Reader, [. . . crap copper package].

This should be a post about Austenland. It is not, not really. But I will begin this post by saying that Austenland is hilarious and you should read/watch it (although I'm pretty sure the line "crap copper package" is only in the movie). Anyone who loves Austen or who knows someone who loves Austen (if you're reading this blog, you probably do) will laugh and fall in love with various accented men.

. . .

Maybe this is a post about Austenland, or at least it begins there. Jane (that's her name) goes to a Austen-era vacation experience (you can't make these things up unless you're Shannon Hale and you already made them up and then wrote the book) to get Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth version) out of her head. When she gets there, she discovers that since she could only afford the copper package (as opposed to the gold, platinum, etc. packages). This means that her clothes are not as fancy as the other guests, she gets the dud horse, the dud relationship, etc. And there is a rather brilliant moment when she exclaims in exasperation "crap copper package."

My fantastic roommate (who I'm dubbing Eden for the purposes of this blog) picked up on this line the first time we saw the movie in the theater. (Wait, eg. First time? How many times have you seen this movie? I honestly cannot say.) "Crap copper package" gets said at least once a week in our house, usually more. But for us it's not about being poor. Maybe a little about that.

It's about being single. More specifically, "older" and single. Maybe it's about us wishing we'd had the Mr. Darcy experience instead of the dud horse experience. It comes into play when wedding announcements arrive, when we're asked to sub in Primary, when we buy more baby blanket flannel for babies who will call us Aunt and not Mom. (Love those nieces and nephews almost too much, but wouldn't mind having one or two who I got to keep. . . )

Sometimes it's just about being disappointed. I got two tickets for a law school event, because they kindly assume that everyone needs two tickets. I don't, plain and simple. I was going to give it back to the school before another friend, also living in the single camp, revealed that she had an extra ticket too. We gave them to a friend and his wife who wouldn't have been able to go otherwise. I'm so glad that it worked out that way, but I carefully harbored the wish that a second-ticket-user would magically appear to escort me to the ball. (Literally--it's a "ball.")

Last week the disappointment was crippling. I tried to think of a more PC word for that, but that's what it was. I couldn't pull myself away from the disappointment, despite knowing that my to-do list was getting longer and longer, that I had responsibilities to myself and others that couldn't be ignored. It wasn't depression so much as distraction. I didn't want to focus on my life anymore, so I focused on the fantasy.

Crap copper package.

But things change. And I could nicely tie it all back to Austenland (or the hilarious sequel Midnight in Austenland--seriously so funny). This week was another round of (sometimes self-inflicted) pressures and challenges, but I'm pulling through. Or I'd at least like to think I am.

. . .
On a completely different note,

I want to write this blog to write this blog, but tonight I really want to write poetry again. So I thought I'd start here. Time to see if this worked. Or can ever work.

Reader, [the past is never the past].

I may have been binging on "Let It Go" covers today. Not sure how that happened--I haven't even seen Frozen (yet). But the song is all over the internet (see: Idina Menzel with Jimmy Fallon and the Roots; John Travolta can't pronounce Menzel's name at the Oscars; Alex Boye "africanizes" the song while cute kids in costumes roam the Midway ice castle thing; Piano Guys playing in aforementioned ice castle thing) and it's stuck in my head.

Or one line of it is: "The past is in the past."

I wonder if it does for some people--if it's possible to leave the past in the past. But then what would the point of the past be?

I've already mentioned how blogging brings the past back to me. But it's been escorted by people--friends--who were from that time or before. There should be an award for friends who stay friends longer than a year, longer than five years, longer than ten. It's a monumental achievement. And I'm constantly amazed by those people and grateful that they're not just my past.

Tonight saw two friends emerging from the past--three if I count a random Facebook encounter. Ais stopped by after her class on publishing to catch up, something we do every few weeks or few months, depending on our schedules. I tell her about law school and my family, she tells me about class and her family. Our lives took different paths so quickly that for a while it was difficult to talk without talking past one another. But in recent years, we've found our common ground again. We can always talk to each other about what's important and know that the other one is always listening.

