came home from work, I found–at long last–the humidifier we ordered over a month ago. (Though it claimed to be available right away, that turned out to be not quite so true. While Atlanta is balmy, it has been very very dry this winter.) I’m not sure how much we’ll need him now, but he is cute.

Yes, our humidifier looks like a little frog. We wanted the penguin, but he was all out. And the frog was preferable to a Hello Kitty.