And then K called. K and I aren't really phone people (she was the first person I ever texted--true story--I'm that old), so the phone call was an event in and of itself. And we found ourselves back in the same patterns and positions that our friendships occupied ten years ago. Our conversation was about writing, but also the past, which may have precipitated this whole post. Because we weren't just talking about the past, we were talking about who we are now. And neither of us would be here without that past. (She also made me want to go digging for photos of April and others, but that will have to keep for another night.)

I don't want to leave my past in the past. And maybe the song is saying not to dwell or something equally inspiring to a 7-year-old audience member, but just that idea makes me sad. I carry my past with me. It keeps me company sometimes. I recited it in Chicago when I was alone, I wrote it into my poems, I used it to create a personal mythology that's equally fact and fiction. And now that I'm confronting a life I never expected, it's keeping me grounded.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish my laundry.

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Favorite version of "Let It Go" after Menzel: Christina Bianco singing as all the divas. But really you should watch her do the same thing with "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Reader, I [am collecting language.]

Really I'm eating popcorn and staring at a blank computer screen, but you've got to start somewhere.

Today for Advanced Appellate Brief Writing (that's a thing) we read and critiqued briefs for a case that was recently heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. That isn't important. What is important was that in one brief the attorneys used the word "solipsistic" and the phrase in media res. No one thought "solipsistic" was a good idea because no one knew what it meant (OED: self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed, you get the idea). Then my prof turned to in media res.

I love in media res like I love deus ex machina. How fantastic is it that we have terms for beginning the middle of the action or for the abruptly solved, often necessarily divinely solved, problem? For a moment, I was a well-read person again, extolling the virtues of literary language. And then someone made the point that you could just say "begins in the middle."

There is virtue in plain speak. I'm incredibly grateful that legalese is going the way of the dinosaur--it's painful to think that way. But does that mean that art has to be taken out? Solipsistic, I'll admit, is a little much. But in media res--that will always be a part of me.

Cue 1990s Mariah Carey dance break.

Yep. First video on the blog and it's not Jimmy Fallon being hilarious or Benedict Cumberbatch being Benedict Cumberbatch or even the Muppets. It's Mariah. I have no defense.

But (back to thesis) I do have words. There's a scene in one of my favorite novels, Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt (it's about literary theory and poets and history), where a character begins to build lists of words. And then the lists become poems--or what he knows will be poems. He finds the titles, starts to organize, knows that when he sits down to write, the poems will be there.

I tend to treat most writing this way. Collecting words and phrases, hoping that when I sit down to write, the words will form the arguments I need (all writing is argument--asterisk that for another blog post). Today, thinking about solipsistic and in media res, I was reminded of words I've been carrying around for a long time, words that don't belong in legal briefs. I'm not sure they belong in blog posts--maybe--but I know they belong in poems. I'm thinking it's time to write.

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It's just plain mean to invoke Jimmy Fallon and not give you anything. Here's a recent (as of yesterday) favorite with Idina Menzel singing "Let It Go" and what's already contemporary classic with Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Reader, I [am making plans].

I had some random fact kicking around my head that it takes 7 days to form a habit, so I came up with the ingenious plan to blog for 7 days straight to get myself back in the mind set of blogging every day or so. Then I googled and found out it's actually more like 21 days to form a habit. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Each year around this time I set some form of goals for myself. New Years Resolutions never work for me, but wanting something by my birthday does. Most years it's giving up Diet Coke. One year it was hydrating (which led to an awkward hour really needing to, to put it delicately, use the little girls' room, while sitting in an ex-person's house hoping he didn't come home while I tried to support my friend talking to her friend, who happened to be the ex's younger brother). Now that I've listed those two, that might be it. No Diet Coke. Drink water. Done. And not the goals for this year.

After a day of the law school auction (it's for a good cause!) and a night of running errands--some of which were necessary--I declared to my roommate that I was going to stop the shopping. Unless it was necessary. A sale on pencil skirts counts as necessary. Another cake stand is not necessary (unless. . . nope. I really should have stopped at 20). So that's goal number one. Mostly do-able, I think. No more baby clothes for people not having babies (i.e., me). No more fabric purchases--I have enough for the projects I'm not working on right now. No more books I don't have time to read (the ones I have time to read, on the other hand. . . I make exceptions for visiting writers, etc.). You get the idea. Somewhere in that conversation I also listed eating out, but I love eating out and as a single person, it is almost a necessity sometimes. But I can definitely cut back, so I'll try that.

The other goal is some amorphous plan to walk more. I walk--up and down the stairs of the law school, through the parking lot(s), through the grocery store aisles--but I don't really walk. On Friday I decided to embrace the "work out" room of the clubhouse attached to our HOA and try out the treadmill. It wasn't too awful, so until the sun comes back, I'm going to try to head over there to give my body something to do other than sitting in front of a computer screen/book/professor. We'll see about that one.

The last goal is new, but I think just as important as my finances and physical upkeep. It's to write, several times a week, on this blog. I forgot that when you're blogging, you think differently. I don't mean the type of thinking that goes something like "I'll do this super cute thing and then post it on my blog and people will love me." That's what my Facebook account is for. I mean that I start experimenting with phrases and language and writing patterns. It pretty much always sounds like this, but there's a thought process involved.

I had a conversation with my roommate's mom on Friday (it's silly to keep calling her "my roommate" when she has a name* and by the way, her mom is visiting from Michigan, so she's been hanging out with us, and she's lovely) about blogging and why people blog. That's a different post. But it reminded me of a professor/mentor/poet asking me why I blogged--she thought I was wasting valuable writing space and work time and brainpower blogging. I can understand that point of view. But this week, as I've started blogging again, I've found myself going from my blogging voice to my poetry voice. It's like I'm shifting around the language in my head to make room for law school, for blogging, and, I hope, poetry. It's time to begin. . . (cue Imagine Dragons song).

.

I've debated creating a cast of pseudonymed characters for this blog. April embraced the 'nyms, which is why I'm still writing as editorgirl. I think it's important to my identity as a blogger. But what about the people who are new to this narrative? And is this whole narrative new? For now I'll let her be "my roommate" and see what she says about me telling you her name. Same goes for law school classmates and siblings. Brave new world, this blog. Let's see how it goes.

Reader, I [am overly romantic].

mlh responded to my first post (thank you mlh) and, in the grand spirit of April blogging, I wanted to (a) recognize that mlh is and always will be awesome, (b) wonder why I like lists so much, and (c) talk about what mlh said, because it gave me back a way of talking about writing that I had let go of during law school.

I read your pinterest quotes about writing and I think they point to something interesting that I've always suspected: you are a writer. It's what you are, not just what you do, although, of course, they are related, but mostly, it's just the way you interact with the world, the way you work through things. Maybe that's overly romantic, but that's what I think.

I always love a block quote.

This is probably stating the obvious, but I binged on Pinterest writing quotes the other night. A few of my favorites:

"You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say." F. Scott Fitzgerald

"This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy and that hard." Neil Gaiman

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." Thomas Mann

I'm not going to lie--I don't think I've ever read anything by Thomas Mann. But he isn't wrong. And I trust F. Scott Fitzgerald and Neil Gaiman. They have both saved me at different times in my life. Neil Gaiman's books will always conjure up an old empty two-bedroom apartment in Chicago that was so cold and quiet. So quiet. Fitzgerald makes me think of K, even though I read him in high school.

This was supposed to be about writing, but writing is entangled with reading. It's impossible to separate the two, from the writers who inspire to the inevitable workshop when your professor reads your poem and asks if you've been reading Li-Young Lee again. (Answer: always.)

I have a list of "Writers Who I Read" at the top of this blog. I'm going to work on building it with quotes and works and links and whatever else I dig up. Because this is how I see the world, how I interact with the world--through language and text and the written word. It doesn't always matter if I'm the one who wrote it, as much as I love that feeling. Jay Hopler once said (he probably doesn't remember saying this, but I wrote it down and carried it with me to Chicago and back) he once said, "Language has to be beautiful in a way the world cannot be." I think that's right. But I also think that language makes the world beautiful in a way that we don't expect it to be beautiful. Even the language of the law (thought you weren't going to hear about that this time, didn't you?)

Pair with the "Writer Who I Read" the list of "April," a group of writers who mentored and defined me. You'll see that mlh is one. She's brilliant and aware and I never tell her how important she has been to me--from the first day she called me "scarf girl" at an Inscape meeting. Everyone should have a friend who helps them see the world. I've been lucky enough to have several. And, again, as I build this blog, I hope to feature those friendships. Including you, Reader.

Reader, I [am not 25].

The thought behind this blog is one part wedding blog that will never happen (but how perfect would "Reader, I Married Him" be as a wedding blog--so perfect that it probably already exists out on the interwebs) and one part a moment from my first semester of law school when a friend was lamenting that she was turning 25. There was some small part of me that wanted to turn that moment into a blog post right when it happened titled, of course, "Reader, I [am not 25]." I guess good things come to those who wait.

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There is some part of me that wants to talk about the past. A friend and I met up tonight to do just that, and to try to figure out how we got from point A (2004) to point B (now). Ten years is a lot to account for and we barely scratched the surface. I'm not sure where he thought he'd be in 2014, but I know I never thought I'd be in law school. I never thought that I'd like law school. But what we talked about tonight makes me want to talk about the present more than the past.

I am not 25. I'm 30. Maybe five, almost six, years isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Then again, for some people, it's an entire lifetime.

I called my mom on the way home from meeting with this friend. I tried to explain that I don't always feel grown up. That staying in school for this long has made me feel somewhat stagnant. But I forget that I've done more than school and the school that I've done has been diverse and interesting and challenging. My MFA program was rewarding because it was hard. Writing is rewarding because it's hard. There's nothing easy about it--and if it is easy, it's usually not good writing.

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I'm getting distracted. I tend to do that. The whole point of this post, of realizing that I'm not 25, is that I'm glad I am where I am, at the age I am. It may not look anything like what I thought 30 would look like. I'm still a student. I'm still single. I'm still living in Provo. But, as I tried to explain to my friend and my 2004 self tonight, I've spent the past ten years making choices and deciding who I am. I'm happier at 30 than I was at 25. There's something to be said for owning not just who you are, but the narrative of how you became who you are. As I consider what this blog is and will be, I hope that's the narrative I share. Those moments when I was myself, and maybe not myself, and why I'm good right where I'm at.

And maybe, just sometimes, this will also be a wedding blog.

Reader, I [am writing].

I am blogging again.

It’s a verb, blogging. It’s been a verb for a long time. But when I first started blogging (to impress a boy and my best friend, in that order) it was an oddity. You had to explain “web log” and the slurring that made it into “blog” and that that noun could be verbed. Blogging.

I gave myself this blog for my 30th birthday. Never mind that I’ll be 31 in a few months (six weeks, but who’s counting?). I thought it was time to create something new (you can read my past at editorgirl.blogspot.com). But it was harder than it sounded. There were law school finals, law school write-on for law review, law school externship. Notice a trend here?

Someday I’ll tell you why I left writing to become a lawyer. I’ll tell you as soon as I figure it out. But it’s time to leave law school—at least temporarily, once a day—to write again. I've felt this part of myself angry and sad and lonely as of late.

I suspect I will tell stories here. Probably pontificate more than a little. Share poems and frustrations, which are often the same thing. Share photographs. I've decided I will be less guarded than I have been in the past. At 30, I have found, you can own who you are. I at least have that. (And there are no boys to impress this time.)

What finally got me to write tonight was this thought: Blogging facilitates being with people when you also need to be alone. It connects—or at least can connect you—to any number of readers and people and once upon a time blogging was about a conversation for me and a group of people. And that was a terrible sentence, but I’m not re-writing it. I need people again. I should say that I have people—family, roommates, friends—and most of them are tolerant of my rambling and my tangents and my need to figure my world out. But I need to be writing again. Not just legal briefs and case notes and whatever else I should be doing right now instead of writing a blog. Writing for a reader. So I’m borrowing a line from Jane Eyre, severely truncating it, and making it my own (maybe I should write a post on how a poet/writer/blogger sits through copyright class with her head in her hands—but there's time for that later).

Reader, I am a law student. I'm also a writer. I have to convince myself that those two beings are not mutually exclusive.